(no subject)

[lit_gal]

The  Cost of Butterfly Kisses, Part 38
Fandom/Pairing: BtVS, Spike/Xander
Rated: ADULT

Do I smell.... yes... yes, I smell spurting coming!!!  Let's see what Spike is thinking as the whole thing seems to be coming to a head.

( Chapter One... )  ( Chapter Two... ) ( Chapter 14 . )


Spike let the potential get in a hit before he rounded on her and kicked her in the back, sending her flying forward onto the lawn. "Ow!"

"Ow?" Spike demanded incredulously. "You're showing your back to the enemy and you're going to lay there and say 'ow'?" If these girls didn't start taking this more seriously, they were all going to end up dead in the first big battle before Finn had a chance to bring in the cavalry.

Molly rolled over onto her back. "I'm not a slayer. I can't fight you because you're stronger than me."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Harris!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

Xander opened the door. "Did someone bellow for me like a stuck bull elephant?"

"Get your arse out here," Spike said. Immediately, Xander's expression turned suspicious.

"Why?"

"Making a point," Spike said, not really answering. The girls were going to get a lesson in survival, and he'd just have to make it up to Xander later. With a smirk, he imagined all the ways he could apologize for the bruises Xander was about to get. Xander inched out toward the edge of the porch.

"I’ve got a backed up toilet to deal with. What sort of point?"

"This sort." Spike darted forward and caught Xander by the front of his shirt and yanked him off the porch. Xander's arms flew out, and when Spike let go, Xander sailed toward the lawn. He crashed into Molly, but where she squealed and just lay on the ground, Xander twisted around. By the time Spike launched himself at Xander, Xander had his feet up and he braced them in Spike's stomach so Spike couldn't get in a good bite.

"Spike!" Xander yelled. Spike had to roll to the side to get past Xander's feet, and that gave Xander time to scramble up. He had one foot under him and was still on a knee when Spike caught him by the neck. He was about to pull Xander in when Xander's hand found Spike's balls and squeezed. Hard. Spike had no problem with a little pain, but surprise loosened his grip, and Xander fell back, crab walking away as fast as he could. In a split second, Spike threw himself forward and landed on Xander, pinning him to the ground.

"You goober! Get off me." Xander hit Spike in the neck, making Spike's eyes water, but Spike grabbed Xander's right arm and pinned it to the ground. Xander's left was caught between their bodies, and Spike dug his toes into the soft ground to control Xander's attempts to squirm free or toss Spike to the side. Spike could feel the instant that the squirming changed. Xander started panting, his eyes wide with panic. Oh, the boy was a lusty bugger, but he'd never forgive himself if he gave the girls a show. Spike used brute strength to roll Xander over to his stomach and then sat on Xander's ass. Let the boy cool his heels enough to lose the bulge in his pants.

"So class," he said, addressing the potential slayers, "what have we learned?"

"Get off me," Xander complained loudly.

"You're the dead victim, pet, so just shut it," Spike said as he patted Xander's side. That earned him a softly muttered series of curses.

"See, you beat him, too," Kennedy pointed out.

Spike looked up at her. Of all the slayers, he was least convinced she'd live just because she was so soddin' convinced she would. "Yeah, I beat him. I'm a bloody master vampire with over a century of hunting behind me; however, he held me off for so long that one of the others would have come to his rescue before I could nip in for a bit of dinner. More importantly, if I were just looking for a quick snack, I probably would have passed him by when he came up from the first hit ready to fight. If I want a proper fight, I'll look for a proper opponent. If I'm looking for a quiet dinner, he's not what I'm looking for. He's a right noisy git." Spike smiled. Xander really was noisy, too. He mewled and cried out and gasped and sometimes, not often but sometimes, he even screamed.

"If you're done using me as a crash test dummy, can I get up now?" Xander asked. Spike leaned back, pushing his weight into Xander.

"I'm still making my point, luv, so settle down and be a good victim." Spike looked around. "Right then, someone better start getting the point, or I'm going to start using you lot as my crash test dummies."

"He kept fighting," Amanda quickly said.

"He grabbed your…" Rona paused and her eyes darted down to Spike's crotch.

Spike reached down and rearranged his junk. "Three soft targets: eyes, balls, and neck. If you can't get to one, get to another. That's just smart," Spike agreed. About half the potentials found something very interesting on the ground to stare at. "If you don't, you're going to be dead quick."

"And when all else fails, tell the idiot attacking you that if he doesn't get off you, he's going to be sleeping on the couch," Xander said sharply.

Spike looked over his shoulder, surprised that Xander would be quite so direct about their relationship. He hadn't hid it, but he wasn't advertising, either. As far as Spike could tell, Willow, Tara, and Bonnie knew, and Buffy and Giles most likely knew, but Xander wasn't confirming or denying anything. A couple of the potentials giggled.

"Right then, that works too-under certain circumstances," Spike agreed, standing up and holding his hand out for Xander. He pulled Xander to his feet, and Xander punched him in the arm. "Goober," Xander muttered before rolling his eyes and heading back into the house.

Spike smirked and turned back to the class. "So, you lot ready to try this again?"

Buffy's car pulled up at the curb with a whine of belts and an unhealthy rattle. She got out and looked at them all. Spike could feel his whole body tighten-there was a fight in her expression.

"Something new on the big and nasty front?" he asked.

Her jaw was clenched as she walked past him into the house without answering. Spike could see the potentials, their eyes searching each other out as they looked for some sort of reassurance that Buffy wasn't providing. Spike sighed. If she was the general like she kept saying, she needed to bloody pull her head out of her arse before all the corporals ran for the hills.

Spike strode in on Buffy's heels, letting the potentials sort themselves out. Buffy paced the room like a caged tiger, and the others came out like there was some sort of bloody bat signal Buffy flashed whenever she got too upset. Tara was wiping her hands on a towel, Willow creeping after her like a beaten puppy, and Xander came out of the upstairs bathroom, plunger in hand. Spike wrinkled his nose at the stink of human vomit.

"Hey, what's the what?" Xander asked. Willow pressed closer to Tara's side, acting like the others might beat her. Considering that no one had lifted a finger, Spike wasn't sure if this new contrition and guilt was going to last, but at least Willow was taking it seriously that she'd killed some schmuck and triggered Armageddon because of her desire to get Buffy out of heaven. Spike had killed a good deal more innocents than she had, and he hadn't found whimpering and hiding behind some skirt really atoned for much of anything, but no one had asked him, and he wasn't sticking his nose in that kettle of rotting fish.

Buffy stopped. "Got a new player in town. He got to the new girl before I did."

"Dead?" Xander tossed the plunger at the bathroom before coming out into the living room.

"Gutted. I got her to the hospital."

"Oh dear. Will she be okay? I can get some healing salve together," Tara offered. Willow opened her mouth like she might say something, but then she closed it again and seemed to shrink farther into Tara's shadow. That wasn't going to last long; Willow had too much personality to vanish into anyone's shadow, and Tara wasn't the sort to put up with that behavior. Spike noted that Tara was already looking at Willow oddly.

"She's a potential. She'll pull through," Buffy said, but Spike wasn't sure if that was confidence or wishful thinking. "But apparently we have a preacher man in town who likes stabbing girls and who claims to have something of mine. He calls himself Caleb. I plan to find out exactly what he has."

"Um…" Xander raised his hand like he was a kid in class. "Am I the only one who smells the fishy and rotting stink of trap?"

"Nope," Spike agreed. It was a trap, and Buffy knew it. She knew it well enough that her mouth was a thin line and her eyes hard. She planned to try to rip through the trap using brute strength. It might work, but that wouldn't be Spike's first plan of attack. Then again, Spike figured enough of his plans had blown up in his face to suggest that planning wasn't his forte.

"It's a trap? So we aren't going?" Amanda asked.

"Oh, we're going. I'm going and you guys are coming with me." Buffy's voice was hard. More and more, Spike was starting to think that Xander was right about her demonic bits coming out because she was starting to sound a whole lot like Angelus-no style, just a lot of ripping and tearing. The worst part was that she wasn't sounding much like Buffy. "Start arming the girls. We need to move when we find him," Buffy said. Giles had appeared in the shadows of the door to the kitchen, and Buffy included him in that command, her eyes going to him.

"But we don't know-" Willow stopped and chewed on her lip.

"Oh so many ways to finish that sentence," Xander said. "We don't know who he is, we don't know what he has, we don't know where he is, we don't know if he has a big nuclear bomb waiting to go off when we show up."

"I plan to do a little recon." Buffy turned to Spike. "You up for it?"

Spike blinked and traded a quick look with Xander. Xander didn't like any of this, but he wasn't saying anything against it, either. "I'm always up for it, luv," Spike agreed. If Buffy was walking into a trap, the least Spike could do was cover her back.

Giles stepped out from the shadows. "Are you certain this is the best course of action? You don't even know what this man has of yours-if he, in fact, has anything."

Buffy's back straightened up a little at the implied insult. As far as Spike was concerned, Giles should just come right out and tell her she was going 'round the bend, but Giles remained silent, and Spike wasn't going to jeopardize their tenuous relationship. Besides, if he brassed her off, she'd still go hunting for this git, she'd just do it without backup. It took Buffy a second to answer Giles. "It could be a girl, a potential trying to get to us."

"Could be a stapler," Giles countered.

"Going in anyway."

"With the girls?" Giles tone made it clear he considered that idiotic. "Most of whom have yet to be in the field, let alone in a life or death situation?"

"Then it's time we test them. Look, I'll just take the ones that have been here the longest. The rest can stay behind."

Behind him, Spike could smell the burst of fear that came from the girls; it was like catnip to his demon. If she took this lot into a fight, there was going to be a bloody massacre, and Spike was pretty sure they were signing up to be the victims

"Could be that's just what he wants you to do-the old bait-and-switch," Spike suggested as carefully as he could. After a decade with Angelus, he knew just how touchy an alpha could get when they were backed into a corner, and Darla had kept Angelus in a corner for most of the time Spike had known him. He had no idea what had Buffy feeling trapped, but from the way she was acting, she felt bloody powerless, and she was taking it out on everyone around her.

"It could be he lures Buffy away and then kills the girls we leave behind," Willow said softly. "Angelus did that."

"I know. That's why I need you guys to stay here with them." Buffy looked at Willow and Tara. "You're my most powerful weapons. I know you can keep them safe if anything happens."

Willow's eyes went big. "I can't…. I mean…. With magic?" Her voice squeaked at the end. Yeah, finding out her trick with the deer had actually led to a human death had really taken the wind out of her sails.

"Willow, you can do this," Buffy encouraged her.

"But it's magic, and we don't know the consequences of it." She reached up and grabbed her Star of David necklace. "I don't think…."

Tara interrupted. "It's in the intent, Willow. If we only want to protect the innocent…."

"I only wanted to save Buffy, and look what happened. I can't do magic. What if it goes wrong again? What if someone dies?"

"What if I drop a brick when I'm working on the fourth story of the library building and kill some guy walking to his car?" Xander asked.

Willow's eyes got all big. "Xander!"

"Hey, I'm not planning to do it," Xander said, holding his hands up. "And that one time… that was totally an accident, and I want to point out that I hit the car and not the guy. However, my point is that crap happens."

"I triggered Armageddon!"

Spike wasn't sure if Willow was looking for reassurance or forgiveness, but her self-flagellation was starting to annoy him.

"Well, yes, but then you killed something and messed with the heavenly dimensions, so how about a rule that you avoid human sacrifice?" Xander's words caused Willow to lose all color out of her face. "And hey, I opened a little crack in a window when I brought Buffy back the first time, so it's not even like you're the only one in the room to let ultimate evil into the world."

"I didn't crack open a window; I threw the door wide open. I ripped the door down. I ripped the wall down and let the invading armies swarm. I'm a swarm-allower. I'm a swarm-facilitator." Willow wailed.

Spike couldn't take anymore. He turned and pushed his way through the crowd of potentials hovering at the doorway. If Buffy wanted him to kill something, he would, but he wouldn't listen to Willow's twaddle. She didn't know evil. Spike closed his eyes as a memory washed over him. A little girl no bigger than an elf looked up at him with wide brown eyes. She was so scared, and blood ran down her arms from where she'd been holding her chum's dead body. Drusilla was laughing, dancing through the bodies of a dozen children, catching them by limp arms and dancing with them for mere seconds before dropping one to grab up another.

Back then, he couldn't feel anything for that girl with the big eyes. She'd been no more than a cow standing on the side of the pen waiting for the farmer to slit its throat. She was nothing. As she looked up at him, Spike had turned to Drusilla, wondering if his princess would be more pleased by a live victim or another limp body to carry in her dance.

Spike's guts twisted in guilt as he remembered Drusilla holding out her hand, and he'd gone to her, ignoring the terror in that girl's face. She'd survived that day, survived when Spike and Drusilla had slaughtered an entire orphanage because Drusilla had some vision.

Some days, Spike wished he could share those memories with Willow-that he could show her true evil so she'd stop nattering on about her bloody walk on the dark side. She'd been caught up in grief, and she'd acted like a fucking twit, but true evil was looking straight into the eyes of a terrified child and feeling nothing.

Pulling out a cigarette, Spike leaned against the tree and watched the neighborhood. Halvard's father came out of his house, his gait slow and careful, but then he was probably concentrating on looking as clumsy as a human. It couldn't be comfortable, being demon and living next to a house full of potential slayers. Sometimes Spike found his own skin itching as he longed to just take off and put as much distance between himself and this house.

"How goes the fight?" The elder asked. He stopped some distance from Spike, but then friendly demons weren't any more comfortable around vampires than they were around slayers.

"About the same," Spike answered.

"Should I take my family away?" The question came out of nowhere, and Spike looked at the man. It wasn't wise to ask someone a question like that-you were inviting them to take advantage of your indecision. Hell, even now, Spike thought about the convenience of having an empty house next to them, somewhere he could take Xander and bugger the boy without having to arrange for a babysitter or putting up with the salacious looks of girls who weren't as old as his bloody boots. Actually, Xander wasn't as old as his boots, either, but at least he wasn't some bloody giggling schoolgirl.

Eventually, Spike shrugged. "I figure if the slayer loses this battle, you'll need to find another bloody dimension. Changing zip codes won't make much of a difference."

"A lot of people are leaving."

"I noticed." Huge chunks of Sunnydale were turning into a ghost town, but their neighborhood was still full of people who slunk to their house at sundown and furtively looked out windows. "If things look like they're changing, I'll tell you if I have time," Spike offered. He wasn't one for making alliances with random blokes, but if Halvard was going to court Dawn, their families had to make peace at some point.

Halvard's father nodded. "I appreciate that."

"Yeah, well I'm not leaving my own undefended to give you advance warning if the town gets sucked into hell."

"I never expected you would." Halvard's father tilted his head toward Spike, and for one moment, Spike wondered if he should ask for a name. But then the man turned with a flexibility and grace a human couldn't match and ambled back toward his house, his mission complete.

Buffy came out of the house, and Spike focused on her. "So, are you going to try and talk me out of this?" she demanded, an alpha feeling a need to defend her prerogative to rule.

"I had my say. You tell me to bloody attack something, and I will," Spike answered. Immediately, all of Buffy's lines softened. Spike made a mental note to try and coach Xander in the finer points of dealing with a brassed-off alpha, but seeing as the boy had more than a little alpha in him, Spike just wasn't sure it was going to take.

"Xander, Tara, and Giles all think I'm making a mistake."

"I figure every move we make will be a mistake until we can figure out how to follow the advice that Eye gave us," Spike pointed out.

Buffy gave him a sharp glare and then started walking toward town, leaving her rusting, belching car behind. Spike fell in next to her. They walked in silence, Spike waiting for Buffy to make her next move. Pushing her now wasn't likely to win any points. She might not string him up and strip the skin from his back like Angelus, but she wouldn't thank him for forgetting his place. They'd walked several blocks before she spoke. "We don't even know that thing was telling the truth."

"Rupert seems to think it doesn't lie."

"Giles doesn't know everything."

Giving a snort, Spike silently agreed with that. Rupert didn't know nearly as much as he thought. "Normally, I'd agree, but when the watcher and demons go agreeing on something, I tend to believe 'em. Besides, Rack said the same rot about evil having to perform an act of goodness."

Buffy looked over at him. "So, you think you're the one who has to stop the First? Newsflash, Spike, you have a soul. You aren't evil anymore."

Spike pursed his lips and thought about that for a second. "Soul just makes me feel guilty about what I've done, pet. It doesn't erase any of the choices I've made."

"You made those before you got a soul, Spike."

"Do you know who my first victim was?"

"Is this going to be a creepy Drusilla story?"

"Killed my mum. The demon doesn't give a rat's arse about humans, but I wanted my mum. Angelus killed both his folks and his little sis to boot. Darla hunted down every man who ever paid her a coin to spread her legs. All a demon wants is a good fight and a better fuck, and there we were focusing on the human bits. Trust me, luv, my demon was doing what I wanted. I was selfish-I never thought about what my mum wanted, only what I wanted for her and out of her. Angelus was a jealous, selfish git. Darla… well, she was just a right bitch. But the evil came from the humanity. It's my human that's guilty of turning a monster loose on the world."

Even though Buffy didn't say anything, Spike could tell from her expression that she didn't believe him. Spike wasn't going to beg her to understand.

"Well, it doesn't matter," Buffy finally said. "I mean even if you still want to claim evilness, that doesn't mean that we can believe the Eye thingy or Rack."

"Rack was right about Angel."

Buffy stopped. Spike hated that Angel's name could still demand her complete attention. "What?"

He shrugged off that familiar feeling of inadequacies. When he got home, he could mention Peaches and listen to Xander verbally shred the git. That would make him feel better.

"Angel went off the rails. Bugger ate a parcel of lawyers and slaughtered some gits whose only crime was being in the same soddin' building. Wesley said that all the prophecies ended when he did that. The champion of good was a right and proper villain, and all the signs and portents just stopped. So, I figure if Rack was right about that much, he's right about the rest." Spike pulled a cigarette out of a pocket. It still infuriated him that Angel could be the champion of good. Those bastards who called themselves the Powers had pulled Peaches out of hell and knighted him, and that's all it took for him to become the quintessential white hat. It was bloody galling. Spike had never carried as much hate in him, but without getting sent to hell for a century, he wasn't sure how to atone. It wasn't even like Angel had made a choice to go to hell. Xander had arranged that little side trip.

"Angel wouldn't do something evil," Buffy insisted. One mention of his name, and she was right back to being sixteen and staring at him with doe eyes.

"Well he did," Spike snapped. The softness that Buffy had been showing vanished, leaving behind all hard angles and narrow eyes that reminded Spike all too much of Darla. "Isn't that one of the minions?" Spike asked, jerking his head toward where a Bringer was lurking in the shadows.

Buffy hesitated for a second before looking over. "They get around pretty good for blind guys."

"Well enough to avoid us, at least until now." Spike didn't bother pointing out that the sudden appearance of a minion probably meant the trap was about to snap shut. He searched the buildings around them, smelling the air to try and spot any enemies stalking them.

"Let's follow," Buffy whispered, already moving toward the shadow of the bookstore so she wouldn't make as good of a target. Spike wasn't going to hide from a blind man, so he continued to walk down the street, ignoring Buffy's critical glares. It bothered him that the Bringer was walking just slow enough to always be easily seen. It wasn't natural. When Spike had been hunting, he'd used minions as bait plenty of times, but five hours after hitting Sunnydale, he'd decided Buffy was too smart to fall for that old ruse. It bothered him she was falling for it so easily now.

"Home sweet demon home," Buffy whispered as the Bringer walked into a barn-like building.

Spike sniffed the air. "There's a lot of them," he warned. Flexing his muscles, he found himself wishing he had a flame-thrower and a grenade or two. They might not have a lot of style, but Xander's heavy artillery had done the Turok-Han a whole lot of damage. Spike would take substance over style any day of the week.

Buffy gave a wicked smile. "Let's get the cavalry."