Love is...

Title: Love Is Deception
Series: Love Is…
Author's Name: Scarlet
Author's Email and URL: scarletsfiction@yahoo.com www.geocities.com/karenmnick
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Nor do I own Denny’s but that would be cool, wouldn’t it?
Distribution: Of course you may place my baby somewhere nice. Just let me know so I can visit.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Andrew/Spike
Feedback: Yes!
Dedication: To Katie and Kaz
Author\otesotes: Takes place during Touched. Andrew and Spike put on The Greatest Show on Earth at the friendliest restaurant on the highway.

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I can see it in the distance. Heaven. Paradise. Nirvana. Xanadu. The yellow neon sign is glowing and perfect in every way. It doesn’t blink or sputter like some neon sighs. It just brightly proclaims its power. It speaks to the weary traveler.

“Come it,” it might say. “Come, dine within me and find sustenance to continue your journey. I will nourish you and your family and in me you will find comfort.” Ah, yes. It is a beautiful, beautiful sight and—

“This the place you were jabberin’ about?”

“Yeah, this is Denny’s. Pull in here.” I am so excited! Not only do we have information about Caleb, but we also get to eat at Denny’s, which is only the coolest place to eat when you’re on a road trip. Spike parks the motore nee near a window so we can see it from the restaurant. That’s a cool maneuver. I wouldn’t have thought of that. I guess that’s why he’s the more experienced one. The senior officer, the Jedi Master and I’m only—

“You coming?”

I realize that he’s already at the door, holding it open. I suppose I’ve been thinking to myself a lot these last few weeks. Maybe I should share some things with Spike like he said. Usually when I do that, though, Xander glares at me and sends me to the kitchen. I guess he won’t do that too much any more, though, on account of his new disability. I feel bad for him.

“Yeah, I’m coming. I was just thinking about Xander.” I follow him into the restaurant.

“What about Xander?” he asks.

“Just thinking it must suck to only have one eye.”

“Yeah.” There’s not much Spike can say. I don’t know why I even brought it up. “Knew a guy once, South Wales, could play trumpet. Only had one arm.”

“Wow! Serious?”

“Yeah. Pretty exceptional, too. Don’t worry. Xander will…he’ll be okay.” He pats my arm a little bit. I can tell he’s not used to that kind of thing. Offering comfort, I mean. But he does it really well. I don’t know why Xander’s eye has me so worked up today, but I can’t help thinking that it seems like a weird prophecy for what’s in store for me. I think Spike gets that.

The hostess is this really old lady and she gives us a booth near the window in the middle of the restaurantknowknow what I’m having. I wonder what vampires eat on road trips when there aren’t onion blossoms around?

“Can I take your order, fellas?” Our waitress is older than the hostess is, I think. She looks us over and gives Spike the hairy eyeball when he tries to light a cigarette. My mom was very proficient in the hairy eyeball. Spike puts his cigarettes away.

I’m ready to order. “I’ll have the Moons over My Hammy and a Coke—“

“He’ll have water,” Spike interrupts. Leaning across to me he says, “I don’t want you havin’ any more sugar or caffeine. You’ll be springin’ right off the bloody bike before we get back to Sunnydale.” He says it gruffly, but it actually is kind of nice that he cares about stuff like that.

“Okay, I’ll just have water please.”

“And what about you, blondie?” She smiles a little like Jonathan’s aunt Lola. Lot’s of teeth.

“Think I’ll have a steak, rare.”

“And what else?”

“That’s it. The meat. Please.” I don’t think Spike is too used to the public sector.

“Do you want something to drink. Or will you have water like your boyfriend?”

I start to interrupt but Spike says, “Water will be fine.” Then she leaves.

“Spike!”

“What, Andrew?” He sounds annoyed with me, again.

“The waitress thinks I’m your boyfriend!” I hiss.

“Yeah, so?” At my confused look he says, “Look, Andrew. This is a covert operation. Undercover, remember? You got a problem with that?”

“No, I just…no.”

“Good, now tell me about your family.”

“Huh?”

“Your family? Tell me about ‘em.”

“Oh…I get it. It’s like a date. An undercover date. Right, um, my family.” I wink at him to show that I get the picture. I wonder if there are Bringers here in Denny’s. Maybe Caleb himself could show up because I don’t know what he looks like but Spike does, so I bet he’d tell me if Caleb were in here. I’d better keep up the act, though, just in case. “I have one brother, three fish, and two parents. And we had a dog named Missy that used to pee on Tucker’s bed until we gave her away. What about you?”

The waitress brings us our water and I sip mine while Spike answers.

“Had a mum, father died when I was little. No brothers. No sisters.”

“Did you have a dog?”

“No.”

“I like dogs. You didn’t have, like, a Pug or a Chihuahua? Cause I’m really good ictuicturing people with their pets and I can picture you as the type to have, like, a small sort offortfortable lap dog or a—”

“No, Andrew. Told you. I didn’t have a dog.”

“Oh.”

I look around the restaurant. There aren’t too many people. At the booth across from us, there is a family that is obviously on a road trip of their own. The dad is yelling and the mom looks really tired. In the booth near the front, there is a girl eating by herself. She has long red hair, kind of like Willow’s only darker and curlier. It’s kind of weird, too, because it’s really late and she’s pretty young to be out alone. I think maybe I’ve lived on the Hellmouth too long.

“What ‘bout this brother of yours. You get along?”

“Yeah, I guess so. We don’t talk much.”

“Really? Why?” Spike actually looks interested. Somebody looks interested in what I have to say. This is really…new. I mean, nice.

“He’s a little older and we had different friends and stuff.”

“Well, can’t speak for the company that you’ve kept.”

“Hey! Jonathan was okay. He was a cutie. Kind of naïve, though.”

“And you’re, what? A man of the world?”

“No, but…I’ve been around the block. I stood in line for seven hours to see Episode One at the Sunnydale Cinema. Jonathan wouldn’t come with me. He said the night air was bad for his sinuses.”

“Be still my heart! You are a daring bloke!” I think he’s making fun of me, but he’s smiling a little so it’s okay. “This brother of yours, he a Star Wars fan?”

“Tucker? No, he’s more…Goodfellas.”

“A right manly film.”

“Yeah.” We’re quiet for a while. I start making a snake with my straw and dripping water on it to make it move. Cool.

“He know?”

“Does he know what?”

“That you’re gay.”

“Tucker wouldn’t…no, he doesn’t know. I mean, it’s not that I don’t like Tucker. I do. He’s been a really good brother, most of the time. He taught me how to summon demons and he bought me my first pan flute, but…”

“But he wouldn’t understand.”

“Right.”

Spike leans in across the table a little and looks me right in the eyes so I can’t look away. “Sometimes, people understand more than you think, Andrew. End of the world’s comin’. Might be time to give a fellow a chance to know you.” He cocks his head a little. I don’t know if he’s still talking about Tucker or not but before I can answer, our food comes.

I start gobbling my food until I see that Spike is just staring at me. I think I might be going a little Babe: Pig in the Denny’s but I can’t help it. I’m hyper and I need real food. Spike carves into his steak and neither of us says anything for a long time.

After a while, the manic hunger wears off and I start looking around the room again. The family is gone but the girl is still there. She’s sipping a drink and looking toward us now. She’s real pretty. Kind of stalker, though, the way she’s staring at Spike and me. I try to smile at her a little, even though my mouth is full. She smiles back and then—what the blazes was that?

Okay, Andrew. Stay calm. No big deal. She just rolled her eyes back in her head and then they turned red. You live on a Hellmouth. You can handle this.

“Spike?” My voice is wavering. Dammit.

“Yeah?” His mouth is full and his plate is almost clean.

“What does it mean when a girl’s eyes roll back?”

“Means she’s feeling a very special kind of tickle, Andrew.” He looks at my face then and I guess he must know that something is up.

“What if they turn red, then? I mean that’s no big deal is it? Hypothetically speaking?”

“Oh, hypothetically speaking.” He seems a little more relaxed. “Well, depends. What’s this bird look like?”

“Um…young, red hair, curly, kind of pretty?”

“With eyes that roll back and turn red?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s one you don’t want to get mixed up with.”

“Really? Why?”

“Cupids.”

“She’s Cupid?”

“No. Cupid demons. There are lots of ‘em out there. And don’t believe that commercial hogwash 'bout flying babies with wings, though the arrows are true enough.”

“Cupids are supposed to be good. I just know it. They make people fall in love and—“ I’m getting a little antsy, I think. I’m glad I didn’t get a Coke.

“Yeah, they make people fall in love,” he chuckles bitterly. “Right before the dismemberment and liquification of entrails. I know this from personal experience, let me tell you. Angelus and I killed us one, round the turn of the century I’d guess. Spent a few minutes in compromising positions and we barely got out of it with our guts intact. Oh, and don’t mention that if you ever meet Angel. Kind of a promise we made, not to tell anyone ‘bout it.”

“Wow. You fooled around with a vampire and a Cupid almost liquefied your entrails.” Spike has the coolest stories.

“Was just a clever ruse. See, way it works is,” I think Spike is starting to warm up to this topic. “Cupids have themselves a sense of humor. They pick two unlikely folk and set the mojo on them. These folks start to get the warm tinglies-that’s where the myth is right. ‘Cept, they don’t mention that the parties involved turn on each other or the carnage that ensues minutes later. They’re rather the -Cup-Cupid if you get me.”

I’m beginning to get a very bad feeling.

“And almost no one is immune once they set their minds to it. I mean, they pick on any sad sop that looks unattached. They usually shy away from the lovey-dovey family types cause I don’t think their mojo works as well on folks in love but that’s not a rule. One thing’s for sure, it’s best not to find out. It’s a bad scene all around, pet, and I don’t recommend it.”

“Got it. Right.” Spike finishes the last bites of his steak.

I can’t help it. I have to look again. She’s still there. Okay, one more peak. Eyes? Still red.

What to do, what to do…

“Andrew?”

“Yeah?”

“You haven’t seen one of these cupids recently, have you?” My mouth is so dry.

“Maybe.” If it’s possible, Spike looks like he’s paler. I can hear my voice getting high and squeaky.

“What exactly does ‘maybe’ mean?”

“Um, ‘maybe’ means that there is a Cupid in the booth across from us that has been staring over here for five minutes.” Spike turns to look but his wrist hits his glass on the table. It tips over and water splashes across the table and onto the floor. He’s grabbing at napkins, trying to clean up the mess. “Spike?”

“Yeah?”

“What does it mean when the red eyes get kind of…um…yellow?” His head jerks up, his hands full of wet napkins. He licks his lips and shoves more napkins at the spill. Then he looks around, but not for the Cupid. I think he’s looking for another door.

“Andrew, whatever you do, don’t make any eye contact with her, okay?”

“Okay…uh…Spike?”

“Yes, Andrew?”

“I kinda already did. A while ago. But that doesn’t count, right?” He starts biting his lower lip again and he won’t look at me. That’s kind of rude. I mean, I didn’t mean to look. Most people in our culture accept looking as a common form of expression and—woah! Spike grabs my hand and tosses some money on the table with the other. Then he starts pulling me through the restaurant to the back door.

Spike is holding my hand. I bet it looks like he’s my boyfriend. I wish that he-ouch! He’s a much faster walker than I am and it’s hard to keep up.

“Where are we going?” I’m really confused.

“We’re goin’ to the bike as fast as your little legs can bloody well carry you, Andrew. And we’re hopin’ that your naturally sociable personality didn’t just make us the next meal for a Cupid demon. Come on, the bike should be around this corner.”

I don’t really have a good sense of direction but I guess vampires do because he’s right. There’s the bike. And I don’t think we were followed.

“Get your helmet on.” I scramble for it, but it’s hooked on something and I can’t get it off without fighting with it. “Hurry up!” Spike is searching through his pockets for the keys but he can’t find them right away. When he finally does locate them, his hand shakes and he drops them. What’s the big deal? Why is he so clumsy? Why won’t he look at me? Why—

Oh. Holy. Horatio. I know why he’s not looking at me.

Spike is scared.

Something I’ve learned by living on the Hellmouth is that when a vampire is scared, there is seriously something wrong. He lifts his head up and his eyes meet mine and I know I’m right. My pulse is pounding in my ears. I haven’t been this afraid since I helped the girls trick Warren slash The First. Spike bends down to get the keys and I try to get the helmet again but I can’t seem to get it loose and then he stands up and…

He doesn’t need to tell me. My spider sense is tingling. I can hear the door opening, can almost feel the bells on the door jingling. I know that we are not alone. I can’t breath. I can’t blink. Spike isn’t moving and his jaw looks like cement. He closes his eyes for a second and then opens them at me.

“Andrew?” Spike grabs my shoulders and turns me so I’m facing him with my back to the bike. I don’t dare look over toward the door.

“Yeah?” I choke. I don’t want Spike to kill me. I don’t want to kill Spike. I can’t kill one more person I—

“I want you to listen to me very carefully,” he says, then he smiles. It’s a big smile. Too big. It’s Joker-fake but only someone who knew Spike would notice. “Whatever happens in the next few minutes, you just have to trust me and go with it, right?”

“Right. I can—“ but before I can finish that sentence, Spike yanks my shoulders forward and is kissing me.

Spike is kissing me. I am kissing Spike. Spike and me, me and Spike…It feels so good that for a second I imagine he’s kissing me because he wants to but then I remember the cutting and the liquid guts and I know what he’s doing. It’s an act. It’s also a good thing I took drama in high school. I can do this.

His lips are kind of warm like his tongue was when he ate the pizza. That’s a surprise. I hope this isn’t the tingley part that comes right before wanting to kill Spike. It would be a shame to miss kissing him. It’s kind of once-in-a-lifetime. Once in my lifetime, that is. I mean, this isn’t the first time I’ve kissed someone. There were, uh, two others. Neither of them were guys though and, to my knowledge, neither of them were vampires.

It feels like we’re kind of stiff and formal. I really want to open my mouth but I don’t know if I should. I don’t want to make Spike mad or gross him out or anything. Wait, I think I feel his lips part so I think I’ll open mine a little and…uh…

My heart.

My heart is, uh…

My chest…

It’s like….Okay, I have a full index of on-screen kisses to draw examples from, but I can’t. I can’t. I just…There’s nothing right now except for warm mouths and wet tongues sliding over each other and…it’s just us.

I kI’m I’m making a sound kind of high like a kitten mewing, but I can’t help it. I can’t remember what we were saying, what we were doing…before. It feels like the warm, liquid honey that lives in my heart is running straight out to my fingers and my toes.

This is better, Spike is better, than anything I’ve ever imagined. I want to crawl right through into him and stay there. I kiss him and kiss him and he’s not close enough but I can fix that. If he doesn’t want me to help with the act, then I hope he says something soon because in a few seconds I won’t be able to stop if he asks. My hands slip around his waist like they already know where to go. I slide them down across his back to his ass and pull him forward so his body is presses up against mine. I think he likes that because he rubs closer to me. It’s cold out tonight but I’m folded into his coat and for now I feel incredible, blissful heat.

Now, it’s his turn to make noise. He growls and suddenly, his hands are moving, too. They slide off of my shoulders and onto my face, my hair, the back of my neck, and he is grinding my mouth to his. I can hy sty stand, can hardly remain upright. I’m so…god, I’m so hard.

I hope that Spike can’t feel me against his leg. I don’t want him to be offended.

I wish that Spike could feel me against his leg. I want him to want me, too.

I don’t know if he’d lattlattered or upset if he knew how he was making me feel but I think this may be my last and only chance to kiss someone before the Apocalypse so I’m not going to waste it. I put one foot between his, then pull my other leg up his leg a little, rubbing into his thigh. His growls become louder and he’s pushing me back against the motorcycle. I’m bending back, pulling him with me and his mouth breaks away. I whimper when he leaves, but it’s okay because his mouth is moving to my chin, my ear, my throat. Spike nuzzles into my neck and his hand drops to my waist, rubbing me through my cargo pants. I roll my head back and gasp, completely overwhelmed with pleasure. I don’t care if it is a disguise. I don’t care if Spike is only acting. I’m not, and as long as Spike’s hands are still sliding over my body and his mouth is still on my neck, then…

Someone clears their throat and I open my eyes. Two very old gentlemen are standing by the front door, staring. I rake my eyes left and right, but here is no sign of the Cupid demon. Our plan worked and Spike is still nuzzling at my neck…

“Spike?” I choke.

“Andrew,” he gasps. He pulls back and I look at him. His lips are swollen and kind of red and he’s panting which is really odd. He swallows quickly and his eyes roam all over my face like he can’t decide where to kiss first. Then, he plunges into my mouth again and I forget everything for a few more seconds.

I know he’ll be mad when he finds out we were kissing when we didn’t have to. He’ll give me that scowl and my heart will break. I finally put my hands against his chest to push him off, but…god, his chest is amazing. I wish his shirt could magically disappear for a while so I could put my hands against his bare—stop it, Andrew! Focus!

I push hard and Spike takes a few staggering steps back. He’s panting harder now and he seems a little disoriented.

“What are you doing?” he asks, breathing heavily and cocking his head a little.

“She’s gone,” I pant. Two words are about all I can handle right now. He just looks confused and then turns to the old men who are still staring.

“Buggar off!” he yells at them and the scurry inside, afraid. He turns to me and for some reason, I think he’s angry anyway. “What were you doing? I mean, why…” He swallows and looks around, a little confused.

“You told me to go along with whatever you did, right?”

It takes him a second to answer. “Right,” he says bitterly and then bends to pick up the keys he dropped again. He stares at the restaurant for a long time but the Cupid demon doesn’t come out.

“Spike?” I ask. He’s still just staring at nothing. “Spike, we have to go. We’re on a timee, re, remember?”

“You don’t have to remind me!” he snaps and I cower. Then he says, more gently, “Just…just get on.”

I manage to get the helmet loose and then get on behind Spike. When I lean forward and slip my hands into their old familiar spot past his hips, he growls and sits up, moving my hands to clasp high around his chest.

Spike is mad at me. It really must have been horrible.

This is all Mrs. Kinney’s fault. Two years of high school drama and she never taught us how to kiss a male vampire to throw off a Cupid demon. What good do “stage left” and “projecting” do you in the real world? I can’t even kiss someone the way they want to be kissed, not even when I’m not acting. I won’t mention it again. I’ll pretend it never happened. We’ll both go back to Sunnydale and forget about this part of the mission, which doesn’t really matter, anyway. So…I won’t think about it.

It’s a good plan, but I can still feel Spike on my lips, the skin raw and probably red. I’m still half hard but that’s going away fast. I want to cry. I must have been so bad. As I wait for Spike to get situated, I can’t help it when my cheeks burn with embarrassment. I’m glad it’s dark so Spike doesn’t see my face and doesn’t notice that it’s getting.
.

Spike starts his motorcycle and moves from the curb. I hear something that might be a scream or it might be the wind. It sounds like it is coming from the other side of the Denny’s. Maybe the Cupid found two other suckers. Maybe I should tell Spike and we could help. Or maybe I should just shut up and wallow in my own inadequacies. I think that monk at the mission did the right thing.

Sometimes running away can save your life.