Sidelines
by
Anna S
5 Moist and Delicious
Strange to be sitting at a real dinner table with a cloth and silverware and plates that would break if you dropped them. The spaghetti wasn't bad either, other than the strange crunchy things, and those you could pick out. He noticed Willow discreetly draw one from her mouth and deposit it on the edge of her plate, nudging it under a piece of bread.
"This is great, Buffy." Willow lifted another forkful of pasta and smiled.
"Oh good. I wasn't sure. I couldn't find mom's recipe, and I tried to call her but she wasn't in the hotel. Then the box of macaroni fell in just as I was finishing the sauce..."
Everyone looked down at their plate, forks held midway to mouths with sudden pause.
"Tasty," Xander said generously, and managed to get down another crunchy mouthful, complete with uncooked noodles.
"So, er, as I was saying." Giles, giving the appearance of someone very much done with eating, took a sip of wine. "I think you should continue patrolling with the, the squad," the word was mouthed distinctly, "and continue trying to find as much information as you can about this 314."
"So 'Maggie' didn't fall for your little plan, Giles?" Xander toned down his smirk.
"N-not as such, no. In point of fact, she drank me under the table." He sounded embarrassed and faintly disgusted to confess this.
"Whaaat? Whoever heard of a watcher losing the all-you-can-drink race? I thought you guys got diplomas in that."
"Only an honorary one. More of a joke, really."
From the mild, acerbic tone of voice Xander couldn't entirely tell if he was joking now. He shook his head. "I suppose all legends must come to an end."
"I'm not dead, thank you." Exasperated, Giles stood, preparing to clear his place.
"No!" Buffy jumped up and slapped his hand away lightly as she took his plate and silverware. "I'm the hostess. The kitchen is off-limits...and, um, you might get hurt. I kind of had to do battle with the refrigerator. But--but it attacked first!" At their amused faces, she groaned pitiably to herself. "I'm going to be cleaning until mom's back."
A little while later they were sitting in the living room with some movie flickering unwatched on the television. Giles and Willow held coffee; Buffy played restlessly with the hem of her skirt. They were all talking, perfectly normal, and then gradually Xander realized they weren't. He dragged his gaze from the TV and looked around to find everyone staring quietly at him.
"If I've turned into a horned demon," he said blandly, "I hope you won't be afraid to tell me." Inside, heartbeat accelerating, he fought down the unnerved sense of his own impending doom.
"We thought perhaps there was something you'd care to share with us." Giles was calm, eyes steady on him.
It isn't hard to sustain a complex lie if you apply yourself. Call your friends before they call you, tell them your phone line had been taken away--tell them not to come by the house because your parents are having troubles. Ask them to reach you at work if it's important.
"I saw your mom in town yesterday," Willow said. "Why didn't you say anything?" Her face was hurt, her voice plaintive and confused.
"What did she say?" The words half-stuck in Xander's throat; he had to clear them out.
"Not much, just that you haven't lived at home in weeks. She seemed really upset."
Yeah? thought Xander. Good. Aloud he said, "My parents think I'm gay." Everyone exchanged cautious but meaningful glances that turned his mood slightly more sour.
"Why, er, why would they think that?" Giles asked with a frown of affected confusion, giving Xander a quick glance before discovering a sudden need to clean his glasses.
Well, he always knew he'd have to explain at some point. "Spike came home after screwing some truly skanky-smelling demon chick and it was all over his clothes so I made him take them off to wash, and he went upstairs in my pants with no shirt, covered in love-bites, and he stole a beer from the fridge and said hi to my dad as he passed. Oh, and he happened to mention that I owed him some money, which needless to say was not for hot gay sex, but that's the part he didn't happen to mention." Xander took a steadying breath as the memory threatened to wig him the fuck out all over again. "And then scenes of great tawdriness and humiliation ensued."
"Oh, Xander." Giles put his glasses back on, his voice gentling and deepening to a concerned intimacy that made Xander's shoulders hunch in resistance. "I am so very sorry."
"Xander, I'm going to tear his ass to strips for you." Buffy stood angrily. "As soon as I find him, one vampire, no skin."
Willow frowned doubtfully between her and Xander. "Buffy, I don't think that's going to solve the problem this time."
"Yeah, but it'll be damn fun, though."
Giles's own frown skipped off her with authoritative reproof. "Buffy." He focused on Xander. "Your parents--they kicked you out for this?" A cold, un-Gilesian fury seemed to be surfacing behind his mild-mannered facade. Hello, Ripper.
"My dad? Not embracing the idea of a live gay son."
"Perhaps if I speak to him--"
"You're missing the point, Giles," Buffy said irritably. "Xander's not gay."
"Well," Xander said. And let that lie there. The others tuned into him wordlessly one by one, each clocking in on a slight delay.
"Oh." Willow's brows lifted. No real surprise.
"Oh," echoed Giles, and he cocked his head like a bird, reminding Xander strangely of Spike. He kindly re-established a degree of distance behind his glasses, but there was no surprise in his eyes either.
Buffy, however, akimbo and slightly anxious, wasn't willing to assimilate this new information yet. "No, Xander, don't let this get to you. It's all just a stupid misunderstanding. Your dad, he saw this thing and, and he thought one thing, because with the pants and the love-bites, and of course--but it was another thing. I'm sure if you give him time to cool down--"
"Look. I just...I don't know what I am. I just know I've been thinking about things. But it doesn't matter. It's done. I'm nineteen years old. It was time for me to move out, anyway."
"Where are you living?" Willow's elastic face was eager for news, and she smiled, ready for the news to be good. "Do you have your own apartment? Oh, do you have roommates? Are they cool? Are they in a band? Do you like, stay up all night with them jammin' and talking about philosophy, then go out for pancakes at the crack of dawn?"
"Man, you're uncanny," Xander said with a gloss of admiration.
More questions were asked about his new place, most of which he successfully evaded until Giles sensed his discomfort and came to the rescue, redirecting the chatter to other, idler topics. And as they were leaving, he drew Xander aside.
"If you need a place to stay--" He let the offer hang, hesitant and very formal, with a hundred things left unsaid.
"Uh, no. Thanks. I'm good."
"I'm glad--well, I'm glad to see you falling on your feet. I wish it didn't have to be so. Parents rarely understand their children, but are capable of much cruelty when they do."
Wow. Deep. Xander nodded and swallowed. "Thanks," he repeated.
"You know where I am if you need anything." Giles's gaze bored through Xander's head, and for a horrible moment, Xander imagined he could see right inside.
"Yeah. Thanks." Man, he was as articulate as cheese tonight.
"Xander." Giles's voice was gentle, quizzical. "You do know I consider you a friend?"
Then there was very British hugging, and a mercifully amnesiac fade to black.
6 And Again with the Sorry
The dance floor was crowded that night, which was as good an excuse as any to stay at the table. Xander Harris, eternal voyeur, watched Buffy and Riley dance. Well, he watched Buffy dance, anyway. You couldn't really call what Riley was doing dancing.
"That man is so white he could single-handedly bring about the fall of disco," he remarked. "Which is maybe not a bad thing, unless it's replaced with that." He nodded pointedly at the half-hearted shuffles being enacted.
"You're not being fair," Willow said in his defense. "Maybe he has a sprain."
"I'm going to the powder room." Anya stood up. "Willow, would you like to come with me?"
"No, I'm okay."
Anya was trying too hard, her smile cracking with the effort. "Are you sure? Women often go in groups and share grooming tips. I could show you how to apply eyeshadow to make your eyes look less protuberant."
Self-consciously, Willow lifted a hand to the side of her face. "My eyes?" she repeated, voice higher in pitch.
Some sense of faux pas seemed to penetrate Anya's consciousness. "Well, if you need me, that's where I'll be." She hesitated a moment longer, then shimmied off.
Willow turned to him immediately. "So when are you going to tell her you're gay?"
"Maybe gay," Xander clarified. "And I haven't gotten up the nerve yet. She's so--" He groped for a word.
"Annoying?"
"No--"
"Psychotic?"
"I was going to say clingy." He gave her his reproving 'bad dog' look. "She's not that bad, once you get to know her." And have sex with her. "Of course, she's stranger the more you get to know her. I've learned things about the vengeance business that will ensure I never, ever insult the size of a woman's derriere again."
Willow frowned worriedly. "Do you think she'll get all vengeance-y when you break up with her?"
"You know, I can honestly say I haven't thought about it--more than, oh, two or three thousand times."
"She better not mess with you," Willow said, projecting an air of danger Xander suspected was only half-mock. "I may not be able to de-rat Amy, but I'm pretty sure I can rat her."
"Hey." Xander spotted a familiar face by the side entrance. "Isn't that your friend?"
"Oh!" Willow straightened in her seat and waved energetically. "Tara!"
Tara caught sight of them and waved back, then began to ease her way through the crowd, drawing in her shoulders and apologizing to everyone she bumped even when they didn't notice her. She reached the table looking cheek-flushed and shy, and shrugged out of her coat before taking a seat. "Sorry I'm late," she said.
"No, we just got here." Willow invited Xander's agreement with a glance. "Didn't we?"
He nodded while Tara made relieved noises. Girlish chatter followed, then Anya came back and Xander found himself surrounded on all sides by womanflesh. It wasn't a bad place to be and he chimed in now and then on the conversation, but he was getting that restless feeling. Like would it be so strange if he hit on some guy for a game of pool, and what if he just hit on some guy? It was too weird, because he could picture dancing with a guy. And more. But not here, in front of his friends. He'd feel like a dork. He'd had crushes on Willow and Buffy, thought about sex with them. He'd tried so hard and now they'd know that, they'd get that he'd been trying, playing to his strengths and not his weaknesses--because he liked women okay, found them sexy. The other thing, he'd always been sure he could overcome that. Only now that he didn't have to worry about his dad anymore, now that his bridges were unintentionally burnt....
Why try so hard?
"We've got trouble," Buffy said, coming breathlessly up to the table. "Big vamp--" She noticed Tara. "Vampy chicks. Big, big gang of them on the dance floor, hitting on all the guys. Hussies." Widening her eyes meaningfully at her posse, she conveyed slayer-in-need.
"Hey, Buffy." Willow smiled meaningfully back, brows aloft. "You remember Tara? She's a witch and, um, she knows about vampires."
"Oh." Robbed of intrigue, Buffy looked deflated and then relieved. "Great--want to help us kill some?"
It was nearly overkill--a slayer, a commando, two witches, and one brassy ex-demon with a heavy purse. And Xander, of course, who dusted one vamp only to find himself knocked to the ground and heavily sat on by another. The vampire, not obeying its racial imperative, throttled him instead of biting, banging Xander's head repeatedly against the ground. Another near-death experience, he was telling himself, and then the vamp was wrenched off him with slayer strength and tossed into the alley wall.
"Are you okay?" Anya helped him up, brushing off his clothes. "I hate when they hurt your head. Skulls can dent, you know, and then you'd be lopsided."
"Yes, and my secret fear is asymmetry." Xander raised his head and was splashed in the face with dust as Buffy's final victim exploded in front of him.
"Oops." Buffy winced as he coughed. "Sorry."
"No problem. I'm pretty forgiving when my life has just been saved. Again."
Once back inside, the rest of the evening seemed anti-climactic and broke up early as everyone paired off with casual good-nights. Anya talked incessantly while Xander drove her home, and he welcomed the one-sided distraction, which let him prepare for the moment when he shut off the engine, turned to her and said, "There's something I need to tell you."
He didn't want to hurt her, but he did. She cried, accused, bargained, and challenged him until she ran out of words, and then they sat there in silence staring out the front window of the car, ex-lovers who didn't know how to separate any less messily.
"I'd really like to end this without a case of pustulant boils," Xander said after a while. "But I know you're upset. If you want, maybe just a boil or two. I could probably live with that."
"I should curse you. The very first man I'm with as a newly reborn human, and he turns out to be a--" She broke off, sobbed once, then wailed, "It's not fair! Are you sure it's not me?"
"Of course it's not you. You're...very special."
"But sometimes, when you had trouble, you know--crossing the finish line?"
"Me, all me," he reassured her. Please god, not sex talk. Would no power on earth pry her from his car?
"You always made it good for me," she sniffled, sounding tenderized by the admission.
Xander, feeling vaguely like a gigolo, shifted in his seat and decided he had nothing to say to that.
"I won't be friends with you though." Anya lifted her chin haughtily, regathering her dignity and anger. "It would violate every principle I stand for. Stood for. You'll have to live knowing you've caused me great pain and, yes, heartbreak." He hung his head and grimly waited her out as she opened the car door, but she paused to look over her shoulder at him. "I don't know why you think you have to be gay. Take my word on it: you're very good at being a man." And on those bitter words she left him, slamming the door behind her.
7 A Room with an Honor Bar
Climbing the stairs, Xander felt a tiny bite of apprehension in his gut. It was weird. He felt guilty, almost, for letting time pass and for not checking on Spike. He'd seen the vampire, sure, but not to socialize; only from a distance--Spike spotted briefly on the stoop, boots resting on different steps as he paused to light a cigarette (he was the only person who lit up before he entered a building); Spike drifting off into the shadows, blending with the night. He occasionally brought home groceries--that much Xander had glimpsed from the halo of street lamps.
That, and he seemed better. Stronger. Not psychotically chipless, but walking upright.
Xander knocked on Spike's door. After a few scraping sounds, it opened. Spike leaned one arm on the jamb, face expressionless. He was wearing a black tee and jeans. In a word, tidy.
Sorry to bother you, Xander's upbringing wanted him to say. A more recently ingrained distaste for vamps made him less polite. "I'm not your errand boy." He held out an envelope, which Spike just studied. "Some guy stopped by looking for you, wanted to make sure you got this."
"Oh, right." Spike's face cleared and he took the bundle. "Thanks." The door closed without a further word.
Irritated, Xander shook his head and began to walk away, then turned and banged on the door again until it opened a second time. Spike looked equally antagonized now. "Hey," Xander said. "If you're going to get deliveries, don't send people to my apartment."
"I didn't."
"Oh."
They gazed at each other another moment, then Spike began to say something that would no doubt have been unsurpassably cutting, if a startled look hadn't passed across his face, erasing his intentions. He lunged past Xander. "Damn it!" he snarled, while Xander--who'd instinctively braced for an attack--was sent stumbling back by his shove. Apparently accidental collisions didn't count in chip logic, because Spike went haring off down the stairs with no evidence of brain damage. Too bad.
Xander righted himself and took the opportunity to peek into Spike's room through the open door. It had changed, looked more like his now. Walls painted, surfaces scrubbed. And he had surfaces. He had a kitchen counter and a tiny stove-top. Apparently the upper floors had rated more features than the lower ones. On the damaged floor tiles sat a plastic bowl filled with cat food and another of water. Oh, hell, thought Xander. That was just...too cute. The urge to rag mercilessly on Spike was overwhelming.
He pushed the door open a bit more and leaned there, blatantly ogling. Mattress with sheets, fruit crate, lamp, dinette chairs, portable stereo. As bare and simple as his own collection, but somehow more strange. Because vampires weren't supposed to make themselves at home in the world, own space. Own things. It disturbed Xander even though almost none of Spike's exaggerated personality was reflected in the barren room, unless you counted a glossy pile of CDs resting on the cat-scratched coffee table.
Boot steps were ascending and Xander straightened, turned. Spike's head bobbed up through the broken railings, face vexed, then muscled shoulders and arms appeared, cradling a black effusion of fur which struggled to get free.
The words aw, look at the puddy-tat died on Xander's lips when Spike's eyes met his, hard and guarded against the blow. "Thought I'd better hang here," he said, swallowing a dryness in his throat. "I wasn't sure what happened."
"Bugger's always trying to escape."
"That...isn't its name, is it?" Cat eyes fixed on Xander as he spoke, ears twitched, body went still; the animal probably couldn't remember hearing another person's voice before now, but it looked fascinated.
"No." Spike paused. "Byron."
"Byron?" Xander's mind was blown like a flat tire, and in vain he tried to control the involuntary swerve of his thoughts. Spike with facets and book learnin' was just too much to take in.
"You try naming an animal sometime. It's bloody hard."
"I have no doubt," Xander said, and to his credit sounded honestly agreeable. Spike's shoulders relaxed a notch.
"Might as well come in." Spike moved past him. "Circulate the air a bit. Probably be good for the cat."
"Okay." Disturbing, odd, but okay. He entered.
Spike clearly didn't know what to do with him once he had him. They ended up sitting across from each other on metal chairs, five feet of floor between them on which the cat scrabbled happily. They both watched the cat. It served as a conversation piece. For three minutes.
"I'm guessing the concept of 'guest' isn't very common among vampires."
"Want a cuppa?" Spike asked after giving this a moment's cigarette-puffing consideration.
"Tea?"
"AB positive."
"No thanks."
There was silence.
"Well, this has been fun." Xander stood. He expected a reaction--that Spike, recalling himself to some semblance of social niceties, might stop him, dredge up something else to talk about. But no. He sat there with patient lack of interest, and at a total loss, Xander turned to leave.
Then: "Wait." Spike's cool facade had finally broken, and he looked as uncomfortable and annoyed as Xander felt. "I'm no good at this."
"At humanity? Yeah, I noticed."
"I'm not human, not where it counts. Part of me really wants to kill you right now. A big toothy part." Spike glanced up, head tilted at an angle. Darkness had blown in like a storm behind his luminous face, and smoke rolled lazily up from the cigarette in his fingers. The apartment around him suddenly appeared different, like the plain waiting room of a serial killer between victims. Xander had to shake a chill off.
"Your honesty is refreshing. I bet you have lots of friends."
Spike seemed to take the jab seriously. "I've had friends."
"Friends you didn't kill?"
"Yeah."
"Human friends?"
"Yeah."
After a pause, Xander sat back down. "Just to let you know? There are some things you need to work on."
"Like what?"
"Small talk. It's the tie that binds us. Unlike big talk, which drives our friends away, and makes strangers move down another seat at the bar."
A reluctant, crooked smile touched one corner of Spike's mouth, defying the glint of his eyes. "Not good at small talk either."
"Right." Xander rested his hands on his knees, looked around. "So how's this whole life-of-not-evil working out for you?"
"Still evil. Not alive."
"But you haven't killed anyone...lately, I mean. Doesn't that make you at all happy? Give you a sense of fulfillment? Accomplishment?"
Spike's gaze narrowed warily. "You're not going to give me your testimony, are you?" He sighed. "Look. Face it. I'm not on the straight and narrow by choice. If I had my druthers, I'd probably be taking you out right now, and all your friends too. And anything that got in my way, including ripe little schoolgirls in white cotton knickers."
That image alone should have driven Xander away with a vengeance, never to come back, but he couldn't let it go. "Well, guess what, oh fangless one. Now you're just like the rest of us. All thought, no action. Welcome to my world."
"'S not bloody right," Spike said bitterly. "I'm a vampire."
"No. Now you're just a guy who wears a lot of black and feeds his cat every night."
"God." Spike's face was a picture of revelation and self-loathing. "I'm pathetic."
"Not so much," Xander heard himself say. And for a moment he meant it.
~*~*~*~*~
"The thing is," Spike said, tipping over the bottle and finding it empty, "I really hate you."
"Me?" Xander dragged his head up and tried to focus on his good drinking buddy. Spike had the end of the mattress without the wall support, but that seemed only fair. He wasn't the one falling over. Right now he was searching around them for a fresh bottle; after tossing aside some blankets, he found the vodka and uncapped it.
"All of you. Scoobies." He uttered a derisive laugh. "Scoo--" Pausing, he took a long pull from the bottle. "Bies. I mean, what's up with that? These are your role models? No wonder you're always tripping over yourselves. And who're you supposed to be? Shaggy?"
"Well, Buffy's Daphne. Riley--he's gotta be Fred. Willow, Velma. Hey, maybe I'm Scooby."
"Nah. You're Shaggy. Face it, mate. Truth will set you free."
"Then there's Giles." Xander's head spun as he tried to collect his thoughts.
"Me, I'm..." Spike frowned to himself. "I'm not one of you. Huh. Sod that."
"You could be," Xander offered. "You could be, uh--hey, you could be Scrappy Doo." The brilliance of this struck him like an incredibly comic freight train and he spilled off the mattress, gasping with laughter. "Scrappy!"
There was a scuffling sound, and then a shout of pain and the sound of a bottle falling to the floor as some attack was aborted by the bug zapper in Spike's skull. "God, I loathe you!" he swore. "I want to kill you! Tear off your bloody head! I'd play footie with it and, and--Christ, are all these bottles empty?!" The sound of breaking glass followed. Helplessly, Xander kept laughing. "Shut up!" Spike yelled.
"Oh, man." Xander opened his eyes and blinked away tears. For some reason there was a cat on his chest. "Hey there, buddy." He scratched under its chin, felt it begin to purr.
"Once I get this chip out of my head, you're a Scooby snack," Spike promised from somewhere across the room. Glass was clanking again as he rooted through his stuff.
"Have you even tried to get it out?" Xander wondered, certain in the knowledge that Spike was, as usual, talking out his ass.
"I'm savin' up for the operation."
Xander's head tried to clear. That had sounded all too serious. He sat up, dumping the cat off, and studied Spike's face as he returned with bottle number three. "So, what? You'd drink with me, shoot the shit, then feed off me? Man, you're cold."
And weirdly, Spike looked guilty. Then angry. "Vampire! Get it through your thick head! You Sunnydale people--do they put something in the water?"
"They probably do." Xander got to his feet, staggered off the mattress. "I thought you were different. Now. Sure, I hated you, but--" God, he felt sick. He collapsed back down, wishing he'd stayed sober.
"But what? You saw the pretty face, thought maybe if we shagged, it'd be like one of those bad-boy-turns-good movies? I'd come over all repentant at the end, give up my life of crime, cue uplifting music and soppy kiss--"
"Shag you? What?" Befuddled and freshly alarmed, Xander tried to recall if he'd propositioned Spike. He wasn't that drunk, was he?
"Oh, I've seen the way you look at me." Spike's smile was knowing, mean, delivered with a head tilt. "You're gagging for it, Harris."
Xander made it to his feet again, face hot and heart pounding. The fumes in his head were finally thinning out too, leaving him on a bleak, stark stage where he'd made a fool of himself. "You are so wrong," he said, weaving toward the door. "I wouldn't come within a mile of you if you were the last corpse on earth."
"Might be, someday. Think it over. And don't--hey! Don't let the cat out!"
8 After Hours
The mood in Giles's apartment was grim.
"She was a foolish woman," Giles snapped, and Xander could tell he was more cut up than he wanted to admit. "She should have known better than to--" Whatever words he'd intended to say broke apart, then reformed: "Than to play god." He took a breath. "The forces of darkness do not like to be tampered with. For thousands of years, ritual acknowledgment has been made before trying to harness their powers. Payment must be offered. It seems she has found that out."
Riley was pacing. "I can't believe she'd try to kill Buffy. It's just not--" He too fought for words that didn't want to come, and instead punched the wall, knocking a hole in the plaster.
Giles eyed the damage to his wall with little interest, but caught hold of Riley's hand when he looked ready to add another blow. "Let me see," he said sharply when Riley tried to pull away. He examined the wound a few seconds, then disappeared in the direction of the bathroom.
"It's crazy," said Willow. Tara, sitting close to her on the couch, touched the tangled clasp of her hands.
"So what do we do?" Xander asked, hoping someone would save him from the rhetorical by having a real answer. Horror at the turn of events had knotted his gut, and renewed the absurd protectiveness of Buffy that used to rule his life. He couldn't summon a lot of regret for anyone who tried to kill her, though being skewered was a pretty ugly way to go.
"If Maggie had it in for me, that means the Initiative has it in for me. Now that she's dead and this demon guy is out," Buffy glanced at Riley, "they're probably going to want to tie up loose ends." Her voice was quiet but tight with stretched nerves.
"We don't operate like that," Riley said angrily. "You've worked with us, you know that!"
"I know you keep secrets. And I know what keeping secrets does to people. Multiply that by the government, and tell me why I'm not feeling all that safe."
They stared mutely at each other, faces equally set and stubborn, as Giles stood off to one side with bandages in hand, clearly unwilling to break in. With violent motion, Riley ran his hands through his hair. Buffy flinched.
"I have to get out of here," he said. You could see the grief hitting him afresh, driving an energy through his body that wanted loose.
"You shouldn't be alone right now." Buffy tried to touch his arm, but he stepped back coldly, eyes full of pain and accusation.
"I won't be."
After he left, Buffy's head remained lowered for a minute of heavy silence, and then she lifted it, revealing a face wounded but determined. "We need to clear out of here. If Riley knows where we are, the Initiative does too."
"Where do you propose we go, Buffy?" Giles sat down on the edge of an armchair. "And for how long?"
"I don't know. I need time to think and I can't do it here--and I can't do it if I'm worrying about all of you." With a prickly energy not unlike Riley's, she went to the weapons trunk and started yanking out its contents. Her air of command drew them all to their feet, and Xander helped pass out the swords and cross-bows.
"We could go to my place," Willow suggested. "I'll tell my mom it's an all-night study jam and we couldn't hold it in the dorm."
"They know where you live, Will. We need someplace they can't easily find us."
Xander cleared his throat. "It's not much but, uh, my hovel is your hovel. If you want."
Buffy nodded. "I want."
~*~*~*~*~
"Oh," Tara said. "It's--it's nice." She was a kind woman. "You've got a lot of space."
"And a lack of furniture," Xander apologized, regretting his offer as for the first time he saw his apartment through the eyes of his friends and realized just how miserable it truly was. The look on Buffy's face--the way she moved around the room in her shiny boots, blank eyes drawn to his makeshift dresser, his newly scavenged and shoddy bed--he could tell she couldn't believe how he was living, and it embarrassed him. "Maybe this isn't such a good idea. We can get a hotel room--"
"No. They can get to us through the hotels." Buffy stopped, picked up a paperback from one milk-carton shelf, then put it back. Her face was hurt; she hurt on his behalf. Pitied him, even. Xander could see her swallowing back comments, redirecting her mind to their current situation. "This is perfect." She gave Xander a tiny smile.
Sleeping bag, small bed, blankets--there wasn't much to go around, but they made do. When morning came Xander served Pop-Tarts and the TV talked to them about demons. They knew how to read the newscasts. Their monster was out of the box. Day had become as dangerous as night in Sunnydale, but they all went tentatively back to their lives, doing what they had to do. Pass the hours, prepare to battle evil. Xander went to work, surrounded himself with pizza and normal people, and quietly freaked out. Later on, they raided the Initiative.
Sometimes the jigsaw pieces of his days didn't fit together at all.
"I need a Day Planner," Xander said to himself after walking Buffy back to her dorm. "To pencil in these little brushes with death." He forced himself to smile at the nervous co-eds passing by, who edged to the far side of the path and hurried their steps.
Once he'd settled into his car, he rested there a moment with hands on the wheel, eyes closed. Teleporters. Now those would be cool. Of course, here on the Hellmouth, you could use magic for that. Anya had described to him a few times how she used to "apparate" through the ether to deliver her vengeance calls. Vengeance demon. He'd never given it that much thought before, but it was starting to sound like a decent job. No wages, she'd said, other than the satisfaction of a curse well done, but man, the benefits had to be great. And he'd be his own boss, make his own decisions--he'd only curse the deserving, and he'd do it with style. Wear a snazzy suit, cuff-links and everything. Oh yeah, he could envision it perfectly.
He sighed himself awake and drove homeward, wincing every time he had to take a turn; he'd picked up a beauty of a bruise--thanks, Adam--and suddenly a drink seemed like just what he needed. A bar a few blocks from his building was open; he'd never been in, but it looked okay. It was on the right side of the tracks, barely, and its parking lot was full.
Fate had a wicked sense of humor.
"Spike," he said, automatically dropping into a chair and putting his feet up on the rail. "Is it just me, or are you on the wrong side of the bar?" He let his eyes roam, unsure whether this was a stress-induced hallucination or not. The vampire was wearing his usual black tee and jeans, but had a white bar towel thrown over his left shoulder. The cigarette behind the ear was a nice touch too, cementing the whole Dirty Dancing meets Danny Zuko look. He was scowling.
"Bar's for grown-ups. You're not twenty-one." Delivering this announcement seemed to give him some satisfaction.
"And you're a hundred and twenty-one," Xander countered. "So give me a beer."
"Or else?" Spike scoffed, brows lifting in dry underestimation.
"Well, I'm thinking this looks like a bar for humans." Xander turned on his stool, raised his voice a little: "Hey, anyone got a mirror?"
"All right! Shut it." Spike yanked a mug from its hook, filled it, and slammed it on the bar-top. "There. Drink it and shove off."
"Hey, it's a free country, pal, and I have a fake I.D. that says it's my right as a rebellious teen to get good and soaked. So line them up."
Spike glared at him with mingled distaste and...well, okay, just distaste. The curl of his lip said he wanted nothing better than to knock Xander off his stool and chuck him out the door, but the fun part was when a customer came up and Spike had to move away to serve--serve, ha!--the guy.
"Yeah," Spike said curtly, so obviously putting himself out with that single, tedium-saturated word, you'd have thought he'd dragged himself up a cliff to wait on the man.
"Two Alabama Slammers," the guy said, pulling out his wallet.
"Got no juice."
"No juice?" Looking irritated, the man heaved an elaborate sigh. "I'll just take two margaritas then."
"No blender, mate."
"Long Island Ice Teas." An edge was entering the customer's voice.
Only someone who knew Spike would have been able to tell how much he was enjoying himself, despite his bland lack of expression. "Don't mix that many."
"That's all right. I can tell you the ingredients--"
"No," Spike said, as if speaking to the mentally deficient. "Don't mix that many ingredients. Read the sign."
Xander's gaze, along with the man's, slid to the wall where a painted sign declared: "Two-Mix Max" and "No Frou-Frou Served!"
"That's ridiculous." The man looked around for a witness, caught Xander's eye. Xander gave him a look that conveyed commiseration but detachment, and waited with growing fascination to see what he'd do next.
"House policy." Shrugging, Spike tossed his rag on the bar and began wiping lazily in a direction that carried him away from the guy's hapless and outraged attempt to loom over the counter.
When it was clear looming would get him nowhere, the man's shoulders sank a defeated inch. "What--what do you serve?"
"For you? Shots and beer."
"Two shots of gin," the man said meekly, the fight crushed out of him.
Spike, taking his victory for granted, snapped the glasses onto the bar, poured two splashy shots across their mouths, and accepted his money with a hard, black-eyed stare that brooked no further commentary. Xander noticed he got a tip.
"God, I love this job." Spike took his cigarette from behind his ear and lit up, oblivious to the health code violation.
"I can see this," Xander said with reluctant and, he hoped, very secret awe. "So when you said you were saving up for an operation, you really meant it." That earned a suspicious glance. "The whole concept of you having honest earnings, Spike--the mind reels. And then goes sprawling."
"Yeah? How's that whole dough-in-a-box career working for you?"
They eyeballed each other. Xander knew when he was being snarked at, and was usually ready to give back as good as he got. "Not so great," he admitted, the urge for combat waning. Must be the bar, he thought. You told bartenders your woes--didn't they have to listen? Wasn't it like a union requirement? Even vampire bartenders would know that.
After a moment, Spike straightened up slowly, poured a second beer for him unasked, and slid it across the bar. Xander met his eyes again, then accepted it.
~*~*~*~*~
He smelled of cigarette smoke and he looked pissed off. These things should not have been a turn on, thought Xander, as he opened the door to his apartment. Spike followed him in, close on his heels. When Xander turned around, he was right there. Xander backed up, but couldn't drag his gaze away from Spike's.
Spike shoved him bodily against a supporting column; as Xander's head hit plaster, the chip provoked a wince, and Spike groaned and cradled a hand behind Xander's head, looking as if he hated it and looking incredibly, angrily aroused, and he launched a fierce kiss and ground his erection into Xander's hips, and the grinding was killing Xander in a good way but the kiss was heaven and what the hell was an undeserving vampire doing there--what did this prove, this hot desperate mouthing, this deliberate attack, rude and ferocious? He was using his entire mouth, he was using his sharp tongue, he was using Xander.
Yes, Xander thought, and then he said it aloud, breathlessly: "Use me."
Spike reared back with cobra-headed grace and licked his lips. He hadn't vamped, but Xander could sense he was on the verge, heard it in the soft, inhuman growl that rattled from his throat. At the sound, every tiny hair on his body lifted, and his dick strained against the hard pressure of Spike's hips. He looked nasty and newly powerful--and Xander thought that anyone who could make you feel like getting on your knees and begging for it was to be respected and feared. The thought excited him.
"You want me to play rough?" Spike asked. Xander gasped once and nodded. Spike's face grew hard with lust and a kind of frustrated desire to give pain, which was disturbing because Xander didn't know how he recognized that. "Well, I'll give it the old college try, and we'll see what the technology allows." His tight jaw worked briefly, then his face cleared a bit and he smiled, charming and menacing, the smile of a gentleman who would obligingly kill you if you asked.
One of his hands snaked down between Xander's legs and played with its discovery, first with light teasing then with a sudden grasp that knew exactly where he lived. "You want it bad, don't you, love?"
"Oh hell, yes." Xander shoved into his hand, seeking more friction. Skillful dead fingers, stronger than his own, cruelly drove layers of cotton and denim across his aching dick.
Spike tensed, face going hard again, hungry. But the rest of his body was calm, easing closer to Xander's, arm sliding completely behind his neck as he drew in. He was shifting to one side, he was unzipping Xander's jeans, watching his face the entire time. Xander closed his eyes but they slid open again. He liked to look at Spike. God. They were looking at each other. "How's that?" Spike murmured. "Feel good?"
Xander jerked his head and moved his lips wordlessly as cool fingers strolled up along his cock, as a thumb firmed like steel just underneath the swollen head and rubbed. His knees jellied and he began to sink down the pillar, but Spike kept him upright one-handed and Xander arched up again, and the sinking and arching took on a rhythm, helped by Spike's hand, heel rolling against him, thumb flicking, fingers keying him with different pressures.
And then Spike leaned in and kissed his neck, right on the pulse line, and crisp hair like ramen noodles brushed his jaw and Xander lifted his chin and came with a cry.
When he could see again, Spike was regarding him with dark-eyed want and indulgence and licking his fingers. Not thoroughly, but with the interest of a man who'll taste anything once. He wiped the backs of his fingers across Xander's open mouth. Xander flinched.
"Go on," Spike said. "Taste yourself...don't tell me you never have?"
"Yeah. Sometimes." In his bedroom, years ago, before having regular girlfriends made all his masturbatory habits seem suspect. Spike's knuckles were brushing back and forth against his lips as Xander spoke and he gave in, sucked them in, rough knots wet with his own come. His tongue flicked a stripe between two of Spike's fingers before he could stop himself.
"Oh, yeah," Spike drawled, voice lower. "That's very good, pet." He stepped back abruptly, leaving Xander dizzied. He was taking off the leather coat and throwing it aside, dragging his shirt over his head, leaving himself in jeans and dirty boots, his naked chest exposed. Impossible to look away really, and if Xander had ever shared a locker room with this he'd have had the crap beaten out of him years ago. He could see it all too well--Spike the school felon, leaning against a locker and smoking a cigarette while Xander knelt and served, then pummeling him later in front of his cool friends.
"You've made a speedy recovery," Spike noted, gaze aligned downward and fixed on his cock. His eyes lifted mesmerizingly. "Come here."
Xander went, pausing just in front of Spike, who manhandled him the final step and splayed a hand across his chest as if to say stop. Feeling--listening--to his heart beat, head cocked. After a few moments, he slid his palm around the front of Xander's shirt, then ripped it off. It burned, getting your shirt ripped off, and he would have complained but then it was done. Spike seemed pleased at the effect, and anyway, the shirt had been an unwanted birthday present and he was harder now. Diamond-cutter needy.
"Get on your knees," Spike ordered.
Predictability was good, oh so good, and Xander knelt with awkward obedience, harsh breathy sounds escaping his mouth. "Oh fuck," he said as Spike began unzipping himself. "Fuck, oh god, fuck--" He wanted it so bad he couldn't think how this was wrong.
Spike grabbed Xander by the side of the neck with one hand and held him still, held his own cock in his other, busily stroking hand. Xander stole a look up at his face, found glittering eyes staring intently down at him. Prelude to a kill. But he couldn't commit that act, only this. It was the one point saving this from insanity; he wouldn't be so foolish to kneel for a vampire who was chipless and fancy-free.
Moments later Spike was sliding into his mouth, and Xander was sucking him in, forgetting everything else but this. He didn't care if he was being used, he was using too. His mouth was sex, greedy and complete, and it was beautiful when Spike grabbed his head and shoved in desperately and even better when he began to groan and roll his hips with indescribable punk dance, selfish and lost in himself, as if he were tumbling back to some bad-ass memory of blow-jobs past. A long history of blow-jobs, and Xander's was the latest and that, if nothing else, had to make it the best.
"Yeah," Spike gasped out, fingers digging into his hair, "fuck!"
You love it, don't you, Xander thought, as Spike's free hand cupped his jaw, held him close with unexpected gentleness. The other man's hips were pumping with urgency against him as if he were trying to climb deep inside. Xander heard low, crude grunts almost like pain and then--escaping like a spill of loose beads as Spike's climax neared--several escalating little cries, high-pitched and delicate.
Spike's uncensored gasp as he came almost made Xander lose it himself, but he was too caught up in his own working mouth--he was having sex right there in his mouth!--and it wasn't like he could have avoided swallowing with a vampiric vise clamped around his head, but he wanted to swallow, years of suppressed fantasies robbing him of all self-consciousness. So fucking hot, sucking a guy off. If only he'd known.
Pulling off, he felt messy-haired and wild, cheeks high with heat, ears searing, mouth wicked as he tried to locate the taste of jism with his tongue. More now, he thought as Spike's big hands--oh, just guy-sized, right--stroked down his cheeks. One hand slid off his face, the other lifted his chin with one finger. Xander looked up, ran the tip of his tongue over his teeth and realized he was grinning. Possibly maniacally. "More," he rasped, because he was going to say everything in his head from now on until he got his fill. Words of one syllable. Animal. Me. Feed.
He got lifted by his chin. That felt good. What didn't feel good? On his feet, he played his cheek into the curve of Spike's hand and Spike patted him as if he'd been a good boy. Oh, he had. He was pulled in for a kiss, passive, possessive, plural--his mind reeled off its familiar background noise as they ate each other. He was begging with his mouth, and Spike folded their two bodies together, chest to chest and hips to hips, winding arms around Xander's neck and back, giving him a spill of silken smooth muscle, feeling to Xander like a hundred guys he'd glimpsed in gym, or half-stripped at fairgrounds, or surfing at the beach--he'd felt them with his eyes, that's all, but he knew they'd have felt like this against him, sleek and hard.
And he was dead. How weird was that?
"You're all hot and eager," Spike muttered against Xander's tingling mouth. "Been awhile since I had anyone so young."
That opened up a whole category of questions that Xander might have asked, but didn't. Don't think about your vampire's past--that was clearly rule number one for these situations--and rule number two, he felt sure, was ask no questions whose answers would scare the beejezus out of you and compromise your precarious moral high ground. He wondered if there were any more no-nos. Maybe he'd check with Buffy.
Spike licked a path from Xander's mouth to his ear and whispered, "Bet you'd like to do me with that bad monster of yours, wouldn't you? Hmm? Take me on my belly all frog-kneed, face jammed in one of your sweaty pillows, ride me till you pop, leave me cursin' you and hungry for more--"
Xander's vision greyed out at the edges and he began to hyperventilate. Spike was still talking dirty, and christ, he was sexy like a reptile and it was so wrong, wrong, so very wrong. "Dear god, please," he croaked. And, smiling knowingly, Spike led him to the bed by his dick.
There was nakedness and there was hand lotion. Well, first there was undressing. Economical in his movements, Spike placed the muddy soles of his boots on the bedcovers one at a time and unlaced them, then shucked out of his jeans and climbed on the bed as if he got fucked by awe-struck pizza deliverymen all the time. He could have been a porn star. He was that matter of fact about it. Xander jittered out of his own clothes, followed him and gaped and jittered some more, poured too much hand lotion onto himself, thought do I need a condom and didn't ask, and a second later didn't care as Spike rippled into readiness with a bend of leg, a flexing of muscles as if he were swimming toward the headboard. Time to get jaded, Xander thought. Pretend like you do this all the time.
Pretending helped for half a second before he was pushing in, then failed him in a big way. "Oh. My god." He tried not to come and succeeded barely.
"Do it hard," Spike said, not helping. "Rough, brutal, quick, bang bang bang--"
"Shut up," Xander breathed, glassy-eyed. "Or it'll be so quick we won't even notice." He took a deep breath, slid in another inch. "Speaking bad. Stopping now."
"Mmm." The sound from Spike's throat was wicked. "Virgin every night, you know. 'S why it's so...tight." He squeezed certain muscles as punctuation.
"Fuck!" Xander's hips jerked helplessly and something gave, or maybe Spike just had talents a hundred years taught you, but he was buried inside and trembling and Spike took this as a signal to start grinding against the bed.
"C'mon," he complained, "Do me. Harder. Harris!"
Shut up, Xander thought, but he couldn't talk this time. His head dropped forward with almost drunken heaviness, hair falling in his eyes. He pushed tentatively, heard a groan and some lewd Spike-babble of encouragement that he tuned out, so bossy, and this felt, wow, great, he had rhythm and jazz, he had rock and roll.
He had about thirty seconds.
"Fuck me!" Spike barked, frustrated and literal.
So he did, forgetting about how you were supposed to take care, be gentle, be the guy, which meant not hurting the other person, but Faith, he hadn't needed to be gentle with Faith, his first and he'd been on the bottom, ridden, and this now was different, oh so very. Bang, bang, bang went his frantically freed hips and Spike rested on one arm now as he began jerking himself off, and they were unsynchronized and separately wrapped up in their own pleasures and Xander laughed crazily, let his head tip back, felt his needs steady and change. He gripped Spike's hips more tightly, re-angled himself, drove forward.
"Fuck," Spike said and fell onto both arms, curling up like a rug did when you toed it, getting a grip on the sheets as he lifted his hips. "Yeah." He sounded huskier than he had a moment ago. "God, yeah."
The sound of his voice rolled through Xander's dick and into the rest of his body, made sweat break out everywhere. He grabbed Spike's thigh, sank back a little and shoved again off-kilter, dick trying to figure out how deep it could go. His thrust earned a shudder and Spike's silence, words given way to ragged breathing, and Xander knew it must be good. He repeated his twist, finding leverage that made Spike stiffen and clamp around him. Again and again and again. And now they were synching up, wave crashing into wave, and he didn't have to see Spike's face to know he was struggling in his skin.
His level of being turned on shot into the red. This was battle, Spike driven to the edge, trying not to vamp, trying now not to snarl, because that would have been surrender. If Xander had been able to choreograph and carry out what his instincts demanded, he would have grabbed Spike's head, held him in place as he used him--but excitement sped his hips and betrayed him, he was going to come first, damn it, and then he did, as Spike drew in a sharp breath and went still in triumph.
Weakly, Xander slid out and collapsed in a post-bliss heap. Spike gave him some room on the inadequate bed and inspected the results. "You look done in."
"Ten minutes. Twenty, max."
"I'll just amuse myself while I wait, then."
~*~*~*~*~
"That's all," Xander said an eternity later. "I'm done with you. I'm spent. And you--you are evil. We aren't doing this again."
"Sure," Spike drawled, rather ironically.
"I'm serious." He might have been more convincing if he could have moved one inch of his griddled body.
"I haven't shown you even half my tricks."
"I don't care...what tricks?" He cracked open an eye to see Spike propped over him, smiling, and then his head disappeared. Xander blinked. Good trick, he thought dizzily, as Spike's cool tongue carved a path down his chest and belly. Of course, that was just--
"Oh," he said, head dropping back into the pillow as Spike's mouth closed over him. Incredibly good, but no problem, he could take a blow job without caving, because this was the last time, and after tonight--
"Spike." His throat worked to get the word out. "God, what--" Xander's trembling hands found purchase on Spike's shoulders, instinctively holding him there. Thought was getting thinner and then suddenly snuffed out like a flame for lack of oxygen. "Don't--don't--" he begged hoarsely. "Don't stop--"
Spike didn't. He was tireless, a force of nature, an undertow in the ocean. Ten minutes or hours or years later, Xander was strung out and drowning, his heart beat racing as he shoved up into Spike's mouth, his entire body wet and shaking with want, head twisting from side to side on the pillow. He cried out incoherently at every new, lapping crest of pleasure--it was that good, but it couldn't get better because it would kill him. It was breaking him. It had stolen almost all words, made him ecstatic and vicious, and his hands wound tighter in Spike's hair as he urged him on.
"Oh fuck," he wept, dragging Spike closer as ruthless flutters and suction and pulses played around his cock. "Can't--" It hurt his lungs to get words out--he was climbing to an impossible elevation, carried on the wave. He'd ascended past all previous benchmarks of pleasure. His body told him this was hotter than when Faith had slid astride him like a wet dream come true, all slutty and commanding, hotter than the first time Anya had clenched her girlish bits around him and cried out his name as if he were a rapacious warrior claiming his mate. This put their amateur blow jobs to shame. Spike was in a league of his own and Xander's flesh was his.
"Oh, god, I love--" The grateful words tore loose as he neared the peak. "Love, love--" He sobbed and writhed as he was released. It hit hard, washing him under, Spike's face rising to hover above him as he went down.
"Love you," he said thickly, and passed out.
~*~*~*~*~
When he surfaced again Spike was sitting next to him and smoking. Xander blinked his heavy eyes and tried to focus. "What year is it," he mumbled.
"Took a bit out of you, did it?"
"Spine. Need my...spine."
Spike gazed down at him with fond satisfaction. "Nooo. Won't be needing that again."
"Satan." Xander managed to push himself up on one wobbly arm, then sat up against the head board. "Give me a drag." He was talking through ground glass. He'd aged a decade. God help him.
"You serious?" Amused, Spike handed over the cigarette. Xander inhaled, coughed raggedly, and let Spike take it back.
"What I said--" He got out the words between hacking.
"What's that?"
"Before. The, uh, L-word."
"Oh, that. No worries. I didn't take it personal."
"Good. Just my sperm talking. Misdirected biological imperative."
"And of course that was the last time--"
"Fuck that," Xander said, closing his eyes. "Man, I am so very gay."
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