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She misses mirrors.
It really sucks to brush your hair without a mirror. She
looks back over her shoulder at her Blondiebear, sprawled
on the bed, naked except for the sheet wrapped around one
of his legs. All the rest of the blankets and stuff had been
kicked onto the floor while they were making sweet love.
He's always lots more fun after he's been out drinking all
night. All it takes when he gets back is a little coaxing
and nakedness and he gets all smiley and charming again.
Like the night they met in that icky demon bar in L.A.
Okay... he wasn't happy at first that night. At first he'd been all grumpy and
upset about that stupid Dorkzilla leaving him, and of course she'd just been
ditched by her Sire, Eddie. Eddie had told her to wait for him at their crypt
- that he was just gonna go out for a pack of cheerleaders and come right back.
But he never did. She'd gone looking for him and finally caught him a few nights
later at that stupid bar. He was hanging all over some dumb vamp tramp who was
wearing an outfit that was just so obviously off the rack it sickened her. I
mean, we're not just talking out of style here, we're talking never was in style.
Like... not en vogue, anti-vogue. Non-vogue. It was so gross. Seriously. She
still has nightmares.
Well, anyway, there'd been a scene. Some yelling. Some hair pulling. Then Eddie
accidentally bumped into the guy in the leather coat and the next thing she knew,
the guy was ripping Eddie's head off and poof! Dust! And the guy who did the
ripping, the leather coat guy, turned around and looked at her and slurred, "What
the bleeding hell are you lookin' at?"
Of course, the guy turned out to be Spike. And it was totally love at first sight.
I mean, how could it not be, right? He's totally hot and everything. Like, fashion
model hot - only not because, hello, the outfit? Ick. And black nail polish?
So suicide-chic... and that was only cool for like, a minute, back in the olden
days... like, the 80s or something, right? But really, her Spikey-poo is just
one of those guys who looks so pretty you just think, "Oh, my god, he must
be gay."
But she could tell he wasn't right away because he kept looking at her chest
all night. So she sat down next to him and did the whole sticking them out there
thing and managed to catch his attention enough with her boobs to get him to
buy her a drink. And a few more. Until she didn't need to try so hard to laugh
at his jokes and nod intently when he spoke. Because he was actually funny and
kind of interesting. At least when he wasn't complaining about that Druid girl,
or some other really mean-sounding girl named Angel, or... for some weird reason
Slayer, which - wasn't that some kind of nasty heavy metal band or something?
Something her ratty little brother would have listened to if she hadn't eaten
him? Plus, he had that really neat accent. Like Crocodile Dundee. Very sexy.
Anyway, they ended up going out to his car and doing it, like, a million times
that night. It was... well, it was kinda gross because his backseat was filled
with trash and stuff. And he passed out right away afterwards. And he snored,
which is so gross and totally unnecessary for a vampire. But none of that could
get in the way of true love. Because really, it had been the happiest night of
her unlife.
Looking at him now, she still loves him as much as she did that night. Lying
there all naked and everything, he looks like one of those Greek statues. Which
she'd always liked looking at because making statues of naked fraternity guys
has got to be one of the best ideas *ever.* But not as good as the calendars
because you can hang those up. She wishes she had a calendar of Spike that she
could look at when he's gone all night working on evil and stuff. Or when he's
grumpy and mad at her and makes her cry and wish he could be smiley again. Or
especially when he's being all depressed and mopey over big, dumb Drusilla -
whose boobs probably weren't even as big as hers anyway.
She runs the brush through her hair a few more times, hoping she got it right.
It's so hard to tell. She puts the brush down, feeling a kind of sadness fill
her up inside, all thick and heavy like syrup in her veins. She turns back to
her sweet lover, watches the little fuzzy, dark line made by his eyelash pressed
against his white cheek. It doesn't move.
"Spike?" she asks, and is rewarded by a little flutter of the lash.
She wonders if he knows how to butterfly kiss. She'll have to show him sometime.
"Spikey?" She rises from the chair and sidles over to the bed. Bending
over him so that all she can smell is cigarettes and that smelly goop he puts
in his hair, she lets her lips tickle his ear. He's such a heavy sleeper.
"Oh, Spikey-poo!" she sing-songs, maybe a little too loud because he
leaps up, cracking the side of his head against her chin. Her teeth knock together,
catching the tip of her tongue between them. Ow!
"Ow!" Spike yells as his head crashes back to the pillows and he rolls
over to glare at her. His hand comes up to rub at his temple. "Bloody hell,
woman! Are you tryin' to kill me?"
"Mmf." She tastes blood. Yummy. She giggles. "Yuh uh-ehy beh buh-ee."
Still glaring, but in a sleepy-eyed cute way, he sits up, sliding his body backward
so that his back rests against the headboard. "What?"
She grabs her tongue with her fingers to dull the sting before answering. "I
thed, yuh aw-weh-ee bed, bummy."
He rolls his eyes but doesn't say anything. Just wipes a hand over his face and
reaches over to grab the mostly empty tequila bottle from beside the bed. She
doesn't know how he can drink that stuff. It smells so nasty she doesn't even
want to taste it. And she's heard there's worms in it or something. I mean, how
gross is that? And anyway, aren't vampires supposed to drink red wine out of
big gold goblets or something ike that? There's just so much she doesn't really
get about the whole vampire thing yet. She'd tried drinking some red wine at
a bar they'd stopped at awhile back. It had smelled okay but really didn't taste
like anything. Definitely not the way it had tasted back when she was human.
Spikey had told her that the taste doesn't matter so much. That eventually you
don't even miss it. It's the smell of it that matters. She'd asked him why he
didn't just go around smelling all that booze then instead of drinking it. He'd
just snorted at her and didn't answer. So she had gone into the restroom to powder
her nose. And to eat the girl with the bad dye job that had just disappeared
through the restroom door. She'd taken her time with it. She'd gotten pretty
good at this part. Good enough not to spill a drop anymore. When she was done,
she'd shoved the body into a stall and went through the girl's purse. It was
horrible. With cheap cosmetics like the ones she found, the poor girl really
had to be better off dead.
"Thpike?" she starts to ask, then remembering, lets go of her tongue.
It's already healed. "Spikey?"
He sighs and takes another swig from the bottle before responding. "What,
pet?"
"Why don't mirrors work?" she asks.
"They work fine, just not for us."
"Yeah, but why?"
"For the tenth time, Harm, I don't know. It's not even sodding sunset yet.
Why'd you go and wake me up?"
"I was lonely. It's not fair."
"Me getting a full day's sleep isn't fair?"
"No. The mirror. It's not fair. I mean, how am I supposed to know for sure
that I'm even really here if I can't see myself?"
"Trust me, Harm. You're really here. Maybe if you weren't I'd be able to
get a spot of sleep before nightfall."
"Yeah, but how can I know for sure? Maybe this is all just some weird dream
and I'll wake up pretty soon and be back in high school." She sighs and
lets her shoulders droop. "Everything was so great then."
"Right," Spike snorts. "It would've been great for someone like
you I suppose."
"It was," she sighs wistfully. "I was popular. I mean, *really*
popular. I had so many friends. And I was so pretty..." She starts to sob.
She's not really even sure why.
Spike remains still, glowering at his tequila. At last, he grudgingly wraps an
arm around her and pulls her into an awkward embrace.
"There now, luv," he murmurs. "You're still pretty. You're more
than pretty... you're -"
She tilts her head up and looks at him with tear-filled eyes. "-Beautiful?
Do you think I'm beautiful?"
Spike nods encouragingly at her. "Sure you are! You're a right knock-out.
And you always will be. Forever and ever, all right?"
"Forever," she agrees, wiping her face dry and sniffling. She wiggles
her butt against him in a way that's sure to get a reaction.
Groaning, he pulls away from her and lies back on the bed. "Harm, we've
got to get some sleep. It's a big day tomorrow. We're getting so close to the
gem. I can *feel* it."
"Really?" she giggles playfully. "Can you feel this?"
He could.
And they did it, like, a bunch more times. He didn't get to sleep until it was
almost sundown.
She feels kinda bad about it. His digging is really important to him. And he'll
be totally grumpy, for sure once he wakes up. But for a little while at least,
things are kinda okay again. Lying in the bed, pressed up against her boyfriend
she stares into the mirror and pretends the two of them are in there, together
and happy. Like on a calendar, preserved forever. She pretends she can see more
than the nothing that's actually there. And then she closes her eyes with a smile
on her lips.
"Beautiful," she whispers as she drifts off to sleep.
END
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