Experience Curve 21
Oct. 28th, 2007 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lit_galExperience Curve 21
Spike/Xander, Jim/Blair
Rated ADULT
Warnings: Dom/sub
Sequel to Learning Curve
All previous parts HERE
Spike/Xander, Jim/Blair
Rated ADULT
Warnings: Dom/sub
Sequel to Learning Curve
All previous parts HERE
"Anything yet?" Spike asked without slowing down at all. Xander panted as he half ran behind Spike. The only way he was even keeping up was that Spike was dragging him along for the ride.
"Yeah, a charliehorse in my leg. Can we maybe slow down before I fall on my face? Falling bad. Letting the human breathe good."
"Oi. Just want out of here." It wasn't an apology, but the fact that Spike slowed down suggested that he really was sorry.
"Yep, I get that, but I assume you want me still on the side of the breathing. Giles would be cranky if I showed up not breathing," Xander said as he took a deep breath and tried to catch up with his body's need for oxygen. The climb up the mountain at breakneck speed had left him a little winded and a lot exhausted.
"If you weren't breathin', I wouldn't let the wanker anywhere near you," Spike pointed out, and it took Xander a second to process that. It might have been the lack of oxygen to the brain.
"Okay, that falls somewhere between being sweet and incredibly disturbing. What has you all twitchy?"
"Not twitchy," Spike complained in his best put-upon voice.
"Says the twitchy one."
"Bloody hell. You've been hanging out with Blair too much. You're getting as mouthy as him." Spike's complaints did nothing to hide the fact that he had definitely not answered the question.
"Yeah, well, I'm right. So start with the 'splainy because I'm getting more creeped out here, which seems wrong because we left those weird threads behind, so I was hoping to reduce the overall level of creepiness," Xander argued. Spike was always honest, sometimes even when he shouldn't be because honesty can be rude, so the whole hiding things was setting off the creep-meter big time.
"Yeah, that's not all we left behind."
"Okay, see, things like that just make me jumpier."
"Every bloody bird in the trees, every squirrel, every soddin' bug is gone." Spike said the words quietly, but his hand tightened on Xander's arm.
"Okay, I'm really hoping that's your very disturbing sense of humor showing up, like the way you laughed at Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Seriously hoping," Xander hoped, but at this point he wasn't really expecting.
"I'm not bloody joking," Spike snapped. Xander followed in silence for a moment, considering the dark shadows around him and trying to imagine that all the life, all the bugs and birds and bats were just gone. His imagination wasn't that good.
"Any bodies?" he asked hopefully, not really sure if he wanted to find out they were walking by piles of animal corpses or if he wanted to hear that more bodies had just vanished… or been eaten. Eating was becoming more of a possibility, but if something ate that much, shouldn't it poop? Maybe they were about to find a mountain of demon poop. Xander could imagine Buffy's response to that possibility.
"No. Not bodies, just every livin' thing gone."
"Why did you have to tell me that?"
"Because you bloody asked," Spike snapped. "Now can we go back? I'm soddin' well ready to get off this mountain."
Xander stopped, dragging Spike to a stop with him since the vampire wouldn't let go of him. He looked firmly toward the reddish glow that was Spike and did his best to imitate Willow's resolve face. "Nope. Na-uh, not happening, not until we get to that ridge and can see over. If Riley's out here, we need to find him even if it's creepier than... okay, I've done horrifying and terrifying, but I actually think this tops the scale on creepy."
Spike sighed, and for a half second, Xander thought they were going to turn around and go back, as though talking about the possibility made it more reasonable somehow. "Somethin' sure isn't right which is why we're getting to that ridge, peeking over and getting the bloody hell out of here."
Spike started up the trail again without a word, and Xander followed with a small smile. Yep, his vampire loved him enough to care about what Xander wanted, and that shouldn't be quite so warm-and-fuzzy feeling, but it definitely was.
"Spike?" Xander said after several minutes of hiking up the trail, the smell of smoke starting to tickle his nose.
"Wot?"
"Thanks," Xander said softly.
"For what?" Spike sounded genuinely confused, and Xander struggled to find a way to explain it. Buffy and Willow and Spike, they all loved him. They all wanted to take care of him. But only Spike really trusted Xander to know the right thing for himself. Yeah, he certainly enjoyed giving Xander shit about the string of demon girlfriends and his ability to chase after the bad guys armed with nothing more useful than a rock, but Spike never sent him away or lied about there being a bad guy or exchanged those funny looks that made it clear that the girls didn't really trust his judgment.
"For not dragging me away by my ear," Xander finally answered quietly.
"Don't think I'm not considerin' it."
"Yep, I know you're big with considering because I'm considering running like a rabbit with my tail between my legs, and I think I just lost the metaphor somewhere in the middle, but you get my point."
"Just keep in mind that I reserve the right ta drag you out of any situation that's too dangerous."
Xander couldn't help it; even with all the weirdness and even though Spike was being serious, Xander started laughing.
"Loon," Spike complained softly without slowing down.
"Chasing around a dead mountain for a soldier-boy who might be dead with a big bad who seems to eat anything moving, bones and all. That doesn't qualify as too dangerous, but why do I have the feeling that you would so not let me go on a weekend retreat with Willow?"
"Bloody right that's on the too dangerous list," Spike snidely agreed after a moment of silence. "There's tryin' to do the right thing, and then there's just stupid."
"Says the guy with the up-close and personal relationship with self-immolation."
"Yeah, well..." Spike fell silent, and Xander really didn't have anything to say after that either. Yep, they were both self-preservation-impaired when it came right down to it. The reference to Spike's second death kinda killed the conversation, though, so Xander concentrated on keeping up with Spike who was still walking fast, even if he wasn't going as fast as before.
They had climbed for another half-hour or so, enough that Xander could now smell the smoke from the "accidental explosion" which had really been a military bombing. Xander just really hoped that there weren't any campers out here at the time, but then again, if there had been campers, the local big bad had probably eaten them. Eaten and potentially pooped. Spike stopped and Xander focused on breathing for a second.
"The ridge is about five feet ahead. The other side is a bit steep, so don't move forward without me ahead of you," he said. Xander nodded, knowing that Spike could see him. A nearly full moon was shining through the clouds, and even Xander could make out the shadowy forms of trees and rocks by now. Spike moved slowly forward until the blackness ahead of him turned into a view of stars and the shadowy form of the mountain slope falling away on the far side of the ridge.
"Right then, if ya don't see sign of Captain Cardboard, we're out of here."
Xander scanned the area and could see the faint thread of someone who had passed through a while back. "Spike, I'm seeing yellow."
"Soddin.... That's it, we're out of here."
"Whoa, hey, not that kind of yellow," Xander yelped as Spike yanked him away from the ridge. "There's a cord all pulsy with blue and yellow."
"You're sure? You're sure someone's alive and ya aren't seein' more of that dead shite?" Spike didn't sound happy at all, but at least he'd stopped trying to drag Xander off the mountain.
"Um, that or I'm having new and wacky fun with the powers."
"Bloody hell," Spike sighed before he turned and started back toward the ridge. "When this shite is over, we're setting up camp in Cascade for a while, pet," he calmly announced as he went over the ridge and started down the slope without letting go of Xander's arm. Spike made it look so easy that Xander was fooled into thinking that the slope was solid rock. Instead, he found himself sliding in loose shale, struggling to stay on his feet, and succeeding only because Spike kept a firm hold on his arm.
"Surf's up, dude," Xander joked at the bottom, but his heart pounded in his ears and he had to lean against a rock to get his breath back. That was a little too exciting, if you could really call sliding down a rockslide in the middle of the night exciting. Maybe terrifying was a better word. Xander had images of losing his balance and breaking random bones on a nasty fall. "Thanks for the catch," Xander finally said. Spike was standing a little off.
"Wouldn't let you fall."
"Nope, you wouldn't, and my unbroken bones thank you again," Xander agreed.
"Right then, which way?" Spike asked. Xander pointed in the direction of the cord he'd seen, and Spike again took him by the arm, leading him through the rocky debris and around burnt skeletons of trees lit by the moonlight.
"Hey, wait, we're moving to Cascade?" Xander asked several minutes later. "I thought that you thought that I was spending too much time with Blair."
"You are. But if being around the fuzzy, little Shaman is going to turn new powers on, then he'll bloody well help you figure out how to use them," Spike just about snarled.
"Hey, I'm all for party crashing, despite a bad experience with frat boys and a bra, but don't you think we'd better talk to Jim and Blair before just setting up camp in their city?"
"Oi, first off, they don't own the whole bloody city."
"An argument which might make sense if I hadn't seen you run demons out of London claiming the whole city for yourself," Xander pointed out with a wry laugh. Spike and territorial were pretty much next to each other in the dictionary, and after living with Jim and Blair for a while, Xander knew full well that Jim's name was right there with them. "And what's second off?"
"Already talked to Jim when you were sleepin' like the dead. The git likes you, and after we had a little discussion about who does and who does not have permission to touch you, we both agreed that you needed to work with Blair for a while."
"You threatened Jim," Xander accused him.
"Soddin' right I did." Spike sounded all defensive now, but Xander smiled.
"Thank you."
"For threatening Jim?" Spike had gone from defensive to confused in record time, and Xander smiled wider at the sudden shift.
"No, for knowing that this Shaman stuff is really freaking me out. It's not all wacky fun with string, and I just... I don't know." Xander shrugged.
"When I agreed ta take care of you, I meant it. You're mine, and if you need something I can't give ya, then I'll make sure I find someone who can. Blair can teach you just as well as that wanker Rupert picked out."
"Yep, better than."
They had reached another rough section which was obviously closer to the center of the blast, and they fell silent as Spike helped Xander climb over the charred remains of fallen trees and loose boulders which littered the slope. A few times, Xander had to point in a new direction as the yellow/blue cord threaded through the landscape, weaving wildly at one point as though the owner had been drunk and stumbling through the scorched landscape.
Even in the moonlight the place looked horrible, so Xander really didn't want to see it in all it's sunny glory. Hopefully by morning they would be back to camp with Jim and Blair and the next day they could get to the truck. Yep, retreat was sounding mighty good. Retreat and then call Giles and recommend that they find a demon who ate not just people but everything whole and didn't leave bodies. And after that, Faith and a dozen slayers could come kick ass. Faith would enjoy the challenge. They came around another outcrop of rock, and Xander stopped.
"Either my powers are abandoning ship, which I really hope is not like rats abandoning a sinking ship, or the soul cord vanishes into solid rock."
"There's a cave," Spike said, his voice tight and clipped.
"Or that. You know, the Shamanic vision is cool, but night vision is much cooler," Xander tried joking. It didn't really cut any of the sudden tension or make Spike loosen the now-painful grip on Xander's arm. "Ow," Xander whispered, and immediately the grip loosened.
"You stay behind me. We don't know what's in there."
"We know it's afraid. Afraid should mean good guy since whatever killed all the critters would definitely not be feeling fear. Besides, this is a person, no demons on the radar, so it should be okay," Xander argued.
"We can talk about your lack of logic later, pet. Right now just bloody stay behind me," Spike ordered in a voice that didn't invite argument.
"Right, staying behind," Xander agreed softly as Spike walked toward the cliff face. At the last possible moment, he turned and slid into a narrow crack in the rock. Xander followed, suddenly glad to have Spike between him and the unknown. Of course, with all the animals gone, there shouldn't be any spiders or bats. Xander had a sudden urge to ask Spike, just to be sure, but the vampire was moving silently forward, and Xander could only see their feet as the soul cord they followed glowed softly. Yep, not the time for stupid questions. Definitely not the time. Xander held his breath and watched the yellow/blue cord beneath their feet as he followed Spike into the darkness.
"Yeah, a charliehorse in my leg. Can we maybe slow down before I fall on my face? Falling bad. Letting the human breathe good."
"Oi. Just want out of here." It wasn't an apology, but the fact that Spike slowed down suggested that he really was sorry.
"Yep, I get that, but I assume you want me still on the side of the breathing. Giles would be cranky if I showed up not breathing," Xander said as he took a deep breath and tried to catch up with his body's need for oxygen. The climb up the mountain at breakneck speed had left him a little winded and a lot exhausted.
"If you weren't breathin', I wouldn't let the wanker anywhere near you," Spike pointed out, and it took Xander a second to process that. It might have been the lack of oxygen to the brain.
"Okay, that falls somewhere between being sweet and incredibly disturbing. What has you all twitchy?"
"Not twitchy," Spike complained in his best put-upon voice.
"Says the twitchy one."
"Bloody hell. You've been hanging out with Blair too much. You're getting as mouthy as him." Spike's complaints did nothing to hide the fact that he had definitely not answered the question.
"Yeah, well, I'm right. So start with the 'splainy because I'm getting more creeped out here, which seems wrong because we left those weird threads behind, so I was hoping to reduce the overall level of creepiness," Xander argued. Spike was always honest, sometimes even when he shouldn't be because honesty can be rude, so the whole hiding things was setting off the creep-meter big time.
"Yeah, that's not all we left behind."
"Okay, see, things like that just make me jumpier."
"Every bloody bird in the trees, every squirrel, every soddin' bug is gone." Spike said the words quietly, but his hand tightened on Xander's arm.
"Okay, I'm really hoping that's your very disturbing sense of humor showing up, like the way you laughed at Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Seriously hoping," Xander hoped, but at this point he wasn't really expecting.
"I'm not bloody joking," Spike snapped. Xander followed in silence for a moment, considering the dark shadows around him and trying to imagine that all the life, all the bugs and birds and bats were just gone. His imagination wasn't that good.
"Any bodies?" he asked hopefully, not really sure if he wanted to find out they were walking by piles of animal corpses or if he wanted to hear that more bodies had just vanished… or been eaten. Eating was becoming more of a possibility, but if something ate that much, shouldn't it poop? Maybe they were about to find a mountain of demon poop. Xander could imagine Buffy's response to that possibility.
"No. Not bodies, just every livin' thing gone."
"Why did you have to tell me that?"
"Because you bloody asked," Spike snapped. "Now can we go back? I'm soddin' well ready to get off this mountain."
Xander stopped, dragging Spike to a stop with him since the vampire wouldn't let go of him. He looked firmly toward the reddish glow that was Spike and did his best to imitate Willow's resolve face. "Nope. Na-uh, not happening, not until we get to that ridge and can see over. If Riley's out here, we need to find him even if it's creepier than... okay, I've done horrifying and terrifying, but I actually think this tops the scale on creepy."
Spike sighed, and for a half second, Xander thought they were going to turn around and go back, as though talking about the possibility made it more reasonable somehow. "Somethin' sure isn't right which is why we're getting to that ridge, peeking over and getting the bloody hell out of here."
Spike started up the trail again without a word, and Xander followed with a small smile. Yep, his vampire loved him enough to care about what Xander wanted, and that shouldn't be quite so warm-and-fuzzy feeling, but it definitely was.
"Spike?" Xander said after several minutes of hiking up the trail, the smell of smoke starting to tickle his nose.
"Wot?"
"Thanks," Xander said softly.
"For what?" Spike sounded genuinely confused, and Xander struggled to find a way to explain it. Buffy and Willow and Spike, they all loved him. They all wanted to take care of him. But only Spike really trusted Xander to know the right thing for himself. Yeah, he certainly enjoyed giving Xander shit about the string of demon girlfriends and his ability to chase after the bad guys armed with nothing more useful than a rock, but Spike never sent him away or lied about there being a bad guy or exchanged those funny looks that made it clear that the girls didn't really trust his judgment.
"For not dragging me away by my ear," Xander finally answered quietly.
"Don't think I'm not considerin' it."
"Yep, I know you're big with considering because I'm considering running like a rabbit with my tail between my legs, and I think I just lost the metaphor somewhere in the middle, but you get my point."
"Just keep in mind that I reserve the right ta drag you out of any situation that's too dangerous."
Xander couldn't help it; even with all the weirdness and even though Spike was being serious, Xander started laughing.
"Loon," Spike complained softly without slowing down.
"Chasing around a dead mountain for a soldier-boy who might be dead with a big bad who seems to eat anything moving, bones and all. That doesn't qualify as too dangerous, but why do I have the feeling that you would so not let me go on a weekend retreat with Willow?"
"Bloody right that's on the too dangerous list," Spike snidely agreed after a moment of silence. "There's tryin' to do the right thing, and then there's just stupid."
"Says the guy with the up-close and personal relationship with self-immolation."
"Yeah, well..." Spike fell silent, and Xander really didn't have anything to say after that either. Yep, they were both self-preservation-impaired when it came right down to it. The reference to Spike's second death kinda killed the conversation, though, so Xander concentrated on keeping up with Spike who was still walking fast, even if he wasn't going as fast as before.
They had climbed for another half-hour or so, enough that Xander could now smell the smoke from the "accidental explosion" which had really been a military bombing. Xander just really hoped that there weren't any campers out here at the time, but then again, if there had been campers, the local big bad had probably eaten them. Eaten and potentially pooped. Spike stopped and Xander focused on breathing for a second.
"The ridge is about five feet ahead. The other side is a bit steep, so don't move forward without me ahead of you," he said. Xander nodded, knowing that Spike could see him. A nearly full moon was shining through the clouds, and even Xander could make out the shadowy forms of trees and rocks by now. Spike moved slowly forward until the blackness ahead of him turned into a view of stars and the shadowy form of the mountain slope falling away on the far side of the ridge.
"Right then, if ya don't see sign of Captain Cardboard, we're out of here."
Xander scanned the area and could see the faint thread of someone who had passed through a while back. "Spike, I'm seeing yellow."
"Soddin.... That's it, we're out of here."
"Whoa, hey, not that kind of yellow," Xander yelped as Spike yanked him away from the ridge. "There's a cord all pulsy with blue and yellow."
"You're sure? You're sure someone's alive and ya aren't seein' more of that dead shite?" Spike didn't sound happy at all, but at least he'd stopped trying to drag Xander off the mountain.
"Um, that or I'm having new and wacky fun with the powers."
"Bloody hell," Spike sighed before he turned and started back toward the ridge. "When this shite is over, we're setting up camp in Cascade for a while, pet," he calmly announced as he went over the ridge and started down the slope without letting go of Xander's arm. Spike made it look so easy that Xander was fooled into thinking that the slope was solid rock. Instead, he found himself sliding in loose shale, struggling to stay on his feet, and succeeding only because Spike kept a firm hold on his arm.
"Surf's up, dude," Xander joked at the bottom, but his heart pounded in his ears and he had to lean against a rock to get his breath back. That was a little too exciting, if you could really call sliding down a rockslide in the middle of the night exciting. Maybe terrifying was a better word. Xander had images of losing his balance and breaking random bones on a nasty fall. "Thanks for the catch," Xander finally said. Spike was standing a little off.
"Wouldn't let you fall."
"Nope, you wouldn't, and my unbroken bones thank you again," Xander agreed.
"Right then, which way?" Spike asked. Xander pointed in the direction of the cord he'd seen, and Spike again took him by the arm, leading him through the rocky debris and around burnt skeletons of trees lit by the moonlight.
"Hey, wait, we're moving to Cascade?" Xander asked several minutes later. "I thought that you thought that I was spending too much time with Blair."
"You are. But if being around the fuzzy, little Shaman is going to turn new powers on, then he'll bloody well help you figure out how to use them," Spike just about snarled.
"Hey, I'm all for party crashing, despite a bad experience with frat boys and a bra, but don't you think we'd better talk to Jim and Blair before just setting up camp in their city?"
"Oi, first off, they don't own the whole bloody city."
"An argument which might make sense if I hadn't seen you run demons out of London claiming the whole city for yourself," Xander pointed out with a wry laugh. Spike and territorial were pretty much next to each other in the dictionary, and after living with Jim and Blair for a while, Xander knew full well that Jim's name was right there with them. "And what's second off?"
"Already talked to Jim when you were sleepin' like the dead. The git likes you, and after we had a little discussion about who does and who does not have permission to touch you, we both agreed that you needed to work with Blair for a while."
"You threatened Jim," Xander accused him.
"Soddin' right I did." Spike sounded all defensive now, but Xander smiled.
"Thank you."
"For threatening Jim?" Spike had gone from defensive to confused in record time, and Xander smiled wider at the sudden shift.
"No, for knowing that this Shaman stuff is really freaking me out. It's not all wacky fun with string, and I just... I don't know." Xander shrugged.
"When I agreed ta take care of you, I meant it. You're mine, and if you need something I can't give ya, then I'll make sure I find someone who can. Blair can teach you just as well as that wanker Rupert picked out."
"Yep, better than."
They had reached another rough section which was obviously closer to the center of the blast, and they fell silent as Spike helped Xander climb over the charred remains of fallen trees and loose boulders which littered the slope. A few times, Xander had to point in a new direction as the yellow/blue cord threaded through the landscape, weaving wildly at one point as though the owner had been drunk and stumbling through the scorched landscape.
Even in the moonlight the place looked horrible, so Xander really didn't want to see it in all it's sunny glory. Hopefully by morning they would be back to camp with Jim and Blair and the next day they could get to the truck. Yep, retreat was sounding mighty good. Retreat and then call Giles and recommend that they find a demon who ate not just people but everything whole and didn't leave bodies. And after that, Faith and a dozen slayers could come kick ass. Faith would enjoy the challenge. They came around another outcrop of rock, and Xander stopped.
"Either my powers are abandoning ship, which I really hope is not like rats abandoning a sinking ship, or the soul cord vanishes into solid rock."
"There's a cave," Spike said, his voice tight and clipped.
"Or that. You know, the Shamanic vision is cool, but night vision is much cooler," Xander tried joking. It didn't really cut any of the sudden tension or make Spike loosen the now-painful grip on Xander's arm. "Ow," Xander whispered, and immediately the grip loosened.
"You stay behind me. We don't know what's in there."
"We know it's afraid. Afraid should mean good guy since whatever killed all the critters would definitely not be feeling fear. Besides, this is a person, no demons on the radar, so it should be okay," Xander argued.
"We can talk about your lack of logic later, pet. Right now just bloody stay behind me," Spike ordered in a voice that didn't invite argument.
"Right, staying behind," Xander agreed softly as Spike walked toward the cliff face. At the last possible moment, he turned and slid into a narrow crack in the rock. Xander followed, suddenly glad to have Spike between him and the unknown. Of course, with all the animals gone, there shouldn't be any spiders or bats. Xander had a sudden urge to ask Spike, just to be sure, but the vampire was moving silently forward, and Xander could only see their feet as the soul cord they followed glowed softly. Yep, not the time for stupid questions. Definitely not the time. Xander held his breath and watched the yellow/blue cord beneath their feet as he followed Spike into the darkness.
