Title: Your Hot Heart
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Vaguely post-Intervention
Summary: Sometimes poetry can be really hot. And for all of you rolling your eyes at the thought of another fic with poetry, feel free to kindly exit stage left.
“Spike?” Her voice echoed slightly in the black crypt. Buffy waited a beat to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. “Spike?”
Only silence greeted her. Carefully she maneuvered her way to the trap door that led to the lower level. A small light glowed from somewhere down within, so she tried again. “Spike,” she called, getting irritated.
“I’m coming down,” she warned, fairly certain she was talking to thin air, before jumping lithely through the gap.
Straightening, she took in the deserted bedroom. A handful of lonely candles shone in the dark, flickering in some unfelt draft.
Buffy pouted. Giles had suggested asking Spike for help in tracking down some new demon that’d been causing problems lately, and she’d been hoping that she wouldn’t have to chase him all over town to do it.
Her eyes roamed over his scattered belongings, bored, when she spotted the face-down, open book left carelessly on his unmade bed. Mildly curious, the book was in her hands before she realized she had crossed the floor. She glanced at the name on the spine but it meant nothing to her. Carefully keeping it open to the same page, she glanced inside.
Buffy laughed. It was poetry.
Spike was reading poetry. Spike, the Slayer of Slayers, the Big Bad, William the Bloody. The most rude and vulgar guy knew. The poster boy for rebellion. The guy who took joy in causing mayhem and destruction whatever chance he got, was reading poetry.
She laughed again. Wait until Willow and Xander heard about this!
She ran down the lines, eyes half glazed, and thought of the book Angel had once given her. Maybe poetry was a secret vampire weakness. They lost their souls, turned evil, ripped out someone’s throat, then went home for a riveting evening with William Blake.
She snorted, ready to toss the book aside when a phrase caught her eye. She mumbled the line under her breath as she read.
…Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
Buffy blushed. This… this was not about a road less travelled, or comparing to a summers day, or a red wheel barrow. This was something else entirely. “… like a whole almond,” she whispered, rolling the words around her tongue.
“I want to eat – ” She started at the sudden deep voice, and turned to see him standing by the ladder “ – the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body.” Spike stood, face and expression shadowed, only partially illuminated by the candles. The light gleamed gold off his pale hair and along his skin. He paused, and though his eyes were hidden in the shadow, she could feel them. Could feel the weight of them on her. “… the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes …”
He moved toward her, steps slow and deliberate. He stepped fully into the light and the look on his face hit her like a blow to the head. While every inch of his body was the perfect, controlled steadiness of a predator, his expression was of sheer need. Need and yearning and want. “… and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight …”
He stopped, his body mere inches from touching hers, and her breath hitched in her chest. He looked at her, eyes half shut and fully dilated. He inhaled, breath ragged, before moving to press his lips and nose to her hair, continuing in a low, rough voice. “.. and hunting for you, for your hot heart …” One slender hand came up to hover, right above her shoulder. “… like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.”
Fire flooded her veins and blood roared in her ears.
“Buffy.”
He sounded stricken. It fueled the fire under her skin like gasoline. Her eyes fluttered shut as one calloused thumb trailed along the base of her throat.
The ‘whack’ of the book hitting the floor was like gunfire. With heart in throat, she jerked backwards, stumbling over her own feet.
“Buffy?” He looked at her, confused and wanting and she tried not to stare. Tried not to notice his obvious arousal, and the small panting way he said her name, and the hand still poised to touch her.
“I – ” she started and stopped abruptly. And then she was moving. Moving with all the speed and skill that a Slayer can move with. Running past him, and then up, up and out – Out into the night, weaving in and out of headstones, running through the cool air. All the while hearing those words. His voice, dogging her every step.
—–
For those of you curious, the poem is Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda. A full text can be found here. If you have never read Neruda’s work, I highly recommend his book of a hundred love sonnets. They’re bee-yoo-ti-ful.
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/250444.html
