Learning Curve
Rated ADULT
Sexual Content

Jim/Blair, Xander/Spike
Chapters 7- 12

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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