seraphcelene (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seraphcelene) wrote2004-03-15 04:08 pm
seraphcelene) wrote2004-03-15 04:08 pm
Entry tags:
FIc: BtVS (Riley, NC-17) - A Pivot for the Sun
Heavy revising completed on my original entry for the Intoxication Challenge - Of Blood and Wine. This is not the same story.
Spoilers for BtVS - thru Into the Woods, brief reference to Gone; AtS - Salvage and Orpheus
A Pivot for the Sun
Like a dream, blurry, fragmented and blue-black, Riley remembers the night they found him.
He sat in a room -- nighttime dark -- littered with bodies, limp and dying, and broken pieces of stained furniture. He recalls that he sat against a wall. In a corner. Riley stared out into the dusky, hazy expanse decorated in peeling wallpaper and the occasional flicker of a dim, swinging light bulb without blinking. His head lolled against the chill, sweating wall at his back, rocking to the gentle cadence of an old song playing somewhere in the near distance.
Kitten-weak and tired, his belly growled irritably over the music and disjointed buzzing that filtered in and out of his head. Light-headed and then Buffy's face gliding past his, doubled and tripled, hazy and far too beautiful to be real. He remembers her steel, far away eyes and the gentle brush of her hand against his brow.
He was startled, for a moment, by the sweep of her fingers, slender and chill. For one, tiny (infinitesimal) moment that seemed to last forever, he was eight years old again. He was eight and he hadn’t grown yet; short, although his grandmother said he was sturdy, convinced that he’d grow into the strapping image of his grandfather that held a place of honor at the center of the mantel over the fireplace.
*
Riley is eight and Michael Troy, two years older and four inches taller pushed him down and took his bike. Michael Troy laughed and rode away, standing up, like all of the big boys do, as he peddled the bike up the road.
Riley is a tough little boy. Like his grandfather. He doesn’t cry in front of his eight year-old friends, just walks home. Stoic. Sturdy. Grandmother would be proud; he thinks and imagines his grandfather, solid, serious and somehow jaunty, leaning against a fighter plane in a black and white photograph on the mantel.
He can see the house from down the block. Eyes burning, Riley laughs and waves to his friends, speeding up his step as he comes closer to the promising reassurance of his very own white picket fence. A magical barrier between him and the grown-up world inhabited by the boys bigger than he is. When she was a little girl, Riley’s mother once told him, she dreamed of having a white picket fence and a garden full of tulips.
Riley is eight and he bursts into the house at top little boy speed. Mom turns towards the sudden thud of the back door against the wall. There is a dripping spoon in one hand. She’s been cooking. Chicken soup, he would guess, by the smell. Riley’s chest heaves and mom fingers stroke the sweaty hair out of his eyes. She traces his cheek with cool, slender fingers and says that he needs a haircut.
Sleepwalker is playing on the radio. Mom loves old songs.
*
"You cut your hair," Riley whispered to her, his hallucination. Buffy crouched over him, beautiful and golden. He remembers watching her lips move although he couldn’t seem to understand what she was saying.
*
Mom brushes the tears from his hot eight year-old cheeks and says he needs to wash his face.
Riley breathes hard and his heart pounds and Michael Troy has stolen his bicycle. He’s been riding without training wheels for two whole weeks and Michael Troy stole his shiny, training-wheel-free bike, perfect for sturdy eight year-old boys.
*
Until he touched her and then the world re-focused and Riley knew that Buffy was real.
He remembers the painful thump in his chest at the sight of her bending over him where he lay sprawled in the corner of the room and suddenly, for a moment, he was ashamed. It was nothing more than a flophouse, really. Not even the back room of some rock and roll club inhabited by the young and the beautiful -- golden, petulant, fashionably jaded children.
Riley tried to sit up and his hand, pressed against the floor to steady the rocking world, came away black with dust.
*
“M-m-my b-b-b-bike,” Riley heaves. His chest rises and falls and he can’t control the struggling breaths that puff their way through his half open mouth. He’s not a baby, but he can’t breathe properly and the world is blurry and shiny.
Mom smiles gently and strokes his cheek. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she says.
*
"Buffy," Riley whispered, his voice thin. He could feel heat rising up over his chest and into his face. His breath came too fast and hard.
She looked sad and thin, more fragile, hazel eyes more tragic than he remembered. "Buffy," he smiled or thought he smiled. Tried to smile. Could imagine his lips curving up, going through the motions, but he's not sure if he actually ever moved.
Riley thought he saw Buffy’s eyes filling with tears or perhaps it was his own eyes - shining liquid glass that make her waver in front of him. He touched her cheek and this time the stretch and pull of his mouth bending into a seldom-used crease made his face ache.
He thought that she might have said his name.
*
“It’s alright, baby. We’ll get you another one.” I’ve got you. Mom smiles. Her gentle, cool fingers slide around to stroke the nape of his neck. The knot in his throat eases just a little but he still can’t quite breathe.
Turns out Thelma Hopkins saw the whole thing from her dining room window. She was shining the silver and heard the ruckus. She wanted to help, but she’s sixty-two and doesn’t get around like she used to.
*
Riley blinked, hard, clearing his eyes. He wasn’t in his mother’s cheery lemon kitchen. Too dark. Not enough windows. Just stained mattresses and a few ratty couches littering a wide room. It smelled of shit and piss, blood and something sweet. Riley missed the chicken soup smell of his mother’s kitchen.
Somewhere, Sleepwalker played on the radio.
When he was eight years old, Michael Troy stole Riley’s bike. Now, it seems that his mother had been stolen as well. But, he remembers thinking, here is Buffy. And that is good. Maybe, better.
“Junkie.” Riley tuned in. The buzzing static abated and the world screamed at him in stereo. A siren wailed somewhere beyond where he sat and an old song was still playing on the radio. He finally noticed the figure hovering behind Buffy.
*
His heart pounded, twisting gut knot. A predator’s sharp, glistening smile. Michael Troy pushed him down and stole his bright, red bicycle.
*
Hostile Seventeen, Riley vaguely recalled. Rival. He remembers thinking that perhaps he should be angry. At the very least, embarrassed. But he wasn‘t. The feeling slipped away before he could really decide if he liked the way it rested in his chest.
*
Eight years old and this is about hurt and pride and legacies. Riley doesn’t realize it yet, but many things are about legacy. His grandfather stares down at him from the mantel above the fireplace, sturdy, jaunty and proud in his silver picture frame.
*
Riley remembers that Spike smiled, languid and feral. His half-lidded eyes stared down at Riley crumpled on the floor like a forgotten rag doll.
Riley saw that sharp, hungry smile and slowly blinked. A lazy, re-focus of the world.
*
He is eight and Michael Troy is standing over him, grinning.
*
Spike smiled fangs and yellow eyes.
Buffy gently touched Riley’s lips, her thumb teasing the slack corners of his mouth.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Spike spoke above them.
Fragile, lost-looking Buffy, with her short hair and tragic eyes, nodded. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered and kissed Riley lightly. She must have cried. He could taste the salt on her lips.
“It’s okay,” Riley thought he might have said.
This wasn’t his mother’s kitchen despite Michael Troy grinning at him from above. This room was dim and cluttered and, he realized, very dirty.
*
“Riley.”
*
Sleepwalker on the radio and worried Mom-eyes stared from a long way off. But, Buffy kept getting in the way.
So, he kissed her. A soft, sipping test and when she didn't pull away or disappear, he dusted soothing, light kisses along the wet curve of her cheek. A brief press of his lips at her temple, on her forehead and then he caught her lips and uneven sigh with the sweep of his tongue. All the while watching Spike (Michael Troy?) stare down at them.
Riley curved one arm around Buffy, tugging her close, the other he offered up, two small holes decorating the inside of his wrist. He could see Spike's eyes widen, his face change as he swooped down. Riley wondered when Michael Troy had become a vampire.
He closed his eyes at the pulling, burning sensation as Spike slid his fangs into the half-healed wounds. Riley squeezed his eyes tight and thrust his tongue into Buffy's mouth, forcing her head back.
*
Riley remembers that it was awkward in the beginning. Spike smirked above them, demandingly superior -- an ice-cold porcelain god. Buffy was tentative, unsure, but mesmerized and Riley wanted her.
Michael Troy stood above them, staring with yellow eyes, and threatened to push Riley down and take her away.
I’m bigger, now, Riley thought. Stronger. Faster. Smarter.
Big enough to protect what was his. To push back. Fight for what he wanted. A shiny, red bike. Buffy. Spike. (Him) Buffy. All of her. (Them) And she came. To bed with him. With them. With the ghost of Michael Troy grinning down at them and Spike smiling against the smooth curve of Riley's back before fitting his fangs into the seeping holes marring the sweep of his shoulder and biting down.
Oldies but goodies, his mom always called them, playing on the radio.
Balanced on his lap, one hand on bare skin, the other smeared with blood, Riley felt Buffy jerk and tighten around him. He made love to her, his thumb pressed against her clit, with Spike's cool shadow chilling his back. He shuddered desperately at the tearing in his shoulder and the pressure in his gut. The heaviness in his chest felt like crying.
Riley remembers that he let his head fall back, turning slightly into Spike’s peroxide scented hair, and that the world spun as he lost himself to the light behind his eyelids. Riley gave into the pounding, inescapable rhythm in his hips like the muted thud of fist against flesh. His breath, thready and shallow like trying to breathe around tears, slowed until he was panting and gasping.
When he came to, Buffy was spilt across him, Spike jerking off over them.
That is what Riley remembers.
*
Now they curve together easily. Spooned. One. Two. Three. Like Russian dolls. Riley mostly pretends to ignore the feeling of cool flesh cuddled against his back until skin breaks and blood spills, then he loses himself in burning, dragging loss.
Pride keeps the tears in check because this hurts like nothing else, but big boys don’t cry. Neither his buddies nor his grandfather would understand.
Spike's tongue snaking between Riley's thighs is a heady sensation like tequila and too much laughter pooling low in his belly - languid restlessness that itches and claws under his too-tight skin. He writhes against the sensation, tickling need that steals his breath. Then cool, wet suction before the acid bite of a blade followed by fangs sinking into the soft flesh above his hipbone.
*
Riley scrapped his elbow when he fell. The bike pedal bit into the soft fleshy part of his sturdy eight-year old calf.
*
Riley stretches away from the pain, balanced on head and heels before falling. He drowns for a moment in a metallic wave of pleasure, flashes of color behind his eyes. It narrows, shrinking concentric circles, into Buffy's small, warm hand moving smoothly over the head of his cock. Short tugs and long strokes that make his hips rise and twitch.
Feels so much better than slender, cool mom fingers stroking his brow. But desperate. Not stoic and strong at all.
Riley seldom looks at them - Buffy kneeling between his legs and Spike. Michael Troy grinning at him with one stubby hand tangled in the white streamers flowing from the handlebars. Grandfather scowling from his place of honor on the mantel.
He can't bring himself to meet their eyes, although sometimes he can't seem to help it. Staring at them through blurry, slightly unfocused eyes, he tells himself that he doesn’t need this. But sex and blood tangle in his head like too much wine and he rides his pleasure frantically.
Riley is ashamed by the way he twitches and twists. Begging, arching, shuddering. Breathing heavy, his mouth slack, hanging open on a wordless cry. Michael Troy has become his archenemy. A hundred years older, although Riley has finally grown taller. Riley doesn’t want to be seen this way, but there’s something about giving up the thrill, the mesmerizing way his heart beats in his veins, the desperate pull of his blood and the heady sensation of Orpheus in his veins that keeps him coming back.
Low light lets him ignore, mostly, the alabaster shadow sprawled at his hip and focus on the warm, living glow of Buffy at his side.
Riley touches her when he can. Curling up to catch the spill of gold around her shoulders or squeeze her fingers while ignoring Spike licking upwards from his knees. Riley reaches out to find the curve of her hip, smooth, and the silky patch of hair between her thighs.
"I love you," Buffy hums. A lie her lips can whisper in moonlit rooms and Riley can believe.
Love for me, he thinks. It is a thought to grasp as Spike ghosts over his body. Spike inhaling him, loving him, consuming him. It is something he can remember when he is eight and lying on hard asphalt, gravel scrapping his elbows and knees.
Buffy shifts, sliding her knees further apart. Light-headed from the sensation of Spike at his hip and Buffy at his cock, Riley dies small deaths. The slick feel of Buffy at his fingertips makes the world spin until he falls apart in her hands.
Their hands.
The drag of Spike in his head, at his veins. Drugged and spinning, arching beneath Buffy, straining. Dying. Lost.
Sometimes, Spike cups Riley's back. Seeking. Pressing. Feeding.
*
Riley and Michael Troy are tangled up on the floor of the boy’s locker room shower. Riley is twelve but he still hasn’t grown as tall as Michael Troy. He has a new bike and Jeannie Sharp passed him a note in homeroom just that morning.
*
Spike pushes steadily into him and it's another way to be eaten alive.
"Buffy," Riley cries insistently before his mind spirals away completely.
Riley wishes that he could say that they tricked him, forced him to submit and not that the first time it happened he was still high on the last vamp he let break the skin along the inside of his arm. Not still mindlessly mesmerized by the heavy beat of his heart.
Every night blood flows and Riley is compelled by the elemental importance of needing and being needed.
His grandfather gazes disapprovingly down from the mantel above the fireplace. Michael Troy, Riley can almost ignore.
In the hazy, languid daylight hours he floats. Lying drowsy in Buffy's bed, Riley slides and stumbles through days at a time, concerned only with the approaching night. He lays curled around Buffy, hugging her naked body close to his and half listens to her stories of paradise.
He murmurs against her hair, platitudes that never quite make it into words. Sometimes Riley dreams of moonlit rooms and shiny, red bicycles. Sometimes, Riley is eight years old and Sleepwalker is playing on the radio in his mother’s bright, yellow kitchen.
Spoilers for BtVS - thru Into the Woods, brief reference to Gone; AtS - Salvage and Orpheus
Like a dream, blurry, fragmented and blue-black, Riley remembers the night they found him.
He sat in a room -- nighttime dark -- littered with bodies, limp and dying, and broken pieces of stained furniture. He recalls that he sat against a wall. In a corner. Riley stared out into the dusky, hazy expanse decorated in peeling wallpaper and the occasional flicker of a dim, swinging light bulb without blinking. His head lolled against the chill, sweating wall at his back, rocking to the gentle cadence of an old song playing somewhere in the near distance.
Kitten-weak and tired, his belly growled irritably over the music and disjointed buzzing that filtered in and out of his head. Light-headed and then Buffy's face gliding past his, doubled and tripled, hazy and far too beautiful to be real. He remembers her steel, far away eyes and the gentle brush of her hand against his brow.
He was startled, for a moment, by the sweep of her fingers, slender and chill. For one, tiny (infinitesimal) moment that seemed to last forever, he was eight years old again. He was eight and he hadn’t grown yet; short, although his grandmother said he was sturdy, convinced that he’d grow into the strapping image of his grandfather that held a place of honor at the center of the mantel over the fireplace.
*
Riley is eight and Michael Troy, two years older and four inches taller pushed him down and took his bike. Michael Troy laughed and rode away, standing up, like all of the big boys do, as he peddled the bike up the road.
Riley is a tough little boy. Like his grandfather. He doesn’t cry in front of his eight year-old friends, just walks home. Stoic. Sturdy. Grandmother would be proud; he thinks and imagines his grandfather, solid, serious and somehow jaunty, leaning against a fighter plane in a black and white photograph on the mantel.
He can see the house from down the block. Eyes burning, Riley laughs and waves to his friends, speeding up his step as he comes closer to the promising reassurance of his very own white picket fence. A magical barrier between him and the grown-up world inhabited by the boys bigger than he is. When she was a little girl, Riley’s mother once told him, she dreamed of having a white picket fence and a garden full of tulips.
Riley is eight and he bursts into the house at top little boy speed. Mom turns towards the sudden thud of the back door against the wall. There is a dripping spoon in one hand. She’s been cooking. Chicken soup, he would guess, by the smell. Riley’s chest heaves and mom fingers stroke the sweaty hair out of his eyes. She traces his cheek with cool, slender fingers and says that he needs a haircut.
Sleepwalker is playing on the radio. Mom loves old songs.
*
"You cut your hair," Riley whispered to her, his hallucination. Buffy crouched over him, beautiful and golden. He remembers watching her lips move although he couldn’t seem to understand what she was saying.
*
Mom brushes the tears from his hot eight year-old cheeks and says he needs to wash his face.
Riley breathes hard and his heart pounds and Michael Troy has stolen his bicycle. He’s been riding without training wheels for two whole weeks and Michael Troy stole his shiny, training-wheel-free bike, perfect for sturdy eight year-old boys.
*
Until he touched her and then the world re-focused and Riley knew that Buffy was real.
He remembers the painful thump in his chest at the sight of her bending over him where he lay sprawled in the corner of the room and suddenly, for a moment, he was ashamed. It was nothing more than a flophouse, really. Not even the back room of some rock and roll club inhabited by the young and the beautiful -- golden, petulant, fashionably jaded children.
Riley tried to sit up and his hand, pressed against the floor to steady the rocking world, came away black with dust.
*
“M-m-my b-b-b-bike,” Riley heaves. His chest rises and falls and he can’t control the struggling breaths that puff their way through his half open mouth. He’s not a baby, but he can’t breathe properly and the world is blurry and shiny.
Mom smiles gently and strokes his cheek. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she says.
*
"Buffy," Riley whispered, his voice thin. He could feel heat rising up over his chest and into his face. His breath came too fast and hard.
She looked sad and thin, more fragile, hazel eyes more tragic than he remembered. "Buffy," he smiled or thought he smiled. Tried to smile. Could imagine his lips curving up, going through the motions, but he's not sure if he actually ever moved.
Riley thought he saw Buffy’s eyes filling with tears or perhaps it was his own eyes - shining liquid glass that make her waver in front of him. He touched her cheek and this time the stretch and pull of his mouth bending into a seldom-used crease made his face ache.
He thought that she might have said his name.
*
“It’s alright, baby. We’ll get you another one.” I’ve got you. Mom smiles. Her gentle, cool fingers slide around to stroke the nape of his neck. The knot in his throat eases just a little but he still can’t quite breathe.
Turns out Thelma Hopkins saw the whole thing from her dining room window. She was shining the silver and heard the ruckus. She wanted to help, but she’s sixty-two and doesn’t get around like she used to.
*
Riley blinked, hard, clearing his eyes. He wasn’t in his mother’s cheery lemon kitchen. Too dark. Not enough windows. Just stained mattresses and a few ratty couches littering a wide room. It smelled of shit and piss, blood and something sweet. Riley missed the chicken soup smell of his mother’s kitchen.
Somewhere, Sleepwalker played on the radio.
When he was eight years old, Michael Troy stole Riley’s bike. Now, it seems that his mother had been stolen as well. But, he remembers thinking, here is Buffy. And that is good. Maybe, better.
“Junkie.” Riley tuned in. The buzzing static abated and the world screamed at him in stereo. A siren wailed somewhere beyond where he sat and an old song was still playing on the radio. He finally noticed the figure hovering behind Buffy.
*
His heart pounded, twisting gut knot. A predator’s sharp, glistening smile. Michael Troy pushed him down and stole his bright, red bicycle.
*
Hostile Seventeen, Riley vaguely recalled. Rival. He remembers thinking that perhaps he should be angry. At the very least, embarrassed. But he wasn‘t. The feeling slipped away before he could really decide if he liked the way it rested in his chest.
*
Eight years old and this is about hurt and pride and legacies. Riley doesn’t realize it yet, but many things are about legacy. His grandfather stares down at him from the mantel above the fireplace, sturdy, jaunty and proud in his silver picture frame.
*
Riley remembers that Spike smiled, languid and feral. His half-lidded eyes stared down at Riley crumpled on the floor like a forgotten rag doll.
Riley saw that sharp, hungry smile and slowly blinked. A lazy, re-focus of the world.
*
He is eight and Michael Troy is standing over him, grinning.
*
Spike smiled fangs and yellow eyes.
Buffy gently touched Riley’s lips, her thumb teasing the slack corners of his mouth.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Spike spoke above them.
Fragile, lost-looking Buffy, with her short hair and tragic eyes, nodded. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered and kissed Riley lightly. She must have cried. He could taste the salt on her lips.
“It’s okay,” Riley thought he might have said.
This wasn’t his mother’s kitchen despite Michael Troy grinning at him from above. This room was dim and cluttered and, he realized, very dirty.
*
“Riley.”
*
Sleepwalker on the radio and worried Mom-eyes stared from a long way off. But, Buffy kept getting in the way.
So, he kissed her. A soft, sipping test and when she didn't pull away or disappear, he dusted soothing, light kisses along the wet curve of her cheek. A brief press of his lips at her temple, on her forehead and then he caught her lips and uneven sigh with the sweep of his tongue. All the while watching Spike (Michael Troy?) stare down at them.
Riley curved one arm around Buffy, tugging her close, the other he offered up, two small holes decorating the inside of his wrist. He could see Spike's eyes widen, his face change as he swooped down. Riley wondered when Michael Troy had become a vampire.
He closed his eyes at the pulling, burning sensation as Spike slid his fangs into the half-healed wounds. Riley squeezed his eyes tight and thrust his tongue into Buffy's mouth, forcing her head back.
*
Riley remembers that it was awkward in the beginning. Spike smirked above them, demandingly superior -- an ice-cold porcelain god. Buffy was tentative, unsure, but mesmerized and Riley wanted her.
Michael Troy stood above them, staring with yellow eyes, and threatened to push Riley down and take her away.
I’m bigger, now, Riley thought. Stronger. Faster. Smarter.
Big enough to protect what was his. To push back. Fight for what he wanted. A shiny, red bike. Buffy. Spike. (Him) Buffy. All of her. (Them) And she came. To bed with him. With them. With the ghost of Michael Troy grinning down at them and Spike smiling against the smooth curve of Riley's back before fitting his fangs into the seeping holes marring the sweep of his shoulder and biting down.
Oldies but goodies, his mom always called them, playing on the radio.
Balanced on his lap, one hand on bare skin, the other smeared with blood, Riley felt Buffy jerk and tighten around him. He made love to her, his thumb pressed against her clit, with Spike's cool shadow chilling his back. He shuddered desperately at the tearing in his shoulder and the pressure in his gut. The heaviness in his chest felt like crying.
Riley remembers that he let his head fall back, turning slightly into Spike’s peroxide scented hair, and that the world spun as he lost himself to the light behind his eyelids. Riley gave into the pounding, inescapable rhythm in his hips like the muted thud of fist against flesh. His breath, thready and shallow like trying to breathe around tears, slowed until he was panting and gasping.
When he came to, Buffy was spilt across him, Spike jerking off over them.
That is what Riley remembers.
*
Now they curve together easily. Spooned. One. Two. Three. Like Russian dolls. Riley mostly pretends to ignore the feeling of cool flesh cuddled against his back until skin breaks and blood spills, then he loses himself in burning, dragging loss.
Pride keeps the tears in check because this hurts like nothing else, but big boys don’t cry. Neither his buddies nor his grandfather would understand.
Spike's tongue snaking between Riley's thighs is a heady sensation like tequila and too much laughter pooling low in his belly - languid restlessness that itches and claws under his too-tight skin. He writhes against the sensation, tickling need that steals his breath. Then cool, wet suction before the acid bite of a blade followed by fangs sinking into the soft flesh above his hipbone.
*
Riley scrapped his elbow when he fell. The bike pedal bit into the soft fleshy part of his sturdy eight-year old calf.
*
Riley stretches away from the pain, balanced on head and heels before falling. He drowns for a moment in a metallic wave of pleasure, flashes of color behind his eyes. It narrows, shrinking concentric circles, into Buffy's small, warm hand moving smoothly over the head of his cock. Short tugs and long strokes that make his hips rise and twitch.
Feels so much better than slender, cool mom fingers stroking his brow. But desperate. Not stoic and strong at all.
Riley seldom looks at them - Buffy kneeling between his legs and Spike. Michael Troy grinning at him with one stubby hand tangled in the white streamers flowing from the handlebars. Grandfather scowling from his place of honor on the mantel.
He can't bring himself to meet their eyes, although sometimes he can't seem to help it. Staring at them through blurry, slightly unfocused eyes, he tells himself that he doesn’t need this. But sex and blood tangle in his head like too much wine and he rides his pleasure frantically.
Riley is ashamed by the way he twitches and twists. Begging, arching, shuddering. Breathing heavy, his mouth slack, hanging open on a wordless cry. Michael Troy has become his archenemy. A hundred years older, although Riley has finally grown taller. Riley doesn’t want to be seen this way, but there’s something about giving up the thrill, the mesmerizing way his heart beats in his veins, the desperate pull of his blood and the heady sensation of Orpheus in his veins that keeps him coming back.
Low light lets him ignore, mostly, the alabaster shadow sprawled at his hip and focus on the warm, living glow of Buffy at his side.
Riley touches her when he can. Curling up to catch the spill of gold around her shoulders or squeeze her fingers while ignoring Spike licking upwards from his knees. Riley reaches out to find the curve of her hip, smooth, and the silky patch of hair between her thighs.
"I love you," Buffy hums. A lie her lips can whisper in moonlit rooms and Riley can believe.
Love for me, he thinks. It is a thought to grasp as Spike ghosts over his body. Spike inhaling him, loving him, consuming him. It is something he can remember when he is eight and lying on hard asphalt, gravel scrapping his elbows and knees.
Buffy shifts, sliding her knees further apart. Light-headed from the sensation of Spike at his hip and Buffy at his cock, Riley dies small deaths. The slick feel of Buffy at his fingertips makes the world spin until he falls apart in her hands.
Their hands.
The drag of Spike in his head, at his veins. Drugged and spinning, arching beneath Buffy, straining. Dying. Lost.
Sometimes, Spike cups Riley's back. Seeking. Pressing. Feeding.
*
Riley and Michael Troy are tangled up on the floor of the boy’s locker room shower. Riley is twelve but he still hasn’t grown as tall as Michael Troy. He has a new bike and Jeannie Sharp passed him a note in homeroom just that morning.
*
Spike pushes steadily into him and it's another way to be eaten alive.
"Buffy," Riley cries insistently before his mind spirals away completely.
Riley wishes that he could say that they tricked him, forced him to submit and not that the first time it happened he was still high on the last vamp he let break the skin along the inside of his arm. Not still mindlessly mesmerized by the heavy beat of his heart.
Every night blood flows and Riley is compelled by the elemental importance of needing and being needed.
His grandfather gazes disapprovingly down from the mantel above the fireplace. Michael Troy, Riley can almost ignore.
In the hazy, languid daylight hours he floats. Lying drowsy in Buffy's bed, Riley slides and stumbles through days at a time, concerned only with the approaching night. He lays curled around Buffy, hugging her naked body close to his and half listens to her stories of paradise.
He murmurs against her hair, platitudes that never quite make it into words. Sometimes Riley dreams of moonlit rooms and shiny, red bicycles. Sometimes, Riley is eight years old and Sleepwalker is playing on the radio in his mother’s bright, yellow kitchen.
no subject
This is so beautiful. The imagery is gorgeous, and the way you string the scenes together gives it this surreal quality. I love it when someone can really get into Riley's head.
no subject
Glad it worked for you. :)
no subject
I'm awed by your insight into the psyches of your characters. Although you don't write in canon, somehow you make their innermost thoughts ... fears, desires ... seem so real and so very them. It's as though you peel away a layer of skin psychologically, showing the most secret parts that should be left in the dark lest we become insane from facing them.
What you reveal of Riley here is poignant and heartwrenching ... I imagine him as he appears in canon, and now I see all this beneath the surface, and I hurt for him.
no subject
I thought about re-writing it to get it closer to what we get to see in the show, but then chucked the idea. Riley, as much as I love him, per the writers, is not a very accessible character for me. The Stealing Sky is the closest I get and it works and doesn't work at the same time. This was just me rubbing off some of the shiny and tearing him down. I wanted to get into the issues dealt with in Season 5 leading up to Into the Woods, but couldn't seem to get there except rather obliquely. I love seeing how far I can drop a character and stil make it somewhat believeable. I'm glad that this came close.
Thanks, sweetness!!
no subject
Ugh. The image that presents is just so insanely surreal and yet simple. I think that's what I loved about this most -the way you presented simple events (past and present) intertwined with really fucked up shit. And I like fucked up shit, so there's that.
I'm a sucker for repitition, of hearkening to past events and their meaning/relation/parallelism to the present and diyzam did this hit my literary kink right there.
Riley doesn’t want to be seen this way, but there’s something about giving up the thrill, the mesmerizing way his heart beats in his veins, the desperate pull of his blood and the heady sensation of Orpheus in his veins that keeps him coming back.
Right there, that's Riley, right there. That passage keeps reminding me of Riley coming off the Government Meds in season four, his attempt to stay clean vs. his desire to be perfect again. That, contrasted w/ the ever strong Buffy leads to weird twists and turns in his character *again* wonderfully brought to light in this.
Oh? And did I mention that it's also hot? 'Cause yeah. Totally.
no subject
Um. Wow.
You know I am reccing a new fic every day this month...and I wanted to rec something of yours that I haven't read...and this is it. It's wonderful (as all your fic is). I love the way you married kid-Riley with adult-Riley. I loved the constant repetition and the way Spike replaces Michael Troy.
And although this might not be canon-Riley...who knows. I mean...clearly the Riley that went to the vamp whores had a hidden darkness that we only saw very briefly. And Spike and Buffy hovering in his subconscious is both believeable and haunting.
The whole story is haunting, really.
Excellent.
no subject
no subject