Work Text:
Spoilers: Through School Hard
Rating:for a couple bad words, violence of the sort shown on BtVS, flower child abuse.
Category: Pastfic/Humor/Lightweight Darkfic
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome. Praise abjectly sought.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Joss, Mutant Enemy, etc., etc., etc. I just let them have all the fun Joss won't. I own nothing except my twisted mind which you really don't want. Please don't sue.
Notes: This fic comes to you courtesy of Fyre's challenge #88 on You Got The Stones?, which reads as follows: "Here's the challenge - Spike learns to drive. That's it. I leave it all to you."
Warning: Character Death
Dedication: To my dear Satan, for proposing this amusing challenge, and, as always, to Rari Coss who makes sure I dot all my i's, and cross all my t's.
Baby, I Can Drive Your Car
By Gileswench
Sullivan County, New York, 1969
Stanley Morris waited nervously in the parking lot of a deserted grocery store. His client had insisted the lesson start after nightfall because he worked late, but Stanley wasn't sure why he'd picked this dangerous, deserted neighborhood. If he hadn't needed the cash to go to the big concert at Yasgur's Farm in a couple weeks, he would never have agreed to this at all. It was going to be a huge happening, if rumor had it right. Everybody was going to be there: Hendrix, The Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Big Brother and the Holding Company, some group called - of all things - Sha Na Na, whatever. It was the place to be, according to all his friends at the head shop and he couldn't afford a ticket.
Then, two nights ago, when he was bemoaning his fate to his friend at the record store, this guy came up to him. The guy was short with pretty long, sandy brown hair and a freaky long-haired chick on his arm. She must have been on something intense, 'cause she didn't seem to be quite there through most of the conversation. Stanley didn't have a problem with that. If he'd had the cash, he'd have been pretty heavily medicated about then, too.
"That your car out front?" the small, but oddly compelling man asked in a funny accent. It was like something out of that My Fair Lady movie his mother had dragged him to a few years ago.
"Uh huh. Hey, man, are you English?"
The man rolled his eyes and his girlfriend's eyes followed some pattern only she could make out on the ceiling.
"Yeah, I'm English, but I speak the language. So, you know how to make that thing go, do you?"
"Yeah, I drive."
"And you need money?"
"Yeah," Stanley said more eagerly. "See, there's this concert..."
"Yeah, yeah, that's great. Well, looks like we have what you might call an I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine situation."
"Huh?"
The man rolled his eyes again and sighed dramatically.
"Look, mate, you need money and I need someone to teach me how to drive. Can I put it any plainer, or would you like little flash cards to help you understand?"
"Flashing lights and flower children," the freaky girl said as she twirled dizzily. "All out in the rain."
"She okay?" Stanley asked. "Did she get a bad batch?"
"Nah, she's always like this. Drusilla, pet," he said a bit sharply, "stop twirling. You're worrying the ponces."
Drusilla stopped in her tracks and pulled her arms tight to her body, her hands curling under her chin. She began to whimper softly. The man pulled her into his arms, hip to hip, and spoke softly to her.
"Now, Dru, luv, don't pout. Spike'll take care of everything, but if you upset them, I'll never learn to drive," he told her in a soft voice. "Now be a good girl, and I'll give you a treat later on."
Drusilla whispered something in his ear, then turned spooky eyes on Stanley's friend behind the counter.
"We'll see, luv," Spike told her. She giggled and clapped then wafted off to another corner of the store. She hummed to herself as her fingers traced one of the psychedelic concert posters on the wall. Spike turned again to Stanley. "So, you teach me to drive, I'll give you a hundred dollars."
"A - a hundred...?" Stanley choked out.
"Not enough?" Spike asked. "Right, then, make it two. Bloody expensive proposition, learning to drive in this country. Will that be enough?" He tucked the bills into Stanley's shirt pocket.
The power of speech temporarily left Stanley. He did, however, manage to nod. Spike gave him the details and gathered up his chick. As they were leaving, Stanley heard Drusilla croon something about mud, bad acid, and the New York Throughway. Stanley didn't pay attention. Not only was he going to the concert, he would have enough bread left over to hold the ultimate party the next time his parents left town.
And so it was that he waited by his car for the strange pair to arrive. He only hoped Drusilla didn't want to learn to drive, too. This was his dad's car.
At last, they arrived. Spike had to redirect Drusilla on the path a few times, but they both made it.
"Well, here we are," Spike said, rubbing his hands together. "So, how do I work one of these -"
"Horseless," Drusilla breathed in wonder, "and so full of power."
"Uh, yeah, right," Stanley stuttered. "So, um, you get in on this side," he told Spike as he opened the drivers' side door.
Spike slid in. Drusilla tried to sit next to him, but Stanley pulled her back. He could have sworn for a moment the girls' face changed. Must have been a trick of the light. Nobody has yellow eyes. When he blinked, there was no sign that anything had even registered in her brain.
"I think you go in the back, pet," Spike told her.
When they were all seated and Stanley had shown Spike how to adjust his seat and the mirrors, Stanley began to explain how to start and stop the car. It had to be another trick of the light - or possibly angles - that Stanley couldn't see either driver or backseat passenger in the mirror.
"Okay, so you have your foot on the clutch, and you put the car in neutral..."
"I thought we wanted to make it go," Spike said evenly, but dangerously. "Neutral...let's just say, it isn't quite my style."
"Switzerland calls herself neutral, though she clothes herself in the white of innocence and blood red," Drusilla crooned, then snapped at the air like a dog taking a bite out of its masters' leg. Then she giggled and smiled in a most disturbing fashion.
"Uh, yeah, I guess," Stanley managed. "Politics really aren't my bag. Anyway, if you don't put it in neutral before you start, you'll screw up the gears and it'll cost you a lot of bread to fix."
Just then, Spike dropped his foot to the gas pedal and took off with a screech and the grind of protesting metal.
"Slow down!" Stanley screamed as the wall of the abandoned building loomed closer and closer, "Shit! We're gonna die!"
Spike took his foot off the gas and skidded to a stop.
"Well," he said comfortingly "you might get luckier in your next life. Be something for once instead of a brainless junkie living concert to concert in your parents' basement. If I was you, I'd be in a bit more of a hurry to get to the next Karmic step."
Stanley didn't answer. He was too busy watching his life flash before his eyes. It didn't take long. Not much had happened in it.
When his heart stopped pounding like the timpani Drusilla was comparing it to from the backseat, Stanley tried again. He explained slowly and carefully about how to handle the car safely, just the way his father had taught him. Unfortunately, Spike didn't seem to care much for details or caution. It was like he didn't care if he crashed, or if he got his whacko girlfriend killed in the process. Not that she seemed to care much either. She egged him on in every dangerous maneuver with clapping and shouts of delight and strange pronouncements that it was just like some carriage ride they'd taken in Vienna at New Year's.
Stanley got the impression that that little jaunt had ended with an impressive casualty list.
And she couldn't really have meant it when she set the date at sixty years ago. It had to be drugs. Maybe an acid flashback.
That had to be it.
The whole experience was beginning to feel like one big acid flashback, except Stanley hadn't done any acid. He'd seen too many people freak out on that shit. He preferred pot, maybe a little upper once in a while. He'd even tried peyote. That was pretty cool. But mainly pot. You knew where you were with pot. You saw pretty colors and went nicely mellow. Nobody he knew had ever tried to fly on Mary Jane. Stanley wanted to go back to his nice, safe, pot-smoking world. He really didn't like this electric Kool Aid acid trip he was on. It wasn't worth it, even to get to the concert. He began to babble about Max Yasgur's farm and Ten Years After and Canned Heat and all the flower people who would be there and a weekend of love, laughter and rock music.
Spike cocked his scarred eyebrow at Stanley.
"Sounds like some fun. Maybe me and Dru'll go to that. But we'll need a car, won't we?"
"Look, don't take this the wrong way," Stanley said, "but I don't think you and driving are a good combination, man. You're gonna get someone killed if you drive. Just...take the bus, will you?!"
Spike drew himself up in the drivers' seat. His expression was wounded.
"Dru," he said in an unsettling voice, "I don't think Stanley here is enjoying the lesson. I think he's a very bad teacher."
"Bad teacher," Drusilla scolded from the backseat. "He needs a lesson of his own, Spike. A very firm lesson." She made a sound like a whip cracking and grinned wickedly.
"I think you're right, pet," Spike agreed. "Would you like a nice treat, luv?"
"Oh man, I knew it!" Stanley whined. "Look, this isn't even my car. My dad'll kill me if I let it get stolen."
"No problem," Spike said. "He'll never get the chance."
Stanley screamed as he felt something sharp rip into the flesh of his throat. It was the last sound he made. Drusilla drank deeply until Stanley was dry. Spike leaned across the seat and opened the passenger side door. He kicked Stanley's body out onto the blacktop. Drusilla giggled and licked her fingers.
"Oh, almost forgot!" Spike exclaimed. He got out of the car and walked around to the body. He reached into Stanley's pocket and pulled out the pothead's wallet. "Bugger! He already spent some of the money. Oh well, at least he didn't spend it all."
Spike pulled out the remaining cash and two concert tickets.
"Princess?" he called to Drusilla. "Care to stick around New York long enough to see this concert? Might be a good snack or two if it's a big enough do. 'Sides, The Who will be there. Might see some good destruction with them onstage."
"The Moon will destroy," she crooned, "and there shall be chaos throughout the land."
"That's right, pet. Keith Moon. I know you like him."
"And shall we ride the wondrous chariot, my Spike?"
Her lover turned and inspected the brown DeSoto. It seemed pretty good, now he had a chance to really look at it.
"Yeah, why not? Stanley here spent my money, I take his car. Fair's fair. But we'd better change the plates so no one recognizes it. A lick of paint'd be a good idea, too. What color do you want, my dark princess?"
"Black, my Spike. Black like your heart."
"And if we do the windscreen to match, we can drive in the day as well. Bloody hell, I should have learned to drive years ago!"
THE END