Janus' Shadow

by
Lit Gal

Part Fifteen

Xander leaned back against the tree and took shallow breaths as he considered the possibility that he might have broken a rib… or possibly two or three. Buffy sat cross-legged on the ground next to the vent. She filed a nail with total dedication, but Xander didn't miss how the file would occasionally pause for just a beat, Buffy's eyes scanning the area before the regular thwaa-thw of the nail file returned.

"So, Nusa?" she finally asked in the darkness. Xander wondered whether faking unconsciousness would work. After a long silence, he decided that chickening out now really was a little… well… chicken-shit.

"You don't want to know," he finally answered. For a long time, the night was so quiet that Xander could hear drunken shouts from the dorms on the far side of the chem building. Just when he thought he'd escaped, Buffy sighed.

"You know, there are lots of things I don't want to know, like what my mother and Giles were doing with handcuffs. And now that I stop and think about it, that was Ethan's fault too. I really need to go kick his ass."

"Want his address?" Xander asked with a laugh.

"You have it?" Buffy's shocked voice made Xander review what he had just said and then flinch at his own stupidity.

"Um, maybe?" he admitted.

"Xander, whose side are you on here?" Buffy asked as she dropped the nail file to the grass and turned to face him. Even by the light of the fading moon, Xander could see the betrayal and anger in her face. Cold fingers crawled down his backbone, and Xander had to force himself to take even breaths. This was Buffy. She wasn't "a" slayer, she was "his" slayer… as in a best friends, used to have an unrequited love thing.

"I'm on your side. Hey, supporto-man here," he protested.

"And why didn't you tell me Ethan had slimed his way back into town?"

"Um, actually, he never slimed his way out," Xander corrected her.

"Great. And you've what? Covered for him?"

"Hey, no coverage!" Xander immediately protested. "If you want his address, I will gladly provide it and bring popcorn to the official ass-kicking. It's just—" Xander paused. He knew what he wanted to say, but figuring out how to say it with all these vamp thoughts crowding into his head wasn't easy. "He's human, Buffy. It's not as easy as going in there and putting on a good slay."

"Like you and the soldier you hit?" she immediately asked. Xander cringed at that, but then he'd gone for her scar after feeding Angel, so he figured he had a cheap shot or two coming. He bit his lip rather than snap back.

"Okay, that was bitchy," Buffy offered after a few seconds of silence. Xander shrugged.

"Had it coming," he admitted. Buffy snatched her nail file back and sat staring down at it.

"So, Nusa?" she repeated.

"You're just like a dog with a bone, you know that?" Xander sighed as he realized he would not be distracting, confusing, or not talking his way out of this one.

"And this is news to you?"

"No, just saying," Xander rolled his eyes in defeat. "She was my… my vampire self's sire."

"And that's whose clan you're in? You could call yourself a Harris or a Scooby or part of Giles' clan or the slayer clan or the Flintstones for all I care, but you call yourself part of Nusa's clan?" In the still pre-dawn air, Buffy's voice cut through the air so that Xander half expected soldiers to hear her through the earth and concrete.

"Just a thought, but maybe we shouldn't be talking about this here."

"Not really anything else going on, at least not until Giles and Willow get here." Buffy looked up at the stars and stretched her neck in a way that reminded Xander of Spike. They both had predator's reflexes. Funny enough, Spike scared him a lot less. The worst thing Spike could do was eat him.

"Xander, explain this in a way that I can understand. I just don't get it," Buffy practically begged.

"Buffy," Xander stopped, helpless in the face of slayer confusion and betrayal. She sat on the cool ground watching and waiting, and he struggled again to put words together that would make her understand. "Angel. You love him," Xander held up a hand to stop Buffy from launching a defensive attack as her back went stiff. "And I'm okay with that, mostly. But what I think doesn't matter. You love him, right?" Xander asked.

"Yeah," Buffy said softly, and all the anger and frustration drained from her like the time he had popped the inflated kiddie pool in his back yard and the thing had turned to flabby, damp plastic pile while water flooded the garage. Only now Buffy turned into a flabby, damp slayer, and Xander could feel the guilt wash over him at bringing back all the pain.

"But he has Angelus down there. He thinks Angelusy thoughts and then does the guilt trip for thinking them. He remembers killing and raping and part of him treasures the feeling of power and that's why the rest of him broods."

"We've had this discussion before, and I don't need a lecture." Buffy's voice carried a clear warning.

"Not lecturing. I'm just telling you that it's the same for me. I have my own Angelus, only not so much with the insane bastard who would send the whole world to hell. But I remember those things I did, okay the things I didn't technically do, and part of me liked the feeling of power."

Buffy looked at him with a slightly concerned expression. "Am I going to have to worry about you digging up any obelisks?"

"I'm not sure I could dig up the spare key to the basement I buried in my parents' back yard 'just in case'," Xander admitted. "But broken bones or no, I don't want to go on some killing spree just because some part of me remembers really having fun when the whole Turk war meant you could leave bodies lying all over the place and no one even raised an eyebrow."

"Disturbing much? Geez, Xander, that's a little more than I want to know."

"Yeah, but that's just it. Angel and I both remember our bodies doing these things that felt really good, but that doesn't mean we're bad. It just means we have very serious psychological issues that probably require serious therapy." Xander watched as Buffy's body slowly slumped toward the earth. Muscles that had been tight, loosened. And really, he found it rather amusing that she had been upset enough to get that battle ready around him because he wasn't exactly a threat right now.

"So, you don't actually hate Angel?" She asked.

"I never hated Angel." Xander paused and did an internal honesty check. "Okay, I kinda hated him at first when I thought I had a chance at getting in your pants, but as soon as that bit of stupidity passed, I felt only mild annoyance at the vamp. And then there was the whole me raping him thing, and the him raping me thing, and now we're okay." Xander smiled as Buffy expression turned almost lemon-sucking squinchy horrified.

"You do need therapy. Serious, expensive, professional therapy," she announced. "And Willow's coming, so don't go getting her all upset or she'll burn your eyebrows off with her magic fire," Buffy warned. Xander looked at her strangely, and Buffy just shrugged. "I drank the last of the milk and she got all cranky. But it all worked out because I got like pounds of guilt-chocolate."

"Ah, the best kind of chocolate," Xander said with a knowing nod.

"Chocolate?" a voice in the dark asked, and Willow came around the end of a row of bushes. "Did someone say chocolate?"

"Good lord, people, this is not a slumber party." Giles came around the bushes behind her, carrying a large satchel that clinked with each step.

"Willow, G-man!" Xander happily greeted them. "Tell me you brought nightshade," he said with his fingers crossed. "Cause I really don't want to rescue the guys and then get them burned to dust."

"Right here," Willow offered as she held up green leaves that still had tiny purple flowers attached.

"That's my girl," Xander said as he held out his hand.

"Despite its rather ominous name, the plant really isn't useful for much other than poison," Giles said as he knelt down in the grass. One by one, he efficiently pulled vials and dishes and clumps of herbs from his bag until he had a regular magical buffet, not that Xander would eat any of the ingredients. The drooping heads and fuzzy stalks of borage, the fern-like leaves of yarrow, and the heavy blue Monkshead flowers balanced on thin stalks lay next to ingots of pewter and a dish of salt and enough talismans to chase the Pope back to Italy crying for his mother.

"A poison, a cure for spasms, the main ingredient in a spell that can steal someone voice, and the activating ingredient in a nox noctis spell," Xander corrected him about the harmless-looking plant Willow had handed him.

"Really? I hadn't known any nox noctis spells survived the Inquisition. La Beata de Piedrahita supposedly had the last known spells in her library when the Inquisition arrested her."

"Yeah, but I learned the spell before they got burned," Xander said with a smile and a waggle of his eyebrows as he pulled a small talisman from his belt. The nox noctis was the first spell he ever learned, one that gave Dracula and Nusa some of their most powerful advantages.

"Oh," Giles offered quietly. Willow made little wet noises, and Xander realized she was on the verge of crying.

"Hey, I'm still Xander. Do you want me to say something stupid to prove it to you?" he asked as he pushed himself forward and tried to ignore the sharp pain just under his left armpit.

"I hardly think that's necessary. Before the night is out, I trust you to say something stupid on your own without prompting," Giles commented. Xander froze, trying to decide if he'd been insulted or allowed in on a Giles-joke. True, it wasn't funny, but it still had the ring of joke to it.

"How can I ever live up to such faith?" Xander joked back. Giles gave him a quick smile as he pulled out some of the more explosive ingredients.

"And what's the plan once we get inside?" Giles asked as he carefully pulled a vial from out of his pocket.

"We break in, we make a lot of noise, we grab our vampires, and we run out," Buffy said as she pulled her crossbow around to the front.

"Yes, well, as good as that sounds, I would feel better if there were an actual plan in that plan," Giles commented. Carefully tipping a vial, he poured a thick liquid over the bolts on one side of the grate.

"I could cast a confusion spell. It would make it hard for them to fight back, and as a bonus, they would walk into walls and trip over their own feet."

"A Three Stooges spell? Now that's magic I can get behind," Buffy said with a smile. The first traces of grey appeared in the east, making the campus buildings look like someone had traced outlines around them.

"And have you practiced this spell?" Giles asked.

"Yes," Willow immediately insisted as Giles kept mixing ingredients in a thick white bowl. "Once," she added softly.

"I should be feeling stark raving terror, and yet I can't seem to rally more than minor annoyance," Giles said as he pulled out a lighter and lit the end of a small twig.

"You broke Giles," Buffy jokingly accused Willow, but Willow just gathered her own supplies from the pile laid on the ground.

Giles made a small chant as he set fire to a broad leaf and dropped it in the bowl. Xander recognized the smothering spell just as Giles set fire to the liquid explosives pooled in the cracks of the grate. Fire popped loudly, sending a spear of bright light into the air before the grate groaned and collapsed in. The two surviving hinges meant the grate bounced against the side of the shaft, but instead of the crash of metal against metal, the smother-spell meant that only a soft thumping noise disturbed the night.

"And into the belly of the whale," Giles said as he gathered up the materials Willow hadn't already scooped up.

"No whale, but I'll settle for arrogant government types who've stuck their noses in where they don't belong," Buffy suggested as she swung her legs into the shaft. With a quick flip, Buffy disappeared into the darkness. Xander groaned at the thought of that drop, but he pushed himself toward the dark hole.

"Oh no, mister, no way are you going down there."

"Try to stop me," Xander practically snarled at Willow as he headed for the opening. Unfortunately, Willow held him back with one hand, and Xander's side rippled in pain that left him sagging back against the tree. "Okay, that was a pretty good try," Xander admitted as he gritted his teeth.

"Sorry. God, I'm sorry. Are you okay?" Willow hand immediately moved from his chest to his wrist where she curled her fingers around, obviously seeking a pulse.

"Great, I make these wheezing sounds for the comedic effect," Xander answered as he struggled to catch his breath again.

"And my faith is upheld. The night is clearly not over yet," Giles commented. It took Xander a second to connect that to the earlier not-funny joke.

"Hey, that wasn't stupid."

"The thought of you trying to take on the Initiative while too injured to even sit up isn't your finest piece of reasoning," Giles pointed out. "Unfortunately, I think Buffy needs to handle the fighting."

"Oh, the spell, I need to do the spell," Willow hugged her supplies to her pink sweater and disappeared down the hole.

"Well, I guess we guys gotta just sit here and wait 'til the fighting women-folk get back, huh?" Xander said as he shifted to try to take the strain off his side. His sore knee rewarded him with a dull aching throb.

"I think getting you to hospital might be the best move," Giles said as he moved over to sit in the dirt next to Xander.

"I'm not moving. If Spike and Angel don't get up here before dawn…" Xander looked to the east where the buildings were now highlighted in pink as the sunrise approached.

"I have blankets in my trunk. I'll get them, and they can run for the car," Giles offered.

"Across the campus, over a wall, and into your car. Giles, I'm not the only one talking stupid here. I need to do the spell."

"Maybe you could show me how to—" Giles stopped in the middle of his sentence. He stood up and paced the space between the tree and the shaft. "I really hate being this helpless," he muttered.

"Tell me about it," Xander agreed as he tried to breathe without moving.

As the sun crept up in the sky, Xander leaned back and prayed for the first time in years. Streaks of light appeared, and a quiet fell over the campus: The drinkers had already wandered home, and the early risers hadn't risen yet. He imagined he could hear the sounds of Buffy knocking soldier heads together. However, as the sun rose, fears of her stuffed in one of the cells Spike had described started gnawing at the edges of that confidence.

Giles stood leaning against the tree absent-mindedly cleaning his glasses. When a hand grasped the edge of the vent, his glasses tumbled to the ground as he hurried to grab the wrist. Xander sat up so quickly that he got light-headed as he ripped the nightshade leaves he had clutched the whole time. He began the spell.

"Willow, thank god," Giles muttered before he knelt at the edge of the shaft and peered into the dark. Xander concentrated on his chant even as the lack of any more hands at the top of the shaft sent cold fear stabbing through his stomach more painfully than the obviously broken ribs.

A grunt announced another survivor, and this time Angel appeared, ducking into the deepest shade next to Xander. Xander could distantly hear voices, but he concentrated on weaving his spell out of the threads of magic that constantly hovered over the Hellmouth. When the morning light started darkening as though a cloud had passed over, Xander breathed a sigh of relief.

A brash voice echoed through the metal corridor, the words lost to Xander as he struggled to keep up the illusion. But the tone of glee and violence could only come from one person. Familiar hands brushed his face, blue eyes appearing in front of him for a moment, but Xander focused on the chant. Strong arms lifted him, and then Xander felt movement as the world blurred to the feeling of Spike's arms under him and the smell of leather and cigarettes.

Dimly, Xander realized they had reached the car, and the rumbling of the motor gave him a rhythm for the chant as the magic slid away from him in slick puddles, the darkness deepening when he tapped one source only to lose it again. He could feel his lungs strain as though he were holding his breath, but he ignored the pain. At least he did until the feeling of floating warned him of imminent unconsciousness.

Part Sixteen

The sharp beeps sounded familiar as Xander listened to the noise from a distance. As he slowly wandered back to himself, he went from thinking the alarm was going off to thinking he'd left the television on to thinking that he might be hearing his own heartbeat announced in mechanical tones.

The realization that he was in a hospital made his heart race, and the machine echoed his alarm.

"He's waking up. Giles, he's waking up," Willow's voice sounded like she was bouncing as it faded in and out. Either that or his hearing was fading in and out.

"I did notice," Giles offered.

"'bout bloody time. You lot are just lucky that he woke up."

"Spike, don't even start that again."

"You bloody bag of bones, if he'd died, I would have ripped your heart out your naffin' chest."

"Considering that you're neutered, I'd enjoy watching your roll around on the floor pathetically whining after you tried," Buffy snapped back in a tone that made Xander moan as he struggled toward consciousness.

"You soddin' little pillock—"

An unfamiliar voice interrupted the argument between Buffy and Spike. "You cannot disturb Mr. Harris, and if you insist on making so much noise, I will put you all out no matter what the chart says." Shoes clip clopped away quickly.

Xander was grateful since he couldn't seem to get up the energy to open his eyes much less yell at them for acting like five year olds.

"If you had taken him to hospital when he broke his bloody ribs in the first place," Spike snarled far softer than before.

"It's not like I knew. I didn't know," Buffy's voice faded, as if she'd turned away, and Xander fought to get one eye open a crack. Spike hovered an inch from his face, blue eyes staring at him.

"Spike," he whispered, or he tried to whisper. His throat felt dry.

"Give him a chip of ice," Giles suggested, and Spike's fingers mysteriously appeared at his lips with a sliver of ice that tasted like nicotine. Xander sucked at it and struggled to swallow as he finally got his second eye open.

"Daft bugger. No fair goin' and gettin' yourself killed now. Got to make fun of the slayer, now don't we? Turns out the boy she fancies was runnin' into walls down there."

"But-outsville, Spike," Buffy hissed, and Xander looked over to her in surprise. He hadn't even known she had fallen for anyone, especially not the way she kept sighing at Angel. Angel who was missing. Xander slowly put the pieces together, and he had to admit to feeling a slight twinge of pain for the vamp. Hopefully he hadn't heard the story.

"Peaches wanted ta eat the wanker," Spike whispered with a sly smile, and Xander closed his eyes in sympathy for the other vampire. Vampires shouldn't be alone, and the only 'divorce' in the vampire world included a sword and a neck… or a stake and a heart… or if someone was really pissed off, the sun and a lot of chains.

A cool finger touched his hand, and Xander opened his eyes to find Spike looking at him confused. Giving his childe a small shrug since his connection with Angel didn't exactly make sense in vampire terms, Xander looked around the room. Giles sat in a chair with a book across his lap. Willow and Buffy stood near Giles, and even Uick had made an appearance. He had an old-fashioned fedora pulled low over his ash-grey face, and he had stuffed his thick hands deep in his coat pockets.

"Uick?" Xander croaked out. The demon shifted a little closer to the open door and nodded briefly.

"You'll be back to work soon, yes?" he asked. Xander smiled. He never would have thought his boss would show up, especially with the slayer glancing back and forth from him to Uick. That would be enough to make any demon get the wiggins.

"Yep, no problem. I've been concussion-boy before, and it never keeps me down long," Xander answered. Uick's nose flared in confusion.

"Pet, you've been unconscious for three days now," Spike offered softly.

"But he is awake. He will be back to work soon," Uick insisted mulishly, and then he turned and walked out. Barqu rarely showed emotion, so Xander was touched just by the visit. Touched, and more than a little confused.

"Um, days?" he asked the rest of the group. Spike stayed on his left, and the girls crowded to the right side of his bed, hands resting on an arm that an IV that made Xander think of the Borg.

"Three cracked ribs, a concussion, and most seriously, an electrolyte imbalance that threatened to put you in a coma. The doctors have been utter gits and as annoying as Spike in their curiosity about what happened to shut your body down so completely, but they did save your life," Giles offered without getting up from the chair. The man looked tired.

"Coma?" Xander struggled to put all the words into an order that would actually make sense in his brain.

"There is no dying on my watch, mister," Buffy threatened him with a finger pointed at his nose. "And if you ever hide injuries like that again, ass-kicking will be in your future."

"Get in line behind me, slayer," Spike added.

"Okay, you two ganging up on me is feeling… strangely familial," Xander finished with a small smile. Buffy looked slightly confused, but Willow and Spike grinned back at him.

"Yeah, luv. Just don't ever do that again," Spike asked in an accent that suddenly dropped all of its harsh Cockney edges.

"Didn't mean to do it this time," Xander said. He would have pointed out that he did it trying to save Spike, but from the way Spike kept looking at him, he didn't feel like rubbing that in.

"Xander, I am well aware that Ethan tends to… exaggerate… the truth. Have you trained with him at all?" Giles asked from the chair. Spike looked over and the two men exchanged a look that left Xander feeling slightly uncomfortable. Out of the loop uncomfortable.

"Not even one day. That guy is creepy, like the cockroaches you find behind the toilet creepy," Xander said with a shudder. "I found out after the fact that he vouched for me when I did work in the bazaar, but there is no way I'd ever trust him enough to take magic lessons, especially after he offered to tie me up and lick honey off my body."

"EWWWW," Buffy and Willow both shrieked as they backed away at the same time. Xander smirked.

"Not a good image. Not a good image," Buffy added while Willow squinched her face up.

"Oi, speak for yourself," Spike offered with a leer, and Xander raised his hand to weakly swat at his unruly child.

"So Nusa was your only teacher?" Giles ignored everyone else's theatrics.

"Yeah," Xander agreed.

"My guess is that she never taught you shielding." Giles pulled his glasses off and looked at Xander with an expression that stuck somewhere between disappointment and sympathy.

"Shielding?"

"Living creatures who tap the sorts of magics you used must shield themselves from having the magic drain their own life forces. However, you learned to cast spells when you were dead, so you never learned how to shield."

"And I'm guessing shielding is important?"

Willow made a strangled sound. "Important?" she practically squeaked in outrage. "Xander, you shouldn't even levitate a pencil before learning to shield. You could have had all your magic sucked right out of you or had your life sucked out of you or turned yourself into a big popping balloon of magic that ripped open a new Hellmouth, and not only do we not need another Hellmouth, but I would miss my Xander-shaped friend who can sometimes be a real idiot." Willow closed the distance and slipped her hand into Xander's right hand.

"Right, no turning myself into a Hellmouth," Xander promised as a cold shiver ran through his body.

"Ya mean when he did magic, he was hurtin' himself?" Spike asked.

"Every time he said a spell, he risked being utterly destroyed," Giles agreed. Spike's eyes locked onto Xander as though his gaze could keep Xander in place. Yeah, Xander didn't expect to be getting any more privacy any time in the near future.

"No more magics," Xander promised as he held up his free hand in surrender.

"Better not, because if you get yourself killed, Spike cannot move into our bathtub," Buffy said as she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Spike. When Spike ignored the insult, Xander realized just how upset the vampire was. Xander reached out with his left hand and curled his fingers around Spike's wrist.

"Girls, perhaps we should give them a minute," Giles suggested as he stood up.

"But he just woke up; we haven't had hardly any time with him," Willow protested, but Giles put an arm around her shoulders and guided her out of the room.

"I do not want to even think about why they need privacy. Giles, that is just ew," Buffy complained as she went into the hall, and Giles stood in the doorway with his hand on the handle of the door.

"Xander, I'm very glad you're going to recover, but I will have you know that I will stand in line behind Spike and Buffy to kick your arse if you should you ever consider doing anything so dangerous and foolish again," Giles said in a tone that Xander had only heard the older man use once… when a student checked out an occult book on accident and then dropped it in the boy's toilet.

Then Giles' voice grew much softer. "And if you intend on doing any further spells, you shall come to work with me on proper shielding before you so much as freeze water."

"But I've done lots of small—"

"Luv, don't make Ripper throw a wobbly," Spike interrupted. Xander looked over in confusion, since interrupting a sire was up there with pissing in your own cornflakes as far as being stupid. Spike's expression stopped him from any more argument.

"Right. Absolutely no magic without learning how to not kill myself," Xander promised. Giles nodded briefly and then left, pulling the door closed behind him.

As soon as the door closed, Spike gently pushed Xander over in the bed to make room for himself. He pulled out a cigarette and then sat on the edge of the bed with the thing between his fingers.

"Okay, so spill. What is going on with Giles, and why are you looking so… I don't even know what that expression is, but it's not good," Xander said as he watched Spike's profile. Spike grinned and looked over.

"Can't fool ya, can I?" Spike asked.

"You don't seem to be trying very hard, so just spit it out," Xander said as he reached back to pull the pillow out from under his shoulder. Immediately, Spike was there supporting his body and pulling out the awkward pillow before slipping it back in place behind Xander's head.

"Ya nearly died tryin' to keep that spell up. That plus your injuries, and I thought I'd be out another sire," Spike said as he sat back down at near Xander's hip. The tilt of the mattress meant that Xander pressed into Spike's back.

"Hey, I'm harder to kill than that," Xander promised. "Mummies and mantis and hyenas, oh my," he sing-songed in Wizard of Oz style. Spike didn't smile, but then Xander wasn't sure whether Spike had seen Wizard of Oz.

"Told Ripper that I wouldn't risk ya tryin' any soddin' spells to get the chip out, not knowing that you'd do this to yourself just ta protect me," Spike added, and fingers played with the unlit cigarette.

"We'll find a way. I won't do a spell, but there's always blackmail and bribery. The nice thing about Ethan is that he's very bribable."

"That's just it. Told Ripper that I wouldn't let you keep tryin' because Ethan knew he had ya by your short and curlies, and I didn't like what he'd make you do. Told him I was going to take off before you woke up." Spike's fingers went still, and Xander felt a rage roll through him.

"You are my childe, and you will not leave," Xander snarled. "I would go to L.A. and bring you back in chains if I had to."

Spike's lips twitched. "Not a bad offer, luv. But I told Angel to piss off. Ya wouldn't find me in L.A."

"I don't think Dru would—" Xander stopped as the expression on Spike's face told the story. Dru had turned him out, he wouldn't go back to Angel, and he thought his human sire was dying. The chip meant that he couldn’t make childer or minions of his own, and the minions wandering the Hellmouth weren't going to have much respect for a vampire who couldn't bite. Those facts added to the fact that vampires just didn't live alone equalled a grim picture.

"I would follow you to hell and make you sorry you ever stepped foot on earth if you even thought it," Xander hissed through clenched teeth. "You have survived too much to just give up."

"Not considerin' it now."

"You'd better never consider it again."

"Right, well, that's not the bit I'm tryin' to tell ya," Spike changed the subject. "Ripper and I talked, and when we knew you were going to survive this, we came to an agreement," Spike waved the hand that held the cigarette around the hospital room at the word "this."

"And would this agreement have anything to do with why you're calling him Ripper?" Xander asked.

"He can be a right bloody bastard." After a second, Spike added, "I like him. Anyway, we both decided that we couldn't let you try to take the chip out. Spell that delicate would take a lot of power, and it'd take years for ya to learn how to do that kind of mojo as a human."

"And?" Xander asked. It wasn't like Spike to dance around the topic so much.

"Made an oath ta not touch innocent blood," Spike finally confessed. Fingers worked his shirt buttons as the cigarette bobbed up and down. "Look like a bleedin' steno pad," he complained as he pulled one side out. Under Xander's runes, three wavy lines stood out in faint blue.

"But, why?" Xander traced the figures with his finger, and part of him felt rage that someone else had marked what was his. Yeah, he was definitely going to have a word or two with Giles about who got to leave scars on Spike's body.

"He got Ethan ta do the spell. The chip's out, luv. We figured this way, you wouldn't go and do somethin' stupid." Spike scratched the back of his head and smiled.

"Giles… Ethan… How?" Xander stuttered to a stop. "Do I want to know?" Xander asked. He smiled slowly as he realized his hellcat had reclaimed his power.

"Bloody impressive with a whip. By the time Ripper finished, Ethan would have given him anything. Too bad Giles doesn't want a full time chaos mage at his feet."

"Giles?" Xander wailed. "Oh no… no, no, no. I do not want to know about Giles-sex. He's like old," Xander complained.

"Not as old as me," Spike pointed out.

"Yeah, but you'll be young and beautiful forever. Giles is…" Xander stopped as he thought of Giles with his sharp gaze and grey hair. "Okay, you are giving me not-good thoughts. Giles and sex will never again be mentioned in the same sentence," Xander finally decreed. "Ew."

Spike laughed. "Right. No more talk of Ripper. Are ya feelin' alright? Doc said ta get some nibbles in ya, but the glop they got around here looks a mite bit questionable."

"I just want to rest," Xander said as he pulled Spike down so that his vampire lay next to him. Xander rubbed a thumb over the silk of Spike's shirt. "Three days, no wonder I've had such strange dreams," Xander whispered as he felt Spike's body curl around his.

"Yeah? I show up naked in any of them?" Spike asked.

"I don't remember," Xander answered as he shifted to get his arm around Spike. "I remember Harmony vamping through and then there was this Frankenstein guy who kept crying for his mommy, and right in the middle of that, Dracula shows up and throws a Halloween party only he wreaks Joyce's house after you keep trying to get Buffy to dance with you," Xander said, fragments of the dream bobbing up while most of it remained buried in sleep.

"Loony as Dru," Spike said in a voice already half asleep. He reached over and dropped his cigarette on the side table.

"Not even," Xander snorted. "It was just a dream. Yeah, Dracula… not the sort to vacation in California." Spike turned so that his face was to the scratchy hospital gown, and Xander moved his hand up, rubbing a shoulder. When Spike started a soft rumble that sounded suspiciously purr-like, Xander closed his eyes and let himself start to drift back to sleep. The IV would fix what his bungled magic had done.

As his hand moved up, Xander realized that Spike didn't have any gel in his hair. Xander's fingers stroked through soft, silky curls with the tips of his fingers. He remembered the very first night he's seen Spike through a vampire's eyes. That night he had promised himself that he would keep his hellcat, and as his fingers combed through Spike's loose curls, he let himself sink into sleep. Even the memory of Dracula's eyes peering at Xander through a nightmare couldn't keep him from feeling content.

The End

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