Fiction by Lorraine
Disclaimers: The Buffyverse and all its characters belong to Joss Whedon & co. The story is mine.
Summary: Set immediately after the Ats ep "Damage." Xander finds out Spike is alive and comes to L. A. to see for himself.
Beta: kitty_poker1 Words cannot express how much you've helped me during the process of writing this fic. Thank you so much
This is the final chapter of Shadowlands. It's now complete. I feel bereft, sort of. LOL
Xander stifled a yawn and shifted his chair closer to Spike’s. From across the table, Gunn made good-natured
Awwwwww, isn’t that sweet faces at him when Spike casually slung his arm around Xander’s shoulders in response. He’d stumbled off the plane bleary eyed, exhausted, and fully intending to hold Spike to a rather panicked, naughty promise he’d made during some turbulence over the Atlantic. Instead Xander had found himself in Caritas, pinching himself to stay awake, as Angel described the battle plans to the others. Xander swallowed another yawn and forced himself to pay attention to the conversation.
“So that’s the plan. Tomorrow we take on the Senior Partners. Everyone knows what to do? Any questions?” Angel crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. He was met with silence. Wesley cleared his throat once as if he meant to speak, but he merely nodded and gripped Fred’s hand more tightly. Angel continued, “This won’t be easy. We won’t all make it. Tonight might be your last night on earth. Don’t waste it.”
Lorne pushed his chair back from the table. “Don’t be such a drama queen, Angelcakes. This is apocalypse number how many for us? For what it’s worth, I’ve got my money on Team Angel.” He stepped behind the bar. “Of course, it couldn’t hurt to make some pre-Armageddon plans, maybe have one hopefully-not-so-final bash in the old joint. I could sing that new arrangement of “Over the Rainbow” I’ve been secretly working on. Excuse me, ladies and gents. I’ve got some calls to make.”
Fred stood up. “We’d better be running on, too. If this is my last night on earth, I’ve got some serious taco eating to tackle before morning.”
Wesley raised an eyebrow. “I sincerely hope there’s more on the agenda for this evening than eating tacos.”
Fred just giggled and pulled him across the bar toward the door, both of them calling out goodbyes through their laughter. Gunn laughed along with everyone else at Fred’s comment, but it sounded bitter and forced to Xander’s ears. Gunn left shortly after without volunteering any information about his plans.
I really hope he’s got somewhere to be and someone to be there with. Sergeant Doom and Gloom has a point; if tonight’s all we’ve got, I sure as hell wouldn’t wanna spend it alone.
As if his thoughts ran along the same lines, Spike pulled Xander closer to him. “So, Peaches. Guess it’s just us family left now. Where’re you planning to spend the last moments of your unlife?”
Angel sighed. “At Wolfram and Hart, I suppose. I don’t want anyone to get suspicious.” He picked up a book of matches from a bowl on the table and idly tossed it from hand to hand.
Spike and Xander looked at each other. I so do not want to spend my last night on earth babysitting Angel, but damn it! He looks so pitiful, and I can tell Spike doesn’t want him to be alone. And if I’m really honest, neither do I. Crap. Xander opened his mouth to invite Angel to come back to Spike’s place with them, but before he could say anything, Angel went quiet and still, his attention focused on something behind Xander. Xander turned; Buffy was leaning against the bar, her hands in her pockets.
“Buffy, what’re you doing here? You were supposed to come through the portal tomorrow with the other Slayers,” Angel said.
Buffy shrugged. “I couldn’t wait.”
~ ~ ~
Spike opened the door to his apartment and tossed his duster on the coffee table. He fanned out a stack of restaurant menus on the end of the counter, pulling a green one from the pile. “You wanna get some Chinese takeaway, luv? That place down on South Seventh has good—“
Xander took the menu from Spike’s hand and threw it back on the counter. “Shut up already, would you? Last night on earth, remember?” And then they were kissing, hard and desperate, hands fumbling with buttons and zippers. They fell back on the couch clumsily, Spike’s mouth wet and moving on his neck.
Finally, they were both naked, pressed thigh to thigh, chest to chest. Spike made little needy noises into Xander’s neck when Xander twisted his hips against him and ran his hands down between them. Then Spike pulled back from him, just looking, his body never stopping that slip slide against Xander’s, his hands busy on Xander’s damp skin. Xander could see himself reflected in Spike’s eyes, could see his own mouth open and panting for breath, his own cheeks flushed with desire. He wondered what Spike saw in his eyes.
Me. Only me.
They kissed again, and then Spike was slipping wet fingers into him. Xander gasped and clutched Spike’s shoulders tightly. Spike looked at him once more, as if searching for doubt, before easing himself into Xander, sliding forward gradually until flesh met flesh. He stopped for a long moment, their bodies joined together motionlessly, Xander slick with sweat, shaking and biting his bottom lip. Then Spike drew back and pushed into Xander again, again, again, until the edges of everything blurred and Xander felt warm and liquid. When he came, Xander thought he would dissolve, become indistinct from Spike, from the bed, the room, the almost unbearable pleasure that flowed into him from every place they touched.
Later, much later, when they were both limp and exhausted, Xander curled around Spike’s back and pressed his face into Spike’s shoulder. They slept.
Xander woke once, lamplight on his face and Spike busy scribbling something on a sheet of loose leaf at the desk. Xander watched Spike write, watched the quick movements of the tendons at his wrist, the furrow in his brow when he paused to think. Xander dozed again, and when he woke next he was alone. He could hear Spike in the kitchen, heating up a mug of blood or maybe a cold slice of pizza. He padded across the room on bare feet and ran trembling fingers across the words Spike had written while he’d slept.
I See Monsters
Baby, I know you cannot hear me now
‘Cause you’re fast asleep, but I need you now
Colors inside your head go spinning round
Like a Ferris wheel
Exploding and falling to the ground
Oh, people are screaming, people are screaming
My baby, he’s dreaming
Oh, people are shouting, people are freaking
I’m staring at the ceiling waiting for the feeling
Oh, when he comes
I know that he’s the one
Makes me want it harder
Makes me wanna be a little stronger
Still I see monsters
Still I see monsters*
~ ~ ~
Afterwards, Xander could barely remember what happened. Some moments hung in his memory with startling clarity—the initial flash of light and then a swirling confluence of colors and Faith stepping through first, stake at the ready; Spike’s arm tight on his elbow as they watched the dragon
an honest to god, fucking dragon! circle overhead; Andrew holding up his hand, fingers in a taut V and whispering, “Live long and prosper,” before the horde of demons rushed the alley. The rest was a jumble of sounds and sensations.
Mostly what Xander remembered later was Angel, the look of surprise and regret on his face, the way his ashes hung in the wet air for a long moment before falling with the rain.
”I kinda wanna slay the dragon.” And Angel leaped forward, his sword bright in all that darkness. Buffy saw it coming first, like in that moment before a cup drops, when it’s whole in the hands but waiting to fall. Then there’s nothing left but to watch it break on the floor. Buffy screamed, and maybe so did Spike; Xander wasn’t sure. Beyond the rain and the sounds of metal on bone all he could hear was his own heart drumming. The dragon came down, eventually, a huge heap of serrated scales and burning coals. Buffy scrabbled in the mud where Angel had fallen, searching for some piece of him, but her hands found nothing. Then Spike was pressing his face into Xander’s neck and crying, digging his fingers in at the shoulders, hard, too hard.
~ ~ ~
Xander sat on the beach at Nerja, his back against a boulder worn smooth by centuries of surf. The moon hung high over the sea, a round ball bigger than his fist that illuminated the long stretch of sand with silvery light. Xander could see Spike, many yards out, swimming parallel to the shoreline. His body less cut through the waves than became part of them, the white glow of an ankle the echo of the shine on a white cap, the pale arc of Spike’s spine mirroring the bow and bend of the water he swam in.
Xander’s fingers tapped expectantly on his cell phone, and as if by magic, it rang.
“Hey, Andrew. I’ve been waiting for you to call.”
Andrew sighed. “I know. Things took longer at the hospital than we thought they would—X-rays, CAT scans, all those vaccinations he missed out on.”
“Is he okay?”
“Surprisingly, yeah. He’s held up pretty well for a guy who’s more than two hundred years old. Other than some smoke inhalation, he’s fine.”
Another phone call a week ago--Xander was still in L.A. Some of the Slayers had been seriously injured in the battle, and almost everyone had something that needed stitching up. Spike had whispered to him back in the alley, his voice thick with tears, “Wherever you’re going, I’ll go. There’s nothing for me here.” But for now, they were all together, bunked down in the hospital lounge, waiting for the wounded to heal.
Xander started when his phone began to ring shrilly in the church quiet of the waiting room. “Who could be calling me? Everyone I know is right here,” he said. “Hello?”
“Xander, it’s me. Angel.”
And Xander nearly dropped the phone; from across the aisle, he could see Spike’s eyes widen and his mouth drop open before he snatched the phone from Xander.
Angel had woken up under the remnants of the dragon, bruised and bleeding and human. He told Spike that clawing his way out from under that massive weight took nearly as long as digging through six feet of loamy earth so many years ago. Spike shook his head and said, with something unidentifiable in his voice, “ ‘No man of woman born, coward or brave, can shun his destiny.’ ”**
Xander shook his head to clear the memory and focused his attention on the conversation at hand. “Good. I’ve been worried. Even though he won’t admit it, Spike’s been really worried about Angel, too. How’s he handling the whole human again thing?”
“Pretty okay, I guess. He hasn’t taken his lips off Buffy’s long enough to really say.” Xander could hear the giggle lurking behind Andrew’s voice. “Speaking of smoochies, how are things going with you and Spike? Everything was so crazy when you left—Angel Shanshu-ing, all those newbie Slayers still in the hospital. You guys just kinda ran off.”
Xander sighed. “I know. But Spike and I haven’t had any time together, well, since before we even got together, that wasn’t full of apocalypses and evil lawyers and blue sucky demons. Soon as everybody gets on their feet again, it’s back to business as usual. And then we’ll have to decide what we wanna do—go somewhere on assignment, work at Headquarters, fight the good fight with Angel’s crew in L.A, blahblahblahblahblah. We just wanted to be alone for a while before the next time the world almost ends.”
“I get that. So this is looking like it might be a permanent type thing, then?”
Spike rose from the water and walked through the shallows toward Xander. He sat beside him on the towel and wrapped wet arms around his middle.
Xander smiled. “Oh, yeah.”
The end.
*”I See Monsters” by Ryan Adams on the album Love is Hell. I have changed the lyrics slightly to reflect the appropriate gender and to eliminate the word love from the song. Methought it a bit too soon for the L-word.
**Homer, Iliad, VI (Bryant trans.)
Thank you all so much for making this such a great writing experience. I truly have found a wonderful community of readers/writers I'm glad I'm a part of.
If anyone's interested, I wrote a seriously wanky post on the making of Shadowlands *snort*
HERE