Fic: And the Beat Goes On (R)

Well, it's after midnight where I live...

Title: “And the Beat goes on”
Rating: R
Disclaimer: As per usual, all belongs to Joss, et al, except for this wish fulfillment, which is mine.
Summary: Set in an AU future.

It’s a dance, this love. She doesn’t always know all of the steps ahead of time. There’s some improvisation. Some grinding and grasping and the occasional solo number. But then they come back together afterwards and the beat goes on.

Author’s Note: Many thanks to stultiloquentia and lillianmorgan for beta services. I apologize for the brevity of my offering but I’m in the process of applying to graduate school and so my fic-writing time has been rather curtailed as a result. All the same, this little vignette is probably the most thoroughly reworked piece of fan fiction I’ve posted to date, since Stulti kicks my ass into gear you all deserve it. Also, it was lillianmorgan’s perceptive eyes that caught where the title was hiding in plain sight within the text of the fic.
Nominated for "Best Future," "Best Romance" and "Best POV" at the Vampire Kisses Awards.
Nominated for "Best Short Story" and "Best Buffy Characterization" at the Love's Last Glimpse Awards.



*****

Buffy stares into the mirror thoughtfully. Strokes moisturizer over the fine lines that are just beginning to show around her eyes. Sometimes she cares a little about their emergence but mostly she sees them as astounding proof of her own survival against all odds. Plus, there’s the fact that apparently one of the Slayer gifts (that no one but her has lived long enough to enjoy) is a super-duper slowed down visible aging process.

Besides, when a girl’s got a demon lover on full time loving up duty, it’s easy to feel spoiled. He doles out adoration like a youth serum, her man.

He’s taking her dancing. Like he always does on her birthday. Her Spike. The one with all of the moves and the pretty blue eyes that make him a heartthrob to Slayerettes half her age or less.

"It’s all we’ve ever done…"


Her eyes glitter greener than ever before and she’s pissed. No other foe has ever made her feet move this fast or her heart race into her ears in quite this way. Push, pull, it escalates and somewhere deep inside she doesn’t want it to stop. Fists and kicks ricochet off of one another. She should be tired now but she’s not. He’s fast and hard and there’s a pulse in her gut that screams, “Bring it on, I can take it, take you.” She wants to. Take. Have. Feel this way forever. Fierce and lithe and in perpetual motion.

Twenty years of birthdays since they stopped with the hurting each other.

It’s a blip in his lifespan but fully half of hers.

The fighting turns to kissing turns to fucking and when he slips inside of her, she has to gasp for breath. Mouth gaping ‘cause it’s all too much. Can’t hold it in. How he’s pressing up against her darkness and making it throb.

It’s still just the two of them. Well, not exactly. There’s Willow and Xander and Dawnie and Faith and Giles, who is now officially old old but not defeated.

But no babies. ‘Cause – vampire? But Buffy doesn’t mind. There are enough babies in the rest of the extended Scooby family. Well, children now, and some nearly adults. Time is wacky that way.

Never gonna be a normal girl. She’s OK with that now. It took years and an apocalypse or ten (or twenty) and a preternaturally worshipful lover to have that really sink in. But it’s of the good. She likes this life, as difficult and nomadic as it can be.

So many places to dance. Sweaty, seething clubs where the lights blind her so she can’t see him any more, only feel him. Her fingers grip his boy hips through the denim ‘cause she’s staking her claim. Again.

Back alleys where someone or something is always up to no good. Side by side now instead of head to head. No beasty can best them.

Buffy goes back to the beautifying. Primp. Pluck. Powder. Shine.

She can hear him rustling and cursing and whistling to himself in the other room. He likes getting dressed up and being her fancy man every once in awhile. And out in a strange city, surrounded by no one who knows them, she can get some fun out of the stares and whipped-around gazes as they make their way about. To the rest of the world she must look like a dirty old woman. But just a bit. She doesn’t look that much older than him. Yet.

She doesn’t like to talk about it. But he’s told her a million times anyway:

"Always and forever, Pet. You’re the one, Buffy. Don’t give a rat’s arse if you start to sag a bit."

And then the playful hitting begins and the subject’s closed. Spike may tease her about her vanity but the issue that neither of them wants to touch is how one day she’ll have to leave him. That’s for tomorrow. Or the day after.


There is no future when they’re fucking. It’s now now now. They take turns leading.

Take it all.

Give me more.

And when it’s slow, the ticking of the clock is even fainter. He is the only place to be.

Always is not forever but it’s all she has to give him.

The first time he took her dancing their bond was still fragile and treacherous. He had the motorcycle back then and she had some serious back-from-the-dead baggage. But it was one of the better nights and he took her off to some dive where no one would see them and they gyrated and let their bodies sing to one another all night.

It scared her then. How part of her was proud of how pretty he was and how his sharp cheek-boned beauty made the perfect addition to any outfit she might ever contemplate wearing.

She knows how they must look, hips entangled in time to the slow beat, leather against leather. Electric. His hand on the small of her back gives her tickly chills. It must be obvious. How he has her in thrall.

He still does.

She’s just…used to it now.

Later, it became a thing. The dancing. A happy, public thing.

Impromptu performances in the kitchen at Giles’ place when Dawn was home from college. Laughing, head flung back Buffy with the bright eyes and the fuller cheeks (he kept her fed, after things became good). Sexy, creamy soul songs that he knew all the words to. How he whispered the naughty parts into her ear and made her sister squirm.

They danced at every wedding, though they never had one of their own.

"I was yours before I ever laid eyes on you, Slayer. What do we need with matching rings and frilly frocks?"

He’s hers. To dance with, and fuck, and slay with, and come home to at night. Spike matches her stride for stride, punch for punch and step for step. He doesn’t just keep up; they make their own tempo together.

Dancing cheek to cheek now, like high school sweethearts. Buffy places her hand where his heart beats in silent staccatos for her and they sway together in the dark. Wherever they are, it’s always the same. Comfort. Love like she never imagined when she was young.

Bitty Buffy didn’t know that she needed his snark and gristle (and his tenderness). She didn’t know that a partnership meant sometimes falling out of step and maybe even falling on your face in order to stand up straighter and stronger, stepping more surely (not on each others’ toes).

Nothing’s ever perfect but some things are as close as she can hope for – like the way he twirls her and grins, swinging her out and pulling her back in close to his body, where she belongs, and things make sense.

This is a rhythm of need and practiced debauchery and heart saturating devotion. With a soundtrack of purrs, endearments and delicious profanities that make her slick and hot for him. A syncopation of trust and desire. This is what she needs.

It’s a dance, this love. She doesn’t always know all of the steps ahead of time. There’s some improvisation. Some grinding and grasping and the occasional solo number. But then they come back together afterwards and the beat goes on.

“Come on, love. Let’s go shake a tail feather.”

She meets him at the door and they step out. Together.

~Fin~






The rest of my Spike/Buffy fic can be found HERE.