Suki Blue Fiction

Chapter 3

It was a warm evening; very pleasant, in fact. The sky was clear and the streets were fairly quiet. Not that Spike really gave a shit. Nor Xander. Oh, no.

Actually, they barely noticed anything around them. All that existed was each other and the thoughts inside their own heads.

An old lady tripped and fell flat on her face, and there she stayed as Xander looked up at the sky and Spike shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped over her. Should I try to hold his hand? What if he gets embarrassed? What if I try to hold his hand and he goes to pick his nose? What if he’s already picked his nose?

The walk to the movie theatre was a short one. Or possibly a long one. Maybe it was a medium sized one? Who could actually tell? Xander was uncharacteristically quiet and Spike was doing a pretty good impression of a very quiet Angel. Don’t tell that to Spike, though. He’d probably be quite upset by that observation.

To their left a car veered off the road and wrapped itself around a lamppost. “ARGH! My shoulder! It’s broken! Darn! But I must get home to feed the cat and take my pregnant wife to hospital!”

“So, um, not much happening tonight,” Xander observed, looking to the right.

“Nah. Nothing ever happens on a Saturday. Reckon all the demons are in the pub rather than out scaring people. Who wants to work on a weekend, eh?”

“That’s true. I never thought of it like that.” Xander smiled. At last! A conversation! “Do demons ever go on holiday?”

“Course!” Spike was indignant. “Every year!”

“Oh.” Xander thought about that. “Where do they go? To the Cleveland Hellmouth for more Hellmouthy adventures?”

“Are you serious? A holiday. No demon wants to work on his hols! Nah, they’d go somewhere where they could get away from it. Bognor, Isle of Wight, the Norfolk Broads, Philadelphia. And yeah, most dead bodies would rather be there.”

Xander laughed and stepped over a sick child. “I’ve actually been to Philadelphia. It’s not that bad.” Okay, conversation is going well. Keep it flowing, Xan. Keep. It. Flowing. “So where did you go when you wanted to get away from demoning every night?”

“Well, me and Dru, we went to all sorts of places. Quite well travelled, actually. Rio was a favourite. Italy. Mexico. Brazil.”

“Ever go to Transylvania?”

“Ha, bloody ha. No. Too many Transexuals. Besides, gave up holidays when Dru left me.”

“Oh. Sorry. I guess you must miss her,” Xander said, lowering his head as he realised that their great conversation had moved to a tragic place.

Spike realised this, too. And tried to fix it. “Miss her? ‘Course not. Why would I miss her? Bloody, stupid…vampire, with her bloody stupid…skirts. Bloody stupid.”

A building had caught fire and the windows suddenly blew out. “It’s okay, Spike. You and Drusilla were fangy together for a long time. It must feel weird to be without her.”

“Sometimes,” Spike admitted. “I don’t like being alone.”

They stopped at the corner of the street and stared at each other in the romantic glow of the nearby fire.

“I don’t like it, either,” Xander said.

Spike moved in for the kill…Well, not an actual kill. He moved in for a kiss, his hands connecting with Xander’s and his mouth opening just slightly to capture Xander’s lips in a slow, gentle kiss.

Three fire trucks showed up and one of them ran over a troop of high school jocks.

Xander opened his eyes and tried not to show his shock at managing a real kiss without bumping noses. It was nearly unheard of on a first date! “Wow. That was…” Don’t say swell. Don’t say swell. “…that was…um, better than swell.” Xander Harris, you are California’s biggest idiot. You could run for State Idiot and be elected in a second.

“Yeah. Much better than swell,” Spike agreed.

“Sweller,” Xander confirmed. “Is sweller a word? How about swellerer? Or swollen? No, that’s not right. Hey, I should write my own dictionary.”

“Good idea. Don’t forget sausage.”

“Sausage?”

“Blackadder. Never mind. So, we’re here.”

Xander blinked and looked around him. “Oh, yeah. I think I must have zoned back there.”

“Me too. I’m still in a daze, if the truth be known. Must be your fault.”

The remaining high school jocks attacked one of the fire trucks.

Xander blushed and had to look anywhere but at Spike, lest his face got so bright that he got mistaken for a traffic light. “Oh, my god!”

The burning building exploded again and spilled fire onto the street. Eight people caught fire.

Spike whipped his head around to look in the direction of Xander’s madly pointing finger. “What?! Where?”

“There. Ohmygod, we really must have zoned!”

“What?!”

“We just walked right past Kelly Rippa! She’s kinda hot. And perky – in more ways than one. Hey, why are there six dead people in the middle of the road?” Xander suddenly put his hands on his hips. “And is somebody smoking?”

TBC…