Fic: "Coming Ashore" Part 1 of 2 (Spike/Xander) Hard R
Title: Coming Ashore
Author: lillianmorgan
Setting: Post-Doomed, BtVS Season 4 and post-NFA AtS Season 5
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: Hard R (Graphic: Adult-rated)
Disclaimer: I don’t own Joss’ and ME’s toys.
Summary: Rather than ships passing in the night, it’s like they’re both at sea and just trying to learn how to float.
A/N: This story is set in the days after Doomed (which aired in the States 18th January 2000) and six months after Not Fade Away (which aired on 19th May 2004).
Thanks and viele hugs to yourlibrarian for the beta job, to whom this fic was also dedicated.
Written as my contribution to fall_for_sx.
Originally posted 9th December, 2005.
Coming Ashore
Part One
Sunday, 19th September, 2004
Xander set the drink in front of him and smiled weakly at his date. They were sitting in a very chic bar called “Studio”, sampling the local beers. She was saying something about taking a boat ride up the river and how interesting it would be for him to see the scenery. As a newcomer and tourist.
He nodded. “Sounds fun.”
“Oh yes, lots of fun, and then we can go and visit a few Biergartens and you can drink a lot of Apfelwein and eat as much bratwurst as you like,” she said, and for good measure she rubbed his belly while giggling.
Girls were very tactile with him, he found, ever since the eye-patch. Girls that weren’t demons, that is. He could tell the demons because they didn’t want to touch him. Could see he was sullied goods a mile off. Tainted by the hand of the First Evil. But human girls, their hands went everywhere their eyes could not, anything to distract them from staring at the patch before stumbling to the inevitable.
“So how did you get the…?” She waved at his eye. “Sorry, I do not know the word in English.”
“Eyepatch.”
“Eyepatch. Haha. In German we say die Augenklappe.”
Augenklappe. He rolled the word around in his brain. He was picking up so many different ways of expressing an empty socket.
“I got into a fight, because I was trying to save a girl, and the guy didn’t play fair. Went straight for my eye with his thumb. Real nasty piece of shit that guy was.”
“Oooooh,” said the girl and giggled again. She had a nice giggle, quite deep and sexy. Now, if he could only remember her name. “You are a real hero, then, Alexander Harris?”
“I guess you could say that.”
She smiled at him. “German girls like American heroes. We see them all the time at the cinema or on the television. We like them, you know? They’re different from German heroes, who usually have some kind of problem.”
Oh dear, thought Xander, if only I could explain my problem.
After a too-long gap in conversation, he said, “Well, this is nice.” Which it was anything but. This was really his second official date for far too long between innings and he was way out of practice with the usual niceties. Trundling round Africa chasing recalcitrant but highly tanked up newbie Slayers hadn’t exactly done wonders for his social life. After he’d realised he was facing burn-out (on top of the very nice half dozen African illnesses he’d collected on the way), he’d tried London out for a bit. Stayed with Giles, hung out with the fuddy Watchers who were too old for him, the lusty young Slayers beside whom he found he was an old man. That had been his first official date, with a Watcher. A nice enough girl, but a little stuffy and very anti-demon. That had somehow perturbed him. Like being “anti-demon” was a big no-no in his formerly dualistic mind.
Musing around his beer he smiled at forgotten-your-name again. She was now talking about her office job and the internal politics which bore similar aspects to the mating rituals of a few demons he’d read about. Sounded dire in any case. Then, all of a sudden he had the distinct impression that he was being watched. It was like a shiver ran through his body, but he couldn’t place from where or why it came. He looked around a bit, trying not to distract her, and peering out of the corner of his eye. Sadly, his lateral vision was completely shot and was getting nowhere fast. He’d have to bend his neck just at that particular angle and then --
“What are you doing?” she laughed.
She tussled his hair and then said, “I must go to the toilets. I will be back soon. Shall I order you another Pils on the way?”
“No that’s fine, I can get it myself.”
He was very proud of the fact that he could order a beer in German, in fact it was one of the first things he’d learnt having come to Frankfurt. He’d got a contracting job with an American company, re-building and restoring older buildings - yeah Giles had set that up, on the proviso that he also did a bit of Slayer-rummaging on the side. The pay was good and, in any case, he was close to Buffy and Dawn; he’d been down to see them when he’d first arrived, and that was nice too.
He got the attention of the bartender. “Ein Pils, bitte.”
The guy smiled at him too. “You speak good German, my friend!”
“Gonna order me one too, pet? Don’t speak the language.”
Xander’s head whipped around, afraid that his ears were deceiving him and his lone eye would betray him. But there in the flesh, leaning louche and trouble-free against the bar, was Spike, eyebrow cocked, smirk in place, two eyes sparkling.
Well, Xander had also made an effort to learn that too. “Hey! Noch ein Pils bitte, for mein…er…Freund.”
Spike sniggered heartily at that, lighting up a cigarette. “Next you’ll be saying we’re engaged, boy.”
Xander just stared at him with his mouth agape, ‘til the waiter put the beer in front of him and he could fill it with something.
~*~*~*~*
Tuesday, 18th January, 2000
After he and Willow had calmed Spike down telling him that ‘No, they didn’t need to particularly kill any more demons tonight, the puppies and Christmas were quite safe thanks very much and besides they all needed a rest after averting another apocalypse’, he harrumphed into a chair.
“Still feel like doing a spot of demon-carnage,” he said, chin planted on his chest, voice silky but exasperated. As if that kind of little-boy-lost act would ever work on Xander. Never. No way.
“Poor widdle Spikey-bums. Feeling a little frustrated there?”
Spike lasered Xander with a direct look. “You know, Angelus used to try and get me annoyed like that. Was his form of foreplay, because he liked to have an excuse to beat me down before sex. Is that the kind of thing you enjoy too, Xander, my boy?”
“Whoa, where did that come from?” Xander stared at Spike, trying not to gape. Then he calmly held up two fingers. “Ewwwww. And, oh yeah, NO.”
“Um? Guys? Why don’t we just go back to the cartoons?” Willow pleaded, her embarrassment painted across her face as well. “You like cartoons, don’t you Spike?”
Spike switched his attention with pinpoint precision to Willow. “Cartoons are for children who have nothing better to do with their existence than be sucked into a world of make-believe and lies. And apparently they’re just the thing for the mentally disturbed and those who can’t cast a spell to save themselves.”
“Hey!” shouted Xander. “We said we’re not bringing that up again, remember?” He could see Willow beginning to stoop under the assault of Spike’s gaze.
“That’s not fair,” she said. “I told you I was sorry. And hey we were all with the compassion-giving tonight. Where’s the remembrance of that?”
“Compassion!” spat Spike. “I’m the bloody Big Bad. I don’t need any bleeding heart sonatas.” He leaned into toward her and sneered, “I would eat you up as the tasty treat you are.”
Xander jumped up and rammed Spike away. “Back off, Spike.”
Spike pushed his tongue through his mouth and grinned. “Make me, Harris.”
“OK Mr Chippily Challenged. If you want it, I will most certainly dish it out.” And he took a swing at Spike’s head, which Spike effectively dodged. Spike then stuck his leg out, which Xander, off-balance from the punch, stepped right into and fell to the floor.
Spike’s body jerked as the chip must have fired and Xander heard Willow’s implored, “Guys, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna call Buffy.”
Xander got to his feet and decided that was that. He so didn’t need Buffy to sort out Spike who had a chip and couldn’t hurt him back. Rolling his shoulders, he breathed in and lunged. The sucker-punch to the stomach worked like a charm because Spike folded and ooofed. Xander knew he should karate chop down on Spike’s waiting back but something deep in the back of his mind said, ‘Maybe not.’
Xander turned round to see Willow’s tensed face and said, “OK Spike. Truce? I’m not going to-”
Two loud and dynamic choruses of ‘Owwwww!’ resounded through the basement as Spike punched Xander in the nose.
“Why you piece of shit!” bellowed Xander, pinching the nose to stop the blood stream. “You just wanna fight no matter what isn’t it? And why the fuck is that. You just want some kind of attention from me? Is that it? Jesus!”
But the moment the words were out of his mouth, Xander checked himself and noticed Spike doing the same. OK so Spike was obsessed with fighting that’s true, but after fighting came … things that definitely didn’t need to be thought of in the same sentence as Spike, but nevertheless Xander found himself doing. Bad, bad, irredeemable thoughts which every time he looked at Spike bending over his knees, recovering from the chip-freeze, seemed to escalate. Hot thoughts, different thoughts, endless possible what if thoughts; thoughts that had never once passed through his mind when Larry made with the care and share.
“Come on, Xander,” Willow said, as he stared at Spike and Spike stared back. “We’re tying him up. No leave passes for you mister. That’s what you get for going around punching innocent bystanders.”
And ok denial was secure, was safe, was definitely of the good.
~*~*~*~*
Sunday, 19th September, 2004
Of course Spike wouldn’t remove himself from the date so the three of them went to a swanky restaurant on the Fressgasse for dinner. Turned out Spike did speak German though, like so many other things, he just couldn’t be bothered doing it often. Like acknowledging when his presence might be upsetting a neatly hued balance.
It had been a bit embarrassing when Xander had to introduce them to each other and he’d tried to cover not knowing her name. And how to explain Spike? He’s my best friend’s … no that’s admitting too much. He tried to kill me a bunch of times and then saved me from Evil Preacher Boy. We have big complicated, outstanding, non-refundable issues like he fucked my was-to-be wife who’s now dead. He’s probably fucked everyone I know, but only loved…
In the end he settled with “He and I used to flat together,” which amused Spike no end.
So Spike and his date (whose name he discovered was Anna, only she didn’t pronounce it the same way Americans did, more like Aaahhhhhnna) spent most of the evening speaking German about something or other. Xander got about 10% of it, usually the sentences with ‘the’ and ‘a’ in them. Spike impressed Anna a lot, Xander could see that, and he wondered vaguely if the two of them would wander off into the night together and Xander would be forced to return to the small, but slightly sterile flat the company was renting out to him, alone.
In the middle of his thoughts about how he could possibly order the Blade Hand Planer for every guy on his team at work and get that one by the boss as a necessity rather than the extravagance anyone with a half decent carpenter’s brain knew it to be, Spike started coughing. It was a weird sound, sort of a hacking sound. Anna started patting his back comfortingly, in smooth serene strokes, her blonde hair falling across them both, and Xander thought, ‘Oh yeah. Here we go.’
Spike kinda cocked his eyebrow and said to Anna, “Think I need to rest up a bit, pet. Jetlag, you know. I’m not the man I used to be. Time was I could sail around the world with never a care in the world, but what with just coming in from the States and that beggaring long flight and being so tired. Think I just need to put my boots up somewhere.”
Xander felt like getting out a notebook. How to steal a guy’s date 101, lessons from the master vampire.
But he continued on, “Xander, listen mate, wouldn’t put me up for a couple nights would you? What with us being such good buddies and all?”
Anna nodded her head vigorously. “Yes, Spike. You should go to Alexander’s home and rest. And for me, too. I must work tomorrow. But we should meet up again, right? Here is my handy number. And you and Alexander give me a call and we can all go out again. It will be so much fun, just like tonight!”
They paid up, departed (not without kissing each other’s cheeks first) and Spike leaned on Xander for support as they shuffled homewards across the cobblestone footpath.
“Not one for Frankfurt, really,” mused Spike. “Mainly bankers and booksmart people here, makes the blood terribly bland, you know? Berlin’s more my cuppa tea. Never know what will turn up in the blood of a ripe, young temptress there.”
Xander felt very much like dropping him, but didn’t. Sense of duty. Sense of camaraderie. Sense of seeing someone that he knew for the first time in a couple of months.
“Well, what are you doing here then?”
“Oh you know,” he said, quietly, ponderously, “just passin’ through.”
~*~*~*~*
Wednesday, 19th January, 2000
The demon was a mean and ugly beast, all things considered. Multi-waving tentacles, snapping incisors and razor-sharp armour running down the length of its spine, shaking with all its combined fury and power at actually being challenged by a being roughly a third its size. Said being let his coat swoop around him as he dodged and ducked the painful bits and dived in with punches for the tender bits. For its part, the demon was emitting a weird gurgling sound - pretty close in proximity to the noise the coffee grinder at the Espresso Pump made.
Xander and Willow were doing their best Sundance Kid impersonation, hiding behind a suitably large headstone so as to shield them both from either creature’s rogue punches. At least two sharpened stakes lay at their feet.
“Do you…need…a hand?” shouted Willow, in her best ‘I might be willing but very, very timid’ voice.
Spike growled a deep and primitive growl, then let out an equally opposing scream of laughter, aiming a precise, low and lightning fast kick at what would pass as the demon’s knee. If it had one, of course.
“Willow!” Xander cried, plaintively. “What’d you go and do that for? All we’re supposed to do is maintain our role as Spike-sitters. I’m not going in there unless the thing comes at me.” He weighted his sentence with a sharp point to his treasured chest.
“Don’t worry,” Spike concurred, shouting his reply at the demon. “This baby’s all mine.”
“I’m not really sure I’d call it a baby,” Xander suggested, but at the same time wishing he’d been more adept at saying no to Spike and well actually not being put in the position of having to take care of the vampire in the first place, which, if you weighed things up -
Xander’s inner monologue was forestalled by a sickening crunching noise as the demon had somehow managed to skewer Spike onto one of its spines and was hoisting the vampire up off the ground. Spike let out a very long, “Ahhhhhhh!” which pierced the battle with its intensity, just as he was being pierced himself. Lifted up into the air, he cast a white and black relief against the demon’s purple skin, highlighted in his starfish pose of pain.
Willow leapt up, of course, her sense of duty being much stronger than Xander’s. But nevertheless he found himself running with a surreal trepidation toward the gurgling demon. Without thinking, and definitely not stopping to consider his motivations, he nimbly dodged a tentacle and aimed his stake straight for the demon’s foot.
With a roar, it leapt skyward, somehow dislocating Spike in the reverse impact, and Spike soared through the air - flying with something approaching a balletic grace. Landing on his feet, but gripping his stomach wound with a grim determination, he liberated Willow of her own stake, ran and thrust it straight in the demon’s eye.
Xander gaped at him, in awe of either the violent ruthlessness or the bathetic ending. The two warred within him as he contemplated the silhouetted vampire. Spike raised his eyebrow.
“Tunettal Demon, Harris. Killed by piercing its eyes. Really should pay more attention during research hours.”
“Wait…you mean…you knew how to kill it right from the beginning?”
“Can’t give all the trade secrets away, now can I? Wouldn’t be sporting. Besides, bloody good fight gaping stomach wound ‘n’ all. Didn’t think I’d come off quite so lucky.” He paused to contemplate the sentence, and then as if to cement this piece of good fortune, pulled out a cigarette from his coat pocket and lit up. The smoke wafted amorously around his head before fading into ever-diminishing translucence.
When they got back to the Basement of Doom (or more precisely still-mouldy-smelling-from-exploded-water-pipe Basement of Doom), after first swinging by Stevenson dorm to make sure Willow got securely tucked up in bed, Xander made with the crashing onto his own bed and loud, grumbling, sleep-needing noises.
Spike was flinging drawers open, mainly in a fit of post-battle high, searching for something.
“What are you looking for? And why in all that’s evil and naughty are you making such a hullabaloo?”
“Gotta find something to patch myself up. Can’t have me bleeding all over your palatial palace.”
“Oh,” Xander agreed. Then hoisted himself up, shuffled up the stairs and returned with some gauze and antiseptic moments later.
“Here y’are. Now, please, do me a favour and let’s sleep. ‘K?” Xander crashed back down on his bed and flung his pillow over his head for good measure.
“Can’t,” Spike mumbled, spreading the lotion over the wound with a hissing noise and then securing the wound with bandages and tape. “Just too awake to sleep.”
“Yeah? Not a few days ago you were propping up the stakes, trying to redecorate with dust. Think I got some blackmail potential that says you do most definitely wanna sleep.”
“Oh come on, Harris. Don’t say you didn’t enjoy it, mate. All that blood and carnage and killin’ and fightin’ and savin’ the world from evil, horrible wrong-doers. Doesn’t that give you the tiniest bit of buzz?”
“Buzz. Sure. But also when I want to keep the day job. Gotta get up in like,” he lifted the pillow from his head and squinted at the alarm clock, “too few hours. Wanna sleep.”
“Sleep is for wimps.”
Xander said nothing, realising with clinging hope that if he said nothing, if Spike didn’t have his audience to goad, maybe, just maybe, he’d shut the hell up.
And sure enough, all heavens and hell dimensions be praised, Spike continued to probe with the caustic comments until he too fell silent.
Before Xander passed finally, blissfully, into sleep, he heard Spike say, “Same time tomorrow, yeah?”
~*~*~*~*
Sunday, 19th September, 2004
“So, nice digs,” said Spike, after Xander had mumbled an invite into his apartment. He hoped he wouldn’t regret that later.
“You haven’t, ah, lost your soul or anything, like Angelus-style?” Xander said as Spike was leering at his entertainment system.
“Bit late to ask that, don’t you think pet?” Spike smirked. And Xander wondered if there were any stakes to hand and what was the number of that Slayer he’d found in the outskirts of the city? And he had to keep control over his arms so that they wouldn’t start flapping uncomfortably.
“Relax, I’m still all soul-havin’. Remember, I got it myself. No curse attached to it. Not like … D’you have any decent DVDs? All Babylon 5 and Star Trek this that and the next thing and oh! You have Farscape. Quite fancy that bird. She’s all that and then some.”
“Like Buffy?” Xander couldn’t resist.
“If you mean, unattainable as in Buffy, then yes, just like Buffy.” The words came smoothly from Spike’s mouth but Xander immediately noticed how Spike’s fingers tightened in their grip on the Farscape DVD.
“So you haven’t gone on a jaunt to Italy then?”
Spike looked at him, this time his eyes narrowing. “And why would I want to do that?”
“Because Buffy and Dawn are there. Come on, Spike. You mean to tell me that you haven’t even considered it?”
Spike’s eyes wandered away from Xander and toward the direction of the kitchen. With a practised calm Xander couldn’t recall seeing in him, he said, “Do you have any beer in this establishment? Have fond memories of German beer, I do. You know, those Bavarian serving-wenches have a lot of blood in them.”
“What kind of throwback says wenches?”
“Just your kind of nutter, pet,” said Spike, smirking and inserting a disc into the DVD player. “Well, run along then. You must have something to refresh my mouth in the amber nectar variety. You certainly kicked it back when we were roomies.”
“Don’t push your luck, Spike.”
“Whatever do you mean?” he said, spreading himself across Xander’s favourite couch, remote in hand, firing up the television.
~*~*~*~*
Continued in Part 2.
Many thanks to katekat1010 for the banner.
Author: lillianmorgan
Setting: Post-Doomed, BtVS Season 4 and post-NFA AtS Season 5
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: Hard R (Graphic: Adult-rated)
Disclaimer: I don’t own Joss’ and ME’s toys.
Summary: Rather than ships passing in the night, it’s like they’re both at sea and just trying to learn how to float.
A/N: This story is set in the days after Doomed (which aired in the States 18th January 2000) and six months after Not Fade Away (which aired on 19th May 2004).
Thanks and viele hugs to yourlibrarian for the beta job, to whom this fic was also dedicated.
Written as my contribution to fall_for_sx.
Originally posted 9th December, 2005.
Coming Ashore
Part One
Sunday, 19th September, 2004
Xander set the drink in front of him and smiled weakly at his date. They were sitting in a very chic bar called “Studio”, sampling the local beers. She was saying something about taking a boat ride up the river and how interesting it would be for him to see the scenery. As a newcomer and tourist.
He nodded. “Sounds fun.”
“Oh yes, lots of fun, and then we can go and visit a few Biergartens and you can drink a lot of Apfelwein and eat as much bratwurst as you like,” she said, and for good measure she rubbed his belly while giggling.
Girls were very tactile with him, he found, ever since the eye-patch. Girls that weren’t demons, that is. He could tell the demons because they didn’t want to touch him. Could see he was sullied goods a mile off. Tainted by the hand of the First Evil. But human girls, their hands went everywhere their eyes could not, anything to distract them from staring at the patch before stumbling to the inevitable.
“So how did you get the…?” She waved at his eye. “Sorry, I do not know the word in English.”
“Eyepatch.”
“Eyepatch. Haha. In German we say die Augenklappe.”
Augenklappe. He rolled the word around in his brain. He was picking up so many different ways of expressing an empty socket.
“I got into a fight, because I was trying to save a girl, and the guy didn’t play fair. Went straight for my eye with his thumb. Real nasty piece of shit that guy was.”
“Oooooh,” said the girl and giggled again. She had a nice giggle, quite deep and sexy. Now, if he could only remember her name. “You are a real hero, then, Alexander Harris?”
“I guess you could say that.”
She smiled at him. “German girls like American heroes. We see them all the time at the cinema or on the television. We like them, you know? They’re different from German heroes, who usually have some kind of problem.”
Oh dear, thought Xander, if only I could explain my problem.
After a too-long gap in conversation, he said, “Well, this is nice.” Which it was anything but. This was really his second official date for far too long between innings and he was way out of practice with the usual niceties. Trundling round Africa chasing recalcitrant but highly tanked up newbie Slayers hadn’t exactly done wonders for his social life. After he’d realised he was facing burn-out (on top of the very nice half dozen African illnesses he’d collected on the way), he’d tried London out for a bit. Stayed with Giles, hung out with the fuddy Watchers who were too old for him, the lusty young Slayers beside whom he found he was an old man. That had been his first official date, with a Watcher. A nice enough girl, but a little stuffy and very anti-demon. That had somehow perturbed him. Like being “anti-demon” was a big no-no in his formerly dualistic mind.
Musing around his beer he smiled at forgotten-your-name again. She was now talking about her office job and the internal politics which bore similar aspects to the mating rituals of a few demons he’d read about. Sounded dire in any case. Then, all of a sudden he had the distinct impression that he was being watched. It was like a shiver ran through his body, but he couldn’t place from where or why it came. He looked around a bit, trying not to distract her, and peering out of the corner of his eye. Sadly, his lateral vision was completely shot and was getting nowhere fast. He’d have to bend his neck just at that particular angle and then --
“What are you doing?” she laughed.
She tussled his hair and then said, “I must go to the toilets. I will be back soon. Shall I order you another Pils on the way?”
“No that’s fine, I can get it myself.”
He was very proud of the fact that he could order a beer in German, in fact it was one of the first things he’d learnt having come to Frankfurt. He’d got a contracting job with an American company, re-building and restoring older buildings - yeah Giles had set that up, on the proviso that he also did a bit of Slayer-rummaging on the side. The pay was good and, in any case, he was close to Buffy and Dawn; he’d been down to see them when he’d first arrived, and that was nice too.
He got the attention of the bartender. “Ein Pils, bitte.”
The guy smiled at him too. “You speak good German, my friend!”
“Gonna order me one too, pet? Don’t speak the language.”
Xander’s head whipped around, afraid that his ears were deceiving him and his lone eye would betray him. But there in the flesh, leaning louche and trouble-free against the bar, was Spike, eyebrow cocked, smirk in place, two eyes sparkling.
Well, Xander had also made an effort to learn that too. “Hey! Noch ein Pils bitte, for mein…er…Freund.”
Spike sniggered heartily at that, lighting up a cigarette. “Next you’ll be saying we’re engaged, boy.”
Xander just stared at him with his mouth agape, ‘til the waiter put the beer in front of him and he could fill it with something.
~*~*~*~*
Tuesday, 18th January, 2000
After he and Willow had calmed Spike down telling him that ‘No, they didn’t need to particularly kill any more demons tonight, the puppies and Christmas were quite safe thanks very much and besides they all needed a rest after averting another apocalypse’, he harrumphed into a chair.
“Still feel like doing a spot of demon-carnage,” he said, chin planted on his chest, voice silky but exasperated. As if that kind of little-boy-lost act would ever work on Xander. Never. No way.
“Poor widdle Spikey-bums. Feeling a little frustrated there?”
Spike lasered Xander with a direct look. “You know, Angelus used to try and get me annoyed like that. Was his form of foreplay, because he liked to have an excuse to beat me down before sex. Is that the kind of thing you enjoy too, Xander, my boy?”
“Whoa, where did that come from?” Xander stared at Spike, trying not to gape. Then he calmly held up two fingers. “Ewwwww. And, oh yeah, NO.”
“Um? Guys? Why don’t we just go back to the cartoons?” Willow pleaded, her embarrassment painted across her face as well. “You like cartoons, don’t you Spike?”
Spike switched his attention with pinpoint precision to Willow. “Cartoons are for children who have nothing better to do with their existence than be sucked into a world of make-believe and lies. And apparently they’re just the thing for the mentally disturbed and those who can’t cast a spell to save themselves.”
“Hey!” shouted Xander. “We said we’re not bringing that up again, remember?” He could see Willow beginning to stoop under the assault of Spike’s gaze.
“That’s not fair,” she said. “I told you I was sorry. And hey we were all with the compassion-giving tonight. Where’s the remembrance of that?”
“Compassion!” spat Spike. “I’m the bloody Big Bad. I don’t need any bleeding heart sonatas.” He leaned into toward her and sneered, “I would eat you up as the tasty treat you are.”
Xander jumped up and rammed Spike away. “Back off, Spike.”
Spike pushed his tongue through his mouth and grinned. “Make me, Harris.”
“OK Mr Chippily Challenged. If you want it, I will most certainly dish it out.” And he took a swing at Spike’s head, which Spike effectively dodged. Spike then stuck his leg out, which Xander, off-balance from the punch, stepped right into and fell to the floor.
Spike’s body jerked as the chip must have fired and Xander heard Willow’s implored, “Guys, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna call Buffy.”
Xander got to his feet and decided that was that. He so didn’t need Buffy to sort out Spike who had a chip and couldn’t hurt him back. Rolling his shoulders, he breathed in and lunged. The sucker-punch to the stomach worked like a charm because Spike folded and ooofed. Xander knew he should karate chop down on Spike’s waiting back but something deep in the back of his mind said, ‘Maybe not.’
Xander turned round to see Willow’s tensed face and said, “OK Spike. Truce? I’m not going to-”
Two loud and dynamic choruses of ‘Owwwww!’ resounded through the basement as Spike punched Xander in the nose.
“Why you piece of shit!” bellowed Xander, pinching the nose to stop the blood stream. “You just wanna fight no matter what isn’t it? And why the fuck is that. You just want some kind of attention from me? Is that it? Jesus!”
But the moment the words were out of his mouth, Xander checked himself and noticed Spike doing the same. OK so Spike was obsessed with fighting that’s true, but after fighting came … things that definitely didn’t need to be thought of in the same sentence as Spike, but nevertheless Xander found himself doing. Bad, bad, irredeemable thoughts which every time he looked at Spike bending over his knees, recovering from the chip-freeze, seemed to escalate. Hot thoughts, different thoughts, endless possible what if thoughts; thoughts that had never once passed through his mind when Larry made with the care and share.
“Come on, Xander,” Willow said, as he stared at Spike and Spike stared back. “We’re tying him up. No leave passes for you mister. That’s what you get for going around punching innocent bystanders.”
And ok denial was secure, was safe, was definitely of the good.
~*~*~*~*
Sunday, 19th September, 2004
Of course Spike wouldn’t remove himself from the date so the three of them went to a swanky restaurant on the Fressgasse for dinner. Turned out Spike did speak German though, like so many other things, he just couldn’t be bothered doing it often. Like acknowledging when his presence might be upsetting a neatly hued balance.
It had been a bit embarrassing when Xander had to introduce them to each other and he’d tried to cover not knowing her name. And how to explain Spike? He’s my best friend’s … no that’s admitting too much. He tried to kill me a bunch of times and then saved me from Evil Preacher Boy. We have big complicated, outstanding, non-refundable issues like he fucked my was-to-be wife who’s now dead. He’s probably fucked everyone I know, but only loved…
In the end he settled with “He and I used to flat together,” which amused Spike no end.
So Spike and his date (whose name he discovered was Anna, only she didn’t pronounce it the same way Americans did, more like Aaahhhhhnna) spent most of the evening speaking German about something or other. Xander got about 10% of it, usually the sentences with ‘the’ and ‘a’ in them. Spike impressed Anna a lot, Xander could see that, and he wondered vaguely if the two of them would wander off into the night together and Xander would be forced to return to the small, but slightly sterile flat the company was renting out to him, alone.
In the middle of his thoughts about how he could possibly order the Blade Hand Planer for every guy on his team at work and get that one by the boss as a necessity rather than the extravagance anyone with a half decent carpenter’s brain knew it to be, Spike started coughing. It was a weird sound, sort of a hacking sound. Anna started patting his back comfortingly, in smooth serene strokes, her blonde hair falling across them both, and Xander thought, ‘Oh yeah. Here we go.’
Spike kinda cocked his eyebrow and said to Anna, “Think I need to rest up a bit, pet. Jetlag, you know. I’m not the man I used to be. Time was I could sail around the world with never a care in the world, but what with just coming in from the States and that beggaring long flight and being so tired. Think I just need to put my boots up somewhere.”
Xander felt like getting out a notebook. How to steal a guy’s date 101, lessons from the master vampire.
But he continued on, “Xander, listen mate, wouldn’t put me up for a couple nights would you? What with us being such good buddies and all?”
Anna nodded her head vigorously. “Yes, Spike. You should go to Alexander’s home and rest. And for me, too. I must work tomorrow. But we should meet up again, right? Here is my handy number. And you and Alexander give me a call and we can all go out again. It will be so much fun, just like tonight!”
They paid up, departed (not without kissing each other’s cheeks first) and Spike leaned on Xander for support as they shuffled homewards across the cobblestone footpath.
“Not one for Frankfurt, really,” mused Spike. “Mainly bankers and booksmart people here, makes the blood terribly bland, you know? Berlin’s more my cuppa tea. Never know what will turn up in the blood of a ripe, young temptress there.”
Xander felt very much like dropping him, but didn’t. Sense of duty. Sense of camaraderie. Sense of seeing someone that he knew for the first time in a couple of months.
“Well, what are you doing here then?”
“Oh you know,” he said, quietly, ponderously, “just passin’ through.”
~*~*~*~*
Wednesday, 19th January, 2000
The demon was a mean and ugly beast, all things considered. Multi-waving tentacles, snapping incisors and razor-sharp armour running down the length of its spine, shaking with all its combined fury and power at actually being challenged by a being roughly a third its size. Said being let his coat swoop around him as he dodged and ducked the painful bits and dived in with punches for the tender bits. For its part, the demon was emitting a weird gurgling sound - pretty close in proximity to the noise the coffee grinder at the Espresso Pump made.
Xander and Willow were doing their best Sundance Kid impersonation, hiding behind a suitably large headstone so as to shield them both from either creature’s rogue punches. At least two sharpened stakes lay at their feet.
“Do you…need…a hand?” shouted Willow, in her best ‘I might be willing but very, very timid’ voice.
Spike growled a deep and primitive growl, then let out an equally opposing scream of laughter, aiming a precise, low and lightning fast kick at what would pass as the demon’s knee. If it had one, of course.
“Willow!” Xander cried, plaintively. “What’d you go and do that for? All we’re supposed to do is maintain our role as Spike-sitters. I’m not going in there unless the thing comes at me.” He weighted his sentence with a sharp point to his treasured chest.
“Don’t worry,” Spike concurred, shouting his reply at the demon. “This baby’s all mine.”
“I’m not really sure I’d call it a baby,” Xander suggested, but at the same time wishing he’d been more adept at saying no to Spike and well actually not being put in the position of having to take care of the vampire in the first place, which, if you weighed things up -
Xander’s inner monologue was forestalled by a sickening crunching noise as the demon had somehow managed to skewer Spike onto one of its spines and was hoisting the vampire up off the ground. Spike let out a very long, “Ahhhhhhh!” which pierced the battle with its intensity, just as he was being pierced himself. Lifted up into the air, he cast a white and black relief against the demon’s purple skin, highlighted in his starfish pose of pain.
Willow leapt up, of course, her sense of duty being much stronger than Xander’s. But nevertheless he found himself running with a surreal trepidation toward the gurgling demon. Without thinking, and definitely not stopping to consider his motivations, he nimbly dodged a tentacle and aimed his stake straight for the demon’s foot.
With a roar, it leapt skyward, somehow dislocating Spike in the reverse impact, and Spike soared through the air - flying with something approaching a balletic grace. Landing on his feet, but gripping his stomach wound with a grim determination, he liberated Willow of her own stake, ran and thrust it straight in the demon’s eye.
Xander gaped at him, in awe of either the violent ruthlessness or the bathetic ending. The two warred within him as he contemplated the silhouetted vampire. Spike raised his eyebrow.
“Tunettal Demon, Harris. Killed by piercing its eyes. Really should pay more attention during research hours.”
“Wait…you mean…you knew how to kill it right from the beginning?”
“Can’t give all the trade secrets away, now can I? Wouldn’t be sporting. Besides, bloody good fight gaping stomach wound ‘n’ all. Didn’t think I’d come off quite so lucky.” He paused to contemplate the sentence, and then as if to cement this piece of good fortune, pulled out a cigarette from his coat pocket and lit up. The smoke wafted amorously around his head before fading into ever-diminishing translucence.
When they got back to the Basement of Doom (or more precisely still-mouldy-smelling-from-exploded-water-pipe Basement of Doom), after first swinging by Stevenson dorm to make sure Willow got securely tucked up in bed, Xander made with the crashing onto his own bed and loud, grumbling, sleep-needing noises.
Spike was flinging drawers open, mainly in a fit of post-battle high, searching for something.
“What are you looking for? And why in all that’s evil and naughty are you making such a hullabaloo?”
“Gotta find something to patch myself up. Can’t have me bleeding all over your palatial palace.”
“Oh,” Xander agreed. Then hoisted himself up, shuffled up the stairs and returned with some gauze and antiseptic moments later.
“Here y’are. Now, please, do me a favour and let’s sleep. ‘K?” Xander crashed back down on his bed and flung his pillow over his head for good measure.
“Can’t,” Spike mumbled, spreading the lotion over the wound with a hissing noise and then securing the wound with bandages and tape. “Just too awake to sleep.”
“Yeah? Not a few days ago you were propping up the stakes, trying to redecorate with dust. Think I got some blackmail potential that says you do most definitely wanna sleep.”
“Oh come on, Harris. Don’t say you didn’t enjoy it, mate. All that blood and carnage and killin’ and fightin’ and savin’ the world from evil, horrible wrong-doers. Doesn’t that give you the tiniest bit of buzz?”
“Buzz. Sure. But also when I want to keep the day job. Gotta get up in like,” he lifted the pillow from his head and squinted at the alarm clock, “too few hours. Wanna sleep.”
“Sleep is for wimps.”
Xander said nothing, realising with clinging hope that if he said nothing, if Spike didn’t have his audience to goad, maybe, just maybe, he’d shut the hell up.
And sure enough, all heavens and hell dimensions be praised, Spike continued to probe with the caustic comments until he too fell silent.
Before Xander passed finally, blissfully, into sleep, he heard Spike say, “Same time tomorrow, yeah?”
~*~*~*~*
Sunday, 19th September, 2004
“So, nice digs,” said Spike, after Xander had mumbled an invite into his apartment. He hoped he wouldn’t regret that later.
“You haven’t, ah, lost your soul or anything, like Angelus-style?” Xander said as Spike was leering at his entertainment system.
“Bit late to ask that, don’t you think pet?” Spike smirked. And Xander wondered if there were any stakes to hand and what was the number of that Slayer he’d found in the outskirts of the city? And he had to keep control over his arms so that they wouldn’t start flapping uncomfortably.
“Relax, I’m still all soul-havin’. Remember, I got it myself. No curse attached to it. Not like … D’you have any decent DVDs? All Babylon 5 and Star Trek this that and the next thing and oh! You have Farscape. Quite fancy that bird. She’s all that and then some.”
“Like Buffy?” Xander couldn’t resist.
“If you mean, unattainable as in Buffy, then yes, just like Buffy.” The words came smoothly from Spike’s mouth but Xander immediately noticed how Spike’s fingers tightened in their grip on the Farscape DVD.
“So you haven’t gone on a jaunt to Italy then?”
Spike looked at him, this time his eyes narrowing. “And why would I want to do that?”
“Because Buffy and Dawn are there. Come on, Spike. You mean to tell me that you haven’t even considered it?”
Spike’s eyes wandered away from Xander and toward the direction of the kitchen. With a practised calm Xander couldn’t recall seeing in him, he said, “Do you have any beer in this establishment? Have fond memories of German beer, I do. You know, those Bavarian serving-wenches have a lot of blood in them.”
“What kind of throwback says wenches?”
“Just your kind of nutter, pet,” said Spike, smirking and inserting a disc into the DVD player. “Well, run along then. You must have something to refresh my mouth in the amber nectar variety. You certainly kicked it back when we were roomies.”
“Don’t push your luck, Spike.”
“Whatever do you mean?” he said, spreading himself across Xander’s favourite couch, remote in hand, firing up the television.
~*~*~*~*
Continued in Part 2.
Many thanks to katekat1010 for the banner.