Title:  Finding Home

 

   Email: tirel@pcnuthut.com

 

   Author:  Velvet Crypt

 

   Disclaimer:  Joss is God. I own nothing.

 

   Spoilers:  After season 4

 

   Summary:  Spike finds safety from an unlikely source.

 

   

 

   

 

   

Bloody hell, can I be any more of a poncy wanker? Spike thought, as he dragged himself from shadow to shadow, away from the alley behind the Bronze. Every few feet, he would stop to catch his nonexistent breath and to take a rest from the grinding of bone against bone in his chest. He hurt from head to toe; amazingly, the only place that was untouched was the knuckles of his hands, usually the first place to show damage. This time was a bit different, however. He wasn’t attacked by anything he could hit back. This time, humans attacked him.

 

Attacked. He snorted. What a general description for breaking nearly every bone in his body and carving pretty pictures on his flesh. He supposed he should be thrilled that none of them were poofs, and that his arse remained untouched. Remind me to be thankful when I stop seeing three alleys, he laughed wryly to himself.  So, providing I can crawl out of this maze, I don’t have any blood at my crypt, Willy’d take one look at me and throw me out on my ear. Slayer’d laugh her bony ass off at me. Don’t know where the witches live. Watcher…maybe. No guarantee, though. He was really pissed about that little pawning of his guitar thing I did. He sighed.

 

Well, buck up, Wil. Looks like it’s the donut boy again. Destination in mind, he blearily chose an alley and walked. After the first two alleys turned out to be walls, he nearly gave up and lay down in the alley to wait for the sun to rise, but he was damned if he’d go to his final death because of a bunch of pansy-arsed frat boys on a drunken hoo-hah. So, he grit his teeth and staggered, arms held in front of him.

 

Thirty minutes later, biting back bloody tears, he recognized the whelp’s yard. In his hurry to get to safety, he tripped over the curb and landed face first in the Harris’s walkway. “Bloody hell!” His body shook with hopeless laughter. “Bloody ridiculous fucking excuse for a vampire,” he bemoaned his situation. Ignoring the jets of pain racing through his chest and down his legs, he began crawling to the door, not realizing he was leaving streaks of borrowed blood behind.

 

Pulling himself onto the porch, he had just enough strength to prop himself against the door and bang on it twice before his demon took over and dropped his body into a coma-like state in order to heal.

 

                                   _______________________________

 

   

 

Looking at her watch through alcohol-hazed eyes, Jessica Harris wondered who the hell would be pounding on her door at two in the morning. Sighing, she carefully set her glass on the table; wouldn’t do to spill the liquor on the carpet. Her husband got very angry when he could smell alcohol from a source other than a bottle or his own soured pores. She stepped to the door with the very precise walk that only the very drunk have mastered.

 

Opening it, she gave a shriek as a body fell inwards to lie at her feet. “Xander!” she screamed, pressing her hand to her heart.

 

Downstairs, Xander flung the remote down and leapt from his bed. Racing up the stairs, he grabbed the baseball bat from behind the door, ready to combat whatever Sunnyhell evil dared invade his house.

 

He pulled up to an abrupt halt as he took in the picture before him. His mother, in her robe, obviously drunk, was kneeling at the head of the former Master of Sunnydale. Her hand was hovering over his blonde hair, as though she wanted to touch it, but was afraid to. On closer inspection, he could understand why. Spike was only recognizable by his blond hair and duster. Every other part of his face was swollen and bloody.

 

“Mom, get away from him,” he sighed, dropping the bat. Jess looked up at her son, eyes trailing to the bat. Resolutely she shook her head and gazed back down at the bleeding vamp in front of her.

 

“I hardly think he’s going to do anything, Alexander, except bleed on the carpet.” She shuddered. “Help me get him into the kitchen, Xander. God knows what your father will do if he finds blood on the carpet.”

 

Xander hesitated. “Mom, you don’t even know this guy. What if he’s a serial killer or something?”

 

Jess looked up at him as though he were insane. “I may be drunk all the time, pumpkin, but I’m not blind. I’ve seen him coming in and out of your room. I’ve seen him sleeping in your bed when you weren’t here. I’m guessing you’re trying to hide the fact that he’s your boyfriend. Your father would be furious to find out you’re gay. …I’m not your father.” The last was said in nearly a whisper.

 

Xander was too much in shock that his mother thought he was gay and not only didn’t care, but obviously had tried to help him hide it, that he didn’t even think to disagree with her about Spike being his boyfriend.

 

“Now, help me get your young man to the kitchen and then you can tell me all about it while we patch him up.”

 

   

 

                                   _______________________________

 

   

 

He felt the door open and his body crash through, but the pain registered as though it belonged to someone else.

 

“Xander!” he heard a female shriek above him. Damn it all, the whelp would never forgive him for dragging his mum into this. The last thing the whelp seemed like he wanted was for his family to have anything to do with his life. He sensed the woman’s heartbeat slow and he smelled concern…and recognition? …begin to roll off of her as he felt her sink to her knees next to him.

 

He heard footsteps racing up the stairs and then coming to a halt. Xander. He knew that smell anywhere. Strangely enough, just smelling the blend of soap, sweat, chocolate, and Xander-musk made him feel safe.

 

Stupid nancy-boy he chided himself. He’s the Slayer’s friend. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you unless you can help fight the big bads. Yet, he was still comforted by the boy’s smell.

 

“Mom, get away from him.” Right, whelp. Cause I’m so damn dangerous lying here bleeding and in a coma.

 

“I may be drunk all the time, pumpkin, but I’m not blind. I’ve seen him coming in and out of your room. I’ve seen him sleeping in your bed when you weren’t here. I’m guessing you’re trying to hide the fact that he’s your boyfriend. Your father would be furious to find out you’re gay. …I’m not your father.”  He could feel confusion pour off of Xander in waves.

 

Boyfriend? He would have liked to see Xan’s face at that particular comment, especially since it got no response. “Now, help me get your young man to the kitchen and then you can tell me all about it while we patch him up.” Spike felt himself lifted like a child. The whelp’s had gotten some muscles working at that construction job. He could almost forget that he was in enough pain to wish himself staked. Xander’s scent surrounded him. It filled him, floated over and through him. That, and amazement at being gently carried when he’d expected to be picked up like a sack of potatoes, made the tears rush back to his eyes.

 

Goddamn it, he cursed, as he felt the bloody tear trickle from the corner of his eye and down his face. Please let the whelp think it’s just one more streak of blood.

 

   

 

                                   _______________________________

 

    

Jess let a smile cross her lips as her son silently did as she asked, picking up the smaller man with a tenderness that belied the disgusted set of his mouth. She followed them into the kitchen, kicking a chair out of the way so that Xander could place his charge on the table. Narrowing her gaze, she leaned over the unconscious man. Was that— What the hell? Was that a bloody tear she saw fall from his eye?

 

“Xander?” she asked, panicked. “I think there may be something wrong with his eyes too. I think he’s bleeding from them.”

 

Xander frowned, reaching to turn Spike’s face to the light. What he found confused him more than actual bleeding would have.

 

Crying? Spike is crying? Jesus, he must really be fucked up. “Er, mom…I think it’s just, um…a trickle of blood from his, um, his scalp,” Xander made up quickly, gently wiping the offending thing away so his mother would have nothing else to investigate. “Um, I’ll just get the first aid kit.” He rummaged under the kitchen sink for a moment and came up with a well-stocked first aid kit. In this house, it’s as necessary as toilet paper, he thought wryly.

 

He and Jess carefully began undressing the vampire. Xander was extra careful with the legendary duster, folding it up and laying it reverently on a chair. Jess didn’t comment on the way he held the duster up to his nose and inhaled, his eyes drifting closed; but she smiled. She began unbuttoning Spike’s shirt as Xander went to work on his boots. Finally, Jess went for the zipper to his jeans, and Xander yelped.

 

“Mom, what the hell are you doing?” Jess furrowed her brow.

 

“Honey, we can’t see the extent of his injuries with them on. Not to mention the fact that he’ll be much more comfy without them. It’s not like you’ve never seen it before.” She smiled again and headed for the zipper.

 

   

 

Xander covered her hands again. “Actually, mom, I haven’t,” he said desperately. “Spike isn’t my boyfriend. He…we…well, he needed a place to stay, and so sometimes, he stayed with me. Platonically! I’ve never seen his…stuff.”

 

Jess looked at him in disbelief. She knew what she saw. She saw tenderness, gentleness, and kindness in him when he touched the blond. She saw everything she’d thought her bastard of a husband had beaten out of him. Maybe he couldn’t admit it. Fine. He’d had not acknowledging it slapped into him from the time he could walk. It didn’t surprise her that he couldn’t see it.

 

“Well, then I suppose there’s a first time for everything, pumpkin.” And she unzipped the jeans. And she got a surprise. “Oh…my….” she whispered.

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Spike. Buy some underwear.” Xander growled. “I’m going to get him a pair of my boxers, mom. It’ll make it much easier to work on him.” Deliberately turning his head, Xander walked back downstairs.

 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. What the hell is wrong with me? I am a man. I like women. Not gay here! He struggled to convince little Xander of that very same thing. Little Xander was having none of that. He’d seen something he liked and— to hell with what big Xander said— he wanted to see more.

 

   

 

                                   _______________________________

 

“Xander, we need to get him to a doctor.” Jess said worriedly. “He’s so cold. And he’s not waking up. A-and I can’t see him breathing.”  She turned scared eyes to her son.

 

Crap, what the hell am I supposed to do now? Just tell her? Gee, mom, sorry— but all those stories you told me weren’t true, back when I was a little boy? You were wrong. Evil does exist, and he’s lying on your kitchen table. Right.

 

Jess laid her head on Spike’s chest and then frantically grabbed his wrist. “Oh, dear lord, Xander…we killed him.” She breathed. “We killed him!”

 

She reached behind her for the phone and Xander took it from her hands. “What are you doing, Mom?” he demanded, as he held the phone out of her reach.

 

“Xander, this man is dead.” She poked her son in the chest with a bony finger. “We have to call the police. I always knew the police’d show up here about a dead body in the house someday.” She shook her head wryly. “Always thought it would be mine…or…” She refused to finish the sentence, but Xander knew. He saw the pain in her eyes; the knowledge that her only son could have been the one on that table and she couldn’t have done anything to stop it.

 

“I know, Mom.” Xander said softly, and did something he hadn’t done in nearly ten years…he touched her shoulder reassuringly. “Mom, I need to tell you some…stuff, about me. About my friends. About Spike.”

 

                                   _______________________________

 

Great. She finally noticed that I’m dead. Oh, well, was bound to happen when she started poking around my personals.

 

“What are you doing, Mom?”

 

“Xander, this man is dead. We have to call the police. I always knew the police’d show up here about a dead body in the house someday. Always thought it would be mine… or…”

 

What the hell? Who’d kill Xander or his mum? What did I just walk into?

 

“I know, Mom. Mom, I need to tell you some…stuff, about me. About my friends. About Spike.

 

Oh whelp, are you sure about this? Don’t really want to get staked on a kitchen table. And even if she just tells you to get  out, wouldn’t we be the nummy treats walking around Sunnydale at two in the morning?

                                   _______________________________

 

“I really don’t even know where to start, Mom.” He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “I guess I can either build you up to it, or lay it out naked like I found out. It’s up to you.” He watched his mother’s dark brown eyes carefully. He could see that her drunkenness was quickly receding, replaced again by fear and sadness.

 

“As wrong as this may sound, son, give it to me naked. The sooner we get this poor man out of our house the longer we’ll have to clean up the blood before your father gets home.”

 

Xander scowled. “Fine. Sunnydale sits on top of a Hellmouth, an opening to Hell. All sorts of demons and assorted nasty creatures flock to it. I work with a girl called the Slayer. You know her. Buffy Summers. She kills vampires and other demons because the Powers That Be gave her super strength and other skills. Willow, my best friend— I’m sure you remember her— she’s a witch, a really powerful Wicca. Anya? The girl I used to date? Back before dad made a pass at her? She was an ex-vengeance demon. Granted wishes to spurned women. She was over eleven hundred years old. Spike, there? Spike is a vampire. He’s undead. That’s why he’s cold. That’s why he has no pulse and isn’t breathing. Any questions?”

 

He watched as his mother began blinking rapidly. Her mouth opened and closed a few times. She looked down at Spike and back up to Xander. He fully expected her to run screaming from the room. Then she just wiped her hand over her eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Okay. So how do we go about fixing up an undead vampire?”

                                   _______________________________

 

Spike wanted to grin. He really wanted to see the woman’s face, but he had to make do with his hearing and sense of smell. He heard the annoyance in Xander’s voice, but it didn’t seem to be directed at his mother. He could tell the boy was terrified to share, but also resigned. The woman smelled tired. No other word for it. She smelled tired of life. As though her entire existence spun around getting the corpse off of her table, not because a corpse was on her table, but because her husband would be angry to see blood on the carpet.

 

When Xander began speaking, Spike smelled a change. He heard her stand up straighter. He heard her holding her breath. He heard her wipe her face. But he smelled…change. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but she suddenly didn’t seem so ready to give up. He really wasn’t surprised to hear her ask how to fix him.

                                   _______________________________

 

Xander gaped at her. “Y-you…how…but I thought…he…”

 

“Xander, sweetie. I know this young man is technically dead, but you have to admit, he’s still in need of some serious help. Help that I am wholly uninformed on how to provide for him. You know what he is. You obviously have an idea what to do. So, tell me what to do to fix him.” Xander shook his head and vowed to try to wrap his brain around the enigma that was suddenly his mother as soon as Spike wasn’t bleeding to death on the Formica.

 

“Err…he needs to have his wounds cleaned, so that when he starts to heal, he won’t heal with dirt or gravel, or whatever the hell is in those cuts, inside of him. And he needs to have any broken bones set. Then he needs blood. To drink. Preferably human. It helps him heal faster.” He shut his eyes at his mother’s quick catch of breath.

 

“O-Okay, then I’ll start cleaning this side, you take that side. We’ll work our way down his front, then turn him over. By the time we get to his backside, I might be able to talk about the blood part without wanting to get drunk again.” Determinedly, she dipped a cloth into a bowl of warmed water and started gently brushing at the various cuts and abrasions on Spike’s body. With a small smile of amazement at his suddenly strong mother, Xander did the same.

 

“Last one,” Jess sighed happily, as she taped the last bandage down over Spike’s wounds.  Setting the bones had been the most difficult. It was disheartening, to say the least, that Jess had been able to locate each bone and pull it back into place with a capable assurance that spoke volumes about how many times she’d had to do so before.

 

“Now, for that…b-blood thing.”

 

Xander winced. “Remember those bags I used to put in the fridge, the red ones that I said were doctored-up V8 juice to build up my muscles for the construction job?” Jess’s eyes grew wide. “Yeah, well, that was blood for Spike. Do we have any left?”

 

Jess shook her head. “Your dad threw the last of them out when you were late on your rent. He said you should have been giving him the money instead of trying to impress those fa- um, men, you work with.” She blushed as she edited her husband’s speech. “Have you ever…I mean, could he drink from…us?”

 

Xander started. “You have no idea what you’re volunteering, Mom.” She put on the resolve face he remembered from his childhood. Willow loved that face. She’d imitated it until she’d gotten down it perfectly. He hadn’t seen it on his mother in years.

 

“Alexander Lavelle Harris. This man is dying. Again. Are you going to begrudge him a bit of the life-sustaining fluid that could help him because it ‘wigs you out’?”

 

Xander blinked. “Mom, never ever say wigs again. And yes, I am going to begrudge him. He’s an evil vampire, mom. He’ll suck you dry.”

 

Jess pursed her lips. “Really. So, he’s an evil vampire? Well, I trust your judgment, Alexander. I know that when you offer your trust, your friendship, your heart to someone, that they are worthy. I believe that. Now, I want you to remember the first thought that crossed your mind when you saw your Spike lying on the floor, bleeding to death. Then I want you to think of the reason you picked him up and carried him in here, making sure not to jar him, so he wouldn’t be in any more pain. Then, I want you to think, really think, why you told me that he was a vampire. I could have called the police. Told them some vagrant died on my doorstep. They would have taken him away and he would have died on their hands, not ours. Think, son. Think hard. When you’re done, I’ll be in the bathroom, trying to find one of your father’s razors.” With that, she walked away.

 

“What the hell is happening here?” Xander whispered, in shock. He looked down at Spike, wincing at the black-and-blue marks marring the vamp’s face. I can’t remember the last time my mother asked me for anything. Begged me for dad, yes. For herself? I don’t know.

 

“Okay. Fine, Mom. So, here I am…thinking.” He narrowed his eyes. “The first thought I had when I saw you bleeding. Well, that’s simple. I thought…well, I thought…” He fought to spew acidic commentary to Spike’s unconscious ears, but to no avail.

 

“Fine,” he groused. “I was scared. Rationally, I knew that you couldn’t be dead. You weren’t a pile of ash. But I was still scared.”

 

Oh, I’m gonna get even with her for this. “Why did I pick you up… well, duh. But, pick you up nicely…well, what did you expect, you bleached bastard? You look like shit. See question one, and ask yourself if one more injury would have done you in?” He gritted his teeth and growled at the pale vamp. “I hate you. Why did I tell my mom you were a vamp? How the hell should I know? It seemed reasonable at the time? You were a corpse.”

 

He paced back and forth in front of the table. “Fine. Okay! Fine! You’d be too weak to crawl out of the morgue. No one would feed you. You’d crawl into the sun in starved desperation. You’d incinerate. And I wouldn’t have anyone left to make fun of.” He looked guiltily at the door his mother had disappeared into and kicked the cabinet. “Argh! And I didn’t want you to die. There! Happy? Geez, you are such an asshole, Spike.” He stomped off to see how his mother was doing.

                                   _______________________________

 

Spike was in agony. Though they were both as gentle as they could be, he could feel the dirt grinding into the wounds and the bones grinding together. He was a bit nervous about letting the chit yank on his broken bits, but figured he could always re-break them later and set them himself. He was surprised when she set them perfectly. One usually only became that adept at bone-setting if they were employed in the medical field, or got the shit kicked out of them regularly. But Xander’d never mentioned his mother was a nurse.

 

He breathed a figurative sigh of relief when the woman taped the final piece down. Then she shocked him once again. Offering her blood? What the hell? He had to agree with Xander on this one, regardless of how badly his mouth watered at the thought of sweet, thick, human blood sliding down his throat…but, no. She seemed very determined; enough so that she presented Xander with a guilt trip, all nicely packaged up and tied with a bow.

 

What a woman. Spike chuckled to himself. He waited in rapt fascination as Xander soundlessly fought with himself over his mother’s request. And then he listened in confused warmth as Xander growled his thoughts at the ‘unconscious’ vampire. Well, well, well. Spike rolled the ideas around in his brain. The whelp likes me!

                                   _______________________________

 

“No, honey, not like that, you’ll bleed too much.” Jess took the blade away from her son’s hand before he slit his veins open. “You cut crossways over the wrist and it bleeds, but not enough to kill you.” She demonstrated in the air over Xander’s wrist, and then handed the blade back to him. Xander gave her a long look, then gently lifted her hand and turned it over. Blushing, she looked away as Xander saw that she had firsthand knowledge…several times…of that very fact.

 

He placed a soft kiss on her wrist and then cut his own. He hissed a bit as he felt his skin separate, but didn’t hesitate as he pried the vamp’s lips open and forced his wrist against Spike’s cold lips. For a long moment, nothing happened, and he began to worry, then he felt the soft brush of a tongue against the cut. In another moment, Spike had latched onto the cut and was milking it, running his tongue over and around it.

 

Xander had a moment of vertigo as he realized he was letting a vampire— more specifically, Spike— drink from him. Another when he realized that the tugging was vaguely arousing him. It began as a slight burning in his wrist and spread up his arm in a warm wave. He could feel the tingling racing through his brain and flooding his chest. It curled its way down through his belly and made its home at the juncture of his thighs.

 

He heard a small moan and vaguely realized it came from his own throat. His world narrowed to the warmth filling his body and the tiny flicks of Spike’s tongue against his flesh. He nearly cried in disappointment when that tongue pushed his wrist out of the vamp’s mouth and Spike’s lips closed him out. He came back to reality with a crash. He felt the blood loss and realized that, somehow even unconscious, Spike had known when to stop.

 

Swaying, he grabbed the table for support, and felt the back of a chair pushed against his legs. “Thanks, Mom,” he whispered, laying his head down on the table. His head brushed Spike’s cool thigh, and unconsciously, he moved closer to that coolness, pushing his forehead into the vamp’s leg.

 

“My turn,” Jess said, with a chirp. Just to hide the fact that you’re terrified out of your mind, Jessica. She’d not missed the strange reaction of her son.  Taking a deep breath, she split her skin. As she held her hand to the vampire’s— oh lord, a vampire— lips, she noticed her hand was shaking. Setting her chin, she pried Spike’s lips apart and thrust her wrist inside.

 

After a moment, she felt a gentle suction begin. It didn’t hurt. It certainly didn’t provoke the reaction in her that it had in her son. It reminded her of suckling her own son twenty years ago, and she gently smiled.

 

Moments later, she felt the pressure release and she pulled her arm away, pressing a cloth against the cut to stop the bleeding. With an almost tender touch, she wiped away a stray drop of blood from the corner of Spike’s mouth and then set about bandaging her wrist and Xander’s.

 

“Let’s put him to bed, Xander.”

 

Xander sighed. “Well, the safest place is downstairs. So I guess I’m out a bed for however long it takes him to wake up.”

 

Jess looked at her son innocently. “Why would you be out a bed? It’s big enough. You can share.” She held in a chuckle at her son’s astonished expression.

 

Xander sighed and finally nodded. Bending down, he gently lifted the smaller vampire into his arms again and carried him downstairs. Jess bustled ahead of him and tsked in dismay at the state of the bed. She made Xander hold Spike while she changed the sheets and pillowcases. Xander complained, but she noticed that it didn’t make him set the vamp down… nor did it in any way cause him to nuzzle the blonde’s hair, inhaling a lungful of the scent that was Spike’s own.

 

Eventually, she was done, and Xander reluctantly placed his burden under the covers, tucking him in. Jess sat on the bed and rested her hand on Spike’s covered leg. Motioning for Xander to sit as well, she was not surprised when her son propped himself up against the headboard and took the vamp’s head into his lap.

 

“This has got to be the oddest thing I can recall doing,” Jess grinned

 

Xander returned her grin. “Yeah, it’s kind of neat to wrap someone else up for once. I got to use both hands!”

 

Jess nodded. “I hate when he hurts my arms. I’d much rather he just sticks to punching me in the gut, or even the face. Once he gets the arms, it’s pretty much impossible to take care of the rest of yourself.”

 

Xander sighed, absently beginning to run his fingers through Spike’s platinum curls. “I don’t know. I think my least favorite place is the face. The arms, you can at least hide. Everyone knows when he gets you in the face.”

 

They sat in contemplative silence for long moments, each lost in their own world of remembered pain; Jess stroking Spike’s leg through the covers, and Xander strangely comforted by the feel of Spike’s hair over his fingers.

                                   _______________________________

 

What the hell was happening? Spike couldn’t understand why he was being treated like his health mattered to anyone. Usually, he got an ‘Oh, look…Spike is hurt. Guess we can’t fling him in front of the demons for cannon fodder tonight’. Never in his unlife had another person, save his sire, ever taken such care of him when he’d coma’d. Not even Dru, who was most likely to twirl inanely around him for hours pretending he was playing possum with her.

   

And look at him now…bandaged, fed the very lifeblood of his rescuers, tucked gently... by Xander? …under the covers of Xander’s own bed, with Xander’s fingers running through his hair, while the boy and his mother sat on the bed discussing the merits of where to take a hit. Bizarre. Wholly pleasant and nothing he was going to try to get out of, but… still bizarre.

                                   _______________________________

 

“So, tell me how you and Spike met.” Jess drew her legs up underneath her, settling in.

 

Xander grinned. “I was offered to him as a toy by another vampire.” Jess just stared at him.  “Sorry, Mom,” he twirled a curl around his finger. “There’s a lot of stuff you don’t know. About me, about Sunnydale.”

 

“So, tell me,” she answered quietly.

 

“Okay,” He sighed. “Demons are real. Vampires are real. Werewolves are real. Ghosts are real. Magic is real. Curses are real. Hell is real.” He stopped and raised an eyebrow questioningly. Jess nodded, though her hands were whitened by the grip she had on the bedcovers. “Sunnydale was built on an opening to hell, called the Hellmouth. Weird things are drawn here, mostly to try to take over being in charge of the city, or to try and  open the Hellmouth. My friend Buffy is what’s called a Slayer. She’s like a superhero chosen to fight the icky bad nasties and preserve the good.” Jess tried to put that label on the bright, sunny blonde child who came calling for Xander every so often.

 

“Willow, well, she and her girlfriend Tara are witches. Wiccans, actually.” Little Willow? A witch? “My friend Giles, he used to be the librarian at the high school, well, he is in charge of taking care of the Slayer; training her and such. He’s called a Watcher. He belongs to a big Council in England that’s out to extinguish all vampires. Like Spike. But unfortunately, the Initiative got to Spike first. The Initiative is this big military organization that hunts demons. They picked Spike up and experimented on him. They put some chip in his head so that he can’t hurt humans. It zaps him if he does.”

 

“ How horrible!”  

 

“He’s been working with us for a while so the Initiative won’t get him. That’s why he was staying down here with me. Though, the Initiative is gone now, and I really think he’s just working with us cause he needs to kill something sometimes and since we’re demon magnets, he always has his pick…that and I think he might like us.” Jess smiled at the wry look her son shot the vampire.

 

“So, when did you start having feelings for him?” Xander choked on his own spit. After a moment or two of gagging and gasping, he just sat and stared at his mother’s serious brown eyes.  “Don’t try to tell me you feel nothing for him.” She shook her head. “I’m watching you right now.” She looked pointedly at the hand twined in Spike’s hair.

 

Xander sighed. “Christ, mom, I don’t even know. One minute he was the Big Bad, trying to kill us, the next he was this incredibly brave and loyal guy trying to save his girlfriend from death at the Slayer’s hand. And that was before he got chipped. Afterwards, it was hopeless. I wanted so badly to fall for some gorgeous girl, some gorgeous human girl. But no, every time I would close my eyes I’d see his annoying blue eyes. You should see his eyes, Mom. They’re like pools of—”

 

He stopped as his mother smirked at him and poked her with the toe of his shoe. “Shuddup, I’m reminiscing.” He grinned. “Then, when I heard what the Initiative had done to him, I wanted to hunt them down and kill them. I don’t suppose you knew I spent a stint in the tenth grade being possessed by the spirit of a hyena, did you?” She widened her eyes and shook her head. “Yeah, well, it instilled this weird pack mentality in me that I haven’t been able to shake.”

 

He shrugged. “I guess, no matter what he’d done, he was pack. I wanted revenge for him. But, that wasn’t about to happen. Not from a member of the Scooby gang! That’s what our group calls itself, by the way. I pretended to hate him. I was horrible to him. Mean, angry, rude. I’m kind of ashamed of myself, looking back on it. We kept him chained up in Giles’ bathtub until we were sure that he wasn’t going to kill us.” Jess looked horrified, and Xander couldn’t blame her. He was disgusted at the things he’d done to the vamp.

 

“Then Giles got company, so he came to stay with me. Christ. I tied him to a chair. I guess that’s where I really started to notice him. I’d lay awake at night listening to him whimper in his sleep. He’d beg for ‘them’ to stop. For the pain to stop. I bet he uttered every word of what he was thinking as they carved his head open. I’m pretty sure that he didn’t say it to them, though. That’s probably why he’s still dreaming it. Cause he wouldn’t let himself say it to them.” Xander watched the tears welling up in his mother’s eyes.

 

“Did you know they carved him open without putting him to sleep? Or deadening it? They hacked their way through his skull and shoved that metal chip into his brain and he felt every single second of it. When he gets into his dreams, he’s really hard to wake up. I tried kicking him, pushing him. Hell, I even knocked his chair over once. But he wouldn’t wake up.” He shuddered and unconsciously wrapped his hands protectively around Spike’s scalp.

 

“Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to do something. It was like watching a dog just run over by a car, dying slowly. So, I held him. I couldn’t believe it. All the shit I did to him, and the only thing that got through was when I barely touched him,” he stared down at the sharp planes of Spike’s face in wonder. “But, that’s when he responded. He cuddled into me, like I was his great protector. He stopped whimpering and shaking. He stopped crying. He’d fall back into a comfortable sleep. He never woke up, though.”

 

Both Jess and Xander jumped at the sound of a crash upstairs. They looked at each other with eyes that were dead again.

 

He was home.

 

Jess took a deep breath and stood. “I’ll take it tonight. You stay with him.” She leaned over and kissed Xander on the forehead. After a moment of hesitation, she also kissed Spike on the forehead. Quietly, she headed toward the stairs.