Your Horoscope for Today

by
Anna S

Part Eleven

They had a routine. In the morning Xander went to work while Spike slept in with the shades and curtains safely drawn. Sometimes they managed a swift nooner--a ride home that broke speed limits, a frantic fuck against a counter, a sandwich wolfed on the way back--but more often Xander didn't get back until six or so, when he'd find Spike on the couch watching Charmed and dipping his crackers right into the peanut butter jar.

When he could pry Spike's attention away, they'd go to bed and fuck for an hour or so in the rumpled sheets until Xander's stamina gave out and he needed to eat.

At this time of year, they could venture forth safely as soon as it was dusk and usually ended up downtown, Xander chopsticking Chinese food into his mouth with worshipful appreciation while Spike drank beer and people-watched, inventing bizarre and intricate stories for them.

"That's Carol," he'd say, pointing out a blonde dressed in conservative office wear, having dinner with her girlfriends. "Looks like a nice girl, Carol, but she's got a little problem."

"Drugs?"

"Shoes. Got three closets full and she can't stop herself buying more. Got sandals and stilettos, ones with bows, ones with flowers. And every night she goes home and crawls into her closet, naked and glistening--"

"Whoa."

"--and rubs all those scraps of leather against her body till she's ripe and pink, juiced up proper, and then she gets one of those nice pumps with the high, chunky heels, you know the sort I mean?" Behind Spike, a four-year old swiveled to his feet and leaned over the booth near Spike's shoulder, expressing a silent fascination with his hair.

"G rating," Xander warned, nodding kidward.

Spike turned his head for a moment to glance at the chubby, sauce-covered face, before resuming his study of Carol.

"Yeah, anyhow. When she's done her business, she feels all weepy and ashamed and swears she'll never do it again, but she can't bear to throw those pretty toys away. Figures she'll get herself a fellow instead, keep her on the straight and narrow. So she puts an advert in the paper, 'Lonely young widow--'"

"Wait, she's a widow?"

"Married young. Tragic accident with a," Spike hesitated, "kayak. 'Lonely young widow seeks wealthy older man for marriage and travel. Shoe salesmen a plus.'" A smile tugged at his lips and was reined in, a tiny acknowledgment of his own absurdity. "Bloke by the name of Tony answers the ad. Real slick piece of work, all fancy sports jackets and long hair, like a pop star, but Carol likes him 'cause he's got a big--"

"Spike."

"--car," he finished with an innocent arch of brows. "They hit it off, she brings him home to meet mum and dad, mum and dad approve, and they get hitched. All her girlfriends say how lucky she is and she's happy, thinking she's fixed her problem. But what she doesn't know is Tony's got a secret."

"Is Tony a hairdresser?"

"No," Spike said with a strange emphasis, finger pointed at Xander as if he'd just asked something very meaningful, "he's got a chain of tanning salons."

"Ahhh," Xander said. Happy, smitten, not wanting to be anywhere else, he smiled across the table.

Warming to his plot, Spike went on to explain that Tony was a vampire who used his tanning salons as a cover to try and inoculate other vamps against deadly UV rays, and how he subjected his wife to wicked experiments, testing whether human skin could be converted into a kind of vampire sun-screen, and that's how she wound up flayed, her skin used to make Tony a snazzy pair of tasseled loafers.

"Slight flaw in your story." Xander nodded toward the other side of the restaurant. "She's sitting right over there, in the flesh."

"He grew her some new skin. Got this vat in his secret lab."

"Of course," he said, bowing his head gracefully to concede the point.

The fortune cookies came, promising luck and long life.

Nights that they didn't eat out, Xander fixed himself dinner and they fired up the Play Station or popped in a video and loafed until it was time to patrol, or to meet the others for an anti-Glory war conference, or to go to bed.

And then Buffy's mother died.

It was a terrible time, and Xander wished that Spike could remember Joyce. His limits as a vampire were suddenly much more obvious, his manufactured sympathy an off note that grated on Xander's nerves. Spike seemed to pick up on that and grew more quiet when the others were around, hanging back on the fringes and staying out of Buffy's way. It wasn't necessarily tact--it might only have been self-preservation--but Xander was grateful when he noticed.

After the funeral, which Spike declined to attend, Xander came home and stripped off his black suit and they fucked for the rest of the day, over and over, in every position, until he was raw and exhausted.

He remembered all the hugs exchanged at the graveside and Giles's stiffness and Buffy's face and Dawn's tears.

When he rolled on his side, it was like the memories tipped and settled with their heaviness, and then Spike spooned up behind him and stroked his chest with slow movements. Xander could sense him propped up on one arm and felt himself being studied. He didn't dare turn. He had to believe that something like love and caring existed behind Spike's eyes, the way it did in his hands and mouth. He didn't want to see differently.

Part Twelve

Over the weeks Spike's sex drive had evened out so that he didn't jump Xander's bones every night, but neither Willow or Giles, when cautiously asked, could say whether this nixed the possibility of magic. He could still be under a spell, Willow said; he might just be able to control the effects better.

He was sometimes cruel, saying cutting things and meaning them. Sometimes Xander caught those cool blue eyes on him, a grave study, as if Spike were having doubts about their arrangement, or worse. Inevitable, Xander supposed. Spike had taken the amnesia thing incredibly well, but how could anyone be expected to put up with it over the long term? It was clearly getting to him.

They had battles of wills about housecleaning, about petty shit. Contests of silence. Days could go by with both of them refusing to roll over and give it up. Xander decided during one of these marathon stand-offs that they were both tops and said so. Spike shrugged. He gave in first that time, though. Xander couldn't tell whether his surrender was grudging or manipulative.

Money was a touchy subject and they learned not to talk about it. Xander left wads of bills in drawers; Spike took them and bought cigarettes, CDs, blood, then made a point of fucking Xander up the ass at the earliest opportunity.

So there was plenty of good for bad. Nights when Xander leaned back against Spike and held his cool hands steady one at a time against his own thighs, painting his nails black. Days when they kept riffing off each other at the expense of anyone who happened to be around, until they were banished from polite society. So much energetically good sex that Xander lost ten pounds and most of his inhibitions.

They liked the same kinds of movies but held different views that they could defend at length, and they enjoyed proving each other's facts wrong by consulting his collection of film guides. Their moods fit like puzzle pieces: when Xander was up, Spike was down, when one was bored, the other was buzzed. This should have led to clashes, but they propped each other up and somehow it worked. Mostly.

The day when everything changed was a Thursday and it started off fine. Xander woke gasping and incoherent to a blow job that felt like it had been going on for hours. By the time he was allowed to come he was trembling, every muscle in his body rigid, his sweat soaking the sheets. "Jesus fuck," he rasped as he recovered. Switch flipped, his muscles suddenly relaxed to a point where he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to get out of bed again.

He did get up eventually and made it to work only twenty minutes late, driving his car at a crawl past his supervisor's trailer, hoping no one would notice his arrival. No one did. The crew was standing around in clumps, scratching their heads and balls, drinking coffee and talking in hushed voices as they stared off at a mound of dirt.

"What's going on?" he asked Max Weeks. Weeks was the old guy in every monster movie who provided exposition on demand.

"Quindlen dug up something, says it's toxic waste. Bunch of garbage bags, looks like." He rubbed a finger across his nostrils then contemplated it. "Could be body parts. Could just be someone's trash. OSHA guy's called the EPA. They're sending a team to investigate."

When Xander sidled up to the hole he realized immediately that they'd unearthed a nest of demon eggs. The things were white, wrinkly, and misshapen, but distinctly egglike. Also, one of them moved. He backed away from the lip of the hole.

"What do you make of it?" his supervisor asked. Startled, he groped for something that would sound plausible. "I wouldn't rule out toxic waste. We should probably send everyone home. Quickly."

Doheny squinted at him. "Come on, Harris." His voice lowered. "You know about this sort of thing."

"I do?" he said, laughing nervously. He felt like Peter Parker caught with webbing all over his face.

"We both know that's not toxic waste."

"We do?" At Doheny's expression he took a steadying breath and got more serious. "We do. Right. I can call someone who can take care of this."

He called Buffy, who came with Giles, who took one look at the contents of the pit and told Doheny, "Send everyone home. Quickly."

Smashing the eggs, no problem. Killing the giant demon that burst out of the earth to take its revenge, problem.

It took them fifteen minutes to tire it out enough for Buffy to hurl a length of rebar through its eye, and even then its death throes swept Giles off his feet and nearly dragged him down into the bowels of the earth. They pulled him loose just in time and sprinted away as the pit collapsed in on itself, taking the mama demon with it. Covered in grit and blood, Xander slumped against the excavator and looked at his friends. "I'm asking for a raise."

"Good idea," Giles muttered, wiping his face.

So he did, and Doheny shook his hand on the promise of a five-thousand dollar raise and told him to take the rest of the day off. The whole thing left Xander stunned and jubilant, grinning like a dork. He stopped to get a bottle of champagne on the way home, thinking of all the ways he could celebrate.

If Quindlen hadn't started digging in that area, if Doheny hadn't sent him home early--later Xander would reenact the day's events in his mind, torturing himself, imagining all the ways it could have played out.

The door to his apartment was half off its hinges.

He turned the champagne bottle over by instinct, wielding it as a weapon, and went inside on shaky legs, taking it slow, too fucking slow. So much adrenaline was coursing through his veins he thought he might be sick but he couldn't move any faster. He was afraid he might find dust at his feet.

"Spike," he said.

The living room was a tumble of furniture and the TV lay face-down on the floor. On one of the windows, the curtains had been torn down, letting in sunlight. Xander felt the blood drain from his face in a rush. You could actually feel that happen.

"Spike," he said more loudly, trying to rouse himself to do something, to move. Then with a jerk his limbs unfroze all at once and he slammed from room to room, flinging open doors, fumbling on lights, scanning all the carpets with insane focus. Spike wasn't anywhere. That was both good and bad.

He had to put the champagne down to use the phone. Unclenching his fingers from the neck took longer than it should have. Reaching Buffy took less time, but the conversation was like one of those maddening nightmares where you have to convince someone to act and they only answer with nonsense.

"He's gone," Xander said, pacing his kitchen, wired, his free hand a fist. "Someone broke in and took him."

"Are you sure he just didn't go out?"

"The door is broken, the place is trashed."

"I know, but Spike's pretty good at taking care of himself. Maybe there was a fight and he chased them."

"Chased who? People he owed money to? Like a wizard, who might drug him and sell him to the highest bidder?"

"Xander, calm down--"

"Hold on," he said, distracted by a knock on his broken door. His next-door neighbor was peeking in, nervous and tentative, her own cordless phone gripped at the ready, probably set to speed-dial 911. "Abby. Hi."

"Did you see them?" she asked.

Getting words out of his throat was like upchucking potatoes. "See who?"

"Those freaky dwarves--or am I supposed to say 'little people' now?"

"I really don't know," he said, just barely staying polite.

"They had on these horrible masks and robes like monks wear. They carried him off, your--your boyfriend."

Political correctness came hard to Abby. "It looked like some kind of initiation prank, but then I saw the door."

"Thanks," he said tersely and raised the phone again. "Glory has him."

Part Thirteen

It's amazing how much of your life you forget.

Sometimes Xander would be lying in bed late at night or sitting with his friends, searching his memory for a conversation he'd had, or the way he'd felt when a life-changing event happened, or just the big angry stuff from his childhood that used to be so important. He could remember that he had a childhood, but chunks of it were missing--whole years were missing, erased or written over; lost in his own personal cyberspace and unrecoverable.

Second grade--had anything happened to him that year? Apparently not. It was a blank. Really, all he had of his life were a handful of William Gibson-y memory cubes, a few hundred moments, sort of scratched and hard to read, where he kind of vaguely thought he knew what he'd been feeling, what he'd said and done. Mostly he was just the now.

So he didn't remember driving to the magic shop or what they said during the meeting or how they found Glory's place, something about a snake and then a search, every minute of it stretched all out of proportion by his impatience, but all that stayed with him later was an outline, and the rest might as well have been edited out right up to the point when they entered the lobby of her building and he saw Spike stumbling out of the elevator, his face almost unrecognizable, so much blood, Carrie at the prom, but real, in pain.

Xander went to him like a bullet. Minions swarmed. There was a fight; their team won. A car drive, a blur.

Then Spike, leaning heavily against him, shoulder wedged against his shoulder, ribs to his ribs, as they walked to the apartment.

And Xander got through the next minute and the next, getting Spike inside, onto the bed, cleaning off the blood, taking stock of the damage, crying like a coward and leaving the room, leaving him to Willow and Giles, and all that happened but none of it was anything he wanted to remember well.

Glory had poked out an eye, poked holes in his chest, pulled a rib loose through the skin, smashed a kneecap, toes, wrenched away an ear. Torture like strip poker. One item at a time to make it last. One sock, one shoe.

"It's amazing he even got loose," Willow said.

For some reason that's when Xander finally had to throw up.

"Hi," he said a week later, sitting on the edge of the bed with a squeezable sports bottle of blood.

"'lo," Spike murmured.

Seven days of hi's, but this was the first time Xander had gotten a response; first time Spike's unbandaged eye had focused on him with awareness instead of blank absence. He laughed, a jagged exhale of relief that twisted right out of his lungs as if he'd been holding his breath for all that time. "You're awake--and you!" Inanity on demand.

"Yeah. What, 'bout sixty percent of me?" He shifted his head on the pillow as if troubled by his sleep-licked hair, then Xander realized it was the eye-patch bothering him and laid a hand against Spike's head to hold him still. He brushed his thumb up and down over the strap where it edged the re-grown left ear.

"I've been keeping track. You're up to eighty-three percent today."

"That so?" A tightening of the mouth. "I must be the other seventeen."

It took Xander a moment to sort out the homophones and catch up. "Oh, 'eyeball' eye, not capital 'I'. No worries." He held up the bottle. "Willow came up with the vamp equivalent of a super-vita energy drink, with extra magicky ingredients. You've been sucking it down all week. I'll just--" He eased the patch off and Spike blinked several times. "How's that?"

"Bit wonky. Two of you." A minor smile. "Could get used to that."

"Take my word: one's enough."

Spike lifted one arm and regarded it, flexed the fingers, then raised his head an inch off the pillow and tried to look down the length of his body. "Didn't get any of the good bits, did she?"

"No," he said quietly, the thought like cold water dashed over his giddiness. "I think she was...pacing herself."

Thank the fucking Lord.

"I didn't give anything up." Spike's eyes locked with Xander's, and his voice held a flat honesty, but with an edge, as if he didn't expect to be believed. "About the kid--didn't say a word--" For no good reason he expressed a sudden spasm of impatience, struggling to prop himself on his arms.

"We know." Xander hesitated as he watched these efforts, then reached out. His palm followed the curve of Spike's head back until he was cupping it. Easing it back down to the pillow, he said gently, "She's fine. We're all good."

"Yeah, well," Spike sighed. "Can't do much right, but I can take a beating."

Xander's stomach clenched. "Shut up."

Surprised, the vampire stared up at him for a long moment, then something in his face relaxed, just a fraction.

"Never thought you'd go sweet on me, Harris. Guess bleeding's not the only thing I do right."

Tongue-tied, Xander ducked his head and let the pause slowly fill.

"Looks like I've been well out of it." Spike seemed to become aware of his surroundings, the rumpled bed, the litter of crap on the bedside table; when his gaze fixed on Xander's face, Xander knew he was seeing the stubble, the shadows under the eyes.

"Yeahhhh, you've been sort of...Chucky doll, pre-animation."

"I'll take that as a yes," Spike said dryly. A man could learn to love that tone.

"Want some blood?" When Spike nodded, Xander brought the straw to his mouth. After only a moment, he twitched his lips off in surprise.

"It's human."

"Taste again," Xander said, pushing it back in place. "That's slayer. Donated by your favorite leading lady and mine, one Miss Buffy Summers." And was that remark oh so camp, he wondered, or just corny? A bedside manner was hard to maintain when all you wanted to do was break down and crawl into bed with your patient and cry a little.

Spike drained the drink in record time, the blood surfacing under his skin in a faint, lifelike flush.

"Robust, lively, full-bodied," the vampire opined.

"I won't tell her you said so."

"That'll save me another pummeling."

"I don't know, she's feeling pretty Spike-friendly right now."

"Yeah?" He looked thoughtful, then shifted his head and winced. "Next battle of the titans, remind me to bring a crash helmet. Extra head'd be useful too."

"We worried--" A hitch of breath, recovered. "--she might, you know. The brain-sucking thing."

"Oh, bitch-goddess gave it a go. Thought she'd blast my brains out my ears. Big power there." His eyes held warning. "Voltage she's got could fry a city grid, take a lot of folks offline. She won't go down easy--she'll squeeze your wits out like juicin' an orange. And I wouldn't put money on any spell set against her."

"But you're okay," Xander said, seeking assurance.

"She knocked a bit loose is all." Spike gazed steadily at him, face unreadable. "Nothing I can't set to right."

"Good to hear." Xander brushed his hand across the other man's chest, back and forth, lightly, as if he could erase the last traces of damage Glory had left.

Lashes lowering over his thoughts, Spike looked away and adopted an Angel-level brood that may have just been tiredness. "God, I'm knackered."

"Rest," Xander said, and Spike did, eyes falling shut as he descended into sleep, out of reach.

Part Fourteen

The best part of waking up was...something something, rhymes with pup, clinking noises, smell of coffee, bacon, running water, we replaced this man's brain with Folger's crystals, let's see what happens, and oh please god, no school today, he hadn't studied for the quiz, because there was a demon.

Xander levered his head off the couch with a bleary sense of mental collision and caught a blur of movement by the refrigerator. "Mom?"

"No," came a rich British voice that rounded its vowels when amused. "Not your mum. 'Less I've forgotten a lot more than you're telling me."

"Spike." Xander shoved upright, blanket slipping away as he brought his feet to the floor. "Mobility. Did we discuss this?"

"Thought I'd try a toddle, see where it took me."

Going to him, Xander saw that he was frying bacon and eggs rather ineptly in a cast-iron pan Anya had left. Fat sizzled, spitting everywhere. "You've got the stove up too high," he said, turning the dial, then noticing the shirtlessness of him. Once he looked, there was no looking at anything else. He circled the counter to stand behind Spike, nerves firing to life, boxers tenting, and slid both arms around his waist. Eyes closed, Xander pressed his mouth to the nearest skin he could find, the cool back of Spike's neck, then pressed himself against everything.

"You're up," Spike said, sounding saucy and normal, not at all like a guy who'd been thrashed halfway to dust a week ago.

Eyes still shut, Xander stroked things he couldn't see: abs, ribs, the flats of chest, then let his right hand slide back down to the front of Spike's jeans. That got him a hip buck and a curl of breath. Hardness pressed against his palm and he couldn't wait any longer; he tightened his grip around Spike's chest and undid his jeans for him, trying not to be rough, and heard himself start to pant and gasp, felt his hips working as if he had no say in the matter, no motor control.

Spike braced both arms against the stove edge, pushing back and then forward, groaning and fucking Xander's hand. The high-pitched shout belonged to one of them, or both.

"That bacon," Xander said on an exhale, "is toast." Smoke had thickened near the ceiling and the cat had jumped on the counter to investigate the blackened remains.

"Mrrrrmmmmt." Shoulder blades lowering with the release of tension, Spike leaned back and stretched and covered Xander's hands with his own.

"Wanted to feed you." In his low, perfectly controlled voice, it sounded like sex.

"Does that mean I'm part of your pack?"

Spike turned to face him, sultry-eyed. Holding that gaze, he shoved a hand into Xander's damp boxers, worked it around slowly, pulled it out, licked it clean with the tip of his tongue, then kissed him on the mouth.

That would be yes, Xander decided, as formerly important parts of his brain overloaded and blew. It might have been the most important kiss of his life: happening now, this moment, his head was changing, he needed this kiss, he liked men, he loved his mouth on Spike and Spike's mouth on his, and he understood that everything in him could surrender, the heart of darkness softening, and he might die, like crucifixion, but not with dishonesty or cruelty or hate. He'd die of love. He was okay with that.

When Xander's lungs were fuller than they'd ever been--he wanted to breathe and make a sailboat glide--Spike licked himself loose. He seemed rightfully smug, but as Xander gazed into his eyes and smiled happily, his face shifted a moment to wonderment, as if something unexpected had happened.

"Going to make you some breakfast," he said--he made it sound like an important event, a big decision. A thing.

"You really don't have to." Xander kept smiling, sailing.

Spike lowered his head the slightest bit, eyes unwavering. "We look after each other, right?" It was a real question, not rhetorical, not the voice of sitcoms, but serious.

"Right."

Time resumed its flow and Spike banged in his amateur way around the kitchen, muttering about the complexity of pigs and chickens and all their burnable parts, and Xander made himself a pot of coffee and thought about changing his boxers but delayed, scooping up the newspaper from in front of his door with a sheepish wave to Abby before retreating inside. Deciding that he was a manly sight to behold, Xander settled at the kitchen table with the paper, feeling so chock full of goodwill toward man that even the news of the world didn't seem too soul-crushing.

"Missing honor student, unidentified animal attack, strange glowing lights over Baxter's Field," he said, reading from the headlines. "Nothing ever changes."

"Dunno about that." Spike didn't turn around. "Just got to take the long view."

"Easy for you to say, my immortal friend."

"'Sides, change's just another word for fate. Good or bad doesn't enter into it. Some of your white-coated types make a flu vaccine, saves millions, then you got overcrowding, famine. Invent the auto and 'fore you know it, you're warring over oil. Eat the apple, you get smart. You also die."

Xander raised his brows even though Spike wasn't looking. "That's some deep water you're treading."

"Human nature now, some'd say that never changes." A pause fell, broken only by a light scraping sound, like char being knifed off toast. "A man might though, if he set his mind to it."

Distracted by a photo of a prize-winning tomato on page five, Xander said, "Hmm?"

"Man, vampire. Same basic parts."

"Sure," Xander said absently but agreeably.

Spike set a plate of bacon and eggs on the hem of newspaper between his arms. Xander looked up and smiled, then back down at his breakfast.

"Hey," he said, delighted, picking up his fork. "You made the eggs and the bacon a smiley face. My mom used to do that."

Turning back to the stove, Spike said, "I kno--oh, yeah?"

"Again, not that I mistake you for my mom," Xander went on, cutting into his eggs, the lilt of Spike's voice floating by. "Because there's wrong, and then there's Jerry Springer wrong. Hey," he said with perked interest, "listen to my horoscope: 'Chance of romance is strong today. Your nonverbal signals are the key to making a love connection.'"

"Something to be said for the nonverbal." Spike sat down with a mug of blood.

"You think?" Xander rested a hand across Spike's and smiled at him, modest about what he offered, but every inch a man on the first day of the rest of his life. "I'm going to try that now. See if you get the connection."

The End

Spander Inquisition challenge, April-May, 2004. For kimberly_a. Challenge requirements: two things to include are hurt/comfort, either physical or emotional hurt, and temporary amnesia for *one* of the guys; set in season 4-7. *Don't* have: Xander getting vamped. Preferred rating: R or NC-17. This is an S5 and is AUish. Title nod to Carol S., who did a great multi-character BtVS/AtS vid of the same name; the original is Weird Al's. Thanks to Rubywisp, Sisabet, Herself, Ladycat, Saussy, Wiseacress, and Secondverse (nee Yindagger) for reading earlier versions and saying encouraging & helpful things. There is also a DVD commentary version of this story.