Excuse Me!
by Scorpio
~
When we last left our Intrepid Duo; Xander was trying to follow Giles' advice
on proper nutrition for the baby - by ingesting blood. After several
::shudders:: experiments, Xander discovered that his husband not only tastes
*good*, but drinking from a pale undead neck gives him a happy. Let's all
pause to envision the boys naked, writhing and bleeding from bite marks.
Ahhhh.... that's better. Now... on with the show...
~
"...so then I had to stand up in front of the entire lecture hall and give my
speech. I'd worked real hard on it, *you* know that. You watched me do the
research. Heck! You even let me practice reading it out loud for you. But
then when I got up there in front of all those staring eyes and looked up
at..."
A fledge suddenly jumped out from behind a tree in full gameface, snarling
and clawing at the air. Xander didn't even let go of Spike's hand, nor did
his husband even glance towards the young undead idiot. Instead, they took
the opportunity of Buffy's minor distraction, and subsequent quiet, to share
a quick kiss.
Out of the corner of his eye, Xander could see the slim blonde slayer spin
and leap. Kick, kick, punch. Then he saw the flash of a stake. Breaking off
the sweet kiss, Xander turned his head slightly and watched as Buffy slammed
the pointed piece of wood into the vampire's chest. An expression of
overwhelming shock flashed across it's face before it suddenly exploded into
a billowing cloud of dust.
Brushing off her hands, a wide smile slowly melting into a slight frown,
Buffy turned back to face him and his lover, one hand on her hip, the other
waving the stake for emphasis.
"Where was I? Oh, yeah! The speech. So, anyway, I looked up to find Willow.
She said to pretend that I was just reading it to *her* and ignore everyone
else. That would've worked great, but this *guy* behind her keep *bothering*
her! And then..."
Buffy trailed off and looked over at Xander, her face a mixture of confusion
and concern.
"Xan are you okay? You look a little..."
Xander interrupted her question with a squeaked "Excuse me!" and then slammed
one hand over his mouth and dashed off to the tree the fledge had been hiding
behind. Once there, he leaned on it with one hand and puked up his guts all
over its roots.
*
"Xander?"
A slim tiny hand slowly rubbed soothing circles on his back. He was going to
answer her, but then another shudder racked his body and his stomach clamped
up tight. He gagged and choked, but there was literally nothing left in him
to come back up.
"Shhh... It's almost over. Honest."
He heard water running and he glanced up to see Tara standing behind Willow.
She was doing something in the bathroom sink. Suddenly, she turned and
reached down and handed it, whatever it was, to Willow.
"Here. Th... this should help."
Willow tipped her head back and smiled up at her girlfriend and Tara grinned
back sweetly. Xander was just absurdly glad that they were here and not
Spike. When the bouts of nausea hit, the girls were both helpful, sympathetic
and comforting. Spike tended to freak out and shift into super-duper
overprotective mode.
Then Willow placed a cool wet washcloth against the back of his neck and all
thought fled from his mind in favor of a major wave of relief. That felt *so*
good. Willow then slowly used the cloth to wipe the sweat from his forehead
and neck. All the while, her other hand kept up the soft gentle circles on
his back.
Finally, he was feeling good enough to sit all the way up and flush the
soiled water in the toilet away. He flashed the girls a shaky grin and then
Tara leaned down and forward again. She handed him a glass of cool water.
"Here Xander. Do... do you want us to give you a... a few minutes? To clean
up, I mean."
He nodded at her and slowly began to push himself up off of the tile floor.
"Yeah. That would be great. Oh... and thanks guys. I appreciate you, you
know, being here for me and all."
Willow flashed him her biggest smile and gave him a gentle hug.
"Oh Xander, we *enjoy* being here for you. Even the un-fun parts. That's what
friends are for!"
Tara stood quietly and nodded her agreement with what Willow said and Xander
felt a bit better just by knowing that they were there for him. Then he had
another thought.
"Um... could you guys, uh... sorta *not* mention this to Spike when he gets
back? You know he'll just freak and then make me go to bed. Not that I'm
tired, that's not the point. It's just *his* solution to any human illness, I
guess."
Twin sly smiles greeted his statement and he wondered how long he would have
before Spike realized they were hiding something and then badgered it out of
them.
*
Xander could hardly believe it. No, that's not true. He *could* believe it.
Easily. He just never wanted to actually see it. Spike was turning into a
true "fuss-budget".
This recent habit of his to get nauseous at the drop of a hat had the
bleached vampire extremely upset. He knew that, but there wasn't much he
could do about it. He couldn't even hide it. Spike could hear him gagging
even when there was nothing to come up, so he couldn't pass it off as a
belch.
Once it became obvious that Xander's "stomach thing" wasn't going away and
wasn't just a spot of the flu, Spike had bugged Willow about it and she had
mentioned the term "Morning Sickness". So, Spike had delved into research
about the phenomenum. Xander had come to the conclusion that it must have
been an idiot that coined that phrase... he was sick *all* day, not just in
the morning.
The vampire on the other hand, was totally enthralled with the concept. He
had bought books at the bookstore, subscribed to a weekly magazine on
pregnancy and had set the witches and the ex-watcher to looking up all
references to W'amphrii in the Watcher's Journals.
So far, Xander had been subjected to Spike's experimentation with foods and
drinks. The bleached blonde vampire wanted to find out just *what* he could
eat without getting sick, so at first, he had been willing. But now? He
didn't think he'd *ever* be able to look another cracker in the face again.
Now here was his husband, fresh from the store with three loaves of bread and
a dozen different jellies and preservatives. But no crackers. So this was a
good thing... at least he *hoped* it was.
"Um... Spike?"
"Hello pet! I've been thinking."
Xander groaned inwardly. It was rarely a good thing when Spike was thinking.
Even his good intentions tended towards evil end results. Xander figured it
was an undead thing.
"Toast!"
Confusion washed over him and he realized that he must have missed something
somewhere. And Spike was grinning at him like the cat that ate the canary...
and liked it.
"What? Toast what?"
Bright blue eyes rolled up to the ceiling in fond exasperation.
"Toast for you to *eat* luv. Since crackers didn't work, I figured that we
could see how the toast stays down. I got different toppings because I wasn't
sure which ones you liked."
Xander had been able to surpress the shudder at the word "crackers" but it
didn't take him very long to realize that Spike was planning on forever
ruining toast for him as well. He had horrifying visions of toast and jam for
every meal for a week. Toast lightly browned with strawberry preserves for
breakfast, followed by dark toast with orange marmalade for lunch. And only
the Hellmouth knows how Spike could turn toast into a dinner.
The beginnings of panic began to well up in him and he glanced desperately
around the apartment looking for an avenue of escape.
*
Xander sat down for lunch break with his coworkers. A whole long line of big
sweaty sawdust coated men sitting on the edge of what would eventually be the
living room floor of a new residential house, their legs all hanging out
through the framing. They had half an hour to eat, rest and use the restrooms
before they had to go back on the clock. It was the most popular part of the
day.
Barry had a thermos full of chicken noodle soup. Tom had half a turkey
grinder. Steve had two slices of cold pizza. Ralph had what looked like last
night's roastbeef dinner sliced onto a sourdough roll like a sandwich. Tony
had a bologna and cheese sandwich and a banana. Martin, the lucky shit, had
take out from the local Chinese restaurant that his girlfriend had dropped
off only minutes ago.
With a sigh, Xander took out his bottle of chilled water and his two slices
of cold toast.
Life was soon unfair.
END
