not_that_spike | (no subject)

(no subject)

Beth's reading.

She's just sitting on the edge of the bed over there, reading, and I can't remember ever just watching someone read before like this. From a position of decadent comfort.

I like how she puts her fingertip to her lips before she turns the page. Not every page, but once in a while. It's an absent-minded sweet move and she's not paying attention to me. She's reading what I wrote, about traveling to Venus, and it's sweet.

That's a phrase she uses on me sometimes. Spike, you're sweet. I'm not, really. I don't know if I've been sweet a day in my adult life. But if she thinks I am, I can be. I like it. I like being sweet for Beth. I have something I want to do for her, for a surprise. But it will have to wait just a little while longer.

Learning how to work around being Bound here has been a good exercise. I always liked a challenge. I always manage to work things out, one way or another.

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"You don't think it would be more exciting?"

She shrugs a little, closes the notebook, and puts it in her lap. "The views must be incredible. Not that you should build a career off of that sort of thing."

Shaking her head, she smiles at the mention of her travel guide. "No, I've got it. It's in my room."

He sits up a little straighter now, watching her more intently. "The view is deep space; it's darkness and distant stars. Sometimes they go by fast and sometimes they just crawl past. And inside, the view is whatever movie they're showing and the overhead fluorescent lights. It's a good way to travel, don't get me wrong. And instead of serving peanuts, you could have been offering zip-heat meals."

In a little blue skirt-dress with puffy sleeves. Nah. Can't see it.

Spike pauses, considering her carefully. "I can't help it, Beth. I don't see you in my time doing that kind of work." He doesn't want her to feel insulted; that's not the point. It's just that he can't see her content serving drinks to stubborn assholes in space for that whole long damn flight. "Shuttle service is... let's say the attendants don't have nearly as much responsibility as you did on your plane. Make sense?"

She listens thoughtfully and moves the notebook off her lap. Slowly, she shifts so her back is against the wall, legs bent, and rests her arms on her knees.

"What do you see me doing in your time?"

Now that's a good question. He leans back, smoking, considering. A lot of images cross his mind, not the least of which is her as a Syndicate partner. But no, no, not Beth. No.

At long last he speaks. "Explorer. Archaeologist. Something like that."

Because he knows she would make a difference no matter what universe she found herself in, no matter what circumstance. Just like she did to the people on the plane, even though she blames herself for things that were beyond her control. "You might even have been a pilot, Beth."

And she'd have made a damn fine one, too. Damn fine.

She's staring at her hands, but his words make her grin. Explorer, archaeologist, pilot.

She's fairly confident she could fly a 747 at this point, but nothing else.

After a moment, she says, "I don't have the proper training or education for any of that. But they are nice ideas."

"But you could have gotten it. You asked what I saw you doing."

He reaches for her hand. "Suppose we could leave, and suppose we could go to each others' time, and suppose it didn't mean either of us had to die. Would you rather take me back with you to Cooksfield, or would you rather go with me to the future?"

That space between her eyebrows wrinkles, but she doesn't hesitate much at all before answering.

"I'd rather go with you." Absently, she puts one of her hands in the one Spike held out to her. "What is there for me in Cooksfield? For you? For anyone? There's not a whole lot worth going back for in my world."

"If you were there, it would be worth everything."

He says it so very quietly, almost inaudibly. But he's sure she's heard him, and he squeezes her hand.

"I'd like to take you with me, Beth. Then you could see all these places... so long as you wouldn't mind wandering around with someone who's supposed to be dead for the second time."

That makes him laugh. "Take you to Neptune in a nice warm jacket. Show you the lava birds on Ganymede. Watch the stars streak by like comets from hyperspace. We wouldn't ever have to go to Mars."

Because that's where he'd have to pretend to be dead.

Despite everything, he misses it. He misses the freedom of space.

She turns, eyes soft, and looks at his face while he talks. When he stops, she simply leans over and wraps her arms around him, letting her head rest on his shoulder.

"You're sweet," she says quietly. It isn't something she's said yet today. "So sweet."

He's sweet.

He hears these words from the woman whose hair smells like a combination of oranges and ginger and lilies. From the woman whose eyes sparkle like emeralds in moonlight. From the woman whose skin is as smooth as the finest silk and whose laugh is a music box resonating in an echo chamber.

And he's sweet.

(Just like honey.)

He closes his eyes and breathes her in so deeply.

"You remind me of sunshine."

She raises her head so she can look at him.

"Sunshine?" She blinks at him, laughs delightedly, and tightens her arms around him. "You give the best compliments."

He shrugs but relaxes quickly back into her embrace. He only says what he means.

"Sunshine." He nods decisively and holds her close.

"I think I find that almost as unusual as you find my belief that you're sweet." She doesn't move her head or arms. "But I'm not too eager to convince you otherwise."

She falls silent for a moment or two, thoughtful.

"I don't know what I'd be doing now if the men hadn't died. I might still be a flight attendant. Do you find that hard to believe?"

He shakes his head. "Nah. I bet you're good at whatever you do. But part of me's glad you're not doing it any more. We wouldn't be here, I wouldn't know you, and that's where the sad violin music starts playing and the flower petals fall from the sky."

Turning to face her, he gives her a critical but tender glance. Flight attendant, theologian, Rhodes scholar, pilot, archaeologist, photographer -- he doesn't care. She's Beth, and right now Beth is just about perfect.

She shrugs inwardly. It's a good enough answer for her. She tucks some hair behind her ear and kind of grins at the idea of flower petals falling from the sky.

She pulls away from him and looks around for a cigarette. "I'm going to ask you a question that I asked Todd a night ago."

"Shoot."

He hands her the cigarette pack and lighter.

She smiles appreciatively at him.

She removes a cigarette, puts it between her lips. "What's your favorite--" She pauses just long enough to light it. "--deadly sin?"

Eyes narrowed, he ticks off things on his fingertips: "Let's see... envy, sloth, anger, lust, pride, gluttony..." He pauses for a moment. "Let's just say these have never been my area of expertise... oh, yeah. Greed. What's my favorite? What a weird question, Beth."

He reaches for his own cigarette and lights it before continuing.

Obviously, they're in bed together and have been for a week with only a few breaks. Obviously the answer is lust. For both of them.

He blows out a cool long stream of smoke, looking off into the distance. "I'd have to say my favorite deadly sin is overanalysis." Spike grins at her.

"Overanalysis?"

She laughs and gives him a look that's meant to be disapproving but really isn't.

"Let me rephrase the question. Which do you have the most experience with?"

"Well, that's a different question, Beth." Still grinning, he reaches over and strokes her hair.

"Leaping before I look."

The classic sins don't mean a whole hell of a lot to him, not in any proper religious context. He's got his own list.

She narrows her eyes now, but it doesn't stop her from grinning at him.

"You're being difficult," she tells him, not exactly complaining.

"I'll make another deal with you. You tell me which of the sins you listed earlier is the one you're most familiar with. Then you can let me know all about your version of the deadly sins and I'll figure out which of them I'm most guilty of." She's curious, of course.

He holds the cigarette out in front of him and watches the smoke curl up and into the air. It's almost prayerful... almost.

"Anger."

Beth watches him.

She remembers his story about that cowboy, Andy. She remembers the bruise on Todd's chin. She remembers the shattered glass in Spike's hand.

And that's pretty much all she knows about his tendency toward anger.

She nods and exhales, smoke issuing from her mouth.

"Think I ought to listen to some anger management tapes or something?" He grins again, disarmingly. "Now I give you my version of the seven deadly sins and you get to pick your favorite."

With a flourish, he throws the cigarette lighter up into the air, catches it, and it disappears. Nothing in his hands except his cigarette. "Overanalysis. Leaping before you look. Letting a woman --or, since it's you, a man -- get in the way of being rational. Not backing up your partner. Unpreparedness. General stupidity. And number 7: thinking you know more than you do."

Spike leans back, smiling, very content. It's not the Bounty Hunter's Code and it's not the Syndicate Code. It's something he made up, just now, but it's based on experience. "So, pretty lady. What's your pick... from both lists? Yours and mine?"

She stares at Spike's hands, immediately and involuntarily smiling.

She glances at his face long enough to direct the smile right at him and answer part of the question. "Lust." That's no surprise, she knows. "Also no stranger to pride or envy."

His hands are no longer doing anything particularly interesting, but Beth goes back to watching them anyway. "I've been guilty of just about all of yours at one point or another." She lets out a small laugh and puts her cigarette back in her mouth, thinking things over for a minute.

"I overanalyze. I've also consciously let a man keep me from being rational more than once."