Buffy Saves Christmas
Title: Buffy Saves Christmas
Author: Harikari
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Wherein there is possessive Spike, Xander, an evil wizard, and candy flavored kisses.
Warnings: OOCness. Kind of fluffy.
Disclaimer: Don't own em'.
AN: Written for
fall_for_sx. This is strange. I typed it up at three in the morning while miserable and hopped up on extra strength cold medicine - tread carefully.
-----
"So..." Xander let the word linger in the air. He waited until Giles was facing him and working up what looked like it would be a pretty good glare before continuing. "What you're basically saying is that Santa is real?"
The former Watcher let out a pained sigh and rubbed at his temples. "Xander, that's not quite what I-"
"I heard what you said. You said that Saint Nicholas is actually a powerful but harmless sprite that wakes from slumber once a year. While he's awake he eats all of the offerings of milk and cookies he can find and occasionally leaves gifts for those generous souls that offered them. That's exactly what you said - only instead of cookies you said biscuits. But otherwise..." Xander left that to linger in the air, too.
Giles stopped rubbing at his temples. Instead, he removed his glasses from his face and wiped furiously at the lenses with the edge of his sweater. "Well," he finally answered. "It doesn't particularly have to be an offering of milk and, uh, cookies."
Xander folded his arms across his chest and waited. He could see Buffy and Riley, who were embracing on the couch, watching Giles curiously. Willow was sprawled comfortably on the recliner and stifling a laugh behind her hand. And Spike....Well Spike, oddly enough, was just staring at Xander. And not just at Xander, like, in general because he'd been talking. No, his blue eyes seemed to be fixated on Xander's lips.
Strange guy, Spike. Even for a vampire.
"Fine!" shouted Giles finally, looking stressed. "He's real. Father bloody Christmas. Santa bloody Claus. Whatever you want to call him. He is real. And we have all gathered intelligence from various concerned lesser demons and have reason to believe that a wizard by the name of Ylloh is going to attempt to trap the sprite when it passes through Sunnydale and acquire its powers for his own evil purposes. If that already immensely powerful wizard gets a hold of those powers...he'd be capable of almost anything. It's our job to stop Ylloh."
"Right," said Buffy. She jumped up from the couch as if Giles' last words had been her cue. "And now it's Christmas Eve night in Sunnydale. So let's go kick some wizard butt."
"Yes," Willow agreed, straightening from her sprawl and standing at the same moment Riley rose from his place on the couch. "Let's kick nasty wizard butt in the worst way. It's bad enough this evil guy is forcing us to patrol on Christmas Eve - Tara's been sick with a cold lately, too. So now Tara's sick and all alone on Christmas Eve."
As Buffy, Riley and Giles threw on their coats and shuffled outside Xander gave his redheaded friend a sympathetic look. It couldn't be fun to be without your significant other on a holiday. Not that Xander himself had had a significant other in quite a while. He thought back and realized that the last person who had expressed any romantic interest in him had been Anya the former half demon. And Anya had run off during the Mayor apocalypse last year so...yeah, it had been quite a while.
"Hey! Mistletoe!" Willow squealed suddenly. She rushed over to where Xander was standing under the archway that led to the kitchen and the rest of Giles' living space, stood on her toes and gave her best friend a kiss on the cheek. "Ha. Got you. You were standing under mistletoe."
Caught off guard, Xander blushed - just a little. He seriously hadn't been expecting that - his friend was Jewish and Xander honestly wasn't even sure if Jewish people did the whole mistletoe thing. Willow giggled, grabbed her brightly colored jacket from where it was dangling over the arm of the couch and hurried out the door.
And that's when Xander noticed that Spike was still sitting on one of Giles' kitchen stools, and still staring at him.
"What are you looking at?" barked Xander. The blond vampire stood and flashed him a strange little smirk that definitely showed some fang.
Suddenly angry and embarrassed for a reason he couldn't put his finger on, Xander grabbed his own winter wear and tried to speed out of Giles' apartment. He tried to - but instead of managing a graceful exit one of his tennis shoes got tangled up with the extension cord Giles was using to light up his five foot tall tree and he lost his balance. He closed his eyes, braced for impact...Only, there was no impact. Spike had grabbed the back of his shirt and was holding his weight up without, it seemed, any effort at all. Xander found his balance, pulled on his worn jacket and tried to pretend like he still had dignity.
"All right, then?" asked the vampire. And he was all suave, and cool and British saying that. He didn't laugh or make a cruel remark like he usually did when things like what had just happened happened.
"Yeah, thanks," muttered Xander grudgingly. He forced his knit cap onto his head - causing little strands of hair to stick wildly out of the bottom of the hat - and pointedly ignored the confusing look Spike gave him. And it was a very confusing look. He couldn't quite tell if Spike wanted to laugh out loud at him or grab him and give him a huge hug.
Most definitely the former. Xander shoved his hands into his pockets. And then, since it was Christmas Eve and since Spike was being sort of civil and since he was pretty sure that he was going to be patrolling with the vampire that night - the other Scoobies were long gone and hunting down Ylloh by now - Xander decided to offer the blond a little olive branch of conversation.
"You know," he commented as they walked out of Giles' apartment, shutting the door behind them. "This whole Santa being real thing explains why my parents were so confused that Christmas I found the Gameboy I'd really been wanting under the tree..."
-----
"Candy is goood," said Xander. He and Spike were standing in front of the door that led down to the Harris' basement and Xander was leaning heavily against the vampire; his left knee was throbbing with a sharp pain. He felt it as the platinum blond demon's long, cold fingers dug into his jacket's pocket for the keys that were stuffed there and half giggled, half breathed into Spike's neck.
"Ow," he muttered when his laugh and the vampire grabbing his keys out of his pocket jarred his leg a little. He felt the vampire flinch next to him and wondered if it was because of the chip or because of his mouth so near the others neck.
Spike managed to work the keys and pushed the door open. "Okay whelp?" asked the blond, blunt and short. Xander blinked and realized - even through the haze of the pills Giles had made him take for his injured knee - that the vampire had been acting unusually quiet and unusually nice. And not just that night - he'd been acting strangely polite when it came to Xander for a while, actually. A lot more polite than a demon with no soul and William the Bloody's history rightfully should be. In fact, the blond had even been the one to come to Xander's rescue when that asshole of a wizard Ylloh had decided to knock him into a couple of tombstones.
Suddenly suspicious, Xander decided to try to subtly get the demon talking - maybe then he could decipher what exactly Spike was up to. "Yeah. Sure, I'm fine." The vampire deposited him on the old couch and Xander huffed. He took a last good lick of the candy cane in his left hand (Buffy, bruised and battered from a hard won fight with Ylloh had handed a loopy-from-Giles'-drugs Xander the candy with a look of sympathy before they had all left the Watcher's house in search of a good night's sleep) before setting it carefully aside.
He watched as Spike dropped down onto the couch next to him, grabbed the remote, and lifted his feet onto the coffee table. Xander didn't bother telling the guy to at least take his freakin' boots off if he was going to do that - he had given up on telling Spike off for the little things about a week after the demon had moved in with him.
The television came on and there were flashes of light in the dark basement as the channels were changed - the vampire put down the remote when Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer revealed itself on channel seven. "What in bloody hell were you thinkin' anyway?" demanded Spike abruptly. "Charging at that prat wizard like you knew what you were doin'?"
"I was distracting him," he answered. "For Buffy." The demon mumbled something unsavory about the Slayer under his breath - Xander chose to ignore that and instead took a deep breath in an attempt to clear his mind.
"You know," he said. "If we were all stars of a television show tonight would have been the Christmas special. Buffy Saves Christmas." Okay, so maybe talking about nonsense things like that wasn't the best way to figure out whatever it was the platinum blond was up to. Honestly though, Xander had no idea where he was supposed to start - and also, those pills the Watcher had given him were pretty strong. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't clear his mind.
Spike snorted. "Naw," he said. He stretched and rested one of his long arms on the couch behind Xander - it was like one of those bad date moves that Xander had tried to use when he'd been thirteen and at a movie theater with a girl he liked. He tried to ignore the arm behind him as the vampire continued. "I wouldn't lower myself to a Christmas special. I'd at least rate a movie. Maybe a little like that Ernest bloke..."
"Ernest Saves Christmas?" asked Xander. "No way, we're nowhere near being that quality of movie." He waited for the blond's retort - arguing about idiotic things with the vampire was familiar - but instead there was silence.
Xander shot a glance at the demon. Great. The guy was looking at him again.
Xander squirmed. He huffed out a tired breath and tried to focus on the tale of Rudolph that was unraveling on the television; tried to ignored the rapidly dulling pain in his knee. He squirmed some more. He wiggled out of his winter coat and leaned deeper into the couch. He shot another discreet glance in the demon's direction.
"Stop that!" shouted Xander, abruptly and loudly.
"Stop what?" questioned the vampire. He seemed to be annoyingly unperturbed by the outburst.
"You know what!” yelled Xander. “You've been acting weird for a long time now - being civil and saving me from crazy demons and looking at me all the time. I'm not stupid! I know you're up to something! What evil deed are you planning now Spike? Huh? Huh?” He was breathing fast when he finished, and he could feel his face turning red with anger, and he had just enough time to wonder at the strange look on the vampire's face before Spike leaned in close and...
Kissed him. Wait. Kissed him.
Suddenly Spike was just there. His lips were on Xander's, soft and surprisingly warm. And then there was Spike's wet tongue - it licked at Xander's peppermint flavored lips and pushed its way into his mouth. And then there were two tongues - Spike and Xander's tongues - and they were touching, licking, dueling for dominance and Spike was winning but that didn't matter because that wasn't the point...The point was the feeling.
And then there was more. More. And all Xander knew for a long moment was teeth clicking, gasping for breath, the feel of Spike's strong hand snaking its way up his shirt to his chest, his own fists gripping leather and pulling that mouth closer.
And then it was over. Xander blinked and listened to the sound of his heart pounding in his ears as his brain attempted to catch up with what had happened. He was suddenly very aware of the comforting hug of the knit winter cap atop his head; he had forgotten to take it off.
Spike, still leaning over Xander, practically straddling him, smirked. “Owed you that,” he quipped. Then licked his lips in a way that made Xander's body feel strangely tingly all over. “You taste like peppermint, pet.”
All Xander could manage in reply was a little 'oh' sound. Everything was coming back, was making sense. Spike watching him while he'd been standing under the mistletoe, Spike saving him from the wizard, Spike doing everything he'd done for Xander lately. Spike liked him - the vampire living in his basement with him liked him. Apparently liked him a lot.
He looked up at the platinum blond still hovering over him when he felt fingers digging into his hips: not hard enough to hurt, maybe hard enough to leave a mark.
“Owed you that,” Spike repeated. Only this time he said it more awkwardly, as if he weren't quite sure about his words. His eyes, too, seemed suddenly more vulnerable. That vulnerability was unsettling. “You know...with the mistletoe and all.” He stopped for a moment to just stare down at Xander before plowing on. “And about that...uh...you know. Happy Christmas.”
Happy Christmas? Xander could tell from the look in his roommate's eyes that the blond wasn't just wishing him a happy holiday. No. It was something else. He was asking a question with those words. He was asking Xander if this - whatever this was - was okay.
Xander thought back to Giles' house. He thought about the fight with Ylloh and his hurt knee that was still throbbing a little even with the strong medication he'd downed and the disastrous, drunken traditional Christmas party that his parents would be throwing the next day...No. Xander wouldn't say this Christmas was turning out to be a happy one at all.
But then...What about the good stuff? What about that fact that the Scoobies had defeated the wizard that had tried to waste Santa? What about the fact that Santa was real (seriously, he could torture Giles with that one for years)? And what about Spike? Spike with his awesome tongue that Xander hadn't pulled away from even though it was surprising because he'd really liked it and his leather jacket and his blue eyes that were boring into Xander even now. That was all good. That was all very good.
Xander didn't take very long to answer Spike's silent question.
“Yeah,” he breathed, finally coherent enough to speak. “Merry Christmas, Spike.”
And then Xander felt Spike's fingers dig more deeply into his hips - he liked the feeling.
Author: Harikari
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Wherein there is possessive Spike, Xander, an evil wizard, and candy flavored kisses.
Warnings: OOCness. Kind of fluffy.
Disclaimer: Don't own em'.
AN: Written for
fall_for_sx. This is strange. I typed it up at three in the morning while miserable and hopped up on extra strength cold medicine - tread carefully.
-----
"So..." Xander let the word linger in the air. He waited until Giles was facing him and working up what looked like it would be a pretty good glare before continuing. "What you're basically saying is that Santa is real?"
The former Watcher let out a pained sigh and rubbed at his temples. "Xander, that's not quite what I-"
"I heard what you said. You said that Saint Nicholas is actually a powerful but harmless sprite that wakes from slumber once a year. While he's awake he eats all of the offerings of milk and cookies he can find and occasionally leaves gifts for those generous souls that offered them. That's exactly what you said - only instead of cookies you said biscuits. But otherwise..." Xander left that to linger in the air, too.
Giles stopped rubbing at his temples. Instead, he removed his glasses from his face and wiped furiously at the lenses with the edge of his sweater. "Well," he finally answered. "It doesn't particularly have to be an offering of milk and, uh, cookies."
Xander folded his arms across his chest and waited. He could see Buffy and Riley, who were embracing on the couch, watching Giles curiously. Willow was sprawled comfortably on the recliner and stifling a laugh behind her hand. And Spike....Well Spike, oddly enough, was just staring at Xander. And not just at Xander, like, in general because he'd been talking. No, his blue eyes seemed to be fixated on Xander's lips.
Strange guy, Spike. Even for a vampire.
"Fine!" shouted Giles finally, looking stressed. "He's real. Father bloody Christmas. Santa bloody Claus. Whatever you want to call him. He is real. And we have all gathered intelligence from various concerned lesser demons and have reason to believe that a wizard by the name of Ylloh is going to attempt to trap the sprite when it passes through Sunnydale and acquire its powers for his own evil purposes. If that already immensely powerful wizard gets a hold of those powers...he'd be capable of almost anything. It's our job to stop Ylloh."
"Right," said Buffy. She jumped up from the couch as if Giles' last words had been her cue. "And now it's Christmas Eve night in Sunnydale. So let's go kick some wizard butt."
"Yes," Willow agreed, straightening from her sprawl and standing at the same moment Riley rose from his place on the couch. "Let's kick nasty wizard butt in the worst way. It's bad enough this evil guy is forcing us to patrol on Christmas Eve - Tara's been sick with a cold lately, too. So now Tara's sick and all alone on Christmas Eve."
As Buffy, Riley and Giles threw on their coats and shuffled outside Xander gave his redheaded friend a sympathetic look. It couldn't be fun to be without your significant other on a holiday. Not that Xander himself had had a significant other in quite a while. He thought back and realized that the last person who had expressed any romantic interest in him had been Anya the former half demon. And Anya had run off during the Mayor apocalypse last year so...yeah, it had been quite a while.
"Hey! Mistletoe!" Willow squealed suddenly. She rushed over to where Xander was standing under the archway that led to the kitchen and the rest of Giles' living space, stood on her toes and gave her best friend a kiss on the cheek. "Ha. Got you. You were standing under mistletoe."
Caught off guard, Xander blushed - just a little. He seriously hadn't been expecting that - his friend was Jewish and Xander honestly wasn't even sure if Jewish people did the whole mistletoe thing. Willow giggled, grabbed her brightly colored jacket from where it was dangling over the arm of the couch and hurried out the door.
And that's when Xander noticed that Spike was still sitting on one of Giles' kitchen stools, and still staring at him.
"What are you looking at?" barked Xander. The blond vampire stood and flashed him a strange little smirk that definitely showed some fang.
Suddenly angry and embarrassed for a reason he couldn't put his finger on, Xander grabbed his own winter wear and tried to speed out of Giles' apartment. He tried to - but instead of managing a graceful exit one of his tennis shoes got tangled up with the extension cord Giles was using to light up his five foot tall tree and he lost his balance. He closed his eyes, braced for impact...Only, there was no impact. Spike had grabbed the back of his shirt and was holding his weight up without, it seemed, any effort at all. Xander found his balance, pulled on his worn jacket and tried to pretend like he still had dignity.
"All right, then?" asked the vampire. And he was all suave, and cool and British saying that. He didn't laugh or make a cruel remark like he usually did when things like what had just happened happened.
"Yeah, thanks," muttered Xander grudgingly. He forced his knit cap onto his head - causing little strands of hair to stick wildly out of the bottom of the hat - and pointedly ignored the confusing look Spike gave him. And it was a very confusing look. He couldn't quite tell if Spike wanted to laugh out loud at him or grab him and give him a huge hug.
Most definitely the former. Xander shoved his hands into his pockets. And then, since it was Christmas Eve and since Spike was being sort of civil and since he was pretty sure that he was going to be patrolling with the vampire that night - the other Scoobies were long gone and hunting down Ylloh by now - Xander decided to offer the blond a little olive branch of conversation.
"You know," he commented as they walked out of Giles' apartment, shutting the door behind them. "This whole Santa being real thing explains why my parents were so confused that Christmas I found the Gameboy I'd really been wanting under the tree..."
-----
"Candy is goood," said Xander. He and Spike were standing in front of the door that led down to the Harris' basement and Xander was leaning heavily against the vampire; his left knee was throbbing with a sharp pain. He felt it as the platinum blond demon's long, cold fingers dug into his jacket's pocket for the keys that were stuffed there and half giggled, half breathed into Spike's neck.
"Ow," he muttered when his laugh and the vampire grabbing his keys out of his pocket jarred his leg a little. He felt the vampire flinch next to him and wondered if it was because of the chip or because of his mouth so near the others neck.
Spike managed to work the keys and pushed the door open. "Okay whelp?" asked the blond, blunt and short. Xander blinked and realized - even through the haze of the pills Giles had made him take for his injured knee - that the vampire had been acting unusually quiet and unusually nice. And not just that night - he'd been acting strangely polite when it came to Xander for a while, actually. A lot more polite than a demon with no soul and William the Bloody's history rightfully should be. In fact, the blond had even been the one to come to Xander's rescue when that asshole of a wizard Ylloh had decided to knock him into a couple of tombstones.
Suddenly suspicious, Xander decided to try to subtly get the demon talking - maybe then he could decipher what exactly Spike was up to. "Yeah. Sure, I'm fine." The vampire deposited him on the old couch and Xander huffed. He took a last good lick of the candy cane in his left hand (Buffy, bruised and battered from a hard won fight with Ylloh had handed a loopy-from-Giles'-drugs Xander the candy with a look of sympathy before they had all left the Watcher's house in search of a good night's sleep) before setting it carefully aside.
He watched as Spike dropped down onto the couch next to him, grabbed the remote, and lifted his feet onto the coffee table. Xander didn't bother telling the guy to at least take his freakin' boots off if he was going to do that - he had given up on telling Spike off for the little things about a week after the demon had moved in with him.
The television came on and there were flashes of light in the dark basement as the channels were changed - the vampire put down the remote when Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer revealed itself on channel seven. "What in bloody hell were you thinkin' anyway?" demanded Spike abruptly. "Charging at that prat wizard like you knew what you were doin'?"
"I was distracting him," he answered. "For Buffy." The demon mumbled something unsavory about the Slayer under his breath - Xander chose to ignore that and instead took a deep breath in an attempt to clear his mind.
"You know," he said. "If we were all stars of a television show tonight would have been the Christmas special. Buffy Saves Christmas." Okay, so maybe talking about nonsense things like that wasn't the best way to figure out whatever it was the platinum blond was up to. Honestly though, Xander had no idea where he was supposed to start - and also, those pills the Watcher had given him were pretty strong. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't clear his mind.
Spike snorted. "Naw," he said. He stretched and rested one of his long arms on the couch behind Xander - it was like one of those bad date moves that Xander had tried to use when he'd been thirteen and at a movie theater with a girl he liked. He tried to ignore the arm behind him as the vampire continued. "I wouldn't lower myself to a Christmas special. I'd at least rate a movie. Maybe a little like that Ernest bloke..."
"Ernest Saves Christmas?" asked Xander. "No way, we're nowhere near being that quality of movie." He waited for the blond's retort - arguing about idiotic things with the vampire was familiar - but instead there was silence.
Xander shot a glance at the demon. Great. The guy was looking at him again.
Xander squirmed. He huffed out a tired breath and tried to focus on the tale of Rudolph that was unraveling on the television; tried to ignored the rapidly dulling pain in his knee. He squirmed some more. He wiggled out of his winter coat and leaned deeper into the couch. He shot another discreet glance in the demon's direction.
"Stop that!" shouted Xander, abruptly and loudly.
"Stop what?" questioned the vampire. He seemed to be annoyingly unperturbed by the outburst.
"You know what!” yelled Xander. “You've been acting weird for a long time now - being civil and saving me from crazy demons and looking at me all the time. I'm not stupid! I know you're up to something! What evil deed are you planning now Spike? Huh? Huh?” He was breathing fast when he finished, and he could feel his face turning red with anger, and he had just enough time to wonder at the strange look on the vampire's face before Spike leaned in close and...
Kissed him. Wait. Kissed him.
Suddenly Spike was just there. His lips were on Xander's, soft and surprisingly warm. And then there was Spike's wet tongue - it licked at Xander's peppermint flavored lips and pushed its way into his mouth. And then there were two tongues - Spike and Xander's tongues - and they were touching, licking, dueling for dominance and Spike was winning but that didn't matter because that wasn't the point...The point was the feeling.
And then there was more. More. And all Xander knew for a long moment was teeth clicking, gasping for breath, the feel of Spike's strong hand snaking its way up his shirt to his chest, his own fists gripping leather and pulling that mouth closer.
And then it was over. Xander blinked and listened to the sound of his heart pounding in his ears as his brain attempted to catch up with what had happened. He was suddenly very aware of the comforting hug of the knit winter cap atop his head; he had forgotten to take it off.
Spike, still leaning over Xander, practically straddling him, smirked. “Owed you that,” he quipped. Then licked his lips in a way that made Xander's body feel strangely tingly all over. “You taste like peppermint, pet.”
All Xander could manage in reply was a little 'oh' sound. Everything was coming back, was making sense. Spike watching him while he'd been standing under the mistletoe, Spike saving him from the wizard, Spike doing everything he'd done for Xander lately. Spike liked him - the vampire living in his basement with him liked him. Apparently liked him a lot.
He looked up at the platinum blond still hovering over him when he felt fingers digging into his hips: not hard enough to hurt, maybe hard enough to leave a mark.
“Owed you that,” Spike repeated. Only this time he said it more awkwardly, as if he weren't quite sure about his words. His eyes, too, seemed suddenly more vulnerable. That vulnerability was unsettling. “You know...with the mistletoe and all.” He stopped for a moment to just stare down at Xander before plowing on. “And about that...uh...you know. Happy Christmas.”
Happy Christmas? Xander could tell from the look in his roommate's eyes that the blond wasn't just wishing him a happy holiday. No. It was something else. He was asking a question with those words. He was asking Xander if this - whatever this was - was okay.
Xander thought back to Giles' house. He thought about the fight with Ylloh and his hurt knee that was still throbbing a little even with the strong medication he'd downed and the disastrous, drunken traditional Christmas party that his parents would be throwing the next day...No. Xander wouldn't say this Christmas was turning out to be a happy one at all.
But then...What about the good stuff? What about that fact that the Scoobies had defeated the wizard that had tried to waste Santa? What about the fact that Santa was real (seriously, he could torture Giles with that one for years)? And what about Spike? Spike with his awesome tongue that Xander hadn't pulled away from even though it was surprising because he'd really liked it and his leather jacket and his blue eyes that were boring into Xander even now. That was all good. That was all very good.
Xander didn't take very long to answer Spike's silent question.
“Yeah,” he breathed, finally coherent enough to speak. “Merry Christmas, Spike.”
And then Xander felt Spike's fingers dig more deeply into his hips - he liked the feeling.