Musical Wars
Chapter 1
Welcome back to Sunnyhell, pet,” Spike said as he drove past the roadside sign.
“Already?” Xander looked up from his book. “Thank god.”
“So, three ways to kill a Gy’phan,” Spike demanded, and Xander felt his demon circle in his mind, anxious to prove himself.
“Have I mentioned lately how tests and me are like peanut butter and vinegar? I tried that once as a kid, not a good combination,” Xander joked even as he closed the heavy book.
“About every five bloody miles, but considering the types of nasties that settle on the Hellmouth, I need to make sure you can take care of yourself. Won’t risk losing my childe to some random demon.” Spike still smiled every time he said the word 'childe' and Xander felt his own demon practically purr. And really, even his soul loved knowing that their connection went deeper than pet and master, but the whole childe reference still gave him a bit of the wiggins.
“Okay, considering the things we have done together, calling me your childe is really doing bad things to my psyche.” Xander snorted when his own demon sent up its own unhappy grumblings making it clear that it wanted to be called childe. Xander ignored this inner voice in favor of watching the familiar buildings through the hole he'd scratched in the paint covering the windows of the De Soto.
“So, you havin’ some sort of private conversation over there?” Spike asked as he sent the car around another corner fast enough to make Xander grab for the dash just to keep his balance.
“Just disagreeing over the whole childe issue,” Xander hissed as he shut his eyes for just a second to avoid seeing Spike dart around a semi with the recklessness of an immortal creature. Spike exchanged obscene gestures with the other driver.
"Your demon likes bein’ called a childe,” Spike smugly answered once he had hit a relatively empty stretch of road or at least empty enough there was no one for him to curse at.
“Yeah, well he didn't grow up with teachers explaining about naughty touches and news reports about pedophilia or would that be incest? Well, sex and children… really not of the good.”
"Bloody hell, you're not exactly some little ankle biter. I may not want you off challenging random demons on the Hellmouth, but you're the fighter who eviscerated Angelus himself."
"I accidentally stuck a stake in his stomach," Xander pointed out dryly.
"Gotta learn how to tell the story better than that, pet," Spike sighed and rolled his eyes. "You're Xander Harris, first and favored childe of William the Bloody, accepted into the line of Aurelius by Angelus the grandchilde of the Master himself. You staked Cassidy, Master of all of LA, you can claim the hospitality of Master Ajani, and you once eviscerated Master Angelus during a fight.” Xander felt the demon that shared his body rise up to the naming, not struggling for control as much as just twisting in near orgasmic pleasure at the sounds of his sire’s approval.
“You keep doing that and we aren’t going to make it to the warehouse,” Xander warned as he could feel his cock respond to his demon’s desire to prove his worth to the sire who so accepted him.
“Havin’ a problem, luv?” Spike snickered, and Xander had no doubt that the evil vampire knew exactly what he was doing. God he hated vampire noses, especially since Spike always managed to sniff him at the most embarrassing times. He hadn’t had so much trouble controlling Xander Jr. since seventh grade when he sat between Cordelia Chase and Suzie Smythe for reading class. He had been caught somewhere between heaven and hell all year, and no wonder he wasn’t any good at reading.
“Depends on how you define a problem. Would you have a problem if I slid down and tasted your cock as you drove?” Xander made himself blush with his words, but he knew better than to back down to Spike. Give Spike and inch, and he would take the whole damn continent, so if he didn’t stand up for himself now, Spike was going to talk dirty to him in the middle of Wal-mart next. Nope, no more public displays of horniness for the Xan-man, especially since lately his horniness had been accompanied by definite signs of demoniness.
Xander smirked as Spike shifted in his seat. Oh yeah, time to teach his sire a lesson. Xander unbuttoned the first couple of buttons on his silk shirt and pulled the collar down to expose his claim bite which now constantly showed red against his tanned skin.
“No problem, pet, come on over,” Spike invited him even as Spike reached over and turned off the punk music currently blasting through the car speakers.
“I wouldn’t want to distract you from your driving by running my tongue over your balls, feeling your cock brush against my cheek.” This time Xander was rewarded with a groan as Spike reached down and pulled at the denim over his crotch. Of course, Xander had to shift in his own seat to accommodate his increasing tight jeans, but at least he was no worse off than Spike.
“Bloody hell, no distraction at all. I can drive even as I pierce your neck with my fangs, pulling the blood from you so slow that you’ll feel it down to your toes. I can drive as I work my hands into the back of your jeans, exploring your tight…”
“Mercy….uncle…enough,” Xander squealed as his cock made a Herculean effort to break through the denim and stand at attention. He whimpered as he pushed himself up on the seat and tried to adjust himself. Spike snickered his victory, but Xander also noticed that the vampire had slipped a hand down the front of his own jeans to try and find a more comfortable position. “Truce,” Xander offered.
“Truce my arse, I won that round, so don’t give me any ‘truce’ crap.”
“A draw with you slightly in the lead.”
“A bloody outright victory.”
“A negotiated surrender.”
“Unconditional capitulation.”
“Tyrant,” Xander huffed, and Spike only laughed.
“Seems like someone never answered my question, though. No more distractions.” Xander sighed. He wanted to please Spike, but there were so many damn demons.
“Okay, Gy’phon: horned demon with blue skin. Kill it by taking off the horn and stabbing it into the demon, fire, or the ever-popular beheading, and why is it that beheading seems to kill everything?”
“It doesn’t, pet. Pyleans just stick the head right back, Goran’s can regenerate, and beheading a Gy’phan’ll just piss it off. The whole lot of cousins from the G’an family die the same way…the Gy’phans, Gulans, and Gurelians all die by their own horns, fire or drownin’, but beheadin’ is a good guess if ya don’t know what else to do.”
"And we're back to, how about I hide behind you while you rip apart anything that looks at me wrong?" Xander tried his best helpless wide-eyed stare, but the demon part of him circled in distress, angry at the thought of sire seeing him as weak, and Xander really had to agree. He didn't want to be the sidekick any more. "Or, how about we stick to just killing vampires?"
"Oi, where we're going, ya won't be stakin' any of the vampires, not unless we absolutely have to. Soddin' Anointed One has most of the demon community bowin' and cringin' just because of some cock up of a prophecy."
"But if it's prophecy…" Xander pointed out. Angel had explained how the Master of the Aurelius line had chosen his heir, turned a young human who the prophesies said would hold great power and free the Master from his prison under the city. Xander was still trying to get his brain around the idea that demons and vampires had lurked right below his feet while he played with toy cars in the back yard. Even worse, when his parents had fought, he would take a sleeping bag outside and sleep under the stars, and just how stupid had that been?
"Lived with Dru long enough ta know there's prophesy, and then there's prophesy. Like the bit about the Anointed One freein' the Master. Old Bat Face got free and ate his slayer like the prophecy said, but the git couldn't keep her dead. 'Course Angel put the bird in a coma, but she's still breathin'. Then the next soddin' slayer just dusted him. So, ya can't count on prophecy."
"But all these other demons, they're submitting to the Anointed One because of the prophecy."
"Yeah, which only said the boy could free the Master and lead the Aurelius line to destroy their enemies."
"Right, so best to not be an Aurelius enemy. Oh." Xander froze as he realized what that meant. "We're Aurelius."
Spike smirked.
"Well, figure I don't want to take on the pipsqueak until we get the lay of the land. Don't figure on settling down in the same town as the slayer, and I don't bloody well want another vampire war."
"So, we play nice," Xander nodded. His demon still sulked, wanting to take power and lay it at the feet of his sire. Of course, his demon also had little fantasies about dragging screaming virgins to the lair and laying them at sire's feet like a cat offering up little mouse bodies, so Xander really didn't trust his demon instinct all that much.
"Best thing," Spike agreed.
Xander watched the familiar ice cream shop appear and then disappear in his little spot of window. “My bluffing skills are at an all time low here, that being the case, why don’t we just skip the whole dropping in on the in-laws thing? Visits to the in-laws always go wrong, as evidenced by the oh-so-lovely snarkage at my mother’s.”
“What? I bloody liked your mother,” Spike protested.
“You two insulted each other through three courses and a birthday cake.”
“Yeah, and she got in some good ones too. Ballsy lady, your mum.”
“Well I’m sure she’d love hearing how my undead gay lover thinks she has balls, but wait, you already told her that, and as I recall her reaction was less than positive,” Xander pointed out with a disgusted expression.
“Meant it as a compliment,” Spike said with a twist of his mouth that Xander suspected might mean guilt, but Spike felt guilt so rarely, Xander had trouble pinning down what that expression looked like on Spike.
“So, since our in-law record is less than sterling, any chance of skipping it this round?” Xander hoped that he could turn that possible guilt into a bit of manipulation, but Spike turned a suspicious eye to him for so long that Xander started panicking and gesturing toward the front window where the car continued barreling down the street. “Road… driving… watching the road while driving,” Xander sputtered. With only streaks of clear glass in front, driving wasn't ideal in any conditions, but he definitely didn't want Spike's eyes off the road.
“Not bloody likely. This town has more cemeteries than schools, and more bloody vampires and demons than humans, so since we can't avoid 'em, we visit the court and play good little vamps."
“Stupid vampire rules,” Xander muttered.
“Bloody right, now you know why I avoid the soddin’ courts. Nancy-boy bowin’ and scrapin’ and sucking up to some bat-faced master. Not my bloody idea of a good time, but *someone* wanted to come and visit his friend.”
"Well, someone was all ready to go run off to China just to get away from Angel," Xander pointed out.
“Can’t believe Angel actually worked with a slayer, bloody unnatural that. Should be eatin’ slayers, not havin’ tea and crumpets with the bints,” Spike complained for the millionth time, and Xander just rolled his eyes.
“Wait…. Why did Angel get away with helping the slayers if the court is so powerful?” Xander asked as he watched the streets darken as more and more of the streetlights stood broken and useless.
“Angelus was one of the Master’s favorites, at least once the Master got over hatin’ him. Even with the Master dead, the Anointed One wouldn’t go after such an old vamp especially since Angel and the Master seemed to have a bit of a truce of their own.”
“He told you that?” Xander turned to look at Spike surprised, but the vampire had an amused expression on his face.
“Didn’t have to, pet. Angel talks about Buffy goin’ into the lairs alone even though he’d already helped her out plenty of times. He didn't go down in there until after he saw Batface go wandering off. Only one reason for that.”
“Coward,” Xander huffed, and the vampire next to him growled at the same time as the vampire in his head.
“Angel’s a wanker, but cowardice isn’t in the line, luv. Two things ya never call a vamp of your own line: coward and weak.”
“So you can call him a pouf and hairboy and captain gel but not a coward?” Xander demanded skeptically even as he tried to send comforting thoughts to his own distraught demon.
“Bloody hell, yes. Those other things are left from when he was human, that’s Angel I’m insultin’, but whether or not a vamp is a coward or a weakling, that has to do with the strength of the demon.”
“And….” Xander let his voice trail out. His own demon had been just as unhappy with his comment, but he and baby demon didn’t actually have the whole communication thing down yet.
“We aren’t related through our human side, pet. But we’re all part of the Aurelius demon, the old Master’s even more bat-faced sire. So you don’t bloody insult the demon’s strength since we all carry a part of the same demon.”
"But my demon came from Cassidy," Xander protested. His inner demon roared a protest as a flash of Cassidy-hatred rolled through him. "Hypocrite," Xander snapped at his demon considering the thing had crawled at Cassidy's feet.
"Wot?" Spike demanded.
"Sorry, internal fight. But I'm still saying Cassidy demon here, whether he wants to deny it or not," Xander snarled as the demon sent a rage through every cell in his body, making him clench his fists.
"Not even, pet. Your demon is Aurelius. I bloody well chased Cassidy's demon out and shared mine, so you're just as much a part of the line as I am. We're Aurelius demons, and so we don't insult the demon that connects us." Spike insisted with a growl that showed his displeasure. Xander flinched as Baby Aurelius scraped distress down his backbone.
“I know he’s not physically a coward considering he let you play with a flame thrower in the same room with him, which, no offense here, kinda scary. I actually meant that he was an emotional coward for not wanting to face his vampire needs.” Xander defended himself.
“Some days I think the pouf isn’t a vampire anymore,” Spike commented as he pulled the car up to a dark warehouse and parked in a spot where only the light of the half-moon and the distant streetlights faintly illuminated the abandoned building. "Wanker."
Xander took that as forgiveness. Or at least Spike had moved on to being grumpy about Angel. Xander watched Spike's profile, and part of him wanted to say something supportive, especially since he knew how much it hurt when the person, or vamp, you saw as a father turned out to be a big turd. His own father had written him off, and looking at Spike's tight jaw, Xander wanted to eviscerate Angel again.
As the car rolled to a stop, Xander rolled down his window and checked out his new home… well, at least for as long as the visit lasted. A few windows remained in tact with blackened glass set high on the warehouse's metal walls, but most of the glass had been replaced with wood boards and squares of corrugated metal, and he really hoped the inside was nicer. The car eased up to a giant door obviously designed for semi trucks to deliver their loads.
“He just doesn’t want to face the vampirey bits he’s got inside.” Xander finally replied absentmindedly as he looked around at the squat buildings and the trash gathering in the corners and the graffiti and then at his sire who stared at him curiously. “What?” he asked, wondering if he had a booger on his face or something. He ran a hand over his face just in case.
“Vampirey bits?” Spike asked with a raise of an eyebrow.
“Yeah, like these bits I feel in me. Some I let out like when I needed to ask your forgiveness childe to sire after the whole thing with the me being stupid in the club. Some bits I just ignore, but I don’t see Angel doing anything vampirey-like, so I just think he ignores it all.”
“So you feel things from your vampire inside, things you don’t act on?” Spike reached into the back seat and dug around in one of the bags.
“Uh, yeah. Thought that was kinda obvious.” Xander watched as Spike finally fished out the key and got out. Xander eyed the hood of the car….
Xander sat for a full minute as Spike unchained the huge door and pushed it open, and then he decided to do something that he had always wanted to do. He rolled the window down and then pushed himself up and out the car window.
“What the hell?” Spike turned with a confused expression.
“Look out ‘cause here I come,” Taking a deep breath, Xander started running at the car, jumping at the last minute so that he butt-slid across the hood. His goal had been to slide to the other side, but he somehow got turned around so that his back was to Spike and his feet still trapped on the hood even as he started falling head first toward the ground. Just when Xander braced to hit, he felt hands at his shoulders scrambling to pull him away from the car so that he could get his legs under him so that he squatted with Spike still holding him under his arms.
“You bloody idiot,” Spike snarled, and Xander looked over with is best wide-eyed expression.
“It worked for Bo Duke…looked really cool when he went sliding over the hood, and I don’t remember ever seeing him fall on his ass, not that I actually fell, and thank you for that.”
“Bo Duke?” Xander felt Spike let him go, but he couldn’t catch his balance before he fell the foot or so to the ground and let his breath out in a gasp. Okay, that hurt. It hurt less than falling on his head would have, but still.
“Hey, not nice. And Bo Duke as in the Duke boys as in Bo and Luke Duke…Dukes of Hazzard. Don’t you have any culture?” Xander asked as he reached under and rubbed his sore butt.
“Never mind me, pet. The only things I know about culture I got from soddin’ Shakespeare and Victorian literature. Musta missed the Duke boys, but if I see them, remind me to eat them for puttin’ those thoughts in your head. Spike held out a hand and pulled Xander to his feet right before popping Xander on the back of the head.
“Hey!” Xander complained. “Just having fun,” he pointed out playfully as he walked into the warehouse leaving Spike to pull the car in. The inside was dark, and without any effort, Xander switched over to his red-tinted demon vision complete with yellow glowy eyes
The sharp detail of his vision showed him a large room with one wall lined in doorways. He went over and tried the first doorknob…storage. Empty storage, well except for the legions of mice that obviously called this place home. Xander wrinkled his nose in disgust since pulling up demon vision called up demon super-smell too. Behind him, the car pulled into the big open space and then shut off again as Spike parked. Xander ignored him in favor of continuing his exploration.
“Want the door closed?”
“Yeah, and use the padlock,” Spike said with his butt up in the air and his head down near the carpet in his search for CDs. Xander had a naughty thought that almost sent his demon into apoplexy. In fact, his demon was so scandalized at the idea of taking such liberties with sire’s body that his vision dropped back into the blurry grays of normal human vision.
“Traitor,” Xander whispered to himself as he went to lock the large double doors with the bags still slung over one shoulder. “Don’t tell me you haven’t at least considered it.” He pulled the door closed and padlocked it before slowly working his way blindly back towards the car. Luckily he knew the room was empty except for the car which should be right about….he kept moving forward into the darkness expecting to feel the car at any time….any time at all….
“Ya goin’ somewhere?” Spike voice came from behind him and to the right. Xander turned as he moved slowly in the direction of the voice. “What’s the matter with your eyes, pet?” Xander now spotted the two yellow beacons that gave away Spike’s location. He adjusted and moved more confidently toward his goal.
“Baby demon got all pissy and took his toys and went home,” Xander said, and he had to smile as he watched Spike’s eyes tilt slightly. God, no wonder they’d freaked out Cordelia in that dark theater…watching vampire eyes floating in the dark was a little creepy.
“Right, well I don’t want you breakin’ your neck so you can just get your demon vision back on line right now, childe of mine,” Spike ordered, and at the word childe, Xander felt his vision shift again. Suddenly Xander could see Spike clearly even if the colors had been washed out in favor of a crystal sharpness that made even a spider web in the farthest corner visible. Spike stood with the remainder of their stuff thrown over his shoulder in a ratty old bag and a handful of CD’s stuff under his arm.
“So, this is home.”
“This is the garage, ya ninny,” Spike said as he headed for one of the doors.
“So, telephone? Television? Playstation?” Xander asked as he followed Spike into a living area and dropped his own bags next to Spike’s. The room had a stale, sour smell that Xander hoped to god would clear out with some open windows. The windows were high enough to be on the second story of a house, but he would be able to reach them from the scaffolding that ran along the inside walls and across the width of the warehouse at several points
“Telephone right there, pet.” Spike said, and Xander turned in the direction of the nod.
“God, haven’t you ever heard of cordless?” Xander asked as he walked over to the 1960’s rotary phone that hung on the wall.
“Bloody things die too fast. When you live as long as we do, ya might leave a place empty for thirty years, and ya want to come back to machines that still bloody work.” Xander picked up the handset and listened to the dial tone for a minute before putting it back down.
“Do you really think I’ll live that long?” Xander asked curiously.
“If ya don’t, I’ll turn ya,” Spike said amicably. Xander froze. Sure, his demon loved the possessiveness, the neediness in those words. The demon wanted to be with his sire forever, but Xander wasn’t so sure he felt the same. Turn him, and he suspected that the demon would be left alone. He felt a twinge as the demon growled his unhappiness at that thought.
“Oi, ya got that look on your face, so spit it out,” Spike insisted as he began opening bags and randomly tossing items on either the floor or on a long table that dominated the space.
“What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me. Ya have that look like you and the demon aren’t agreein’ on something, so just bloody spit it out.” Spike paused with a handful of CD’s and Xander opened his mouth to protest seconds before his pile of country music got dropped to the floor. Xander stepped forward in shock and horror only to see the cases had safely landed on top of a mountain of his own clothes.
“Just considering the future…the fact that I really don’t want to go soulless and evil and my demon really doesn’t want me leaving the building even though I seem to really annoy him sometimes like most of the time when I don’t do the things his little vampire brain says I should do." Xander shrugged. "And does he have his own brain or share mine? I wonder if my brain works any better for him than it does for me.”
“Do I take it from that flood of words you’re askin’ me not to turn ya.”
“That’d be it,” Xander agreed as he stared at his own boots.
“Luv,” Xander almost jumped when a hand came down on his arm. “I told ya I won’t turn ya, and I won’t unless we don’t have any other choice, but if ya start aging, I’m not goin’ to just walk away and let ya die.”
“Yeah, I get that.” And Xander did. Dead was bad, and from Spike’s point of view, totally unnecessary. But Xander didn’t really want the whole soulless gig either because he knew full well that the only reason Spike didn’t snack on random civilians was because he didn’t want to drive Xander off the old sanity cliff. If Xander was all demony, no guilt, and no guilt meant no sanity cliff, and two vampires snacking on random civilians. Yeah, so not of the good. Xander realized he had a worried expression when Spike’s hand started making small soothing circles on his forearm. He looked up.
“Then get this, I want you… the Xander Harris with the taste in clothes so bad I won’t let him pick his own and a taste in music that makes me wish I was soddin’ deaf. If it comes to turnin’ ya, we’ll go to Peaches and try to find a way to stick your soul on a little tighter than his.” Xander looked into the yellowed eyes of his lover, his sire, his teacher, and the current center of his universe and knew he was telling the truth.
“Right, if you’re insane enough to want the one who….” Xander stopped when Spike growled and his own demon squirmed in an effort not to displease master. “Um, I guess this falls under not insulting the pet, huh?”
“Falls under not insulting the favored childe of William the Bloody. So, I’ve exceeded my nancy-boy supportive shite for the evening so are we goin’ to shag or unpack?
“I vote shag,” Xander said as Spike stepped nearer and a cool hand reached under his shirt to stroke along his stomach. Xander Jr. immediately joined the party, but then Xander reached down and put his own hand on Spike’s wrist. “After I call Willow,” he amended.
“Not the answer I’m lookin’ for, pet.”
“Yeah, well unless you want me to lie in bed thinking of Willow while you… and I’m just stopping there because I am so not doing, describing, or considering sexual acts while having Willow thoughtage. That’s just wrong. I mean, she can’t even play doctor right; Jesse and I had to finish the game without her.”
“That was a few years back. My guess is that she’s learned to play doctor, especially considering what the cheerleader told us about her wolf.”
“Yeah, well I still think of her as the little freshman who cried because she came in second in the science fair and who brought a stethoscope to play doctor when we were ten. So, Willow and sex should not be thought in the same sentence, and I really need to call her before I move on to the sex part of the evening,” Xander said as he slowly back away.
Most of the time Spike respected his space, but every once in a while Spike took his independence as a challenge to pin him to the nearest flat surface, not that he minded, but he really did want to call Willow. Maybe Spike could see that he wanted the time with his friend because his sire just threw him a salacious look before turning back to the table.
“Right, I’ll just be puttin’ my kit up. Bedroom’s through there,” Spike laughed, and Xander realized that he was lucky that Spike was used to insane lovers because giving up shagging time to call someone he hadn’t talked to in years actually did make him a little nuts.
And why was he suddenly afraid of calling? Okay, reason one was that Willow was friends with a vampire slayer, and that wasn’t really of the good considering he was sleeping with a vampire, sleeping with two vampires if you counted the one shoved in his head, but then again Willow had been friends with Angel and had even been supportive through the whole soulless sending the world to hell incident. Besides, this was Willow. How much could have changed in three years? What could go wrong considering they’d been friends for ten years?
Considering that he was standing on a literal Hellmouth, Xander bit his lip and reminded himself to not even think hypothetic questions like that.