Fighting for Freedom - 2/? - PG13 (eventually NC17)
Title: Fighting for Freedom
Chapter Number: 2
Overall Rating: NC17
Chapter Rating: PG13
Summary: Alexander Harris is the son of the President of the United States, and he’s bored. For most of his life, he’s been hidden away and kept from society to ensure a lack of embarrassment and trouble to make his father’s campaign easier. While on a trip, he makes a break for it, and discovers a world he never would have imagined. Unfortunately, the man introducing him to all of this, might not be quite who he says he is…
Disclaimer: No characters from BtVS or AtS are mine, nor do I claim them to be. I am using the characters purely for fun and entertainment purposes.
Overall Warnings: slash, het, graphic sex, swearing,
Chapter Warnings: swearing,
Main Pairings: Spike/Xander, Angel/Buffy
chapter one
~~~
Xander was pretty sure he was lost. Great. He’d headed out into the city, just looking for something to do. Or to look at people. Or anything. And now he didn’t know where he was. He’d only been gone for a couple of hours, but he was getting the disturbing feeling that someone was following him. Every time he looked around, though, he didn’t see anyone suspicious.
No one had seemed to recognize him, which was great. Buffy said people didn’t usually recognize her, either, and they could only assume it was because people weren’t trying to see them. No one expected the First Children to be running around in society.
Finally deciding to ask directions back toward the hotel, to be sure he stayed within a certain distance so he didn’t end up totally lost, Xander walked up to a woman leaning against a wall by an alley.
“Excuse me,” he said, as she looked him up and down.
“Looking for a good time, honey?”
“Uh, kind of, but actually-”
“I can show you a good time. But it’ll cost you a little.” Xander stared at her for a moment, finally taking in her clothing. She was dressed awfully skimpily for this late in the year, even in California. “What would you like, dear?” He suddenly realized what she was.
“Oh. Uh, nothing, I really just need directions.”
“Mm. Ten bucks.”
“What?”
“Ten bucks and I’ll get you where you’re going.” Xander actually started to look for the money, and then realized he didn’t have a cent on him.
“Sorry, I don’t have-”
“Hey, kid, how about you move on.” Xander jerked at the deep voice behind him. He turned, seeing a large man there, glaring.
“Carl, lay off. He’s just trying to get some directions,” the prostitute said.
“Well he should do it somewhere that’s not bothering my girls.”
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”
“Whatever. Get!”
Xander took off at a run, not stopping until he was two blocks away and around a corner. He leaned against the wall and focused on breathing. That had been the most terrifying moment of his life. He stood there for several minutes, until he heard another voice and his eyes snapped open before he was aware they had ever closed.
“Look what we’ve got here, Harm,” a male voice that sounded a little younger than himself said.
“I see, Larry!” a female, apparently Harm, answered. She was thin and blonde and, admittedly beautiful. Xander blinked at her and her jock-looking companion.
“Hungry babe?” Larry asked her, staring at Xander. The nineteen year old swallowed.
“Yeah…” Then Xander shouted as her face changed. Her could hear the bones crunching as they morphed and watched in horror as her teeth elongated into fangs. Her eyes turned yellow, and then Larry did the same thing, and Xander tried to run, but he was grabbed around the wrist and yanked towards their open mouths, full of sharp teeth, and he closed his eyes again, screaming for help.
Then there was a pain in his neck, something sharp piercing the skin, finding his arteries, and he was going to die. Buffy was going to feel so guilty; she would blame herself. It wasn’t her fault! Joyce and Dad were never going to let the girls out of their sight now. Why had he come out anyway? What was so special about this place, where there were hookers and pimps and murdering monsters, that he had gambled and lost his life for it? He was falling now, everything dark, but maybe that was because his eyes were still shut.
He actually felt himself hit the ground, but just lay there, unable to move from the trembling weakness that had overcome his body. Any minute now, he would be dead. Those two…things would finish what they had started, and he would be found by some homeless guy, or a prostitute bringing a customer into the seclusion of the alley, and the cops would get his body, and his parents would demand to know why and how he snuck out, and Buffy would tell, and then they would blame her, too, which wasn’t fair, because it was his choice to do this stupid thing in the first place.
But he never felt the weight of them coming for him again. For a long time, nothing happened. He finally calmed the tremors, and was about to look, when he felt wet fingers touching the wounds on either side of his neck.
“Fuck,” a masculine voice muttered. “Please be okay…”
“’M dandy,” Xander managed to force past his lips and opened his eyes to meet a concerned face with a pair of ice blue eyes under shockingly blond hair.
“You sure?”
“No. Am I going to die?” The other man paused a moment, fingers pressed against Xander’s neck.
“Don’t think so. The bleeding’s stopped, and your pulse seems all right. What say we get you home, yeah?”
“Uhn… Home is three hours, uh, that way?” Xander said, sitting up and pointing in the direction he thought Sunnydale might be. The blond with an accent Xander’s swimming mind couldn’t place chuckled.
“No place nearer by? Hotel, maybe?”
“Yeah. Got lost, though.”
“’S alright. Let’s get you back and you’ll be safe as houses.”
“Sure.” Xander was pulled to his feet, and promptly threw up as nausea accompanied the movement.
“Shit! Sorry. I always forget.”
“No, it’s okay. You…you saved my life, didn’t you?”
“Maybe. Look, don’t worry about that, okay?”
“No. What the fuck were those things? They looked human, but then they…they…didn’t.”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s get you back.” Xander resisted, but the man, for being quite a bit slimmer and shorter than him, was rather strong.
“How do I know I can trust you? You just come out of nowhere and expect me to go with you!”
The blond sighed. “What do I need to do to convince you?”
“Answer some damn questions, and I’ll walk with you.”
“Fine. Let’s walk and talk, alright?” Xander stared for another moment, and then nodded. “What do you want to know?”
“What were they?”
“Vampires.” There was a long silence while Xander tried to comprehend the answer he was given.
“No way.” The other man smirked.
“Yeah way.”
“Did you really just say ‘yeah way’?”
“Yes. ’S what you kids say now-days, innit?”
“Uh, kinda. But…whatever. Really, though? Vampires?”
“Not so loud, people’ll think you’re mad.” Xander blinked.
“Okay, let’s say I believe you, that they were…vampires,” Xander lowered his voice on the word that time, “how did you get rid of them?”
“Staked ’em right proper, of course. How would you’ve done it? Kinda hard to carry around sunshine in me pocket. Jenny and her girls kin do it, but that’s what magic’s for, s’pose.”
“Magic?”
“Yeah. Course the wolf likes to just tear their heads clean off. I don’t like gettin’ so dirty, and large weapons are a bit conspicuous.”
“…Right. You know you’re crazy, right?”
“No ’m not. Don’t see me walking round at night in a place I don’t know without a weapon, do ya? But you are, aren’t ya?”
“Uh-huh. I haven’t actually seen this weapon yet.” Then a piece of wood was held in his face.
“See? Stake. Enters heart, vamp dies. I’ve also got a gun on my hip. Never know when it’ll be humans need fendin’ off.”
“Yeah. Okay. I think I’ve adventured enough for the night. Can you get me back to my hotel so I can let my sisters know I’m not dead?”
“Sure, whelp.”
“We’re staying at the Grand Castle Leaves,” Xander said, ignoring the name.
“Mm. Yeah, I know the place. Let’s get you tucked into bed, then, yeah?”
“Yeah.” After a few more lengthy minutes, Xander asked another question. “What’s your name?” The man paused a moment before answering.
“Spike. Yours?”
“Xander.”
“That’s a bit different.”
“Well, I’m a bit different.”
“I’ll give ya that.”
“Are you serious?”
“About what?”
“Vampires.” Spike stopped walking and looked Xander straight in the eyes.
“Deadly.” There was a long stretch of silence while they stared at each other, and then Spike started walking again, Xander quickly catching up. “I’ve lost friends to them. Family. I managed to piece some things back together eventually, but for the most part, vampires ruined my life. At least several years of it. And that’s something you can’t get back.”
Xander didn’t say anything else, just followed the strange man, whose accent he had finally placed as likely British, until they reached the hotel. Spike stood at the bottom, watching as Xander scrambled up the building, and Xander waved to him when he reached his own room, smiling as the blond waved back. Then the brunet slipped inside and headed to Buffy’s room to tell her about his night.
~~~
chapter three