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Hallo, flist!
:)
*ahem*
Nope, i got nothin'. Nothin' at all.
No recs, no news, no...anything. My brain, it is off.
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reremouse can attest to this. Also? She roxors. As does darkhavens for all their timely pokes and squees and 'stuff'.
*beams*
Anybody on my flist want cats? Li'l Brudder, Li'l Sista, Spot and Littlest need homes. I'd like to say Patches does, too, but we might be keeping him. Like we need a fourth cat. Anyway...yeah. Just under a year old, just over two years old, and about three years old, respectively. All outside, all have come inside, the first two for extended stays. *All* friendly and loving and sweet and wonderful and all fixed except for Li'l Brudda, who'll be fixed soon.
Now - the fic!
Previous parts are here:clickity.
When the witches arrived on Thursday, Spike and Xander were already in Rupert's office, happily devouring the rather nice tea Miss Molly had laid on. Giles, of course, wasn't there - something Spike had dreaded and expected in equal measure. Xander hid his disappointment by having a third helping of scone and clotted cream.
"In a meeting, I expect," Spike mumbled around a mouthful of currant bun and Xander swilled down some tea with an appalling amount of sugar and cream in it and nodded, licking away crumbs.
"I kinda figured. So - none of the people I actually know...actually live here?"
"Not really. Buffy and her sis were here for a while before the Slayer went haring off to L.A... Dawn finished out her school year and went back to California, too. Mini-Watcher, really - probably lovin' learning all that Watcher stuff from Wesley. When he's not dead," Spike added, pouring more tea.
Xander choked slightly on an iced biscuit and gave Spike a squinty-eyed look. "Dead? As in - smelly, corpse-y dead, or dead like you?"
"Nothing like me." Spike eyed his cup and dropped in a third sugar cube - still three less than Xander - and found his spoon - licked the plum jam off. "He died in the final fight, right? But he had some - spell or something. Some kind of deal he made or - hell, I don't bloody know. Anyway -" Spike laid his spoon on his saucer and took a contemplative sip. "Sometimes he was just - Wesley and sometimes he was - Wesley when he died. When he was having a bad day, it seemed. Thinking too much about being dead and in debt and he'd...remember."
Xander's hand was frozen between plate and mouth and he slowly lowered the slice of walnut cake back to his plate. "So - when he was all - bummed - he'd look all...corpse-y?"
"Well, more bloody and such, really, but - yeah."
"Okay. Gross. Was he really bloody or -"
"More like - psychic blood." Spike gulped the last of his tea and looked at Xander's plate. "Gonna eat that, then?"
"Huh? Yes, I am. Paws off." Xander hunched over his plate a little, grinning, and Spike rolled his eyes and fished out a cigarette.
There were voices down the hall - coming through the door - and Spike let his smile fade a little, puffing hard on his smoke.
"Ah, they're waiting? Yes, thank you, Miss Merchant. Right this way, if you please." Giles bustled through the door and Xander sat up a little straighter. Five other people - four women and a frail-looking man - followed behind. "There should be some tea - oh, good Lord." Giles stopped dead and looked mournfully at the picked-over trays and plates. "Like a plague of locusts."
"Good afternoon to you, too, Rupert," Spike snarled, and Xander wiped his mouth on his napkin and reached for his pad and Mickey Mouse pen that he'd brought along with him. To take notes, he'd said, but Spike recognized a nervous tick when he saw one.
"What? Oh, yes, good afternoon. Now - Xander." Giles turned to face him and Xander looked up, his expression carefully blank. "These are the ladies - and gentleman - from the coven in Devon. They've found a spell that will tell us exactly what caused your amnesia." Giles looked at the plates again and sighed. "This is Mrs. Covington; she'll explain it to you." Giles ushered a middle-aged, neatly coifed woman around in front of Xander - plucked a folding chair from between two file cabinets and unfolded it. Mrs. Covington sat down, her purse clutched in her lap and Xander turned his gaze on her. Giles slipped out and Spike could hear him telling Miss Mousie that she should have saved the tea until they were all there and was the spell room ready? Spike snorted smoke and dropped his cigarette butt into his teacup.
"Xander, is it?" Mrs. Covington said, and Xander nodded. "Right. Well, you call me Helen, Xander, and we'll get on just fine. Now, what Rupert said is true. We're going to do a spell -" Spike got up and pushed through the witches to the outer office. They gave him pointed looks, shifting away ever so slightly and he grinned.
Rupert was looking over a paper and Spike went over to him and snatched it out of his hands - scanned it for a moment before tossing it down onto the desk. List of spell ingredients - a diagram to chalk.
"Spike, will you -"
"No. How about you spend more than two minutes with your boy in there?"
"What?" Giles took the paper irritably from his assistant's hand and started to read it and Spike snatched it again - pulled out his Zippo and lit it and stuck a corner of the paper into the flame.
"You're not listening, you git."
"Spike!" Giles looked ready to use his fists and Spike smirked at him - clicked the Zippo shut.
"You going to listen now?"
"Please say what you're going to say," Giles said, his voice strained and too polite and Spike tossed the slightly charred paper down and leaned his hip on the desk.
"You're avoiding Xander and it's makin' him all - mopey. You need to fix that."
"And I suppose I should just stop trying to fix him -"
"He's not bloody broken!" Spike reached out and grabbed Gile's jacket lapel - yanked him close and held him there. "He just needs to know his bloody friends are really his friends!" Giles jerked away and Spike let him - watched him straighten his lapels with a yank. "Not one of you has said five words to him except Willow and she called and got him all upset! Cryin' on the phone to him and makin' him all -"
"Yes, well, I had a word with Willow, she called here before... I had no idea she would be so - emotional."
"Girl's a walking live nerve, Rupert - you should have told her to hold off or - or send one of her bloody emails or something." Spike patted himself for smokes and realized they were in his coat in Giles' office. Giles was rubbing his forehead, his glasses held loosely in his fingers. He looked old and tired and harried but Spike wasn't feeling very sympathetic at the moment. Well, he never felt very sympathetic, truth be told. Except just lately, and only for Xander. And that was too bizarre to think about, really, so he concentrated instead on being pissed at the Watcher.
"I've been trying to discover what happened in Vietnam. We have three dead Slayers now, Spike." Giles glanced at the closed door to his office and leaned in a little and Spike kept himself from leaning back. "The first one you already know about - the one in Vietnam that Xander was - was investigating. The two others that were missing - they've turned up dead as well. Except the last one was found in Malaysia, so this thing is moving, Spike. And it's - it's kidnapping and killing Slayers as it goes."
Spike stared at Giles for a moment, the fury building. The wards prickled up and down his spine, not-so-subtle warning. "I saw the bloody report, Watcher. I saw how that first girl died and any bastard with half an eye for ritual could see it was for some seriously black mojo! Shite the strongest witch wouldn't go near and you sent Harris to deal with it? Did you just want him out of the way, then?"
"You ass," Giles hissed. His face was reddening with his own anger - eyes glinting furiously and Spike could hear his heart pounding under the tweed, hard and fast. "Xander wanted to go! He helped recruit those girls - he knew them! He was determined to help!" Giles voice had dropped to a harsh whisper - Spike made no such concessions.
"And you think sending him out alone was the sodding answer? There should have been a whole team over there! Should have sent Willow along and that Kennedy bint and any other trained Slayer you could get your hands on and been bloody careful -"
"You have no bloody idea what's been going on and -"
The door to the office creaked and Giles whipped around, hands going automatically to his pocket - his glasses. Handkerchief and a polish and Spike stepped back - shot a withering look at Little Miss Marker, who was pretending to be typing something.
"Everything all right?" Mrs. Covington asked, and Giles cleared his throat - put his glasses back on and straightened up.
"Just fine, Helen, thank you. Are you ready now? Did you explain -?"
"Yes, I think Xander understands what's going to happen. You said you had a room?"
"Yes, right down the hall, actually." Giles held out his hand and Mrs. Covington smiled faintly and walked past - out of the office and down the hall, the others trailing behind and Giles hurrying to catch up and open the door. Xander came out a moment later looking a little pale and Spike cursed under his breath.
"So, you up for this, mate? Not gonna make you dance the Macarena naked or anything, right?"
"Huh? Oh, uh - no, they're gonna - uh -" Xander fumbled with his pad of paper, flipping the cover and several densely scrawled pages over until he came to a particular one. "She said they're going to - cast a circle. For protection. Protection from what?"
"Doing magic makes things unsettled. Some things..." Spike guided Xander out of the office and down the hall, squinting at his scribbled notes. "Some things are just - drawn to magic. They wanna come in and fool around - poke at you. Steal things, if they can."
"What, like - my wallet or something?" Xander said, trying on a small smile and Spike sighed.
"Nooo, more like your soul." Xander twitched. "But these witches are the best - know exactly what they're doing and we'll be safe as houses, promise you." Spike didn't bother to voice his own, long-held feelings about magic and witches and if any of this was really a very good idea. No point in making things any harder for...Xander.
"Yes, Xander will be perfectly safe but, I'm afraid you can't participate - Spike, is it?" Mrs. Covington stood squarely in the doorway to the spell room, her hair let down in loose, bronze-blonde waves. She was barefoot and Spike could smell sage and lavender burning beyond her.
"Who says I can't?" Spike growled, and Mrs. Covington smiled.
"I'm afraid I do. This spell is very - sensitive. The magics that are inherent in a being such as yourself would - upset it. It would disrupt the casting."
"What you're saying is, me being a vampire fucks with your auras?"
Mrs. Covington's smile vanished. "What I'm saying is, if you'd like to help your friend you'll kindly stay out of the room while we do the spell."
Spike wanted to tell her she was a bloody, bold-faced liar. He wanted to bite her. But he knew - through some rather grisly experiments with Dru - that vampires and certain magic simply did not mesh. "Bloody hell -"
"Hey, Spike, it's cool. I'll be - fine, they say I'll be fine and - and when it's all over and they've got the cure all lined up we'll - uh - go get a drink, okay?" Xander looked even paler - was clutching pad and pen so hard they were both buckling and Spike squashed his rising temper and forced himself to smile. From Xander's expression it must have been ghastly.
"Right. Pint and pie at the pub, on Rupert, soon as they're done getting all - chanty. I'll just - be right up the hall, yeah?"
"Yeah, okay. See you - uh - in a while."
"Yeah, see you." Mrs. Covington stepped aside and Xander went in and the door shut. Spike stomped back for his cigarettes and spent the next thirty minutes smoking and pacing. *Supposed to be out in Mongolia somewhere catching a fucking Urr. Supposed to be enjoying my unlife with money and booze and my pick of the adoring masses. Or fucking clueless masses, whichever gets me laid. Not supposed to be giving a tinker's damn about Xander sodding Harris. I'm not giving a damn. Just...earning some points, is all. Yeah. Right.* Spike had never been a particularly good liar, even to himself.
There was a burning smell coming from the spell room - much too strong for comfort and Spike had just about decided to go in and make sure *Xander* everything was all right when the door opened on a puff of pale smoke and the oldest witch - the frail, white-haired man - walked stiffly out, coughing and holding a handkerchief to his mouth. Spike stood up out of his crouch with a curse and strode down the hall while the man shakily found the bench along one wall and let himself down onto it.
A moment later another witch came out and then Mrs. Covington and a fourth witch, both coughing and looking a bit rumpled. The last witch - a very fat woman who seemed to be having trouble breathing - came out on Giles arm and immediately went to sit next to the old man, huffing and holding a hand to her chest.
Giles stood in the doorway for a moment staring at Spike then he turned and went back in. Spike stomped to the door and looked in, squinting at the bright shafts of sunlight that were lancing down from high, round windows. Xander was against the far wall, one hand braced against old, dark wood, the other curled to his chest. His head was down - eye closed - and Giles was standing there, a hand on Xander's t-shirted shoulder, talking softly. He glanced up at Spike and said something else, questioning tone, and Xander nodded. Giles patted his shoulder and walked away - came abreast of Spike and stopped. He had a smudge of something along his forehead and his hair was ruffled, as if by a strong wind.
"It work?" Spike asked, and Giles nodded.
"It worked. We need to sort the information we have - do some research. We'll have everything we need in a few hours." Spike nodded, ready to collect Xander - take him home or out to get drunk or - whatever he wanted. "Spike -" Giles held out his hand and Spike looked at him, eyebrow cocked up. "You have to understand... Xander is - Xander is very - important to me. Very...special. But I can't - I mustn't let my emotions cloud my judgment. I must be - focused. Do you understand?"
"I understand he thinks you don't give a damn for him, Rupert," Spike said, and Giles sagged a little, glancing back at Xander who hadn't moved.
"I know. I simply... I have to make this right, Spike. He was - devastated when that girl was found. Crushed. He blamed himself - said he'd brought her to the attention of all the monsters in the world and she died because of it. He wouldn't listen when I begged him to stay in Nam Dinh until a team could reach him." Giles blinked - took a deep breath and pushed his hands back through his hair. Spike saw the glimmer of silver there - saw the lines that were etched that much deeper into the man's face - saw the exhaustion in his eyes.
"Harris was always the white knight. Played it for Willow - did it in deadly earnest for Buffy. And for you. For all of us." Spike hesitated a moment - reached out and fleetingly touched Giles' shoulder. "Know you're doin' your best. He has nightmares, Giles. Bad ones."
"I'm not surprised." Giles tugged his tie straight and stepped out of the room. "Take him home, Spike. He needs... He needs a friend." Spike nodded and Giles walked away down the hall, collecting the witches as he went. As they filed raggedly into Giles' office, Spike edged around the periphery of the room, side-stepping sunlight and ending up beside Xander in one of the few shadowy spots. Xander glanced up at him and Spike could see he'd been crying. Xander rubbed his face on the arm of his t-shirt and pushed away from the wall - turned and flopped back against it, looking up at the blue-gold haze of smoke and sunlight that criss-crossed the ceiling.
"G-Giles said it worked."
"It did. Told you. They'll have it all figured out in no time - have you back, right as rain."
"Yeah." Xander sniffed and Spike noticed that - in the hand curled tight to his chest - was Xander's pad and pen. The pad was crushed almost in half and the edges were singed.
"Fuck's sake, Xander! Are you hurt? Is your hand burned?"
"Huh?" Xander blinked and looked down at his hand - unfurled it with a wince and examined his reddened, soot-stained palm. "Uh - it kinda tingles. It's okay. It - it was here."
"What was here?"
Xander closed his eye - clutched the pad back close, wrapping both hands around it and bringing them up high under his chin. "This - this - th-thing. I think I dreamed about - it. And there was - blood and this - girl... Two - girls - fuck, fuck -" Xander slid down the wall, curling in on himself and Spike followed helplessly. "Is that what happened? Are those girls dead? Did I - did -"
"No. You didn't do anything, you didn't hurt anybody, I can promise you that. I dunno about those girls but - whatever happened I know you were trying to help them, Xander. I know it."
"How do you know? Maybe I - maybe I'm a crazy person, maybe this is the real me and -" Xander gasped after a breath, his voice rasping. "And crazy-me comes out and k-kills -"
"Oh, rot! Bloody, buggering bollocks, mate!" Xander let out a bark of near-hysterical laughter and Spike swore again. "Absolute load of sodding codswallop. Utter shite." Xander rolled his head on the wall, turning his face up to Spike. He was laughing and crying and shaking and Spike lifted his chin in invitation. Xander leaned on him - put his head on Spike's arm and pushed in close, his knees falling sideways and almost touching Spike's thighs. "Festering mendacities," Spike murmured, and Xander huffed a raw breath and sniffed hard - pulled up his t-shirt to wipe his nose and streaming eye.
"Okay, I g-get it. It was fucking horrible, Spike. It was..."
"Life, mate. Our life. Big, bad nasty things out there and we find 'em and we fight 'em and we kill 'em. Know why?"
"'Cause we're fucking crazy?"
"'Cause we're heroes, Xander. 'Cause we...are heroes. You just keep remembering that."
"Yeah." Xander sniffed again - shifted a little, and his loosely curled hand slid down to rest on top of Spike's. "Crazy, like I said."
Xander just wanted to go home, he said, and for the first time ever Spike used one of the Council cars to get them there, riding low in the back under his coat since the sun was still intermittently shining. He expected a comment or two - even a joke - but Xander was deadly silent the whole way and disappeared into the shower without a word. Spike paced and smoked until he came out.
The pull-out couch was still out - unmade and messy and so, so tempting. Tempting to Xander apparently, too, since he headed straight for it, his expression inward and unhappy.
"Xander, you want to -?"
"M'tired, Spike. I'm just...gonna take a nap, okay? Just - a short nap."
"Sure, mate. You go on then." Xander curled up in the middle of the bed and closed his eye and - surprisingly - was asleep in less than five minutes. *He looked knackered at the HQ,* Spike thought, but he knew it was really avoidance. *And who'd blame him? Demons, dead girls...he only gets to remember the fucked-up bits.*
Spike finished the bottle he'd started a few nights ago - smoked too much and cracked a window on the garnet-blue twilight to freshen the air. He finally settled moodily into the overstuffed chair catty-corner to the couch - and why did Xander have a pull-out couch, anyway? - and stared at the sleeping man. Xander shivered in his sleep, his eye moving restlessly under the lid and his fingers making tiny, spastic motions, tangled in the sheet. Locked into motionlessness by his body's own self-preservation mechanism but not sleeping easily for it.
Twilight deepened to true night and Spike could smell rain on the air - could feel the closeness of more clouds rolling in. The flat was nearly pitch black, lit only by intermittent washes of brilliance from passing headlights and the faint, pewter glow of a nearby streetlight. And Spike - sat. He felt too heavy to move - too weary. Xander sighed out a hard breath and Spike's hand lifted fractionally but he didn't move - didn't get up. The double chirp of the phone startled him out of his strange, half-aware state and he stood up fast - strode across the room and snatched the handset off its base before it could wake Xander up.
"Yeah? What?"
"Oh, yes - Spike? It - it's Giles -"
"Can hear that, Rupert. Have you figured it out, then?" There was a sigh on the line and Spike gripped the phone a little harder, waiting.
"Yes, we have. I had to call Wesley and - and consult. This is - something new."
"New for you, you mean?" Spike asked, and he could hear Giles rustling papers - could hear the soft gurgle of liquid being poured into a cup.
"Fairly new for all of us. Wesley had read about this - demon once before but - none of us have encountered one until now."
"Yeah, so - he knows what it is, so we know how to kill it, right? Gonna send out the troops?"
"Actually -" There was a pause as Giles drank and Spike ground his teeth, resisting the urge to snap at the man. "Actually, killing it may be somewhat - problematical..."
By the time Giles rang off Spike was pacing again - smoking again - and as he slammed the phone down Xander stirred on the bed - took a long breath and pushed himself up onto his elbow, reaching for the lamp on the end table. He snapped it on, blinking, and Spike winced away, grinding his cigarette out.
"Is it raining?"
"Maybe later," Spike said. He rubbed at his eyes and flopped back down into the chair and Xander scooted up against the back of the couch, dragging blanket and pillows with him. His cheek was creased - his hair a tufty mess and he pressed his palm flat to his eye and yawned hugely.
"Did I sleep a long time? I'm sorry, didn't mean to, just -"
"No worries, mate." Spike felt after his cigarettes and came up with an empty pack. He cursed softly and crumpled it - threw it hard toward the kitchen where it bounced off the table and tumbled away into shadows.
"Did - someone call? I thought - the phone -"
"Yeah. Rupert did. Seems they figured it out."
"Oh." Xander yawned again - stretched his neck and huddled down into the pillows a little. "So - you gonna tell me?"
"Not much to tell. It's a new thing. Dimensional - thing. It came here - sort of piggy-backed in with something else. Somebody near where that first girl disappeared was doing some magic they ought not to and this thing slipped through." Spike stopped picking at his nail and glanced up at Xander, who had an expectant look on his face.
"Yeah? And then?"
Spike sighed. "And then, seems like this thing is drawn to power - needs it. We can't really know, but whoever let it in is probably dead. Probably just some local and the Slayer there was sent to look into it. And, the Slayer being a powerful, mystical girl..."
"It went for her next."
"Yeah. You, now..." Spike couldn't stand to sit anymore so he pushed himself to his feet - walked over to the long bookshelf that was against one wall and stared at it. Books, pictures, graphic novels - textbooks and atlases and what might be journals all crammed in, side by side with knives and stones and strange little objects. Keepsakes.
"I'm not - powerful. Why would it want me?"
"You're something different," Spike said, and Xander made a huffing sort of noise. "You've been out finding these girls - these new Slayers. You've been - telling them what they are and getting them training - checking up once they're placed somewhere."
"Big brother," Xander said softly and Spike nodded, gazing at a picture of Xander and what looked like an entire family somewhere in Africa. Older man and women, middle-aged and younger and babes-in-arms, and one girl with a fierce stare like a lion. Slayer.
"Yeah." Spike turned around to look at him. "Why'd you say that?"
Xander shrugged, rubbing his hands slowly together. "I don't...know. Just... When I look at those pictures up there -" he nodded toward the ones of the Sunnydale crowd - "It just seems like... I am. And the other ones... Those girls are Slayers, aren't they? They look -"
"Look different," Spike said, and Xander nodded. "They are different. Different, marked - a bloody tragedy waiting to happen. There are more of them now then there ever were but - they still die young."
"Fuck," Xander said softly, and Spike walked over to the couch - settled, after a moment, on the edge of the mattress.
"It's the nature of Slayers. You gave them everything they needed to survive, Xander."
"But I guess I got them killed, too." Xander rubbed his hands harder, frowning - looking down at them with a far away sort of gaze. "I - remember... There was blood. There was - blood on my....hands..."
"You remember this? When?"
"It was - the spell. During the spell that...that thing...it came in there. Or - part of it did, I don't -" Xander's hands were rubbing fiercely now - shaking a little and his heart was starting to pound.
"Yeah, Rupert said - they could watch it." And probably it had watched them. Or at least known it was being spied on. Xander could feel the wards because there was still some sort of tenuous connection between himself and the demon. The demon who remembered, now - remembered what Xander had forgot. His memories weren't gone - they were merely on loan. And whatever it was probably knew, now, that they knew.
"It killed them. I was there when it killed them. I s-saw it during the s-spell. I saw -" Xander choked and leaned down over his hands as if he were in pain and Spike didn't know what to do - didn't know what he could do. Xander moaned softly into the tangle of sheet and blanket across his lap. "Blood on my hands, oh god, blood -"
"Stop it, damnit," Spike snapped, but it came out much softer - more of a plea. He reached out and gingerly touched the short, silken hair at the back of Xander's neck and rubbed tentatively. "You went there trying to save them. You heard what happened and the first thing you did was try to fight. You're not to blame, Xander."
"Yes I am," Xander muttered, his voice thick, and Spike shook his head mutely, fingers rubbing - scratching softly. At a loss.
"You're not. This thing is, and the bloody idiot that let it in. It's just a - a predator. Mindless, mostly. It can do a lot of damage but it isn't smart. It takes power, Xander - that's why it went after those girls. It took their power - got itself a body, got itself some shiny toys." And it had to keep taking power to maintain that body - to be able to affect things in this world. Keep taking lives.
Xander's head came up, fast, and Spike's fingers curled around the base of his neck, just holding. Feeling the flush of blood there. "Then what the fuck did it want with me? You said I don't have any powers!"
"You do, though. You know. You see. It's lost here - it needed your knowledge." Another reason it would be hard to kill. It had the power of three Slayers under its belt - and it had Xander's knowledge. It could blend in, and that's exactly what it was doing, somewhere in the bee-hive swarm of islands and people in the South China Sea.
"Oh." Xander's hand-washing motion slowed - finally stopped - and Spike let his fingers slip free. Xander wiped his eye, frowning. "I'm such a fucking idiot. Wanting you to - to tell me - 'It's okay, the evil monster really did need you, you really are special!' God, how fucking stupid -"
"Don't be daft." Spike flopped back on the bed, easing his shoulders and stretching bare feet out, wiggling his toes. "You needed to know what happened - why it happened. Why you were there. Now you know."
"Now I know. Jesus." Xander sniffed - made a small sound that might have been a laugh. "And knowing's -"
"Don't." Xander chuckled softly and Spike rubbed his head back and forth, back and forth on the rumpled bed. "It's no good just sitting here. What say we have that pint and pie, then?"
"Yeah, that sounds good. What kind of pie? Do you guys eat apple pie?"
Spike made a groaning sort of noise. "Of course we do! Probably invented it. I'm talking steak and kidney pie, some chips - you'll love it."
"Kidneys?" Xander said, a note of horror in his voice. Then the phone rang again.
"Oh, bloody hell," Spike muttered, but Xander got up and got it and then - handed it off to Spike, a sheepish expression on his face.
"I don't do crying women too well."
"None of us do, mate," Spike said, but he took the phone anyway. "Who the bloody hell is this?"
"Well, I don't have to ask who that is."
Spike blinked. "Buffy?"
:)
*ahem*
Nope, i got nothin'. Nothin' at all.
No recs, no news, no...anything. My brain, it is off.
reremouse can attest to this. Also? She roxors. As does darkhavens for all their timely pokes and squees and 'stuff'.*beams*
Anybody on my flist want cats? Li'l Brudder, Li'l Sista, Spot and Littlest need homes. I'd like to say Patches does, too, but we might be keeping him. Like we need a fourth cat. Anyway...yeah. Just under a year old, just over two years old, and about three years old, respectively. All outside, all have come inside, the first two for extended stays. *All* friendly and loving and sweet and wonderful and all fixed except for Li'l Brudda, who'll be fixed soon.
Now - the fic!
Previous parts are here:clickity.
When the witches arrived on Thursday, Spike and Xander were already in Rupert's office, happily devouring the rather nice tea Miss Molly had laid on. Giles, of course, wasn't there - something Spike had dreaded and expected in equal measure. Xander hid his disappointment by having a third helping of scone and clotted cream.
"In a meeting, I expect," Spike mumbled around a mouthful of currant bun and Xander swilled down some tea with an appalling amount of sugar and cream in it and nodded, licking away crumbs.
"I kinda figured. So - none of the people I actually know...actually live here?"
"Not really. Buffy and her sis were here for a while before the Slayer went haring off to L.A... Dawn finished out her school year and went back to California, too. Mini-Watcher, really - probably lovin' learning all that Watcher stuff from Wesley. When he's not dead," Spike added, pouring more tea.
Xander choked slightly on an iced biscuit and gave Spike a squinty-eyed look. "Dead? As in - smelly, corpse-y dead, or dead like you?"
"Nothing like me." Spike eyed his cup and dropped in a third sugar cube - still three less than Xander - and found his spoon - licked the plum jam off. "He died in the final fight, right? But he had some - spell or something. Some kind of deal he made or - hell, I don't bloody know. Anyway -" Spike laid his spoon on his saucer and took a contemplative sip. "Sometimes he was just - Wesley and sometimes he was - Wesley when he died. When he was having a bad day, it seemed. Thinking too much about being dead and in debt and he'd...remember."
Xander's hand was frozen between plate and mouth and he slowly lowered the slice of walnut cake back to his plate. "So - when he was all - bummed - he'd look all...corpse-y?"
"Well, more bloody and such, really, but - yeah."
"Okay. Gross. Was he really bloody or -"
"More like - psychic blood." Spike gulped the last of his tea and looked at Xander's plate. "Gonna eat that, then?"
"Huh? Yes, I am. Paws off." Xander hunched over his plate a little, grinning, and Spike rolled his eyes and fished out a cigarette.
There were voices down the hall - coming through the door - and Spike let his smile fade a little, puffing hard on his smoke.
"Ah, they're waiting? Yes, thank you, Miss Merchant. Right this way, if you please." Giles bustled through the door and Xander sat up a little straighter. Five other people - four women and a frail-looking man - followed behind. "There should be some tea - oh, good Lord." Giles stopped dead and looked mournfully at the picked-over trays and plates. "Like a plague of locusts."
"Good afternoon to you, too, Rupert," Spike snarled, and Xander wiped his mouth on his napkin and reached for his pad and Mickey Mouse pen that he'd brought along with him. To take notes, he'd said, but Spike recognized a nervous tick when he saw one.
"What? Oh, yes, good afternoon. Now - Xander." Giles turned to face him and Xander looked up, his expression carefully blank. "These are the ladies - and gentleman - from the coven in Devon. They've found a spell that will tell us exactly what caused your amnesia." Giles looked at the plates again and sighed. "This is Mrs. Covington; she'll explain it to you." Giles ushered a middle-aged, neatly coifed woman around in front of Xander - plucked a folding chair from between two file cabinets and unfolded it. Mrs. Covington sat down, her purse clutched in her lap and Xander turned his gaze on her. Giles slipped out and Spike could hear him telling Miss Mousie that she should have saved the tea until they were all there and was the spell room ready? Spike snorted smoke and dropped his cigarette butt into his teacup.
"Xander, is it?" Mrs. Covington said, and Xander nodded. "Right. Well, you call me Helen, Xander, and we'll get on just fine. Now, what Rupert said is true. We're going to do a spell -" Spike got up and pushed through the witches to the outer office. They gave him pointed looks, shifting away ever so slightly and he grinned.
Rupert was looking over a paper and Spike went over to him and snatched it out of his hands - scanned it for a moment before tossing it down onto the desk. List of spell ingredients - a diagram to chalk.
"Spike, will you -"
"No. How about you spend more than two minutes with your boy in there?"
"What?" Giles took the paper irritably from his assistant's hand and started to read it and Spike snatched it again - pulled out his Zippo and lit it and stuck a corner of the paper into the flame.
"You're not listening, you git."
"Spike!" Giles looked ready to use his fists and Spike smirked at him - clicked the Zippo shut.
"You going to listen now?"
"Please say what you're going to say," Giles said, his voice strained and too polite and Spike tossed the slightly charred paper down and leaned his hip on the desk.
"You're avoiding Xander and it's makin' him all - mopey. You need to fix that."
"And I suppose I should just stop trying to fix him -"
"He's not bloody broken!" Spike reached out and grabbed Gile's jacket lapel - yanked him close and held him there. "He just needs to know his bloody friends are really his friends!" Giles jerked away and Spike let him - watched him straighten his lapels with a yank. "Not one of you has said five words to him except Willow and she called and got him all upset! Cryin' on the phone to him and makin' him all -"
"Yes, well, I had a word with Willow, she called here before... I had no idea she would be so - emotional."
"Girl's a walking live nerve, Rupert - you should have told her to hold off or - or send one of her bloody emails or something." Spike patted himself for smokes and realized they were in his coat in Giles' office. Giles was rubbing his forehead, his glasses held loosely in his fingers. He looked old and tired and harried but Spike wasn't feeling very sympathetic at the moment. Well, he never felt very sympathetic, truth be told. Except just lately, and only for Xander. And that was too bizarre to think about, really, so he concentrated instead on being pissed at the Watcher.
"I've been trying to discover what happened in Vietnam. We have three dead Slayers now, Spike." Giles glanced at the closed door to his office and leaned in a little and Spike kept himself from leaning back. "The first one you already know about - the one in Vietnam that Xander was - was investigating. The two others that were missing - they've turned up dead as well. Except the last one was found in Malaysia, so this thing is moving, Spike. And it's - it's kidnapping and killing Slayers as it goes."
Spike stared at Giles for a moment, the fury building. The wards prickled up and down his spine, not-so-subtle warning. "I saw the bloody report, Watcher. I saw how that first girl died and any bastard with half an eye for ritual could see it was for some seriously black mojo! Shite the strongest witch wouldn't go near and you sent Harris to deal with it? Did you just want him out of the way, then?"
"You ass," Giles hissed. His face was reddening with his own anger - eyes glinting furiously and Spike could hear his heart pounding under the tweed, hard and fast. "Xander wanted to go! He helped recruit those girls - he knew them! He was determined to help!" Giles voice had dropped to a harsh whisper - Spike made no such concessions.
"And you think sending him out alone was the sodding answer? There should have been a whole team over there! Should have sent Willow along and that Kennedy bint and any other trained Slayer you could get your hands on and been bloody careful -"
"You have no bloody idea what's been going on and -"
The door to the office creaked and Giles whipped around, hands going automatically to his pocket - his glasses. Handkerchief and a polish and Spike stepped back - shot a withering look at Little Miss Marker, who was pretending to be typing something.
"Everything all right?" Mrs. Covington asked, and Giles cleared his throat - put his glasses back on and straightened up.
"Just fine, Helen, thank you. Are you ready now? Did you explain -?"
"Yes, I think Xander understands what's going to happen. You said you had a room?"
"Yes, right down the hall, actually." Giles held out his hand and Mrs. Covington smiled faintly and walked past - out of the office and down the hall, the others trailing behind and Giles hurrying to catch up and open the door. Xander came out a moment later looking a little pale and Spike cursed under his breath.
"So, you up for this, mate? Not gonna make you dance the Macarena naked or anything, right?"
"Huh? Oh, uh - no, they're gonna - uh -" Xander fumbled with his pad of paper, flipping the cover and several densely scrawled pages over until he came to a particular one. "She said they're going to - cast a circle. For protection. Protection from what?"
"Doing magic makes things unsettled. Some things..." Spike guided Xander out of the office and down the hall, squinting at his scribbled notes. "Some things are just - drawn to magic. They wanna come in and fool around - poke at you. Steal things, if they can."
"What, like - my wallet or something?" Xander said, trying on a small smile and Spike sighed.
"Nooo, more like your soul." Xander twitched. "But these witches are the best - know exactly what they're doing and we'll be safe as houses, promise you." Spike didn't bother to voice his own, long-held feelings about magic and witches and if any of this was really a very good idea. No point in making things any harder for...Xander.
"Yes, Xander will be perfectly safe but, I'm afraid you can't participate - Spike, is it?" Mrs. Covington stood squarely in the doorway to the spell room, her hair let down in loose, bronze-blonde waves. She was barefoot and Spike could smell sage and lavender burning beyond her.
"Who says I can't?" Spike growled, and Mrs. Covington smiled.
"I'm afraid I do. This spell is very - sensitive. The magics that are inherent in a being such as yourself would - upset it. It would disrupt the casting."
"What you're saying is, me being a vampire fucks with your auras?"
Mrs. Covington's smile vanished. "What I'm saying is, if you'd like to help your friend you'll kindly stay out of the room while we do the spell."
Spike wanted to tell her she was a bloody, bold-faced liar. He wanted to bite her. But he knew - through some rather grisly experiments with Dru - that vampires and certain magic simply did not mesh. "Bloody hell -"
"Hey, Spike, it's cool. I'll be - fine, they say I'll be fine and - and when it's all over and they've got the cure all lined up we'll - uh - go get a drink, okay?" Xander looked even paler - was clutching pad and pen so hard they were both buckling and Spike squashed his rising temper and forced himself to smile. From Xander's expression it must have been ghastly.
"Right. Pint and pie at the pub, on Rupert, soon as they're done getting all - chanty. I'll just - be right up the hall, yeah?"
"Yeah, okay. See you - uh - in a while."
"Yeah, see you." Mrs. Covington stepped aside and Xander went in and the door shut. Spike stomped back for his cigarettes and spent the next thirty minutes smoking and pacing. *Supposed to be out in Mongolia somewhere catching a fucking Urr. Supposed to be enjoying my unlife with money and booze and my pick of the adoring masses. Or fucking clueless masses, whichever gets me laid. Not supposed to be giving a tinker's damn about Xander sodding Harris. I'm not giving a damn. Just...earning some points, is all. Yeah. Right.* Spike had never been a particularly good liar, even to himself.
There was a burning smell coming from the spell room - much too strong for comfort and Spike had just about decided to go in and make sure *Xander* everything was all right when the door opened on a puff of pale smoke and the oldest witch - the frail, white-haired man - walked stiffly out, coughing and holding a handkerchief to his mouth. Spike stood up out of his crouch with a curse and strode down the hall while the man shakily found the bench along one wall and let himself down onto it.
A moment later another witch came out and then Mrs. Covington and a fourth witch, both coughing and looking a bit rumpled. The last witch - a very fat woman who seemed to be having trouble breathing - came out on Giles arm and immediately went to sit next to the old man, huffing and holding a hand to her chest.
Giles stood in the doorway for a moment staring at Spike then he turned and went back in. Spike stomped to the door and looked in, squinting at the bright shafts of sunlight that were lancing down from high, round windows. Xander was against the far wall, one hand braced against old, dark wood, the other curled to his chest. His head was down - eye closed - and Giles was standing there, a hand on Xander's t-shirted shoulder, talking softly. He glanced up at Spike and said something else, questioning tone, and Xander nodded. Giles patted his shoulder and walked away - came abreast of Spike and stopped. He had a smudge of something along his forehead and his hair was ruffled, as if by a strong wind.
"It work?" Spike asked, and Giles nodded.
"It worked. We need to sort the information we have - do some research. We'll have everything we need in a few hours." Spike nodded, ready to collect Xander - take him home or out to get drunk or - whatever he wanted. "Spike -" Giles held out his hand and Spike looked at him, eyebrow cocked up. "You have to understand... Xander is - Xander is very - important to me. Very...special. But I can't - I mustn't let my emotions cloud my judgment. I must be - focused. Do you understand?"
"I understand he thinks you don't give a damn for him, Rupert," Spike said, and Giles sagged a little, glancing back at Xander who hadn't moved.
"I know. I simply... I have to make this right, Spike. He was - devastated when that girl was found. Crushed. He blamed himself - said he'd brought her to the attention of all the monsters in the world and she died because of it. He wouldn't listen when I begged him to stay in Nam Dinh until a team could reach him." Giles blinked - took a deep breath and pushed his hands back through his hair. Spike saw the glimmer of silver there - saw the lines that were etched that much deeper into the man's face - saw the exhaustion in his eyes.
"Harris was always the white knight. Played it for Willow - did it in deadly earnest for Buffy. And for you. For all of us." Spike hesitated a moment - reached out and fleetingly touched Giles' shoulder. "Know you're doin' your best. He has nightmares, Giles. Bad ones."
"I'm not surprised." Giles tugged his tie straight and stepped out of the room. "Take him home, Spike. He needs... He needs a friend." Spike nodded and Giles walked away down the hall, collecting the witches as he went. As they filed raggedly into Giles' office, Spike edged around the periphery of the room, side-stepping sunlight and ending up beside Xander in one of the few shadowy spots. Xander glanced up at him and Spike could see he'd been crying. Xander rubbed his face on the arm of his t-shirt and pushed away from the wall - turned and flopped back against it, looking up at the blue-gold haze of smoke and sunlight that criss-crossed the ceiling.
"G-Giles said it worked."
"It did. Told you. They'll have it all figured out in no time - have you back, right as rain."
"Yeah." Xander sniffed and Spike noticed that - in the hand curled tight to his chest - was Xander's pad and pen. The pad was crushed almost in half and the edges were singed.
"Fuck's sake, Xander! Are you hurt? Is your hand burned?"
"Huh?" Xander blinked and looked down at his hand - unfurled it with a wince and examined his reddened, soot-stained palm. "Uh - it kinda tingles. It's okay. It - it was here."
"What was here?"
Xander closed his eye - clutched the pad back close, wrapping both hands around it and bringing them up high under his chin. "This - this - th-thing. I think I dreamed about - it. And there was - blood and this - girl... Two - girls - fuck, fuck -" Xander slid down the wall, curling in on himself and Spike followed helplessly. "Is that what happened? Are those girls dead? Did I - did -"
"No. You didn't do anything, you didn't hurt anybody, I can promise you that. I dunno about those girls but - whatever happened I know you were trying to help them, Xander. I know it."
"How do you know? Maybe I - maybe I'm a crazy person, maybe this is the real me and -" Xander gasped after a breath, his voice rasping. "And crazy-me comes out and k-kills -"
"Oh, rot! Bloody, buggering bollocks, mate!" Xander let out a bark of near-hysterical laughter and Spike swore again. "Absolute load of sodding codswallop. Utter shite." Xander rolled his head on the wall, turning his face up to Spike. He was laughing and crying and shaking and Spike lifted his chin in invitation. Xander leaned on him - put his head on Spike's arm and pushed in close, his knees falling sideways and almost touching Spike's thighs. "Festering mendacities," Spike murmured, and Xander huffed a raw breath and sniffed hard - pulled up his t-shirt to wipe his nose and streaming eye.
"Okay, I g-get it. It was fucking horrible, Spike. It was..."
"Life, mate. Our life. Big, bad nasty things out there and we find 'em and we fight 'em and we kill 'em. Know why?"
"'Cause we're fucking crazy?"
"'Cause we're heroes, Xander. 'Cause we...are heroes. You just keep remembering that."
"Yeah." Xander sniffed again - shifted a little, and his loosely curled hand slid down to rest on top of Spike's. "Crazy, like I said."
Xander just wanted to go home, he said, and for the first time ever Spike used one of the Council cars to get them there, riding low in the back under his coat since the sun was still intermittently shining. He expected a comment or two - even a joke - but Xander was deadly silent the whole way and disappeared into the shower without a word. Spike paced and smoked until he came out.
The pull-out couch was still out - unmade and messy and so, so tempting. Tempting to Xander apparently, too, since he headed straight for it, his expression inward and unhappy.
"Xander, you want to -?"
"M'tired, Spike. I'm just...gonna take a nap, okay? Just - a short nap."
"Sure, mate. You go on then." Xander curled up in the middle of the bed and closed his eye and - surprisingly - was asleep in less than five minutes. *He looked knackered at the HQ,* Spike thought, but he knew it was really avoidance. *And who'd blame him? Demons, dead girls...he only gets to remember the fucked-up bits.*
Spike finished the bottle he'd started a few nights ago - smoked too much and cracked a window on the garnet-blue twilight to freshen the air. He finally settled moodily into the overstuffed chair catty-corner to the couch - and why did Xander have a pull-out couch, anyway? - and stared at the sleeping man. Xander shivered in his sleep, his eye moving restlessly under the lid and his fingers making tiny, spastic motions, tangled in the sheet. Locked into motionlessness by his body's own self-preservation mechanism but not sleeping easily for it.
Twilight deepened to true night and Spike could smell rain on the air - could feel the closeness of more clouds rolling in. The flat was nearly pitch black, lit only by intermittent washes of brilliance from passing headlights and the faint, pewter glow of a nearby streetlight. And Spike - sat. He felt too heavy to move - too weary. Xander sighed out a hard breath and Spike's hand lifted fractionally but he didn't move - didn't get up. The double chirp of the phone startled him out of his strange, half-aware state and he stood up fast - strode across the room and snatched the handset off its base before it could wake Xander up.
"Yeah? What?"
"Oh, yes - Spike? It - it's Giles -"
"Can hear that, Rupert. Have you figured it out, then?" There was a sigh on the line and Spike gripped the phone a little harder, waiting.
"Yes, we have. I had to call Wesley and - and consult. This is - something new."
"New for you, you mean?" Spike asked, and he could hear Giles rustling papers - could hear the soft gurgle of liquid being poured into a cup.
"Fairly new for all of us. Wesley had read about this - demon once before but - none of us have encountered one until now."
"Yeah, so - he knows what it is, so we know how to kill it, right? Gonna send out the troops?"
"Actually -" There was a pause as Giles drank and Spike ground his teeth, resisting the urge to snap at the man. "Actually, killing it may be somewhat - problematical..."
By the time Giles rang off Spike was pacing again - smoking again - and as he slammed the phone down Xander stirred on the bed - took a long breath and pushed himself up onto his elbow, reaching for the lamp on the end table. He snapped it on, blinking, and Spike winced away, grinding his cigarette out.
"Is it raining?"
"Maybe later," Spike said. He rubbed at his eyes and flopped back down into the chair and Xander scooted up against the back of the couch, dragging blanket and pillows with him. His cheek was creased - his hair a tufty mess and he pressed his palm flat to his eye and yawned hugely.
"Did I sleep a long time? I'm sorry, didn't mean to, just -"
"No worries, mate." Spike felt after his cigarettes and came up with an empty pack. He cursed softly and crumpled it - threw it hard toward the kitchen where it bounced off the table and tumbled away into shadows.
"Did - someone call? I thought - the phone -"
"Yeah. Rupert did. Seems they figured it out."
"Oh." Xander yawned again - stretched his neck and huddled down into the pillows a little. "So - you gonna tell me?"
"Not much to tell. It's a new thing. Dimensional - thing. It came here - sort of piggy-backed in with something else. Somebody near where that first girl disappeared was doing some magic they ought not to and this thing slipped through." Spike stopped picking at his nail and glanced up at Xander, who had an expectant look on his face.
"Yeah? And then?"
Spike sighed. "And then, seems like this thing is drawn to power - needs it. We can't really know, but whoever let it in is probably dead. Probably just some local and the Slayer there was sent to look into it. And, the Slayer being a powerful, mystical girl..."
"It went for her next."
"Yeah. You, now..." Spike couldn't stand to sit anymore so he pushed himself to his feet - walked over to the long bookshelf that was against one wall and stared at it. Books, pictures, graphic novels - textbooks and atlases and what might be journals all crammed in, side by side with knives and stones and strange little objects. Keepsakes.
"I'm not - powerful. Why would it want me?"
"You're something different," Spike said, and Xander made a huffing sort of noise. "You've been out finding these girls - these new Slayers. You've been - telling them what they are and getting them training - checking up once they're placed somewhere."
"Big brother," Xander said softly and Spike nodded, gazing at a picture of Xander and what looked like an entire family somewhere in Africa. Older man and women, middle-aged and younger and babes-in-arms, and one girl with a fierce stare like a lion. Slayer.
"Yeah." Spike turned around to look at him. "Why'd you say that?"
Xander shrugged, rubbing his hands slowly together. "I don't...know. Just... When I look at those pictures up there -" he nodded toward the ones of the Sunnydale crowd - "It just seems like... I am. And the other ones... Those girls are Slayers, aren't they? They look -"
"Look different," Spike said, and Xander nodded. "They are different. Different, marked - a bloody tragedy waiting to happen. There are more of them now then there ever were but - they still die young."
"Fuck," Xander said softly, and Spike walked over to the couch - settled, after a moment, on the edge of the mattress.
"It's the nature of Slayers. You gave them everything they needed to survive, Xander."
"But I guess I got them killed, too." Xander rubbed his hands harder, frowning - looking down at them with a far away sort of gaze. "I - remember... There was blood. There was - blood on my....hands..."
"You remember this? When?"
"It was - the spell. During the spell that...that thing...it came in there. Or - part of it did, I don't -" Xander's hands were rubbing fiercely now - shaking a little and his heart was starting to pound.
"Yeah, Rupert said - they could watch it." And probably it had watched them. Or at least known it was being spied on. Xander could feel the wards because there was still some sort of tenuous connection between himself and the demon. The demon who remembered, now - remembered what Xander had forgot. His memories weren't gone - they were merely on loan. And whatever it was probably knew, now, that they knew.
"It killed them. I was there when it killed them. I s-saw it during the s-spell. I saw -" Xander choked and leaned down over his hands as if he were in pain and Spike didn't know what to do - didn't know what he could do. Xander moaned softly into the tangle of sheet and blanket across his lap. "Blood on my hands, oh god, blood -"
"Stop it, damnit," Spike snapped, but it came out much softer - more of a plea. He reached out and gingerly touched the short, silken hair at the back of Xander's neck and rubbed tentatively. "You went there trying to save them. You heard what happened and the first thing you did was try to fight. You're not to blame, Xander."
"Yes I am," Xander muttered, his voice thick, and Spike shook his head mutely, fingers rubbing - scratching softly. At a loss.
"You're not. This thing is, and the bloody idiot that let it in. It's just a - a predator. Mindless, mostly. It can do a lot of damage but it isn't smart. It takes power, Xander - that's why it went after those girls. It took their power - got itself a body, got itself some shiny toys." And it had to keep taking power to maintain that body - to be able to affect things in this world. Keep taking lives.
Xander's head came up, fast, and Spike's fingers curled around the base of his neck, just holding. Feeling the flush of blood there. "Then what the fuck did it want with me? You said I don't have any powers!"
"You do, though. You know. You see. It's lost here - it needed your knowledge." Another reason it would be hard to kill. It had the power of three Slayers under its belt - and it had Xander's knowledge. It could blend in, and that's exactly what it was doing, somewhere in the bee-hive swarm of islands and people in the South China Sea.
"Oh." Xander's hand-washing motion slowed - finally stopped - and Spike let his fingers slip free. Xander wiped his eye, frowning. "I'm such a fucking idiot. Wanting you to - to tell me - 'It's okay, the evil monster really did need you, you really are special!' God, how fucking stupid -"
"Don't be daft." Spike flopped back on the bed, easing his shoulders and stretching bare feet out, wiggling his toes. "You needed to know what happened - why it happened. Why you were there. Now you know."
"Now I know. Jesus." Xander sniffed - made a small sound that might have been a laugh. "And knowing's -"
"Don't." Xander chuckled softly and Spike rubbed his head back and forth, back and forth on the rumpled bed. "It's no good just sitting here. What say we have that pint and pie, then?"
"Yeah, that sounds good. What kind of pie? Do you guys eat apple pie?"
Spike made a groaning sort of noise. "Of course we do! Probably invented it. I'm talking steak and kidney pie, some chips - you'll love it."
"Kidneys?" Xander said, a note of horror in his voice. Then the phone rang again.
"Oh, bloody hell," Spike muttered, but Xander got up and got it and then - handed it off to Spike, a sheepish expression on his face.
"I don't do crying women too well."
"None of us do, mate," Spike said, but he took the phone anyway. "Who the bloody hell is this?"
"Well, I don't have to ask who that is."
Spike blinked. "Buffy?"
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