Involuntary Bodies
by
Anna S
Part Seven
After wishing Dawn good night, Xander went to his own room. On the foot
of the bed were two piles of his clothes, neatly laundered and folded.
It made him think of his mother; he hadn't talked to her in weeks. He
had reasons to call, questions about property taxes and water heaters,
but was afraid he might say the wrong thing and puncture the illusion
that Buffy was still in residence. They had to keep that illusion alive
as long as possible.
Thoughts swirled and connected in the back of Xander's mind as he went
through the motions of getting ready for bed, and after his shower he
went downstairs again, then into the basement. He gave a cursory rap
against the banister as he descended the steps, then briefly stopped as
he spotted Spike across the room, sitting on the floor, back to the
wall, pose bringing to mind the night he got his soul back. It was a
moment before Xander's feet moved again.
Spike's head lifted at his approach. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just came down to see how you were doing." He took in the
bare concrete, the cot, the forty-watt lamp sitting on a box. "We need
to get some more furniture down here."
"It's all right." The words were low, almost a slur of tiredness, the kind of tired you get from existing too long.
Looking around, Xander spotted a wooden chair and brought it over.
"Government regulations require you to be at least thirty-six inches
off the ground when brooding."
"It's better down here." Spike pressed one hand flat against the cold floor and studied it. "Closer to the crimes."
Xander sat on the chair himself. "Glad to see you're not letting the creepiness get to you."
They shared silence for a moment, and then from upstairs a toilet
flushed and the habitrail of pipes bisecting the basement sang and
shuddered overhead.
"That worries me a bit," Xander said, looking up.
The vampire followed his gaze. "What's that?"
"Debris in the pipes, maybe." He looked back down. "The surest way to financial ruin is through the plumbing."
"Or the roof."
Startled by this knowledgeable observation, Xander nodded with tacit
respect. Another wordless pause grew like a bubble before he broke it.
"It's not too cold down here, is it?" He was reaching a bit, for
conversation's sake; he seemed to recall asking that same question two
days ago.
"No."
"Look," he said abruptly, scratching his jaw. "I don't want this to be
weird, but I have to ask you something." A wary expression came into
Spike's face but he tipped his head in what Xander took as an
invitation to continue. "How much do you know about programming that
thing?"
They looked over as one toward the robot Buffy, which was eerily
balanced upright on both feet among storage boxes containing the random
junk from the magic shop Anya hadn't wanted to keep. Someone--probably
Spike--had draped a gauzy scarf over its head, hiding the face.
"Nothing. I didn't--I just told the boy what I wanted." He sounded
heavy with self-loathing at the memory, and Xander almost regretted
asking, but there were still gaps in his sympathy for Spike and this
was one of them.
"Warren. Yeah. I don't really want to involve him if I can avoid it. I don't want anyone guessing that Buffy's gone."
"Suspect it hasn't gone unnoticed."
Xander met his gaze. "It's not demons I'm worried about." After a
moment, he sighed and stood, absently repositioning the chair as if
there were some magical angle that would give this corner of the
basement a homier feel. It had already occurred to him how strange it
was, this tidy reversal of fortune: Spike tucked away in basement digs,
while he lived above in a proper house. It seemed like every way he
turned lately, he took on an unsettling resemblance to his dad.
"Good night," he said, then glanced at the cot's unwrinkled sheets and blanket. "Don't sleep on the floor, okay?"
Xander left, not certain Spike would heed him, or even that he'd heard
him, but there were only so many worries that fit his schedule before
bedtime, and this was one too many.
Part Eight
The beauty part of Saturday mornings had always been lying in bed while
other people did stuff, like bringing shirts to the dry cleaners and
mowing the lawn and cleaning out gutters, and if you were young and
lucky enough, making you pancakes.
Xander wasn't young anymore, and wasn't certain he'd ever been lucky,
so he savored bed for about five minutes, listening to the rising buzz
of Dawn's voice from the kitchen and inhaling bacon at too great a
distance, before getting up and heading down, leaving rooms of open
summer brilliance for the shaded dimness of the lower floor. It was
like descending into a cool well.
In the kitchen, it was Dawn cooking. Spike sat at the table,
spoonfeeding oatmeal to Tara, who looked surprisingly happy and more
cooperative than she'd ever been with either of them.
"That's not bad, is it, love, with all the raisins gone." Spike was
operating somewhere between murmur and croon, one arm laid across the
back of her chair.
"Old women," Tara confided to him, enthusiasm crossing into worry. "And the cancer."
"Yeah, I know." And Spike sounded as if he did. "It's a terrible thing." He gave her another spoonful.
"I can't get the bacon right," Dawn complained, holding up a limp piece
on a fork over the sizzling fat. "It's either noodly or burnt. Mom
always got it perfect."
Xander poured a cup of coffee, wishing for one of those café
mugs big as his head. "The secret of good bacon is to have the Denny's
waitress bring it to you."
"Grrrr."
"Or you could try microwaving it," he added. He collected milk and
cereal and brought them to the table. Someone had already set a place
for him, just visible under layers of scattered newspaper. As he worked
his way through his cereal and the movie reviews, he glanced now and
then at Tara. The sight of her like this made him ache, as if someone
had sunk their hands deep into his belly and was twisting his guts into
balloon animals. With Spike around to take over her care, it would be
easy to leave all the thinking and worrying to him, to let his own mind
slide off the problem, the way you let your eyes slide away from
someone with burn scars or no legs. He couldn't let himself do that; it
would eat at him either way, so he might as well choose the way in
which he was least a bastard.
"Hey, Tara. How's it going this morning?" He put down his paper and gave her a smile.
Distracted from the rather goopy look of adoration she'd been giving
Spike, she gazed over at him doubtfully and then a flash of old
authority firmed her expression. "She ate almonds--but for you, ginseng
and daisies."
"Please don't eat the daisies," Dawn advised sassily, sliding a plate of bacon under his arm.
He exchanged a look with Spike, who seemed untroubled by nonsense.
"You're a smart one, aren't you, pet." As he took her bowl away, she
gave an anxious little whine. "Nah, you've finished it all, see? Here,
give that a scrub." He left her diligently polishing her spoon with a
napkin and a frown of concentration. Xander marveled.
"You're good with her," he said.
"She's the good one. I'm just with her."
That conversational route seemed to call for a full stop and left turn. "Do you think she's up for the mall?"
"Mall!" Dawn pealed, her face blossoming into open anticipation. "Can we go to the movies?"
"I offer you the deluxe movie-pretzel-shopping-arcade-taco package, with optional aquamassage."
With a noise pitched for dolphins, she ran from the room. "I'm getting
dressed," she called back unnecessarily from a point somewhere half up
the stairs.
"You in?" he asked Spike, who was clearing the breakfast debris away.
"You sure?"
"I know it's this whole flaming blanket thing for you, but we'll try to make it worthwhile."
After a nod from Spike, an hour of dithering, and an only slightly
crispy car ride, they pulled into underground parking, and parked among
an armored calvary of SUVs. When they got out, Spike paused for a
moment, head lifted like a bird dog scenting game, but he didn't say
anything and with the others in mind, Xander didn't either until they
reached the mall floor. The girls were walking ahead, Dawn guiding Tara
through the bumper-car traffic of strollers and motorized wheelchairs.
"You get a line on something in the garage?"
Spike shrugged. "Maybe. Tunnel entrances down there. Mall's a favorite hang-out for vamps."
"Buffy used to say that whenever she wanted to defend all her shopping
trips," Xander mused. "None of us ever really believed her."
"Oh yeah. Underground access, indirect sunlight, Eddie Bauer." Spike
sidestepped a sticky three year old on a leash. "And all the stray
toddlers you can--" He broke off so suddenly that Xander thought he'd
spotted someone, then noticed the boomerang tension of his jawline.
"Come on." He gave Spike a light but manly clap on the back and they
caught up to where Dawn was examining a jewelry kiosk, Tara in tow.
"Okay, troops. We need a plan."
Dawn hooked one leg around the other and stood poised like a stork,
while plucking something from her jeans pocket. "My plan involves
Buffy's gold card and several shoe stores," she said with an air of
satisfaction, wiggling the card from side to side.
Just as deftly, Xander plucked it from her and stuck it in his own
pocket, ignoring her squeak of protest. "As the custodian of all things
plastic, I authorize one pair of shoes, not to exceed the low double
digits."
"Hmmph. If you were a demon, you'd be, like, a fun-sucker," she decided, then looked floorward. "Spike needs shoes too."
"Nah," Spike began, but Xander rolled over this denial.
"Spike needs many things, the operative word being 'need.' You and I
live in the land of 'want,' so let's try to keep our heads attached to
our wallets."
"Oh my god, you sound just like my mom," Dawn said in amazement.
Tara gave a sharp cry of distress that knifed through the conversation
and turned nearby heads. Instinctively they became a defensive huddle
and tried to soothe her, but she wouldn't calm until Spike slipped a
quarter into her hand and urged her to hold onto it for him. She ducked
her head and pressed closer to his side, fisting the coin tightly
against her chest. They stuck together without further discussion,
letting the current of people carry them further down the storefronts,
stopping now and then and gradually accumulating a collection of bags.
It was an interesting challenge getting Spike to try on clothes while
keeping him away from mirrors, or at least from other people who might
notice the gaping lack of Spike in those mirrors. After about an hour
of this, the vampire wore a long-suffering look, broken once by a spasm
of alarm when Dawn began rummaging through a bin of men's boxer-briefs.
He was spending half his energy trying to refuse clothes and the other
half keeping Tara in hand, until Xander finally took pity on him and
declared it was time to visit the food court.
"You hanging in there?" he asked Spike while Dawn bounded off like a
gazelle toward the pizza counter, leaving them to grab a table.
Spike settled into a plastic chair, looking steamrollered. "Like a worm on a hook."
"Great. After this, I've been given to understand we're shopping for
bras." He flashed a brief smile as Spike's eyes went glassy. "You'll be
earning back some karmic brownie points today."
Part Nine
Xander sometimes wondered if traces of magic lingered even after a
spell was broken; he'd asked Giles this question once and received a
woolly spiel of an answer that, once stripped of its Latin, seemed to
untangle to: no, and sometimes yes. The sometimes yes confirmed the
fleeting twitch of hyena he felt now and then, along with the muscle
memory he had of basic training and parachute jumps. He also suspected
that despite all of Willow's assurances, her will-be-done spell had
left him with a permanent demon-magnetic hangover. This could be the
only explanation for why, of all the hundreds of people in the
Sunnydale Community Mall, his troop was singled out for a snack attack
from vampire mall rats.
The pack hit from both sides as they were coming off the elevator into
the parking garage, and the acoustically receptive walls immediately
caught and bounced Dawn's shrieks and Tara's screams in every
direction. A blur of skanky satin shoved Dawn against him; for several
confused moments he was trapped behind the pinwheel of whirling
shopping bags she wielded against their attackers. In the time it took
him to get his own hands free and his hair from his eyes, it was half
over. A blast of dust smacked his left cheek and a blink later the
annoying growl to his right was cut short.
The two vamps still standing, skank in white satin and a bozo in black
leather who had to be her dead dumb boyfriend, confronted Spike with
astonished expressions.
"Dude," said the guy. In a valley accent worthy of the great Spicoli,
he managed to drag a few extra syllables from the word. "Chill with the
killitude. It's not like you need three bags full. Share the wealth,
man--we'll stand the beers."
Spike slammed a stake through his chest and dragged it sideways through
his disintegrating ribs to land smack between his girlfriend's breasts
while she was still crying, "Daaaaaaaave!" In moments they were both
gone.
"Tara." Dawn took hold of the older girl's arms. "Shhhh. It's okay. It's all over."
"Well, I was wondering if you'd kept your edge," Xander said to Spike,
whose arm was slowly lowering. He took a step closer, bent to gather
the contents of a tumbled bag, then straightened. "I guess now we--"
Whatever he'd been saying evaporated as Spike turned. He'd staked
himself with a shocking quietness, and the results didn't make sense.
The wood disappearing into his chest might have been a novelty gag, but
his hand still gripped the end tightly, holding it steady as blood
began seeping into his shirt. He stared at Xander, agonized, clearly
waiting for a death that wasn't coming. He'd missed the heart, and
after a moment this understanding seemed to sink in, an even deeper
pain than the wound.
"What the--Spike!" The vampire was stumbling into him, sagging, and it took all Xander's strength to lower him to the ground.
"Edge is a bit dull." Spike grimaced. "Used to know...just where to
aim...so I'd know where not to." His faced looked creased with anger,
as if someone else had done this to him and he was seething for
payback, but after he spoke he closed his eyes and gave into raw,
hopeless, hitching tears.
Confounded and at a loss for what to do next--pull the stake out? help
him to the car? pat his shoulder?--Xander knelt there next to him and
waffled. "Look, should I--I'm going to get this out." Behind him, Tara
had begun wailing again despite Dawn's comforting noises, but he
ignored all this fuss and edged Spike's hand aside to grip the stake.
Thinking of all the tricks his mother used to pull when he got shots,
he said, "This will probably hurt. Just count to five and it'll be
over."
Spike, stone face forced, set his jaw and muttered, "One--owww!
Bloody hell!" His exclamation was followed by a long groan. It was a
resigned sound, the kind a normal, human guy might make when waking up
from an ill-considered binge.
"You know--and I say this kindly--I used to think Buffy was a drama queen." Xander helped Spike to his feet.
"Sorry," Spike sighed, as he leaned hunched and bleeding on Xander for
support. "Poor impulse control." The joke didn't sound at all like a
joke; there was a bleakness to his tone and he looked weary.
"We need to get Tara home," Dawn said, her urgency carrying the force of a command.
Somehow Xander got the car around and everyone into it without drawing
the attention of security guards or rubberneckers. In the front seat
next to him, Spike slumped; in the back, Tara rocked in place and Dawn
began singing something too softly for Xander to make out the words. As
they re-entered the outside world, he felt a headache coming on. But at
least they all had new socks.
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