No Room at the
Inn
Author: Ares
PG 13
Summary: It’s not the first Christmas,
Holy, he’s not, and he knows he isn’t wise. A traveller’s tale.
*
Sunrise was an hour away and he
hadn’t found a place to rest. He sighed, and his hands clenched about the
steering wheel when he thought about another day spent in the trunk of his car.
It had been his bed a day or two, and it would be nice not to be curled up
tight with a tyre iron for company. A shower would also be welcome. The road
disappeared under his wheels and ran behind him into the chasing dawn. He
ignored the wind as it whistled past his ears. It played with hair too gelled
to give a damn and whipped away in disgust.
The horizon stretched into
infinity and for hours the Milky Way had sat bright before him, its carpet of light
so close, he felt if he lifted his hand he could touch its heavenly weave. He
listened to the car purring its delight as its tyres caressed the concrete
ribbon. The road he travelled was long, and it ran through a desert deep. There
wasn’t another soul for miles. It was lonely out here in the crisp cool night,
and yet, even alone, he didn’t feel so. There was beauty all around if one
bothered to look. He took the time and savoured the emptiness of the stark
countryside. He was used to the bright lights of the city, had come to terms
with the teeming mass of humanity, but he came from a time and a place that had
no technology, that counted people in their hundreds, and nature was a part of
everyday life.
The stars were beginning to fade
and a purple hue had begun colour the night sky. It was time to bed down for
the day. And just when he was beginning to think about pulling off the road, a
brightness shone in the near distance. Neon blue, it drew him onwards, leading
him as if he were one of the Three Wise Men and it was the star of Bethlehem.
Only he wasn’t a man, or wise. He caught sight of the sign, The Stellar Motel.
The roadhouse sat desolate and isolated by the side of the road. Peeling paint
and pitted doors told of a harsh life spent in the desert: sand, wind, and sun
scouring the landscape and everything in it. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes
stood silent outside the small row of rooms. It looked as if the decrepit motel
was brimming with travellers.
He pulled in and parked outside
the reception area. He wrestled the top on to shelter the leather from the
coming sun, and hurried inside.
A dry husk of a man sat behind the
desk and when he rapped on the counter, the old man’s rheumy eyes glanced away
from the television and looked up at him.
His voice was as dry and as thin
as his skin. “Full up. You have to find another place to stay.”
“I need to sleep, been driving all
night,” the vampire said, adding just the right touch of pleading to entice the
greed in the man.
Avarice flickered to life in the
old man’s eyes. His tongue tried in vain to work moisture into his weathered
lips as he considered how much he could charge this weary traveller.
“The workshop is empty. You can
kip down in there. Twenty bucks.”
With no time to haggle, Angel dropped
a twenty on the counter and made his way back to his car. He drove down to the
gas pumps beside which a garage sat. It too was peeling and weathered, and when
he opened the doors he found another old classic taking all the room inside.
Sighing, he abandoned his car to the rising sun and closed the doors behind him
with just a few minutes to spare. The old Chevy needed paint, and wheels, and
most likely everything else, but what it did have was a good wide seat across
the back. Oh good, he thought, another day in a car. The leather seat looked
comfier by far than the oil-stained floor, so he settled down and was soon
asleep.
He opened his eyes to the sight of
tanned fingers wrapped around a polystyrene cup.
“Hello, sleepyhead.”
It was Buffy peering in through
the car door.
He grunted, not quite believing
his eyes.
She waggled the cup at him,
offering it. He unfurled and sat upright to take the coffee.
“Thanks,” he managed to mumble.
He saw her golden head turn to survey
the surrounds. Her smile was dazzling when she turned it on him.
“No room at the inn,” she
chuckled.
He ignored her inference. He
wasn’t that old, or Holy.
“How?” was what he said.
“When you didn’t show, I got
worried. “ She frowned then. “Would it kill you to use your phone?”
He shrugged. “No signal.”
She disappeared from his sight. He
heard a click and then the hum of a dial tone.
“This works,” she scolded out of
view.
“Sorry.” He hadn’t thought to look
for a phone. Hadn’t expected anything to work in this sorry place.
She came back and leaned her
elbows on a door that no longer had glass for the window.
“So I came looking. Saw your boat
of a car outside, and here I am.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Don’t be, and drink your coffee,”
she ordered.
He decided caffeine would help him
wake up, and in dealing with Buffy he needed his wits about him, so he did as
he was told. She finished her drink and threw the empty cup into a rusty bin.
She said, “So, what do we do now?”
Angel didn’t know it but the quirk
of his lips set her heart a flutter. He was her Angel but when that smirk
graced his mouth, the devil in him drew her like a moth to a flame. A fire
ignited low in her belly. She climbed into the back and sat on his lap. She
ground herself against him hard, as he was.
“I’ve never made out in the back
seat of a Chevy,” she breathed, her lips grazing his, her eyes green pools of
desire.
His dark eyes mirrored the lust in
hers. Angel devoured her lips and just when she thought she would pass out from
lack of air, he released her mouth and started peppering soft kisses down her
neck.
“There’s a first time for
everything,” she heard him murmur. The movement of his mouth against the
furnace of her skin drove all other thoughts from her mind.
This was as good a place as any to
start the holiday season.
The End
Merry Christmas
December 2006.