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[not_that_spike]

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.

Comments

[stbethadettes]

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."

[not_that_spike]

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

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

[stbethadettes]

"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?"

[not_that_spike]

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.

[stbethadettes]

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."

[not_that_spike]

"Shoot."

He hands her the cigarette pack and lighter.

[stbethadettes]

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?"

[not_that_spike]

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.

[stbethadettes]

"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?"

[not_that_spike]

"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.

[stbethadettes]

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.

[not_that_spike]

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."

[stbethadettes]

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.

[not_that_spike]

"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?"

[stbethadettes]

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."

[not_that_spike]

"Lust. That one I know how to deal with." Grinning, he reaches over and tucks Beth's hair back behind her ear, kissing her mouth on the way by. "Oh, that's where the lighter went." He holds it out for her inspection. It's a neat trick in general, but even better when he's not wearing a shirt. Nothing up his sleeve.

"So. What kinds of things do you overanalyze?" He's still got a smile on his face; he has fun with Beth with this kind of thing.

[stbethadettes]

She chuckles quietly at first; what he says about lust is very nearly what she told Todd about it.

But then she's distracted by getting kissed and, to her further delight, having the lighter pulled from behind her ear. She grins, lighting up completely.

Her grin doesn't fade at the question he asks.

"Things I can't do anything about."

[not_that_spike]

That smile is dazzling. Even more so because he knows it's for him, or at least in part for something he did. "Isn't that always the case, though? I mean, if we could do something about it, we wouldn't need to think about it so damn hard."

There's one thing, though, that he doesn't have to think about, and so he runs his hand over her shoulder and down her arm, lacing his fingers with hers. He turns her palm up and kisses it, then presses it to the side of her face.

Really, he could watch her all day long and not get tired of the sight. Not get tired of the sparkle in her eyes, or the little crease in her forehead, or the way she scratches her nose just below the scar and he remembers that he really likes that scar. He likes running his fingers along it; it talks to him. It tells stories.

And so he does, gently: from right to left, across her cheekbone and over her nose and across the other cheekbone, and he rests his hand behind her neck and leans forward and kisses her.

"I kind of like lust. It's probably my favorite one on your list."

He kisses her again.

[stbethadettes]

"I don't know." She does have ideas about it, sure, and they're ideas she almost starts talking about, but he's watching her and touching her face and simply being much nicer to think about than overanalysis.

Besides, it's always difficult for her to think about anything else when his fingertips trace over her scar like that.

She smiles knowingly between kisses. "Who doesn't like lust? It's much more enjoyable than the other sins."

[not_that_spike]

"I guess if you want to overanalyze, there's people who don't like lust. Go figure."

He runs his thumb over her cheekbone one more time, then kisses the tip of her nose. "I'm just glad I'm not one of them. So far as sins go, it doesn't seem quite on a par with some of the others."

Spike walks to the window and pulls back the shade. Today it's a view not unlike that from the window in the bar: the universe being unmade. It's huge and strong and roiling and bleak... or vast and endless and strangely beautiful. It gives a sense of time and as valid a sense of timelessness. There are balls of light, electric in nature, shooting off sparks into the multidimensional, multicolored darkness. He studies the view for a moment, then closes the shade again and turns back to Beth.

He might have something significant to say, but then again, he might not. He simply holds out his hand to her, though: not because he has any plan, but because it's what springs to mind.

He would take her to the stars, if only he could.

[stbethadettes]

"It doesn't," she agrees, nodding her head and thinking once again of Dante's structure of hell. "I think there are many things worse than lust."

She follows him with her eyes as he walks to the window and opens the shade. Propping her chin on her hand, she gazes past him and through the window at the destruction of the universe. No, the end of the universe. She finds herself not wanting to think of it as destruction, even if it's the truth; the view is beautiful and destruction seems so negative a word for it.

When Spike holds out his hand, she just takes it. No overanalysis necessary.

[not_that_spike]

All this theological shit; he's starting to feel like they're Adam and Eve. No fig leaves, though. They got left behind after Halloween.

And maybe in a sense they are. Maybe it's one of those philosophical moments everyone has to have: not a nihilist type thing and not really existentialist either. Somewhere in between or somewhere different: all of the universe in one moment and in many moments simultaneously, and maybe in this piece of it they are the only man and woman. Maybe lust and temptation and other sins will play a part, or maybe that part already got written a long time ago and doesn't matter any more. And maybe in this version there is no such thing as a sin, or a deadly sin. Maybe it's just all brand-new.

Or maybe it's just all brand-new to him. Who knows?

Talk about overanalysis.

Beth's hand is in his and that's what he wants right now. Just to hold her. And he remembers her talking about a picture of Todd's mother and how they looked a little bit similar, and he thinks: Beth, you sure as hell don't remind me of anyone's mom.

And for that I'll give blessings.

Her hand is warm and she's vibrant, and they're here together in this room. She doesn't seem like she'd rather be anywhere else and he knows there's nowhere he'd rather be.

"I grew up on Mars; I got used to seeing two moons every night. By the time I was born Earth's moon was already half-destroyed. But I have to tell you: a full moonrise on Earth -- at least in my time -- is still kind of spectacular."

He's not sure why he's telling her this now, but the why of it isn't important. There's so much he wants to share with her.

[stbethadettes]

Now that is something she's familiar with. She laces her fingers with his and can't help smiling a little.

"You should see it the way I've seen it," she says automatically. Even if it wouldn't be nearly as amazing as what he's used to seeing.

Beth has watched the sun set and the moon rise behind St. Bernadette's many times over the past two years. She's glad to hear him say that it's still kind of spectacular in his time. "I like it best when the moon looks big and full and bright orange," she offers. She knows that color is usually due to dust or pollution in the air, but she still likes the way it looks.

[not_that_spike]

"I'd like to see it the way you've seen it. In my day it looks like a giant came by and took a bite out of it... and from Earth, the moonrise is almost always orange because of all the debris floating between. Sometimes red, but usually orange. It's still pretty, though. Real pretty. Especially if you can avoid the rock showers."

He wonders if he told her about the hypergate explosion that wiped out both the planet and its moon; he's not sure. There have been a lot of stories and there are still more to go.

And here they are on an asteroid, and for all he knows, this could be some planet's moon. "Hey, Beth. You ever play that game when you were little when you looked up at the stars and wondered if there was some other Beth out there on some other planet looking up at the stars wondering if there was some other Beth out there looking up at the stars wondering the same thing?" He bets it wasn't so different from growing up on Mars, except there was no dome. Earth had enough oxygen.

[stbethadettes]

She smiles instantly while she listens, imagining the moon as a huge partially-eaten cookie.

"Not exactly," she answers his question. "I used to wonder if there was life on other planets. Little girls like me, or unlike me, out there and wondering the same thing I was. But not really other Beths."

She absently moves her free hand to her nose, two fingertips resting there lightly, but she doesn't scratch. "When I was really young, I also thought that God was some being floating out there among the stars and keeping tabs on us. And that he and Santa Claus had some kind of deal about keeping track of who was naughty and who was nice." Her smile widens behind her hand.