Learning Curve
Rated ADULT
Sexual Content

Jim/Blair, Xander/Spike

Chapter 1

"I can't believe the sod came back here. Not like he has a lot of good memories associated with this place, but he always has been one for sulking in the dark," Spike said as they stood at the entrance to the Hyperion hotel.

"Whoa, big fire," Xander said, noticing the black streaks that wrapped around the corner, staining the stone.

"Yeah, either lightening or a dragon hit there, depending on who you ask."

"Okay, with your luck, I'm guessing dragon," Xander said as he bit his lip. "This is where they all died, isn't it?"

"Yeah, out back, but they're gone, and hanging out on top of California's newest Hellmouth isn't going to make them come back any time soon," Spike said before he moved away, pushing in through the doors. Angel might brood, but Spike ignored. Xander had discovered that fact. He followed silently because having seen his own share of disasters, he knew that sometimes you had to ignore the broken bits and the pain and the losses until you glued yourself back together well enough to talk about it without breaking down into tears, not that he could see Spike breaking down into tears. That was more Xander's style.

"Angel-cakes?" Spike yelled. That was a new nickname. Xander snickered.

"Spike?" Angel came out from the back, his face barely visible in the low light, but the big old ax looked fairly ominous. Xander started to back up, but Spike's arm slipped around his back, holding him in place.

"You're looking mighty broody, mate."

"Spike, I have a job. I don't have time for this right now."

"Yeah, you never do. So, what's the job and I'll throw in for old times sake," Spike said as he stepped closer, dragging Xander with him.

"Xander," Angel finally acknowledged him. Then Angel stopped and looked at them more closely. "Spike, what are you doing with Xander?"

"Wot? You need the birds and the bees speech? Seems like you knew what to do with my arse well enough the one time you came home drunk enough to miss the girls' beds, so figure it out."

Xander choked. Angel... and Spike. Oh god, some things he did not need to know. "Hey, about those Clippers? Looking good this season," Xander tried to deflect the conversation, but both vampires ignored him. Well, Angel ignored him, Spike told him to shut up and gave him a slap on the ass that made Angel's eyebrows raise.

"Spike, I'm going to assume you've forgotten how little patience I have for you, but let me try this again. What the hell are you doing with Xander?"

"The boy warms my bed, not that it's any of your business. We just thought we'd drop in for a family visit, but if you have nasties to kill, all the better," Spike shrugged.

Xander stayed silent, even when Angel tightened his lips and scrunched all his facial features toward the center as though some demon were trying to suck off his face. And staying silent, not so easy, because he could think of any number of face sucking jokes that he *could* make.

Spike's hand moved up to Xander's neck, grabbing him by the scruff, and Xander hunched his shoulders instinctively at the pressure.

"Hey, I'm big with the non-insulty manners, here," Xander protested. Spike tightened his grip a little more.

"Oi, can hear ya thinkin' them," he said. Xander just sighed as Spike pulled him a little closer and the hand around his neck moved so that it draped over Xander's shoulder. Angel's face now sort of dropped into a frown that made his eyes nearly disappear under his eyebrows. Okay, so Xander might be exaggerating a little, but it wasn't a good expression.

"I don't need help," Angel growled. Xander wondered if a laxitive would improve the vamp's mood.

"Never said you did. I figure we can just punch the hell out of whatever nasty you're hunting, and then we can talk some. So, let's go," Spike said as he pulled Xander around and started heading for the door they'd just come in. Angel got in front of them.

"He is not going." Angel said as he glared at Xander, but then his voice choked off at the end as though something had wrapped around his throat and squeezed off the air. Xander was fairly certain that the something was disgust since the fingers of Spike's second hand crept under the waistband of Xander's jeans.

Xander could feel his ears warm with embarrassment. Spike tightened his arm and Xander allowed himself to lean back into that strength. He knew facing Angel would be hard. But, like Spike said, better to deal with one overbearing, obnoxious, stick-their-nose-into-other- people's-business friend at a time, and if they didn't tell Angel, Buffy sure as hell would. Xander just really wished Spike wasn't enjoying this quite so much.

"He's not going with us," Angel finally ordered.

"Not your call, Peaches," Spike said with far too much amusement in his voice. Xander rolled his eyes. He wasn't sure how he felt being Spike's 'secret weapon,' the Shaman powers hidden until Spike could show them off and rub Angel's nose in them. Personally, Xander didn't think there would be much rubbing. No matter what Spike said about demons and power and wanting to claim power, Angel would never see him as anything other than annoying: he could see that in the barely contained fury on Angel's face.

"Then neither of you will come, William," Angel growled.

"Oi, seems to me we settled this little debate. Don't have to do jack-all that you say, mate," Spike answered, amusement still coloring his tone. Angel's fists clenched.

"And you didn't want *me* to piss him off?" Xander whispered.

"Careful pet, wouldn't want me ta punish you in front the poof, would ya?" Spike asked sweetly. Xander's ears burned even hotter, and Angel made a strangled squack-like noise.

"I've got demons to kill," Angel snapped as he stormed out of the office, slamming the door.

"Right, we're right behind ya," Spike announced cheerfully as he herded Xander after Angel. The convertible was parked along the side of the building, and now Xander could see one whole wall scorched black, and the ruins of a building next door which had turned into a giant pile of bricks.

"In you go," Spike said as he practically tossed Xander into the backseat. Angel had already rolled away from the curb when Spike landed in the passenger side seat. Angel tightened his fingers around the steering wheel, but didn't say anything as he navigated the streets.

Eventually, he turned in at a fairgrounds on the edge of town, bright lights whirling high in the air and screaming voices drifting on the breeze. Demons at a carnival, and that was actually pretty cliche, Xander thought as he hurried after Spike and Angel.

"Right, so what are we looking for?" Spike asked.

"I'm looking for vampires."

"Doesn't narrow the field much. This type of place always attracts a few random minions picking off the careless. What are they doing to get your ire up?"

Angel stopped, and looked at Spike with murderous eyes.

"I fight every vampire I find. There is no such thing as a death too small to fight."

"Right," Spike said disbelievingly.

"Go away, Spike."

"I will, mate, just as soon as these baddies are taken care of. So, why drive half way across the city to hunt here?" Spike prodded again. Xander trailed along after them feeling vaguely like the family pet, but then he got the feeling that these two were dealing with shit that had nothing to do with Xander and Spike and Xander or even Xander and shamen, not that Angel knew that bit yet. They walked in silence, and Xander couldn't spot anything that screamed "vampire" other than a Goth chick with a huge cross necklace which sort of suggested she wasn't actually a vampire. Angel stopped.

"They're collecting sacrifices. Children. They're going to drain their blood and summon a demon," he finally admitted.

"I don't smell 'em," Spike said. "Pet," Spike looked back and Xander stepped forward. Right, time for the floor show. "They're planning on draining children, probably excited by how helpless the kiddies are. Hungry, frustrated at not taking a taste... either that or they have tasted them. They want power, and they think they're going to get it tonight."

Xander nodded, and then closed his eyes tightly.

"What are you doing?" Angel asked, but Xander ignored it as he opened his eyes to a new landscape. Xander felt for the lust for power and blood, seeing a few possible threads appear in the tangle of faint shadow threads. Xander focused on one, making it thicken as he concentrated. Lust, but lust for money.

Xander turned his head and followed a second thread. It was dark, and throbbing, inhuman, but he abandoned it after feeling the fear and disgust roll off one of the workers, a thick necked man who clearly wasn't human.

"Watch it," the guy complained as Xander bumped him, and some sort of scuffle broke out behind Xander as he felt it. There. The dark cords tangled together, three or four. All pulsated with hunger and lust and power and a raw superiority. Xander followed, blindly ignoring the people and the ropes until hands grabbed his shoulders, pushing him away from his goal.

Xander fought to turn back, but the hands moved him forward until finally Xander could turn to the source of that evil.

"Bloody fuck, they're starting," Spike hissed. Xander shook his head, making the vision retreat as Spike and Angel raced away from the fair and out into a field of broken corn stalks. Xander raced after them, grabbing the stake from the back of his jeans as he heard the first sounds of flesh hitting flesh.

Xander reached the fight and found children, their hands tied to stakes pounded into the ground. When Xander pulled out a knife, a girl started to scream, and Xander shushed her. "I'm just cutting the ropes. Just sit still and let me get you free," he begged. A little boy desperately scooted away so that Xander couldn't slip the knife between the rope and the hands without cutting him.

"I'm with the police. I'm a policeman. I'm trying to rescue you," Xander finally lied. The girl immediately stopped screaming and the boy held out his hands with wide eyes. "Stay together. Stay together now," Xander said as he cut loose the boy and then a quiet girl and finally the screamer. The fight was still going on.

"Stay together. Run to the lights and find the first person with a uniform, but stay together," Xander said as he put the boy's hand into the quiet girl's custody and then did the same with the screamer. "Run. Run as fast as you can, but stay together," he said as he gave them a push. The three children fled toward the fairgrounds, and Xander focused on the fight in time to see Angel and Spike grab the last minion. Angel swung his ax just as Spike struck out with a stake, and who knows which hit first, but the minion turned into another pile of ash.

"The kids," Angel said as he looked around.

"All three are heading for the fairgrounds. They'll be fine as long as they stay together and find a guard," Xander said as he put his knife and stake away.

"No more of them, then?" Spike asked as he waved toward the ash still settling to the ground.

"Greed and general not-niceness, but no more murderous demons with blood rituals," Xander agreed.

Angel just stood and stared. It was too dark here for Xander to see his face, but Spike obviously could.

"You look like a bloody idiot with that expression on your face," he said smugly as he moved to behind Xander and wrapped his arms around Xander's waist.

"Hey, why do you get to insult him if I don't?" Xander demanded.

"Not an insult... just an observation."

"Um, that sounds like something I'd say, so I'm calling it an insult. Well, except for the bloody part. When I say bloody I usually mean bloody as in blood." Xander shrugged.

"What is going on?" Angel demanded. He took a step closer, and now Xander could see the suspicious expression on his face. Okay, maybe that was suspicion. Xander wasn't actually sure.

"Wot?" Spike asked. "Ya wanted the buggers found, and we found them." Spike was enjoying this entirely too much.

"And *how* did you find them, exactly?" Angel demanded, his eyes never leaving Xander. Xander squirmed a bit under the attention, and Spike's arms around his waist tightened.

"Interestin' question. I figure you've known the boy a lot longer than I have, so it's your own soddin' fault for never noticing."

Xander could feel Spike shrug, the movement telegraphed from his vampire's body to his own.

"Not noticing what?" Angel took another step forward, and now Xander could see the muscles under Angel's shirt tensing so that silk shifted over his body. Funny, that expression was looking more Angelus than Angel, and with the silk shirt, Xander could feel the first tendrils of worry. He opened himself slightly, allowing the Shaman part of his mind to see the threads of the universe that tangled around them all.

Immediately, Xander sucked in a deep breath. From Angel came a corded, twisted thread, a silky, slick black rope of sickness and hate that twisted and snapped before smaller threads wove around it, sticking to it and obscuring the raw fury with guilt and sorrow and need and fear.

Xander looked up at Angel, seeing the demon inside as clearly as he could see the nose and the brown eyes and the confusion.

"Pet," Spike's voice drifted around him, pushing away the image of those threads, and Xander blinked himself back into this world.

"Hey," Xander answered, a good sort of non-committal answer since he really didn't know what to say after seeing that. The purity of the evil horrified Xander now that he could see it clearly. He pressed back into Spike's embrace and blinked away the ghost images that crowded his vision. And really, it was almost worse to see Angel's soul's threads wrapping and twisting and sometimes snapping as they struggled to embrace that evil, cocooning in so that it couldn't touch the world.

"You don't use the sight again, not around him, pet, understand?" Spike said in a low voice, and Xander nodded, happy to have that particular order.

"What sight?" Angel demanded. Without the Shamanic vision, Angel just looked annoyed, but even now Xander could feel the darker thread lurking just beneath the surface.

"Gotta wonder how you could fight next to him all those years and never notice."

"Spike, if you don't start explaining what is going on, I'm going to crack your head on the sidewalk," Angel growled. Xander couldn't help the tremble that went through his limbs and Angel backed off a step.

"Xander?" he asked.

"Okay, are we done with the Angel torture now? I'm thinking hot bath. Hot bath and bed. Bed would be good," Xander quietly pleaded.

"He's a Shaman. He couldn't figure out how to control it, but he'd get sucked toward evil because he could feel it sliding just under the skin. We thought he was trying to off himself, but it was just him bein' a white hat, trying to save everyone else without understanding how to save himself."

"A Shaman?" Doubt colored Angel's voice, and Xander couldn't really blame him. But he'd better learn how to convince people because Buffy and Giles and Willow weren't going to be any less with the doubting.

"I can see Angelus," Xander said softly, "like an oily black cord straining, only you keep twisting around that hate, trying to hold it. You can feel him surge forward, and snap through the threads of your control, and you just have to cling to the hope that you can hold him. That's why you hold on to your guilt. It sticks to Angelus, clings to his essence so that you can hold on to all that hate inside," Xander said softly. He looked up at Angel's face, and Angel staggered back as though he'd been punched.

"But you aren't Angelus. I can see your threads as clearly as his. And I could see the life threads of the demons we tracked here, I could see their hatred. I am a Shaman," Xander finished.

The distant sounds of the carnival rumbled as the three of them stood in the field. Angel stared at them until Xander pressed back against Spike, feeling his arms tighten protectively, and Xander chewed his lower lip.

"Seeing that. Knowing what it means to have a soul and a demon, how can you let Spike touch you?" Angel finally demanded.

"Oi, I do more than touch him. Own him, don't I? He's mine, gave himself to me, the way demons in a clan do," Spike objected.

"Spike," Angel growled, and Xander blinked, watching as the black cord twisted up in rage and impotent jealousy.

"Angelus hates that Spike has what he wants," Xander announced. The black cord surged before again being buried beneath the threads of Angel's own soul.

"I hate to see Spike manipulating you into something you don't understand," Angel corrected him.

Xander shook his head.

Spike chuckled darkly. "I told you the old sod would be jealous as hell that I have myself a Shaman. And the longer you use those powers of yours, the more powerful they seem to be getting."

"And you just want bragging rights." Angel stepped forward, his hands curled into angry fists. "You want to be able to rub my nose in having something that you think I want. That's why you went after Buffy. That's why you tried so hard to make Dru love you, because I was always number one in her life and you knew it."

"You don't know the first thing about me. I never did anything but love whoever I fell for. Never claimed to be anything other than love's bitch," Spike snapped back.

"You can't tell me that he loves you, not if he can see our demons," Angel countered.

"Oh, I can see what Spike is, just like I can see what you are," Xander interrupted the fight. "You aren't the same. Spike's soul doesn't battle his demon, and I gave myself to both his soul and his demon because it's the best way to keep him from ripping himself apart."

"Shh, luv. Bastard doesn't deserve an explanation." Spike reached around and put a hand on Xander's chin, pulling his gaze away from Angel.

"But he's going to call Buffy or Buffy's going to call him, and I don't want them doing the conspiring thing," Xander protested as he turned back to Angel. "I can read you and Spike better than most people because with the whole demon and soul thing, it's like having the parts separated out so that I can see them clearer. I'm not walking into this blind, and I know how possessive Spike is, and maybe that's a not so much of a good thing since it's a little with the obsessive, but don't try making it seem like I don't know what I'm doing," Xander insisted.

Angel just looked at him with wide eyes. Finally he shifted his gaze to Spike. "If you hurt him, I will hunt you down," Angel said.

"Not going to happen, Peaches." Again, the silence fell between them.

"And if I lose my soul, you get him as far away from me as you can," Angel finally added, his voice now quiet and tired.

"Goes without sayin'," Spike agreed.

"You two take the car back to the hotel. I need some time," Angel said as he tossed Spike the car keys. Spike snatched them from the air and used his arm around Xander's waist to urge him away from Angel.

Xander followed Spike's lead, stepping over the dried corn stalks that stuck up out of the ground and crunching over the brown leaves.

"Okay, that went..." Xander paused. "It just went," he finally finished.

"Oi, the sod is jealous as hell, and he's given us his approval, so Buffy won't find an ally with him," Spike said. "Went a hell of a lot better than I expected."

"What, you thought you'd have to battle over me?" Xander snorted a laugh, but when Spike didn't answer, Xander stopped, digging in his heels when Spike tried to pull him forward. "You thought Angel would try to take me?" he demanded.

"Well, yeah."

"And you still brought me here? Hello! What is it with you two? I am not to be given away or stolen away or won like the prize bull, and feel free to start apologizing now."

Instead of apologizing, Spike pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Xander had an image of him dropping the thing and setting the whole field on fire, but right now he had bigger complaints than Spike's smoking.

"Pet, watch your tone," Spike warned, blowing smoke out into the cool night air.

"Watch my tone? Watch my tone?" Xander demanded incredulously, okay, that might have been a small squawk, but he was entitled. Spike obviously didn't agree because he closed the distance between them, grabbing Xander by the back of the neck with one hand while he held the cigarette away in the other.

"Yes, bloody watch your tone. You said you understood what it meant, givin' yourself to my demon, but you obviously don't. I'll bloody well dust before I let someone take you, but you have to trust me to know how to keep you safe," he growled, and Xander could see the fear in every tight line of Spike's face. He relaxed his body, leaning forward into Spike, and the hand that had grabbed him turned into a fierce hug.

"I'm just freaking out here. And you are not allowed to dust, ever," Xander whispered. "But fighting over me is kinda medieval in the knights fighting over a girl way, and I'm not really wanting to be the girl in that scenario."

"You're not a bloody bint," Spike said as he let Xander go. "But demons fight over control, and Angel soddin' well wants you."

"And you know, I was getting that feeling too, which is big with the creepiness," Xander said with a shudder as Spike led them back toward the carnival, a hand on Xander's back.

"Angelus wants the Shaman in you; it's why he took Dru, to get control of her powers."

"Which is why the telling you to keep me away if his soul goes on shore leave," Xander nodded.

"Fuck yes. If the soul takes a crapper, we're vacationing in another dimension, pet," Spike agreed. "But at least now I can have it out with Buffy without Angel coming in on his white horse trying to play knight in shining armor. If it came to a fight, don't care to know which side Buffy would take," Spike said indifferently, even though Xander could guess at his pain.

"So, no potential fighting over me like I'm the princess in the tower?" Xander asked.

Spike snorted. "You're soddin' strange, you know that, yeah?"

"Totally," Xander nodded.

"Angel isn't going to fight over you, so I figure that just leave Willow, Giles and Buffy."

"You can take them," Xander tried joking, even though the thought of them fighting over him made his guts curl up into a little ball.

"If I had to, yeah," Spike agreed. "Not really my first plan, pet."

"You mean you actually plan?"

"Oi, someone's looking for a spanking," Spike warned.

"Oh yeah, because that's a threat that's going to keep me from mouthing off," Xander rolled his eyes. Spike was entirely too serious, but Xander knew how to keep his vampire from getting all obsessive about Buffy and Angel and things that were in the past that needed to stay in the past.

"Brat," Spike said with a swat on Xander's ass.

"Hell yeah," Xander agreed. "Your brat." He wiggled his ass and walked faster so that he would get ahead of Spike. They had nearly reached the edge of the carnival, and Xander glanced back to make sure Spike was watching before he dashed off.

Xander heard a British curse behind him, and he ran faster, grabbing a support pole for a tent and swinging around a corner with a laugh. A group of teenagers who stood too close for Xander to dash through forced him to slow down, and he caught a glimpse of white hair pushing through the crowd after him.

Xander smiled and detoured around the back of the food alley, where the trash cans smelled of fried bread and sugar. Not wanting to get caught here, he ran faster, dashing to the edge of the parking lot and skirting it south into the dark where the security building squatted. Ducking down to avoid the windows, Xander didn't even see the figure racing across the dying grass. He just felt the body slam into him, pushing him down into the warm earth of a flower bed.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Spike demanded mischievously, showing his fangs.

"Um, to the car?" Xander blinked up innocently, and then he thrust his hips up toward Spike who was firmly sitting on him.

"Looked like someone was running away from his master," Spike corrected him. Xander remained silent. Spike must have taken that for permission because he leaned down and commanded Xander's mouth in a dangerous kiss.

Xander lay quiet, not moving as those razor sharp fangs slid over his lips, sharp front teeth nipping at his mouth. And while Xander knew that Spike would never actually hurt him, that sharp danger made him gasp for breath.

"Someone's naughty," Spike whispered as he pulled back, and then he licked Xander's neck. Xander had no idea if the naughty was the running or the fact that Xander was now very interested in sex with a room full of security guards inches away, but he didn't care as Spike sucked as his pulse, making him thrust up into Spike's body.

"Over," Spike ordered, and used his supernatural strength to physically lift Xander, urging him onto hands and knees, and Xander obeyed, pressing his face toward the smell of healthy earth and crushed daisies as he felt hands at his belt.

"Oh shit," he breathed.

"Best be quiet or we're going to have some company out here," Spike hissed in his ear, and Xander felt his heart race, which made his cock all the happier.

Spike pushed his pants and underwear down to his thighs, leaving Xander's cock dangling, and Xander squirmed until strong hands grabbed his hips. Oh yeah, he was wired funny because that just made his heart pound faster and his cock ache with need.

Xander felt one hand disappear, and he made a strangled, protesting noise, but then slick fingers pressed into him, and he just focused on not crying out. Sex in public, hot. Getting caught by security guards with big sticks, not. Getting Spike to dress up like a security guard with a big stick.... Xander groaned contentedly as that fantasy flitted through his mind.

Another finger pressed into him and Spike found his happy button. Xander arched his back and panted as Spike pulled out his fingers and something larger slowly pressed into him. Fuck, yeah. Oh he was so going to scream and get them caught. He pressed his forehead to the ground and just endured as pleasure made his spine tingle and muscles stretched and came to life. Spike pressed up to the back of his legs, and Xander whined in need and excitement and maybe even a little fear.

Taking pity, Spike pulled out and thrust in again quickly, grabbing Xander's cock as Xander dug his fingers into the dirt and thrust back and choked on his own silent cries. When he came, his body jerked until Spike grabbed him, yanking him up and sinking fangs into his neck.

Xander couldn't hold back his keening sound as his body spasmed, impaled on both ends.

"You hear that?" a male voice asked, and Xander silently finished his orgasm, shaking as he grabbed the arm Spike had slung around his waist. Spike first licked and then kissed his neck, and Xander let his head loll to the side.

"Hear what?"

"I don't know, heard something."

Spike pulled up his underwear, awkwardly tucking Xander Junior in directions Xander Junior didn't like, and Xander rearranged himself, tucking everything away quickly as he pulled his jeans up.

"You're always hearing things."

"I'm telling you I heard something."

Xander stood up, wiping off his arms where dirt clung to him. Spike stepped forward and brushed his face, and Xander cursed himself as he felt the damp dirt on his forehead. Oh yeah, real subtle.

"So go check it out," one of the voices said dismissively, and Xander looked toward the guard shack in panic, his brain shutting down right about when a coherent thought would have been helpful. A strong grip closed around his wrist, and Xander found himself pulled off balance, and he ran after Spike just to keep from being dragged behind him. They raced along the bushes that lined the south edge of the parking lot, staying just outside of the pools of light created by the lamps, and Xander noted a number of surprised, and sometimes half-dressed couples as they jumped over them.

Spike didn't stop until they reached Angel's convertible, by which time Xander was gulping air, and Spike was laughing hard enough to make the sides of his eyes go all crinkly.

"Not. Funny," Xander finally huffed.

"Oi, bloody well is. You're still all full of muck. Guess we'll just have to get Peach's car dirty then," Spike smiled as he opened the passenger side door.

"Angel's going to go a grrrr over this car," Xander said as he slipped in, his ass grinding dirt into the upholstery.

"I'm counting on it, pet. Well, that and I'm counting on us being on a plane for England before he finds it." Xander snickered as Spike walked around to the driver's side and got in. "One family member down, three more to go, pet," Spike said as he started the car.

"We'll make it," Xander said confidently.

"Bloody well right we will." Spike agreed.

Chapter 2

Xander leaned back in the seat, ignoring the fear that always crawled into his belly when the aircraft started to land. Oh, he could face demons and gods and African food and blinding humiliation, but one little aircraft landing and his stomach tied up like… like something really knotty. And for that matter, he didn't know why he was bashing African food because it was good compared to English food.

When Spike's hand slid over his, Xander gave a weak smile.

"Down in a sec, pet."

"I'm fine. See me be fine? Big with the fine," Xander protested weakly. Spike didn't answer, but he tightened his hold on Xander's hand, the one that was clutching the seat's arm. No matter how often he told himself that the fear was stupid, Xander failed to actually believe it so he held his breath until the plane touched ground, bouncing slightly and then rolling down the runway to the screech of tires.

The plane turned and slowly rolled toward the airport, and Spike pulled out his cellphone.

"You're not supposed—"

"Oi, I don't follow stupid rules, do I?" Spike asked as he slipped the earpiece into one ear and shielded the phone in his lap. If a stewardess hadn't been walking by right then, Xander might have argued about signals and towers and controllers, but instead he just smiled silently at the lady as she walked by.

Spike pretty much did what Spike wanted, and right now, making a fuss would just get them pulled off by airport security and frisked so thoroughly that Xander would end up wondering if he should add the guard to his list of lovers. It had happened once at the Bulawayo airport in Zimbabwe, and they'd been all apologetic after going through his bags and leaving him sitting in his underwear in an interrogation room for an hour, but he really didn't think he needed a repeat.

"Hey, we're back," Spike told the person in the phone, but he turned to Xander as if talking to him, and Xander nodded knowingly. They were so going to get caught.

"A ride would be nice…. Then send one of the girls…." Spike paused for a long time, his face impassive as whoever was on the other end went on and on and on. He rolled his eyes and then sucked air through his teeth in a way that suggested someone was about to get eviscerated. "Bloody hell, has to be some way!"

"And I'm really sorry, but no with the wayage. I'm not seeing a way," Xander babbled in Spike's general direction as the man in front of them turned around with a confused expression. "Nope, no way, so sorry, and I'm sorry, we'll just keep our conversation down," Xander told the man as he did his best to cover for Spike's little outburst.

Luckily, Spike had fallen silent again, listening with an expression that did nothing to make Xander feel any better. Maybe if they were all too busy to come to the airport that meant another apocalypse. In general, Xander was not fond of apocalypses; they made his eye socket ache. However, right now a little Hellmouthy action would be good for the distraction.

He suddenly remembered that Willow had sent him off to study Sentinels specifically to get him away from Spike, and as much as he loved Willow, she wasn't really known for going with the flow. She was more the try to redirect the whole river to make it flow where she wanted it to flow, and Xander wasn't really fond of her ways of redirection.

Oh yeah, a little apocalyptic fun might be the thing to distract Willow from any attempts to redefine reality. Yeah, she had given up the magical memory wipes and manipulation, but she still had the Willow eyes and pouting and the all-powerful 'listen to me because I know you better than you know yourself' speech. But then, if that was true, why hadn't she ever noticed that he was a Shaman?

"Just do it," Spike snarled far too loudly, and this time a number of people turned and looked. He yanked the earpiece off and shoved the phone in his pocket just as a stewardess came through, her eyes scanning the rows.

"Is there a problem here?" she asked primly in her stiff English accent, holding on to the seat backs as something bumped the plane.

"Just a git who's annoyin' me," Spike said as he turned to Xander. "Andrew must be the most annoyin' piss ant on the whole bloody planet," Spike growled, and Xander got it.

"Sorry," he said with a half-shrug. Let the stewardess think he was Andrew of the annoyingness if it got them off the plane without a police escort. The stewardess looked at them for a second and then wandered off.

"We're on our own for a bit, pet," Spike said as he stood up and retrieved their bags from the overhead.

"I got that," Xander confirmed.

Xander followed Spike through customs and a more thorough than usual body search. It wasn't up to Zimbabwe's standards, but the guard got to at least second base with him. He kept waiting for some sort of explanation from Spike, but he suffered through the security with tight lips and as few words as possible.

Figuring that Spike couldn't talk about it with so many people around, Xander just followed him through airport, grabbing the bag they'd checked and searching for something American from the various food vendors. Xander had spent over a year in Africa eating things that where he couldn't identify the meat... or the vegetables for that matter. Now he wanted good old fashioned American ground mystery meat. The airport slowly filled as planes landed, but board after board showed planes being delayed from taking off. But Spike led them away from the crowded center.

They ended up sitting on the floor of the main terminal, Xander leaning on the bags and munching a hot dog piled with all the fixings while Spike bounced a tennis ball against garbage can. The thing would hit with a dull thud, bounce once and then Spike would snag it from the air and throw it again. Thud-bounce-catch.

"I'm assuming that the hang up isn't demonic since everyone else seems to be hung up too," Xander said as he looked at the crowded airport. People clustered around the few public televisions, more crowded around those ones that you had to put a credit card through to get to work. He shoved the rest of the hot dog in his mouth, chewing as Spike sat silent. Thud-bounce-catch.

"Someone blew up the Tube," Spike finally said after Xander swallowed.

"They… WHAT?" Xander looked over, but Spike just kept bouncing the ball.

"Seems like a few dozen dead… maybe more. City's just pretty well shut down, which is why Andrew can't get a car in for us, roadblocks are making travel hard, and the slayers are busy with the nasties who've decided ta take advantage of the cock up. The phones aren't doing well either, so it's lucky Willow mojo'ed ours. Might be here for a while." Thud-bounce-catch.

"Spike, who?"

Spike tilted his head and gave Xander an incredulous look.

"Okay, ruling out demons, I can guess who, but what are we going to do?"

"Pet, people have tried ta shut down the city before." Thud-bounce-catch. "Dru and me left for New York after nearly getting blown to bits by an IRA bomb outside a pub. Now that's just wrong, bombing people who are just trying to get pissed enough to forget their crap-all lives."

"Okay, this changes things. No way can we go pushing in there and announce to them that we're all couply after this," Xander said. That made Spike pause with the ball bouncing.

"No, it doesn't. City'll get up tomorrow, sweep up the streets, and keep right on going. If the jerries didn't stop us, a few cowards with bombs sure as hell aren't."

"But—"

"Do you want to hide us?" Spike asked, the tennis ball still in hand.

"No, of course not, but—"

"No buts. Life goes on, pet, at least for those that survived. And for us, life means telling the others that we're together now."

"Which would be where life ended," Xander tried joking. Spike shifted around, reaching out and grabbing Xander's hand with enough force to make Xander flinch.

"Your life isn't bloody ending."

"Just a joke," Xander tried defending himself. "Jokage, you know, where people exaggerate or say things that aren't true in order to make others laugh."

"'M not laughing."

"Okay, it was bad jokage," Xander agreed. "I'm just…. Look," Xander struggled, "I'm the sidekick, specifically, I'm Buffy's sidekick, only now, I'm not, and change is not always good. Every time I try to change, it actually turns out really bad, and you were there for many of those disasters, like the whole kicking Buffy out thing, which looking back… I'm just blaming the pain pills because that didn't even make sense."

"Pet." Spike shoved the ball behind their bags and pulled Xander close. Xander sagged into that strength, letting his head rest on Spike shoulder and closing his good eye. If some old lady with blue hair frowned at him, he'd get all weird and want to pull back, and right now he just needed to feel Spike's arms.

"You're English, how can you take this so calmly?" Xander asked. He'd ridden the Underground after he wrecked the one car Giles has authorized. He remembered seeing the group of kids who'd bundled on, some adult madly counting heads as the doors closed.

"It's what we do, pet. We've been around terrorism a good bit more than you lot, and there's nothing a good cup of tea can't fix," Spike said softly. "But you're upset because you can't stop it, you can't fix it."

Xander lay in the dark of his own closed eye and thought about that one for a second. "I can't really stop any of the evil," he finally said.

"Bloody hell, Xan. You're the one who brought Buffy back from the dead, and you faced down Angelus. I’m still surprised the wanker didn't grab you after that trick, and if you ever do anything that stupid again, I'll chain ya to the bloody bed. You fought on that last day, thinking you were going to die. You smelled of resignation and bitter acceptance, but you still waded into battle and you helped close the Hellmouth."

"Willow called the slayers, Buffy and the slayers fought the minions of hell, and you died in a big blaze of glory. I just stood at the edges," Xander disagreed.

"Bollocks. You gave everything to the fight, and more than once you did your bit to turn the world back to good."

Xander heard the words, but he had trouble really believing them. When fingers stroked his hair, he dismissed the whole debate and let himself just feel. Thinking bad, feeling Spike smooth fingers through his curls good. Xander pushed aside thoughts of the Underground and children or of demons and Hellmouths as he just let himself drift to sleep in Spike's lap.

"Rise and shine, pet," Spike voice called, and Xander squinted his eye open. The florescent lighting still made the whole airport feel like noon, but the stiffness in his body suggested that he had slept for a while. Considering the people trying to sleep a scrunched up in chairs, it would seem a lot kinder to turn the lights down, but not so much. Security officers walked through, their eyes scanning the waiting room nervously.

"We need to move?" Xander asked as various body parts check in with complaints. He really couldn't comfortably sleep on floors any more, not that floors were ever that comfortable.

"Our chariot awaits." Spike half pushed Xander to his feet and then handed up the eyepatch. Realizing with horror that it had come off, Xander slipped it back into place before he emotionally scarred some kid who happened to look over at the wrong time. "Willow managed to get here," Spike added, "but we need to head out and do a little hiking. She has the car parked over on Hatch Lane."

"Okay, so here we go," Xander said without much enthusiasm. Spike glanced over, but he didn't say anything as he grabbed the larger bag, Xander's bag, and slung it over his shoulder.

Xander grabbed Spike's much smaller bag and followed him through the maze of the airport. People watched them quietly, the normal chatter of an airport quieted by the disaster that had slowed the system to a halt. Eventually, they reached the front doors. Three busses idled as airport employees ushered people onto them, but Spike pulled him north, away from them.

The night air was cooler than Xander was used to, but summer in England never brought the heat Xander knew from California. The city was quiet, strangely quiet, and the air felt like rain. It was weird. He left for Africa and while he was trying to negotiate with a slayer's family over a bowl of cassava, the Towers fell in New York. He was off playing 'make the vampire jealous' with Angel, and bombers hit London.

Hell, he took a three day trip into the bush to find a slayer north of Habila, and he came back to find Janjaweed militias had rolled through the village he'd been staying in, leaving the dead strewn across the ground. The woman who had laughed as Xander had choked on the local alcohol had laid with her legs splayed obscenely, blood on her cold thighs.

He'd stayed there long enough to help bury the dead. Looking back, he wondered whether he could have used his vision to see the danger coming. Had his instincts sent him out of the village? Xander pushed that thought away. He'd gotten malaria not long after that, despite the antimalarial drugs he took. Yeah, he might end up in the middle of every supernatural disaster, but he seemed to miss most of the mundane ones.

They walked along the side of the road until the airport disappeared behind them and they followed the edge of a field. The traffic was light, and the ubiquitous buses and taxis were completely absent. Two fields, three parking lots, and two very tired feet later, Xander finally spotted the back end of Willow's car, parked outside a house.

"Xander!" Willow called as the door came open, and Xander caught an armful of witch. "Oh goddess, I've missed you, and I was worried." Willow backed off a step and hit his arm.

"Ow!" Xander complained even though it didn't hurt.

"Spike said that Blair was a Shaman, and you do not have good luck with magical people, don't make me bring up Ampata."

"No bringing up of ex's. You have a clanky not-so-good ex or two in your closet, too," Xander defended himself, and Willow hit him again.

"Thanks for bringing him home to us, Spike," Willow said. Xander glanced helplessly over toward Spike as Willow dragged him to the passenger side of the car. Spike just tossed the bags into the trunk Willow had popped open.

"Yeah, no problem." Spike slammed the trunk and then opened the door behind Willow. Xander got into the car and twisted around to look at Spike, but the vampire just gazed back with no clue about how to handle this.

"Seatbelt," Willow chirped. Xander pulled the belt across his chest before he even registered the words.

"So, you met a Sentinel, and how cool is that. I know you weren't all excited-boy about going, but you're looking good, really good. I bet you're happy now that you went, right?" She asked as she drove through the quiet streets toward the edge of town.

"Totally happy," Xander agreed with a smile toward Spike. Spike gave a small smile of his own, a smirk that let the tip of his tongue slide out from between his lips. "Totally happy, and as soon as we get back to the house, I'll tell you all about it." Xander watched as the smile on Spike's face vanished, replaced with something a little more wary. So not good.

Chapter 3

The Watchers' mansion was overlit, nearly every window shining in the misty dark of the night.

"I'm thinking I'm glad I don't have to pay that light bill," Xander joked as Willow pulled up to the front, parking the car as close as she could to the front. In the distance, he could hear the dull roar of thunder, but so far the night had just threatened rain without actually delivering.

"Giles is going to give the economy speech again," Willow agreed. "And sigh, and possibly show the chart with the household expenses on a pie chart done with all the different colors."

The front door to the mansion flew open before Xander could answer, and Buffy ran down the steps. Just when Xander expected to have his door torn open so that she could give him a flying hug, Buffy stopped on the driver's side, pulling open Willow's door.

"We have a nest making trouble, grabbing some people as they walk home," Buffy just about gasped.

"Oh goddess," Willow gasped. "Do you…"

"Do a location spell; call me when you get specifics. Spike and I will head for the general area." Buffy pulled at Willow who tumbled out of the car without complaint. "Xander, I'll give you the big welcome-home hug just as soon as me and Spike get back," Buffy offered as she slammed her door closed.

"Boy's coming," Spike said from the backseat. Xander already had his hand on the door to get out, but Spike's voice stopped him.

"Spike, no time for arguing right now. Xander, I promise lots of welcoming later, but Spike and I have to go."

"All three of us are going," Spike said calmly. "People need help, luv, so drive."

"Spike," Buffy's voice now had the darker tones of warning as she twisted around in the seat.

"Buffy, I'm not arguin' with you. Either drive, or soddin' move and let me drive," Spike said without emotion.

"I so do not have time for this," Buffy huffed as she flopped back into the seat and turned the key. "Xander, please careful. We do not want to have your welcome home party in the hospital, especially since the hospitals are a little full," she asked.

Xander flinched away from that reminder of the mess he'd left behind when he left for Cascade. As far as the girls were concerned, he was still more of a danger to himself than to any vampires. After a few weeks of getting treated like an actual useful member of the team in Cascade, he'd forgotten how much he hated being the useless one, the one who got rescued, the one who did nothing while people died horrible deaths and then lay out in the sun as the flies gathered.

Luckily, mortal terror distracted Xander from the whole self-pity party as he clung to the seatbelt, bracing himself against the dash of the car as he wondered why he'd let Buffy take the wheel. Buffy plus driving equaled crumpled fenders and blustery Giles, and Xander suddenly remembered that as she took a corner fast enough to make the car skid into the grass.

"Oi, can't save anyone if ya get us all killed," Spike complained from the back.

"One of the psychics said there was going to be a huge attack on this road. Why can't the vampires just do the stiff upper lip thing and sit home like everyone else? Attacking people who are trying to walk home in high heels is just not playing fair," she complained as she took the next corner.

Spike answered with a snort that Xander could interpret pretty easily.

"So, seems like you guys are busy. I thought you were doing this month in Italy. Why aren't you off eating pasta and raving about Italian men?" Xander asked, going for distraction before Spike said something and then Buffy said something and then Spike said something really bad… with the news he and Spike were about to drop, Xander really didn't want anyone to get pre-pissed off.

"Willow called me. She said that you'd done your Xander thing and had managed to get in trouble with a Shaman." Buffy sounded almost apologetic, like she didn't want to mention it, but Xander still blushed at the idea that the girls still talked behind his back, plotting ways to save him from himself. Yep, they looked at him and saw Xander Harris, twenty-four-year old survivor of multiple apocalypses and incompetent nincompoop.

Buffy slammed on the brake and pulled the car into a side road with a controlled skid. "Come on Willow, call," she said softly as she pulled her cell phone out.

"Pet," Spike said.

"Yeah?" Xander asked at the same time Buffy did. They looked at each other, and Xander could see Buffy's confusion in the way she raised her eyebrow. Yeah, great way to come out to the friend, Xander groaned to himself.

"Xander," Spike clarified. "Vampire's will be excited… the thought of all that prey too tired to really make a fuss. If they're feeding in a group, they're anxious… afraid there won't be enough prey or that some vamp with bigger curlies will take their prey away. But they'll feel the blood lust even more than the fear. They'll be so hungry that all they can think about is the taste of blood rich with fear and pain and confusion."

"Okay, disturbo much?" Buffy demanded. "If Angel talked like that, I'd start checking on his soul." Xander tuned out their complaints as he blinked away the real world until it became a faded picture painted on glass, a ghost-image he could see through. There weren't as many threads out here, and Xander focused on the emotions Spike had described.

"Yeah, well unlike the nob, I earned mine. It's not goin' to come popping off just because I get a happy." Spike shot back, his voice a dim echo from the far side of reality.

"Spike, what has gotten into you?"

"Not really the time or place for this discussion, slayer."

"Slayer? Now I'm 'slayer'? Okay, spill because I'm not really okay with the weirdage that's going on in this car."

"There," Xander said as he pointed out the windshield. "There, that way."

"Any idea how far, pet?" Spike asked.

"I'm not a GPS," Xander pointed out sarcastically.

"Smart ass," Spike shot back as he got out of the car and started walking. Xander got out and trotted after him.

"Obviously, some fairy god-demon sprinkled you two with weird-dust, but we don't have time for this. Willow's going to call," Buffy said as she got out, and chased them.

"Don't have time for Red to get the mojo together," Spike said as he walked faster, his duster flapping as he hurried over the uneven ground and past a row of trees. "Still the right direction, pet?"

"Um, yeah, and there are probably seven or eight vamps," Xander confirmed. Spike stopped so suddenly that Xander ran right into him, rebounding off Spike's back. Spike slipped an arm around Xander's waist as he cocked his head to the side, listening.

"Spike, Xander, someone needs to tell me what's going on because right now I'm thinking about pod people and shape changers and that movie with the perfect wives where it turns out everyone is a robot," Buffy warned as she stepped in front of them.

"I can hear people that way, a group of them walking together," Spike said as gestured in the direction of the cords Xander could still faintly see.

"And you think these are our vamp victims because… Or an even better question," Buffy interrupted herself, "why are you asking Xander where to go? Unless I missed some memo, he's been big with the out of loop for the last few weeks. So someone better start talking."

"No time," Spike snapped and then he took off, running across the field with his coat billowing behind him like Superman's cape, and Xander didn't think that comparison would go over particularly well. Buffy looked at Xander for one second before turning and dashing after Spike, hopefully to provide backup as opposed to assuming he was Stepford-Spike and staking him. Xander ran after the two of them.

By the time Xander reached the next line of trees, dust floated on the humid air and Spike battled two snarling vampires. The taller threw himself toward Spike, his fang snapping, and Spike landed a bone-crushing kick to his leg just above the knee. The snarl turned into a scream of pain, but Spike danced away, trading punches with the shorter vamp. A half-dozen women stood in a cluster near the fence, watching with wide eyes and open mouths as Buffy rammed a stake into a vampire's chest.

Looking around, Xander found one fledge on the ground, and Xander pulled his own stake and dived for the guy. Just as Xander reached him, he could see that black cord, twisting with malice and fury, snap up toward him. Xander flinched away to avoid the touch, his heart pounding with fear as he scrambled back. Unfortunately, his heel caught on a tuft of grass, and Xander ended up on his ass before he could recover.

The vampire snarled and lurched forward, which led to much crab-walking backwards on Xander's part. Just when Xander expected to get pinned to the ground and bitten, and bitten in the less fun way than Spike did the biting, the vampire flew off him.

"You don't want him," Buffy said as he practically danced over Xander. The vamp jumped up to his feet, rubbing his ribs with a grimace of pain. "He eats so much junk food that you'll get high cholesterol. And with that waistline, you cannot afford the extra pounds," Buffy finished.

Xander got up to one knee, smiling as the vampire started backing away. He'd finally figured out that his buddies were dead, and he was facing two seriously scary fighters. Spike's opponents had turned to dust, and he now closed in on the vamp who had attacked Xander.

"Ya should know better than to touch other people's property, mate," Spike offered as he snapped a branch off the tree and staked the vampire on the jagged end. "And you," Spike said as he whirled on Xander, "know how to stake a vampire without falling on your arse, so what the bloody hell was that?"

Spike strode forward, toward Xander, but then Buffy was there between them, her back to Xander as she faced Spike. "Okay. Someone explain what is going on, preferably using small words and short sentences because I'm feeling particularly blonde today. Either I'm blonder than normal or you two are from some bizzaro alternate reality with rules that make no sense."

"Oi, don't go waving that stake at me," Spike said as he stepped back.

"Hey, no stakage!" Xander added. Buffy tilted her body toward him.

"I'm not so sure who I'm waving a stake at. The last I checked in, I had these two friends, Spike and Xander, who didn't like each other much. And Spike was really not big with calling Xander 'his' and if he ever did call Xander 'his property', my friend Xander probably would have tortured Spike with toothpicks."

"Things, have changed a bit, luv," Spike said gently.

"Well, duh," Buffy interrupted. "And where did our rescuees go?"

"Um, I think they ran for it," Xander said as he gestured toward the line of houses where the women had disappeared. "And Spike and I haven't actually hated each other for a while now, Buff."

"Okay," Buffy challenged him, her hands on her hips but at least that meant the stake was down and not threatening anyone, "I may miss some stuff, like the whole the Immortal is evil vibe and the reason why the English put vinegar on their French fries, but trust me, I would have noticed any changes on the Spike-Xander hating front. I would have noticed and possibly sent you a fruit basket as a thank you because your constant fighting drove me insane ever time I came and, oh my god, you're sleeping together. Okay, I am not freaking," Buffy concluded as she closed her eyes tightly and took a deep breath. "Officially not freaking."

"Hey, what do ya' know. It was easier telling you than I thought it would be," Xander smiled weakly, and Buffy cracked one eye open to glare at him before she started back across the field toward the car.

"I'm not dealing with this," she announced resolutely.

"Now, luv, don't be like that," Spike said as he followed her, and Xander trailed after him.

"Not being like any—" Buffy stopped when her phone chirped. She pulled it out and thumbed it on. "Yep?" she listened for a second. "We already kicked their asses. We're heading back now…. We got lucky and just found them, I guess," Buffy offered as she turned and stared right at Xander. When Spike sidestepped into the path of her glare, Xander was very happy to hide behind him. "Yeah, see you in a sec," Buffy finished. "Bye." She shoved the phone back into a pocket, but then she just stood there in the field.

"Buffy, we need to talk, before we get everyone else all riled up," Spike finally said, his voice soft and the accent more Giles than Spike.

"Riled up? Oh, there will be riling," Buffy nodded. "And can I just say your timing sucks?"

"Buffy—" Spike started.

"And this whole 'hate turned lust turned love' thing, it never works out. Xander and Cordelia, you and me, Willow and Kennedy getting back together after that break up that required mutual non-aggression treaties… they all fell apart," Buffy interrupted. "Or, they didn't fall apart as much as they exploded causing massive casualties and collateral damage."

"Oi, not going to happen," Spike just about snarled, and Buffy put on her patented worried look and gnawed her lip.

"Buffy, Spike and I have had the big talk, and this isn't just about lust," Xander added as he stepped to Spike's side. She looked at him with a small frown.

"Would the 'not just about lust' part have something to do with how you knew the vampires were out here?"

"Kinda," Xander agreed.

"I'm going to need aspirin to go with this conversation, aren't I?" she asked with eyes that begged him to say no.

"Probably," Xander said instead.

"Pet, let's save the Shaman bit for when we get back, explain it to them all at once, yeah?"

Xander nodded.

"You did piss off that Shaman, didn't you?" Buffy asked. "I can't believe Willow sent you off to take on a Sentinel and a Shaman by yourself."

"Let's just get back to the house, and I will turn into explaino-boy," Xander offered, and Buffy turned back toward the car with a sigh. Xander could feel his guts like a rock rolling around in his stomach as he started after her. Within one step, Spike was there, his arm sliding around Xander's waist, pulling him close, and Xander let himself lean into that embrace.

Chapter 4

Xander got out of the car teetering between an insane urge to babble about the drizzling rain and an inability to get any words to come out of his mouth at all, which was new. Usually he ran to the babbling side of nervous.

When Xander slammed the car door, Spike was there, slipping an arm around his waist as they dashed for the covered porch before they got soaked.

Buffy beat them there, leaping up the steps and pushing her damp hair back as she considered them. "Subtle, guys," she nodded knowingly. "In fact, in the subtle department, I'm putting that up there with Kennedy's whole ritualistic burning of the bedsheets."

"Hey," Xander protested, "not crazy lady here."

"Oi, don't know about the crazy part, but I'll second that ya aren't a lady," Spike offered with a leer, and Xander planted his elbow hard into Spike's side. Spike didn't let go.

"Xander? Spike?" came a confused voice. Xander turned to see Willow standing at the open door, the light spilling out from behind her. While he couldn't see anyone else, the giggles suggested that more than one baby slayer had seen them. "Oh goddess. I have not cast any spells. So, if Spike is all lusty and romanticy, this time, it is totally not my fault," she immediately defended herself.

"Chill, Will. They're going the tried and stupid route of falling in lust after being big with the fighting," Buffy shrugged as she passed Willow in the door, and with support like that, who needed undermining? Spike growled.

"Oi, just because you birds don't know how to--"

"Okay, officially saying time out," Willow rushed to say as she held up her hand as she backed up to let Spike and Xander into the front hall. "Some things are not discussed here, and you are on the verge of discussing them. Just no."

"If that's the case, then me and Xander are on the do not discuss list," Spike snapped.

"Um, which might be kinda hard since we're supposed to be doing the discussing about us," Xander pointed out, and Spike glared at him. "Or not," Xander shrugged. "I'm okay with not." Xander focused on the way his sneakers squeaked on the tile floor.

"Oh no. No, you two do not get to drop the weirdness napalm and run for the hills," Buffy insisted.

"Drop napalm… run. Um, isn't that the way it's *supposed* to go," Xander whispered to himself, and Spike's arm tightened around his waist.

"We're only going over this once, so get Giles on the boob-tube," Spike said.

"Your funeral, and I would think you'd done the funeral thing enough," Buffy commented as she disappeared into the main study.

"Giles is going to be not-happy-boy getting woken up to deal with this," Willow pointed out, not taking her eyes off Xander. He squirmed uncomfortably under her attention. And hey, his right and left sneakers made slightly different squeaky sounds. The left was definitely a little higher. He had thoughts of a wet sneaker concert with all the tile around the place. Demon goo cleaned up better with tile.

"Oh Xander," Willow said softly. "I'm so sorry we sent Spike after you. We should have come ourselves."

"Bloody hell. You're making it sound like he's dying or some such rot," Spike snorted as he stepped forward. Willow's eyes narrowed into her expression of superior disapproval, the one that she had copied from Giles, the one that made Xander start thinking about new missions to Africa… or maybe Mars.

"No dying, just some really freaky decisions that's he going to regret as soon as he stops funking, because he has been in a major funk ever since Africa, and maybe we should take you to another doctor, one who knows more about Africa, like maybe some African sleeping depression or something," Willow suggested with a suddenly hopeful expression.

"I'm not—" Xander started.

"Hey, I am so not going to be the only one in front of the camera when Giles shows up, so get in here," Buffy called from the study.

"Right, time to get this little disaster on the road, innit?" Spike asked rhetorically as he guided Xander toward the study.

Inside, books lined two walls, shelves running right up to the sides of the windows and then up and over so that they had to use a fancy wooden ladder that slid along a rail in order to reach the top shelves. The two short walls held electronics. Xander sighed and stepped to the couch right in front of the television, dropping down onto the couch and trying to smile at the camera sitting on the T.V.

"Hate this bloody thing," Spike complained as he sat next to Xander, so close that their legs pressed together.

"No joke. I mean, reach out and touch someone is all well and good until someone buzzes you when you're in the ugly pajamas with a cucumber facial," Buffy agreed as she sat on the opposite side of the couch, leaving Willow to sit in the chair.

"And as the person who did the buzzing, can I just second the not-so-good part of that?" Xander said, forcing the joke even though his stomach just sort of curled up inside him.

"Hey, you try to keep your complexion with all the slayer sweat."

"Not really something--" Xander started.

"Good lord, please tell me you did not call me to the camera to witness discussions of complexions," Giles asked from the television. Xander looked over, and Giles sat on his couch in a rumpled button-up shirt and dress slacks.

"Rupert," Spike smirked when everyone else lost their voice. At least, Xander lost his. He suddenly wondered if he even knew how to talk because words slid out of his brain like dead, slimy fish, leaving him with a big, old, empty head.

"William," Giles said dryly.

"Hey, Giles." Buffy leaned forward and waved to the camera.

"Are all of you alright?" Giles asked.

"All present and accounted for," Buffy agreed. "We just have some extra weirdness that showed up, and we know how you hate to be left out of the fun."

"Yes. Remind me to thank you later." Giles looked tired but he sighed and leaned forward. "Xander, Spike. I'm glad to see that you got in alright. I'll admit I was a little concerned about your travel plans."

"Not sleet or imploding Hellmouths or Janjaweed militias will keep me from my..." Xander paused. He didn't really have appointed rounds, at least not any more. "…will keep me from showing up to unplug whichever toilets the girls have irrevocably plugged up with random demon bits," he finally finished. Giles just blinked at him.

"Oh yeah, the third floor toilet on the north side is making this weird gurgle ever since one of the girls flushed a Guanth chunk she pulled out of her boot. Cathy? Katie? Chelsey?" Buffy struggled for the name of the guilty girl.

"Veronica," Willow provided.

"Yep, that's it. Veronica!"

"Yes, quite." Giles interrupted without saying quite what. "So, what weirdness has led you to disturb me so late? I assume it's something other than Guanth chunks."

And a hush fell over the crowd.

"Birds have their knickers in a twist because Xander's been makin' the beast with two backs with me," Spike commented with a shrug.

"Xander's going to turn into a beast?" Buffy asked, twisting around to look at them in concern while Giles did a bit of spluttering, which, thanks to really high end equipment, was so clear that Xander felt like he should duck out of the potential spit zone.

"No, he's makin' the beast with two back... we're shaggin'," Spike said with a roll of his eyes. Giles just got up and disappeared from the television.

"Okay, calling it a 'beast' doesn't really do much to drop the weird o'meter," Buffy complained. "Not to mention ew."

"Oi, you remember that hungry beast, hips crashing together, ravenous mouths--"

"NO!" Buffy shrieked, cutting Spike off. "No, there is no remembering. And this is supposed to be your intervention, not a journey to the mistakes of Buffy-past. Giles, tell them that they have to stop this before they make themselves and all of us miserable. Tell them that we're their friends, and as their friends, we are officially worried about them making a huge mistake." Buffy did the speaking, but Willow nodded the whole time.

Giles reappeared in the television screen, dropping heavily onto the couch, drink in hand. And Xander could always feel special when he drove Giles to drink.

"Oh yes, because the rest of you would never consider undertaking such an unhealthy relationship," Giles said as he leaned to the side, out of the camera's view. Yeah, like they didn't know he was gulping that Scotch.

"Sarcasm is not helping. Big with the not helping," Willow just about whispered, but Giles leaned back into the picture.

"Quite right, but after the abominable day I've had, it makes me feel a good deal better," Giles pointed out, and not for the first time Xander considered that Giles just might be turning into one of those cranky old men who have the bad habit of sharing large quantities of truth.

"Okay, none of us are batting a thousand on the significant other front... nowhere near a thousand. More like a number far below a thousand, and if I knew baseball, I could give a number," Willow admitted, "but we don't have to sit by and smile while Xander makes this mondo mistake because we do all remember that Xander hates Spike. We all remember this, yes?"

Buffy leaned back on the couch and made a face. "Oh, I remember fighting and snapping and occasional not-so-practical jokes including blood and soy sauce, but I'm not sure I remember any hating since Spike came back from the dead."

Spike snorted. "Not that this is any of you lot's business, but Xander and I won't end up as bollocked up as the rest of you, and we don't need your approval," Spike interrupted. Then he turned toward the monitor and the camera. "And if you think I care enough about your opinion to get you on the line for some sort of seal of approval on my sex life, you're doin' way too much drinking, Rupes. Got bigger fish to fry here."

Xander held his breath as that truth sank into the room. The wind shifted and big drops of rain splattered against the window.

"And this would be where the slightly weird turns to kooky hi-jinx with Xander tracking down the vampires before the attack even took place," Buffy said. She stared at him expectantly and Willow blinked and Giles leaned forward and got that expression where his eyes got all narrow.

"You tracked the vampires?" Giles asked.

"Xander?" Willow prompted. Xander just sat there, unable to find any words in the entire English language that would help.

"He's a Shaman," Spike announced, his voice all smirky. Willow froze, but Giles sat back in his chair.

"Okay, and I'm assuming you've lost your mind. Xander is not a weirdo with the bird feathers sticking up out of his hair." Buffy used her fingers to mimic the Shaman Giles had called to the estate.

"There's a wide range of shamanic powers, but why would you come to the conclusion that Xander was Shaman?" Giles asked. Because of the whole camera thing, it looked like he was staring down Buffy, but Xander guessed that would be Spike getting the demanding-Watcher glare.

"Pet, tell 'im," Spike prompted, and Xander glared over at his lover. Stupid vampire.

Taking a deep breath, Xander shrugged and focused on the blinking VCR light as he started. "Jim figured out that I was a Shaman because I have a spirit animal." Xander avoided admitting that his spirit animal was a kodkod, that admission would require torture.

"The Sentinel?" Giles asked.

"Yeah. He has these dreams, kinda like Buffy, which might make Willow's whole theory about a male half of the slayer line a little more plausible," Xander agreed.

"But, how do we know that his dream meant anything?" Willow asked. "Last night I dreamed about vacationing in Arizona with Kennedy and then she started the whole 'I know best for you' crap and suddenly we were in the mall, and a giant Santa fell on her, and guts squished out. I'm thinking it was just a dream."

Xander looked at Willow with more than a little concern.

"Can we please deal with one potential disaster at a time?" Giles asked. "Xander, while prophetic dreams are quite common in some types such as Slayers and Seers, it does not automatically follow that a Sentinel would either possess that skill or correctly interpret it. Understanding prophetic dreams can—"

"I can see another world," Xander blurted. That stopped Giles who just blinked at him through the computer screen.

"I see," Giles finally declared.

"Xander, they might have done a spell, something that scrambled your vision. I could check, fix it," Willow offered.

"There's nothing to fix, Will," Xander protested. "It's always been there, only I didn't know it."

"Okay, I would have noticed if you'd broken out with the magical powers," Buffy protested. "Xander, you're the heart of our group, and you always will be, but all through high school you wanted some sort of powers that would make you different, and now you're coming in here saying that all that time you were some powerful, magical creature. Is anyone else getting the not-right vibe? You know, like when Dawn thought she was a Slayer? Not that there's anything wrong with normal, and now Dawn happier doing Cambridge than she would have been doing Slayer." Buffy looked at him with this expression of compassionate understanding—or possibly condescension—and Xander felt the need to shrink into himself. Yep, that was one person who totally didn't believe him. From Willow's expression, probably two.

"Oi, just because you're bloody blind doesn't mean it's not true. What did Caleb call him? The one who sees everything, wasn't it?"

"Oh yeah, and we're taking evil guy's word on that?" Buffy demanded.

"No, you're takin' Xander's word on it," Spike said quietly, and Xander watched as Buffy blushed a deep red. Willow looked down at her lap, picking at the edge of her sweater.

Buffy found her voice first. "Xander, I totally believe that you believe this, but this is a little out there, more out there than you dating Spike which, really, ever since you took one look at the Initiative and asked if you could sleep with Riley, I kinda figured that you had the gayness going on," Buffy said slowly

"Xander dates girls, and there's nothing wrong with boys dating boys, but Xander doesn't," Willow protested. "And he's just been off since he got back from Africa. He did the whole trying to get himself killed thing, and then the hiding in his room thing until he turned pale as a mushroom, and now the dating someone who hates him thing, and is anyone else spotting the pattern because I'm thinking psychological help." Willow nodded knowingly. "Serious, expensive psychological help."

"Bloody hell. Caleb told us way back what we couldn't soddin' see on our own. This doesn't have fuckin' anything to do with Xander's depression or your bloody fucked up love lives," Spike snapped at both girls. "The fact is that Caleb never did lie to us, had too much truth to use against us, didn't he? And the truth *is* that Xander is the one who sees everythin'. So pull your heads out of your arses."

Giles cleared his throat in the silence that followed Spike's outburst, and Xander was reminded of the way Spike had ripped all of them when they'd turned on Buffy, accusing her of losing her Slayer-center during the fight with the First.

"Perhaps we could focus on this other world. Xander, can you describe what you see?" Giles asked, and Xander tried to not get his hopes up that someone would believe him because it hurt when hopes fell off that reality cliff and got all smashed at the bottom.

"Um, threads," Xander said. He closed his eye and let the world slip away just a little bit, so that when he opened his eye, he could see the threads tangled about the room. "It's like everyone has this cord in their center, and it unravels as they move around. There's so many of them, but if I concentrate on a feeling, I can block out the ones that don't match and find what I'm looking for."

"And you always had that power?" This time Giles sounded more than a little skeptical. Yep, good thing he hadn't gotten his hopes up. That fall would have hurt.

"In the feeling a Hellmouthy vibe way, yeah," Xander offered. He took a deep breath and pushed away that little voice that told him to just fake normal, which was more than ironic considering everyone else in the room had superpowers. "And I'm thinking that the whole demon magnet was more of me being able to feel the evil in a person, but then once I found the evil, like with hardware store gal, I couldn't do much with the stopping the evil because I don't have the total upgrade with the super stealthy fighting skills. But the being able to actually see the other world is a little new," Xander pushed ahead.

"So, three weeks with this other Shaman, and you have accessed your dormant powers?" Giles asked without even trying to hide the disbelief. "Xander, as much as I believe that you are telling us the truth as you see it, that simply isn't possible. To go from a potential Shaman to having full access to shamanic powers takes years of training, meditation, often some sort of apprenticeship, and quite possibly a number of spiritual voyages, either with or without mind altering drugs that would allow you to break down the barriers to access your power. I'm afraid I have to agree with Willow that something might have been done without your knowledge."

"Boy had an apprenticeship," Spike held up a hand to stop Willow who'd already bounded up from the couch, probably to go get some magic herbs to 'fix' Xander. "Xander apprenticed under Blair, and since the fuzzy little Shaman has his powers centered in teachin' others, so it bloody well is possible."

"Blair is a trado Shaman?" Giles asked.

"Yeah, seems like. And the fact is that Xander could track those vamps, just like he would track the criminals back in Cascade. Didn't say anything to him since the title would mean anything, but unless I miss my guess, he's an animus Shaman."

Giles sucked air through his teeth.

"Okay, was that a good noise or a bad noise, because I'm having trouble keeping up with this conversation," Buffy interrupted.

Giles took another breath. "The Shaman I asked for help with our ghostly postman was a neco Shaman, his powers were with the dead. Spike is suggesting that Xander is an animus Shaman, one who has powers over the soul."

"Oh goddess," Willow whispered, her face pale.

"Okay, still officially not following the conversation, people," Buffy said.

"And make that two of us because I'm big with the tracking, not with the power over souls," Xander agreed. "And does anyone else hear creepy horror-flick soundtracks when someone says 'power over souls'?" Xander asked.

"Unlike witches, Shaman are born, not trained," Giles explained. "They never have more than one power, but that one power does tend to be rather powerful since it is part of them from birth. A casus Shaman can create accidents or chaos, a trado Shaman specializes in teaching, a solis Shaman controls light. Spike thinks that Xander is an animus Shaman, one whose powers center around the soul."

"Okay, here comes that cold, creepy, someone walking over your grave feeling," Buffy asked softly.

"Oh, yeah," Xander agreed. Really, he didn't want those kinds of really big special powers.

"Call Angel," Spike suggested. "Boy put on a show for him, looked right into the sod's twisted soul and told the old man a truth or two he didn't want to hear."

"Angel? You went to Angel?" Giles asked.

"Soddin' right I did," Spike agreed. "The boy's mine, and I had to let Peaches know exactly what he'd let slip through his fingers when he had the boy tucked under his arm on Parent-Teacher night."

"You bloody fool. If Xander is an animus Shaman, Angelus has more than enough reason to come after him if the soul happens to slip free again." Giles stood up, and the camera angle cut his head off so that the monitor was full of Giles' white, button-up shirt.

"Yeah, he does," Spike agreed. "But one of you lot would have told him eventually, or Andrew would have. The git can't keep secrets."

Giles bent over and stared right into the camera. "I'm coming home. Don't do anything until I get there." He reached up and hit a button so that the monitor flickered and went grey.

"That would imply that any of us had any idea what to do," Buffy said softly. Xander found himself agreeing with her. The whole Shaman bit was great in Cascade, but this was really getting to be a little too much on the stress scale. He blinked away the image of that other world, the gold threads of slayers burning into his eyes for a moment longer than the other threads.

Xander felt fingers at the back of his neck, and he let himself lean back into the touch.

"Right, I'm taking the boy to bed," Spike announced as he stood up, and tugged Xander up with him. Xander felt himself blush, but then Spike pulled him out of the room before he could stammer his good nights.

Chapter 5

Xander wasn't even sure which bedroom to head for, but Spike's hand at his back guided him up the stairs towards Xander's end of the house, not the basement apartment connected to the training room that Spike used.

"Had to tell Peaches, ya know. Wasn't just about rubbin' his nose in the fact that he's a blind wanker," Spike said as they reached the top of the second staircase and turned the corner.

Xander glanced back at Spike. "Well, duh. I mean, Andrew kept the whole Spike-back-from-the-dead secret for about three minutes. And lots of the slayers do an apprenticeship with Mr. Forehead, so he would have found out."

"Least this way, he knows he has to deal with me first. If Angelus slips his leash, I'd rather have him come for me. And if that happens, you don't bloody worry about me; you get your arse back to Buffy and the others," Spike warned. He stopped in the middle of the hall outside Xander's room and pulled Xander around so that they faced each other.

"I couldn't—"

"You bloody well could," Spike snapped, and Xander blinked as he suddenly faced the demon's anger, and then Spike took a deep breath. "I need you safe if Peaches goes 'round the twist," he said with a forced calm.

"This animus Shaman… it's big, isn't it?" Xander asked quietly. Sighing, Spike turned toward Xander's bedroom and opened the door, pulling Xander in with him.

"Not as much mojo as a cruor Shaman," Spike mused, but his tone told Xander exactly what he didn't want to know.

"Fuck. That big," he whispered. If Spike could only come up with one Shaman bigger, that was big. Xander walked over to his bed and sank down. Without a word, he let himself fall back so that he lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "Spike, I don't want this power," he told the plaster above him. "I've seen what power does. Power corrupts—absolute power makes people turn really strange and start manipulating and eventually killing others until they decide to try and end the world, and this is not a good path to be on."

"You're not the end-the-world type, pet." Spike sat on the bed so that it tilted and Xander slid a little closer until his hip rested against Spike, but he just continued to stare at the ceiling.

"Oh, I don't know. Willow is the white-hat type, more than me. I know she's the one who changed these sheets so I didn't come home to a dusty bed and she reads to the old people at the nursing home and she picks up bugs and carries them outside. But give her a little power and she gets scary. I think you remember scary-Willow: veins everywhere, flinging people around like rag dolls, serious anger management issues." Xander rolled his head to the side and looked at Spike.

"She's alright now," Spike said. He reached down and brushed the curls out of Xander's face before sliding the patch up and off. With his thumb, Spike stroked his thumb across the cheekbone under the missing eye, right where Xander knew the patch would have left a red mark.

"I'm not looking forward to the whole middle part with the world endage, and I'm totally not trusting myself to not end the world if I have some big power."

Spike sat in silence, his hand moving down to rest on Xander's shoulder. "Why do you think you'd abuse the power, pet?" he asked seriously, and Xander expelled a ragged breath.

"You know the hyena thing?"

"Yeah, heard about it," Spike agreed.

"I remember that. I remember the power," Xander turned his gaze back to the blank ceiling. "All through school I wanted power. Sometimes for the good like stopping the annual Hellmouthy apocalypse, but sometimes I just got so angry that I wanted the power to hurt other people as much as they hurt me. If I had run across Larry when I had the hyena in me, I would have beaten the shit out of him." Xander paused. "Okay, I actually probably would have eaten him, but I'm repressing that. But the point is that me and power is not really a good thing. Maybe we should ask Giles to bind the powers."

"Won't happen," Spike said confidently.

"The binding or the me turning into a power-hungry doer of evil?" Xander finally identified the tightness in his chest. Yep, that was fear. Fear that Giles wouldn't bind this power. Fear that the girls were right and he was just screwed in the head. Fear that Spike would figure out that Xander wasn't the white knight, or at least that his armor had more than a little rust.

"What won't happen is that you won't turn evil, but I won't let Giles bind your powers, either." Spike's hand closed around Xander's shoulder, holding him firmly, and Xander took a deep breath as he tried to shove all the emotions back into the dark corners of his mind.

"Aren't you supposed to be the cynical one here?" Xander asked, glancing over to Spike again. "I mean, over a hundred years and twice dead, shouldn't that have taught you that anything that can go wrong, definitely will? I'm just waiting for Darth Vader to show up and start waxing poetic about the dark side of the force."

"Waxing poetic?" Spike asked, his eyebrows raised and his lips twitching into a smile.

"I'm trying to be serious here."

"Right. Might want to think about those metaphors before they come out your mouth then. Hard to take a man seriously when he's worried about waxing poetic forces of evil," Spike nodded.

"You're laughing at me," Xander accused Spike as he pushed himself up onto one elbow and glared. "I'm baring my soul here, and you're laughing."

"'Course I'm not," Spike said as he grinned wider.

"Asshole. Besides," Xander said with an evil smirk of his own, "I'm just following in the footsteps of my master with the poetic turn of a phrase. Like poetic master, like poetic devotee," he offered. Spike glared for a second and then rolled his eyes.

"Buffy," Spike said disgustedly.

"She didn't mean to say anything; it just sort of slipped out," Xander hurried to say. Okay, that was stupid. He really didn't need those two at each other's throats over ancient history.

"The three of you really can't keep secrets from each other," Spike sighed. "Knew she'd let it slip to one of you sooner or later."

Xander flopped back down to the bed, his hands under his head, and this time Spike settled next to him, leaning on his side. When Spike's hand slipped under his shirt, stoking his stomach, Xander just stared up.

"Still freaking," he eventually offered. Spike's hand paused and then kept rubbing.

"You even wonder why Willow's still on the straight and narrow?" Spike asked. "Or why those lot at Alcoholics Anonymous put so much emphasis on God?" Spike waited, and when Xander didn't answer, he continued. "Willow took her shot at ending the world, and you and Giles stopped her. Every time she tried fallin' off the wagon, Rupes was there to hold her feet to the fire. Those alcoholics… they need to believe God's watching them all the time, ready to slap their hands with a ruler the minute they fall off the wagon. Children don't misbehave if the headmaster is there with the paddle, and power doesn't corrupt if there's someone big enough and bad enough standing there to stop it."

Xander thought about that for a second. "Okay, that officially doesn't make sense," he finally announced. "If someone is there with more power to control the person with absolute power, then the person with absolute power doesn't have so much absolute with that power, and the one doing the controlling would be the corruptaboy."

"Bloody hell, I've been hanging out with you lot too long because I actually followed that," Spike huffed. "But not everyone is corruptible, pet. Dru, she had the power to end the world a half-dozen times, and she just couldn't be bothered with it."

"Um, Spike," Xander said with a poke to Spike's stomach. "The Judge. Acathla. Ringing any bells?"

"Yeah, but that was to get Angelus' attention. She didn't give a rat's arse about ending the world." Spike sighed and then sat up. "The demon comes to the body not really knowin' the world, so it takes the human's fears and desires and builds its own twisted personality around that. It's why other demons hate vamps… we don't just use human bodies for procreation, which plenty of demons do, our personalities are formed from the human mind. As a human, Dru always wanted to be a good girl and do the right thing, so the demon turned that into a need to impress Peaches and do right according to his bollocked up views on the world."

"Okay, this conversation has slipped a couple of feet to the left, and I don't think I kept up. You want to explain how we got from point A to point B because I'm clueless boy here." Xander sat up next to Spike.

"I had the chance, pet," Spike said softly.

"Chance to do what?"

Spike snorted and stood up. "Had the chance at absolute power. Had the chance to take Buffy's life without her even knowing what happened. Had the chance to get the chip out and come back more powerful than ever."

"The demon trials," Xander breathed. Spike turned to look at him.

"Yeah, pet, the demon trials. But demon learned from William. He learned from William's loyalty and from his fear of rejection. It wasn't power that I asked for."

"You asked for your soul."

Spike laughed. "Bloody stupid request that was." He stood up and walked to the window where the rain softly pattered against the glass. "William could have said no and left me with a big nothing for all that sacrifice."

"Wait. What? I thought you asked for your soul, and so you got the soul, and what do you mean William could have said no?"

"Pet, the soul earns its afterlife, a demon can't come and take that away. William, the soul, chose to come back and try and make me a better man. If he'd known what kind of memories I had, of the orphanage Dru and me raided, of the people I'd tortured, well, he might have thought twice about that decision. But we've—I've come to terms with that." Spike stared out into the dark, and Xander let his Shamanic vision creep into the edge of reality. Spike's demon, a dark cord stained with burgundy and midnight twisted around the soul's cord like DNA, their curves mirroring each other. Spike's soul wasn't the tangle of threads clinging to the demon that Xander had seen in Angel.

Xander stood and walked to Spike, standing just behind him and wrapping his arms around his waist, leaning into that strength. "Still not to point B with you," Xander said softly as he held Spike. He could feel Spike sigh.

"Had the chance at power, and I didn't take it. The soul, William, never wanted power, and the demon never learned to crave it. It's why I stayed with Darla until she tried stakin' me. It's why I put up with the Anointed One until he just bloody annoyed me into killing him."

Spike twisted around, but Xander didn't let go, so now the stood just about nose to nose. Spike reached up and cradled the back of Xander's head, pulling him in for a deep kiss, and Xander surrendered to it. By the time Spike pulled back, Xander was breathless and horny.

"Whose are you, pet?" Spike asked, and suddenly, Xander was right there at point B.

"Yours," he said softly, letting the fear fall from him. Spike reached around and grabbed his wrists, forcing his hands away.

"Ya don't have the power to take me, do you?" Spike asked.

"If I ever took you in a fight, check for flying pigs and open Hellmouths," Xander agreed. Spike pushed him back toward the bed, and for a second, Xander fought it, struggling to remain by the window. He might as well have gotten in a fist fight with a brick wall for all the good it did him. Spike pushed him back until his knees hit the bed and they both tumbled to the mattress, Spike on top.

"Why won't ya abuse this power?" Spike asked seriously.

"Because you'd kick my ass," Xander answered, and that should not be a turn on, but maybe his cock just liked the way Spike undulated slowly, pressing their bodies together. Xander groaned.

"I don't know about kicking your ass, but I'd sure as hell chain ya to the bed until you learned some manners." Spike smiled as he tightened his hold on Xander's wrists.

"Fuck. That's not really working to discourage me from the dark side, there, Obi Wan," Xander breathed heavily as he squirmed up into Spike's body, desperate for more contact.

"Oh, found a new kink, have we?"

"My kink is sex, Spike, any time, any where." Xander thrust up with his hips, pushing Spike into the air, but not really doing much except putting more pressure on his cock. It was like a delicious slow torture… like the tamales back home that made him cry and his mouth burn but he just kept eating them because they were too damn good.

"Randy bugger," Spike whispered into Xander's neck before he sucked at a bit of skin. Xander bucked and gasped.

"Fuck. Spike. Fucking do something," Xander pleaded.

"I am," Spike muttered before going back to the Xander torture. He ran dull teeth over Xander's neck and shoulder, and hot shivers made Xander tremble. But no matter how he pulled, he couldn't free his hands. Spike slowly worked his way around, sucking at a collarbone before moving over and nipping at the other side of Xander's neck.

Xander pressed his head back into the pillow arching his neck out as he made vague, grumbly complaints. Spike bit down a little harder, and Xander cried out. Then the weight was gone.

Xander blinked up like a drunk man, not really able to engage the brain as Spike stood beside the bed.

"Trust me, pet?" he asked.

"I think we covered this already," Xander said as he reached down to his jeans, tugging at the zipper. Cool hands closed around his, stilling him.

"Do you trust me?" Spike asked more seriously, and Xander looked up at Spike's earnest face.

"Yeah," he said slowly, wondering what he was agreeing to by saying it.

"Shirt off," Spike said. "It's one of the few that doesn't make my eyes bleed, and I don't want it getting ruined."

"Your idea of romance could use some work," Xander snorted, but he shimmied out of his shirt as fast as he could. "Not that I need romance. Still a guy here, so any promise of sex works for me."

"So, you're the easy sort, are you?" Spike asked, and there was that smirk that Xander found irresistible.

"Oh yeah." Xander watched Spike pull the belt off. "Okay, Spike, a little spanking is fun, but a belt is not my idea of kinky goodness," Xander said cautiously.

"Didn't think it would be," Spike said as he moved closer, the belt in hand. Xander scooted back on the bed, but then Spike pounced, landing on Xander and pressing him back into the mattress. Prey instincts took over as Xander tried to roll and escape, but Spike's knees clamped around his waist, holding him still. Spike grabbed one hand and Xander tried to rip it out of Spike's grip. Didn't work.

Reaching up, Xander grabbed the headboard, trying to pull himself free. He managed to pull himself farther up the mattress, but Spike just rode him up. Then Spike forced Xander's second hand above his head, and Xander's brain started working well enough for him to figure out the game.

Sagging under Spike's weight, he didn't fight as Spike put his hands through the headboard and then looped the belt around them several times, fastening it so that Xander was tied to the headboard.

"Coulda warned a guy," Xander said as Spike scooted back and slid off the bed.

"Wanted ya to be able to fight," Spike shrugged. "Doesn't matter how much power you're carrying in that skin because it's all mine, pet."

Xander yanked at his hands, but the belt wouldn't give. Now his cock complained even more, and Xander could see the thick bulge in his jeans. "Spike, please," he whimpered.

"Ya need to learn that I'm strong enough to hold ya even if that power does try to turn my white knight gray," Spike whispered as he reached over and unfastened Xander's jeans. The release of the pressure made Xander breath a sigh of relief, but he almost immediately regretted it because now his cock lay ignored, peaking out from his briefs and Xander couldn't do anything except wiggle and pray that Spike would hurry up as he wandered around Xander's room.

"Ya look good like that, pet. I like seein' ya all hard and aching for me," Spike commented as he opened a box on the top of Xander's drawer and poked through the various washers and screws that Xander had collected while fixing the manor.

"Spike, not funny," he groaned.

"I'm not trying for funny," Spike agreed as he closed the box and started unbuttoning his shirt. Xander closed his eye and pressed his head back into the pillow as he pulled at his wrists.

"Goin' to bruise yourself."

"So get over here and distract me. I thought power wasn't your thing," Xander said as he lifted his head and glared as Spike let his shirt slowly slide off his shoulders and then slither to the floor.

Spike pursed his lips. "It isn't. But you need to know you aren't going to turn on your mates, and I can give you that."

"Right now, the only thing I'm worrying about is you coming over here before my cock falls off." Xander thrust his hips up to emphasize his need. Spike walked over and started untying Xander's sneaker.

"I doubt anythin' will fall off, but you do look like you're enjoying yourself." Spike pulled off one sneaker and then took a second to run a fingernail over the cotton of Xander's briefs. Xander choked, his body momentarily forgetting how to breathe. By the time he regained the ability to form thoughts, Spike had pulled off his second shoe and his socks.

"Lesson learned, now time for the reward, right?" he asked desperately. Spike laughed as he grabbed the cuff of the jeans and started pulling. The pants came off, and then Xander lay there in his briefs as Spike circled the bed, pacing around it and looking at Xander like the last chocolate in the world, which made Xander's cock even harder.

"All mine," Spike whispered as he knelt on the bed and crawled up Xander's body. Xander held his breath as Spike smirked down at him.

"Oh yeah," he finally agreed. Spike reward him with a commanding kiss that left Xander thrusting up into the air.

"Needy little thing, aren't you?" Spike asked, and Xander blushed. He was. Anya had reminded him of that often enough. "I like that," Spike hurried to say, and then Spike lowered himself so that he rested on top of Xander. Xander gasped and thrust as Spike provided the heavenly pressure against his cock. "I like knowing that you need me to get what you want. I like knowing that ya need me to help with your powers. I like that you need me to keep your friends safe if you decide to listen to Darth Vader waxing poetic," Spike whispered into Xander's ear, and then two fangs bit into Xander's shoulder.

Xander screamed, his whole body stiffening in a desperate need to come. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck," he swore as he gasped for air. The sucking at his neck made his whole body feverish and shivery, and when Spike's hand reached inside Xander's briefs, brushing the sensitive head, Xander came in a hot rush.

"Xander," yelled a desperate voice. "Oh Goddess! Xander!" Xander was still floating in the muffled post-coital haze when the heat flashed over his body.

His eye snapped open, and he found white-haired Willow in the doorway, a magical wind blowing her hair and a ball of energy balanced between her hands.

"Will!" he yelped as he yanked at his bound hands.

Chapter 6

"Bloody buggering hell," Spike snarled as he bounced back up to his feet on the far side of the bed, game face in place. Willow threw the energy ball, and Spike threw himself back to the floor just as it skimmed over Xander's bare chest with another heat wave.

"Will! NO!" Xander yelled desperately, and then Buffy was there, pulling on Willow so that the third energy ball flew into the wall and fried Xander's Seven of Nine poster and a good chunk of wall. Maybe Xander would get that second window he wanted after all he thought with more than a little hysteria as damp air trickled in through the cracked brick.

"He bit Xander!" Willow protested, but at least wisps of red now tinted her white hair.

"Knocking! Knocking good. Getting out better!" Xander shrieked as he struggled against the belt.

"Daft buggerin' bint!" Spike leaped up again, but this time, Willow didn't do the fireball thing again.
"Biting! Biting and screaming!" Willow protested as Buffy pulled her back, her hair now totally red, which Xander could only pray meant the end of the giant fireballs.

"Okay, as the person with the room next to you and Kennedy, I know you know all about screaming, and probably biting, too," Buffy said as she herded Willow out, and now Willow's face was as red as her hair.

"But he screamed," Willow stammered as her eyes darted to Xander and then off to the wall. Xander could feel his balls shrivel up and try to shrink up into space normally reserved for intestines. "There was screaming."

"Boy's just appreciating my talent," Spike snarled as he grabbed the bedspread and flung it over Xander. And really, that was good, but not as good as someone untying him. Xander strained until the leather belt creaked, but nothing loosened, and Spike was obviously ignoring the not so subtle plea.

"Officially not helping," Buffy told Spike through tight lips.

"Don't remember anyone askin' for help or askin' you two to come barging in here, either, for that matter." Spike snatched his fallen shirt from the floor and shoved his arms into it.

"He screamed," Willow said again, but now she stared at the floor and inched backwards.

"Well, yeah," Spike agreed with a very self-satisfied tone.

"Spike, knock it off," Buffy said, and then she took Willow by the shoulders and pointed her out of the room. Xander expected the untying to come now, but Spike just stalked out after them.

"You'll get an even bigger eyeful if ya don't learn to bloody knock," Spike threatened from the hall, and Xander finally gave up and sagged back into the mattress. He wasn't freeing himself.

"Screaming," Willow declared defensively. "Screaming and tying and oh my god, you left Xander in there still tied up, and I am going to have to bleach my brain now. Bad thoughts. Bad, bad thoughts, and bad, bad vampire. Go untie Xander." Oh yeah, Willow was handling this about as well as Xander had expected.

The hallway fell silent, and Xander could just imagine the cold glare. Either that or someone was either bleeding out and/or floating to the carpet as little bits of ash, but he assumed that death would be at least a little noisier. Hopefully.

"Boy's mine. I'll untie him when I'm done, and I'm not bloody done. I'm just makin' sure we're not going to get interrupted again."

"No, no there will be no interruptus with the coitus," Buffy quickly agreed. "Will there?" she demanded firmly.

"Screaming. Screaming and tying," Willow whispered so softly that Xander almost missed it.

"If ya can't figure that one out, ask the slayer. She knows her bondage," Spike suggested nastily, and even Xander could hear that gasp. Yep, Willow could nearly end the world, but discussion of bondage was clearly outside her comfort zone.

"Hey!" Buffy snapped. "Besides, I don't remember that I was ever the one tied to the bed."

Okay, officially more than Xander ever wanted to know on that particular topic.

"You didn't complain, pet. You were happy enough to ride me hard and put me up wet and aching." And a Buffy gasp followed that one, but Willow interrupted before Buffy had a chance to say anything.

"No. No nonono. Some demon must have cursed all of us because this is... this is just not okay," Willow said, her voice fading. And Willow had obviously fled down the stairs. Xander gave a tug on the belt and wondered if now would be the time to remind Spike that he was still tied up.

The hall was silent. Xander strained to hear anything, wishing he had Jim's whole superhearing thing going on, but he only heard the gentle rain against the window.

"That could have gone better," Buffy finally said.

"Dunno. Everyone's still alive, so I'm puttin' it in the win column."

"Willow is not going to kill you guys," Buffy snorted dismissively, and then she made that little sucking noise that meant she had thought better of something. "Okay, she might in the whole heat of the moment kinda way, but she would feel really, really bad about it later."

"She bloody well almost had somethin' to feel bad about back there. Lost the hair on my bloody arm." The words might have been angry, but the tone was just more tired than anything else. Something thudded against the wall, either Buffy or Spike leaning heavily into it, and Xander squirmed a little at his uselessness. He would call out, but the only thing worse than lying helpless would be asking to be let go and still getting left to lie helpless, so he bit his tongue.

"She's just... freaking," Buffy agreed. "And I'm trying hard not to freak, but I'll admit to some minor wattage freak."

"Not so strange, him and me," Spike defended himself, and Xander silently added a "yeah" from inside the room.

"Um, kinda is. Big strange. Humongo strange. Kinda the T-Rex of strange. Big, huge, stomping, eating-of-my-brain strange, Spike."

Spike snorted, and Xander could feel himself blush. He'd cover his ears to avoid this, but not really an option. Silently endure or call for help that might or might not come until after Spike and Buffy had the big convo. Xander voted for suffering in silence.

"I mean, you always went for the type who..." Buffy stopped and the hall went silent for a moment. "He's just not exactly your type, and while the demon thing seems to work for him, I've never seen him go for the male thing. Not condemning," Buffy hurried to say, "I'm totally okay with him doing the male thing and after his comments about Angel and Riley and even you, not even particularly surprised, but... okay, I've lost my point. I'm officially pointless, but I guess I'm just saying... Wow. You two. Didn't see that coming."

"I'm not playin' with the boy. He's as much my type as Dru or you."

"Okay, I'm having trouble seeing that. And I know you wouldn't intentionally hurt him, but I'm worried about the whole unintentional thing we sometimes get going, like I did with Riley. And come on, it's a pretty big switch going from me to him."

"Not so much," Spike disagreed immediately, and Xander twisted. Buffy was big with making the points, and he wasn't sure he wanted to hear these points because they fed this little voice in the back of his head that whispered doubts about him and Spike.

Spike continued softly. "He needs me. I've always admitted to being love's bitch, to needing to be needed. And you don't need me any more, do you?" Spike asked.

"Hey! I'm big with the needing. I couldn't keep this place together without you, Spike. I've told you that." Buffy's suddenly sounded hurt and small.

"Yeah, you need me for this place, alright. Bloody slayers would fall apart in six months if they didn't have someone to kick their arses into shape," Spike agreed, "but *you* don't need me." Deep Spike sigh when Buffy didn't answer. "You don't need me to make you feel alive. You don't need me to stand by your side, any more. You don't even need me to be the one to understand the way you have to turn off your emotions when you watch girl after girl die. Those days are past, and you've healed. Don't need old Spike, do you?"

"Spike," Buffy said softly. Xander squirmed, feeling like he really had no right to hear this stuff.

"No!" Spike cut her off. "Don't bloody need you either," Spike's accent was suddenly thick and his voice rough. "But the boy does need me. Came back from Africa without all his marbles, didn't he? And no matter how much you and Red try to be his friend, it's not helping any."

"Hey, Xander has plenty of marbles," Buffy defended him.

"Then why send him off to Cascade?" Spike demanded. "Why send a slayer to follow him every time he walks out the door? Why ban him from patrol?" Buffy didn't have an answer for that. Spike sighed so heavily that Xander could hear it in the room. "Go home, Buffy. Go to Cleveland and find some poor wanker trying to open a Hellmouth. Go into London and find some nest. Just leave me and the boy alone," Spike ordered, and then he was there in the door to the room, framed by the light from the hall.

He closed the door slowly, and Xander locked gazes with him.

"Hey," Xander offered, the universal word for 'what the hell else am I supposed to say'.

"Hey," Spike answered as he crossed to the bed, sitting on the edge as he reached out and traced Xander's cheekbone with a thumb.

"Um, want to untie me?" Xander asked with an experimental tug.

"No." Spike continued to stroke Xander's face, his fingers trailing down to his neck, and Xander tilted his head back, closing his eye as the gentle strokes moved down to his collarbone. When Spike slipped a hand under the bedspread and brushed his nipple; Xander shivered. The feeling wasn't exactly lust... although it was certainly connected to his lust-bone... but it was softer, slower. The rising need was the ocean pulled by the moon instead of the storm of desire and completion Xander normally felt. Then again, Xander had never before messed around after coming. He moaned.

"Kept you from gettin' in the middle, didn't it?"

"What?" Xander asked, most of his brain sinking into a peaceful fog of post-sex, post-stress petting.

"Being tied up, it kept you from riding to Willow's rescue."

"I was more worried about Spike's rescue from flaming fireballs," Xander said wryly. He regretfully pulled himself out of his stupor and looked up at Spike.

"Oi, can take care of myself. But the minute the witch blushed you would have been all reassurin' her that we didn't mean anything by it."

"I wouldn't... okay, I might have, but that's what nice people do," Xander admitted. Spike rolled his eyes.

"Good thing I'm not nice, innit?"

"Hey, you're nice. You saved the world, about two or three times, and then you went and died being the big champion guy, and you have saved my ass more times than I can count because I was never very good in math, and that number would require calculus to figure out."

"I am pretty soddin' wonderful, aren't I?" Spike waggled his eyebrows. "But I'm not nice the way you're defining it. I won't forgive her for bargin' in here like she's goin' to save you from me. You're mine, and she'll learn to live with it."

"Or not," Xander said quietly.

Spike narrowed his eyes and glared down. "There's no 'not' possible, pet. You're mine. I've staked my claim." Spike stood up and walked to the shelf where the CD player sat under a pile of flyers for decking material. He brushed the paper to the floor and plucked a CD out of the middle of the pile. Tony Bennett. Xander remembered when Anya had picked that out, telling this whole story about a wife who listened to Boulevard of Broken Dreams over and over until Anyanka had granted her wish to turn her husband into goldfish she could keep by her bed.

The music started, and Spike slowly swayed. In the hall, Spike had buttoned the shirt, and now he freed the lowest button. A small triangle of skin appeared and vanished as Spike slowly undulated. Shifting around, Xander rested his cheek on one bound arm so he could watch the show. Okay, of all the things he expected, Spike doing the naughty dance hadn't even entered his mind, and yet there he was, turning his back as he leaned over and unlaced his boots.

With a wiggle, Spike stepped out of his boots and then turned to face Xander, his lips raised in a knowing smirk.

"See somethin' ya want?" he asked as he did a quick step with a hip thrust like the dancers on TV.

"Mmmm," Xander agreed. Spike smiled and slipped two more buttons free and his fingers now brushed over pale skin as Spike slowly stalked forward, half dance and half predatory stalk. Spike reached the bed as the last button popped open, and he let the shirt slither over his shoulders and fall to the floor.

"Lookie what someone's left for me, a prezzie all tied up with a bow... or a belt in this case," Spike shrugged as he rolled his hips and flicked open the first button on his jeans. Xander fisted his hands and arched his back as his cock sluggishly started making plans for a repeat performance.

Spike trailed his fingers over the top of the bedspread, and the lack of contact was exquisite torture. From the smirk on Spike's face, he knew exactly what he was doing as he backed away and opened another button on his jeans.

If Xander hadn't already come, he would have been pleading by now, but instead he felt a slow surge of lust as Spike's first curled hairs appeared.

"Gonna make you beg for it, boy," Spike threatened as he shimmied out of his jeans.

"Oh yeah, like I haven't done that before. Not really hard to get me to beg," Xander pointed out breathily as Spike crept forward like a leopard on the hunt. "So not hard," he repeated when Spike twisted his hips.

"Just easy, huh?" Spike teased as he crawled onto the bed, his knees on either side of Xander. The pressure pulled the bedspread taut against his chest, pressing him into the mattress, and the additional bonds pushed Xander over the edge between warm, fuzzy, comfortable desire and burning, clawing need.

"Easy. Yep, I can do easy," Xander agreed as he squirmed in his bedspread prison. Spike reached out and grabbed Xander's chin, stilling him.

"You're mine, pet. You know it, your body knows it, and the others have to bloody well learn," Spike said seriously, and Xander blinked up, seeing the demon's desperate need to not let others take what was his.

"Got it," Xander agreed. Spike held his chin for a second, and then Spike smiled lazily and started tugging at the edge of the bedspread, revealing Xander's side before he crawled under the covers.

Xander opened his mouth in a silent plea as their bodies pressed together. Maddeningly slowly, Spike's fingers trailed down Xander's side and then paused at the waistband of Xander's underwear.

"Oh god," Xander managed as he twisted.

"What's the magic word, pet?" Spike teased, and he pressed closer, half laying on Xander and trapping him in place even as Xander tried to squirm.

Xander's brain struggled to hijack enough blood from the cock to figure out the riddle. "Please," he finally offered.

"Not good enough. I want begging," Spike whispered in Xander's ear.

"Fuck," Xander swore as Spike ran a fingernail over the fabric, teasing his cock and then vanishing. "Please, Spike. Please just, whatever."

"Whatever? That's a wide open field, pet," Spike warned. Xander tilted his head and Spike was looking at him seriously, propped on one elbow.

"Whatever, Spike. Please, I'm begging." Xander said each word slowly, an offering laid between them. With a blink, Spike's demon surged forward, and Xander tilted his head away, exposing his neck.

"Please," he begged again softly. Xander gasped as a hand tore at his underwear, making the fabric dig into his legs before it mercifully ripped away. Closing his eye, Xander surrendered. He lay trembling in need as Spike quickly prepared him and then pushed in past muscles barely stretched, his mind sinking into a place where even his own aching hardness didn't matter as much as the hands that manipulated him or the yellow eyes that devoured him.

Sharp fangs slid into his shoulder, and Xander bucked as his shoulder mimicked his hard cock; the same aching need for more erased everything from existence except Spike. A hand brushed over the damp head of his cock, and Xander came in hard waves that crashed through him leaving him trembling and gasping.

"Love ya, pet," Spike whispered after he laved the bite closed.

"Need you," Xander answered sleepily as his whole body sagged into post-sex sluggishness. He felt Spike untie his hands, and he just lay still as Spike arranged him before curling around him. Warm, sated, and held… it was more than Xander needed, it was all he wanted.

Chapter 7

Xander woke to an empty bed and a note talking about an emergency in the London underground with some demons. Xander turned the paper this way and that trying to figure out what kind of demons, but Spike's looping, girly handwriting defied reading.

"Shit," Xander cursed at the letter before dropping it to the bed and heading for the bathroom. He'd only shared Spike's bed for five days now, and yet it felt weird waking up by himself. But hey, at least he wasn't waking up to dust, and hopefully that meant that Willow hadn't gone all white-haired witchy again. Five days. Nearly a week. Yep, Xand was a taken man again. Staring into the mirror, Xander studied his face. He still looked the same with his morning whiskers and missing eye, but he didn't feel as ragged as he had just six days ago.

No wonder Jim had thought he was some sort of secret agent man when he first showed up in Cascade because Xander kinda looked the part. Although, honestly, he looked a little more like the dark, brooding terrorist ready to blow something up than the secret agent hero. Grabbing the shaving soap, Xander thought about the brochures the nurse handed him in the hospital. A glass eye would make him a look a little less piraty, maybe the council could pay for the facial reconstruction.

Sighing, Xander leaned against the edge of the sink. Right. Fix an eye and he'd go back to being old Xander… Not. Looking less like a refugee from a war zone wouldn't necessarily fix all the other things he had rattling around in his head. What had Jim said? Pieces of him were gone, dead with the friends and slayers he'd watched die. Xander blinked the real world away and studied his reflection with his shamanic sight, but the cords of his own soul didn't reflect.

Looking down, he tried to find some hint of it, but he could only see arms with defined muscles from helping carry water to villages and pull rocks from fields. The fat he'd developed during those last years in Sunnydale had melted in the African sun.

Looking back into the mirror, Xander wondered when he grown up. Even more importantly, when had he grown old? Shaking away the ghost-image of the world and the faint tangle of slayer cords that floated past his vision, Xander focused on shaving.

"Xander," a soft voice called from outside his room, barely loud enough for him to hear over the running water.

Xander grabbed his robe and opened the door to find a tiny Asian woman nearly bouncing as she waited in the hall.

"You're home!" Yi practically squealed as she threw her arms around him. "I got my first vampire!"

"Hey, I told you that you'd do great," Xander answered as he hugged her back. She was quiet and almost as uncomfortable around Spike as Spike was around her, so Xander had ended up spending more than a little time in the workout room with her, especially after the whole getting banned from the slay-gig. Besides, Xander understood her insecurities where the other baby slayers tended to be more on the overconfident side.

"Blackbeard's back!" Janie called as she bounded up the steps, and Xander couldn't help thinking that someone needed to cut back on slayer caffeine in a big way. "I heard you and Spike got in last night, but Spike said if we woke you up, we'd be running laps around the property 'til our legs fell off."

"That's sounds suspiciously Spike-like," Xander agreed as he held Yi with one arm and opened his other one for the second slayer's hug.

"The others were really bummed that he was making them go do slayer shit before saying hi to you," Janie said as she threw arms around him. Most of his girls from Africa had gone to the slayer school in Nouakchott, but Janie, the red-haired daughter of Baptist missionaries, had voted to come back to England.

"Hey, simple mortal here, watch the ribs," he complained at her enthusiasm. Yep, definitely less caffeine.

"I thought you were just supposed to be gone for a week. You totally ditched us," Janie complained.

"No. No ditching. I just had work that had to get done."

"Yeah, sure," she said as she elbowed Yi, trying to pull her in on the joke. "You just got tired of having to unplug the sink, and given the goo that gets washed down these sinks, I am not blaming you. But you still totally ditched us, and you didn't even write, you booger!"

"Guilty as charged and very sorry." Xander held his hands out in surrender, and Yi smiled shyly. "But I am distinctly unboogerish, and after a lifetime on a Hellmouth, can we keep the slimy metaphors to a minimum? I know a few too many vengeance demons and wish demons to be comfortable with random booger comments."

"Just don't do it again!" Janie said with a determined glare. "So, I hear Spike spent the night up here." For all of her religious upbringing, Janie was just not one to avoid the sexually embarrassing. Yi, however, blushed deep red.

"And I'm not going to discuss my life with a couple of girls who aren't old enough to drink," Xander countered.

"Prude," Janie snorted. "But we're glad to have you back safe and sound," she slapped Xander on the arm hard enough to leave a bruise before bouncing back down the stairs.

"It is nice to have you back. I missed you," Yi said quietly as she followed Janie back down the stairs.

Xander watched them, and suddenly his conversation with Jim floated back up into his memory. They obviously had missed him, but he hadn't given either of them a second thought. Hell, if he hadn't known it would bring the wrath of Willow down on him, he probably wouldn't have emailed home at all after the first few reports when he actually had something to report. How did Jim describe it? Pushing everyone away because he was convinced they'd turn to dust?

Yeah, not in this business. The vampires turned to dust, and the girls bled and cried and died messy deaths. But then again, they hadn't lost any girls since the Cleveland Hellmouth went hot two years ago. Xander shook his head as his thoughts scattered. He couldn't exactly figure out the meaning of life in the next ten minutes, so dressed and showered would be next on the agenda, and probably not in that order.

Africa had taught Xander the advantage of moving fast through a shower, and he finished up and dressed in minutes. That done, he ran a comb through his hair. It had gotten long at some point. Xander ran damp fingers through the unruly curls, pressing them away from his face. He almost looked human. He just wasn't sure if he felt human.

Back in his room, Xander pulled out his cell phone and looked up one of the newest numbers. Sitting on the bed, he punched the "talk" button before he could do the whole thinking twice and telling himself to stop being a baby thing.

"Hello?" a voice on the other end answered.

"Hey, I’m really hoping it's not too late, but I figured you guys wouldn't have gone to bed just yet, but if you have, feel free to tell me to take a hike," Xander said as it suddenly occurred to him that the guys might be *in* bed even if they hadn't gone to bed.

"Breathe, Sport," Jim's voice came back. "We haven't hit the sack yet, and Blair has been wound up like a tinker toy about the bombings over there, so I'm glad you called." Someone muttered a protest in the background. "Excuse me," Jim corrected himself, "Blair is not wound up like a tinker toy, he is just expressing a perfectly normal sense of concern." Xander could almost hear Jim rolling his eyes, and he knew that would have drawn a wicked glare from Blair.

"Yeah, we're fine," Xander assured him.

"Flight okay?"

"Great. They served those little tiny tomatoes." Weird with the pauses. Xander struggled for something more intelligent to talk about than little tomatoes. And hey, in Shakespeare's time, they thought tomatoes were poisonous, and that was so not where he wanted this conversation to go.

"You run into any demons on the flight?" Jim finally asked, breaking the silence.

"There was this one guy who smelled suspiciously demon-like, but Spike insisted it was Limburger cheese," Xander joked.

"So, what's up, Sport?"

"Nothing. I just thought I'd call and let you guys know we weren't splattered on the inside of some bit of the Underground."

"Uh-huh." Jim sounded unconvinced. "How are the friends taking the news?" Xander picked lint off his pants.

"Um, partly freaked with a chance of total denial later this afternoon," Xander admitted. "But the baby slayers seem happy to have me back."

"Baby slayers? The new ones from after the big spell?" Jim asked, and even through the phone, Xander could hear Jim flinch at having to use a word like 'spell.' Jim had joked that if anyone heard him talking like that, they would assume it was code and start tapping his phone and reading his mail.

"Yeah. Most took off with Spike for some job cleaning out a nest, but Yi and Janie were big with the welcome although not much for the wagon."

"I don't think you ever mentioned those two," Jim said slowly, and Xander took a ragged breath, sure that Jim was getting the point even though Xander couldn't quite spit it out. He couldn't even make it make sense in his brain.

"I don't think I told you guys about them. Probably all busy with the Spike obsessing." Jim didn't answer. "Yi is Chinese and really shy, but she's fast. She got her first vampire when I was gone. And Janie is…" Xander struggled for a way to describe Janie. "Janie is Blair with more estrogen, less hair, and a really bad habit of breaking things that aren't physically nailed to the floor," he finally finished.

Jim laughed. "One Blair is enough for me. But they sound like good people."

"They are," Xander admitted. They were good, they just weren't people that he thought about when they weren't right in front of him threatening to crack ribs with the hugging.

"I bet they're glad to see you. I know this place is quieter without you around. And I *know* I'm having to do a lot more tests. Blair made me drink slime yesterday." And that was definitely an outraged protest on Jim's end of the phone. "It was slime, Sandburg. Slime."

Xander smiled as Blair obviously gave Jim some shit right back. "Then next time, you drink it, and I'll get a Wonderburger or a steak." Jim kept his voice flat, but Xander could hear the teasing in it anyway. He paused, and Xander could just imagine what Blair had to say about that. "But I'll die a happy man," Jim cut in. "So, how long have you known Yi and Janie?" Jim asked Xander, and for a second, Xander's brain stuttered because he'd been all caught up in the mock fight and not actually expecting a question.

"Um, Janie for about two years, Yi about a year," Xander said. "I found Janie out in the field at a faith mission in Kenya where her parents were working for a month. They were pretty weirded out, but they knew something had happened, and they actually took the whole protecting the world from demons thing pretty well. I didn't mention that we had a few demons on the payroll."

"And two years later, she's still putting up with you?" Jim teased.

"Yeah, well she needs someone to unstop her toilet," Xander shot back. "But I guess I didn't expect…" Xander paused. Okay words gone.

"My first years back here, I kept waiting for someone to fire my ass because I had so much attitude. Every time I walked in and guys talked to me, I wondered why the hell they put up with me," Jim said. To someone else, it might have seemed a strange bit of conversation, but Xander got it.

"I didn't write them once. I just put them in the corner of my mind labeled 'baby slayer' and walked away. Pretty shitty of me," Xander confessed. The phone was silent. Xander took a deep breath. "I kinda wonder what I would have thought if the vampire had gotten Yi instead of the other way around."

"And?" Jim prodded him.

"I don't know. I'm thinking that box labeled 'baby slayer' is marked 'do not get emotionally attached.' And I used to be the heart of the group, and I'm feeling pretty heartless right now. Big with the heartless. Or small with the heart, one or the other."

Xander took a deep breath. "And I'm wondering why I'm just noticing this now, and does this make me a horrible person that I never noticed this before, and I'm really losing it, and I really don't have a right to call you up and dump all this on you, but Spike is out making the world safe for morning commuters, and I'm looking in the mirror wondering when I turned into scary guy."

"You're not heartless," Jim said quietly, ignoring the rest. Xander heard a scuffling and then Blair's voice came through.

"Xander, are you okay?" Blair asked immediately.

"Yeah, just freaking out," Xander admitted.

"Man, if you even let yourself think you're heartless for even a second, you're more than freaking out, you're like off the deep end. Xander, you throw yourself into trying to save everyone, and with the possible exception of Jim, I've never known anyone who cared more about the tribe."

Xander snorted a cold laugh. "I didn't think about them once."

"Buffy and Willow?" Blair asked, clearly confused.

"Yi and Janie, and the other slayers. I didn't think about them at all because I just… I'm missing something."

"Xander, you know you can come back here, right?" Blair asked softly. "You and Spike are both welcome, and Jim even promises to play nice with the other alpha male. If he doesn't, I'll put hair remover in his shampoo and he needs all the hair he can keep."

"Thanks, but I think I need to get my own head screwed on straight. I guess seeing the others and the whole not-approval thing with me and Spike and them doubting me, it's just a little much."

"Man, sometimes you have to step back and find your own center. You know, step back from the conflict and just let it all go," Blair advised. Then Jim's voice came back on the line.

"Sport, you've had some tough times, but you can't go blaming yourself for not living up to some standard in your head," Jim said seriously.

"And what about the whole human standard where people care about each other? I have been doing a lot less caring than I'm comfortable with, and now with the shamanic powers being on the big side, I'm feeling like I'm not really a safe person with a whole lot of power because I'm not really of the trustworthy. How can anyone trust me when I just figured out that I'm a cold-hearted bastard who doesn't even think about people unless they're on the email demanding attention?"

"I trust you." Jim's voice was so steady that Xander closed his eye and fought the emotion that welled up inside him. "Xander, I can only tell you what was true for me. I pushed everyone away, and when I realized what I had done, I didn't know how to stop being a bastard. Carolyn pushed her way in and I let her because I wanted someone, but eventually I just pushed her away too because all I knew how to be was a cold bastard."

"How did you stop it? How did you stop feeling like you had to push people away because you couldn't stand to see one more person bleed to death on the floor?" Xander whispered his question, and for a second, he thought Jim might not have heard as silence filled the line.

"I don't know," Jim answered truthfully, and Xander desperately wished the man had given him just one easy lie. "But after I realized I was a cold bastard, things started getting better. Sport, you aren't heartless, you've just had a little more pain than you can carry. And if this Shaman thing is big, then I know you'll handle that just as well as you've handled everything else life has thrown at you."

Xander couldn't help it. He started laughing. "I'm not really known for handling everything life has thrown at me all that well. I dated a vengeance demon famous for cutting off men's private parts, and then I left her at the altar… literally. Later, I abandoned her dead body on the floor of a school that sank into the hole that is Sunnydale. I turned my back on Buffy because she was being too warrior with the war, and while I’m thrilled to have my old, not-borderline-psychotic Buffy-shaped friend back, I was big with the judgmental. And Africa…." The image of a body lying in the dust assaulted Xander's mind, the moment so real that he could smell the rot of meat and hear the flies buzzing through the heavy air. "Not handling much well," he admitted.

This time, Blair's voice came over the phone. "Xander, do you need us to come out there?" Blair asked.

"No, that would just make things a whole lot touchier because Giles and Spike are all big with the thinking that you're a trado Shaman able to influence what people learn, and I think we've reached a freaky limit here with my shamanic stuff and the gay stuff."

"Xander, I can't know what you and Jim have gone through, but I know that for all your claims of not caring, you care. You're lying to yourself if you think you don't, and maybe you needed to lie to yourself, but if you didn't care about the new slayers, this wouldn't bother you so much."

"Hey, no fair using logic on me," Xander complained.

"It bothers you that you hadn't thought of them, doesn't it?" Blair asked, ignoring Xander's interruption.

"Yeah, big with the feeling like the Grinch before the heart-expanding ending."

"It wouldn't bother you if you didn't care. It's really that simple. And maybe you just pushed those thoughts aside the way Jim pushed his senses away, but you can't beat yourself up for that. You have to forgive yourself for not being able to save everyone. Trust the universe, that there's some plan and that you can't control that plan any more than you can control a hurricane. You just do your best."

"Willow moved a hurricane once. These Ama demons were going to use some mystical power of the wind to try to harness a portal. She shoved the whole hurricane off-coast while Buffy went stomping through the swamp to kick demon ass." Xander had been in Africa then, but around here, stories got told and retold until everyone felt like they'd been at every battle, even when they had been demoted to fray-adjacent support staff.

"And you were doing whatever you could to help, just like always," Blair added confidently, "because you care."

"I was off in Africa," Xander told him.

"Then you were doing your best to do good there. You care about those new slayers just like you care about the whole damn world. More than that, man, you have made the world better because no matter how many times the world knocks you on your ass, you're still out there trying to find girls and trying to learn about Sentinels and trying to track down pedophiles—all because you care."

Xander sat and stared at the little brass knobs on his dresser as he thought about that one. He tried. He tried to help and to care and to not become one of those weird guys who lived on the Hellmouth and discussed neighbors who died from freak barbeque fork stab wounds without batting an eye.

"Sometimes I just don't know if it's enough."

Blair sighed. "Oh man, if you ever feel like you've done enough, you're ready to retire from the human race. There's always more to do, but getting in there and fighting is the whole point. Xander, you never stop fighting, and if you didn't care, if you weren't a good man, you would have given up a long time ago."

"You keep this up, and I just might give up on the whole hating myself plan," Xander warned him. Before the words slipped out, Xander hadn't even realized he felt that way, but saying them, he suddenly realized that he did hate himself. He hated how he always failed.

"Maybe we should come out, or maybe you should come back here, just for a bit," Blair suggested.

"And I'm thinking that would be a nice way of putting off the crappy shit that seems to be leaking out my ears here, but as much as I feel good tracking down bad guys in Cascade, that doesn't make me feel better about all the things I didn't manage to do back here," Xander said quietly. "And I really want to just run away, and maybe that's the best reason for me not to."

"Just remember, Xander, no one's perfect. Spike has to deal with his whole unsouled past, and Willow had her addiction to magic, and you only told us the highlights, so I'm guessing there was much more fucking up back there than you told us about. And they're still good people. Give yourself some slack. If you screw up, that doesn't make you a bad person."

Xander really thought about that one. The others had fucked up as royally as he had. Jim screwed up a whole marriage, which trumped his fucking up the wedding. And Spike… he'd promised to protect Dawn from Glorificus, but no matter how hard he tried, Glory had still gotten her hands on Dawn. He'd failed, picked himself back up, and thrown himself right back into playing homicidal, over-protective, older brother. And Buffy really had made some horrible calls in those last days, but she came back to lead them against a whole army of demons.

"My head is a little screwed on backwards." Xander spoke slowly, "But maybe if I get it screwed back around, it's not the end of the world that I walked around with a backwards head for a little bit."

"Not backwards. Maybe a little crooked, but not backwards," Blair teased.

"Crooked. Maybe," Xander mused. "But it's late there and if the baby slayers found me, I know Buffy and Willow aren't too far behind, and I really don't want to have part two of that conversation in my bathrobe.

"Hey, I'm really glad you called."

"Yeah, don't say that too much because I can get to be a real pest if you don't chase me off after a while. My babbling has even been known to approach Willow-levels from time to time. But thanks for picking up the phone because with caller ID, it'd be really easy to duck me."

"Man, never happen," Blair insisted. "But bed is sounding really good, so we'll talk to you later?"

"Next time I have a nervous breakdown because someone tries to give me a hug, you'll be the first call I make," Xander promised.

"Smartass," Blair laughed. "Good night."

"Night," Xander answered before he clicked the phone off. Maybe Blair really was a trado Shaman because Xander could suddenly see things in a slightly different light. Okay, if he was going to try and stop being the weirdo hiding in his own head Xander, he needed to make a change or two.

Chapter 8

By the time Xander had dressed, he'd made a few decisions. Ignoring the bright floral shirts that took up a good third of his closet, he picked a shirt Giles had given him for Christmas. Yeah, it was yellow, but at least it was a pale yellow and not something that looked like it was scavenged from Screech's dressing room on the last day of "Saved from the Bell." New day, new man, new shirt.

He headed out of his room silently chanting a new mantra to himself as he trotted down the stairs. 'Screw up, get over it.' Yep, that was his new mission in life. And while he had the screwing up part down pat, the getting over it part… still needing some work.

"Xander," a man's voice called from his blind side when he got to the bottom of the steps. Xander turned to find Giles in a polo shirt and a worried face.

"Hey, G-man."

"Sleeping Beauty awakes," Buffy said as she came around the corner. "I was ready to send out the cavalry, which would have been Willow with a big cup of coffee, so it's probably good that you're up. She's in the serious-talk mood and getting trapped in a room with her? So not good."

"Thanks for the warning," Xander offered Buffy. "So how was the driving, tall and tweedy?" Xander asked Giles as he headed past him toward the kitchen. Coffee sounded good... really good. Giles spluttered a little.

"Surprisingly, I actually find G-man less objectionable than that name," Giles commented as he followed.

"Tall and tweedy?" Xander asked with a smile.

"I would prefer we discuss the recent changes in your situation, and not my dress habits," Giles insisted. "Not that I'm even *wearing* tweed right now," he complained quietly, and Xander smiled as she pushed into the kitchen.

"Giles! You found Xander," Willow said with a wide smile.

"Wasn't lost," Xander pointed out as he focused on the strong smell of coffee. Oh for good imported American coffee. Or probably not American since they didn't grow coffee in America, but at least it wasn't English. Spike might complain about American beer, but they knew their coffee.

"You know what I mean," Willow answered him, and then Xander found himself wrapped in Willow arms. "I've been so worried about you, and you know we love you, right? You don't have to go looking for love because you will always have our love." Willow still clung to Xander, but she turned to Giles and Buffy. "We love him, right?"

"Big with the love," Buffy agreed. Giles just blushed, but then he never did do emotions well.

"Yes, well," Giles stammered.

"Hey, driving all night to get here is quite enough to excuse you from having to answer that," Xander told Giles. "In fact, as men, we are officially excused from ever having to say the 'l' word, especially about other men. Except now that I'm doing the gay thing, I think I'm exempt from the exempt because I should probably be able to declare love for the guy I sleep with," Xander mused.

"And let the weirdness begin," Buffy commented with a thoughtful expression as she headed for the coffeepot.

"Slayer or not, if you drink the last cup, you're going down, sister," Xander threatened. Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Yes, well, you seem in rather high spirits," Giles commented as he sat at the counter. Xander did feel good. Maybe his mantra was working.

"By which I'm assuming you mean that he's acting like a teenage boy who just got some," Buffy answered as she handed over the cup of coffee to Xander before she turned to raiding the refrigerator.

"Not a teenager, although I got more than some last night," Xander confirmed as he finished his cup of coffee. And yep, Spike-sex would probably be up there with his new philosophy of life on the making him feel less sucky.

"Okay, just stop. Stop now," Willow insisted. Xander looked over, and Willow was near tears, her eyes bright under the florescent light.

"Willow?" he asked uncertainly.

"No." She held up a hand to keep Xander from saying anything more. "You're acting like this is all normal."

"Will," Buffy said softly. "I get the weirded out bit. Totally get it. But he and Spike..." Buffy trailed off.

"Spike and I are sleeping together and happy together and waiting for some support from the friend group," Xander finished for her. Willow shrunk back and Giles studied the tile on the floor. "And as the friend who played cheerleader through others' relationship choices--"

"Hold on there," Buffy interrupted. "He's a vampire; vampires bad. I can't believe you're dating him. You slayer, him vampire," Buffy mimicked Xander's tone of voice.

"Hey! Okay, I kinda said all that, but I bit my tongue with Spike."

Buffy raised an eyebrow at him, and Xander blushed. "I might have thought a whole lot of stuff, but I never said it. And I deserve an award for not saying the many things I thought about Kennedy."

"Oh, you said it. Even without saying it, you said it," Buffy announced sarcastically.

"That's it. Stop it!" Willow demanded. "Okay, we just need to look at this logically. Xander, you've been upset and depressed ever since Africa, and maybe even before Africa, back when you lost..." Willow's eyes flicked toward Xander's eyepatch, and he found himself twitching with a need to make sure the black fabric covered the ugly scar.

"But the point here is that you've been big with the sad, and we haven't been the best friends because we haven't said the right things to make things better. You needed better, so you went out looking, and I don't know why you decided on Spike being that Spike is not usually the kind to make someone feel better, more with the mocking than the supporting," Willow paused and slipped on her most determined expression. "But you have love because we love you, and you don't need to go looking for love."

Xander stood in the silent kitchen staring at Willow as he tried to process that bit of babble. The clocked ticked. Buffy stood by the open refrigerator door as the machine made a low mutter as the motor ran and ran. Giles blinked, and Willow looked precariously close to crying. Add Faith trying to kill him, and it would be just like old times.

"Will," Xander said softly.

"He tied you up. This is so not healthy, and I want healthy for you. I want healthy and happy." A tear slipped past Willow's lashes, trailing over her cheek, and she pushed it away angrily.

"He would have let me go if I asked," Xander said softly. Last night, he hadn't been so sure, but this morning, he was a good 80 percent sure Spike would have untied him, maybe even 85 percent.

Giles cleared his throat. "I really had rather not get into discussions of sexual practices, but suffice it to say that first, not all deviant practices are inherently unhealthy, and second, we really should discuss the shamanic powers Xander seems to have developed."

"Tweed man to the rescue," Xander muttered as he turned to his coffee. Suddenly, he didn't want anything going into his stomach, but after threatening Buffy's life for the cup, it hardly seemed fair to just let it go cold. He forced himself to take a sip and swallow past the solid lump in his throat.

"Xander, let's focus on the extent of the powers as you used them in Cascade and in your recent hunt with Buffy."

Xander glanced over towards Buffy, and yep, that was guilty look. So people had definitely been doing the talking behind his back bit, and he should not have been surprised.

"I started tracking guys," Xander shrugged, and off came Giles' glasses.

"That description is rather vague," Giles prompted, and Xander felt like he'd been called into the principal's office so that Snyder could try and catch him saying something stupid, and it really wasn't that hard to catch him with the stupids. But Giles had that same expectant expression as though he just needed one slip-up so that he could prove to Xander that the shamanic powers were just some funky spell someone had cast for kicks.

"Blair and Jim would let me see the police file and I would get a feel for what the person was like."

"And you could track them from that?" Giles leaned forward, and Xander nodded. "Perhaps it is some form of shamanic powers, but hardly evidence of an animus Shaman," Giles said as he sighed and sat next to Xander.

"Still, it's just a little much in the coincidence department, yeah?" Buffy asked. "Xander sees a Shaman--Xander is a Shaman."

"Perhaps," Giles agreed.

"I could do a clearing, if it isn't a spell, the clearing won't do any harm, and if it is a spell, that would de-spellify it," Willow added helpfully, only Xander wasn't feeling all that helped.

"If there is a spell to make someone into an evil tracker, I'm first in line for that," Buffy added.

"Right now, I'm more concerned about potential side effects. If, as Xander has indicated, this affects his vision, I would not recommend trying to duplicate it, especially since we can't be sure the spell allows Xander to track evil or whether it simply gives that illusion. We might be looking at something far more nefarious," Giles pointed out.

"And suddenly I'm missing Deadboy," Xander interrupted all their conversations about him. Funny how no one was actually talking to him, but now all three looked over. "Angel saw what I could do, and he believed me. And how stupid am I to expect my friends to do the same?" Xander crossed his arms over his chest, and ignored the raw feeling that crept up into his guts when his girls got hurt expressions.

"You think we're bad friends," Willow said softly, the tone making it clear that she agreed with him. "We've been bad friends, but this is us trying to do better. We believe that you believe that you're shamaning," she offered.

Xander felt like shit. Okay, just fifteen minutes ago he had this whole new man thing going for him. He had a lover who looked at him like he was chocolate, he had cop friends who thought he was competent, and he had a mantra. He was mantra man. And bodies in motion are supposed to remain in motion, but his doing-good body was definitely dragging to a pitiful stop.

"This is not a matter of belief or disbelief," Giles said patiently, and Xander's guilt at hurting the girls faded as he glared. He might not be able to stay mad at Buffy and Willow, but he could do mad with Giles.

"Okay, just to recap, you go to Cascade all normal-boy, and you come back a big-bad Shaman," Buffy said, crossing her own arms.

"Sleeping with Spike," Willow whispered. "And it's all my fault because I knew you were crushing on him, and I didn't say anything when Buffy was all 'go get him back' to Spike, and I'm so sorry Xander, and when you come to your senses and get really, really angry with me, I'll apologize again. Apologize and bake cookies."

"Willow," Xander sighed the word, his anger evaporating under her obvious misery. "Spike's loyal and I was calling him lithe and sexy back when I wasn't doing the gay thing, and yeah, I called Angel handsome back then, but Spike is still cool after you get to know him."

"Xander," Willow's word was a plea.

"I really care about him," Xander interrupted her.

"That's what has me all worried," Willow answered way too seriously.

"Okay," Buffy cut in, "time to worry about the Spike and Xander show later, but right now we have a de-spellifying or a de-shamanizing or a de-somethingizing to get on the road."

"Whoa," Xander stood up and backed away. "There will be no de-shamanizing. In fact, the Xan-man is sitting out any spells because this is not some demon's idea of a wacky practical joke. I can track the bad guys, and this should be of the good."

"If we could be sure that you *do* track actual evil, and if we could be sure that this is natural and not the side effect of some dangerous magics, and if we could determine that this is something you could learn to control…" Giles paused, turning on his chair and polishing his glasses, and Xander suddenly realized that Giles didn't believe any of those things could be true.

"He certainly seemed to be doing the tracking with those vampires. Spike described what a fledge would feel in disturbo detail, and Xander zeroed right in like one of the dogs at the airport," Buffy offered.

"And isn't that a lovely image," Xander complained as he turned and headed back out of the kitchen. He needed to get away before the metaphors got to something even more insulting than dogs. Hurrying down the hall, Xander ended up at the front door with no real place to go. Story of his life.

"Xander," Willow's voice called after him, and Xander eyed the heavy wood, but he still hadn't come up with any place he could actually go. So he stood while Willow hurried to his side, hanging onto his arm as though he was going to fling himself off a cliff. "We're sorry we're doubting you, and we don't really doubt you…"

"Funny, this feels like doubting," Xander whispered as he kept his eyes focused on the door.

Giles and Buffy followed. "They just haven't seen you do your thing," Buffy shrugged. "Show them some of the tracking and then maybe Giles can figure out what happened, you know, if you actually became a Shaman or something."

Xander looked over, and Buffy had on her concerned face. He could tell that she was praying it was 'something,' preferably something Giles and Willow could fix. "Maybe—"

"Excellent idea. Perhaps we could use one of the slayers as the bait," Giles nodded.

"Xander knows the slayers, so that'd be more like testing his ability to guess their hiding places," Buffy countered.

Giles opened the front door. "Far too early for a vampire."

"Oh, I know," Willow bounced a little. "There's been a Grossar demon and we haven't had a chance to get rid of him."

"That might be an appropriate task," Giles nodded. "Xander, can you track a Grossar?"

"Before we do this," Buffy interrupted, "am I going to have to change before hunting Gross demons? Because I just got these shoes, and Italian leather does not like goo, slime or grossness." She smiled sweetly, and Xander got the impression was more for Giles' benefit than for any concern over her shoes.

Giles sighed. "They are little more than animals which probably followed other demons through some portal. Think of them as small pigs."

"Pigs?" Xander asked.

"With razor sharp tusks and hooves and a prehensile tail capable of pulling a man to the ground where the Grossar can then trample a person to death."

"Okay, and we haven't killed these things yet because...." Buffy demanded, her silly side suddenly gone under the seriousness of needing to kill something. Pulling a sword from the wall, she headed out the open door, Willow close behind.

"They're vegetarians, and hardly likely to bother the local population as long as they aren't frightened. We had other concerns. So, Xander, you should focus on their apatite. They can eat twice their own body weight, and they don't really care what they're eating. Some reports say they are very territorial against each other, although they don't seem bothered by either other demons or humans." Giles stepped out onto the front porch.

"I'm thinking this isn't the best idea," Xander said as he stood in the front hall. Oh yeah, this was monumentally a bad idea. He had an image of the face Spike would make if Xander walked out that door, and it was humongo bad idea.

"Xander, come one, we have garbage-eating pig demons to hunt," Buffy prompted from outside.

"Guys, this is..." Xander paused and sighed before saying what he really thought. "Spike is not going to be amused at me running around after killer pigs without him," Xander said as he crossed his arms.

Willow immediately came back through the door, her face a mask of misery. "Xander, you don't need his permission. Does he," she choked on the word for a second, "punish you?" Willow's voice faded to a whisper.

Xander blushed as he thought about being over Spike's lap. "Okay, sex talk from surrogate sister--so not okay. And with Giles in earshot, this is pretty much hitting all the nightmare buttons. A math book and some nakedness would make this pretty much perfectly horrifying."

Buffy stood at the open doorway, leaning against the frame. "Xander, we promise no more sex talk or even Spike talk, but we need to figure out what Blair might have done to you, so you need to show Giles the mojo thing."

"And Spike really wouldn't be okay with me wandering around out there doing the mojo thing."

"Does Spike make all your decisions now?" Buffy demanded. "I mean, how fifties-housewife can you get, Xander? You don't need permission to leave the house, and you've been slaying with me a lot longer than Spike's been souled... or gay. Come on."

Stepping forward, Willow grabbed his arm and tugged gently. "Xander, you're really worrying me, and I'd be less with the freaking if I didn't see you just going along with whatever Spike says. You weren't ever the big follow-boy, and now you won't even leave the house without permission, and you can see how not good this looks, right?" she asked.

Xander blinked at Willow in surprise. He wasn't the follow-boy? Who had she known for the last twenty-five years? "Willow, I don't always know... I get distracted. One of the vamps almost got me last night, and I've been hunting vamps a whole lot longer than I've been hunting demon pigs. I just don't think that this is such a good idea."

"Xander, do you really think I'd let you get hurt?" Buffy asked softly.

"NO! I just think I'm a little clumsy, and you think so, too. In case you guys forgot, I got banned from patrol."

"With the baby slayers," Willow said, still tugging him gently toward the door. "We just didn't want to take chances with you, but we aren't taking chances, we're just trying to figure out what's wrong, and Giles and Buffy and I will all be there."

"Guys," Xander tried, his guts knotting at the looks they all gave him. Even Giles stood behind Buffy with his disappointed face on. "If we aren't back before Spike gets home, I'm so blaming you guys," Xander relented with an eyeroll. Willow smiled, and Xander let her pull him out the door.

Chapter 9

Xander crossed the field, nearly stumbling into a plowed furrow as his shamanic sight made the real world definitely less with the real. A strong hand caught him under his arm, holding his weight as he got his feet back under him.

"Thanks, Buff. Not really up for eating dirt today," he said. "Spike is so going to kill me," he muttered softly to himself as he tilted his head and concentrated on the threads that stretched in front of him. Hunger. Endless hunger. So many threads, even from the three behind him. Willow flashed brightest, the orange-brown of hunger flashing through the other colors of her soul as he tilted his head her way. Funny. He'd never noticed just how many colors were in each thread, not really. Not until now.

He studied Willow's cord, and the colors flared and flashed like on of those optical cords that instantly transmitted the color from one end to the other. Yellow flashed so bright that Xander blinked for a second, the twisting image burned into the inside of his eyelid by the intensity.

"Do you have something?" Giles asked, and Xander shook his head, struggling away from the light show and reminding himself to never *ever* try drugs again because drugs and shamanic sight would be of the bad. Something could eat his legs and he might not notice.

"Sorry. Just a little distracted," Xander apologized as he again focused on hunger. The other colors faded and the brown-orange glowed. So much hunger, Xander realized, but not so hard to find the one he wanted. He started whistling the tune from Sesame Street, which one of these things didn't belong? Xander was betting the thick, dark orange thread that rippled with black and coiled like an overfed snake. Yep, if Giles wanted demon, Xander could give him demon.

In fact... Xander tilted his head and followed the direction of a small cluster of darker threads, thin and nearly black with hints of orange surfacing irregularly.

"Um, I think there are vamps," Xander said as he stared at the distant houses where the cords vanished.

"You can sense them?" Giles asked. "How, exactly?"

Xander sighed. "You know, the answer's not going to change just because you ask it again. I can see the cords like a faint trail. What people have in them is a thick cord, but they leave behind threads. And nearly black is usually demon, and I don't know for sure that I'm seeing vampire, but I see a group of threads heading that way. Nearly black, thin, just kind watery with orange. I'm thinking vamps."

"And what are the threads doing?" Giles prompted. Xander sighed. He knew Giles had a good memory, so the repeating thing was just huge with the annoying.

"Laying there. Like always. They move a bit if the person is really close, like they're attached, but these are just laying there, so I don't think the guys are around, which makes sense since the sun tends to keep vamps away," Xander snarked, and immediately he regretted it. Giles sighed and cleaned his glasses and Xander bit his tongue. Yep, way to prove a point, if the point was being short tempered and cranky.

"And again, I'm saying that this hunger thread is kinda big. Giles, are you sure this thing is on the harmless if not annoyed list?" Xander asked as he focused back on his original target.

"Grossar demons do have an amazing appetite, so I have no doubt that if you are able to read their life force you're identifying a significant hunger. There's a documented case of a Grossar in captivity actually secreting a digestive juice that allowed him to eat the steel bars of his cage. Certainly, that's an extreme case, but when cut off from any other food source, they are resourceful little buggers."

"If he eats my shoes, the council is replacing them out of the contingency fund," Buffy threatened, a laugh lurking under her growl.

"Yes, my primary concern here is for your shoes," Giles answered.

"Hey, maybe we could catch one of these things and dump in on a garbage heap. Insto-recycling. As much damage as demons have done, it's only fair that they chip in with the whole pollution, global-warming issue," Willow offered enthusiastically.

"Perhaps if there weren't that small side effect of eating."

"Oh god," Buffy complained. "You're talking about demon-poo aren't you? No one said anything to me about demon poo because that is one of those things that puts a demon on the list for baby-slayers to slay. Give me a good poo-less vampire any day of the week."

"Bad?" Willow asked.

"In small doses, no. The creatures tend to hide their 'poo' as you call it, probably because they are prey animals in their own dimension. The smell would no doubt warn any food that a hunter was in the area, and larger demons could track their home territories and eat them. However, when they eat large amounts of food, they do produce large amounts of rather noxious byproduct."

Funny, Xander didn't remember Giles talking so much back in the old days. Then again, the old days, Xander would have had more than a few poo jokes of his own to throw in. Now, not so much.

"Guys, we're getting close, and this is looking really kinda creepy-bad, and not in the annoying demon poo kinda way."

"Demons ahoy?" Buffy asked. Xander nodded.

"The cord is twitching, so it's close enough to the poo factory for the demon's movements to affect it, but this is..." Xander stared at the thick cord pulsing with rabid hunger and dark malevolence.

"This thing is evil."

"Hello, demon! Besides, I hate getting all dressed up with the swords and the axes and the crossbows and then not having anything to kill, so I am kinda hoping for evil." Buffy swung her sword through the air with a harsh whistling sound. "Actually, killing evil sounds so much better than killing harmless little pig-like thing."

"Yeah, but this is really big evil, bigger than vamps evil."

"I hardly think a Grossar could generate a bigger..." Giles hesitated.

"Soul or spirit or whatever this thing is I'm looking at that you think I'm not looking at?" Xander asked, and immediately, he blinked away the shamanic vision. He needed to be able to see Giles. Xander turned to Giles who had a guilty look on his face.

"Xander, I assure you that I believe you are reporting what you see quite accurately," Giles started carefully.

"But you think my vision is all with the wonky," Xander finished for him. He held up a hand to stop Giles from saying any more. "Yeah, I heard the arguments, although why someone would want to make me *think* I could track evil doesn't make much sense, but I do get that you guys are not actually trying to make me miserable. That's more like unexpected side-effect."

"Xander," Willow breathed.

"I totally get where you are with this, and with us, and if I'm wrong, I'm going to be at the head of the line for a big serving of crow with a side of 'I'll never doubt you again'," Buffy said, interrupting Willow, "but this is pretty much like when Dawn thought she was a slayer or when Tara thought she was a demon, or when I thought I was invisible and I did that thing with the Immortal, and let's not go there. And by the way, I want to know why I'm the one who keeps going see-through."

"Xander, we just want you safe," Willow added.

"You know, maybe this whole hunting the demon thing, maybe this is--" Xander started as he looked back across the field. He never got a chance to finish. The ground heaved under him, throwing him to the grass, and he heard Willow scream as she tumbled down a hill, which was odd because they were on a flat field just a second ago.

"Buffy, below us," Giles shouted, and then the ground collapsed, leaving Xander hanging for just a second, mid-air until gravity helped by slamming him back down to the ground.

"Where?" Buffy demanded, her sword still deep in the earth as she tugged on it, pulling it out as Xander's brain supplied 'Sword in the Stone' quips that he couldn't say with the breath knocked out of him.

She yanked the sword out and swiveled, her sword held defensively low as she sidestepped toward Willow who lay on the ground.

"Ow." Willow pushed herself up on one arm. "That wasn't a Grossar."

"Yes, I had figured that out," Giles said as he turned a slow circle, his crossbow sliding over the area as he backed towards Xander.

"Are you okay?" he asked. Xander lay on the ground still gasping for air. He held up the thumbs up sign.

"I might be more willing to believe that if you could actually breathe," Giles pointed out dryly.

Ignoring the lack of oxygen, Xander blinked the world away until it became the ghost image and the threads of shamanic sight took over. Cord after cord after cord lay tangled all over the landscape, and why the hell hadn't he seen this before? Xander sat up and mutely stared at the lines, most fading, some seeming to unravel, and others just disappearing into the air. All had this odd grey-yellow color that reminded Xander of runny baby poop or maybe vomited pineapple ice cream.

Something heavy slid toward his foot and then right through it, and Xander shivered in disgust.

"There," he said as he crab-walked backwards.

"Where?" Buffy asked, spinning around.

"There!" Xander pointed to a spot on the ground where the cord writhed and coiled like an agitated snake. Buffy held out a hand to Willow, pulling her up before she came forward, her sword pointed aggressively down.

"Getting warmer?" she asked as she passed Xander. He climbed to his feet with a shudder when the black coil passed right through Buffy, her own gold cord tangling with it for just a second.

"Something's sure setting off the slayer sense," she agreed.

"A little farther," Xander said, "I think. I'm not really good with this part. Usually I just get us into the right neighborhood and let Spike or Jim take over."

"Just tell me when." Buffy help inching forward.

"Warmer," Xander said. "Warmer… a little cooler, more to your right. Okay, that's pretty warm," Xander took a couple of steps closer to get a better feel for perspective. "You're hot!"

"Why, thank you, Xander," Buffy joked as she drove the sword deep. The sword crunched through the rocks and dirt before the entire ground heaved up bucked wildly. Xander went flying again, watching as Buffy clung to the sword and flopped around like a fish on a hook.

"Willow!" Buffy yelled as she got her feet under her and promptly fell to one knee. Xander looked behind him and Willow stood in the middle of a magical whirlwind, flecks of light twisting around her as she chanted.

"Some help, please," Buffy cried as a crack opened in the ground. The sword came free, and Buffy stumbled back away from the mountain that was opening under them. "Faster would be good!"

The mound of earth split in the middle, the ashy brown ground erupted from the split and spilled over like a dirt volcano. Buffy fell on her butt as the vibration rolled through the ground, and dirt immediately started piling on her feet and legs. Xander and Giles both ran stumbling to her, pulling at her arms until she could kick free and all three retreated.

Now bodies started erupting with the dirt: decaying arms and random bones and scales with slimy bits of flesh still clinging to them.

"Now you're just pissing me off," Buffy snapped as she held the sword out in front of her. Xander wondered whether the now-ruined shoes or the stench of death had pushed her over the limit, but really it didn't matter. Buffy had on her slay-face, and something was getting slayed.

Willow shouted some word Xander didn't know and white light flashed through the air. For a shining second, Xander could see under the ground as the world turned into an x-ray. Xander blinked and watched a huge form with thousands of little dash-sized bones roll under the ground away from the now silent erupted earth and away from them.

"Oh no you don't. You totally ruined these shoes," Buffy cried as she started forward. It took Xander a half second to realize everyone else could see the giant blobby blob roll under the ground. By that time, Giles had Buffy's arm and was pulling her backwards, away from the demon. Considering its size, and considering that it was moving through the ground, the thing was making pretty good time slithering away.

"Um, Giles, bad guy escaping stage left," Willow said softly, her hair now returned to the more normal red color.

"It's a Slanom. We need to get out of here."

"Giles, you're freaking me out a little. This isn't the plan. The plan definitely called for slayage," Buffy protested, but she also stood still, not even complaining even though Xander could see Giles had such a tight grip on her that he was making indents in her arm.

"We don't have weapons that would touch a Slanom."

"I could do the magic kablooy thing," Willow offered, the wind already starting to pick up.

"No!" Giles almost shouted. "No, they feed off magic."

"And demons and people and possible dogs," Xander added as he look around at the variety of rancid bits that had come spewing up with the dirt.

"Big ew," Buffy agreed. "I'm voting for throwing all our shoes away.

"We have larger concerns than shoes," Giles said with a calmness that made Xander's stomach clench. That was a bad tone of voice--a very, very, very bad tone of voice. That was scary-calm, don't panic the children tone of voice. And it had been a long time since any of them were children.

"Larger just like we need to regroup and attack it with more firepower, right?" Buffy asked, and now Xander could hear the hard edge in her voice.

"Oh goddess. Slanom. Like Pompeii Slanom. Oh goddess," Willow breathed.

"Okay, so one of us knows what's going on. Any chance you can translate for the non-collegy type guy?" Xander asked. He blinked, pulling his shamanic vision to the front as he studied the area. The throbbing cord he'd followed to the field lay on the ground like a sated snake, and Xander stepped over it.

"Xander!" Buffy yelled just as Xander felt his foot sink into something squishy and warm. The smell of rotting flesh crashed into him. "Okay, that's ew. Your shoes, socks and pants are all officially banned from the house," Buffy said quietly. "But I'm with Xander. I need the Cliff's notes version for Slamming demons."

Xander blinked away the shamanic sight and looked down at the sort of piggy leg he's stepped in. It had a claw. "I found the Grossar," Xander said quietly.

"A Slanom demon came through a portal into Pompeii. It sucked up a bunch of magic, and when someone finally killed it, it went ka-plowy," Willow said sadly. "It went major ka-plowy and made a volcano explode and a whole city was buried and thousands died."

"Including the hero who killed the demon," Giles agreed. "And the sword of Vada was lost under the ashes."

"Wait. One demon? One?" Buffy asked as Giles lead them all back across the field at a fast enough pace that Willow was doing a funny walk-run thing. "What is it with super demons? I'm really missing the days of staking a few vamps, killing a few demons, and going home to watch Family Ties."

"Buffy," Giles sighed, but then he stopped.

"Hey, one more super demon is no big deal. We kill super demons all the time, or Buffy does because I'm not really one for killing super demons," Xander tried to reassure the group.

"No, you just seem to be the one who can find them," Giles answered unhappily. Xander glanced over, but Giles had on his best poker face, the one that didn't tell Xander anything about how Giles felt about Xander's shamanic sight now that he believed in it. Biting his lip, Xander ordered himself to not say anything, to not ask for reassurance like some kid. They all had more important things to worry about than Xander's need to know that his friends didn't think he was some sort of freak.

Chapter 10

Xander walked up to the porch, trying to hide the urge to limp. The van sat under the covered porch, which meant the girls were back, which meant Spike was back, which meant Xander was suddenly very, very sorry he'd gone at all.

"Shoes off," Willow sighed tiredly, and Xander wasn't surprised. Willow had done fireballs and giant light show within twenty-four hours, so she had to be exhausted from channeling the power. Which, really, was better than when Willow had soaked up the power and it had turned her into something definitely unWillowish.

Xander leaned against the post and pulled his boots off, managing to end up with a finger covered in something gory and slimy. He wiped it off on the bushes. Would he go the way of Willow with the veins and the sudden urge to end the world, because he was voting a big old 'no' if anyone gave him a chance to vote. Somehow he didn't think Willow had voted to end the world, though. It just happened. For some people shit happened, for them, it was more the world-endage that just snuck up and happened when no one was looking.

Shoving all these thoughts to the side, Xander pulled off his socks and headed up the stairs. Three slayers Xander hadn't seen that morning came bursting out of the house. "Xander!" they all called, and then Xander was in the middle of a giant slayer hug, which would be fun with all the soft slayer parts pressed into him because he definitely still appreciated girl parts, except for the whole slayer strength.

"Breathe. I need to breathe," Xander coughed out, and they pulled back, laughing and all talking at once.

....."Nest in the tunnel..."
................"...construction worker, just went splat."
.................................."... kicked demon ass..."
..............."...Spike's waiting inside."

The last comment grabbed Xander's attention. He looked toward the darkness just inside the door.

"I can't believe you didn't tell us that you and Spike were, you know," one of the slayers, Nora, offered. "Man, I would pay money to see..." Buffy ended Nora's comment with a well placed punch to the arm the way only one slayer could hit another slayer.

"Hey, just sayin'!" Nora backed off, rubbing her arm. "Geesh, it's not like everyone else wasn't thinking it."

"I wasn't," Willow whispered almost too softly to hear. Xander turned toward her, concerned that whatever was rising up between them was threatening to split them apart. Ever since Kennedy and the ritual burning of the bedsheets, he and Willow had gotten back to the best friend, finishing each other's thoughts, always-there-for-each-other closeness, and now.... Xander sighed. Now everything was changing. Change bad.

Xander sighed as he headed up the front stairs in his bare feet. One of the slayers, Susan, started humming a death march.

"Much with the not funny," Xander muttered.

"Hey, no one's dying. Just, blaming and recriminations and possible screaming... probably," Buffy offered as she took the front stairs three at a time and headed for the front door.

Xander turned to see Giles looking at him, clearly concerned, and Xander straightened his shoulders. He wasn't afraid of Spike; he just... was terrified of that disappointed look Spike sometimes got. Yeah, terror was ever so much easier to face than plain old fear for his life... or not. Xander walked heavily into the house.

Even being prepared, Xander couldn't help yelping when a hand snagged his arm and jerked him into the shadow.

"Spike!" Xander said as if anyone else would be angry enough to drag him into the study.

"Of all the daft, bloody idiotic things you have ever done," Spike snarled.

Xander opened his mouth to defend himself, but he found himself standing in the corner of the room looking at Spike's back as Spike snarled the words at Buffy.

"Hey, I'm a slayer, I went to slay, it's what I do," she said, not looking worried, exactly, but looking over Spike's shoulder, Xander could see that wasn't exactly her 'in the right here' look either.

"Bloody fucking hell. You're the one who banned him from patrol in the first place!"

Xander looked at Buffy in surprise. He had always thought Giles was the one who went all paternal, but from the guilty flinch, it really had been Buffy.

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence there, Buff," Xander said with just a little bitterness. It was one thing for Giles to go all overprotective because Giles was like a father... or maybe the uncle who frowned disapprovingly when you ate with your hands at the dinner table, but to have your own friends shove you into fray-adjacent land hurt.

Willow stood at the door, and she jumped in before Buffy could answer. "Xander, you were getting hurt too much... and we almost lost you in Africa. When that doctor called, he said..." Willow stopped, and Xander could feel the urge to go and comfort her, but he could also feel Spike's back keeping him trapped in the corner. "We're protecting you," Willow finished.

"You bloody well didn't protect him," Spike snapped as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Hey, I'm fine," Xander hurried to say as he stood up on both legs, ignoring the twinge in his lower back that suggested his right leg really didn't want to put weight on his right side. He'd definitely hit the ground harder than he thought.

"Pet, shut up."

"I think that is quite enough. Xander simply accompanied us on a hunt for Grosser demons, and your blustering does not change the fact that he had every right to do so," Giles said tiredly as he came in and dropped into one of the chairs. Willow stayed near the door to the hall, and Xander could see Yi's face peeking around the edge of the frame. Nora was behind her.

"Understand this, mate. The boy's mine. You lot have no bloody idea what it means to protect him. In case you haven't noticed, when he's using his sight, he doesn't bloody see the real world. Did you think about that when you dragged him out there without even enough back up to handle a fucking demon pig?" Spike demanded.

Xander could see Giles' back go stiff. Oh yeah, this was so not good... Monumentally not good.

"Xander, you can't see? Really? Is that why you stepped in the pig pieces? Oh goddess, Xander, I'm sorry," Willow stepped forward and Spike spared her a quick glare before returning the full blast of his glare on Giles.

"You don't bloody take him out without me."

"Xander is an adult. And I am quickly becoming concerned at the tone you are taking with this. Whatever you two engage in within the confines of your bedroom is one thing, but attempting to manipulate Xander is beyond the scope of that. I am uncomfortable permitting that sort of manipulation," Giles snapped back as he stood up, his anger flashing across his face as he stepped toward Spike.

"Permitting? You don't bloody permit me to do anything. Where the soddin' hell are you when the slayers need trainin' or when they come home dragging their sorry arses after nearly getting eaten? You're turning into the same sort of useless lump of flesh all the others turned into. At least Wesley died fighting instead of drinkin' himself to death behind some desk like a bloody Watcher."

"Oh goddess," Willow breathed. "Okay, mister, that was way past the rules of fair fighting. We all went to that seminar and we all promised to always fight fair, and that... that was not fair."

"Not fighting, just speaking some truths and setting some boundaries," Spike said with a smirk that made Xander think he needed to do something fast.

"Does it occur to anyone else we should probably be more worried about the people-eating slug. Anything that eats people is on the not-good list, and right now, that not-good trumps the not-goods that are so not good here," Xander suggested as he tried to slip out of the corner. Spike turned yellow eyes on him.

"The wot?" he asked, his thickening accent setting off little alarms in the back of Xander's head... big alarms... big screaming alarms with matching lights that flashed and strobed. Spike never had gotten over the whole Giles and Woods trying to kill him thing, and why did Xander really not even consider that until now? Xander cursed his brain's ability to flush the most important parts down the drain while remembering the name of the techies who worked the bridge on Babylon Five. He was as bad as Andrew.

"The big slug... only it had bones, and slugs technically don't, and guess what? Giles is definitely on board with the me as a Shaman," Xander ended with a strained smile. Oh this was so going down like the Titanic.

"Grossar don't look much like slugs."

Giles made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a snort. "I had noticed. We asked Xander to try tracking a Grossar and he overshot the mark and managed to locate a small Slanom demon."

"That was small?" Buffy immediately demanded, but Xander was more concerned about Spike who had covered the length of the room in a blink and now stood chest to chest with Giles.

"You fucking took him to hunt a Slanom?"

"Time out. We're all just on the cranky side, so just put the fangs away," Xander said as he stepped forward. He pulled on Spike's arm, and for a second, Spike was as immovable as a stone. Finally, Spike yielded, backing off a step and slipping an arm around Xander's waist to pull him close. "I should rip your bollocks off for that stunt," Spike said quietly, but Giles was not going to be intimidated. He had his own cranky face on.

"Enough. I did not take any of them hunting a Slanom. The existence of one in this dimension is totally unexpected, but we also have to consider that finding the demon now before it grows could save thousands of lives."

"Okay, that's the second time you've said that. Do you mean that thing is the baby version of a Slanom?" Buffy interrupted the brewing fight.

"It's a small one based only on the reports from the Watcher in Pompeii who sent some records out with a slave before getting buried with the rest of the town.

"Great. Bad intel, huge demons devouring stuff from beneath, and a missing magical weapon. Is anyone else getting the creepy been-here, done-this feeling or is it just me?" Buffy asked the room.

"So not just you. I'm thinking this isn't the best time to go after each other," Xander nodded his agreement. "Although the going after each other is feeling deja-vu-ish, too," Xander pointed out. Last time, they had all turned on Buffy, but this time, Xander wasn't sure exactly who was getting turned on. This felt more like a free-for-all.

Giles sighed. "At least Xander's inadvertent tracking has given us warning that it is here. We should create a passive spell, something that will react to the passage of the beast so that we can track its movements without feeding it any more magical energy. Since that species is of limited intelligence, clearly someone else has opened a portal and forced the creature through." Giles had his curious voice, the one that suggested research and long nights with much coffee.

"So, this isn't the taking over and setting up the big fancy court of people-eating sycophants?" Xander asked, happy to see the whole conversation move toward safer topics like uberdemons and Armageddon.

Spike shook his head. "It'd take somethin' big to get them to come into our dimension. We've got too much bloody gravity for them."

"Oh! Barophobia!" Buffy exclaimed. Everyone turned to look at her. "Barophobia, the fear of gravity, which seems a little strange because that's like having a fear of breathing with the not being able to get away from it." Buffy glanced at Spike. "Except... you know."

"Barophobia?" Xander asked slowly. Buffy mock-glared at him and for a half second, and the whole world seemed to fit together exactly the way it did before Africa, before they'd lost Tara and the darkness had threatened to swallow all of them. Xander smiled, and Buffy's lips twitched.

"What? I can know stuff," Buffy defended herself with exaggerated indignation. She shrugged. "It was on Jeopardy. You know, Giles, I'd learn a lot more about demons and prophesies if you'd just play that Jeopardy music when you talk. Da-da-Da-da-Da-da-dum..." Buffy trailed off into humming the tune.

"We need to banish the demon back to its own dimension before it feeds on enough magic, or local livestock, to grow into a real threat," Giles said, completely ignoring Buffy's suggestion, but then he was ignoring Spike's glares too, so Xander counted that as a score for the team of Buffy and Xander versus the cranky-Scoobies.

"I'm really sorry. I didn't know that the magic would feed it. It was just a reveal spell," Willow offered.

"We're quite lucky you didn't try to destroy the demon. That would have fed it considerably more energy. And, of course, we're lucky that Xander did lock onto the demon even if it wasn't quite what we were expecting."

"See, I told you Giles was down with the Shaman thing now," Xander pointed out, desperate to get them to agree about something before Spike did something with his fangs other than growl.

"Yes, I think we have to accept that Xander has some ability, but your assumption that he is an animus Shaman is hasty to say the least. I saw nothing that wouldn't be explained if Xander were a conspic Shaman, and that would actually fit Caleb's statement far more accurately," Giles offered. Spike's body stiffened at the second half of the comment, and Xander gave a grunt when the arm around him cut off his air. Spike relaxed his arm, but he stayed in game face as he focused on Giles.

"Not bloody likely. If he were a lower-level Shaman, he could have accessed his powers before."

"And if he were an animus Shaman, he would require far more training," Giles said with obvious frustration.

"'Cept for the fact that the fuzzy little Shaman in Cascade is a trado Shaman."

"Whoa!" Buffy held up her hand as Giles was ready to snap back a retort. "Okay, I'm getting that feeling that I used to have in high school. You know, where everyone else knows all the words and you don't?"

"I'm getting that feeling, too, and since they're talking about me, it's kinda freaky," Xander agreed. "Can we either take a break so I can copy Willow's homework or maybe someone can explain in words I'll understand?" Xander asked.

"Sorry, pet. Just got my knickers in a twist."

"Yes, you have," Giles agreed softly, and Spike shot him a death glare that would have sent a weaker man running.

"There are Shaman in my support group," Willow said from her spot rooted near the doorway. Xander flinched at the reminder that Shaman, like witches, sometimes went off the magical deep end and needed support groups. Why couldn't he be a nice little drug addict who messed his own life up? Nope, he had to go for the superpower upgrade with the potential for world endage.

Willow took a step into the room. "Shaman can be really big on the mojo scale, or they can be low-level. One of the guys in the group, his brother is a gustatus Shaman, which is sorta of the cool because he influences taste, and everyone in the family thought the Shaman gene had skipped him, only he has this job making food that people pay way too much money for, and it turns out he was doing the whammy on his food the whole time without even knowing it. Lower level Shaman don't even need training they just sort of do stuff."

"So, I'm not necessarily all that powerful?" Xander asked, almost hopeful because he could handle being a little less on the scarily powerful side.

Giles had taken off his glasses, but now he slipped them back on as he nodded. "You've accessed your power without formal training, which suggests you're a lower level Shaman, perhaps a conspic Shaman who can perceive the hidden or true nature of things, which is by no means an inconsiderable skill."

Spike snorted. "Not bloody likely," he snapped. "If Xand were a lower-level Shaman, he would have been able to access his power a whole lot sooner."

"And according to you, he was. According to you, he was drawn to evil back in high school," Giles said tightly, crossing his arms.

"Bloody hell. Just admit that ya fucked up and never noticed that he needed training and call it a day, Rupert. I'm bloody tired of having this same argument." Spike stepped forward again, and Xander clutched at his vampire's arm, as if that would actually help if Spike actually did decide to go off the cow blood diet, not that Xander really thought he would, but that wasn't a good face Spike was making.

"Okay, I offered to eat a big plate of crow and never doubt Xander again after the whole not believing him in the first place," Buffy shrugged. "So, Xander, what kind of Shaman are you?" she asked. She dropped onto the couch and tried for a relaxed pose, one arm thrown over the back of the couch, but Xander could see the way she watched, ready to jump in if Giles and Spike actually did decide to go at it. Oh yeah, he was so not the only one who thought this was going down like the Titanic.

Xander looked at Buffy for a second. "You're asking me? I was the one who sat in the back row and copied Willow's notes with you. I am so not the one to ask," Xander finally answered.

"A conspic Shaman would see things others wouldn't, but this could still be a spell," Willow offered. "If you're copying my notes, I would definitely have 'spell' written in there... several times... highlighted," she added the last part quietly. "But if he's lower level..."

"He's a higher-level Shaman," Spike nearly yelled.

"Your argument assumes Mr. Sandburg is a trado Shaman," Giles countered.

"Trado Shaman mojo the teaching," Xander added for Buffy.

"Whoa. You mean they just magically make the stuff fit in your head?" she asked with a smile that was just a little too wide and a voice just a little too bright. Xander couldn't blame her for trying to lighten the mood a little. Hell, if his funny bone hadn't gone missing, he'd be doing the joking thing. Instead he just nodded in answer to her question. "Can we hire some trado Shaman?" Buffy turned to Giles with a hopeful expression. Giles just sighed.

"I was bloody there. He's either a trado Shaman or a peto Shaman. Could feel the pull," Spike snapped at Giles. In a softer voice, he added, "Peto influence what other people want."

"So, Blair might be making me want to be a Shaman?" Xander said uncertainly. "Um, that's not working for me because I'm really not okay with being a Shaman and I'm definitely not with the wanting," Xander said. Spike stopped and looked at him for a second. "Well, except for that," Xander added as he realized that being a Shaman is what brought him to Spike. Even now, Spike's demon probably wouldn't want Xander except for the whole Shaman-power thing, and Xander definitely wanted to be wanted.

"Oh! There are spells! If you don't want this, I know I've seen spells," Willow offered, sounding suddenly more cheerful.

"Wills, I'm voting 'no' on the binding," Buffy jumped in while Spike took a breath that he was clearly about to use to verbally explode into cursing. "Okay, enough with the Shaman-talk. I reserve the right to still be a little freaked over the whole Xander sleeping with the undead part, but the rest.... just let it go, people. Xander's a Shaman; we don't know what kind. Xander, welcome to the freaky club, as the president of the freakish, I don't recommend the retirement plan, but the working hours... okay, they officially suck too," Buffy said with a shrug. "So, speaking of sucky working hours, don't we kinda need to work here? I mean, big slug-like thing eating people, I'm voting for killing it."

"Just leave Xander out of it. You send me off on another wild goose chase so you can talk him into some scheme, and I promise, the lot of you'll be sorry."

And yep, the almost end to the fight was almost over, Xander realized.

"Hey, Xander can demon pig hunt if he wants!" Willow now jumped in. "He's a grown man, and yeah, he's been a little issue-y lately, but we're his friends, which means we are officially allowed to help with issues."

"Yeah, because you lot are really good with that," Spike snorted sarcastically. "That's why Buffy went to you lot when ya dragged her out of heaven."

The room fell silent. A couple of baby slayers still hovered near the door, and one of them gasped. Xander couldn't even look at his girls; he dropped his eyes to the floor and studied the tiles. The grout needed cleaning. That was grungy grout.

"I... I was trying to save her. We thought she was trapped in a hell dimension, and it's not like you were big with the helping to stop the evil that came to town to drink and party and celebrate her death by eating the townspeople." Willow crossed her arms.

"Willow, listen to me very carefully," Spike said, his accent dropping into Giles-territory. Xander looked up at him in alarm because Spike with Giles-voice usually meant something was going very, very wrong. Spike took a step forward, away from Xander and toward Willow. "You bloody touch him, you put one spell on him, and I will kill you," Spike said quietly.

"Oh no, no, we will not issue death threats. What? Don't we have enough bad guys out there? Slamming demons threatening to go ka-boom, remember?" Buffy leapt up so she stood between Spike and Willow, looking from one to the other. Xander chewed his lip but he couldn't come up with any joke that could fix this. Hell, he'd settle for a joke that would just distract people, but the jokes were failing him. Yep, he couldn’t joke and Buffy's jokes were obviously not doing the job.

"I can't believe.... Don't you dare say that like you need to protect Xander from me," Willow cried, her voice caught somewhere between weeping and shouting. Xander noticed the baby slayers retreating from the hallway. Yep, those were smart girls; they knew when to run for the hills. He considered following them.

"I should have bloody protected Buffy. I didn't though. Got so caught up in my own loss that I didn't even notice what you gits were trying to do. I would have stopped it. I'm not going to be that bloody blind again, so consider this your warning." Spike's voice was so calm, so matter-of-fact, that Xander could feel the cold shivers crawl down his spine. Warning delivered, Spike backed up, his arm going around Xander's waist again.

"Xander?" Willow asked softly, her eyes turning toward him with the Willow pout.

"What about those Clippers?" Xander asked weakly, as he tried to focus on just how much the grout totally needed to be cleaned. Would bleach or Soft Scrub work better on those stains?

"Oh yeah, subtle," Buffy sighed. "The past is behind you, so let's all take to heart those great words of wisdom and Hakuna Matata. Only, not really because I think we should probably discuss the big bad. So, Giles, what's the game plan for killing great big blobby magic-eating demon?"

"Considering how long it's been since anyone had to kill one, this may require some research."

"Oh joy," Buffy sighed.

"You lot do your research. Boy and I need to have a little talk," Spike said as he pulled on Xander, guiding him from the room. Xander watched Willow's mouth come open, but Buffy stepped to her side, putting a hand on her arm, and Willow closed it without saying anything. She just looked at Xander with those big eyes that made Xander feel like the slug because he didn't know how to fix things... not without losing the one thing that made sense to him now. Spike's arm tightened and Xander let his lover guide him from the room.

Chapter 11

Xander stayed silent all the way up their room. Africa had taught Xander how to be quiet; he could totally do quiet, he just usually didn't. Now, following Spike's stiff back, he couldn't have found anything to say if the Slanom demon had shown up waving a white flag and drinking a margarita. Not to say that demons didn't normally drink margaritas because Xander knew plenty of demons who went for the fruity goodness, but the Slanom didn't strike him as the umbrella in his drink sort.

"Can't believe you bloody went off like that," Spike said as opened the bedroom door. He stood to the side and waited as Xander slipped past him.

"I can. I'm not always big with the clear thinking."

"Oi, had nothing to do with clear thinking. That was a bloody set up. I should've known when Willow came and got me without wakin' you. That was a bloody set up, and we both fell for it like a couple of morons."

"Um, isn't that the same as..." Xander stopped when Spike gave him an evil glare. Yep, officially not the time to point out the lack of vampire logic what with the absence of clear thinking being pretty much the same as them being morons.

"Hey, that means you aren't mad at me, right?" Xander changed the subject as he wandered to the tall dresser and turned around to give Spike his best puppy eyes.

"Not bloody likely. I'm fucking furious," Spike said, but the voice was quiet. Xander waited, chewing his lip, as Spike just stood near the door, his fingers randomly curling and uncurling at his sides. Furious plus quiet equaled disappointment, and Xander felt his guts twist.

"I'm sorry," Xander offered softly as Spike started pacing the room and finally ended up staring out the window.

"I told you to stay put, to not go out without me. We had this conversation before we ever left Cascade, yes?" Spike asked the words so calmly that Xander could almost lie to himself about the anger coursing just under the surface. Almost.

"Yeah," Xander agreed, biting back the urge to make a joke out of it. He wasn't a kid. He didn't need permission, only... he kinda did. Spike had been clear like glass about the whole ownership part of dating a demon, and clear like clear glass, not even the frosted stuff.

"You didn't even tell 'em that you couldn't see."

"I can see," Xander quickly defended himself. Xander picked at a thumbnail as he watched Spike's back. If Spike didn't want him... Xander sighed. Well, he'd been the third wheel before, and at least with Blair and Jim he was the useful third wheel. Hey, he could be like the tricycle, only tricycles and grown men didn't really match, and Xander really didn't think Jim was the tricycle sort. Now Blair.... The room had fallen silent, and Xander focused his gaze on Spike who looked at him with a cocked head and a blank expression. Xander set his jaw and promised himself to not get all emotional. Hell, after he left Anya at the altar, he deserved this. He hoped she was up in heaven getting a kick out of it because the other option just made his stomach churn even more.

"Yeah? So, that first night we came, you saw the vampire who tackled you to the ground, and you, what... just decided ta stand there and see what happened when he ate ya?" Spike almost snarled the words, and Xander had to fight a little instinct that whispered about prey and predators and running for his life.

"Okay, so I'm not totally good with seeing. It's more like looking at a ghost version, but I can still see... kinda," Xander defended himself.

"I'm going to bloody eat Red," Spike growled as he turned back to the window. "Her and Rupert... probably get fucking indigestion," he muttered.

"Spike, you don't get it," Xander said quietly. Part of his gut just said to throw himself at Spike and beg forgiveness and another part said he needed to make Spike and Willow be friends again and another part just wanted to let Spike tell him how to handle it because Xander didn't have the energy to make the decisions any more. He didn't want to be decision-boy for anything more important than what kind of donuts to pick for breakfast. And all the parts were turning into some seriously rolling guts.

Xander sighed, feeling the ulcer eat through his stomach. "Our parents, big with the not there. And me and Willow were there for each other way before you or Buffy, and sometimes it was me and Jesse, and Willow was this weird girl who actually brought a stethoscope when Jesse wanted to play doctor, but there was me and there was Willow. And then it was me and Willow and Buffy, and when Buffy ran away or..." Xander swallowed. "Or when Buffy died, it was me and Willow. And yeah, you were right there, but..."

"I get it, pet," Spike said quietly as Xander fell silent, struggling to pull his thoughts together.

Xander blinked, pulling at the Shaman vision that hovered always at the edge of his awareness now. The bed and the walls faded and the cords danced into his vision. When he looked at Spike, Xander could see the black cords of the demon cording and knotting, stretching out toward him only to grow tangled in Spike's soul and snap back. At the center, Spike had become a storm of colors, and his normally dark green and maroon demon cord had grown nearly black, soaking up the colors from Spike's soul and reflecting nothing back.

Xander flinched when he realized that he had done this... he had created the big old knotty mess where once Spike's soul and demon twined together. Stepping forward, he let his hand rest on Spike's arm.

"She's lost so much, and I know I gave her the wiggins when I nearly got taken out by a plain, old non-demony virus, or is malaria a bacteria? Anyway, she just needed something stable."

"So, you give her the Xander she knew, what, five or six years ago? Bloody hell, Xand, this part you're playin' when you're around them, it's not who you are any more."

"Hey, it is too. This is me. Trust me, I suck at acting. We had to do this thing in high school. It included costumes and lack of talent, and it was so totally ugly, so me and acting are not best buds. This is me. It's just that I don't always want to go emotionally vomiting on them and some of the stuff from Africa, some of the stuff from before Africa, it's vomit. It's like 'The Exorcist' level of emotional projectile vomiting. And I don't want to vomit and then have to look at the chunks because that's a little gross, even when we're talking metaphor here."

"So, you just let the vomit back up instead of takin' a risk that Red might not be able to handle a version of you that doesn't need her to wipe your nose for you?"

"Way too much bodily function talk," Xander whispered. He wished he could disagree with Spike, argue that he wasn't afraid of how Willow would react. He couldn't. He and Spike were standing side by side in front of the window, but Spike continued to stare out over the property. The last of the setting sun had vanished so the pale light from the walkway lanterns created pools of yellow in the dark garden. Xander chewed his lip.

"Ya can't be mine and hers," Spike said quietly.

"I love you. I just... I can't abandon Willow," Xander said softly. Yep, this would be the point where Spike pulled a quick 'exit, stage left' and Xander tried to pick up the pieces. "Spike, I just... I don't know how to explain it."

"I'm not a moron," Spike said as he finally looked at Xander, and the snarled soul-cords undulated through the ghost image of Spike. "It comes down to you and Red bein' so bloody co-dependent that you can't shite without her wiping her arse."

"Co-dependent?" Xander asked incredulously. He'd braced himself for Spike kicking him out, even though it was technically Xander's room, and he'd braced for ugly breakups or demon-Spike taking back ownership. He hadn't braced himself for the Oprah Winfrey impersonation.

Spike scowled at him. "Yes, bloody co-dependent. She's lost everyone she loved, including nearly losing you, and now Buffy's off having a life and Rupert's off not havin' a life, so you make her feel better by lettin' her boss you around. But I don't share, pet. Ya can't tell me that you're mine and then go lettin' her walk all over you. It makes the demon..." Spike stopped, turning to stare out the window.

"I'm guessing the demon doesn't think that the doormat look is in this season?" Xander tried for a joke; neither of them laughed.

"Makes me want to bloody eat someone," Spike admitted, his voice strained.

"I vote 'no' on the eating of random bystanders."

"Wasn't planning on eating bystanders," Spike pointed out dryly as he glanced over. Xander felt a cold chill go through him, the memory of Spike's threat still bouncing around his memory. Willow's face had gone white, so Xander wasn't the only one who thought that sounded just a little too realistic.

"Pet, my soul loves you; never doubt that," Spike said slowly. "But my demon needs to own you. Ya do something like this, and I feel this..." Spike stopped. He tilted his head toward Xander, and his jaw was clenched tightly. Xander had never seen this side of Spike. Spike was always the verbal sort. He yelled and shouted and said whatever crossed his mind when it crossed his mind with no editing.

"I'm sorry. I'm big with the sorry," Xander whispered. "And whatever you do, I know I deserve it because I'm big with the sorry and the stupid," Xander finished.

"Whatever I do? Is that what ya want? You want me to put you over my knee and punish you for being so bloody stupid?" Spike looked at him curiously, but Xander could see the demon cord straining out toward him, coiling and flailing in a way that didn't match the cool, detached interest on Spike's face.

Xander chewed his lip and just barely avoided pointing out that it would have to be mutual spankings because Spike had fallen for it too. "When you spanked me at the hotel..." Xander stopped. He could feel the blush start to heat his face, and he glanced up at Spike. He just stared back. Yeah, no rescue there, Xander thought as he dropped his eyes back to the floor. Okay, he was a grown man; he could talk about this without giving himself heart failure or dying from the blush.

"The whole one-word rule was just kinda silly, so getting spanked for breaking the rule..." Xander took a deep breath. "You punishing me for that was like a forfeit on a game. It was fun. But getting spanked over this would be a little too much like you were my father or something, and if the demon needs it to get past the anger, I'm okay with that, but it's not something I really want. And it's not that I think you would hurt me, because I know you wouldn't, but kinda ew on thinking of you like a father figure because fathers and sex should never be in the same sentence. But if you want to spank me..." Xander shrugged. He'd done far weirder for his partners, especially after Anya and her experiments with citrus fruit.

Spike started pacing the room, and Xander leaned against the wall and watched him. Spike paused. Fingers pulled out a cigarette and lit it before he started pacing again, this time trailed by wisps of smoke. The silence thickened, and Xander dug fingernails into the wood of the windowsill as he waited for something, some sign that he hadn't just completely ruined what he'd found with Spike. The vampire paused near the dresser and ground the cigarette out in the ashtray even though he hadn't even smoked half of it.

"If ya were mine, you wouldn't have gone out there," Spike said quietly.

"Hey, I said I'm yours, not that I suddenly grew a brain or a backbone. Okay," Xander quickly added when Spike turned toward him with a snarl, "I have a brain, just not one that works well when faced with Willow pout. I've been trained since kindergarten to yield to the power of Willow eyes. And Giles was all being reasonable man, and Buffy was looking at me like I was the main character in an after-school special about brainwashing and then the Willow pout. There was definitely Willow pout going on. Lots and lots of pout. Spike, I am yours. I'm all yours. I just fuck up a lot, and when they look at me like that, I'm pretty much guaranteed to fuck up. And yeah, looking back, that was a huge fuck up because I should have told them about my trouble seeing, and I should have waited until we could go out together."

"When I saw... I want to..." Spike stopped, but Xander could see the black cord straining at Spike's control, loops of it stretching out toward Xander like a lasso that would pull him close.

"Tie me to the bed and never let me up?" Xander suggested. Spike looked at him without emotion.

"Doesn't start ta cover it, pet," Spike said slowly.

"I get that. Actually, I wouldn't mind getting some of that. I'm so tired of never knowing what to do or who to disappoint or how to avoid some disaster that ends with dead people. I shouldn't have dead people disasters. I think I liked construction work because a disaster there meant the wrong bolts got ordered and we lost a day of work. So, maybe I need to just let go," Xander said quietly.

"Pet." Spike stopped and ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip while the demon cord thrashed. "Demon is screaming about making sure you never do this again--about keeping you chained, beating you when you fuck up, making you crawl at my feet and beg for your food until you bloody remember whose you are. Demon wants to own you so that you never have a thought except the one I bloody put in you. You're playin' with fire, and I can't keep bloody doing it. I warned you that the demon wants to own or be owned. And when you promise yourself and then go and nearly get yourself killed because those gits..." Spike stopped again, his eyes firmly fixed on the wall. Xander had never seen Spike at such a loss for words. "Get out," Spike ordered, his voice tight with control, but Xander could see the chaos within him.

Xander chewed his lip as he stood and watched Spike, the demon curling around the soul like one python trying to swallow another. Instead of leaving, Xander shrugged off his shirt and let it fall to the floor. The shoes and pants went next, and then the underwear. Vamp hearing meant that Spike had to know what Xander was doing, but he didn't react. He just stared at the bedroom wall, one hand resting on the tall dresser.

Padding quietly across the room, Xander sank to his knees at Spike's feet. "I really want..." Xander stopped. "I want you," he admitted quietly, the pain in his chest making words skitter away from him as he tried to figure out what to say. "The whole hungry and brainwashed is sounding like a big old 'no,' but I want you.

"Pet." Spike's voice had no emotion; it was a flat warning that Xander chose to ignore as he waited.

Xander recognized the familiar fear that clung to his heart. He'd eaten scorpions' tails in Africa with this same fear. He'd gone back to his tent and waited for the poison to kill him. Yeah, the elders had laughed and promised that the tails were safe, but Xander hadn't believed them because... hello... poison tails. He'd laid on a cot in the dark half the night before he finally gave up waiting for death and let himself fall asleep. It had worked out for him that time, and he'd found a slayer. He ordered his stomach to not turn inside out and prayed for an equally good result this time.

"You bloody idiot. Ya know you're supposed to get out of the way when some demon's furious, right?" Spike asked, but Xander could feel the wave of emotion, the anger and violence crest and recede as Spike shook his head in disbelief. The demon cord unwrapped from Spike's soul and stretched toward Xander, sinking through his skin and leaving cool tracks behind.

"Wisdom straight from the dead guy's mouth," Xander joked, "but I'm more the kind for wandering after demons, or having them wander after me, or just something else vaguely demon-magnetty. But maybe we could do the tying to the bed and ravishing instead of the crawling at the feet because my knees won't take much crawling," Xander suggested as he looked up at Spike. In fact, his knees were already complaining that hardwood floors were not for kneeling.

"Right, up on the bed then," Spike ordered as he suddenly snapped into motion. He pulled a strange box out from under the bed as Xander scrambled to obey. His knees already had twin red circles. "Thought I'd save these for when we had more privacy, but no time like the present, pet." Spike sounded more cheerful even as the familiar clinking of chains warned Xander what Spike had in the box. "Need ta put in some rings in the wall, right into the stud, something to chain you to, but we can improvise for right now."

"Okay, I'm voting for locking the door now," Xander suggested as long lengths of chain appeared followed by substantial looking leather cuffs: thick, black ones with two heavy buckles on each one.

"Yeah, probably should," Spike answered without leaving his spot on the floor. He grabbed the heavy cuffs and stood up. "On your stomach, pet."

"We are so getting caught," Xander whispered, but he flipped over onto his stomach and stretched his hands to the sides of the large bed. He watched as Spike buckled the heavy cuff around his wrist. Now, the demon cord and soul cord mirrored each other, each stretching out toward Xander and then rolling back. Spike walked around the bed with the other cuff, and Xander blinked away the Shamanic vision. With the one eye missing it was harder to watch Spike buckle the cuff around Xander's left hand.

"Stay put," Spike ordered with a brief slap to Xander's naked butt.

"Just as long as the door stays closed," Xander answered as Spike went back for the chains. He used a padlock to attach one end to the cuff ring, which meant that Xander couldn't unbuckle the cuff without the key. Part of Xander cringed at the thought of getting caught. His cock just started thickening as it caught up with the idea of just how helpless he was going to be in a few minutes.

Spike flung the other end of the chain under the bed with a slithering rattle of metal against wood and then he walked around.

"So not good on the floors," Xander complained weakly as Spike picked up the end and used another padlock to attach a link to Xander's left cuff. Now his hands were spread to the sides of the bed and there was absolutely nothing he could do. Xander curled his hands into fists and pulled with all his strength. Nothing budged.

"Don't give a rat's arse about the floors," Spike answered as he reached up and slipped the eyepatch off. Xander flinched a little as a thumb stroked the side of his face with the ruined socket.

"Why didn't ya get glass eye, pet?" Spike asked curiously. Xander went to shrug, but he didn't have enough slack to do it.

"Didn't seem as important as the potential world endage going on at the time. I looked into it later and the doctor said something about bone degrading and needing reconstructive surgery to get the eye to sit right. Didn't seem worth it."

"Should've said something. A healer can't put the eye back, but he could repair the bone so you could get a glass eye if that's what you want," Spike said, his thumb now stroking the cheekbone under the scar.

"You think I should?"

"Do you want to?" Spike countered.

"Um, hello. I creep all the kids out in the store, either that or they want me to take the patch off so they can look at the scar, which creeps me out. I'm thinking there's not really a good reason for not getting it fixed. Nope. No reasons."

"It's a scar just like the one through my eyebrow. Reminds you that you survived. Other people being gits isn't really a reason to change."

"Okay, you chained me up to talk about the eye?" Xander asked in desperation. Spike smirked as he ran his hand down Xander's arm to the leather cuff.

"Could if I wanted. We agreed that I'm the boss here, right?"

"I'm going to be so sorry I said this, but, yeah, you're the boss," Xander agreed.

"Should make ya say master," Spike said with an eyebrow wiggle.

"If it got me sex or the door locked, I would," Xander promised. Spike laughed.

"Wait here." Spike headed for the door, pulling it open.

"HEY!"

But Spike was gone. Xander could hear him stomp to the top of the stairs. "Oi, boy and I need some privacy, so don't come storming up no matter how much screamin' ya hear," he yelled down."

Xander buried his face in his pillow as Spike's footsteps came back and the door slammed, this time followed by the sound of the lock sliding into place.

"Subtle," Xander said with a roll of his eye.

"Ya got your locked door and some privacy," Spike countered, but Xander could hear the laughter just under the mock indignation.

"You're evil."

"Sometimes, pet. Comes with havin' a demon, I suppose," Spike answered with far more seriousness than Xander really wanted. He wanted the smirking Spike who would drive him crazy. Instead, Spike got a serious look on his face as he came to the side of the bed and stroked Xander's back gently. "I don't go brooding about it like Peaches, but I feel that pull."

"If we're talking about Angel, I so want to be unchained because chains and Angel are not a good combination for my libido."

This time, Spike laughed. "Oi, ya should see what that great sod can do with chains when he puts his mind to it. Sometimes it wasn't even half bad."

"No no nonono. You are not playing fair here," Xander complained as he pulled against the restraints.

"That's the fun thing about being master, I don't have to," Spike answered. He let his fingers trail over Xander's back and down to his butt where he delivered a slap. "Up on your knees."

"Kinda hard all tied up like this," Xander pointed out without moving. Hands caught his hips, pulling him up and Xander pulled his knees under him with a yelp.

"See, no problem, pet. If ya want, I can tie your feet there to make sure you leave 'em where I put 'em," Spike offered cheerfully.

"Hey, I'm okay. Well, not as okay as totally exposed, slightly disturbed by the Angel conversation and horny, but definitely not in need of more chains," Xander quickly assured him.

"Hush. Don't want to gag that lovely mouth of yours, but I will," Spike said as he circled the bed, reaching out to brush a finger over a hip and then a calf and then a shoulder until Xander's whole body twitched with a need for that touch. Even without the Shamanic vision, Xander could feel Spike's calm amusement.

When Spike pulled a toy out of the box that had held the chains, Xander groaned.

"Now, pet, that's one," Spike warned with a smirk as he held up the large vibrator. Xander tuned his face to the pillow to smother another groan as Spike turned it on, letting the cool plastic rest against his thigh. "I figure you need to remember why you're mine and this should be a nice little lesson."

Chapter 12

Spike trailed the vibrator over Xander's thigh, the cool plastic shivering a trail over the bare skin as Xander groaned into the pillow where he'd buried his face.

"That's two," Spike said cheerfully. Xander turned his head so he could glare at Spike, but just as he turned, Spike flipped the vibrator on, and chills danced up Xander's spine.

"Fuck," Xander breathed as Spike pressed the vibrator to his ass for a brief second, making his whole body twitch with heat and need.

"Oi, that's good for two. Earnin' yourself quite the spanking," Spike said cheerfully, moving the toy up Xander's back as he sat on the edge of the bed.

"Spike," Xander said, caught between the ocean of lust and need pounding against his thoughts and the little trickle of fear that nagged at him.

"Shh. You're safe, pet. I promised you I wouldn't ever hurt you. Like you said, it's a game. Mind you, you're losing right now, but then asking you to be quiet is pretty much a guarantee you're going to lose." Spike ran his fingernails lightly over Xander's raised ass, and Xander opened his mouth to gasp for air that seemed to be in suddenly short supply. When Spike trailed the vibrator down back over his hole and then to the underside of his cock, Xander jerked against the chains and shouted.

"One more, so that's what, six?"

"Five," Xander corrected him with a desperate gasp.

"Six, now," Spike said with a smug grin, and Xander barely clamped his teeth over a response that would have earned him a dozen more. Spike continued his torment, turning off the vibration as hands brushed and stroked and lightly scratched until Xander squirmed and wiggled his knees apart.

"My pretty pet," Spike crooned a half second before Xander felt the tongue at his hole, teasing the sensitive skin.

"Oh God," Xander cried.

"Seven and eight," Spike said, the words sending puffs of air against the damp skin. Xander could only bury his face in the pillow and clench his fists and he endure the pleasure that took control of his body. Spike licked and gently sucked until Xander lost all capacity for thought or speech, until his body existed only to feel like this.

The tip of Spike's tongue opened Xander. Grunting into the pillow, Xander arched his back and leaned back into the touch. He was so close. So damn close. Xander clenched his teeth as he felt his orgasm gather. The Spike was gone.

A sharp slap on his exposed ass sent his orgasm skittering away and Xander cried into the pillow.

"Nine," Spike said cheerfully. "Lean forward."

Xander couldn't even decipher words with most of his blood in his cock, but Spike pushed on his butt, a cool hand right over the warmth from that slap so that the nerves tingled deliciously. Following the push, Xander scootched forward on the bed with difficulty.

"Right. Ya feel this?" Spike asked, and Xander did. The head of the vibrator, cool with slick, rested against his hole. Xander turned his head and blinked up at Spike out of the corner of his eye, not willing to talk out of turn again, even if the big cheater had asked a question.

"If ya want to come, it's up to you to get it in that pretty arse of yours." Spike looked down smugly. Okay, that was that expression that clearly screamed 'evil plan.' Xander blinked in confusion as Spike just held the toy against him, waiting. Slowly a suspicion formed a little tiny seed and Xander opened his eye in surprise. No way. Xander waited for Spike to change the rules or say he was joking, but he just raised an eyebrow and smiled wider.

"Your choice, pet," Spike shrugged.

Xander closed his eye and took a deep breathe through his nose as he tried to relax his ass. Okay, he could do this. If he didn't do this, Spike really wouldn't let him come, and Xander was so not okay with that. Slowly, Xander started pressing back. The tip of the toy pressed into the tight muscle, and Xander groaned at both the desire and the discomfort.

"Ten. Could just stop now. Give ya a nice spanking and then go to bed," Spike suggested. Xander opened his mouth to give Spike his thoughts on that but closed it with a snap and started pressing himself back onto the toy again.

Spike hadn't stretched him, so the blunt head forced him open and made the muscle burn, but Xander kept moving. He was panting now, struggling against the needy groans that caught in his throat as he opened himself. Spike was officially evil. Xander paused, the toy half in and his body caught between wanting to push it out and wanting the rest of it in him, filling him. Running a single fingernail over Xander's thigh, Spike made the decision easy. Xander took a deep breath and forced himself back quickly. The thickest part of the vibrator slipped into place just behind the muscle, and Xander panted.

Instinct took over and Xander lurched forward the few inches he could. He desperately wanted that thickness out so he could impale himself on it again, but the toy only moved with him, frustrating him even more as his cock hung uselessly.

"Now for the fun part, pet. Oh, and since I'm collecting the debt, the game's over, so feel free to scream all ya want."

Xander opened his mouth to make a comment about what Spike could do with his game, and just then Spike turned the vibrator on so that Xander managed only a mangled stream of noises. He damn near orgasmed, and then Spike's hand landed on his butt, the heat instantly filling him so that Xander felt torn, part pushed closer to orgasm and part pulled back from the edge.

"One," Spike said before he landed two more slaps. This time, they landed right in the center of Xander's ass, pushing the vibrator into his prostate, and Xander screamed as he started coming. Slaps four five and six came during the orgasm, the vibrator driven deeper into his body as Xander thrashed and fought against the chains that held him helpless.

The waves of lust crashed through and then receded so that Xander sagged, his head turned to the side on the bare mattress, the pillow knocked away at some point. Behind him, Spike chuckled before strong hands grasped his ankles and pulled his legs out so that he collapsed onto the bed and right in the middle of a wet spot.

"What about..." Xander sleepily murmured, but Spike interrupted him.

"The other half of the spanking's going to have to wait."

"I was more wondering about the other half of the coming," Xander said as he struggled to twist around enough to see Spike who was kneeling on the end of the bed between Xander's sprawled legs.

"Took care of that myself," Spike said as he moved forward, slipping to Xander's side and using one of Xander's restrained arms as a pillow as he let his hand stroke Xander's back.

"Ya made quite a mess there."

"I think my balls are trying to make up for years of neglect. Well, and some of that may be brains. I definitely think my brains were leaking there at the end. Neglected balls, leaky brains: bad combination," Xander muttered.

Spike snorted.

"What?" Xander asked as he rolled his head to one side.

"I lived with ya in the basement. You and what you called your sock puppet of love were well acquainted, so I hardly think your balls suffered that much."

Xander fell silent. Oh what Spike didn't know, and Xander had no intention of enlightening him. Sighing, he closed his eye and let himself drift toward sleep even though it was hours too early for actual sleeping.

"Pet?" Spike asked, his voice firmly interrupting Xander post-orgasm almost-sleep.

"I'm trying to roll over and go to sleep like a real man, here," Xander protested. "Only not so much with the rolling over since someone hasn't unchained me yet."

"You tryin' to tell me that before Cascade you'd stopped even having a good wank?"

"Okay, first the eye and now my wanking and my lack of wanking... you don't have very good bed manners, Spike." Xander gave a crooked smile as he turned to look at his lover. Spike had propped himself up on one elbow and was looking at Xander with something close to horror.

"I don't have very good manners at all, pet, now answer the bloody question."

"There were a couple of people in Africa," Xander hedged.

"A couple of people as in you thought you'd found your soulmate or you got so bloody pie eyed that you didn't notice you'd fallen into someone else's bed?"

"I'm thinking somewhere in between," Xander said with a sigh. "Sleep good. Sleep very good."

"It's too bloody early to go to sleep," Spike said absent-mindedly. "So, ya seriously weren't wanking?"

"So not your business!" Xander huffed as he pulled against the chains, making the links rattle against the frame of the bed, but really not accomplishing much else.

"Bloody well is my business. Ya didn't pick the fuzzy Shaman; you picked me, demon and all. And I can't very well protect ya if I don't know what's going on in that head of yours."

"Hey, my lack of wanking is no longer an issue because of the definite lack of lack of sex. I mean, the presence of sex. And yeah, there's still a lack of wanking, but the balls are not feeling neglected at all, so there's a big old nothing going on in my head," Xander promised. Spike lay staring at him, opened mouthed for several seconds before he reached up and brushed the hair back from Xander's face. Xander lifted his head to catch one of Spike's fingers with his lips, sucking on it until Spike groaned and half closed his eyes. But then Spike pulled his hand back, and chained face down on the bed, there wasn't much Xander could do but sigh and hope his vampire would just drop the subject.

"You'd stopped," Spike said softly. "Bloody hell, when a bloke can't even get up the energy to play slap and tickle with himself, something's seriously wrong."

"Okay, this has left rudeland and is driving toward freakyville at 80 miles an hour," Xander complained. "And in case you missed it, I'm flirting here. Maybe even seducing," Xander added as eyed the hand Spike had reclaimed.

"'Preciate that," Spike said dropped a kiss onto Xander's shoulder, sending shivers down Xander's spine. "Still worried about what happened that would send you off your sock puppet."

"Okay, eye, then wanking, and now Africa. The lust is crashing and burning Spike. I see flames. Big shooting into the air with fire blasts type flames."

"No distracting." Spike placed another kiss on Xander's shoulder and tightened his other hand around his wrist, right above the leather restraint, reminding Xander that he could enforce that particular rule. Hell, Spike didn't need to pee, so no way was Xander out-waiting him, and that should not be hot... only it was. Xander sighed.

"I just got bored."

"With a good long thrap? Not soddin' possible, especially not considering how often you'd do it, hiding under the covers with your knee holding up the sheet like a lopsided pup tent, you breathin' all heavy under there."

"Whoa. I waited 'til you were asleep. I always waited. No way am I playing pervy entertainment for the night," Xander interrupted as he twisted around to look at Spike, and that was Spike's smug expression. "Shit. Okay, I know that we're big with the mutual perviness now, but the idea of you watching me back then is..."

"Sexy?" Spike offered with an eyebrow waggle.

"Disturbing. Big with the disturbing. My balls would have been voting to apply for internal organ status if I'd known."

"Yeah, luckily you liked your slap and tickle so much ya never did notice what I was doing. So, what made ya turn all monk-like."

"I firmly believe that monks and priests and nuns and such, they so have to be doing it in their little bunks, I mean, no sex at all? Nope, not buying. I think they have subscriptions to sock puppet monthly magazines."

Xander gave Spike a crooked smile, but the vampire just looked back with one eyebrow up and an expression that clearly said he wasn't buying the distracted act. Xander sighed heavily.

"Look, I just... I remembered Anya."

"Yeah, that bird knew how to deliver, but after a thousand years she'd been around most of the blocks. And I know she appreciated you, callin' you a Viking and all."

"Which would be the point," Xander said sadly.

"If that's the point, ya need to slow down and drive by slower because I bloody missed it."

"Point--with Anya it was all this stuff other than interlocking parts. And in Africa, I tried with the interlocking parts, and they all interlocked, but there wasn't anything past the parts." Xander scrunched his eye shut as he remembered Aziza with her long legs. "Some of the parts interlocked really, really well."

"Still missin' the point here, pet."

"It was just parts, Spike. And when the parts were done with the interlocking, I would remember how Ahn and I would interlock more than just parts, and I wouldn't have that and I would just feel more..." Xander struggled for the word. "Desolate," he whispered.

Spike reached up, fingers teasing curls and brushing the hair back from Xander's face, but Xander refused to open his eye. "So, ya stopped even takin' care of it yourself?"

"I didn't want to feel alone, and I'd lay in bed after, and I'd always feel so alone that I just... I stopped," Xander shrugged.

"Soul wants to hold you so hard that you bloody forget that ya ever felt that way," Spike said softly, his fingers still stroking Xander's hair.

"Holding that hard would lead to gut-squishing," Xander gave a half-laugh.

"Demon wants to rip the others to bloody shreds for sending ya out there. Even a vampire needs a clan, some place where he knows he fits, which is why I was so bloody loony after Dru kicked me out. After the chip, that need to belong somewhere sent me to you lot."

"Yeah, where you happily told us exactly how much you didn't belong with us," Xander pointed out as he finally opened his eyes.

"Yeah, there is that," Spike agreed slowly. "Didn't mean it. Said it so you wouldn't say it first because if I didn't have you lot, as pathetic as you were, I didn't have anyone. And I couldn't bloody stand to hear you tell me that I didn't belong knowing that you meant it."

"Wow. Rewriting history time because I would have said you were sticking around to figure out a way to kill us all in our sleep."

Spike snorted, and Xander grinned at him.

"Not bloody likely. Humans, or anything that used ta be human, needs a place to belong."

Xander chewed his lip as he thought about that answer. Back in the Sunnydale days, Spike had wanted to fit in, which led to Buffy chasing and then Buffy catching and then the whole soul.

"Can hear your brain threatening to overload, pet. Tell me what you're thinking," Spike interrupted his memories.

"Is that what this is?" Xander asked quickly before his common sense could get control over his tongue, not that his common sense and his tongue spent a whole lot of time together. It was more like they were classmates who passed each other in the hall between English and history and never really had a class together.

Spike's fingers had paused in their petting. "Is that what ya think?" Spike asked slowly.

"I get it. I'm totally okay with the needing a place to be," Xander hurried to add.

"Pet--"

"And hey, at least the friend group is actually taking the me and you better than the you and Buffy and since I was part of the non-accepting friend group last time, I'm really sorry."

"Pet, stop!" Spike interrupted, fingers coming up to brush over Xander's lips to reinforce that order. "I'm with you because you accept who I am. After the soul, Buffy told me she didn't need me, not who I'd become. Told me she wanted a fighter by her side and that hurt so bloody much that I would have torn my soul right back out if I could. You never comment on the odd book of poetry or treat me like I'm just the demon. But ya stand up and hold your own in the demon's face."

Xander thought about that as the fingers which had covered his lips now slowly traced the edge sending even more warm shivers down his back.

"Would have wanted the me without the Shaman?" he asked softly.

"Would you have wanted the me without the soul?" Spike countered.

"Um... I'm thinking the you without the soul would have so eaten me by now. Well, unless that you found out about the Shaman thing and then the groveling on the floor would have been a real possibility, and I'm still voting 'no' on groveling."

This time Spike sighed. "Got ourselves in so deep that we can't work our way out of our own tangle, can we?" he asked softly.

Xander considered his own fears and insecurities swirling like one of those hurricanes that wiped out entire towns.

"Pet," Spike started again. "Soul loves you. Soul loves the fact that ya took me in when I was still torn up about those we lost back in LA. Love the fact that you didn't treat me like a leper, that I could have some bloody fun with you without all Willow's sympathetic looks and offers of those soddin' cookies that made me feel like I was some sort of pathetic wanker who needed sympathy."

"But it was a 'no' from the demon," Xander added, not sure how he felt about that. It wasn't like he loved the demon because he remembered how he'd felt when Spike became Scooby-adjacent, and those were not warm and fuzzy feelings. But he still couldn't control the thread of rejection that pulled at him at the thought that Spike's demon really didn't want him.

"Not that simple," Spike finally answered. "Demon wanted to dominate you, put you in your place, but the demon also saw you as mine... same way the demon used ta see Willow as his and see himself as belonging to Buffy," Spike paused. "Leastwise before the immolation and return. Right now, that's about the only reason I didn't eat Red tonight. And as mine, the demon wanted to control you. So when it seemed like you kept tryin' to get yourself killed..." Spike stopped.

"Big with the frustration?" Xander guessed.

"Some days I just wanted to bloody kill you myself and get it over with. If I couldn't put you where I wanted you, I just wanted to snap your neck," Spike agreed.

"Okay, and that would be city limits sign for distruboville."

"You asked, pet."

"Remind me not to ask again," Xander joked.

"Sometimes you bloody worry me, luv."

"It comes with the whole not-so-bright package. I do dumb shit and worry the people who care about me," Xander said softly.

"Oi, enough with that shite or you're going to face a real punishment, and I don't mean a game of slap and tickle."

"Punishment?" Xander asked with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Yeah, I'll leave you chained here and open that door while I go out on patrol," Spike said with a tone of voice just serious enough to send a cold shiver through Xander.

"You wouldn't," Xander said slowly. Surely Spike wouldn't. It was a bluff.

Spike looked back calmly. "You're not weak or stupid, and the next time you insult the git I love, I'm going to make ya sorry you were born," Spike said as he gave Xander's nose a little thump.

"Love you, too," Xander said as he closed his eye and focused on the feeling of Spike's body pressed to his own.

"Git."

"Bleach for brains."

"I'm not the one insulting the bloke who has the key, so watch whose intelligence you're impugning there, pet."

Xander grinned.

Chapter 13

Xander followed Spike into the kitchen, a stupid grin on his face that was so totally going to make Willow go all cringy, and yet he just couldn't care. His butt still tingled nicely from the second half of his spanking, and he was so pleasantly exhausted that he didn't care about cringiness or crankiness.

"Mornin' ladies, and gentleman because I do not in any way shape or form imply that Giles is a lady. That would be disturbing," Xander offered the group already gathered in the large room. They'd actually taken out the formal parlor to make the mondo kitchen, leaving them with just a den, a library and a sitting room, and Xander wondered why the British needed so many rooms to pretty much do nothing, but no way could he figure out that mystery of life without caffeine.

"Morning," Buffy said as she held out a cup. "Or evening." And that was not a happy Buffy voice.

Xander looked at her even as he ignored the way Willow frowned. Buffy had her back to him as she tended something meatlike and burning on the stove, but she didn't look like she was going to take it off soon, and she had that special stuffiness in her voice that comes from crying... or trying hard not to. Yep, the happy-happy joy-joy feelings were continuing.

"We found some information relevant to the Slanom demon," Giles said, right to business, but Buffy didn't even turn around to join the conversation as she poked at the helpless meat.

"Ya better have found a way to kill the bugger without needin' help from a Shaman," Spike said as he leaned back against a counter and crossed his arms.

"Yes, well no matter what type of Shaman Xander is, his skills clearly focus on finding the danger, not eliminating it. Willow has managed a tracking spell which should provide any necessary tracking."

"Xander?" Willow called softly as she stepped forward. Xander watched as she stepped close, her eyes focused on his wrists. "Oh goddess. What did Spike do to you?"

Xander looked down and spotted the red marks pressed into his flesh. Shit. Xander froze, and out of the corner of his eye, he watched Spike's eyebrow go up. Okay, he could do this.

Giving Willow his best goofy smile, Xander shrugged. "Hey, let's make a deal. You don't bring up things like, oh, me having marks from leather cuffs, and I won't bring up the teddy bear collection, you know, the one that includes the teddy in the naughty outfit that Kennedy bought you and that you still keep under your bed," Xander suggested hopefully.

Willow blinked several times before blushing a nice deep red. "I don't-- I mean..."

"Exactly. Some things are not worth discussing, which is why I'm voting for a big old no-discussion rule about my sex life," Xander pointed out as he headed for the dining room. The baby slayers were already there along with a pile of pancakes that looked downright edible, so Xander guess that Yi and Kelly had made them before Buffy offered to help.

"And I would second that." Giles followed behind and dropped into a seat at the table. The pancakes were on the far end of the table, so Giles grabbed the plate with the bacon. Xander was guessing Buffy had helped with that because the strips looked a little charcoal briquette for his taste. Giles tried to maneuver one onto his plate, and the piece crumbled and a bit of it flew off toward Janie, landing in her hair.

"Oh dear, I apologize," Giles hurried to say.

"I totally don't mind getting burned meat thrown at me as long as we keep getting the good drama," she shrugged.

"No. No drama," Willow said seriously. "Just friends working things out."

Spike, still standing next to the door, snorted loudly. "Right then, time for all good little slayers to sod off," he suggested. Yi almost ran for the door, clearly happy to get out of the line of Scooby fire. The others quickly followed, some grabbing pieces of bread and shoving bacon and eggs between the slices before abandoning the dining room. Janie sat and watched without moving. Spike raised an eyebrow at her.

"I never even pretended to be good," she offered. Spike flashed into gameface and snarled.

"Geez, I'm going. You guys never let us in on the good dirt," she complained, grabbing her whole plate before leaving.

"Time for a few ground rules," Spike started as Buffy came back into the room with a plate of sausages. Xander grabbed several from the plate and shoved them in his mouth. When Spike looked over at him, clearly expecting him to say something, Xander just smiled around the mouth full of burnt pork.

"Ground rules. I can do ground rules. Ground rule the first is that you don't get to tell Xander what to do," Willow started with her best not-backing-down face.

"Oh goody, the fun has started already. I'll get the antacid," Buffy said as she turned and headed back into the kitchen.

"Me?" Spike asked indignantly. Oi, you lot go orderin' him around more than I ever dreamed of!"

"What? We don't do that. We don't! Do we?" Willow turned to Giles, but he just continued to poke at the breakfast with his fork.

"I do believe Buffy is more than a little upset this morning," he commented to no one in particular as the scrambled eggs he tried scooping from the bowl slowly oozed through the tines of his fork.

"You giving him orders, like he can't go out with us... that is... is... wrong!" Willow finally finished, but Xander could still hear all the very non-Willowy curse words bubbling just under the surface, straining to come out.

"I don't suppose you guys made up and decided to at least fake adult behavior for a while?" Buffy asked as she came back into the room with a large white pill bottle. She put it down on the table and Giles grabbed for it immediately.

"No chance of that, I fear," Giles said quietly.

"We don't tell Xander what to do, do we?" Willow demanded of Buffy. Buffy froze for a second, looking over at Xander in a way that made it very clear that she totally knew that Xander was follow-behind boy.

"We don't!" Willow protested. "We just want what's best for him, and I'm sorry Spike, but you telling him he can't leave the house... that's..."

"Very fifties," Buffy shrugged as she took the antacid bottle from Giles.

"Having lived through the fifties, I can safely say that the practice of keeping the spouse at home predates that era. However, I don't think this is a conversation we really need to be having right now. Right now, we have more serious concerns."

"We need to take down the Slanom and find whatever big bad pushed him through the portal," Buffy nodded. "I don't have time for the Spike and Xander show, or at least not the sexually inappropriate Spike and Xander show. So, Xander, I really need you to do the freaky follow-the-evil routine again only this time we need to find whatever big and slimy pushed him through the portal."

"What's the plan?" Spike asked, immediately turning to Buffy. The mood in the room shifted as mention of the latest apocalypty goodness distracted everyone. Putting his chin on his hand, Xander opened his Shamanic vision. Almost immediately, he blinked as Buffy's gold cord slammed against the constraints of her body, whipping wildly and blinking like Christmas tree lights on acid.

"Plan simple. Find. Fight. Kill." Through the cords that blurred the real world, Xander could see a faint impression of a very not-so-nice smile on Buffy's face.

"Can't kill a Slanom without the bloody sword of whoever, so unless you had one Fed-Ex'ed last night--"

"So we put the Slanom on the slay-wait list while we find whatever brought him here. If you and Giles are right, this thing didn't just wander over here on his own, so there's something out there that needs killing. So, Xander can find something with delusion of world-endage, and we stick big swords in it."

"That's your plan?" Spike's voice sounded caught between horror and laughter. Xander blinked the Shamanic vision away and saw his lover giving Buffy his best one-eyebrow-up look of disbelief.

"Find. Fight. Kill. You have to go with the classics," Buffy nodded.

"No bloody way. He's not going out without somethin' that sounds a little less likely to get us all fucking killed."

"I don't remember asking for your vote," Buffy snapped, her voice suddenly brittle and sounding way too much like old Buffy, like Buffy before Italy, like Buffy who still hated the world after being in heaven.

"Boy's not going out without my say so."

"He's not some housewife in a dress. He can make his own choices," Buffy snapped.

"Yeah," Willow added softly.

"Xander," Buffy started as she turned toward him. Xander realized his mouth was empty and grabbed for a plate. He got crunchy, slightly charcoaly bacon, but he shoved it in and started chewing. "You'll help, right?" she asked.

Xander stared over at her, chewing as he tried his best to make no head movements at all, nothing that could be taken as affirmative or negative.

"You're daft. You don't even bloody know how hard this rot is for him, and you'll risk his neck dragging him out without even a plan?" Spike snarled as he stood up. Buffy stood up at the same time. Giles grabbed for the antacid bottle.

"You're not exactly plan boy," Buffy snapped.

"I don't take stupid risks."

"Parent-teacher night."

"Had an escape plan, and I didn't take any more risks than I had to."

"I killed most of your minions."

"They were minions. Minions are around ta get staked. You're not gettin' Xander staked!" The two screamed at each other, standing nose to nose right behind Giles' chair.

"I'm not getting Xander staked. Who said I was getting Xander staked?! It's his choice if he wants to help, you know, the way he's been helping since long before you even came around."

Xander watched as Buffy's eyes darted toward him, and he grabbed for more food to shove in his mouth. He reached for the cold toast, hoping it would be just a little less disgusting, but Spike jerked the plate away from him at the last second.

"Hey, still hungry," Xander argued, but the glare Spike gave him made him pull back the hand he had used to reach for the bread before Spike grabbed it and used it to drag Xander off to the room for another lesson. Not that he would mind another lesson. Another lesson would be fun, as opposed to watching Spike and Buffy scream at each other, which was making the whole place feel weirdly like the Harris household.

"There you go telling Xander what to do. Not very friend-like," Willow interjected.

"Good lord," Giles sighed. Xander just looked at the bacon and wondered if it was worth the horrible taste just to have something to do with his mouth other than be forced to answer. Spike reached over and slid the plate of bacon away.

"You bloody well guilt him into doing whatever you lot want. He didn't want to go to Cascade, but he did because you sent him. At least he'll tell me 'no' if I push too hard. He'll bloody well let you lot push him into losing his soddin' mind before he'll tell you to stop."

"We wouldn't. We care about Xander, and we're looking out for him."

"By sendin' him round the deep end?" Spike demanded. Xander opened his mouth to protest, but really, he had been kinda deep endy lately.

"We don't have time for this," Buffy said tightly. "Xander, we need to find whoever brought the Slanom through the portal, and we need to find them quickly. Giles and I were talking, and if you focus on the feeling of wanting to take over the whole world... or maybe wanting to just watch the whole world go kabang... you could track down the one who opened the portal, and then the Slanom, okay, that will have to wait until we have the sword but then the slugs aren't exactly known for moving quickly, so that is totally slay-waitable. But if someone is opening portals and trying to end the world, that moves up to slay-now land."

"Buffy," Xander said as he looked up at her. She had such a hopeful expression, like when Anya would stare at him, hoping he would say yes to one of her hairbrained ideas, only her ideas tended to include sex and potential for public humiliation, and Buffy's was more about potential for painful death. Xander glanced over toward Spike, and the vampire was looking at him blankly, his face a mask of indifference. Xander suspected that if he used his Shamanic vision, he'd find that Spike wasn't nearly as calm as he looked. Xander took a deep breath before he answered. "Maybe if we have a better plan, one with less chance of me tripping over the demon half-blind and getting eaten--."

"You don't think I'd protect you?" Buffy's voice was whisper-soft, hurt, her eyes looking at him with that expression she'd had the day they demoted her to non-head slayer and turned to Faith. Only this time, Xander knew he was right. He just wished his guts weren't twisting and that the little voice in the back of his head wasn't demanding that he say something... anything... to make that expression go away.

"We both know you'd try, but ya don't have any idea how helpless he is when he uses the vision," Spike interrupted.

"We were protecting him back when you were still trying to eat him, buster," Willow said as she stood up and went to Buffy's side. Xander sank lower in the chair.

"Bloody hell. You don't get it, do ya?"

"You're twisting Xander's head around all wrong, and not with the literally because that would make him dead what with human heads not twisting around, and I know you wouldn't actually kill him, Spike, but this is... this is not right." Willow turned her eyes to Xander, begging him to stand with them. Xander started studying his thumbnail.

"Enough!" Giles shouted from his seat at the table. He brought his hands down, the palms slapping the solid wood. "Buffy, the plan is precipitous. We discussed that already this morning, and given the circumstances, I do understand your need for quick action, but Spike is--Spike is an overbearing ass who just happens to be right this time. Xander's abilities, whatever they happen to represent, do make him vulnerable in the field. Going into battle with an unknown enemy with an untested and untrained Shaman is not the wisest action."

"See?" Spike asked triumphantly, a smirk on his face. Giles finally stood and faced Spike.

"However, your sudden interest in Xander after he developed this supposed power is both suspicious and disturbing. If, as you claim, you care for Xander, you had ample time in which to develop a relationship before Xander went to Cascade. You did not. From what I can tell, you showed frustration, aggravation, and anger toward Xander, but you never once expressed interest. So, while I fully support Xander's choice because he is an adult who has the right to choose whomever he wishes as a lover, I am looking forward to the day when he finally sees that you are not a healthy or wise choice."

Xander flinched from the disapproval and then watched as Spike's smirk faded into something darker and more dangerous. He glared murder at Giles, but Giles simply turned to look at Xander. "This whole situation is difficult at best. However, let me assure you that whatever Shamanic powers you have, you need training, training that Spike cannot provide. I called a Shaman in France last night, and he is willing to take you as a pupil and evaluate your skills."

Xander opened his mouth to protest, but Giles held up his hand. "I am not trying to forcibly separate you and Spike, so the Shaman is also willing to accommodate Spike for however long your training may take, and I assure you that your sexual proclivities will not shock his sensibilities. However, I do also feel a need to point out that Spike is not the only person who can provide what you need, Xander. You are a strong, handsome young man, and many people share your sexual preferences. I can provide a list of safe clubs and organizations where you could meet any number of people, but I shall hang on to that list for you until such time as you ask for it."

"He's not going to ask for it," Spike snarled.

"Then it shall hurt no one if I simply carry it with me," Giles answered as he turned to calmly stare at Spike. Xander watched as Spike and Giles stood face to face, Buffy and Willow standing behind Giles. Chewing his lip, Xander stood up and walked around the table until he stood beside Spike, and Spike immediately moved, leaving space for Xander to step close and slip an arm around Spike's waist. Spike pulled him close.

"Xander's not stupid. He didn't choose me because he didn't have any better offers. Hell, boy was shagging the furry little Shaman back in Cascade."

"Xander... what?" Willow just about squeaked. "But I thought Blair and Jim--."

"Hell yeah, they shag so often it's hard to tell the smell of one from the other, but that doesn't mean the Sentinel wouldn't have been just as happy to have Xander warmin' their bed. He had choices, Rupes. He had choices, and he bloody well picked me."

"And I'm always going to pick Spike," Xander added softly, but he couldn't quite bring himself to look them all in the eye. He settled for staring at Giles' belt buckle. It was silver... and shiny. Shiny belt buckle. He wondered if Giles shined it.

"So, we're just going to sit around here and do nothing?" Buffy asked, her voice still brittle.

"There are some magical sources we could tap or research," Giles suggested. Buffy gave a frustrated little sob, and Xander looked up.

"Buff?" he asked, concerned by an expression that was way more than just disappointed or frustrated, and Xander didn't think Buffy would be that worried about him, not worried enough to have that expression of imminent world-endage on her face.

Buffy chewed her lip.

"Riley's missing," Willow said softly.

"Riley?" Xander looked from one to the other. Yeah, the soldier had kept in touch with them, but it wasn't exactly like he was a Scooby. Xander watched as Buffy paled and Willow blushed pink.

"Buffy and Riley had been, sorta working it out," Willow admitted with a guilty look over toward Buffy.

"Oi, the therapy. That's why you were going to the therapy, tryin' ta get your head turned around right when it came to the blokes," Spike said, the anger evaporated in a second.

"Therapy?" Xander demanded. "There was therapy involved? Why didn't I know about therapy? Better point, why does Spike know when I don't know? And why didn't I know about Riley?" Xander turned to Buffy, feeling the sharp point of rejection in his gut. Buffy at least had the grace to look embarrassed.

"I didn't even tell Willow about the therapy. It was supposed to be a secret," Buffy said as she glared at Spike.

"But you told Spike?" Willow asked in her hurt voice. Xander felt the sides shift. Strangely him and Willow versus Buffy didn't feel any better than her and Buffy versus him.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "I needed to play show and tell. I couldn't exactly tell a therapist that I was a vampire slayer without ending up with a nice new wardrobe with long sleeves and buckles in the back."

"So, she dragged me along ta scare the bint with my big teeth."

"But Riley's missing now," Buffy said softly as she crossed her arms and suddenly looked impossibly small. "His unit was ordered to investigate what sounded like a group of Kith-harn, which should have been a quick job, only they never checked in again."

"Where?" Xander asked. Okay, this was unexpected what with Buffy swearing off men and threatening to explore her inner lesbian post-Immortal, but Xander recognized the raw pain in Buffy's face. They weren't sorta working it out; they were a thing. And now Buffy was falling apart.

"Idaho," Buffy said softly.

"Idaho? Potato Idaho or some alternate reality Idaho or maybe a demon dimension called Idaho?" Xander asked.

"Idaho in the Northwest United States," Giles said in a tired voice. "His unit was deployed west of a town called Cobalt, and the area is exceptionally isolated."

"He wandered around the jungles of South America and a hellmouth safely, and he goes missing in Idaho?" Xander asked again. Okay, so he was having some trouble wrapping his brain around that one.

"Yes. Idaho!" Buffy snapped. "And I'm here trying to find one more demon trying to suck the world into hell. I should be..." Buffy shuddered to a stop. "Xander, I just need you to find whatever is opening the portals, whatever pushed the Slanom into this dimension." Buffy's face had gone hard, the pain of a second ago vanished under the General Buffy face, the one she would put on when they found one more potential slayer lying dead on the ground. Xander hated that face.

"We don't know what to track, pet," Spike said to her softly. "We don't know if this is someone goin' for power or some nutter playing with mojo. We don't even know if the person pullin' the strings is in this dimension."

"Xander's our best chance of finding this guy fast," Buffy insisted.

"He's not goin' to be much help without more information," Spike countered, his voice soft and weirdly logical, but his arm tightened around Xander's waist.

"He has to be," Buffy said without emotion.

"As much as I hate to agree with Spike, and that is a considerable amount of hate," Giles offered, "He's right. We simply don't know enough about the enemy or about Xander's skills to use them effectively."

"I wish I could help," Xander said quickly. "I would be first in line to help. Riley's a nice guy, and I'm really glad you're getting back with him because I know his divorce really threw him, but I don't know how to find whoever dragged the Slanom through," Xander said helplessly.

Buffy stared at him blankly, and Xander felt the sucking feeling in his gut, the one that told him he was screwing up again. He wasn't fixing what he needed to fix.

"Maybe you can just try," Willow suggested softly, her hand coming up to rest on Buffy's shoulder.

"I don't know what to look for, and I don't see anything big with the weird," Xander said, blinking into his Shaman vision just to check again. Nope, Buffy's cord doing the tornado impression was the weirdest thing on his radar.

"I'm sure you're trying," Giles said reassuringly. "We simply need to research the Slanom's dimension and discover the force behind this the old fashioned way."

"Which leaves Riley with no help," Buffy looked up, and the hardness was still there. "You heard Carter. The military isn't sending anyone. They're just sitting back and if Riley and his guys can get themselves out, fine, and if not, the military will just call them casualties of some freak plane crash or something." Buffy turned from Giles to Xander. "Maybe we could drive around... you could see if you spotted any potential world-endage. I can't leave when I'm needed here, but I'm needed there, too. If this takes too long, Riley could die. He could be dying now." Buffy focused on him, and Xander's guts twisted with the need to do something. He might be able to find the big bad. Maybe. If the guy was in this dimension. If they were right that some mastermind was behind the Slanom. If it wasn't just some demon's idea of a practical joke. Xander sighed. Oh, this was not going well.

"Wait," Xander straightened as an idea hit him. "You stay and research the Slanom and Spike and I can go find Riley," he offered.

"Bloody--- What!?" Spike demanded.

"You'll what?" Buffy asked at the same time.

"You won't go out with all of us, but you'll go half way around the world with just Spike?" Willow demanded. Giles offered a soft noise that might have been a British curse before wandering to the side of the room and staring out at the stars.

"Spike knows how the mojo thing works," Xander defended himself and his idea, but the Willow pout didn't budge. "Besides, it's Idaho. How dangerous can Idaho be?"

"If something took out Riley and his team, you shouldn't be in the same state with it," Buffy said firmly. "We just need to hurry on the research front and then I can go find him. Or you could..." Buffy let her voice trail off, but Xander heard her frustration with him anyway. A little part of his brain told him to just try, to see if he could find the big bad if he wandered around looking. The hand around his waist anchored him to the reality that the odds were that it wouldn't end well. After all, pre-Cascade he seemed to use his skills to get himself in the most possible trouble at any given time, so the odds of someone killing or eating him were actually pretty good.

"I'll have Spike, and he knows more about the Shaman thing. And even if some demon did take out Riley's team, the demon wouldn't just assume that a vampire was out on the slay. Spike could totally bluff and play evil if the Idaho demons turned out to be extra demony, and you just can't pull that off, Buff," Xander pointed out. If he wanted Spike to do this, a little buttering up might be in order. "Besides, there isn't a bigger big bad than Spike." From the suspicious look Spike gave him, Xander didn't think he'd fooled the vamp.

"Can't bloody believe I'm sayin' this since I'd personally eat the bugger before crossing the street ta save his life, but Xand's right. You do the bit for God and country here, and Xander and I'll bring Captain Cardboard back."

"Spike." Buffy stopped. She closed her eyes for a second as though gathering her thoughts. "Spike, let's talk outside," she said as she headed for the kitchen. "Just us, okay?" Buffy asked over her shoulder as Spike started pulling Xander with him.

"Hey, no problem. You guys go do the talking thing, and I'll try and find some food that doesn't taste like charcoal," Xander said as he stepped away from Spike. For a second, Spike hesitated.

"Be right back," he said, and then he strode toward the kitchen. Xander heard the back door to the gardens slam loudly.

"Oh yeah, this day is off to a great start," Xander said sarcastically.

"I know it seems like we're big with the picking, but Xander, we just want to help. This isn't healthy. I ordered a few books from Amazon-dot-com, and Stockholm is really normal. Or, it isn't normal since it's a mental disorder, but it's not rare. And I don't know why you would suddenly turn to Spike, but the whole tying up is totally about power."

Xander opened his mouth to point out that tying up was less about power than just serious freaking sexy, but Giles beat him to the punch.

"Good lord. Willow, as much as I support your general position on the inherent dangers of Spike and Xander being in a relationship, please stop suggesting that a little bondage is a sign of the apocalypse."

"Giles!" Willow said, her mouth forming a shocked o.

"Do grow up," Giles snapped in return before he turned and headed for the hall. Oh yeah, this day was getting better and better all the time, Xander mused as he edged backwards toward the door to the library, sliding the pocket door closed on the sight of Willow standing in the middle of the empty dining room with a table full of mangled food-like substances. Blinking his Shamanic vision into place, Xander quickly found the traces of Spike's dual cord as he slipped out into the muggy night air and headed for the back yard for a little research of his own.

Chapter 14

Xander waited in the shadow of the house, watching the glowing end of Spike's cigarette. He could only see Buffy's outline—a lighter gray against the dark gray English night. She shifted and played with something in her hands, a stake maybe. Oh yeah, she was stressed.

"Right then, out with it," Spike finally demanded, his cigarette making a bright arc as he tossed it at the fountain.

"Spike, look, I just don't think this is a good idea," Buffy said, her voice firm.

"And would that be the rescue mission or are you still off on me and Xand?"

"What?" Buffy demanded. "Hey, I'm supporto-gal. Look at how supportive I am with not dragging him away."

"Bloody hell, what *is* your problem?"

"No problems here. I am problem-free gal *and* supporto-gal."

"Then why can't you trust us to go after soldier boy? Not like I'm going to eat him what with the soul still attached, and Xander—the boy holds his own as long as you keep those Shaman powers in mind and remind him to focus on the real world, two things you lot obviously didn't do."

"I never said I didn't trust you to go." Buffy paused, "Okay, I sorta implied that, but you aren't big on the Riley love, and Xander's middle name is Lavelle, not competent-rescue guy."

Xander closed his eye as he fought back tears. Not manly, crying just because one of your best friends points out the truth, both with the Lavelle and the not competent parts.

"Bloody hell. You have a problem, just come out and say it. Xand is soddin' brilliant at the Shaman bit so if ya need someone tracked, he's the best one to send, at least when you let him concentrate and don't get him wound up so tight his spring is ready to snap. You go out there and you're one more bloody idiot wandering around Idaho."

"Okay, and now you're the one who sounds like problem-boy with me." The Buffy shadow moved so that her hands braced on her waist.

"I do have a soddin' problem with how you've been actin' since we got back from Cascade. You may not be as obvious as Red, but you've still got some stick up your arse."

"Oh, and I'm supposed to be thrilled with how you're acting?"

"Right—got to the problem then, haven't we? Boy told you that he picked me over you lot, and now, all of a sudden, you have time for him. *That* gets you back from Italy. I understand why Red is raisin' a fuss—after all, Xand was her best friend and her first crush, and she still thinks of the boy as hers, but I don't—"

"See, that's the problem," Buffy nearly shouted, her voice growing shrill enough that a bird flapped out of the tree nearest the fountain, startled or just looking for a quieter place to rest. "Xander isn't hers or yours, and you talk about him like he's some little toy to pass back and forth. I'm all for supporting my friends' massive mistakes, and I can even wrap my brain around you being the one to do the tying instead of getting tied, but you talk about Xander like..." Buffy stopped.

For a long moment, the crickets chirping and the fountain gurgling and the splashing waves in the stone basin filled Xander's ears: ears which burned red at Buffy's description. "If I didn't still love ya, I'd knock you into next week for saying somethin' like that," Spike finally announced in a deadly soft voice. His bounce had disappeared so that his shadow stood as still as the statue of the fat cherubs that stood on either side of the arch leading to the garden path.

"Why? It's true," Buffy finally answered. She had angled her body, and Xander wondered if this was about to degenerate into an actual physical fight.

"I bloody love Xand, but he understands that means both a soul and a demon loves him. Won't deny what I am to you or to him, and that means I see the boy as mine. You don't want to get between me and mine," Spike warned her in that same strangely calm voice.

"Is that how it was with us? Are you going to hurt him one of these days the way you..." Buffy's words choked off, and Xander physically flinched away from that memory, the brick scratching at his face, but Spike didn't move.

"I soddin' belonged to you, only you didn't want that. So, we all just moved on. Stay out of my business with Xander, Slayer, or we will have a problem." Spike started to turn away, his yellow eyes flashing dimly in the night.

"Spike," Buffy called, her voice strangled with some emotion Xander couldn't identify. Spike froze.

The silence of the night drifted past the three of them—Buffy and Spike in the courtyard and Xander in his hiding place beside the house. Finally Spike answered. "Boy loves ya, I bloody love ya, but we won't stay here unless you lot get your heads screwed on straight. We'll go find Captain Cardboard, and when we come back, we'll either get some respect or we'll pack our shite and leave."

"You'd take him away from the only family he has left?" Buffy asked.

"You'd push him away, and I won't have ya hurtin' my boy," Spike answered before he disappeared, vampire speed removing him from the courtyard in the blink of a human eye.

Xander watched as Buffy nearly collapsed onto the rim of the fountain, her head sunk into her hands as her shoulders shook with sobs. He wanted to comfort her; that was his job in the group, to put people back together. However, comforting her meant giving her hope that he would choose her over Spike, and he couldn't do it. He quietly backed up, winding his way through the bushes at the side of the house before he reached the workshop door.

Moving quietly and quickly, he made his way to the bedroom he shared with Spike. Putting on a happy mask, he pushed open the door. Inside, Spike sat on the end of the bed with an unlit cigarette between his fingers.

"Hey, Spike," Xander smiled.

"Right, you get an earful?" Spike asked, looking up with eyes that pinned Xander to the floor.

"I…" Xander snapped his mouth shut. Okay, spying or lying, which would get him in more trouble.

"Never wanted you to bloody hear that rot. You're not some bauble I keep on a string to brass off the slayer, and you're bloody brilliant in a fight. When we visited Peaches, he was practically oozing envy when ya bird-dogged those vampires. I meant what I said, you're the best person ta find Riley, not that finding Riley is particularly high on my priority list," Spike finished dryly.

"But Buffy just…" Xander lost his words again. Funny, he normally had lots of words, not generally the right ones, but at least lots of them.

Spike reached out and grabbed Xander's hand, pulling him down to the bed where Spike wrapped strong arms around him. Xander felt something tighten around his heart and he took a deep breath as the pain he'd denied blossomed in his heart. "She doesn't want to know who I am now," Xander admitted, struggling to control his breathing. "I mean, I get Willow. She's holding on to what she has left, and yeah, I'm not really hers to hold onto, but that's Willow. I stopped her from ending the world because even evil, she wants to hold onto what she knows, and with Tara gone and Kennedy in the slightly psycho column and Buffy and Giles away, I'm about all she has left, but I thought Buffy... I didn't think she saw it like that," Xander finished quietly. It wasn't manly to cry. He wasn't going to cry. He was just going to shrivel up inside as he realized that none of them were ever going to accept him, not even Buffy.

"She can't face it, pet. She sees who ya are now, with all your pain and your strength, and she has to admit that she's a big part of it. Ya sacrificed a lot ta stay by her side," Spike used one finger to trace the edge of the eye patch, and Xander shivered. "She loves ya, and that's why she can't face seein' how different ya are from the boy she first knew. She doesn't want ta think how different ya are because of her."

"Hey, perfectly capable of getting hurt without her. Lots of people I grew up with ended up demon chow without ever knowing the slayer," Xander pointed out. Spike's hands slowly traveled his body, unfastening a button here and scraping a fingernail over bare flesh there.

"Didn't say she was right, only said she was fightin' her own guilt, right or wrong. And right now, she's not thinkin' clear because she feels guilty that she can't just up and run off to the soldier-boy. She's stuck here because of all the slayers, she's the one most likely to stop some plot to end the world. But I won't let her rip you apart while she works through her own guilt," Spike said absent-mindedly as he popped open the last button and slowly pushed off Xander's first shirt.

"Okay, that's sounding a little too insightful," Xander said suspiciously.

"Might have eavesdropped some on her therapy," Spike shrugged. "I was stuck in the building in the middle of the day waiting for her to finish, so it was that or a bloody gardening magazine. Don't go thinkin' this is your fault or even something you can control because Buffy's not brassed off about you, she's too busy seeing her own guilt in everything she looks at."

"Just like home," Xander snorted. Spike stopped and put a hand under Xander's jaw and made him look up.

"Meanin'?" Spike asked as he looked into Xander's eye.

"Nothing."

"Don't do that, pet. Don't bloody shut me out of your head," Spike said seriously. Hands that had been teasing stopped, and Xander looked up at the open expression in Spike's face.

"Mom and Dad," Xander admitted softly. "They were so busy fighting with each other and the bill collectors and finally with the lawyers that they never really noticed me. When I broke my arm in the library, they didn't notice for nearly a week." Xander shrugged and tried to back away, but Spike's fingers held him in place.

"Well, I bloody notice ya, pet. So, we find soldier-boy and then we make some decisions 'bout where we're goin' to make home."

"You'll make some decisions," Xander said quietly.

"Pet?" Spike asked.

"I can't leave them," Xander nearly whispered, hoping that Spike would understand what he meant.

"Not a problem. I'll make the decision for you. Ya don't need to protect yourself, pet, I'll do that bit for ya." Spike loosened his fingers, and Xander ducked his head as he fought with his own guilt. "After all, you're mine, aren't you?" Spike asked as he unbuttoned the top snap on Xander's jeans.

Strong hands pulled Xander up onto the bed so that he lay on his back while Spike crouched over him. "Seem to remember someone givin' himself to me, and as the alpha vampire, I have ta take care of my clan," Spike pointed out as he reached a hand under Xander's undershirt and pinched a nipple. Xander bucked up, grabbing at Spike's shoulders only to find a knee at his hip forcing him back down to the bed. Looking up at Spike's amused yellow eyes, Xander realized that as much as he loved his girls, this was home. Then Spike leaned down to demand a rough kiss, and Xander let himself slip into a place where he no longer thought at all.

Traveling with a vampire made things more complicated, so even though Xander was all for leaving immediately, they couldn't actually go for two days: two days of awkward silences and even more awkward politeness that drove even Janie from the room. Yep, fun times. And now that they were leaving, Xander was torn between wanting to make everything better, to give Willow and Buffy some lie that would make things easier, and just wanting to run as far away as he could. Since Giles and Spike hadn't brought the car up, he just stood staring at the night instead of doing either.

"Xander," Willow stopped, one hand clutching the door frame as Xander stood on the porch, his dufflebag at his feet.

"Hey, we're just going to find Riley, and be home in time for the big beheading of the big bad, assuming that this latest big bad has a head, which they don't all have," Xander shrugged and gave Willow a grin.

"Don't you go getting yourself in trouble, mister," Willow said as she blinked quickly, but she was still close to tears.

"No trouble for the Xand man," Xander promised as he held out his arms. Willow came forward and hugged him, hard. In that tenacious grip, Xander could feel her need to not let go. Even when Xander ended the hug, she held on for several seconds.

"If you need me, you know I'm always here for you. You don't ever have to do something you don't want to," she whispered softly.

Xander gently pushed away so that he could look right in her eyes. "I'm not going to do anything I don't want to. And I'm not out to get myself killed or hurt," he said seriously. Willow chewed on her lip without answering, but Xander could see she wasn't convinced. She was quiet, but not convinced. "And hey, someone has to go rescue the idiot soldiers. Who better than Spike because you know he's going to be rubbing it in the whole way back. If I were you, I would worry about Spike because Riley's going to be ready to slip holy water in the blood supply by the time Spike finishes with all the rubbing in."

"Oi, he does, and I'm not going to be held responsible for my actions," Spike's voice answered as he jumped up onto the porch. "Car's ready, pet."

"Hey, my chariot awaits," Xander joked as he backed off a step. The car came around the corner, Giles behind the wheel. "Say goodbye to the girls again, for me," Xander said awkwardly. He'd already said his own goodbyes to the baby slayers before they'd left for patrol, but awkwardness called for words, and they were the only words Xander could come up with that wouldn't cause a new round of bickering.

"Bloody hell, move your arse or we'll still be here come sunup," Spike growled as he grabbed Xander's arm with one hand and the duffle with the other.

"Be careful," Buffy called from her place near the porch railing. "And find Riley, okay?" she added, uncertainty making her voice brittle.

Spike stopped, meaning Xander stopped. Xander took a last look at the English home. If something didn't change, he suspected that he wouldn't call this place home any more. Giles was standing by the car, waiting to drive them to the airport. Buffy stood watching them with an indifferent mask, but Xander could see the pain and fear lurking under the surface. Willow still stood near the open door, tears just starting to gather in her eyes.

"We'll find him, luv. Xander's good at what he does, and before you know it, we'll be dragging the stupid sod back here," Spike promised. "But if he tries slippin' holy water into the blood, I'm taking a few pints out of him," Spike threatened with a wry smile. A half-smile flashed across Buffy's face, followed by pain and then the mask slipped back into place.

"Drive safe," Buffy finished before she turned and headed back into the house.

"Come on then." Spike pulled Xander toward the car, settling him into the front seat before Spike got in back.

"We're dangerously close to being late," Giles said as he slipped the car into gear.

"If ya let me drive, we'd be there in plenty of time," Spike suggested as the car started rolling down the drive.

"I'm not so senile as to forget the last time you drove. I believe you managed to destroy the car. And had I been human at the time, I might have suffered a rather severe case of whiplash."

"Oi, you weren't even in the car when I wrecked it," Spike objected. Xander stared silently out the window. Walking away from his girls felt wrong, but doing something to push Spike away felt wronger, and Xander knew that as long as they were around the girls, the girls were going to be big with the pushing Spike away.

"I have heard enough stories that I don't feel a need to experience your driving first hand," Giles answered as he pulled onto the main road and began driving exactly the speed limit.

"Right, the girls aren't here, so let's just lay things out on the table," Spike said in a suddenly serious tone of voice. "Xander bloody chose me, and I'm not plannin' on hurting him any time soon, so as far as I'm concerned, you lot need to pull your heads out of your collective arse and bloody butt out of our business."

Xander turned to look at Spike. He sat behind Giles, his arms crossed over his chest. Up front, Giles gripped the wheel tighter, his knuckles turning white.

"If we're being honest, I still believe your timing is rather suspicious. It is in a demon's nature to try and control power, and you believe Xander to be exceptionally powerful."

Xander flinched. Believed. Nice word for saying that Xander wasn't big with the power. Yep, Xander could feel the love in the car. Funny, he didn't actually want to be big with the power, but it'd be nice if Giles gave him credit for being able to be big with the power.

"I don't just believe he has power, I bloody well know it," Spike snarled. "You keep this up, this doubting and undermining, and you'll bloody well get demoted to seein' the boy on every other major holiday."

"You have no say over Xander's life."

"I have as much say as Xander chooses ta give me."

"Which is clearly too much say if you think you have any right to tell him where to go or with whom to associate."

"Whoa, hey, what happened to all that good old-fashioned English repression? You know, the stiff upper lip and being polite no matter what? Politeness and emotional repression would be good," Xander interrupted. Giles was gripping the wheel so hard that Xander half expected the man to run right off the road.

"Yes, well after what we have faced together, I feel quite close to all of you," Giles said softly. "I fear that your needs have led you somewhere dangerous, and while I understand that you are an adult and that you will make your own choices, I am clearly struggling to understand why you have chosen Spike. Of course, I have my own dark past with Ethan, so I have no right to judge, but I would rather you not repeat the mistakes I've made in my life," Giles offered, his voice little more than a whisper, but the stranglehold on the steering wheel made Giles' emotions perfectly clear.

"I chose Spike because I like him," Xander said quietly. Giles glanced over before focusing on the winding road again. "He's funny and he gets my jokes and sometimes when I feel like crawling out of my own skin because I just can't… I don't know how to even handle what I'm trying to handle… he's there."

"And we haven't been," Giles finished.

"You've been there," Xander hurried to add even though Spike's snort from the back made his opinion pretty clear. "But being there and being *there* are not the same. I mean…" Xander scrambled for words. "Jim said something. He said that when he watched people die, some part of him got lost with them, and it's like that, and I don't know what to hold onto anymore and I'm just so alone, Giles. Spike is the first person who made me feel like I'm not alone."

Giles sighed, and Xander felt his own emotions struggle to fly out of control. "I assure you, I do understand what you're feeling," Giles finally answered. "I have sent children into battle, and I have watched you and Willow suffer far more that I could have ever imagined. Had I known what the future held, I would never have allowed either of you to get involved with slaying."

"But ya did," Spike snapped from the backseat, ever of the nonhelpfulness.

"Yes, I did," Giles agreed. "So Xander, I can certainly understand your emotional difficulties, and I know Buffy has struggled with her own demons, both the type from hell and the mental ones which haunt her thoughts. But Spike is not the only solution."

"No, he's not," Xander agreed, and he had to ignore the shocked and hurt expression on Spike's face, "but he's the best solution. He understands the guilt and the fear, and he doesn't look at me like I'm the donut boy."

"I assure you, no one has thought of you like that for a very long time. I doubt anyone other than Cordelia ever considered you in such a light."

"No, you just thought I was the idiot who was so stupid that he accidentally cast a love spell on the whole town, and Buffy thought I was so incompetent that she banned me from patrolling, and Willow thought I was so pathetic that she sent me to the other side of the world so that I wouldn't have to be humiliated by the whole getting turned down by Spike when I threw myself at him, which I was getting frighteningly close to doing before I went to Cascade. One night there was much drinking involved, and I got as far as the basement steps."

"I wouldn't have turned ya down, pet," Spike said from the back. The vampire leaned forward, a strong hand resting on Xander's arm.

"Yeah, but Giles is right about the demon and power, and if I'd actually shown up in your room, it wouldn’t have been the same as it is now, would it?" Xander suddenly asked. Giles thought he didn't see the truth, but Xander did. And Spike wasn't exactly trying to hide anything from him. Spike sucked air through his teeth for a second.

"You're right, pet. My soul liked you well enough, but the demon wouldn't have been satisfied with just you. I would have given you a right tumble, but I would've been in a bar finding someone else ta shag two days later."

"Yes, and this is supposed to reassure me?" Giles demanded darkly.

"Not so much. This is more you realizing that I do know why you're worried, only you don't need to worry because Spike's soul is big with the love and the faithfulness, and now that I do have power, his demon is big with the gloating and the faithfulness, and note the repetition of faithfulness because I don't have a lot of that… not since Anya. And if we're comparing reasons for not trusting each other, I'm going to add that before the chip and the soul, Spike scared the shit out of me and I was more 'whoo, stake Spike' than 'hey, let's be open-minded' boy about the whole thing. Hell, I wasn't a big fan even later when Spike was on our side, although I did try to be supportive of the Buffy and Spike thing, only it turned out to be the Buffybot and Spike thing, which is not really the point here. But I wouldn't have wanted him pre-soul and he wouldn't have wanted me pre-Shaman, and that seems fair."

"Oi, I would have wanted ya," Spike objected at the same time Giles offered his own, "My point exactly."

"And Spike has a history of loyalty and love's bitchiness, which sounds strange when I say it that way, but you know what I mean, and I have a history of dumping the woman I love at the altar and driving her to demoniness, so maybe I'm not the one to worry about. Maybe I should be the one getting the shovel speech."

"Not your fault some demon went mucking with your memories," Spike hurried to say.

"And for now, I understand why Spike's devotion appeals to you," Giles said slowly. "However, I do have to wonder what will happen when his soul and his demon are no longer in agreement about the best course of action."

"Bloody hell, think I've shown time and time again that the soul makes the final call," Spike snapped.

"Yes, and if your soul is wavering?" Giles turned a corner a little too sharply and they were on a much busier road. "I can imagine a day when Xander is aging, and your soul is torn about what to do and your demon whispers that Shamanic powers survive a turning. What will you do then, Spike?" Giles demanded.

"I'm not going to soddin' turn him."

"Now? No, you aren't. But you cannot tell me that the danger doesn't exist. Given your history of possessiveness, and as Xander points out, faithfulness, you cannot expect me to believe that you will simply watch him die as all humans must."

"I'm so glad we're all being honest because the honesty and the love and the trust in the car is threatening to underwhelm me," Xander sighed. The car fell silent. Miles ticked away under the tires, and Spike's fingers tightened on Xander's arm.

"Xander, I am willing to accept that you and Spike have a relationship right now which is mutually beneficial and healthy."

"Bloody right it is," Spike quickly agreed. Giles turned in his seat long enough to give Spike a sharp look. "However," he said slowly and deliberately before he focused on traffic again, "I would like some assurances from both of you that you will contact me before you do anything drastic. Spike, while I would find it exceptionally difficult, I would stake any vampire wearing Xander's face, so turning him will not stave off death."

"Threaten him again, and I'll soddin' rip your intestines out," Spike snarled, going into gameface, and Xander could only hope that no one was looking into their car. Yep, this was going oh so well. Why hadn't he wanted Buffy to drive them? Oh yeah, he wanted to avoid another dramatic scene. Well, that and he didn't want to get splattered across the pavement.

"I would give anything to protect Xander," Giles said calmly even though he had a fully functional and unchipped vampire growling an inch from his neck. "I simply suspect that your good intentions will not survive watching Xander age. So, I shall attempt to find a spell which would either slow the aging or permanently attach Xander's soul. I want your word that you will not attempt to turn Xander until you have given me a chance to protect him from what he could become."

Xander glanced back, and Spike had a thoughtful expression on his face. For the first time, Xander considered that Giles might be right. If he were bleeding to death, would Spike be able to just watch him die? And did Xander want a Xander-shaped vampire wandering around? Considering he didn't trust his own ability to control his power, he really wasn't trusting some newly-risen fledge.

"Deal, mate," Spike finally offered.

Giles sighed, but at least his hands loosened up on the wheel. "Should you decided to not come back with Riley, let me know, and I have need for good teams in any number of places. Demonic activity does seem to be on the rise."

Xander looked at Giles and realized that the older man was offering his tacit approval, his approval and a place to stay. "Thanks, Giles." Xander reached over and let his own hand rest on Giles' shoulder for a second. It was a step in the right direction. Now Xander just had to get Buffy and Willow onto his side. Hopefully the baby slayers would work on them while he and Spike were off in Idaho because Xander really didn't want to give up his friendships. He would to keep Spike, but he was big with the not wanting to.

Chapter 15

"Spike?" Blair asked, standing in the open door to the loft in shock.

"Wot? You were expecting the Easter bunny?" Spike pushed past Blair into the loft.

"No," Blair said slowly, drawing the word out.

"Geez, rude much?" Xander complained from the door. "Hey, nice to see you, Blair. Mind if we come in?"

"Sure, come on in," Blair offered. "I thought you were back home."

Xander walked in, and Spike had already sprawled over the couch, his legs crossed with one boot resting on top of his other knee.

"Hey, Jim," Xander offered as the Sentinel came down the stairs from the loft. "We were back home, but things sorta happened."

"You needed to get out of Dodge?" Jim asked with a wry smile. "No problem, Sport."

"Oh man, they were freaking, weren't they? Man, I knew they would. People are just not into change, but give them some time," Blair hurried to add as he locked the door and came over to put a hand on Xander's arm. Then Spike was there standing threateningly close, and then Jim was pressing in, his arm going around Blair's waist, and all four of them were in the same two foot square of space. Suddenly coming here didn't seem like such a good idea.

"Hey, how are those Jags doing?" Xander asked with exaggerated brightness as he pushed Spike back. For a second, Spike resisted moving, and then he yielded. Xander pushed Spike back several steps and then he was getting pulled back toward the couch. Spike dropped, pulling Xander down so that their hips touched.

"Hey, no offense meant," Blair hurried to say, and Xander noticed that he put his back to Jim, holding the larger Sentinel back as the man glared at Spike.

"Just settin' some boundaries. I figure we've had enough of being around people who don't bloody know the word boundary," Spike commented calmly, but Jim still stood glaring down only now he reached out and grabbed Blair's neck, tucking his Shaman behind him.

"Go on then, pet," Spike said to Xander as he gave him a push with a knee. "Let's just get the bloody show on the road."

"Not much for small talk, are you?" Jim asked as he stood between the couch and the kitchen table. Blair went to sit on one of the chairs, and Jim reached out a hand and pulled Blair back to his side without taking his eyes off Spike.

Spike only stared without answering, and Xander shifted nervously on the couch. This had seemed like such a great idea in England. They needed help, Jim and Blair were right there… okay, not right there, but in the same country there. It had even sounded pretty practical on the plane ride over. Now… now it just seemed stupid. Jim and Blair had work that did not include work of the demony sort. In fact, Jim got cranky every time someone mentioned demons. Blair just got that curious expression… the one that made Xander nervous.

"We're just in the states to do, you know, work. Work is good. Anyway, this is obviously not a good time, so hey, nice to see you, and we'll just be…" Xander felt the babble pour out, helpless to stop it.

"Need your help," Spike interrupted him with sharp clipped words that he spit out unhappily. Xander watched while Jim's eyes went large and Blair, who had been subtly shifting to get past Jim, froze in place. Spike didn't elaborate, but strong fingers kneaded Xander's shoulder reassuringly. Xander took a deep breath. Right, these were their friends. Xander glanced up at Jim who had now narrowed his eyes as he glared at Spike. Okay, these were his friends who probably wished he'd picked someone other than Spike. Funny how all his friends felt that way. But somehow, Jim's open aggression seemed so much less aggressive than what they'd left back home.

"Major Finn, the guy who shared totally classified material when you chained me to the kitchen, um, yeah, he's kinda missing," Xander blurted in one long breath.

"Oh man, missing as in demons and vampires might have eaten him?" Blair asked. Jim's arm slipped around Blair's waist, and Jim pulled his guide to his body, not even trying for subtle.

"Um, maybe. Maybe he's just lost," Xander said. "He's in the wilds of Idaho, which I have to say I didn't know Idaho had any wilds, but there are some really isolated areas out there. So I'm hoping for lost."

"Special forces… lost," Jim answered dubiously.

"And saying it like that, I'm thinking not that likely," Xander said. "But there's still trapped or injured and waiting it out, and I'd vote for those over dead."

Spike snorted. "Right, so like I said, need some help. Buffy's busy so we got stuck finding Captain Cardboard."

"Major," Xander corrected him. Spike looked over with one eyebrow up. "Not that it really matters since he's still lost. Or eaten. He might be eaten."

"And what might have done the eating?" Jim asked suspiciously.

"Probably Kith-harn from what we got from one of the soldier boys who sent him in. Not particularly dangerous, but tough and soldier boys found a nest," Spike shrugged as if it didn't matter to him that demons had eaten soldiers. Then again, it probably didn't actually matter to him. "Bloke called Carter called Buffy, told her about the report and about the fact that the army sent Captain Cardboard in, but no one came back out."

"So let the soldiers clean up the mess," Jim suggested dryly.

"They kinda did. We heard about it on the plane, the trapped gas in the mine? The big explosion out in the boonies? Yeah, that was right where the nest was supposed to be," Xander explained.

"Ten to one, the soldier boys blew up the Kith-harn nest." Spike leaned back and sucked on his front teeth.

"Demons go boom," Xander nodded. "But what with the whole going boom thing, the army's going to call it all over even though Riley is still on the missing list. He knows his stuff, Jim. He wouldn't go down to a bunch of Kith-harn."

"Are you sure they didn't do a search before, you know, blowing up the countryside?" Blair asked with a slightly disgusted expression.

"If they did, they wouldn't have done a good one. These wankers will go through an area and take out the most obvious demons, but they miss more than they see. They aren't known for being especially good at their jobs."

"They aren't?" Xander asked as he turned to Spike. Spike just rolled his eyes.

"I'm not going ta get Buffy wound up about it, but it's not like they have a good reputation among demons. Human soldiers are trained to deal with humans, not demons. Angel and I had to go in and clean out some Grox'Lar the soldier boys walked right past and never saw. However, I can't see Captain Cardboard just laying down and dying for some Kith-harn, which means either his own people blew him up or…" Spike ended with a shrug.

"Oh man, they left him out there." Blair's breathless horror pretty much summed it up.

"Gits aren't good about taking care of their own. Push comes to bloody shove, and they're no better than most demons—they'll leave the sick and wounded behind and save their own arses." Spike agreed. "Personally, don't give a rat's arse about Riley, but Buffy wants him back, and the boy's right. Riley's a bloody wanker, but he wouldn't go down easy. I'd lay odds that he's holed up somewhere waitin' for his people ta come get him."

"Only they aren't coming," Jim said bitterly. The Sentinel walked to a chair and sat down heavily. Immediately, Blair followed, sitting on the arm of the chair and putting a comforting hand on Jim's back.

"Bastards. Oh man, they are just—" Blair couldn't come up with a word and shivered with disgust to finish his thought.

"Soddin' right on that one," Spike agreed.

"I'd wish some horrible disease on them, but after having a few rounds with the magical syphilis, I just try to avoid disease references. And magic. Magic and me are definitely unmixy," Xander added. Bonding was good, and if they could bond over hating the army, he was all for it. Nothing like a common enemy to make people do the forgiving and forgetting thing. Of course, right now Jim and Blair just both stared at him in shock. "And that was too much on the share-scale, wasn't it?" Xander asked.

Blair smiled, the type of smile a person makes when they're trying really hard to not smile. "Hey, as long as you aren't sharing the magical syphilis."

Xander flushed as he remembered Blair's hands rubbing over his body, thumbs pressing into his nipples before Blair reached down and sucked on the tight skin, and hey, mentioning syphilis to previous lovers, not of the good. "No way, we killed a couple of Indians, and it cleared right up… and that sounds really awful when I say it out loud. Did that sound awful?" Xander asked Blair.

"Slightly," Blair agreed.

"Ya killed an evil spirit tryin' ta work vengeance on the world. Not like you went out and slaughtered a few innocent squaws making their tortillas."

"Oh man, you have enough stereotypes in there to offend an entire tribe of Athabaskans," Blair cringed. "So, you two go and kill the demons and find Riley. What part do you need help with?" Blair asked. Jim continued to sit silently, his jaw popping and the vein along his neck doing a little pulsy thing that made Xander think of the Hulk right before he actually Hulked.

"Just the killing and the finding parts."

"Oi, I can kill 'em just fine as long as there are any left after the military morons blew up a big chunk of mountain. And you're going to find him, so it's not like we need help with that bit. Ya just need to look for the most idealistic prat around and follow the thread. But I can't protect the boy during the day."

"Hey, I can protect myself, you know. I'm good with the running," Xander insisted as he crossed his arms.

"Wouldn't let Red or Buffy or even the soddin' knobhead wander the woods alone after the sun came up. Since I'll be stuck in a vamp-friendly tent ta avoid turnin' into dust and ash, I need someone to look after you."

"Jim and Blair are backup for us, us, you and me type us," Xander protested. "They are not babysitters since I can take care of myself. I have the manly screaming AND the running down," Xander objected. Spike looked at him blankly. "And hiding AND when pushed into a corner, I swing a deadly weed-eater," Xander pointed out. Spike rolled his eyes and then reached out and snagged Xander's neck. Xander didn't struggle against the pull that tucked him into Spike's side with most of his weight resting on Spike's chest. Even better, no one in the room tensed up or glared disapprovingly or made little grunting noises of unhappiness. Xander relaxed into the embrace. Maybe the girls just needed this latest apocalypse in England so they would focus on it and not moaning over the wrongness that was Spike and Xander because as far as Xander was concerned, there was a real lack of wrongness.

"And you came to us because?" Jim asked.

Spike looked over at the sentinel, and the loft grew quiet. "Wouldn't trust just anyone ta protect the boy when I'm stuck in some bloody pup tent. Even fewer who I trust not to hurt him with their ideas 'bout who's right for the boy and the choices the boy's made." Spike's words hung on the air as Jim looked right at them. Xander bit his lip, uncomfortable with the silence but unwilling to break it as Jim and Spike considered each other solemnly. The air grew still as Xander waited for an answer.

"I happen to think you're an asshole," Jim commented.

"Ta, mate," Spike offered a two-fingered salute. "I can be when times call for it."

"Been accused of being one myself, and I can't say Naomi, Blair's mom, is still exactly thrilled with us being together, so I'm not likely to judge someone else's relationship," Jim finished. Xander watched as Jim scrubbed his hand over his face, his jaw still doing the throbby thing. "So, Major Finn. If he's hurt or trapped, they'll leave him out there to rot," Jim said slowly.

"Or go nuts," Blair added as he twirled his finger around in the universal sign for loony. "I mean, solitary isolation is majorly bad for the psyche. Solitary confinement has been shown to contribute to aggressive behaviors, depression, anxiety, anger management, even psychosis. Not good. So not good."

"Why would they send him in alone?" Jim asked.

"Um," Xander flinched when he realized how the next bit sounded. "Okay, we're actually hoping to rescue a whole team, but I guess we're focusing on the Riley part since he's the one we know."

"Speak for yourself, pet. The rest can either tag along or fall in a ravine for all I care. I'm going out to find Finn, and I'm soddin' ashamed of doing that much."

"Okay, as a member of the soul-having club, that's sounding not so good," Xander complained softly. This was really not going to impress Jim or Blair what with the sounding slightly heartless and maybe a little soulless. Xander looked up through his lashes and Spike was looking at him strangely.

"They bloody experimented on me, pet. They go out and kill anything from Kwaini to Bracchen to vampires without wondering who's evil and who's not. Soddin' hell, I doubt you or the fuzzy Shaman over there or a Sentinel would get a pass from the human-only brigade."

"Major Finn is like that?" Jim quickly asked with a frown.

"Not so much now," Xander hurried to say. "I mean, once upon a time, yeah. He was totally with the whole exterminate with extreme prejudice plan, but then he met Buffy and he figured out that not quite human didn't mean bad exactly."

"Yeah, found out he liked vampires a whole lot, didn't he?" Spike asked with a not-nice smirk.

"Okay, officially ancient history." Xander planted an elbow in Spike's side. "Riley's an okay guy. He rejoined the military because Buffy was having problems, and she made him feel big on the useless scale, and he's more of a save the world sort than a sit around and watch someone else save the world sort. So, yeah he's career military and military sometimes means stupid when it comes to fighting demons, but he's a good guy. And he's out there waiting for backup that's probably not going to come, or at least I hope he is."

"How many were in his team when they went in?" Jim asked.

"Six, Riley plus five," Xander answered. He pulled a folded paper out of his jacket, information on each of the missing men. Other than Riley, Xander didn't know any of them, but they all deserved rescue.

"The government may still be looking. I can't say I particularly want to get mixed up in a government search," Jim said as he flipped through the pages. He stopped on one page, his jaw tightening.

"Not bloody arguin' with that," Spike said quickly. "If someone's still out there lookin', I'm happy to let them find the git, but you know as well as I do that Xander's the best bet for tracking someone in an area that large. And if the government planned on sendin' in the rescue, I doubt they would have blown up a big chunk of a mountain."

"If they're alive, something's keeping them from just hiking out," Jim said. He held out one of the papers, one with a black man with large eyes. "Peterson. I ran into him in the Middle East. He's not one to give up easy. Whatever has killed or trapped him, I don't want Blair anywhere near it," Jim said seriously.

"Whoa, you so do not get to make that decision for me," Blair immediately objected, but Jim leveled a steel gaze at the man. "I am sorry I ever said the words Blessed Protector near you. You are not my guardian angel."

"No, but I'm your Sentinel," Jim countered. "And I'm not taking my Guide up against demons."

"Xander and Blair, their powers won't help 'em in a fight, so I wouldn't take them in if there was any danger."

"So, something took out or trapped six members of a highly elite secret force, but you're trying to tell me it's not a danger to Blair?" Jim asked incredulously

Okay, Xander could admit that sounded a little fishy; however, Spike just flashed into gameface. "Kith-harn aren't a bloody danger, not to me."

"I don't walk into situation without more intel than 'they aren't a danger'." Jim tossed the papers down on the coffee table and crossed his arms.

"You don't want to help, fine," Spike snapped out as he stood up, dragging Xander up with him.

"Hey, whoa, we never said we wouldn't help," Blair stepped between Spike and the door, his hands held up in surrender. "Jim's just a little overly cautious."

"Justifiably cautious," growled in response.

"A little information might help things, you know. We're still on the whole learning curve with demons, so you say demon, and we tend to think of those old lithographs of giant scaly-faced evil with with the big horns." Blair used his fingers to outline horns coming out of his head.

"Those are Fyarl demons. Or maybe D'Hoffryn, D'Hoffryn is with the horns," Xander nodded. He stopped when he realized Jim and Blair were both looking at him with mild horror. "And you were totally exaggerating with the whole horned giant thing, weren't you?" Xander asked.

"You mean there are demons that look like that? Wow. I mean, I guess I should have guessed because all mythology carries a seed of truth, but wow." Blair backed off a step, his face going a little pale.

Spike shrugged. "Adult Pa'tapparich ready to mate or Hacksaw or Froctor demons or a dozen other kinds come with horns and huge bodies. It's a popular feature," Spike added.

"And you want me to walk into battle with something that looks like that?" Jim asked darkly. Oh yeah, that wasn't Jim's friendliest expression.

"Bloody hell, if this were a tribe of Fyarl, I'd be going in with dozens of slayers at my back. They're Kith-harn," Spike rolled his eyes.

"Meaning?" Jim demanded as he stood up and stood next to Blair.

Xander jumped in. "They're slightly stronger than an average human, but mostly they count on surprise when they're hunting. They have bright red skin and lower teeth that look kinda like a boar with a serious bad overbite. I mean, they're a little freaky, but not a major hellmouth opening, taking out huge populations type of demon."

"They're not harmless, either," Spike quickly added as he gave Xander a look. "Won't lie. If there are enough of 'em, they can be buggers to kill. But one on one, a well-prepared human has a fair chance, and with your senses ta warn you ahead of time, you should have a better than fair chance of takin' on a good dozen of them."

"A dozen?" Jim crossed him arms and looked more than a little doubtful.

"Some demons, like vamps, aren't bothered by bullets. They sting like hell, but they don't do enough damage ta slow us down."

"But a gun will kill a Kith-harn," Jim guessed.

"Just as fast as a human," Spike agreed. "If they took out Riley and his team, it's because the soldier boys got too damn confident or because they were overwhelmed. We'll hear them comin' before they can overwhelm us, assuming that any survived having half the mountain blown up."

"Peterson was an arrogant son of a bitch when I met him." Jim turned to look at Blair, his uncertainty clear.

"Come on, Jim. They're alone out there," Blair urged him.

"Or they're dead," Jim countered. Blair just looked up without saying a word. "Fuck, or they're holed up hoping for rescue. Fine, we're going," Jim finally relented. Blair immediately gave Xander a big smile and a thumbs up. "But if one demon touches Blair, I'll shove a piece of wood down your throat," Jim threatened Spike.

"Like ta see you try, mate. I'd skin ya alive. And if you don't take care of Xander during the day, I suggest ya run and keep running because I'll show ya that skinning alive isn't just a saying."

Xander looked from one to the other, a little freaked with the mutual threats, but Blair rolled his eyes. "Shit. You two have way too much testosterone. Hey, I wonder if vampires have an endocrine system. You know, I have a friend who's a nurse, that could be a fascinating study."

"Oi!" Spike just about shouted. "And keep your Shaman off my bloody tail. I'm not into getting mojo'ed."

"You're on your own with him," Jim said with a wicked smile. The more time he's trying to test you, the less time he has to test me." Jim turned to Blair. "I'll get the gear; you call Simon. Tell him we have some friends with an emergency," Jim said as he stood. Xander started breathing again without even noticing he'd stopped.

As Jim hurried upstairs and Blair got on the phone, Xander felt a little knot untie in his stomach. Okay, so now they had backup. Backup was good. Xander just hoped they'd get there in time to need backup.

Chapter 16

"This is as close as I can get us," Jim said as he pushed open the truck door. The night was still dark, but he left the driver's side door open so the light spilled out into a circle. Xander could see the tree trunks all around the road which had turned into off-road a good mile back. The light didn't reach far, so the trees simply faded into the dark, giving Xander the impression of being surrounded by tree-giants.

"Thank god. I think my ass died somewhere back near the gas station with the fine selection of guns-as-art lithographs," Xander said as he stood. The minute the sun had set, Spike had come out from under the sun-proof tarp and pulled him into his lap, so Xander hadn't taken as much of a pounding as he could have, but he still hurt. Spike's hands steadied him as he struggled to his feet and tried to get the circulation back.

"Sorry about that, Sport," Jim said as he came around to the back and dropped the tailgate. "You could ride up with us you know."

"Yeah? Well you could bloody ride back here for a spell," Spike snapped as he bounded up with way more grace than Xander could manage after a few hours of getting banged around in the back of a truck.

"It's my truck," Jim just about growled back. If Xander didn't know the Sentinel was human, he would have been checking for fangs after a growl like that.

"Man, check the testosterone at the door," Blair broke in. "Xander, could you throw that backpack down here, please."

"Um, which one?" Xander asked as he checked out the back of Jim's old truck. He'd been planning to hike in, find Riley, and hike out, but his idea of hiking included a couple of Twinkies and a bottle of water. He was fairly sure the others had packed everything including the kitchen sink into four enormous backpacks that looked like something people climbing Mount Everest might carry. Big, huge Everest-climbing people, and Xander was pretty sure he didn't fit into that category.

"The school backpack. I need to grab a notebook out of there before we take off."

Xander found the only small bag in the back of the truck and tossed it out.

"You plannin' on stopping to take notes?" Spike demanded as he grabbed one of the hiking packs and threw it down at Jim with way more viciousness that really necessary; however, Jim quickly stepped back so that it thunked to the ground. Xander put an elbow in Spike's side, but Spike just grinned and snaked his own arm around Xander's waist, pulling him close.

"Very mature," Jim said sarcastically as he reached in and grabbed a second backpack for himself.

"Wot? Sometimes it's just hard to remember how weak you humans are," Spike offered with a shrug.

"Hey! Human here," Xander protested loudly.

"Yeah, but you've been off demon hunting about as long as you could walk, haven't ya? Besides, you're a Shaman."

"And Jim's a Sentinel," Blair pointed out as he jumped into the back of the truck.

"No bloody comparing them, mate. A Shaman has real power; a Sentinel's just one more human with better senses."

"And prophetic dreams and an ability to see ghosts and instincts that obviously tap a whole section of the brain that normally isn't accessible," Blair pointed out.

"He's still a human," Spike announced as he jumped from the truck, the largest backpack in hand.

"A group I'm proud to be in," Jim said without much emotion. "I'm rather enamored of humanity and humans."

Spike snorted. Oh yeah, this was going to be just so much fun. Xander zipped up his jacket. Despite the fact it was summer, it was chilly with the sun down.

"Right, well I'm not here for the fresh air, mate. Let's get this over with."

"Um, small problem Spike. I have extra Hellmouthy vision, not extra good vision, and it's a little dark out here," Xander pointed out, especially since the Spike voice seemed to be coming from the darkness. Two yellow eyes blinked into existence from the direction of Spike's voice. Xander jumped down from the back of the truck and took one of the two smaller packs and slung it over his shoulder, and suddenly he was sorry he had given up construction because he could use some construction muscles right about now.

"I won't let ya trip, pet. Just grab my arm and hold on until the moon comes up."

"I'll help Blair," Jim commented.

"Don't bloody care," Spike quickly answered. Xander had reached Spike's side, so he promptly put an elbow in his vampire's side again. It never worked to actually stop Spike from saying the rude, but Xander did keep hoping his vampire would get a clue.

"Oi, watch the goods, pet. It'd be a shame ta have to spank you in front of your mates." Even without enough light to really see Spike's face, Xander could tell a smirk when he heard one. Xander lost all words, choking in shock and glad the darkness hid his blush. From the heat that suddenly gathered in his face, Xander was guessing he had a good lobster impression going.

"Breathe, Sport," Jim suggested. "So the map shows a deep ravine to the south. I'd like to head through it because going around will add a full day to the hike, but I don't know if you two can keep up on a rough hike."

"Oi! I can run bloody circles around you."

"Yeah, but I think he was going for being polite while still asking if I planned on passing out from fatigue," Xander guessed, which was fair with Jim being a Ranger, a big, seriously impressive Ranger and Xander being... not.

"He'll handle anything your fuzzy little mutt can handle," Spike snapped back.

"Blair has hiked some of the roughest terrain in the U.S. and South America."

"Hey! Hey, absolutely no turning on each other!" Blair's voice interrupted just as Spike took a breath to really let Jim have it. Xander looked toward the truck where a Blair-sized shadow had stepped in front of the Jim-sized shadow. "I'm freaking about demons, about being in the woods with demons, about secret government projects and covert soldiers. So, can we please not add more to the potential weirdness of this moment with your testosterone poisoning?"

"Way too much with the freak-worthy," Xander quickly agreed. "But," Xander added as he opened his vision, "I can safely say we are not in imminent danger of being demon snacks."

"Are you sure?" Blair asked. Xander could feel the snarl reverberating through Spike's body.

"Big with the sure. I can kinda see life force now, which is handy for demonic hide and seek, and hopefully for hide and seek of the soldierly kind," Xander quickly added before Spike could say something totally and completely inappropriate, especially since he was a good 95 percent sure Blair had said that out of fear of the demony bad guys and not doubt of Shamanic powers. He blinked away the vision.

"Cool. Man, that is so much more awesome than my decidedly less obvious powers." Blair's voice had the sound of genuine admiration, and for a second, Xander wasn't sure what to say.

"Right then. Are we going or are we just going to pitch the tent here and wait for Captain Cardboard to wander by?" Spike interrupted. Without a word, Jim walked into the light spilling out of the truck's cab, and slammed the door. Immediately, the night was so dark that the circle of stars directly above them seemed impossibly large, at least to someone who had grown up in the smog of California. But then again, Xander remembered the stars looking that large in Africa… at least when he was out in the countryside and not in some dirty city with smoke clinging to the squat buildings and beggars brushing against his legs.

"South it is. If you guys are having trouble, just let me know," Jim suggested, the voice heading past then, and Xander thought he could see darker shadows in shadow walk in front.

"Stop annoying the vampire," Blair hissed and Spike started walking after the pair. Clinging to Spike's arm, Xander took the first steps into the dark just praying that Spike had put his sense of humor away. He really didn't want to end up face-first in the mud. For a long time, they walked silently through the darkness. The moon peeked over the treetops when Blair finally broke the silence.

"Seeing life force… totally cool. When did that start happening?"

"Um…" Xander thought back. "I sort of started when you guys asked me to track specific people. Only the more I tried to explain to Spike what I was doing with my powers, the more the things I started actually seeing. It was like I could see the Hellmouthy vibe I only felt with you guys, but then I started noticing that everyone had a vibe, but not everyone's vibe was Hellmouthy, which is probably because not everyone is big with the evil."

"And now you can *see* anyone's vibe?"

"Everyone has this soul cord that's wrapped inside and when they walk, it's like threads that drag behind them," Xander agreed. He blinked away the darkness and suddenly bright cords lit the night. Ahead, two cords twined: burgundy flashing with gold tangled with a greenish-tan. Christmas colors… sorta. They weren't actually the really bright red and green of Christmas decorations, more the softer designer colors Willow had brought home on strips of paper when her and the baby slayers had obsessed over repainting the whole house. "When Spike started asking me to talk about it, I guess I just started seeing more and more."

"Oh, wow. Xander, do you know what that means?"

"I'm thinking no," Xander answered. Spike's hand stopped him and then carefully led him around something. Xander's eyes had adjusted enough so that he could see a big mass that was either a hunched over bear or a broken tree stump.

"Man, it's called activity theory. Activity theory says that the human consciousness and human activity are related, so what you do affects how you think, and how you think affects what you do."

Spike snorted. "Sounds pretty obvious. If ya think soldiers are annoying gits, you snap their necks. If ya let yourself get twisted 'round some human finger, you go and rescue their sorry arses from the middle of nowhere."

"Well, yeah," Blair answered, sounding a little taken aback by Spike's blunt comment. Xander already knew that Spike was doing this for Buffy and that part of him would rather eat Riley than rescue him, but Blair was obviously still figuring out just how much of a vampire Spike was. Blair took a deep breath. "But it's not just about how we think affecting our actions. Activity theory says it works both ways. In fact, Vygotsky called language one of the artifacts, one of the tools that we use to understand the world. As the language, the tool we use to understand the world, becomes more precise, our understanding becomes more accurate. So, Xander, by trying to describe what you see, you're teaching yourself to understand your powers."

"Wait," Spike said, sounding suddenly interested. "The more he talks about what he sees, the more power he has over it?"

"Basically, yeah," Blair agreed. "Ancient cultures always believed that naming something gave power over it. Some Native American tribes believed that you should never give your name to anyone who you couldn't trust to hold it sacred, and more than one religious group believes that to say God's name is a sin because it's an attempt to understand or take the power of God. Vygotsky really is a sort of modern variation on that, only he believes that language is the tool you use to define your world, to understand whatever subject you're attempting to comprehend. It's called defining the praxis."

"Spike, don't get Blair started. Unless you want his two hour lecture on language and power, just nod and ignore him," Jim advised. From the grunt that followed, Blair's elbow found Jim's stomach.

"Oh man, you are totally missing the point here," Blair complained.

"Oi, don't bloody care to listen to some rot from you, but if it helps Xander get control of his powers, I bloody well want him describing them as much as he can. So, get on with it, pet," Spike ordered with a little squeeze on Xander's arm.

"Um, get on with what?" Xander asked.

"Like the little fuzzy Shaman said, get on with the talkin'."

"Uh…" Xander blanked as he realized he really didn't have anything to say. "Did you see the Jags' last game?" he improvised.

"Bloody—" Spike cut himself off. "Talk about the Shaman shite." Okay, that was Spike's cranky voice.

"Okay. Um, people have cords, and they kind of trail behind like long tails or like those dotted lines in comics that show you where someone has walked."

"So you can track?" Jim broke in. "How far behind a person does this line trail?"

"Yeah, and I'm not sure. Back in London, I tracked a demon across a couple of fields—" Xander could feel the vibration start as Spike's low-level growl reminded him just how cranky his vampire was about that particular side-trip. "And I'm not going to finish that story because I went out without anyone to really back me up seeing as how the girls don't really understand the Shaman stuff, and at the time they were still in the 'Xander's eye got mojoed' phase so they didn't think I even was a Shaman."

"Xander." Jim's voice came out calm, but Xander could still hear something lurking just under the calm. Suddenly Spike pulled him to a stop, and Xander could see the faint outline of Jim right in front of them. "You went out without backup?" he asked. Xander suddenly felt exposed. He remembered the disappointment and anger on Spike's face, and now he could imagine a similar expression on Jim's, only with all the darkness, Jim and Spike could look at him like he was the biggest idiot in the world, and Xander really couldn't see them at all.

"I thought I had backup. I mean, the girls have been backing me up for years… or I was backing them up since they sort of did more of the front-line fighting, but I had someone with me," Xander defended himself.

"The twits bloody lied to me ta get me out of the way, and then they dragged his arse out after a demon they couldn't even identify, all to try and prove he was wrong about bein' a Shaman. Only, the boy proved them right and nearly got eaten in the process."

"Xander, are you okay?" Blair asked as he stepped forward and put a hand on the arm Spike wasn't holding.

"Hey, no problems. And there was absolutely no almost-eating. Some getting tossed around like a rag doll and heaving ground, yeah, but no almost-eating. Look, it was stupid, Spike was all big with the cranky, and I'm not doing that again."

"Sport," Jim sighed, and again with the emotion right under the surface.

"Okay, hey, I get it. I have the soldier memories, so I know all about not going into the field with a team if you don't know their abilities. I just had a moment of stupidity there," Xander held up his hands in surrender. "Geez, you guys are pushy."

"He's right," Blair agreed before he turned back to Jim. "Xander's an adult, so if he wants to make bad choices—"

"He's bloody well never going to again. He's not getting himself killed because those gits pulled some guilt trip," Spike interrupted, and then they were all hiking again. "Go on then, tell the fuzzy Shaman about what you see."

"The name is Blair." Ahead of them, Blair complained softly.

Feeling Spike's hand twitch on his arm, Xander suddenly understood Spike's obsession with insulting Blair. "Spike does that to Angel too, calling him Sweetcheeks and Peaches when Angel is this two or three hundred year old bad-ass, depending on whether you count his century in hell, so don't take the fuzzy, little thing too seriously from him," Xander suggested.

"Just talk about the Shaman shite," Spike growled. Yep, he'd totally nailed his vampire, Xander realized.

"Okay, geez." Xander blinked into Shamanic vision, and the cords cast an odd glow over the world so that he could see the trees more clearly, only they were faded and almost wavy as the colors in the soul cords around him pulsed, casting ever-changing light against the shadows.

"I'm guessing Jim is the burgundy gold. The only other people I've seen who had gold in their soul cord are slayers, so hey, Willow's whole theory about Sentinels and Slayers being related might be right. Well, either that or the colors don't actually mean anything, I haven't actually figured that part out yet."

"Different people have different colors? Oh man, when we stop, we have to journal all this. Xander, have you written down any of your observations?"

"I'm not really big for taking notes. I almost failed history for that very reason. But Tara, this girl who used to help us and who was really good with magic, she could see auras, and she said everyone's aura had a slightly different color, so it makes sense that the soul cords are colors. Spike is reddish too, almost the same burgundy color as Jim, but his cord is darker and it sometimes flashes with dark green, and when he gets angry, it turns black like other demons' cords. And Spike has a second cord, and it's more of a brown with bits of blue, which is his soul."

"Oh man. This is… this is wild. What about me?"

"You have this muted green cord with lots of tan in it."

"What do you have?" Blair asked, excited.

"I don't know. I can't see my own," Xander shrugged into the darkness.

"Whoa. How could the others just dismiss this? Man, lots of people claim to see auras, but this is so specific. There has to be a connection between the color and the meaning. It's all symbolic, and like Vygotsky said, language and symbols are just ways to define the world. What do you think Jim and Spike have in common?"

"Back up, Chief. I don't have anything in common with him. As soon as possible, I hope to not even have a country in common with him," Jim immediately broke in. The moon was up far enough that Xander could see Jim turn his head to glare at Blair.

"They're both way overprotective," Xander quickly pointed out.

"Theory one… this red color is associated with being big, overbearing mother hens. It's a place to start," Blair said cheerfully.

"Bloody hell, you take that back," Spike demanded.

"Oh please. You're as bad as Jim. I bet you heat the chicken soup the second Xander gets the sniffles," Blair snorted.

"Have not."

"Either you're lying, which wouldn't be out of character for a demon, or Xander hasn't gotten the sniffles yet," Blair said confidently. Spike didn't have an answer for that one.

"Okay, Xander. Let's go through the other colors and see if we can start figuring out what your brain is trying to tell you. I bet before we get back to Cascade, we can come up with a dozen tests to check out our hypotheses. Oh man, this is exciting. Naomi would be so stoked. Auras and Shamen are right up her alley. So, let's start with Willow. What colors do you see in her cord?"

Starting with Willow and moving through every one of the Slayers, Xander described all the soul-cords he'd seen. Long after the moon had risen and then sunk back down under the trees, he was explaining everything he knew about his vision while Blair let out a steady stream of "uh-huh's" and "oh man's."

Chapter 17

Laying on a slab of rock so that his head was in the shade of a large tree and the rest of his body was in the sun, Xander watched Jim and Blair have an animated discussion with lots of finger poking and not-happy faces. He couldn't hear a word. Even though Spike was in the sun-proof tent even farther away, he could probably catch every word of it. The problem was that Spike probably didn't care enough to eavesdrop and Xander was way too tired to actually get up, go to the tent and ask Spike to listen. Nope, call him Xand the noodle-legged man because his muscles had rolled up and gone home for the day. His hurts hurt.

Even worse, Xander suspected that the fight on the far side of the clearing had something to do with the mission, which Xander had dropped on their door, or the fact that Xander had picked a vampire who was going out of his way to prove his assholiness, emphasis on the ass and not the holiness.

Jim poked his finger into Blair's chest, and Blair threw his hands up in surrender and turned his back, flipping Jim the bird as he turned. For a second, Xander thought Jim was going to grab his guide, but then he just turned and stomped into the trees. Yep, good vibes all 'round.

"Hey, Xander," Blair called as he walked over and dropped down on the rock Xander had chosen. "Okay, so let's go over all the colors and make sure I have them recorded right," Blair said as he flipped open his notebook and balanced it on one knee.

"Are you and Jim okay?" Xander asked as he stared at the spot where Jim had disappeared into the trees.

"Totally. Man, he just gets his alpha going sometimes."

"He looked pissed."

"He can deny it all he wants, but he is a total mother hen. He doesn't want me near Spike, so I promised him that I would stay close the second the sun set and avoid your tent during the day. He'll calm down…. Eventually."

"I didn't mean for this to… you know," Xander waved a vague hand between Blair and the spot where Jim had disappeared into the woods.

"Hey, no problem. He just likes hearing himself yell sometimes. It doesn't mean anything." Blair looked over at him. "Really," he finally added. It didn't really ease Xander's guilt that much. "So, what's up with Spike. I mean, I assume he's not always so…"

"Assholy?" Xander supplied. That made Blair laugh. "Man, I was going to say defensive."

"No, asshole covers it better, and he is so going to spank me when I go in there," Xander said eyeing the tent.

"Hey, as long as you consent," Blair shrugged. Xander's brain stuttered for a second, not quite catching up to the lack of condemnation.

"I could veto a spanking… probably. The bad think about vamp senses is that he knows when I don't actually mean what I'm saying but I'm saying it because I think I should."

"Oh man, I hear you. Some kinks are a little embarrassing, and having a partner who can sniff your interest is a little hard on the ego sometimes," Blair nodded. Xander didn't answer, and silence intruded between them. Blair eventually started writing in his notebook as Xander lay and stared up at the trees.

"Spike doesn't like that you're a Shaman," Xander offered softly. It felt weirdly backstabee to talk about Spike, but it wasn't like he was talking behind Spike's back because he was definitely sitting in the tent eavesdropping.

"I thought he was taking advantage of the fact, not that I have a problem with that. I'm down with being taken advantage of here," he laughed with a wink. "You know I want to help you if I can."

"I get the feeling the Shaman stuff is bigger than I understand. I mean, Spike, he totally does the demeaning nicknames when he's uncomfortable, and I haven't seen him use so many insults since he got rid of the chip. I mean, chipped Spike was big with the insults... some of which didn't even make a whole lot of sense what with the weird British talk. But old Spike just ate people who wigged him out, and new Spike doesn't usually get wigged, well, except for Angel, but like I said, he uses every girly name in the book on Angel."

Blair nodded slowly. "The mutt comments are putting Jim a little on edge. He can claim that it doesn't bother him all he wants, but the fact is that he takes the role of protector pretty seriously. However, I can see Spike's point. Jim and I talked after you guys left last time, and there have been plenty of times when I talked my way out of something that really… it shouldn't have worked. Man, I so should have been dead a half-dozen times over, but I talked someone into waiting or just tying me up or hesitating for that second that it took Jim to get there."

Xander rolled to his side and looked at Blair in confusion. "Um, not connecting the dots here."

"I convinced international thieves I was a wheel man, the son of some die-hard rum-runner. I'm not sure, but if Spike's right, I'm willing to bet that I was using some of my mojo on them."

Xander waited for the punchline.

"They didn't want to get tricked, but if Spike's right, I can override a person's common sense. I can 'teach' them to believe things that are so not in their best interests, and yeah, I'm using that to help the police but…" Blair let his words trail off.

"Manipulativesville, here you come," Xander finished. "You're powerful in the ways of the force, Obi Wan."

"Totally. Man, a con man would be raking in the dough. So, I can see where Spike might be uncomfortable with me. But he gets cranky, and then Jim gets even more uncomfortable because talking fast is no match for superhuman strength and big damn teeth. And I don't mind telling you, I do not want to end up getting eaten like the grandmother in the fairy tale."

Immediately Xander started shaking his head. "Spike blusters, but he would never… okay, he totally would kill someone, but not without good reason. He has a soul, and unlike a lot of people I've met, he uses his. He'd never hurt you unless you were doing something that was huge with the wrong: turning to the dark side or something. Which makes him better than a lot of people I've seen."

"Jim's just going to have to figure that out on his own," Blair said softly. "Yeah, I could tell him to back off, but his instincts are screaming at him that Spike is a predator, so arguing with him right now is just going to put him more on edge."

"Um, I think I might have the answer for that one," Xander said.

"Hey, I'm open to any suggestions because he's driving me nuts, and Spike is not exactly on my Christmas list right now, either."

"I told you that Jim had gold in his thread and the only other gold I ever saw was Slayers. Well, Slayers have this Slayer-sense that goes off when vamps are around, and it's not always the most accurate because when Buffy was new, her Slayer sense was all with the wacky because she invited a vampire into her room without ever having the senses go off, but as she got older, it turned pretty damn accurate."

Blair stared at him with wide eyes. "Oh man. If Sentinels are related to Slayers, they may have some instinctive antagonism against demons."

"And Buffy said that she gets the creeps around vampires, and we are so not going into why she's dated them anyway, but Jim might be getting the wiggins just because Spike is a vampire."

"Wow. Okay, I never thought I'd say this about vampires, but that makes a lot of sense. And if this is an instinct thing, Jim is so going to refuse to acknowledge it. Great." Blair slapped his notebook down on the rock and lay next to Xander. "Man, this sucks. They're going to kill each other, aren't they?"

"No killing. Absolutely no killing," Xander said, his guts tightening even though he knew Blair meant it as a joke.

"We just won't let them kill each other," Blair said with a shrug.

Looking up at the clouds, Xander snorted. "Yeah, like I have any hope of stopping Spike from doing anything, not that the anything in question would be killing because Spike is not a killer, or at least not a murderer... not any more."

"I have total faith that you could stop him if you really wanted to."

"Not so much."

"Don't underestimate yourself, Xander. I mean, Spike is obviously not happy about tracking down these soldier, and he's here. That says something."

"Yep, says he's still wrapped around Buffy's finger," Xander answered as he watched a cloud lion mutate into a ferris wheel. "Blair.. does it ever make you feel... I mean.... How do you and Jim decide who's going to make all the decisions?" he finally blurted.

"Whoa. Big question." Blair fell silent for several seconds, and Xander wished he could suck the words back in, but sadly, that was one Shamanic power he didn't have. Xander suspected he would have preferred it.

"If you're asking about who's more up front and public about decisions, that'd be Jim. He's pretty much the stereotypical dominant alpha-male, especially when he gets around the guys at work," Blair started slowly. "But it's more complicated than that. If I really want something, I know I can nag him into it, and he does too. So when I privately tell him what I really want, he listens." Blair started laughing. "Okay, I nag so well that when I really get going, I pretty much get my way, but most of the time I just kinda go along since he makes decisions with me in mind. Man, I guess I'm saying that we agree on things, but from the outside, I think it would pretty much look like Jim's the boss. God, Naomi was all freaked about my aura getting overwhelmed by his, so yeah, Jim's the big, bad alpha male in our relationship."

"So, does that ever make you feel girly?" Xander asked, darting a look over to see how Blair was taking it. That would be the expression Spike always called gobsmacked.

"Girly? Xander, girls aren't... Who called you girly?" Blair finally demanded.

"Um, Buffy?" Xander admitted. "Okay, she didn't really call me a girl; she just said I was going all fifties housewife, and as a person with a working cock, that was a little... emasculating."

"Buffy the GIRL? The all powerful demon-slaying, kicking the ass of all evil GIRL?" Blair demanded as he sat up straight. He didn't even try to hide the laughter in his voice, and Xander wasn't sure if he should be offended or not.

"I don't take her too seriously since she's not exactly healthy-relationship girl," Xander quickly defended himself.

"And I think I can explain that," Blair interrupted.

"I just feel like maybe I shouldn't be okay with Spike getting big on the bossiness."

"Xander, does he listen when you talk to him?" Blair asked in a serious tone that had none of the dark laughter of a moment ago.

"Yeah," Xander had to admit that no one in his life had ever listened to him the way Spike did.

"Do you ever feel like his decisions are wrong? Do they make you uncomfortable?"

"Define uncomfortable," Xander uneasily.

"If Jim and I saw you two, would it feel bad?"

"No," Xander immediately answered. "He doesn't do anything I don't like doing, but—" Xander froze.

"You don't like Buffy and Willow being there to see it?" Blair asked gently.

"I don't like making them so unhappy. Buffy's actually doing... well, okay would be too strong a word and she says she reserves the right to freak on the whole Spike and Xander front but she's accepting this about as much as any of them. So, when she goes and tells me I'm wrong..." Xander stopped, unable to explain just how creepy that felt.

"Fuck, and that's the supportive friend?" Blair asked incredulously.

"Willow is less with the support and more with the finding magical ways to make me stop... she doesn't want to know who I am now," Xander finished. He felt like he was betraying his girls to even say that much, but now that he was away from them, he could admit that they were lacking in the support department.

"Xander, you and Spike can always stay here in the States."

Xander snorted. "You don't know my friends, they would follow me to Cascade and then Jim would have to shoot them to get them to go away, and considering that Willow already did the ghost thing once… well, kinda twice if you count this four in one spell thing with the out of body experience, but anyway, I'm not so sure that shooting them would actually get rid of them."

"Xander, have you talked to Spike about this?" Blair asked.

"We start talking, only it usually ends with him sighing or sex. A lot of times it just ends with sex."

"Sounds like Jim. When all else fails, just do something to avoid talking at all," Blair huffed.

"We talk. We do lots of talking. We just don't really seem to solve much. Sometimes he even tries to get me to talk when I'm ready to roll over and do the sleep thing, so it feels like more talking is just more with the words and not with the solving anything."

"Man, I was wrong. You're Jim," Blair sighed.

"Hey, not with the muscles here. I think I'm pretty much dead after that hike, so comparing me to Jim is a big 'no'."

"I don't know. I can see a similarity or two: overdeveloped sense of personal responsibility, carrying the weight of the whole fucking world on your shoulders," Blair said quietly. "And for all your talking, it's not like you actually say much. As an expert in talking without revealing anything, I have to bow to your powers of non-communicative communication."

Xander pushed himself up and looked at Blair. "Why do I feel like I should be insulted?"

"Because I just told you a truth you didn't want to know. Come on, Xander. You came out here, and you weren't telling us anything about how much pressure the girls were putting on you. Spike had to tell us that."

"I didn't want you to worry." Xander sat cross-legged and picked the hem of his jeans.

"Oh yeah, total Jim. You'll give yourself ulcers and convince yourself that you have to save the world single-handed before admitting that you're in over your head."

"Hey, this is me in over my head. I can't even see sunlight from how deep I am on the Shaman stuff," Xander protested. "And I'm not big on saving the world, more like provider of world-saving sugary snacks."

"Okay," Blair conceded, holding his hands up in surrender. "No more comparing, but Jim is like my touchstone here because I don't actually know that many people dealing with the trauma of saving the world on a regular basis. So, if this fits, consider it, and if it doesn't, tell me to mind my own business. But with Jim... whoa... he just totally shuts up the minute I get close to anything too real for him to handle. It's like he takes every shitty thing he's ever seen and locks it in this box labeled 'Do Not Disturb.' And trying to talk about one thing from that box just brings the whole world down. He doesn't deal with issues, he deals with whole emotional mountains at once. But man, he doesn't want to deal with the mountain, so he just avoids until I'm ready to pull out my hair. I'm surprised I'm not as bald as he is." Blair laughed and tugged at a long curl, but Xander could almost taste a darker emotion lingering under the laughter.

"It's like... no matter how many times we work through some shit, he still keeps forgetting that I'm going to stand by him. And man, sometimes that just hurts. Sometimes I feel like there's something wrong with me, and I'm like this big pain in his ass and he'd rather have me go away."

"Blair," Xander breathed almost silently, feeling weirdly like he was overhearing something too private for his ears, which didn't make sense since Blair was talking to him.

"Hey, I know that's my hang-up. And Jim and I... we had some close calls because his emotional constipation and my neurotic ability to feel like I don't actually belong... they just about sent us our separate ways, but man, you can't let life do that do you. When I'm in my right mind, I know Jim loves me. But when you love someone and they won't talk to you, and I so don't mean sports scores or number of demons killed, or whatever words you use to not talk, but when they won't tell you something important. Man, that sucks. Sucks big time. Huge time." Blair stopped and sat staring out into the trees.

Xander had absolutely no response. He should. He had a feeling he should have something to offer for the raw emotional truth Blair had just given him, but nope... nothing.

"Tell you what," Blair said as he pushed himself up from the rock. "You decide how much of that to listen to and how much is crap because I have got to get some sleep. Jim can do the prowling bit, but after walking all night, I'm ready to fall over." Blair headed for the tent on the far side of the clearing from the vampire-safe structure in the shade of the trees.

Sitting on the rock, Xander struggled to sort through his thoughts. He so wasn't Jim. He wasn't even in the same zip code as Jim. Jim actually accomplished things and Xander... well, if he could figure this Shaman crap out, Xander might learn to save a person or two. More than that wasn't really on the agenda for the mostly-human member of the Scooby gang.

With a sigh, Xander realized he should probably get some sleep too. Unfortunately, he was sharing a tent with Spike, so his chance for rest had probably gone down some with Spike eavesdropping on that conversation, but the tent had the sleeping bags, and Xander was just too damn sore to sleep on a rock. Bracing himself, Xander headed for the tent. Sleep today, find Riley tonight, and then... Xander blanked on the then. He could worry about then when then came. Right now he just wanted to sleep without thinking and without Blair's words bouncing around in his brain.

Chapter 18

Xander navigated the extra flap at the front of the tent, crawling into the space without letting even the smallest trace of reflected sunlight in. The inside was a lot cooler and more comfortable than he expected.

"Good sleeping weather," he commented. Spike lay propped on one side of the tent, a flashlight illuminating a thick book and an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

"You have a good talk then?" he asked. The casual tone made Xander pause. The atmosphere in the tent felt vaguely landminish.

"Sorta. It was kinda weird because the whole me being like Jim argument so missed the mark." Xander slid to his side and turned his back to Spike. He lay stiffly, waiting for Spike to pick up where Blair had left off. Instead, he could hear a page turning on the book. Slowly, the tension drained from him and he relaxed onto the sleeping bag and stared at the fabric of the tent. Counting time with the turning of the pages, Xander went from stressed through relaxed and straight to bored stupid.

He rolled to his back and considered Spike. "Do you think the tent is big enough for sex?" he asked. Spike graced him with a raised eyebrow.

"I mean, we have to sit still as long as the sun is up, and we can't actually sleep that long," Xander pointed out.

Spike looked at him for a long time before closing his book and dropping it between them. "You're a bloody idiot," Spike finally announced in the same tone he might use to comment on the weather.

Xander opened his mouth but couldn't actually form words.

"Bloody hell, you think I'm wrapped around Buffy's finger? If she had her way, we'd be driving from one soddin' end of England ta the other trying to find whatever opened that portal. It'd be bloody pointless, but we'd be doin' it because the slayer never will be able to let someone else do her work, no matter how many slayers are running around the world. She's as bad as Peaches."

"But..." Xander stopped and eyed the tent flap and considered a quick escape stage left. "Maybe I should--"

"But nothing," Spike cut him off. "If I'm wrapped around anyone's finger, it's the git who suggested we come out here and get Captain Cardboard, and that sure as hell wasn't Buffy."

"Okay, I really should give you some space because that's your cranky voice." Xander scooted toward the front flap on the tent, but he found a vampire sitting on his legs faster than he could wiggle south. A strong hand grabbed his wrist, putting it over his head and Xander found himself pressed to the ground with Spike over him.

"You're not goin' anywhere," Spike said, his voice tightly controlled. "I figure with the furry little Shaman's words bouncing around in there, you're about as open to this conversation as you're goin' to be. So you just sit still and listen to this. I'm not out in the middle of this fucking country for Buffy. I'm here because I needed to get ya away from that house before I ate one of those gits. Seems like I've said that before, but ya don't really seem to hear me. You're mine. And I'm not good with letting what's mine get hurt."

"Hey, no hurting. No hurting and no eating," Xander protested.

Spike looked down at him. "You think I don't remember? You think I don't know what it's like ta have them never see ya because they're so busy tryin' to see who they want you to be or who they remember you being?" he asked, his voice softer and more Gilesy than Spikey.

Xander blinked up and saw the raw anger and pain etched on Spike's face. He was used to Spike being scary and angry and annoyed, but he hadn't seen pain like this since Buffy died.

"Spike," Xander said carefully.

"Nearly ate me alive, never being enough--holding her and never bein' allowed to hold on too long or too tight. And now, you've gone and promised ta let me hold as tight as I want, so I'm not bloody letting go, you got that?" Spike leaned down and flashed into game face.

His mouth dry, Xander nodded.

"Right then. And a couple other things. If ya vetoed a spanking, it'd stay vetoed. Angelus and Darla used to pull that crap where I didn't have a choice, and it didn't work very well for them seein' as how I stabbed both of them in the back at one time or another. So I'm not tradin' in the bottom spot for a nice view of abuse from the top."

"Got it," Xander agreed. Spike pushed himself up without getting off.

"Bloody daft. You know that, right? You're bloody daft if you didn't hear what Blair said out there."

"I heard," Xander offered in a small voice.

"You listen to the whole song and dance?"

Xander nodded. "It's stupid to call it girly and Buffy has issues and we can move here. Got it."

"And the part about how ya can't lock up the memories?"

Xander paused. Okay, that was the part he was really hoping they weren't going to talk about. Spike narrowed his eyes.

"Emotional constipation, and mountains and memory avalanches," Xander finally agreed.

"And your ability to talk without bloody saying anything, don't forget that," Spike sighed. "And what about the part where the miniature Shaman gets left wonderin' why he can't get the stupid git to talk."

Taking a deep breath, Xander nodded again, his voice not quite working. "Remembering."

"Well, ya have a small problem, pet. You go pushin' me away, and you'll make me cranky, but the demon won't let me walk away pet. It'd just get messy--messy enough ta make Rupert take up the dark mojo again. So, unless you want to find out just how far away I can drag you, you'll bloody well stop shutting me out."

"Spike." Xander choked out the word.

"You're mine, pet. I'm not letting go, so unless you plan on laying there all night, I suggest ya find something to say."

Even without his Shamanic vision, Xander could see the desperate conflict between the soul and the demon. He opened his mouth, not even sure what to say.

"And if ya say anything about sports or some bloody demon, I'm gagging you," he warned darkly.

"I don't know why we're out here," Xander blurted before he could talk himself into not saying something stupid. Spike's eyebrows came down for a second as the vampire cocked his head to the side.

"Ya wanted to come to your bit for truth and justice and finding little lost puppies," Spike said slowly.

"Yeah, but you didn't, so shouldn't you have vetoed the whole going after Riley plan?"

"Did you want me to veto it?"

Xander thought about that one for a second. He didn't think about his own reasons anymore. He tried really, really hard not to think about his own reasons, and when he did, those thoughts went into the repress pile. But he was mantra man, and the mantra was to screw up and get over it. Only he couldn't quite figure out what to get over.

"Oi, say bloody something," Spike snapped.

"I don't know. I screwed up, but I don't know where and I'm not good with the getting over it." Xander let the words fall out even though they didn't make sense, not even to him. Spike sat up, releasing Xander's wrists even though he was still sitting on him.

"So, what does that have to do with comin' after Captain Cardboard?"

"I'm going to screw this up, Spike. You guys are all waiting for me to just see Riley's soul like some flare, and I don't see anything."

"If ya don't, ya don't," Spike shrugged. "Git might be dead. Even the survivors sometimes don't survive."

Xander couldn't hold the sob back with that and now Spike really looked at him confused.

"I think I'm old enough to know that." Xander thought of Anya, of Joyce and graveyards that didn't exist anymore and dark legs sprawled under a hot African sun. "I know," he whispered.

"Bloody hell. Throw me a line, Xan. Let me know what you have rattling around in that brain that's makin' it so hard for you to hear anything else."

Xander couldn't help the half-laughs that escaped. "Hey, I was never good with the listening. I had a history teacher that kept calling home because I never was big with the listening, and my dad would give me this whole lecture, only the funny part was that I didn't really listen to his lecture."

"No!" Spike snarled. "Don't push me off into something different to keep me from seein' whatever you have in that head of yours. You think I can't deal with your demons? I remember my hands snapping the necks of orphans because it made Dru laugh, and I've heard those same children condemn me, taunting my soul." Spike looked down at his own hands in loathing. "I would have ripped my own heart out to take away those memories, but I've learned to live with myself. So ya aren't going to scare me away. But if ya keep shutting me out, you'll soddin' piss me off. Do you hear me?"

"I..." Xander looked around, but the tent didn't have any distractions. "I can't do this," he whispered. "I can't make decisions. I can't deal with watching people die because I made some mistake. And I lied to myself and said I was going to be mantra man and give myself permission to just deal, but I can't. And now you're expecting me to be a Shaman, and what if I fuck this up as bad as I fucked up everything else?"

"What the bloody hell have you ever fucked up?"

"Only everything," Xander forced back a sob. "The whole fluky touching thing with Willow and the wedding that wasn't and the people who died in Africa and the kicking Buffy out and feel free to stop me any time because I could keep going for a while here."

"As soon as ya say something that you actually fucked up, I'll do that," Spike answered as he slid to the side so that he lay next to Xander, one leg casually thrown over Xander's body.

"Can we just drop this?" Xander almost begged. He let his hand reach over to trail over Spike's arm, tempting him. Sex would be good… very good. Xander gave Spike a crooked smile.

"Oi, I'll bring the fuzzy little Shaman in here if that's what it takes ta get you to open up, so don't even think of tryin' to manipulate your way out of this," Spike growled as he captured Xander's hand. But then he brought it to his lips and kissed it, which kinda negated the whole growl.

"Spike... I don't know what you want me to say. I told you what I'm thinking, and you don't believe me, so enough with the talking. We do other things better than we talk anyway."

"Pet," Spike said as he tucked Xander's hand between them without letting go. "I do believe that you're tellin' yourself that you're to blame for all that rot. The only thing is that ya aren't. You left Anya to save her, so you can blame the bloke with the memory tricks for that one. Teenage hormones and Willow carry as much blame as you do for that kiss, not that it really matters at this point, and as for Buffy..." Spike sighed and Xander took the time to study the stitching on the inside of the tent. Pretty stitches. Grey against grey all lined up like good little soldiers.

"Pet, I was angry about you lot kicking Buffy out, but even I know she was losing it. She expected potentials to act like slayers when they didn't have the instincts or the same strength. Mind, it would have been nice if you'd waited to talk to me. I have four times more experience than any of you lot when it comes to strategy and fighting, and dividing yourself right before battle was bloody stupid."

"Yep, that's me, stupid man," Xander nodded as he started counting stitches.

"Done a stupid thing or two m'self. Doesn't make me stupid, and it doesn't make you stupid. I'm a little more worried about why you're trying so hard to be the old Xander that ya aren't acting like Xander at all."

"Hey, I'm very Xanderish."

"Are not."

"Am too. Total with the Xander."

"If ya acted any less like Xander, I'd start looking for pods."

"Bad jokes, language capable of shocking an English teacher into a coma from twenty yards. See me be Xanderish?"

Spike released Xander's hand and reached up to lay his palm against Xander's cheek, forcing him to look over at the vampire.

"The Xander I know has seen a lot of shite. He ended up in the middle of a bloody civil war over in Africa and watched his whole town sink into a hole. The Xander I know carries the weight of all that, but I'm not seein' that part of him."

"Spike," Xander choked out.

"I'm a bloody caretaker, Xan. Always have been. Took care of my mum and then Dru, and I tried takin' care of Buffy for all the good it did me. Whatever shite you got in there, I'll take care of you too, but ya can't keep pushing me away."

"I don't want to do the pushing," Xander said, curling his fingers around Spike's shirt.

"And ya won't succeed. I already told ya that I won't let ya go... can't let you go."

"Spike, I just feel like I'm going to screw this up. Anya loved me, and I destroyed her, and Cordy and Willow and..." Xander couldn't quite finish. The silence settled heavily on them.

"Who, pet?"

"I was just supposed to go check on a slayer, and I had the creeps. I asked Aziza to come with me. I wouldn't have just left her." Xander's memories provided an image of her laughing, her dark skin soaking up the yellow from her headscarf as they walked under the hot sun. The image mutated into those legs that had become the home of flies and death. "And even that isn't as bad as what I did to the potentials. I sent them out to fight knowing they were going to die. I sent them into that. I talked them into that."

"Oh pet," Spike said. Xander didn't say anything more, but Spike's arms wrapped around Xander, pulling him close, and Xander felt very unmanly tears start. He reached up to wipe them away, but Spike just held him tighter, tight enough that Xander couldn't reach up. Xander could only hold on to Spike's waist and lose himself in all the guilt and grief he'd buried so deep he didn't even know it was there until it rose like a floodwave.

"Ya went into the fight with 'em, pet. You never sent them anywhere that you didn't go," Spike soothed. Xander struggled to catch his breath, but something kept knocking it out of him again so that he gasped and struggled for air.

"They were kids," he finally choked out.

"So were you."

"I just want to be the Zeppo again. I don't want to make decisions where someone counts on me. I can't do it." Xander could feel the pressure build in his chest, his stomach threatening the heaves.

"You're fine," Spike soothed, tightening his arms until Xander could barely even breathe, his mouth gasping for air that had become too thick for his lungs. "Shhhh."

"I saved the school. I killed a zombie that was going to blow them all up and I never told them because I was so proud that I wasn't the Zeppo. No matter what they saw, I knew I wasn't the Zeppo. But I don't want that. I don't want to be the one who matters. I so don't want to be the one who sees." Xander felt the guilt and the weakness crawling over his skin like spiders, but Spike's hands soothed them away with small strokes and gentle circles until finally, Xander fell asleep, still crying.

Chapter 19

"Evening, Sport," Jim offered as soon as Xander crawled out of the tent. Xander could feel his face warm with a blush. "You and Spike tear down the tent while I make sure the fire's out."

Spike had gotten up before Xander and now he made an unhappy noise. "Oi, don't take orders from a soldier boy!"

"And I'm not a soldier anymore," Jim answered levelly. "But if you'd rather play with the fire, you're more than welcome, Mr. Flammable. I can help Xander with the tent."

"No bloody chance of that, mate," Spike snarked, but Xander could feel the shift, the way the two men poked at each other without actually feeling each other out for possible destruction and mayhem. Two lanterns threw an uneven circle of light around the camp, but even in the weak light, Xander could see a definite lack of glaring and posturing and other signs of impending badness between Jim and Spike.

Rubbing his eyes, Xander aimed for the tree earlier designated as the official latrine. On his way back, he stopped when Blair offered him a trail bar. "Did I miss something?" he whispered as he watched Spike take down the tent a whole lot faster than he put it up. Then again, Xander had tried to help with the putting up, and Spike was definitely faster without the extra unhelpful type help. "I mean, there's a definitely lack of the open hostilities, which, hey, I'm all for, but it's hitting the weird meter."

"Either Jim decided to ignore his instincts, which is entirely possible because this is Jim," Blair started with a not-happy glare his partner's way. "Or, he was listening in on your conversation this morning."

"Great," Xander said dryly.

"Hey, Xander," Blair said as he quickly stopped packing to come over and crouch in front of Xander. "Jim understands."

Xander looked over to where Jim was stirring dirt into the dying embers of the fire he'd used to boil water. Yeah, Jim would understand the not wanting to send kids into battle--he'd had that discussion with Jim already. But Jim wouldn't ever cry in someone's arms and beg them to take control. Jim wasn't weak. As though the Sentinel could hear Xander's thoughts, he looked up.

"Hey, Sport. The water's safe, so drink up before we get hiking," he called, holding up a canteen.

Xander could feel his blush return.

"Xander?" Jim asked as he stood up. Spike just calmly rolled the tent.

"Morning. Water. Hey, thanks," Xander said awkwardly.

"Hey, Sport, are you okay?" Jim asked quietly. Xander looked over to Spike for help, but again the annoying one just packed the tent without even a hint of rushing to Xander's rescue.

"Fine."

"Oi, your heart's goin' so fast you sound like you're about to have a heart attack," Spike said from the other side of camp.

"Xander?" Blair asked, immediately concerned. And great, now all three were looking at him.

"Hey, I'm fine. Big with the fine. And if my heart is doing inappropriate jiggy things, it's just a little embarrassment which would be ever so much of the better if everyone wasn't staring at me," Xander pointed out.

"What the bloody hell have you got to be embarrassed about?" Spike demanded. When Jim gave the vampire a vicious glare, Xander had to choke back a very unmanly giggle which just might have led to even more unmanly type places.

"Xander, you don't have any reason to be embarrassed," Jim said quietly.

"Which is what I just said. Get out of the way, pillock," Spike snapped as he shoved Jim to one side. The Sentinel glared daggers, but Spike carelessly threw himself on the rock where Xander had sat yesterday, pulling Xander down next to him. "If ya want, I can always torture the Sentinel for you. Eavesdropping isn't normally on my list of torture-approved offenses, but I'm happy ta make an exception."

Xander opened his mouth in near-panic before he saw the twisted humor in Spike's expression. "Nice, give me a heart attack. Willow would so refuse to make you any more cookies if you killed the slightly hysterical, slightly nutso best friend," Xander huffed.

"Xander, we talked about this before, and you haven't done anything to be ashamed of," Jim said quietly, ignoring Spike as he walked around on Xander's free side. "War is ugly and surviving war means dealing with everything you didn't deal with on the battlefield."

"Dealing," Xander snorted.

"Oi, you're no more daft that the slayer."

"Which, hello, going to a therapist, which is slightly more daft than not going to a therapist and slightly less daft than the people with the white jackets."

"Xander," Blair broke in this time with a voice that sounded borderline incredulous. "Xander, you can't think that some therapy makes you crazy."

"The crazy part usually comes first," Xander joked. Blair didn't look amused.

"Sport, you haven't done anything I didn't do after Columbia, after Grenada, after Peru." Jim spoke the names softly, almost reverently even though his face had an expression that came closer to disgust.

"Yeah, I did," Xander argued. Suddenly he couldn't sit with all the sympathetic faces looking at him. Shoving at Spike's hands, he exploded up and got half way across camp before he turned toward them. "I gave up. You heard me!"

Xander watched while Blair and Jim exchanged looks, Jim shrugging as if he had no idea. Only Spike came after him, moving slowly as though stalking prey, and Xander backed away.

"Pet, tell me what they heard last night," Spike said in his softest soothe-the-crazy voice.

"I'm a man."

"I noticed. Didn't think you were a bird."

"I shouldn't just give up. I shouldn't just--" Xander stopped and turned his back on them all. Almost immediately, Spike's arms were wrapped around him, pulling him close.

"Oh Sport," Jim breathed. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"You wouldn't have just given up," Xander sighed, closing his eyes.

"Oh man, what the hell happened last night?" Blair whispered.

"Xander," Jim said in a firmer voice. "You didn't do anything I wouldn't have done."

"You wouldn't have given up. You wouldn't have handed your life over to someone else because you weren't strong enough to put one foot in front of the other!" Xander could feel the growl start in Spike.

"Yes, I would have!" Jim shouted before Spike had the chance to explode. Xander's eyes popped open without his permission. "I quit the Rangers. That was my career, and I walked away because I couldn't handle what I'd seen. I couldn't handle knowing that men... that boys... died because I ordered them to."

"Whoa, hey..." Blair started to say something, but fell silent even though Jim kept his eyes focused on Xander. Instead, Blair just moved silently closer until he could touch Jim's arm.

"If Blair had been there, I would have handed him control and maybe then I wouldn't have spent the next three years doing the best impression of an asshole I could manage. Maybe I wouldn't have been fucking my partner's girl when he was alone on some road with a gun to his head." Jim spit the words, and Xander backed away from the fury. Spike's arms pulled him deeper into the embrace while Blair slowly slid an arm around Jim's waist. In return, Jim pulled his partner into a one-armed hug. "Xander, you didn't do anything wrong... not back then and not last night. And if you trust that bleached moron, then trust him." Jim seemed to run out of energy and he turned his back and headed for the latrine tree where the battery operated lantern swung gently from a broken branch. Blair moved with him, the two bodies leaning into each other.

"That could have gone better," Xander whispered to the air.

"Oi, seemed like it went pretty well. Hopefully if enough of us say the same bloody thing, you'll get it through that skull of yours. Some days I think the nasties shoved you head-first into the headstones one time too many. Then again, you might not have survived if ya hadn't been so hard-headed," Spike answered before he put his chin on Xander's shoulder. "But right now, we have a wanker to find, so finish getting the tent packed. I'm going to nose around a bit and see if there's anything more interesting than a squirrel around here."

"Demons?" Xander asked as he quickly scanned the dark trees.

"I'm hopin' for something of the four-legged and red-blooded variety," Spike answered with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Ew." Xander made a face as he realized what Spike meant. "Just don't ever let Willow find out you ate Bambi's mother."

"Git." Spike rolled his eyes before strolling into the woods with his coat billowing after.

Xander was still, well Blair would call it 'processing,' as they walked the dark trail up the mountain two hours later. Xander thought he might actually qualify as obsessing. His head kept saying things like no one could walk through the hell that was Sunnydale without needing therapy while his heart just sort of froze up like a transmission with no transmission fluid, and after doing that to Uncle Rory's car once, Xander knew that wasn't good. And unfortunately, that wasn't the only not-good on the horizon.

"Anything yet, Sport?" Jim called from ahead.

"The same weird frayed stuff," Xander answered. "Weird frayed puke-yellow stuff," he corrected himself as he glanced at the dull threads that were disintegrating, like soggy noodles. Yep, no dinner for the Xan man tonight. Heck, he might not ever be able to face spaghetti again because these thread pieces were vibing weirdly. It was like being able to see fingernails down a chalkboard. Spike's arm tightened around him.

"Ya alright?"

"Alright in that something really bad is about to happen way," Xander answered as he ducked to avoid a hanging thread that no one else could see. Shivering at the near touch, he blinked away his Shamanic vision.

"Soddin' unnatural… fighting out here. Bloody demons should stay to the sewers and such," Spike complained bitterly, and given his tone Xander wasn't even pointing out the irony of the whole unnatural comment given they were in the middle of nature.

"Spike, you think one of us should do some scouting ahead?" Jim's voice came from fairly close, but with the whole mountain between them and the moon, Xander couldn't see a whole lot. He could, however, feel Spike bouncing on his toes in indecision.

"Right, I'll go," Spike offered after a brief silence.

"I could—"

"You could get your head snapped off seein' as how you don't even know what you're looking out for," Spike growled at Jim. From the way Jim didn't even growl back, Xander was guessing he had already come to that conclusion on his own. "Just keep this one safe, yeah?" Even though Spike phrased it as a simple question, it still sounded mighty threat-like to Xander's ears. Before he had a chance to point out that threatening the friends was not a good way to keep friends, Spike was gone into the night. A warm hand reached out and curled around his arm.

"Come on, Sport. Those of us with human muscles need to rest them. I'll keep an ear out if you keep your Shamanic vision open and warn us about any demons."

Xander could just imagine Jim's cringe at using that word, but he blinked away the real world. With the darkness around them, the vision was like a Light Bright with every thread glowing against the dark.

"Anything new?" Blair asked as steady hands guided Xander to a fallen log.

"Just the same slimy yellow bits and pieces."

"Yellow. You said that Willow flashed yellow once. When?" Blair asked.

"Okay, I know you haven't really known me for a long time, but I am not memory boy," Xander scoffed.

"Sport, don't go there or I will have to tell Spike that you're verbally ripping on yourself again," Jim threatened.

"You wouldn't." Xander looked up toward the bit of darkness where Jim's voice came from and watched the gold and deep red cord throb gently, casting an eerie glow over the night. Spike would not be amused with more Xander-bashing, not even by Xander himself.

"Oh man, he so totally would. Sometimes Jim is a little too honest, if you know what I mean," Blair moved closer, the soft green of his own cord merged with Jim's and suddenly Xander was looking at the two men in a weak yellow light.

"Okay, that's freaky," Xander said as he looked up at the men. Blair sat on the fallen trunk, leaning against Jim's leg with Jim's arms thrown around Blair's shoulders. Xander could tell that Blair was still staring into the dark, but Jim looked down at him with a concerned expression.

"So, did you suddenly pick up the Sentinel vision upgrade for the Shamanic powers?" Jim asked.

"What?" Blair asked, his blind eyes turning toward Jim. "What's up?"

"Your glow and Jim's glow are kinda glowy together."

"He can see us," Jim clarified.

"Whoa… really? Cool. Oh man, your powers are like amazing!"

Xander thought about that for a second. "If Spike's right, your powers are amazing," Xander corrected him. "Trado Shaman can teach people to use their abilities, and before I met you, all I had was a weird vibing that I thought everyone had. So, I'm thinking the upgrades are because of you." In the dull light from the cords, Xander could see a ghostly Blair shaking his head in denial.

"No way, man. This is all you."

"Blair, how many of your students fail?" Xander suddenly asked. The question made Blair look at him with confusion, even if Blair couldn't actually see him.

"A few every semester."

Okay, that wasn't the answer Xander expected.

"Why the question about work, Sport?" Jim asked.

"I just thought Blair wouldn't have anyone fail. I mean, he's a teaching Shaman, so he should be able to teach anyone anything. He could probably make me understand Calculus if Spike is right, and that is way more amazing than colored threads."

Jim thought for a second. "Chief, the students who fail, do they actually come to your lectures?"

"Sure… I think," Blair certainty vanished. "Okay, last semester that Rodee idiot who tried to bribe me and John Miral both failed. I know Rodee only showed up for test days…" Blair paused. "Okay, I think Miral missed most of the semester. He was in the last few classes, but I don't remember him being there for the first part of the semester."

"Ventriss?" Jim asked, a name that obviously meant something to Blair because the man glared murder up.

"I *know* he never came to class."

"Xander might be right then. God knows the chancellor would love any excuse to fire you, but your students do out-perform anyone else's. You told me that Professor Balachan preferred students from your courses for his second year field work."

"Oh man, that's like… I don't know."

Xander chuckled as he remembered his own doubts about the upgrade from standard human. He bit back and urge to go all Spiderman with the great responsibilities speech, but that would be a little too Andrew. "Get used to it," he said instead. "Now you're stuck having some weird power like the rest of us. Even Spike has the demon and the soul which definitely qualifies as weirdness… or maybe not weirdness in the general sense since lots of demons, like Clem, do have souls, but having a vampire demon and a soul… okay, that's weird."

"Clem?" Blair immediately asked. Yep, Xander knew an attempt to change the topic when he heard one.

"Floppy-eared demon. He's actually a pretty good guy if you don't think about what he does to kittens."

"Kittens?" This time Blair's voice went up nearly an octave.

"He plays poker with them… or eats them. It's kinda gross, but as the one sleeping with someone who ate Bambi's mother a couple of hours ago, I am not commenting on anyone else's eating habits. But we saw him in LA, and he was definitely in the soul-crowd. Most demons have this nearly black cord, but Clem's was pink."

Jim sat down next to Blair with a sigh, and Blair patted his partner's leg. Xander wondered if Blair was silently offering some sort of sympathy for Jim having to put up with another demon conversation or whether they just normally touched this much.

"Okay, so let's talk color. You said Jim and Spike were both dark red. We could hypothesize that could mean protective or maybe big-bad alpha males."

"Angel wasn't red," Xander said. "He's alpha, but his soul was…" Xander struggled for the words to describe the threads he'd seen clinging to the demon. "His soul was almost shredded, torn into threads and clinging to the demon cord, and there was red in there, but there was lots more blue and yellow."

"Okay, yellow. So now we have a flash of yellow in Willow's cord and yellow in Angel's."

"And you're never going near this Angel," Jim broke in. "I don't care if the last anthropological convention in the universe is in LA, that city is officially off limits. Xander said that soul is the only thing that keeps him from turning into one of the most dangerous demons on the planet, so if his soul is shredded…" Jim's voice came as a growl, and a faint ripple of yellow highlighted his burgundy, brightening it for a moment.

"Yellow!" Xander nearly shouted.

"What?" Blair yelped as Jim stood with his hand on his gun. "Where?" Jim demanded darkly as he scanned the trees that Xander couldn't see.

"No," Xander hurried to explain before Jim shot an innocent rock. "Jim, you just did a flare thingy with yellow. Okay, there wasn't a lot of yellow, but there was enough to make everything sort of brighten there for a second."

Jim turned and glared at Xander before he slowly sat, instincts obviously still on high-alert.

"Sorry," Xander offered.

"Oh man, okay so now we're collecting evidence. Xander, this is important: when did Willow have her flash of yellow?"

"When we were hunting the pig demon that turned out to be a blowing up volcanoes and destroying cities demon."

"When it attacked?" Blair asked excitedly.

"No, before that, before we even found anything."

"Oh man." Blair sagged as though gravely disappointed before he tried another question. "What were you talking about?"

"Okay, I am really not memory man, so no way am I going to remember that." Xander rolled his eyes. He couldn't even remember the stuff he tried to remember, like the name of the blowing up volcanoes and destroying cities demon, so random memories were not hitting the long-term storage.

"Come on. You were walking through the field…"

Xander sighed and struggled to find the right memory. Jim gave a faint, strangled chuckle, and Xander could interpret that pretty easily… better that Blair did this to Xander than to Jim. "We were going to look for the pig demon."

"Yeah?" Blair encouraged quietly.

"Nope. Not remembering. I have a memory like a sponge, only it drips things out as fast as it soaks them up."

"Maybe you should lie back, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths."

"No way, Junior. The early warning system is not closing his eyes," Jim immediately interrupted. "So, whatever theory you have bouncing around in your head, it can wait until Spike gets back. We don't even know if demons have body odor for me to smell, and we already damn sure know they don't all have heartbeats for me to hear, so we need Xander."

Xander felt an unhappy jolt as he realized they were all depending on him. Gritting his teeth against the familiar fear, he nodded his agreement. "Yeah, big with the bad idea. Me and closing my eyes leads to sleeping, which most of my high school teachers would be happy to tell you."

"So don't close your eyes, but Xander, you know the answer. Come on. You're walking across the field. Where's Buffy?"

Xander sighed as he looked over at Blair's intense expression. "Jim, I'm feeling the sympathy here. He's this pushy with the senses, isn't he?"

Jim laughed. "Yep, he is," he answered good-naturedly as he ruffled Blair's hair, sending Blair's hands flying madly around his head to try and defend his head.

"Damn it," Blair cursed before he poked at Jim hard enough to make the Sentinel grab his wrist. Xander wondered what it would have been like to be part of that… if Spike hadn't wanted him. He suspected that he would have always felt outside because he just wouldn't have fit between them.

"Okay, Buffy was right next to me because I'd almost fallen on my face, and Willow was a couple of feet to the side, and I started looking around and I noticed that Willow was normally this orangy-brown but she went all flarey yellow."

"No one said anything first?" Blair asked. He and Jim had obviously come to a truce because they sat side by side, Blair leaning into Jim and Jim's arm around Blair's waist.

"Um, no. I mean, I was muttering, but nothing with the saying."

"Muttering what?"

Xander struggled to remember. "I had nearly fallen and I said something to myself about it being a stupid idea, going out without Spike, because he was so going to kill me. And metaphorically, I was so right on that count."

"Sport, trust me, you don’t know how to mutter. You tend to just complain in a slightly lower tone," Jim said with amusement.

"Yeah, yeah, says the all-hearing Sentinel. Not even Slayers have bionic hearing."

"Oh man, Jim's right. A ninety-year-old man with otosclerosis could hear you mutter, and I so totally think I get it. It's obvious with the cultural associations with yellow, but I wanted to make sure because the brain… man… it's totally uncharted territory. I mean, eighty percent of research subjects with synesthesia report that a natural E on the piano sounds like the color yellow, so there's obviously some sort of symbolic language that goes beyond the obvious, so I don't want to just assume the obvious."

"Whoa, Chief, how about assuming that we have no idea what you're talking about?" Jim interrupted.

"Yellow. Man, if you call someone yellow, what are you saying?" Blair asked triumphantly.

"Fear," Xander said quietly. "All the yellow… all those threads hanging and thrown around." Xander bit his lip as he considered that.

"It makes sense. You said the colors are stable but not solid and that Spike's anger turns his cord darker, so it's reasonable to assume that you perceive some sort of emotion attached to the underlying soul. Man, maybe the soul is emotion. This is… whoa. Just whoa."

"Yeah, okay," Xander said slowly.

"Sport, what's wrong?" Jim moved so that he was sitting between Blair and Xander, so now he looked weirdly backlit by the glow of the cords. Xander swallowed heavily.

"If yellow is fear, then all that yellow out there—"

Xander didn't finish it, but Jim's eyes snapped to the trail, the trail where he couldn't see the cords draped over the trees like some demented elf had TP'ed the trees with snot.

"Something out here was afraid," Jim said as he stood, his hand going back to his gun.

"Which, hey, I'm okay with the fear part, but the fact that the cords are draped over things… Jim, something, a lot of somethings, got thrown around like rag dolls so that their soul cords ended up getting caught on things. Some of the cords are caught on branches two stories up."

"Shit," Jim growled softly, his free hand going down to rest on Blair's shoulder.

"And the somethings that got thrown around are so very, very dead. Those cords are rotting." Xander could feel his stomach twist as the weird vibage suddenly looked more like the scene of a massacre, and Xander had preferred random vibes of the creepy kind.

Jim went utterly still, at least he did right after he actually pulled his weapon from his shoulder holster.

"Jim?" Blair asked quietly. "If a bunch of people died, where are the bodies?"

"Okay, this is where the creepy horror movie music starts, isn't it?" Xander asked.

"No. This is where we find what we're looking for and get the hell off this mountain," Jim said darkly. "I hate this demon shit. Seriously hate it."

"Oh man, I'm so with you there," Blair agreed. Xander just swallowed the bile that threatened to make him vomit as he considered the scene of the crime.

Chapter 20

"Demon," Xander whispered as he saw a faint glimmer weaving through the trees.

"Where?" Jim asked, crouching even lower as he inched forward.

Xander pointed. "But it might be Spike, which would still make it a demon, but a demon you really shouldn't shoot. He gets cranky when people shoot him."

Jim didn't answer as he kept his handgun trained at the spot Xander had pointed to. Next to him, his backpack lay on the ground, the zipper open and a wide range of weapons waiting.

"What has all your knickers in a twist then?" Spike voice came from the dark. Jim sat up and turned his gun toward the ground as Blair leaned against his back wearily.

"Spike. Thank god," Xander said as he got up to head for his vampire. He got three steps before his foot caught on something and he went flying forward. Before he could hit the ground, his flailing arms grabbed something smooth and cool and he was enveloped in the smell of leather right before he and Spike crashed to the ground.

"What the bloody hell are you doing wandering around in the dark?"

"Hey, I am perfectly capable of walking a few feet," Xander complained loudly as he untangled himself from Spike and Spike's coat. He was so busy with the untangling part that he didn't even catch the total stupidity of what he'd said until Spike snorted. "Okay, so obviously not so good with the walking a few feet, but…" Xander stopped before he admitted that he just hadn't wanted to wait an extra five seconds to touch Spike. Instead he focused on why he'd wanted to reach Spike's side. "You're pretty sure that whatever Blair helps me figure out about my powers is right, right?" he asked as he got to his feet. Spike's arm slipped around his waist.

"Yeah, not a hundred percent sure seeing as how Shamen are still human and can fuck up as fast as anyone."

"Oh yeah, so very true," Blair said barely above a whisper.

Xander ignored him. "People died here, possibly a lot of people. Messily." Xander looked at the frayed and rotting yellow hanging from the trees. "Weirdly, but dead and lots of dead."

"What's with the hue and cry bit? Who died? Where?" Spike asked. Xander could barely see Spike, but his face suddenly grew new shadows, so Xander knew he'd slipped into gameface.

"The threads are rotting because whoever they were attached to is dead, and they're yellow, so I'm thinking human… well, it could be demons, which would be less disturbing, but it's probably people since Angel is the only demon I know with yellow in him. Blair helped me figure out that yellow is fear, and these guys who died were big with the fear." Xander felt the babble boil over. Okay, dead people, no enemy to focus on, a forest that looked like the Manson crime scene… yep, he was entitled to one serious freak-out.

"Yellow's fear. Bloody hell, what do you mean callin' Angel a coward?" Spike suddenly changed the topic.

For a second, Xander looked at Spike, not really following the new direction, but Spike leaned closer, an unhappy expression on his face. "Hey, I never said Angel was a coward! A bad dresser, yes, and yes, I do see the irony in me insulting someone else's wardrobe, but the man is a walking cliché. But he's got one-fourth of the Scourge of Europe in there."

"Oi, what am I? Did my own time scarin' the locals."

"Yeah, but you don't have the Scourge of Europe in there. You ARE the Scourge of Europe, which should actually be more disturbing, but it isn't. You did shitty things. Now you don't. And do you realize that with Cordy and Anya and you I have a real pattern going. However, all of you do the reformed evil thing well. But Angel… he isn't the Scourge, he's got that bastard locked up inside."

"Yeah, only he makes one mistake, and the git isn't locked up inside anymore," Spike admitted.

"Nope, he's free to rape and pillage all of Angel's nearest and dearest, although may I just add that killing Willow's fish was the biggest loser move ever."

"I might have mentioned that to him myself once or twice. But pet, you're sure these are human cords, or what's left of them?

"Nope. I'm feeling big with the not-sureness, but it feels right. I wish it didn't. I wish someone would tell me that I was imagining things and set me down in the corner with a cookie."

"Sport, we all wish that some days," Jim said in a weary voice. Xander glanced over in the silence that followed.

"Oh man, totally," Blair agreed.

"Right then. I guess we just have to test this theory of yours. Where are these threads of yours?" Spike's brisk tone destroyed the melancholy that had started to settle on them.

"Okay, this is the really disturbing thing. A lot of them are dangling from the trees, like the people went flying over them or got tossed over them, and those thoughts are equally disturbing."

"Hey," Blair interrupted. "I am going with the lack of bodies as the disturbing part of this. If this was the scene of a massacre, where are the bodies?"

"Massacre?" Spike asked, and again with the looking around. Xander realized he was just a little freaked at how seriously everyone else was taking his warnings.

"Maybe not." Xander fidgeted. "I mean, the cord bits are everywhere, but if someone took a guy and played volleyball over the tops of the trees with him, that could have draped soul cord everywhere, and when he died, those bits would just sort of… hang."

"And that's what you're seeing?" Spike let go of Xander and took a step so that he stood just in front of him.

"I think so, but I'm not taking bets. Nope, no bets for me because I'm faking it here, Spike. But the weird rotting cords and the extra Hellmouthy vibe… yeah, someone died. Either lots of someones died or one particular someone got tossed back and forth above the trees enough to qualify as serious-ass torture."

"Okay, I am officially happy to have my power and not yours," Blair said softly, a seriously icked-out tone in his voice.

"Oi, an animus Shaman is a good deal higher on the totem pole than a trado Shaman. Animus are one of the most powerful Shaman types out there, and considerin' that Shamen tend to be a good sight more powerful than just witches, that's sayin' a lot."

"Hey, whoa, no offense," Blair hurried to offer as Spike sounded more than a little cranky. Yep, Xander loved Spike, but it sure didn't change the fact that he was one demon who was more than a little into showing off his power… and his Shaman.

"I'm with Blair. I would much rather be with the teaching than seeing this stuff. It's creepy, seeing this stuff when you guys can't. Besides, he so has the cooler spirit animal. I still can't believe I got a kodkod," Xander complained.

"I think they're cute, Sport," Jim commented with just a little laughter in his voice. Xander glared in his general direction since the Sentinel would be able to see him.

"Point me in the direction of a chunk of this yellow shite, and let's see if we can't figure out if it was a human or a demon that died," Spike nearly growled.

"Okay, that way," Xander said as he pointed at a chunk of gooey, glowy, puke-yellow dangling in the air.

"Not exactly helpful, pet. Stand under it or something so I can see exactly what you're pointing at."

"Oh no, no way. I stand under that, and it's going to fall right on me." Xander actually started backing away from the disgusting blob in question before he thought better of it and stood still. If he fell on his ass walking forwards, he so should not risk walking backwards in the dark.

"Yeah, except for the part where it can't actually touch you," Spike pointed out with just a touch of sarcasm.

"No fair using logic on me. Spike, this stuff is big with the creepy."

"Xander, I want bloody off this mountain. If that means figuring out what the soddin' hell went on up here so that Buffy doesn't think we skipped out on her and so that you don't do a guilt trip, we'll do it. That means I'm climbing a soddin' tree in the middle of fucking nowhere and you're standing under the blob pointing at it." Spike grabbed Xander's arm, pulling him forward and then following as Xander slowly walked toward the slime in question.

"Geez. Cranky much?" Xander muttered.

"Bloody hell. Just point."

Xander poked his finger into the air straight up. "I'm right under it, so if I get slimed, I'm blaming you. I'm guessing two or two and a half stories up."

"There's no slime!" Spike snorted as he let Xander go.

"Says the guy who can't see the slime," Xander muttered. He just got another snort in return.

Xander could hear the tree shaking, pine needles rustling madly as Spike clambered up the tree with demonic speed. Xander watched the red glow of his cord weave and rise. "You're about at the right height now. Um, you need to come that way about two feet."

"Now?" Spike called down.

"Yeah, you're sitting in the middle of slime central."

"Slime that doesn't smell, feel slimy or leave bloody awful stains on anything. Might bit better than the slime we normally deal with."

"Do you deal with a lot of slime?" Blair asked from somewhere near Xander's right shoulder, Xander looked over toward the soft green glow. Jim with his burgundy was standing farther back.

"Way more slime than you want to know about. Slime and chunks."

"Bloody hell," Spike interrupted them. "Something went crashing through up here. There's broken branches, and I can smell whatever came crashing through."

"What does it smell like?" Jim called up.

"Fear. Human fear." When Spike's glow suddenly dropped to the ground, Xander jumped. "I know that smell well enough." Spike finished as he walked to Xander and slipped an arm around him. Funny, Xander didn't remember that Spike used to do so many demony things. Yeah, he killed demons with demonic speed, but he didn't remember ever seeing Spike casually take a two story drop in front of the Scoobies.

"Okay, and we're back to my question. If someone died, where's the evidence?" Blair asked.

"Seems like they didn't bleed much, and what trail they did leave is a bit over our heads."

"They? You're sure it's a they and not a he?" Xander asked Spike, and that fingernails down the chalkboard creepiness was about to make his skin crawl off. Xander pulled away from the slimed tree, Spike following without letting go.

"Pine scent masks most of it, but I can smell at least a couple people up there," Spike agreed.

"Cue creepy music." Xander shivered.

"There has to be some sort of evidence. Bodies don't just disappear," Jim insisted.

"Oh man, or they do. Did something eat them?"

"Okay, you didn't have to say that," Xander complained to Blair. "Really, honestly, there is no need to point out that we may be on an isolated mountain with a people-munching demon."

"Evisceration leaves a bloody mess, figuratively and literally. I'd have smelled that. There are a couple of demons that eat people whole," Spike mused.

"Okay, that is more than I wanted to know," Blair said in a slightly nauseous tone of voice, which he totally deserved since he was the one who brought up people-eating demons in the first place.

"Evisceration's nothing," Xander said. Yep, if he was going to be creeped out, he was taking them down with him. "There are big pus-filled demons that smell like rot and baby demons that crawl in brains and these really creepy wormy things that jump from person to person during sex like a seriously overgrown venereal disease, and compared to those things, magical syphilis is… okay, it sucks, but it doesn't suck as bad as venereal worm-like infestations."

"I hate this demon shit," Jim growled. He moved close enough to Blair that the souls again merged and Xander could see him wrap his arms around Blair's waist from behind, a look of concern on his face. "Okay, you said a couple of demons would eat without leaving a trace. What are we looking at?" Jim's arms tightened around Blair.

"Oi, that's just it. Doesn't make sense. Two of the breeds couldn't be here. The oxygen would kill 'em."

"Which means there has to be at least one oxygen-breathing suspect," Jim said with a grim confidence.

"Well, yeah. But if a YeeYue demon were around, wouldn't be anything we could do about it. Hell, a whole army of Slayers wouldn't so much as put a dent in one of those buggers."

"Okay, this is me officially freaking. Do you really think there's a YeeYue on the mountain?" Xander turned to Spike with a sort of sinking feeling of impending doom. If an army of slayers couldn't deal, they were so lunchmeat.

"Bloody hell, no," Spike laughed. "They hate this dimension. Too much pollution, and the food tastes like shite. You lot eat too much junk food and preservatives for their refined palate."

"Oh man, next time you want to go for Wonderburgers, I'm getting a double. Extra fries. So getting extra fries."

"So, you're saying that two of the possible suspects physically can't exist here and the third wouldn't bother?" Jim asked, ignoring Blair's whispered words.

"I think that's exactly what I just said."

"Which leaves us nowhere."

"Don't know about that," Spike said slowly. "Made it up to the blast site where the soldier boys took out the Kith-harn nest. Thing was facing the west." Spike stopped and let the silence fill the darkness, only the silence wasn't so silent and Xander had to keep telling himself that the rustling of pine limbs was wind and not human bodies being flung through the air. He leaned back into Spike.

"Okay, I'm sure that makes sense to someone, but not me," Jim finally said.

"Kith-harn are clan demons. Have long traditions, not particularly useful ones, but they'd give up their tusks before they'd give up tradition."

"And tradition says to not have the settlement face west," Blair suddenly blurted. "Oh man, I'm right aren't I?"

"Exactly. They see it as bad luck. Whatever the soldier-boys blew up, it wasn't Kith-harn."

"But the guy Buffy talked to…" Xander said, suddenly confused by the whole conversation.

"He lied, Sport. The military does that." Jim sounded ever so not happy. "So, we head for the truck or take one last try to find Major Riley and his division first?"

Xander could just imagine which option Spike wanted. He chewed his lip and waited for Spike to give his opinion.

"Xander?" Spike eventually asked into the darkness.

"Um, hey, whatever you think is best."

"Oi, what I think is best is taking you home and keeping you locked in a basement where the nasties can't take nightly turns trying to eat you. However, I don't think that's particularly healthy. So, what do you want?"

"Spike." Jim snapped the word out.

"Oi, boy knows I'm a demon, and a possessive one at that. But he also knows I'll bloody listen to him, so keep your nose out of my business, Sentinel." The way Spike said it, he made 'Sentinel' sound like a bad word. Blair put a hand on Jim's arm, and Xander could see Jim back down from the response he clearly wanted to shout back.

"So, spit it out, pet. What do you want?"

Xander hesitated for a second because he was so going to regret this. "Okay, I really think we should take a shot at finding Riley. I don't know, but I just can't believe he'd survive all that shit with the Initiative and Maggie Walsh just to get blown up by his own government doing some sort of cover-up."

"Sport, that might be wishful thinking," Jim said quietly, as though he hadn't just gotten into it with Spike over Spike wanting to go home.

"You survived," Blair said quickly, and Xander was happy to have at least some back-up on the potentially fatal and really stupid plan to keep going.

"I was lucky, Chief. I was lucky and my senses gave me an edge both with getting accepted by the tribe and staying alive. There's no tribe up here to take in the survivors."

"Assumin' there are any, but that's just it: we're assuming. So, Xander and I are going to do a fast loop of the blast, see if we can't pick up the trail. We'll leave our gear here and you can set up a secure camp."

"But Spike, the tent," Xander argued. "If we get stuck out there, I don't want you doing a flambé impression."

"Bloody hell, vampires walked the earth before sunproof tents and sewers, pet. Worst case, I'll have to dig into the earth, and if that happens, I'm going to be dirty and mad as hell until we get back to civilization. But I'd rather risk that then take this slow and guarantee us two more nights on the mountain. Without weight, we can cover the distance faster. If you see his soul cord, fine. If not, I'm voting for getting the hell off this mountain."

"Out of this state," Jim added softly. "Are you sure splitting up is the best tactic?"

"Hell no. Just better than anything else I can come up with. You still have the radio?"

"Yeah." Jim poked his thumb back toward their packs. Spike had slipped his own radio into one of the pockets of his coat before they'd started, so he nodded.

"Look, we're going to get off the trail. Even if I can't see this stuff Xander sees, I don't want to be too near it," Jim said as he looked around at the trees.

"Probably smart. Head back down the trail about an hour or so. That way we can get back to the truck first thing in the morning, one way or the other."

Jim nodded without answering.

"Right. We'll do a fast loop and hopefully meet you back here long before sunup."

Blair had gone to the packs, taking Xander's visible light with him, so he didn't realize what Blair was doing until he pressed a canteen into Xander's hand.

"Spike." Jim's voice came out of the darkness now.

"Yeah?"

"Just, don't get killed," the Sentinel ordered him.

"Not a problem, mate. I'll be causing trouble centuries after you're in your grave." With that, Spike tugged on Xander's waist and the two of them started up the trail. Slipping the canteen strap over his shoulder, Xander just prayed that they didn't solve the mystery of dead bodies flying through the air because right now, he desperately just didn't want to know.

Chapter 21

"Anything yet?" Spike asked without slowing down at all. Xander panted as he half ran behind Spike. The only way he was even keeping up was that Spike was dragging him along for the ride.

"Yeah, a charliehorse in my leg. Can we maybe slow down before I fall on my face? Falling bad. Letting the human breathe good."

"Oi. Just want out of here." It wasn't an apology, but the fact that Spike slowed down suggested that he really was sorry.

"Yep, I get that, but I assume you want me still on the side of the breathing. Giles would be cranky if I showed up not breathing," Xander said as he took a deep breath and tried to catch up with his body's need for oxygen. The climb up the mountain at breakneck speed had left him a little winded and a lot exhausted.

"If you weren't breathin', I wouldn't let the wanker anywhere near you," Spike pointed out, and it took Xander a second to process that. It might have been the lack of oxygen to the brain.

"Okay, that falls somewhere between being sweet and incredibly disturbing. What has you all twitchy?"

"Not twitchy," Spike complained in his best put-upon voice.

"Says the twitchy one."

"Bloody hell. You've been hanging out with Blair too much. You're getting as mouthy as him." Spike's complaints did nothing to hide the fact that he had definitely not answered the question.

"Yeah, well, I'm right. So start with the 'splainy because I'm getting more creeped out here, which seems wrong because we left those weird threads behind, so I was hoping to reduce the overall level of creepiness," Xander argued. Spike was always honest, sometimes even when he shouldn't be because honesty can be rude, so the whole hiding things was setting off the creep-meter big time.

"Yeah, that's not all we left behind."

"Okay, see, things like that just make me jumpier."

"Every bloody bird in the trees, every squirrel, every soddin' bug is gone." Spike said the words quietly, but his hand tightened on Xander's arm.

"Okay, I'm really hoping that's your very disturbing sense of humor showing up, like the way you laughed at Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Seriously hoping," Xander hoped, but at this point he wasn't really expecting.

"I'm not bloody joking," Spike snapped. Xander followed in silence for a moment, considering the dark shadows around him and trying to imagine that all the life, all the bugs and birds and bats were just gone. His imagination wasn't that good.

"Any bodies?" he asked hopefully, not really sure if he wanted to find out they were walking by piles of animal corpses or if he wanted to hear that more bodies had just vanished… or been eaten. Eating was becoming more of a possibility, but if something ate that much, shouldn't it poop? Maybe they were about to find a mountain of demon poop. Xander could imagine Buffy's response to that possibility.

"No. Not bodies, just every livin' thing gone."

"Why did you have to tell me that?"

"Because you bloody asked," Spike snapped. "Now can we go back? I'm soddin' well ready to get off this mountain."

Xander stopped, dragging Spike to a stop with him since the vampire wouldn't let go of him. He looked firmly toward the reddish glow that was Spike and did his best to imitate Willow's resolve face. "Nope. Na-uh, not happening, not until we get to that ridge and can see over. If Riley's out here, we need to find him even if it's creepier than... okay, I've done horrifying and terrifying, but I actually think this tops the scale on creepy."

Spike sighed, and for a half second, Xander thought they were going to turn around and go back, as though talking about the possibility made it more reasonable somehow. "Somethin' sure isn't right which is why we're getting to that ridge, peeking over and getting the bloody hell out of here."

Spike started up the trail again without a word, and Xander followed with a small smile. Yep, his vampire loved him enough to care about what Xander wanted, and that shouldn't be quite so warm-and-fuzzy feeling, but it definitely was.

"Spike?" Xander said after several minutes of hiking up the trail, the smell of smoke starting to tickle his nose.

"Wot?"

"Thanks," Xander said softly.

"For what?" Spike sounded genuinely confused, and Xander struggled to find a way to explain it. Buffy and Willow and Spike, they all loved him. They all wanted to take care of him. But only Spike really trusted Xander to know the right thing for himself. Yeah, he certainly enjoyed giving Xander shit about the string of demon girlfriends and his ability to chase after the bad guys armed with nothing more useful than a rock, but Spike never sent him away or lied about there being a bad guy or exchanged those funny looks that made it clear that the girls didn't really trust his judgment.

"For not dragging me away by my ear," Xander finally answered quietly.

"Don't think I'm not considerin' it."

"Yep, I know you're big with considering because I'm considering running like a rabbit with my tail between my legs, and I think I just lost the metaphor somewhere in the middle, but you get my point."

"Just keep in mind that I reserve the right ta drag you out of any situation that's too dangerous."

Xander couldn't help it; even with all the weirdness and even though Spike was being serious, Xander started laughing.

"Loon," Spike complained softly without slowing down.

"Chasing around a dead mountain for a soldier-boy who might be dead with a big bad who seems to eat anything moving, bones and all. That doesn't qualify as too dangerous, but why do I have the feeling that you would so not let me go on a weekend retreat with Willow?"

"Bloody right that's on the too dangerous list," Spike snidely agreed after a moment of silence. "There's tryin' to do the right thing, and then there's just stupid."

"Says the guy with the up-close and personal relationship with self-immolation."

"Yeah, well..." Spike fell silent, and Xander really didn't have anything to say after that either. Yep, they were both self-preservation-impaired when it came right down to it. The reference to Spike's second death kinda killed the conversation, though, so Xander concentrated on keeping up with Spike who was still walking fast, even if he wasn't going as fast as before.

They had climbed for another half-hour or so, enough that Xander could now smell the smoke from the "accidental explosion" which had really been a military bombing. Xander just really hoped that there weren't any campers out here at the time, but then again, if there had been campers, the local big bad had probably eaten them. Eaten and potentially pooped. Spike stopped and Xander focused on breathing for a second.

"The ridge is about five feet ahead. The other side is a bit steep, so don't move forward without me ahead of you," he said. Xander nodded, knowing that Spike could see him. A nearly full moon was shining through the clouds, and even Xander could make out the shadowy forms of trees and rocks by now. Spike moved slowly forward until the blackness ahead of him turned into a view of stars and the shadowy form of the mountain slope falling away on the far side of the ridge.

"Right then, if ya don't see sign of Captain Cardboard, we're out of here."

Xander scanned the area and could see the faint thread of someone who had passed through a while back. "Spike, I'm seeing yellow."

"Soddin.... That's it, we're out of here."

"Whoa, hey, not that kind of yellow," Xander yelped as Spike yanked him away from the ridge. "There's a cord all pulsy with blue and yellow."

"You're sure? You're sure someone's alive and ya aren't seein' more of that dead shite?" Spike didn't sound happy at all, but at least he'd stopped trying to drag Xander off the mountain.

"Um, that or I'm having new and wacky fun with the powers."

"Bloody hell," Spike sighed before he turned and started back toward the ridge. "When this shite is over, we're setting up camp in Cascade for a while, pet," he calmly announced as he went over the ridge and started down the slope without letting go of Xander's arm. Spike made it look so easy that Xander was fooled into thinking that the slope was solid rock. Instead, he found himself sliding in loose shale, struggling to stay on his feet, and succeeding only because Spike kept a firm hold on his arm.

"Surf's up, dude," Xander joked at the bottom, but his heart pounded in his ears and he had to lean against a rock to get his breath back. That was a little too exciting, if you could really call sliding down a rockslide in the middle of the night exciting. Maybe terrifying was a better word. Xander had images of losing his balance and breaking random bones on a nasty fall. "Thanks for the catch," Xander finally said. Spike was standing a little off.

"Wouldn't let you fall."

"Nope, you wouldn't, and my unbroken bones thank you again," Xander agreed.

"Right then, which way?" Spike asked. Xander pointed in the direction of the cord he'd seen, and Spike again took him by the arm, leading him through the rocky debris and around burnt skeletons of trees lit by the moonlight.

"Hey, wait, we're moving to Cascade?" Xander asked several minutes later. "I thought that you thought that I was spending too much time with Blair."

"You are. But if being around the fuzzy, little Shaman is going to turn new powers on, then he'll bloody well help you figure out how to use them," Spike just about snarled.

"Hey, I'm all for party crashing, despite a bad experience with frat boys and a bra, but don't you think we'd better talk to Jim and Blair before just setting up camp in their city?"

"Oi, first off, they don't own the whole bloody city."

"An argument which might make sense if I hadn't seen you run demons out of London claiming the whole city for yourself," Xander pointed out with a wry laugh. Spike and territorial were pretty much next to each other in the dictionary, and after living with Jim and Blair for a while, Xander knew full well that Jim's name was right there with them. "And what's second off?"

"Already talked to Jim when you were sleepin' like the dead. The git likes you, and after we had a little discussion about who does and who does not have permission to touch you, we both agreed that you needed to work with Blair for a while."

"You threatened Jim," Xander accused him.

"Soddin' right I did." Spike sounded all defensive now, but Xander smiled.

"Thank you."

"For threatening Jim?" Spike had gone from defensive to confused in record time, and Xander smiled wider at the sudden shift.

"No, for knowing that this Shaman stuff is really freaking me out. It's not all wacky fun with string, and I just... I don't know." Xander shrugged.

"When I agreed ta take care of you, I meant it. You're mine, and if you need something I can't give ya, then I'll make sure I find someone who can. Blair can teach you just as well as that wanker Rupert picked out."

"Yep, better than."

They had reached another rough section which was obviously closer to the center of the blast, and they fell silent as Spike helped Xander climb over the charred remains of fallen trees and loose boulders which littered the slope. A few times, Xander had to point in a new direction as the yellow/blue cord threaded through the landscape, weaving wildly at one point as though the owner had been drunk and stumbling through the scorched landscape.

Even in the moonlight the place looked horrible, so Xander really didn't want to see it in all it's sunny glory. Hopefully by morning they would be back to camp with Jim and Blair and the next day they could get to the truck. Yep, retreat was sounding mighty good. Retreat and then call Giles and recommend that they find a demon who ate not just people but everything whole and didn't leave bodies. And after that, Faith and a dozen slayers could come kick ass. Faith would enjoy the challenge. They came around another outcrop of rock, and Xander stopped.

"Either my powers are abandoning ship, which I really hope is not like rats abandoning a sinking ship, or the soul cord vanishes into solid rock."

"There's a cave," Spike said, his voice tight and clipped.

"Or that. You know, the Shamanic vision is cool, but night vision is much cooler," Xander tried joking. It didn't really cut any of the sudden tension or make Spike loosen the now-painful grip on Xander's arm. "Ow," Xander whispered, and immediately the grip loosened.

"You stay behind me. We don't know what's in there."

"We know it's afraid. Afraid should mean good guy since whatever killed all the critters would definitely not be feeling fear. Besides, this is a person, no demons on the radar, so it should be okay," Xander argued.

"We can talk about your lack of logic later, pet. Right now just bloody stay behind me," Spike ordered in a voice that didn't invite argument.

"Right, staying behind," Xander agreed softly as Spike walked toward the cliff face. At the last possible moment, he turned and slid into a narrow crack in the rock. Xander followed, suddenly glad to have Spike between him and the unknown. Of course, with all the animals gone, there shouldn't be any spiders or bats. Xander had a sudden urge to ask Spike, just to be sure, but the vampire was moving silently forward, and Xander could only see their feet as the soul cord they followed glowed softly. Yep, not the time for stupid questions. Definitely not the time. Xander held his breath and watched the yellow/blue cord beneath their feet as he followed Spike into the darkness.

Chapter 22

"Stop, or I will fire," a rough voice from the dark ordered.

"Oi, you fire, and I'll tie your bloody intestines into a knot around your neck," Spike snarled, but Xander just shouted one word. "Riley!"

"Xander? Spike?" Yep, that was Riley; that was a confused Riley.

"Score one for the home team. Spike, we found Riley!"

"Think I noticed, pet," Spike said without much enthusiasm, but at least he was once again walking forward into the dark. "So, what happened to your leg?" Spike asked.

"It's broken," Riley said curtly. Xander waited for some sort of explanation, but nada.

"Your leg is broken?" he finally asked in the silence. "Okay, this is going to make the fast retreat sorta awkward." And again with the silence. Funny, Xander didn't remember this much silence with Riley and Spike, there was more of the random insults and sniping and death threats, but those were downright fun compared to the silence. It was like putting freaky icing on the freaky cake, which was not actually anything like cake. Xander opened his mouth to say something else, and Spike's hand found his arm and squeezed lightly. Okay, that would be the close the mouth signal.

"I assume Buffy sent you," Riley eventually offered.

"Assumed right," Spike answered, but Xander could tell he was distracted.

"Spike?" Xander whispered softly.

"I sure as hell wouldn't come after your sorry arse. As far as I'm concerned, you got yourself into this, and you can get yourself out." And now Spike was definitely back on the hate Riley train. Xander wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but at least it was familiar.

"I don't know why Buffy won't believe me when I tell her you haven't changed," Riley grunted the last word, and Xander realized that the Spike soul cord had kinda scrunched down, so either Spike had shrunk or he was kneeling next to Riley. Xander was hoping for kneeling.

"This is going to hurt," Spike said without sounding all that sympathetic and Riley gave another pained grunt.

"This whole soul business is just a scam, isn't it?" Riley demanded, his words coming between heavy breaths.

"You ungrateful git. I move ya without tightening the brace and the broken end of that bone could hit a vein, but if you want to take the risk, I'm more than happy ta haul you back as a lifeless body."

"Hey, hey, creepiness still abounds here," Xander hurried to interrupt the fight. "Riley, are you going to be okay and could you please let Spike do whatever he has to do? I'd like to get off the mountain now, and share stories of mutual hatred later." Both Riley and Spike were silent for a second and then Xander heard a rustling of fabric and something dragging before Riley grunted again.

"Xander, why are you here?" Riley asked after a couple of seconds of more heavy breathing.

"I'm part of the rescue team," Xander said with just a little hurt in the voice. Okay, so he wasn't the rescuing part of the rescue team, but he was teamlike and even if Riley didn't know it, he could do the search part of search and rescue.

"Xander, I didn't mean it like that. I mean, why are you up here with just Spike? He doesn't have the chip anymore."

"No, I don't," Spike agreed with a little more enthusiasm than strictly necessary. "And Xander's a lot more useful up here than you are, wanker. He found you, so show some gratitude."

"I am grateful to *Xander*."

It was funny. If Xander were in a cave with a broken leg and a vampire who wanted to eat him, he'd be too busy being terrified and in pain to do the snarking, but Riley obviously had the whole soldier multi-tasking thing down because he could be in pain and get pissy with Spike at the same time.

"When I find whatever did all the killin', I'm throwing your kicking and screaming body at it," Spike muttered. "This is going to hurt like a bitch, so try not ta piss yourself and scream like baby when I lift ya," he suggested. Xander winced at just hearing the tone, but Riley didn't answer. "Pet, back up some, yeah?" Spike asked, and Xander used his hands to feel his way back toward the entrance to the small cave.

"Mother of--" Riley cut himself off with a sharp gasp and then Spike and Riley were moving closer and Xander backed out into the night where the stars gave him some light. Spike and Riley's soul cords lay side by side, Riley's hovering slightly above since he was getting carried, but the two cords--Riley's blue still streaked with yellow and Spike's burgundy and midnight blue double helix-- pushed against each other. It was like watching two magnets push apart because everywhere that Riley's soul would surge forward, Spike's would recoil only to pulse brighter at some other point of contact so that Riley's cord retreated.

"Pet, call Jim and let him know we had a bit of bad luck and found the wanker," Spike suggested as he put Riley on the ground. Xander stood behind Spike, and the vampire pushed the radio into his hand.

"Jim, right."

"Jim?" Riley asked.

"Big, scary ex-Ranger type," Xander explained as he clicked the radio. "Jim? Jim? Earth to Jim because we're needing some help here."

"Ya have to let go of the button, pet." Spike even managed to say it without making Xander feel more than a little stupid.

"I knew that. The freaky and weird going on just distracted me," he defended himself as he let go of the button.

"... on, Sport, over," Jim's voice immediately came through.

Xander pressed the button. "Sorry about that. Brain fart," Xander said. "We found Riley, but he has a broken leg and the mountain has become one serious no-mans or bugs-land, over."

"Slow down, Xander. What's the situation? How many survivors? Any sign of demons? Over," Jim's voice barked over the radio.

"Um, the situation is creepy, Riley is the only survivor so far. Riley, is there anyone else who survived?" Xander asked the bluish coil on the ground. Yellow still pulsed around the edges of the cord.

"No one we want to find," Riley answered.

"Okay, I'm assuming you heard that, Jim, and now you know why it's big with the creepy. And speaking of creepy, not only are there no demons up here, but Spike says there's pretty much nothing alive at all, not a single bug left in the trees, over."

The radio was silent for several seconds, and Xander could just imagine the conversation Jim and Blair were having. Xander was willing to bet a year's salary it included things like 'go to the truck' and 'no' and 'then stay behind me' and 'bite me.'

"We're bringing the portable stretcher up, do you need anything else, over," Jim's voice finally came over the radio.

"Spike?" Xander asked as he pressed the button so Jim could hear them.

"Just tell 'em to get their arses up here as fast as they can. I still want off this soddin' mountain by tomorrow," Spike said. "The area below that ridge is dangerous enough for me, so tell 'em to wait at the ridge, and we'll bring soldier-boy that far on our own."

"Over," Xander added, assuming that Jim would get all that.

"We're on our way, out." Jim didn't sound happy, but Xander knew that the man would come.

"We need to get out of here," Riley hissed the words, and Xander could see Spike start pacing, the dark outline of his body barely visible in the dark, but his soul glowing and leaving a trail behind that shimmered in the faint light of a moon that was barely peeking over the trees.

"Tell us somethin' we don't already know," Spike growled.

For a second, the mountain was quiet. Now that Xander had a chance to really think about it, the quiet should have been a tip off because the one time Tony Harris had a 24-hour case of fatherhood, he'd taken Xander camping for the day, and Xander hadn't slept at all. The woods had been full of noises that had left an 8-year-old Xander shaking with fear. But now, Xander would so prefer bears to whatever was out there. The silence went on just a little too long for Spike.

"That wasn't rhetorical. It's time you tell us what the bloody hell you prats have been doing up here," Spike snapped.

"It's classified," Riley spat. Xander caught on to the whole classified meaning that the government had something to hide a half second behind Spike because Spike covered the distance between him and Riley and had hauled the injured man off the ground before Xander could say anything.

"Hey, no killing the rescuee! That is so in the hero handbook!"

"He's hidin' something. So, he's either going to tell me what he knows, or I'm going to rip his bollocks off and then deliver him to Buffy. She likes emasculatin' men, so she might see it as an improvement."

"You son of a--"

"Whoa!" Xander shouted over both of them. "Okay, we are way past the bounds of fair fighting here. Spike, there will be no ripping off of body parts. Riley, I really want to avoid getting eaten, so start with the talking."

"You heard him. Talk." Spike's words had an extra side of sneer, and for a second, Xander thought Riley was going to tell Spike where to put some piece of his anatomy.

"Fine, I'll tell you what I know, but we need to get moving now, before Sungsen comes back, so unless your Jim shows up here in the next two minutes, we need to get moving."

"Sungsen? Is that a demon?" Xander asked.

"Not one I've ever heard of," Spike answered as he put Riley down on a rock. He stepped up next to Xander and slipped an arm around his waist. "So the question is what you soldier-boys have been stirring up this time."

"Sungsen's not a demon, or at least he wasn't," Riley said, and either anger or pain made his voice strain. "Lieutenant Zhi Sungsen, language specialist, was one of the members of charlie company."

"What the bloody hell have you lot been up to?" Spike nearly whispered and that was so bad because when Spike got too angry to even yell, things, or people, got with the breaking.

"That's a long story, so I'm willing to ignore the fact that you're a heartless monster who should be staked if you'll help me get off this mountain and warn someone that the attempt at containment failed. Sungsen's still out there, somewhere."

"And cue the creepy music," Xander muttered. "But this is still not big with the explaining. I'm kinda wondering where the people are and where the bugs are and what Sungsen is."

"We can talk about it later." Riley started to push himself up with a series of heavy grunts. For a second, Spike just stood next to Xander, even when Xander poked him in the side, and then with an exaggerated sigh, Spike stepped forward and helped Riley.

"You bloody owe me."

"You help me off the mountain, and I'll give you information. It sounds like an even trade to me," Riley argued.

"Wasn't talking to you, wanker. The boy owes me because I'm soddin' carrying you off this mountain to make him happy."

"And I will repay with interest, scout's honor, and unlike some people of the less-than-honest variety, I actually was a scout," Xander said, happy to pay any price to just get moving now. "Moving would be good," he said when Spike just stood. The moon was a little higher so Xander could see a faint image of Riley draped over Spike's shoulder.

"Pet, you see anythin' out there?" Spike asked quietly.

"Um, no." Xander did a full circle, studying the black forest, but he couldn't see anything other than dark, dark, and more dark.

"Right then. We're out of here."

Xander would have answered, but he was a little too busy with the freaking, and Spike was walking so fast that Xander had to blink away his Shamanic vision and keep his eyes on the dimly lit trail to just keep up. Trotting the whole way, Spike made his way up to the loose shale slope, stopping only when Riley started making the unmistakable sounds of someone ready to barf all over his rescuer. Then Spike unceremoniously dropped the man on the ground.

"Spike!" Xander hissed, but yellow eyes turned to glare at him. Yeah, Xander could feel the guilt for not doing what Spike wanted, but right now, what Spike wanted was on the slightly sadistic side because Riley was hurting. Yeah, Riley had done his bit to hurt Spike, but that was back when Riley had been younger and stupider and more with the idealism than the thinking. Xander hurried to Riley's side, getting there just in time to have the soldier roll in the opposite direction and vomit something that splashed against the rocks. Panting, he dry-heaved for a few seconds before he rolled back toward Xander.

"Did you hear that?" Riley gasped.

"Hear what? I didn't hear anything. Nope, not hearing."

Spike ignored the question, but he pulled a chemical light out of his pocket, shaking the plastic before he snapped the inner chamber to let the two chemicals mix. The green light bathed the mountainside, now Xander could really see Spike in all his vamped out glory and Riley whose face was twisted in pain and whose leg was bound up like a mummy. Two branches kept it straight while strips of fabric and a jacket and some rope tied it all together.

"Okay, ow," Xander said softly as he touched Riley's hip. Riley's hand reached out and caught his hand, squeezing as the man closed his eyes and trembled. Xander was just impressed he wasn't with the passing out. Xander would have been passing out… or begging Spike to hit him hard enough to make him pass out.

"Stay here," Spike said before he stalked to the edge of the green island of light.

"No problem," Xander quickly agreed. "This is me so staying here." Spike paced a little farther out, and Riley jumped like a snake had bit him, only Xander had it on good authority there were no snakes around anymore.

"Riley?"

"I'm just not feeling well," Riley said, still sounding nauseous and smelling a little like a sour wash cloth.

"Okay, I know Spike's not good with the asking questions without sounding like he's somehow accusing you, probably because he probably does think you had something to do with this, but Riley, what happened?" Xander asked softly.

Riley took a shaky breath and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Our unit had divided with one half doing a local job while I took four specialists to Truro in Canada where some demon had started eating the locals."

"Okay, not seeing the point yet, but okay."

"When we got back," Riley said with a glare even though he still held Xander's hand in a tight grip, "we were told Sungsen had been infected or something by some demon they'd been hunting down here. The demon had been targeting an immigrant community, so the guys took Sungsen with them to translate."

"Okay, still not point boy."

"The higher-ups said that his infection could be an advantage, a lucky circumstance."

"And right now I am more with that point than I want to be," Xander said, suddenly disgusted with his government all over again. "They are idiots, you work for idiots, you know this, right?"

"I know," Riley said tightly. "We were sent on a training mission to determine how much Sungsen had been changed, but I insisted on bringing live ammunition and I insisted on having a fail-safe plan."

"Your fail safe is blowing up a mountain? I would call that overkill, but I'm guessing it wasn't kill-enough considering how twitchy Spike is right now."

"I've seen Sungsen since the blast," Riley agreed. "He's playing with me."

Xander looked at Riley's leg and at the pain-filled expression on his face. "And this is so not the family fun night type of game, either," he said softly.

Riley gave a bark of laughter. "No. It's not. I broke the leg when Sungsen ripped Lieutenant Carlson out of my grip. He lifted her thirty feet into the air, and I held on until she got about eight feet up, but then she pushed me off her to keep me from dying with her when he threw her at the mountain."

"Threw?" Xander could feel the giant stone that was his stomach sink a little lower. "Define threw her at the mountain," Xander demanded even though a little part of him so did not want to know. Huge with the not wanting to know, in fact.

"He grabs people with his mind--telekinesis."

"And your bosses couldn't figure out this was bad? Do you people drink stupid water?" Xander demanded. He didn't realize he was shouting until Riley flinched.

"Probably not pet, the stupidity's natural," Spike commented as he reappeared at the edge of the slope. "Jim and Blair are here, but I don't want them tryin' to come over that ridge. Goin' to be fun enough trying to get you two over it."

"As long as no one picks me up with the power of his mind and throws me over it, I'm happy," Xander said softly. Letting go of Riley, he stood up, and for a second, Riley held onto him, his hand tightening until Xander flinched. Spike stepped forward with a growl, and immediately Riley let go and blinked as he looked at his own hand as though trying to figure out why it had done that. Yep, they were all losing it, Xander decided.

"You first, pet," Spike said.

"But Riley's hurt."

"Don't give a shite about that berk. I want you safe and sound over that ridge, and you're going first."

"Xander, go," Riley added weakly.

"He doesn't need your permission," Spike growled, and yep, this was familiar territory what with the mutual hatred. "Come on, then, pet." Spike held out his hand, and Xander took it. Spike just about had to drag Xander up the slope because the rock just slid out from under his feet, but eventually, Xander got close enough to the top to grab a line of shale that didn't give way under him.

"Give me your hand," Jim said. Xander did and with Spike's arm around his waist and Jim pulling his wrist, Xander got up and over the ridge.

"I'm going back for Captain Cardboard," Spike said, his voice making it very clear just how much he hated himself for being the one to rescue the soldier.

"Xander, are you okay?" Blair called from a little farther down the trail.

"Peachy," Xander answered.

"He's fine," Jim then answered for him. With a clatter of rock, Spike was gone, and Jim's hand guided him down the steep bit of trail to where Blair stood. "Spike said you might have a few answers," Jim commented.

"Oh yeah, and you so aren't going to like them," Xander agreed. "Okay, you remember how I told you about those idiots making Adam and all hell breaking loose?" Xander started. "Well, it's kinda like that only this time we have a linguist named Sungsen..." Xander repeated the story Riley had told him, wondering briefly about the odds of Spike just dropping the soldier down that slope because going along with the whole Sungsen plan was just stupid. Riley knew better. The army knew better. And considering how many people knew better, why did they keep trying this same shit?

Chapter 23

Xander watched as Spike grunted his way over the top of the ridge, Jim's flashlight showing the scene and Xander was so not thinking Blair Witch Project, not even with them having their very own Blair who was softly muttering curses, and Xander was so not surprised at the cursing part. Spike almost tossed Riley over the ridge, the soldier's wrapped leg sticking out awkwardly.

"Fuck," Riley hissed, and for a second, all Xander could do was think about the fact that he'd never heard Riley swear before... at least not that word.

"You're bloody heavy, so you should be thankin' me for not dropping your arse on the other side," Spike growled as he sort of hopped over Riley's body and headed down the slope. Xander's brain suddenly engaged and he started up the slope, ducking under Spike's arm and landing on his knees next to Riley.

"Shit. Are you okay?" Xander asked as he put a hand on the bundled leg and tried to decide if it was still straight, which was hard because right now the leg just looked lumpy, and Xander was seriously hoping that was just the stuff used to tie it up.

"Oh man. You are just... no words, man. No words," Blair backed him up as he came up next to Xander, bending over Riley's body. "Hey, Blair Sandburg. So, you're Riley. Xander's got some good things to say about you."

Riley just kinda blinked up.

"Okay, before we try to move you, did cranky-pants break anything new?" Blair asked. Spike made a sound that was something like a growl or possibly a snort, but Xander tried to ignore the cranky-pants in question.

"Back off, Sandburg. Let me in." Jim's voice was distant and cold, kinda like the first time Xander had met him, back when Jim had chained him to the kitchen, but at least he wasn't pulling out the handcuffs. Jim handed his flashlight to Blair and then his hands made a cursory check of Riley's elbows and neck and unbroken leg. "Anything besides the leg hurt, soldier?" Jim asked.

"No, sir," Riley quickly answered, but that wasn't necessarily a good tone of voice.

Xander blinked to pull on his Shamanic vision, and the yellow streaks of fear and pain had been replaced with little sparks of red that danced in this soul cord, which Xander wouldn't have really thought weird because for all he knew, sparks of red were normal for being hunted by a big-ass scary linguist on a mountaintop. Only Jim was sparking red and Blair wasn't and Spike... well Spike's demon was pretty much freaking out, and Xander really did think it was unfair that the vampire could look so cool even during freakage. Xander so needed to learn that skill. But no red sparkage for Spike.

"Right then, if he still has all his bits attached, we need to get off this mountain." Spike didn't move any closer, but Jim nodded by the light of the flashlight.

"If we can get to the campsite tonight, we can make it to the truck tomorrow."

"Still not bloody soon enough. I don't much care for the thought of some wanker yanking me off the ground without giving me a chance ta fight back."

"Not helping with the impending freakage," Xander muttered, but everyone seemed to hear him anyway. For a second, the forest was eerily silent.

"We get back to camp, and we'll be fine. Blair and I set up a few surprises on the perimeter," Jim said, and Xander could hear the self-satisfied surety in that tone. Whatever the guys had done, Jim expected it to work. The problem was that Jim didn't know the kind of creepy crawlies Xander did. Jim's idea of surprises probably included guns and explosives and all kinds of things that didn't actually work on supernatural creepy crawlies nearly as well as on a good old fashioned serial killer or dictator. Nope, Xander was not on the hopeful side there. And Spike's silence was not bringing the hope either.

"We'll be fine," Blair added softly. Unlike Jim, he wasn't sounding smug.

"Can you handle being carried?" Jim asked Riley, his voice once again slightly cold as he talked to the other soldier. Before Riley could answer, Jim stood and physically stepped back.

"Yes, sir," Riley answered quickly.

"Blair, you and Xander carry," Jim said.

"Totally. Leave the two warriors free to shoot the serial killer," Blair muttered as he headed a bit down the slope. Even without looking, Xander could hear him setting up the stretcher.

"So, you're the Jim who's helping Spike and Xander," Riley said carefully. "You're a soldier." Xander blinked his Shamanic vision away and just looked at the scene. Jim's body had gone stiff.

"I'm the person hauling you off this mountain when your people left you to die," Jim said darkly before he went off to join Spike. Oh yeah, this was just one big love in, Xander thought as he went back to Riley's side. The man had seen his friends die, been thrown around, broken, and battered, and he really didn't deserve the Jim and Spike intimidation-for-fun show.

"Hey," Xander said as he sat down near Riley's head. Blair came dragging the stretcher over the rocks.

"Ignore him," Blair huffed as he set the stretcher next to Riley. "He woke up on the wrong side of his AK-47 this morning."

"And Spike always wakes up on the wrong side of his fangs when it comes to soldiers, although that metaphor sounded better before I said it." Xander shrugged as he helped position the stretcher as close to Riley as they could.

" I understand Spike, even if I don't know why Buffy insists on trusting him."

"Because she knows he's trustworthy," Xander pointed out. "Believe me, without massive amounts of trustworthiness, he so would have left you for the crazy linguist. You know, I keep thinking that... thinking that this is some linguist and not a demon, but it's not helping. The sense of impending doom is still impending."

"Think about me," Blair said with a huff. "I work at the university. Man, I know how pissy these linguists can be. Spill a little chai tea on one notebook and whoa... emotional meltdown in multiple languages."

"You aren't military," Riley said to Blair, who just laughed at the thought.

"No way. I mean, I've learned to respect society's protectors, but no fucking way. Ready?" Blair asked. Xander reached out and slipped his arms under Riley's legs while Blair grabbed his shoulders.

"Ready," Xander answered. With a one, two, three, they transferred Riley over to the stretcher without getting more than a grunt out of him.

Jim appeared out of the dark, offering to help get Riley off the steepest part of the slope, so Blair and Xander took the front of the stretcher while Jim handled the back until they reached the flat part of the path.

"Just... keep an eye open," Jim said quietly when he surrendered his end to Xander.

"Eye open in the open eye way or the seeing things that no one else can see way?" Xander asked quietly.

"I keep hearing someone," Jim admitted.

"He's playing with us. Up on the mountain, he would stalk me, watch me when I crawled out of the cave for water." Riley said the words without emotion, but Xander could still hear the terror, probably because Xander himself was big with the freaking even with Spike and Jim, two of the scariest people Xander knew, playing guard.

"Sadistic tendencies," Blair mused. "He killed the others and now he's sorry because he can't play with them. Monumentally not good. Oh man, he's watching us, isn't he?"

"I'm feeling a little bug in a glassish, which is never of the good." Xander looked around but could only see dark, dark and more dark.

"Oi, get your arses moving or I'm takin' the boy and lettin' the rest of ya find your own way home," Spike yelled from farther down the trail.

"I have the truck keys," Jim countered, but he left, his hand lingering for a second on Xander's arm before he headed forward.

"Not after I take them away from you," Spike pointed out.

"You can stop the asshole impression now," Jim just about growled.

"And why do I think it's not an impression?" Xander commented as he started down the trail. Spike got a little assholish when things were going totally wrong, and this came pretty close to the total end of totally wrong. He looked behind and shivered. It wasn't the unprotected back that was creeping him out as much as the fact that Spike and Jim wouldn't be up front and leaving their back undefended unless they knew the something to defend against was up front. Oh yeah, sometimes Xander wished his brain would turn off before making these horribly right connections. Right bad. Right very bad.

The hike down the trail left Xander's shoulders aching and his hands cramped as he held the stretcher's handles despite the sweat. Ahead of him, Blair seemed to just plod along, his head down as he followed the trail in moonlight, even ignoring it when Spike had suddenly doubled back and sprinted past them to growl at the darkness behind them.

Xander wanted to crack some joke or maybe just scream at the darkness, but he focused everything on getting down the trail to the campsite before dawn. By the time he carefully put Riley down in the middle of the camp Jim and Blair had set up earlier, Xander could feel every muscle in his body. His forearms burned, and he just sat right there on the ground next to Riley. Blair dropped down beside him. He'd grabbed a camp lantern, and now he flicked it on for the non-Sentinel members of the group who really did appreciate something stronger than moonlight.

"My hurts hurt," Xander complained softly.

"Xander, are you okay?" Riley asked, and a hand reached out to touch Xander's back.

"Oh man. Xander. You should have said something." Blair reached out and took one of Xander's hands, holding it palm up and bringing it closer to the lantern. A blister had split, and the runny stuff inside had leaked out to make a clean streak on his grimy palm. The flopping edges of the blister didn't do much to hide the red skin underneath.

"Okay, ow," Xander said as he considered the damage. "You know, that didn't hurt until you made me look at it." Turning an accusatory glare toward Blair, Xander didn't notice when Spike dropped down in front of him.

"Bloody hell! Why the fucking hell didn't you say something?" Spike snarled. Xander could feel a little jump of fear, and then Riley's hand was on his shirt, pulling him back away from Spike, and Xander didn't even have time to open his mouth.

"Leave him alone. He's hurting!"

Riley had a lot more upper body strength than Xander expected because he'd been pulled over Riley's body, his back sliding across Riley's stomach until he landed on the far side, his legs still draped over the soldier.

"Keep your bloody hands off him," Spike vamped out, his hands reaching out to grab Riley by the throat, and Riley pulled a knife from his belt.

"HEY!!! Whoa, slow down!" Blair shouted.

"No killing. Absolutely no with the killing," Xander seconded that as he threw himself across Riley, pinning the knife hand while making it really hard for Spike to get to the soldier's neck.

"Xander!" both men yelled unhappily.

"Soldier, Stand Down!" Jim's voice bellowed over it all. Xander could feel Riley tense under him for a second, and bloodshed was a definite possibility. Then Riley sagged. Xander slowly sat up, but Jim was there, taking the knife from Riley before he could do anything. Given the way Riley still glared at Spike, Xander thought it was probably a good idea.

"What happened?" Jim asked, and from the way he glared at Riley, no one had any doubt about just who he expected an answer from. Xander sat back, and immediately, Spike's arms were around his waist, pulling him into a tight embrace. Riley gave Spike one last murderous glare before he turned to Jim.

"Xander's injured, and this thing comes in screaming at him. I won't stand for abuse on my watch, physical or verbal." Riley spit the words at Jim, making it perfectly clear just who he thought was responsible for letting the abuse go on.

"There's no abuse here. Spike was just being cranky," Xander defended his vampire.

"Cranky? I'm cranky?" Spike demanded incredulously. "You've bloody crippled yourself without ever openin' your gob, and I'm cranky? Pet, cranky doesn't even cover what I'm feelin' right now."

"Xander, are you okay?" Jim instantly asked.

"He's ripped the skin from his own hands carrying that ungrateful berk."

"Okay, we have someone out there trying to kill us, can we please try to not kill each other?" Xander asked as Riley propped himself up on one elbow clearly ready to have another round of taunt-the-vampire, which was big on the stupid scale considering he was injured.

"Xander, how bad are your hands?" Jim asked, glancing down.

With a shrug, Xander held his hands out toward the camplight. "I didn't even notice until Blair pointed it out. Blisters... homicidal linguist with telekinetic powers..." Xander did a pantomime of balancing those two ideas for a second. "Okay, I was slightly more worried about the homicidal linguist."

"He's not carrying Major Moron tomorrow," Spike snapped, and the arms tightened around Xander's waist.

"He can't," Jim agreed quietly. "Blair and I will carry him."

"Aren't you going to do anything about—" Riley waved his hand in the direction of Spike and Xander.

"No," Jim said, the tone making it clear that he wasn't discussing this anymore. "Spike, it's almost dawn."

"Yeah, think I noticed," Spike agreed. "I'm not sleepin' in the tent, though. One flick of this wanker's mind, and I'll be drifting in the wind."

"Okay, not a good thought," Xander complained softly as he grabbed Spike's arms, holding on as if to reassure himself that Spike was very much undusty.

"I'll dig into the earth. I'll come back up at dawn." Spike reached up and rested his hand on Xander's cheek, pulling his head around so that he could kiss him passionately. Xander answered hungrily, his cock starting to harden at the unexpected attention. Slowly, Spike pulled back. "And when we get off this soddin' mountain, you and I will talk about you taking care of yourself," Spike promised. Without another word, he stood and went to a flat spot near a dead tree. Xander couldn't see, but he could hear the shovel hitting the ground faster than any human could have managed.

"Let's doctor those hands," Blair said quietly, and Xander sat and let the other two wash and dress his hands, mummifying them with antiseptic and gauze as Spike continued to dig. By the time the first pink of sunrise highlighted the tops of the trees, the clearing had a Spike sized patch of ground and nothing else.

"We could leave now," Riley said quietly. He had laid on the stretcher silently during the first aid, and now he just stared up at the pre-dawn without looking at any of them.

"Oh man. He comes to get you, and you want to leave?" Blair was the first to find his voice, and he didn't even attempt to hide the disgust.

"Did you miss the way he talked to Xander? He's on some sort of power trip, ordering him around," Riley turned to look at the three of them.

"Soldier, you don't understand what you're talking about," Jim said, his voice still dark with anger, and he wasn't exactly warming up to Riley.

"I know that he doesn't have a right to talk to Xander like that. I've known Xander a lot longer than you guys, I'm thinking, and I know that Xander has no time for vampires. He hates them."

"I hated them," Xander corrected him. "The 'ed' on the end of hate means past tense, and my English teacher would be so proud."

"You wanted to stake him," Riley pointed out.

"Well, duh. Hello, me normal human, him vampire with superpowers. Fear and insecurity makes you want to do a lot of things that are probably pretty dumb when you stop and think about it." Xander stared at Riley, daring him to go farther down that path. While Xander didn't want to bring up the whole getting himself bitten past, he would. He wasn't going to let Riley act like he had the moral high ground here.

"He's a vampire," Riley tried for a reasonable tone of voice.

"Yeah, and so is Angel and Harmony, and yeah, we don't have anything to do with Harmony because of the whole evil thing, but Spike and Angel are not evil. So, we don't judge the non-evil vampires with the evil ones."

"You don't?" Riley's voice dripped with disbelief. "You're the one who hated Angel."

"I'm the one who was scared shitless of Angel after I found out he was a vamp."

Jim broke in on the conversation. "I don't care what you have in your past, either one of you. Right now, we have one mission, and that is getting off this mountain. Nothing else matters, so if you aren't discussing ways to get us to safety, don't talk," he insisted. Riley wasn't going for it.

"But Spike..." Riley started to complain.

"He's a vampire," Jim interrupted, "and he's rude and he has no respect for anyone or anything, with the exception of Xander."

"And Buffy," Xander added, but that didn't exactly improve Riley's expression. "And sometimes Giles and Willow, and, of course, Angel, but he doesn't actually admit to that one."

"Yes," Jim said with a pointed look in Xander's direction that clearly suggested less talk and more listen. "But the point is that he is doing the right thing even when he complains about it, and he is Xander's choice, so there must be something good under all the attitude."

"And you're going to just let him abuse Xander? We should get out of here." Oh yeah, Riley was like a dog with a bone: a big dog and a very big bone, only Jim was a bigger dog and he didn't really like Riley's bone.

"And I'm telling you again, I'm not leaving Spike," Jim almost growled. "Right now, I'm more likely to leave you."

"Whoa, Jim," Blair interrupted.

"He's a vampire, and I don't know what hold he has over Xander, but he can't be trusted." Riley's hand reached for Xander, resting on Xander's knee, and that was slightly creepy.

"Hey, I get to decide who has what hold over me," Xander protested as he shoved Riley's hand off his leg. The strangest expression flitted across Riley's face for a second.

"He's dangerous," Riley appealed to Jim again.

"So am I," Jim said as he stood up and glowered down at the man. "Two man sentries, Xander you and Blair have the first three hours. Wake me up and Xander and I will take second shift. Blair, you and I will take third. And the next time Spike comes to me, I'm going to tell him where to shove his mission," Jim growled before he got up and headed for the tent.

"He's just worried," Blair said softly when Jim had gone.

"He's worried, you're troubled... me, I've skipped all that and gone straight to wigged out and spazzing."

"Xander," Riley said as he reached out to Xander again, but Xander had put up with enough creepy. Besides, if Riley kept with the touching, he was going to have two broken wrists to match his leg. Xander scooted backwards.

"We'll be okay. Jim and Spike will stop whatever this guy has turned into." Blair said the words, but Xander wasn't sure even he believed them. However, there really wasn't anything any of them could do until darkness came again. Xander sure wasn't going to be sleeping, though. He had a better chance of spontaneously spouting calculus equations than closing his eyes. Taking a deep breath, Xander reminded himself that they just had to get to the truck and get far enough off the mountain to call Giles and get slayers up here to kill one Lieutenant Zhi Sungsen, language specialist.

Chapter 24

"Xander," Riley said softly.

The sun had come up, and Xander's body had started demanding sleep even though his brain kept sliding to thoughts of evil linguists. "Yeah?" Xander turned to Riley, happy for anything that would help keep him awake and distract him.

"Where's Buffy?"

Xander could hear the insecurity in that question. Why wasn't Riley important enough for Buffy to come after herself? Oh yeah, this relationship was healthy.

"There was this thing, and a demon, and potential world ending. You know those wacky demons... always with the world ending. There must be a real lack of hobbies in other dimensions. I bet a craft shop would do good, teach them a little crochet, maybe some jewelry making and pottery," Xander joked with a shrug.

For a second, Riley was quiet. "I can see Anya doing that," he finally answered.

"Oh, yeah. I think I would have been afraid to make the joke in front of her because she would have been down at the bank filling out loan paperwork."

"You look good Xander."

"Terror agrees with me," Xander shrugged again.

"What's going on with you and the vampire?" Riley's voice was neutral, but Xander could tell when they'd left the land of small talk for the land of big talk with a side of 'Xander, how could you?'

Blair looked up from his journal but didn't even offer to rescue Xander from yet another round of bashing Xander's decisions.

"Sex," Xander said, hoping the bluntness would at least shock Riley into silence. Instead he just looked pained.

"Xander, I understand the attraction. I do," Riley reached out again, resting his hand on Xander's ankle, the only part of Xander close enough to touch.

"Riley, no offense, but you're not really understanding much of anything."

"Yes, I do," Riley argued. "I went to those vamp houses for the danger, the feel of them feeding was… I couldn't stop. But I did stop, and I know you're just as strong. You need to walk away before you lose your soul to whatever is going on."

"Oh man, you and vampires?" Blair gasped. Riley turned his head to glare at Blair, but it lasted only a second before he sighed.

"Yeah. It's an incredible feeling, which is why I know better than anyone what Xander is fighting here."

"And yet, you don't," Xander interrupted. "Okay, I'll admit that the biting isn't bad, and for someone who has enforced a strict no-biting policy for much of my love life, or at least the no biting with fangs rule because there was biting with Anya, but okay, off track now," Xander stared at the injured soldier. The weird thing was that he knew, he absolutely knew, that Riley was just worried, but that didn't stop this from being a seriously freaky conversation.

"I don't understand this. I mean, Buffy didn't even tell me you were gay, not that there's anything wrong with being gay," Riley hurried to say.

"And I'm hoping you mean that in a 'nothing wrong with me being gay' way and not in a 'coming out yourself' way," Xander said as he considered the hand still holding his ankle. Yep, freaky. Riley pulled back his hand as though burned, like the good little heterosexual male he was.

"I'm not hitting on you. Buffy and I are trying to work things out."

"And hitting on the best friend, not so much with the helping to work things out," Xander said from experience.

"I think I love Buffy," Riley said, and Xander flinched away from that lack of ringing endorsement. He didn't want Buffy hurt again, and this was looking hurty. And then Riley's hand was back on Xander's ankle. "But loving Buffy and not wanting to see you hurt, there's nothing wrong with me feeling both. Jim and Blair are obviously friends, so you can't believe that caring about someone else means you're gay."

At that, Blair started laughing. "Oh man, why is it that people refuse to see Jim as gay? I know it's not me because plenty of guys down at the station joke about my sex life, but not big, bad Jim. God forbid he's gay. Come on, butch guys can be gay, too."

"Wait, you mean…" Riley looked over at Blair.

"We're so doing it like bunnies," Blair laughed. "Well, not right now because of the whole serial killer situation, but once we catch this guy, we'll be right back to doing it like bunnies."

"I don't get it. Buffy sends four gay guys to rescue me?" Riley sounded so genuinely confused that it took a second for Xander to even process the totally offensive meaning in that.

"Hey!" Xander reached over and gave Riley's arm enough of a punch to sting. "She sent two badass warriors and two Shamen, so don't go dissing the rescue team." After it came out his mouth, Xander realized that Buffy had actually sent one warrior and one Shaman, but that made it sound like Riley was even lower on the priority totem pole, so Xander didn't correct himself.

"Shamen?" Riley pushed himself up onto both elbows and looked from one to the other.

"Twice the Shamanic power for the price of one," Xander agreed. "Blair's a trado Shaman, big with the teaching mojo, and I'm an animus Shaman. That's how we tracked you."

"Are you sure? Shamanic powers are hard to identify. The military—"

"Whoa, no offense, but I'd rather not have a discussion of the military, thank you," Blair cut him off. "The military and people who might be a little different don't mix well."

"You don't want the Army to try and take you," Riley said as he looked at Blair more closely. "You're afraid they'll want to experiment with your powers."

"Man, considering what the military has done in the past, yeah."

"It isn't like that—" Riley started, but Blair cut him off.

"Just stop. You're an idiot if you don't know what they're capable of. The Tuskegee syphilis experiment was just the start." Blair leaned forward. "I mean, have you ever heard of Harold Blauer? 1950's? His case is totally fucked up. The army gave him more and more mescaline just to see what would happen in case of chemical attack. They didn't even have evidence that any of the compounds were being used in Korea, and they killed the guy and then paid his ex-wife $18,000 to apologize for it. As late as the seventies, the army was giving people radiation poisoning while lying and telling them it was cancer treatment, and in 1999, the Los Angeles V.A. hospital was shut down because they had so many violations of ethical standards. Man, they experimented on people who refused treatment, they lied, they told people they were getting one treatment and then gave them another. So, I’m not trusting the government. And if you do anything to turn the Army toward me or Jim, I will personally make you pay."

Xander stared at Blair. The gentle man who had held him and laughed at Xander's jokes had vanished under something cold and dangerous.

"I know something about unethical experiments and doctors who don't tell the subjects what's going on," Riley said carefully. "I don't plan on telling anyone that you or Xander are Shamen."

"Good." And with that, Blair blinked and the anger was gone. Xander stared at the man for a second before he turned his attention back to Riley.

"Xander, I would never turn you over to the Army."

"I was hoping. It wouldn't be a good way to impress Buffy," Xander joked.

"It has nothing to do with Buffy. Even if Sam and I were still married, I wouldn't turn you over to them, either of you," Riley said as he now glanced back toward Blair. "But Shamanic powers are difficult to identify or quantify. You've been fighting demons since you were fifteen; isn't it possible that you're just good at tracking?"

"I'm thinking no. First, I wasn't the tracker. I was the bait… the one who walked around blindly until a vampire found me and tried to throw me head-first into a gravestone."

"It wasn't that—"

"Oh, it totally was," Xander interrupted Riley's attempt to reassure him. "But that's okay. I've gotten over the whole Zeppo stage, and even Willow and Giles, who are so not in the 'support Xander's new powers' column, have admitted that I'm down with the Shamanism." Xander blinked and the world ghosted out so he could see the soul cords curled around him. Riley's was stretching, reaching for Xander and the red sparks from earlier had brightened.

"Wow. Okay, the freak just continues," Xander whispered as he reached out. Riley's soul cord sank through his hand, but Xander could feel his bandaged fingers slide through something like loose jelly.

"Xander?" Blair's hand landed on his shoulder.

"Riley's cord. It's being weird."

"Define weird."

Xander stared at it.

"What are you two talking about? What cord?" Riley asked after a second.

"Your soul. Xander sees souls."

"Shit. That explains Spike. He wants the power, Xander. You deserve better than some asshole who just latches on to the nearest source of power." Riley's cord snapped out, an end breaking free and curling toward Xander. Xander scrambled backwards.

"Okay, that should not happen."

"What? Xander, what's happening?"

"Riley's cord, it's reaching out for me," Xander said, and then he backwards crab-crawled into something that turned out to be two legs. He looked up and Jim's cord distorted his face, only Jim's cord was definitely unJimlike.

"Chief, what's going on here?" he asked, and that was his cranky voice.

"Oh man, I have no idea. We were talking, only Xander says that Riley's cord is reaching for him."

"What are you doing?" Jim snarled, and for a half second, Xander expected to get yanked off the ground, but then Jim stormed past him and grabbed Riley's neck, pushing the man to the ground, and Riley's cord snapped back into place in his own body.

"Nothing," Riley rasped out, but Jim wasn't letting go.

"The longer I know you, the less I like you."

Xander held his breath as the two men faced off, Riley's hands clawing at Jim's arm, and now both their cords had nearly vanished under the red flares Xander had seen earlier.

"Jim?" Xander asked.

"Hey, let's all calm down," Blair suggested.

"You leave Xander alone. You don't comment on his powers, his choice of bed-mates, or his life. In fact, you don't even comment on the color of the sky to him, am I clear, soldier?"

"Very," Riley hissed.

Jim continued to kneel next to Riley, pinning him to the ground. "Chief, do you find it at all strange that Finn here would be the only member of his team to survive? Everyone else is dead, and yet the major here doesn't have more t