Dirty Dancing Spander Style

by
Savoy Truffle

Part Thirteen

Silence greeted Xander’s announcement. Silence and the discreet slipping away of all non-family members involved. He looked away from his mother and towards Buffy, who gave him a little smile like it might all be okay before slipping away herself.

He looked at Hank. Hank looked awkward—his hands half-lifted and his mouth half-open like he thought he was supposed to be doing something with them but had forgotten what—and it was a look he’d never seen on Hank before.

Xander had never seen Hank in a situation where he couldn’t force a perfectly natural looking smile and a perfectly natural sounding laugh and talk his way back into control.

He’d never seen Hank close his mouth and just walk away.

And then there were two.

“Honey, I—”

He couldn’t read his mom’s expression, but suddenly Xander realized he was free—free from hiding, free of secrets—and he wasn’t ready to apologize for anything or to try to explain himself. Not yet.

“It’s okay, Mom. Let’s just talk about it later, alright?”

Jessica opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again a second later. She nodded.

Xander flashed her a small smile, then walked off in search of Hank. He wasn’t ready to explain himself, but it was past time to make some things clear.

He found Hank outside, standing apart, leaning against the railing. Hank didn’t turn to look when Xander took up a spot beside him. They stood like that, Xander staring out into the ocean and gathering his thoughts, until Hank broke the silence.

“Are you happy now?”

Xander shrugged. “Working on it.”

More silence and this time Xander broke it.

“Look, I’m sure you think it’s my sole purpose in life to embarrass you and do everything exactly the way you think I shouldn’t, but the truth is I’m way more self-centered than that.”

He flicked a glance at Hank, but Hank was still staring straight ahead, so Xander took a deep breath and continued.

“Look, all I want is to figure out what I want. And if what I wanted was to go to college and then go to business school or medical school or law school or whatever it is that you think would be worth telling people about, I’d do it. And if you paid for it, I’d thank you. And if I wanted to be with a girl like Anya and let her wear my fraternity jacket or pin or whatever it is you fraternity guys have and propose to her at the right time and marry her in the right wedding, I’d do that too. And if you paid for that, I’m sure we’d both be really grateful.”

Even the money talk didn’t get a reaction from Hank, but he hadn’t walked away. Xander figured that was the best he was going to get.

“I’m not trying to be a rebel or anything here. But the way I feel about Spike… I mean, I know you think he’s trash or whatever, but you don’t know him. You don’t even want to know him. And if I was just Tony Harris’ son, working on this ship without the brains or the money to go to college, you wouldn’t want me to know me either. But you married my mom and I didn’t get a vote, so it’s not my fault. And if you don’t want to care at all about me, that’s your call, but it’s gotta be all or not at all. You don’t get to care about how the things I do affect you without caring about how they affect me.”

Still nothing from Hank, but Xander was wrapping it up anyway.

“Look, I’m eighteen and you can cut me off if you want to and let’s face it, I never really wanted to go to college anyway. But right now, my mom is trying to decide if she can handle the fact that her son’s gay and there’s pretty much nothing I can do to help her with that because I don’t really think I can un-gay myself and, when it comes right down to it, I really don’t want to. But she’s probably going to ask you what she should do and what she should think and it’d be really helpful if you could lay off the whole ‘No step son of mine…’ routine.”

He studied Hank’s profile for a moment, trying to see if any of it had sunk in. No hint. He stepped away from the railing and took two steps away before turning back.

“I know she’s your wife,” he told Hank’s stiff back, “but she’s my mom. Please don’t make her choose.”

Out of Hank’s sight, Xander’s courage faltered. The thoughts were rushing around in his head and he wondered if he’d even have a home to go home to after this trip. He felt his throat constrict as pressure built behind his eyes. He wasn’t in the mood to face Buffy.

He slid his hand into his back pocket.

His fingers closed around a key card.

The shifting of the bed woke Xander from his half sleep and he opened his eyes to find the bed’s owner sitting next to him.

“Hey,” Xander mumbled.

“Been looking for you everywhere.” Spike’s hand came to rest on his arm. “Heard what you did.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They’ve taken the two old queens into custody. Fingerprinted their glasses and put ‘em in some database. Seems Rupert Giles and Ethan Rayne are wanted for credit card and identity theft in at least three countries.”

“Wait—really?” Xander came up to kneeling on the bed, placed his hands on Spike’s shoulders. “So you’re off the hook?”

Xander’s hands dropped as Spike stood up and paced across the cabin. “Not exactly.”

“What d’you mean—not exactly?”

“Still being sacked,” Spike said without turning. “Seems Sally and our friend Anya don’t think that shagging his step-son until he turns into a poof was the best way to ensure that Mr Hank Summers enjoyed his time on ship. Odd, that.”

“What?” Xander stood, but didn’t move toward Spike. “You’re getting fired because of me? But that’s so unfair!”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you life isn’t fair? I’m supposed to stay away from you until the boat docks back in L.A. If I do, I still get my bonus and they’ll recommend me to other cruise lines. Dru, too. If not…” Spike shrugged.

“Stay away from me?” Xander shook his head as he stared at the back of Spike’s. “You mean that’s it? It’s over?” He felt like putting his fist through a wall. “I told everyone everything and it didn’t even make any difference. I did it for nothing.”

“No.” Spike spun around, devoured the distance between them in two long steps. “Not for nothing. No one’s ever done anything like that for me before. You stood up to your step-father. Did that feel like nothing?”

“So I came out. So what? It’s not making anyone’s life any easier.”

Spike slid a hand up Xander’s arm, looked into his eyes. “Xander Harris doesn’t do things because they’re easy. He does ’em ’cause they’re right. Bloody white knight, through and through.”

“It’s not worth it,” Xander muttered, turning his head away, but Spike turned it back, covered his lips with a kiss—made it last.

Finally, Spike drew back a couple inches, his breath still brushing Xander’s face. “Tell me again it wasn’t worth it.”

But Xander couldn’t.

Couldn’t say anything, but he reached out, hooked his fingers under Spike’s tee shirt and shoved it up, yanked it over Spike’s head and tossed it away. He took a step back and did the same with his own. Stepped closer again, bringing them skin to skin for another kiss—made this one last longer.

When they broke apart, the air was too solemn, somber. And it wasn’t how Xander wanted to remember this—them—at all. He forced his lips into the motion of a smile, hoping the feeling would follow.

“For the record,” he said, backing toward the bed and pulling Spike with, “you didn’t turn me gay.”

“Sure about that?” Spike lifted an eyebrow. “These eyes, the cheekbones, body like mine—good propaganda’s been known to cause defections.”

Xander’s grin turned genuine as he took a slow survey of the propaganda in question. He ran a finger from one cheekbone over the neck and down the center of the chest. “Persuasive,” he agreed, “but I suspect I already harbored subversive leanings.”

Spike sighed. “You telling me I can’t take all the credit?”

“’Fraid not.” Xander stripped off his pants and dropped back on the bed. He looked up at Spike and reached out a hand. “Settle for reaping all the benefits?”

Part Fourteen

“Huh uh. You cannot wear that shirt with those pants.”

The back of a blond head popped between Xander and the closet he’d been staring into for the last ten minutes. The shirt in question was one Spike would have relished stripping from his body and tossing in the trash.

Funny how the loss of shirt was never not worth it.

“Here.” Buffy was shoving a new shirt in his face. Solid blue. It hadn’t taken her long to decide. He only had like three clean choices anyway.

He took the hanger from her hand and turned away from the closet, sat down on the edge of his bed. He stared down at the blue in his hands. It would look good on Spike, except it wasn’t black. He made no move to put it on.

Buffy sat down next to him and shook her head. “What’s the point of being gay if it doesn’t even come with good fashion sense?”

Xander fingered one of the buttons on the shirt but didn’t unfasten it. “Dick,” he said.

“Ew,” Buffy said.

“You asked.”

“Rhetorically.”

“Whatever.”

They sat for a minute in silence.

“I love him.”

“I know,” Buffy said.

He was staring straight ahead, but felt the hand on his arm. Warm. He reached across his chest and covered it with his own.

“You deserve better than Angel.”

The hand squeezed his arm and he squeezed the hand.

“I know,” Buffy said.

Another minute of silence and then he felt the shirt being lifted out of his lap.

“You know what?” He looked over and watched Buffy toss the shirt onto the other bed. “Wear the one you have on. You’re good at being yourself.”

Their usual buffers were in holding somewhere waiting to be taken into police custody. All neutral subjects had been exhausted over a week ago. Angel wasn’t making eye contact with anyone but Hank and Jessica, but every time he came near the table Buffy twitched. In short, even without all the Xander-centered drama, dinner that night would have been a nightmare.

With it, the experience fell somewhere between getting a root canal and driving an ice pick through his eye.

Xander couldn’t find the energy to care.

He pushed his food around his plate in the silence.

Three years later, they made it through dessert and stood to go. Angel walked over and Hank smiled, clamping a hand on his shoulder and slipping an envelope from his inside jacket pocket.

“Thank you for the excellent service,” Hank said. “Here’s a little something toward the pursuit of future goals.”

Like cruise waiters were somehow automatically more future- and goal-oriented than the entertainment staff. Xander sent a mental glare in their direction.

“Thank you, sir,” Angel was saying as he closed his fingers over the envelope. He lowered his voice, but Xander just listened harder. “And thanks for your help with the Dru situation. That could have been a real mess.”

Hank tightened his grip on his end of the envelope. “Excuse me?”

Angel’s eyes darted left, then right. “I, uh… I figured Xander told you.” He looked forward again. “I mean, it’s not for sure or anything.” He shrugged and flashed Hank that man-to-man smile that still made Xander want to punch him. “She said it was me, but you know how girls like that are.”

Hank pulled the envelope from Angel’s fingers and slipped it back into his jacket. “No, I don’t know.”

Apparently, Hank wasn’t a fan of the smile either.

The family followed Hank out of the dining room, leaving Angel behind, and Xander cracked a small grin for the first time all day.

They made their way to the ship’s theater, where they were escorted to one of the boxes. Apparently someone thought some last minute ass-kissing might convince Hank not to blame the cruise line for “turning Xander gay.”

Or maybe they just wanted Xander as far from the general population as possible, to keep the gay cooties contained.

Xander took a seat next to Buffy at the far end of the box and slumped against the railing, looking down on the second row where he’d watched Spike prepare the show.

The show Spike wasn’t even in anymore.

Apparently being on stage in the same five hundred capacity theater that Xander was sitting in wouldn’t count as “staying away.” Never underestimate the incredible reach and potency of the gay cooties, boys and girls. Xander supposed just looking at Spike might turn the whole theater gay.

Pillars of society canoodling in the aisles.

Soccer moms gone wild.

Xander spent an hour and a half watching Spike not be in the show. He listened as the senior staff stood on stage and sang something of the kumbaya genre and wondered why they weren’t worried someone would sue for suffering of the eardrums.

Then he heard footsteps.

Xander turned around and decided that the mere sight of Spike really did have magical powers. Everything—inside and out—turned from dull, fuzzy gray to sharp, bright, living color. His pulse hammered as the blood raced through his veins, making it hard to sit still.

Their eyes met and the Spike he’d seen when they said goodbye the night before—the Spike without control and without choices—was nowhere to be found. This was the cocky, sexy, do-what-I-bloody-well-please-and-bugger-anyone-who-tries-to-stop-me Spike.

The Spike he fell in love with.

This Spike reached out a hand to Xander. This Spike sent Hank and Jessica a look that wasn’t exactly mean, but dared them to try and stop him. “Xander doesn’t belong in a box,” he said.

Xander stood and took the hand and found himself being pulled down the ramp towards the stage. He snorted. “Xander doesn’t belong in a box?” he asked.

Spike looked back at him and shrugged. “Didn’t rehearse,” he said. “Best I could come up with on the spot.”

Xander snickered. “Dork.”

“Git.” Spike tugged on his arm. “C’mon.”

“Where’re we—?”

But Spike just kept pulling, so Xander just went. They passed a grinning Wesley hovering by the sound system and then he found himself on the stage—center stage—standing next to Spike, holding Spike’s hand in front of hundreds of people. Spike took the microphone.

“Evening, everybody. Name’s Spike. I was supposed to be dancing in this show. Helped plan the thing, in fact. Me and my partner Dru always perform the last number. But this time around, I didn’t behave. I found a good thing and I didn’t let it pass me by, so I was told to make myself scarce. Apparently, I’m a bad influence. A bad, rude man.”

Xander glanced up at the box and saw Hank start to stand, but two female hands stretched up from either side and landed on his shoulders, pulling him back down.

“So if what you see right now tempts you to open your minds, or to take what you want, or to try and find a little happiness somewhere, I guess you can blame it all on me. But I’ve gotta risk everything for the guy who risked everything for me.” Spike looked over at Xander and smiled, looked back at the audience and shrugged. “And I’ve gotta dance.”

There was fire in Xander’s cheeks and then there was music.

And fingers at the buttons of his shirt.

He looked down at the fingers and then up at Spike. Um, why are you stripping me on stage? the look asked.

Spike leaned forward to push the shirt off Xander’s shoulders, his lips next to Xander’s ear. The words tickled. “You keep this thing on, no one’ll be able to focus on the dancing.”

And then the shirt was gone and a tee shirt remained and Spike was there and a woman was singing.

To be completely honest it scares me to imagine what life would be without you…

And they were dancing.

No dress, no heels, no makeup. Just two guys. Two bodies moving in intimate conversation.

Thinking back, I see what we have is something different. I think we've known all along. So how fair would it be to divide this love's existence between what's right and what's wrong?

Somewhere in the back of his mind Xander knew that he was on stage in front of an audience ten times the one at the Hyperion and that he was about as far out of the closet as he was gonna get without placing an ad in the L.A. Times, but the rest of his head was filled with the rhythm and with Spike.

The steps were like breathing—second nature.

We'll find a way to be together, however long it takes, wherever. If it means having you for only a moment, a moment just might be enough. I'm not giving you up.

The dance ended and the music faded until it was drowned out by applause and it started to occur to Xander to be mortified, but Spike was already dragging him back off the stage and he was so ready to get somewhere private and make with the smoochies.

Hank caught them at the theater door. Xander tensed, but Hank’s focus was on Spike.

“I know you’re not the one who got Dru in trouble,” he said. “When I’m wrong I say I’m wrong.”

Xander kept his eye-roll to himself.

Hank waited for Spike’s nod, then turned to Xander. “Your mother loves you very much.”

Xander gave a nod of his own and Hank looked between them, shifting his weight a couple of times before taking off.

Xander was all for some taking off of their own, but he saw Buffy making her way through the crowd. He waved at her and as she reached up to wave back, she ran straight into a man in uniform.

A man-in-uniform’s chest, to be exact.

The man caught her elbow to keep her from stumbling. She looked up and up and finally into his face. She smiled up at the man and Xander decided they could catch up later.

He turned back to Spike and decided he couldn’t wait for a kiss.

So he didn’t.

The End

The song that Spike and Xander danced to in the final scene was "I'm Not Giving You Up" by none other than Gloria Estefan. If you want to hear it, go here.

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