The Cost of Butterfly Kisses

[lit_gal]

The Cost of Butterfly Kisses, Part 14

Fandom/Pairing: BtVS, Spike/Xander
Prompt: Chattel

Rated: TEEN (we're still in the manipulation stages here)
Summary: Spike wants to be the one who is there for Buffy, but life has never been that kind to him..

Now you guys can see just how much I left out of chapter 14 last night.  I was so frustrated, but I did not have time to write all this before the deadline.  Anyway, it's time to deal with Jonathan!!  So, does anyone want to see what kind of plan Xander and Spike come up with when they work together?

(Chapter One... )  ( Chapter Two... )  ( Chapter Three... ) ( Chapter Four... ) ( Chapter Five )   ( Chapter Six )   ( Chapter 7 )  ( Chapter 8 )  ( Chapter Nine )  ( Chapter Ten )   ( Chapter Eleven )  ( Chapter Twelve ) ( Chapter Thirteen )

Chapter Fourteen

Xander hid behind the corner while Spike messed under the hood of the idiot trio's van. Xander still wasn't sure about this plan, but it was better than Spike's plan A, B, or C. Even if Xander physically could shoot them, he didn't want to, and he was voting no on any plan that involved widespread arson. He voted 'no' twice when Spike got this gleeful expression at the thought of setting half of Sunnydale on fire. Spike finished and slammed the hood down before strolling over to Xander's hiding place.

"Hurry up," Xander hissed, watching the door to their sad little basement hideout.

Spike cocked an eyebrow at him. "Prat," he announced calmly. "Vampire hearing."

"Yeah, yeah, but—" Xander stopped, not sure what to say. Vampire hearing did seem to make the whole sneaking around part a little unnecessary. "Stupid unflappable vampire," he settled for saying.

Spike gave a sniff, and Xander got the impression that Spike didn't mind being called 'unflappable.' "Big word for you, that," Spike commented. He took out a cigarette, but instead of lighting it, he just let it hang from his fingers as he leaned against the building.

"It was one of Willow's words of the week." Xander shrugged. "She had this whole experiment where she was going to make me and Buffy into some sort of vocabulary geeks and that was supposed to trick the SAT people into letting us into college."

Spike looked him up and down, and from the expression, he was finding Xander wanting. "Not one of her more successful plans, mate."

"True," Xander agreed; he couldn't exactly argue the point. "At least I can do a condensate line installation."

Spike snorted. Clearly, he was not impressed.

"Hey, if the air conditioning or heating goes out, that is way more important than knowing ten different words to mean stubborn. If the heat goes out in winter, you'll actually appreciate me."

"Not bloody likely. I'm a vampire, mate."

Xander was not buying that argument at all. Deadboy might be willing to live like a monk when he had the soul attached, but Spike was a pure hedonist, through and through. Hedonist—another Willow word. "You're a vampire addicted to your heat sources. You run the hot water out every single night, Spike. You use the fireplace anytime it gets below 70 and don't think I didn't notice the electric blanket."

"No need ta be miserable when you can get all the little luxuries handed to you." Spike looked at Xander, and his expression made it very clear that he expected Xander to be providing those luxuries.

Crossing his arms, Xander glared at Spike.

"Wot?"

"When did I start understanding all your weird English looks?"

"English looks?" Spike actually looked confused at that.

"Like all your English talk with prat and prams and biscuits that aren't biscuits, only more with the twitching eyebrow and narrow eyes," Xander explained. Now that he thought about it, Spike actually managed to say a whole lot without actually saying anything.

"A look can't be English, you prat."

"Hey, you have English looks, and I'm just wondering when they started making sense."

"Really?" Spike leaned against the wall and ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip as he considered Xander like a bug under a microscope. "Right then, what am I thinking about now?"

"That I’m a moron," Xander answered with confidence.

Spike's mouth came open like he was going to protest that, but then he closed it again. "That was too bloody easy," he complained. "'Sides, the real morons are coming. Let's get to the car." He headed for the alley, and Xander scrambled to follow.

"At least I'm the moron who knows how to keep a job and not spend my whole life living in a basement making invisibility rays." Xander thought about that for a second as he got into Spike's car and shoved aside a mountain of crumpled paper and enough empty bottles of Jack Daniels to build an altar to drunkenness. "Actually, that doesn't sound very moronic. That sounds a whole lot of smart."

Spike snorted and started the car. "If they were smart, they'd bugger off before turning themselves into a target. Those three don't have the common sense ta come in out of the rain. You'd be doing the human race a favor if ya took 'em out of the gene pool."

"Forget it, Spike. I'm not killing them." Xander kicked a bottle that rolled into his ankle from the force of Spike taking the corner too fast. "Okay, shouldn't the van be breaking down at this point?"

"It will." Spike had that grim look on his face—the one that said his plans weren't going exactly the way he'd planned.

"Uh-huh." Xander crossed his arms and glared at Spike. "Tell me you didn't screw up."

"I didn't bloody screw up, moron."

"I'd feel better if you didn't have your 'oops' face on when you said that."

Spike turned to glare at Xander for so long that Xander could feel the growing panic as the car kept barreling down the street—right toward a dead end, emphasis on dead.

"Spike!" Xander pointed out the front window of the car. "Road! Spike!" Spike slowly smirked as he definitely didn't bother looking. "You're going to kill us!"

"Already dead here." Spike's smirk got just a little wider before he finally turned back toward the road. His eyes went wide. "Bloody fucking hell." Jerking the wheel to the right, he barely avoided a pole as the wheels jumped the curb and they took out a bench. Spike wrenched the wheel and the car bounced back into the road.

Xander clutched at the dashboard, his heart pounding so fast that he could hear his own blood pounding in his ears. "You... you... moron!" Xander gasped. It wasn't the best insult in the world, but it was the best he could do when most of his concentration was going into not peeing his pants.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist." Spike had his cool firmly in place, but the car had a weird thump-click in the transmission it hadn't had two seconds ago.

"Hey, my knickers have every right to be twisty. Geez, Spike, some of us would like to survive our twenties."

"All downhill after twenty-five, mate. Be better to get turned young and handsome."

"Um... what? That's a no. How did we even start talking about turning because I will never be turned. I'm going to be old and wrinkly and grandfatherly with all the little grandkids."

Spike looked over, but this time, it was only a glance. "That's not going to be easy. Not when you don't plan on letting the bit have sex."

"It's called immaculate conception," Xander countered. Ahead of them, red lights flashed as everyone put on brakes. "Spike!"

"I see 'em. Bloody hell, you're going to give yourself a heart attack before you're thirty. I'm all in favor of dying young and leaving a soddin' pretty corpse—" Spike smiled wide and preened just enough to make it clear that he considered himself a particularly pretty corpse. "But a heart attack would just be a bloody waste. If you're going to kill yourself, slitting the wrists is a better way to go."

"I'm not letting you drink me," Xander said, his words clipped. Part of it was aggravation with Spike, and part was good old-fashioned terror because this was his first official kidnapping. "Are you sure they're going to split up?" Xander asked.

Spike snorted. "If you were stuck in a van with any two of those three, would you want to stick together?"

"Point," Xander conceded. They were working together, but from what Spike said from his spying missions, they didn't exactly like each other. Xander was starting to understand bits of Spike-thought just by watching which parts of the idiot trio confused Spike the most. Spike sure as hell couldn’t figure out why Jonathan and Andrew kept having the same fight—one that usually started with one of them touching the other's stuff. His comment that one of them should just kill the other and get it over with did make Xander think that maybe Spike didn't understand horseplay. At least, Xander was pretty sure it was horseplay. If Andrew was touching Jonathan's comic books, it might have been semi-serious, but the whole fighting without expecting anyone to win was definitely not impressing Spike.

Spike pulled the car over to the side, and now Xander could see the van's hood up, smoke pouring out from the engine. "Worked like a charm," Spike said smugly.

"Phase one, anyway. We still have to get through the kidnapping part."

"Easy enough. I've done it a million times," Spike commented with a shrug. That made Xander look over at him.

"Okay, that's just creepy."

"Wot?" Spike turned to Xander, and clearly they had reached another piece of human logic that was not working its way into Spike's brain.

"Please do not remind me that you're a mass murderer, not when we're in the same car." Xander could feel his stomach roll at the thought. He was kidnapping an ex-potential-friend with one-quarter of the Scourge of Europe driving the car. At sixteen, his whole vampire-bad rule might have been simplistic and stupid, but at least it never left him wanting to throw up in his mouth.

"I am evil, mate."

"See, I know this. I'm just trying really hard to forget it," Xander said. Before Spike could answer, Xander pointed out the front window. "Jonathan!!" They'd already decided to target either Jonathan or Andrew, whichever one ended up on his own, but Xander was a little relieved to see the short, dark-haired man get out and start walking down the street. From the body language, he was pissed.

"Oh yeah! Double back at you!" Andrew yelled from the side of the van, waving his fist toward Jonathan who just started walking faster.

"Good crossbow, and you could take him out easy from here," Spike said, curling his lip in disgust as Andrew started complaining to someone in the van—more than likely Warren.

"I'm not killing anyone."

Spike sighed, but he pulled back into traffic so they could pass the van. Since Spike had traded the old clunker with spray painted windows for a medium-old semi-clunker with tinted windows, hopefully Warren and Andrew wouldn't notice them. And if they did... well, Xander would revise his policy of not killing people if he had to, he just really didn't want to have to. "Daft gits," Spike muttered as they passed the van, and Xander chose to believe he was talking about Warren and Andrew who were now loudly arguing about whose job it was to keep the van running. From the little bits Xander could catch, Warren seemed to think that as grand-master poopah dork, he was above chores like getting the oil changed.

"Right then, you still sure this is going to work?" Spike asked. They passed Jonathan and a half block farther down, Spike pulled the car over to the curb again.

"Sure? No. But hey, the advantage is that if it doesn't work, he won't be dead."

Spike gave Xander a withering look, one that made it perfectly clear that he was fine with any plan that ended in death. However, instead of having another round of calling Xander stupid for not wanting to commit murder, Spike just arched his back and slithered into the backseat in a move that would have made a pole dancer envy Spike's flexibility.

"You ready?" Spike asked from the back seat. Xander nodded. Spike could grab Jonathan, but the chances were that he couldn't hold him for long, not without hurting him, and with the chip, that was not going to be pretty.

"I'm ready," Xander said as firmly as he could. Shifting around, he got on his knees and prepared to jump on Jonathan as soon as he was in back. The handcuffs dug into his ass, the metal making hard circles in his flesh, but Xander ignored that and just tried to not hyperventilate.

Throwing the back door open, Spike sprang out just as Jonathan went to pass the car. Jonathan gave a startled yelp, but Spike half flung, half stuffed him into the backseat before he could really get any defense together. Xander squirmed over the front seat and sort of flopped on top of Jonathan, yelping when Spike slammed the car door and Xander's shin got in the way. Colorful British curses answered, and Xander knew that Spike was hurting bad, but he really didn't have time to worry since Jonathan turned into a bucking bronco under him.

"Help! Help! Fire! Kidnapping! Rape!" Jonathan seemed to be calling out random crimes, and Xander struggled to get a hand over his mouth before he attracted too much attention. Yeah, this was Sunnydale, but sometimes people did actually notice things. Not often, but sometimes.

The driver's side door opened, and Spike was still cursing as he threw himself into the seat and started the car. "If you can't fucking convince him, I'm having him for dinner," Spike snarled. He then gave a roar of pain that suggested his chip didn't like that plan. Xander cringed in sympathy, but with Jonathan fighting the handcuffs, he really didn't have time to worry about it. The car pulled away from the curb, and for better or worse, Xander had just committed his first felony with Spike. If this went wrong, Buffy was going to kill both of them.




Spike pulled the car up next to a storm drain big enough for a cow to walk through, and Xander struggled to get the collar with Tara's magical un-magic spell on it tied around Jonathan's neck. He might not want to hurt Jonathan, but that didn't mean he wanted to give Jonathan the chance to magically fry him.

"This is kidnapping!" Jonathan cried out as Spike opened the back door and reached into grab Jonathan's shoulder. One unhappy look, and Xander knew that Spike didn't like Jonathan's hands being cuffed in front of him, but Xander just felt lucky to have gotten the cuffs on at all. Jonathan might be small, but he was a wiry little fighter.

"'Course it is. It's not like I invited ya over for tea." Ignoring the handcuffs, Spike started for the storm drain, dragging Jonathan with him. Xander locked up the car and went running after them.

"Xander, you have to help me," Jonathan begged, and Xander felt little stabs of guilt at that.

"Okay, I hate to say this, but we aren't on the same side anymore, Jonathan," Xander said, and that actually hurt. Jonathan was the other dork Cordelia had dated. He was the other one that the demons always seemed to target. He was the alternate Zeppo, and Xander had always felt a bit of a connection to him. Maybe that's why Xander avoided him, because sometimes looking in a mirror was just not good for the ego.

Spike dragged Jonathan to a hidden door in the side of the tunnel and pressed a rune into the side of a brick. Xander wondered how Spike had found the hidden catacombs under the house, but the man had been way more secretive about that than Xander had expected. Spike wanted to have his secrets, and Xander couldn't really do much about it. The room Spike pulled Jonathan into was pretty clearly part of a dungeon. The center room was barely high enough for Xander to stand up without ducking, and there were two cells set into the stone walls on either side, both so narrow that Xander wouldn't be able to fully stretch out, and both so low that he'd be forced to crouch. Either they were built for really small demons, or grandmother did like to torture people.

Jonathan tried to stop, but Spike just pushed him forward and pressed him down into a chair in the middle of the room.

"You can't keep me!" Jonathan tried to stand up, but Spike stepped so close that Jonathan would have to get in Spike's face, and even knowing that Spike was chipped didn't stop him from being seriously terrifying. Jonathan settled back into the chair. Xander felt more than a little guilty, but he followed the plan and wrapped a rope around Jonathan's chest and arms, tying him to the chair even though Jonathan was looking at him with big, tragic eyes.

Xander was tying the knots before Spike leaned down and got right in Jonathan's face. "Mate, as far as I'm concerned, you're nothing more than chattel."

"Spike!"

"Wot?" Standing up, Spike gave Xander a contemptuous look. "I made it pretty clear that I'm not letting him loose to threaten Buffy." Xander sighed, not sure what to say because a big part of him agreed with Spike. He just really didn't think that slavery was an actual option.

"Me? I'm not threatening her." Jonathan's voice was shaky, but Xander didn't know if it was guilt or fear affecting him.

Xander moved around to the front and tried to put on a friendly face. With Jonathan looking at him like Xander was a serial killer, it was hard to keep focused on the plan. "Jonathan, I'm on your side," Xander promised. "I'm voting a big old 'no' to any plan of Spike's because Spike's plan are just a little evil."

"Then why did you kidnap me?"

Xander crossed his arms. "Why did you try and kill Buffy?"

"I didn't!"

"Invisiray Buffy! Ringing any bells?" Xander's voice went all high, but Xander was still more than a little pissed about that.

Jonathan was already shaking his head. "That was a mistake. I like Buffy. I wouldn't kill her."

"And Warren?"

Xander's question made Jonathan freeze like a deer in the headlights. He stared up at Xander and swallowed several times. "I like Warren, too. Kinda," he finally said, but from the tone, Xander could guess that Jonathan was intentionally misunderstanding the question.

Spike snorted. "He's a bigger prat than you are," Spike told Xander.

"You're not helping, Spike."

"Not trying to." Spike leaned back against the stone wall and watched with all the calm of a vampire who had already decided that slavery and death penalty were options if Jonathan didn't listen to reason. Xander back was sweating. He really didn't handle pressure well.

Instead of thinking about Spike and his ultimatums, Xander focused on their prisoner. "Jonathan, you know Warren doesn't like Buffy," Xander said calmly.

Jonathan frowned and started staring at his own knees. "Well, yeah."

"Okay, so you know Warren hates Buffy, that's step one. How many times has he threatened to kill Buffy?"

"What?" Jonathan looked up. "Never."

"Really? Doesn't he call himself Buffy's arch-nemesis?"

More silence and more swallowing. "Well, maybe," Jonathan admitted.

"And what is Lex Luther always trying to do to Superman? What is Black Manta always trying to do to Aquaman? What is the Joker always trying to do to Batman?" Xander pulled a second chair over and put it in front of Jonathan so he could sit down to talk to him. "Come on, Jonathan, you're not this dumb."

Spike snorted again, and Xander glared at him.

"He doesn't mean it." Jonathan quietly defended his friend. His evil friend.

"Really? So he didn't have the invisiray thingy set to turn Buffy into jello?" Xander waited, but Jonathan didn't answer. He was staring at his own knees like he could just make himself disappear if he tried hard enough. Maybe he really was trying to do that, but Xander had faith that Tara's magic collar would keep that from happening. "Maybe I even heard it wrong and he didn't kill some girl while trying to make her a sex slave," Xander said softly. Jonathan looked up so fast that he probably gave himself whiplash. "
As someone else who is not exactly talented with women, can I just say that rape and sexual slavery is squicky to a level that I actually had to consider Spike suggestion that we just kill you."

"You did?" Spike stood up straight, but Xander focused on Jonathan who seemed to have lost most of the color out of his face.

"You're a rapist." Xander said the words quietly and firmly. Jonathan turned nearly pure white.

"He never..."

"What? He never got around to raping her, so that makes you only an attempted rapist, because I'm not really seeing the moral line there, Jonathan. I mean, you're smart and talented, and yeah, you're a little dorky, but I never would have thought you were a rapist."

"I wouldn't have." Jonathan whispered his denial.

"No, you just would have helped others." Xander sighed. This was harder than he thought. "Newsflash, Jonathan, that's the same thing. If some demon catches me, do you think he's going to care that I don't usually get a chance to kill the demons? That I'm more backup for Buffy than an actual fighter? No. I help Buffy do her thing, so that means I'm morally right there with her." Xander left out all the other ways he was morally responsible for others. He'd helped Willow pull Buffy out of heaven. When Faith came to town and was living in a cockroach infested hotel, he hadn't even mentioned it to Giles because he was too afraid of making him angry again after the whole Valentine's day spell and then the "kick his ass" lie. Actually, he should probably feel morally responsible for the lie, but he was still feeling pretty justified on that one. He just hadn't wanted to put himself out there and get everyone mad at him again. It was a pretty lame reason to not help someone who really needed help, and Xander still felt guilty for leaving Faith hanging like that.

"And you," Xander continued, "are right there morally with Warren, which would make you a raping, killing, back-stabbing arch-villain."

"A bloody poor excuse for one, too," Spike chimed in.

Xander glared at Spike. The stupid vampire had promised that Xander could try this his way, and now he was sticking his nose in. However, Spike just stared right back without even pretending that he'd back off.

"Okay, normally I try hard to not ever agree with Spike, just on principle, but you are more Maxie Zeus than Ra's Al Ghul," Xander told Jonathan. "Seriously. But you're still much with the morally creepy. I mean, if I told Buffy that there was this demon that was trying to mind-wipe women to rape them and killing and stealing, I’m pretty sure that she'd be right there with a big honking sword to cut them into little pieces. If you're doing things to earn yourself a spot on Buffy's kill-list, that makes you a giant creep. And I'm guessing that the girl you helped Warren kill would call you a psychopathic bully." Xander could see that the one word—bully—had reached Jonathan more than anything else he'd said.

"I'm not a bully," Jonathan snapped.

"Really? How do you define bully because I'm thinking pushing people around using your fancy equipment is pretty bullyish."

"I—" Jonathan just stopped. Xander could see him squirm, and it didn't have anything to do with the ropes.

"I just wanted—" Jonathan stopped again, but Xander didn't need him to finish that sentence. He'd felt the same way often enough to understand Jonathan. Hell, he'd wanted so much to make a difference—to have a place where he fit in—that he sacrificed Bonnie's first few years of childhood. He'd left her with a vindictive and cold grandmother while he went running around playing Buffy's sidekick. Yeah, the need to not be the worthless, in-the-corner guy was pretty hard to deal with when you grew up with so many people calling you worthless.

"I get it," Xander said softly, "but Warren? Seriously, sidekick to evil makes you Harley Quinn, and I'm pretty sure that's not really what you're going for."

Jonathan shook his head without looking up. Xander suspected he was trying to not cry. Walking over, Xander started untying the ropes.

"Oi, what the bloody hell are you doing?"

"Untying him. Duh," Xander answered.

"If I didn't have this chip." Spike just about growled he words, so Xander figured he really was good and frustrated. Unfortunately, Xander didn't know any other way to handle Jonathan and letting Spike keep him was just not going to happen.

"Yep, you'd eat me in a second, got it," Xander agreed. "And I'm really hoping that chip was made with German engineering because I am very well aware of that." Spike glared murder at him, but Xander finished untying the ropes so that Jonathan could reach up with his cuffed hands and rub at his eyes. No man should have to cry in front of people without being able to hide it. He couldn't remember how many times he'd been reduced to near-tears after the whole Cordelia thing, and if someone had tied him to a chair and kept him from hiding it, he would not have been happy.

"I tried to get Warren to go to the police," Jonathan said softly. "After he killed Katrina, I told them that we should pay for our crimes. It isn't right, and now the police are saying that she killed herself." Jonathan's breathing grew shaky. "It isn't right," he whispered.

"Jonathan, have you ever thought about L.A.?" Thinking about Cordelia had suddenly give Xander a whole new idea, and as a bonus, Spike was going to hate it.

Jonathan sniffed. "Sure. They have some neat magic shops. I can't go to the one up here much anymore because... well... you know." He shrugged.

"Yeah, even if you weren't fighting for the side of evil, Anya can be a little difficult to deal with," Xander admitted. "But I was wondering if you would like to maybe learn a little magic without working for Warren, because you know that's going to end badly." Xander grimaced. "Strike that. It already has ended badly. Someone's dead, so going back..."

"Is not an option," Spike cut in. "You targeted the slayer. Either you'll get the fucking hell out of her territory, or I'll find a way to split you open, chip or no chip," Spike warned.

"And as creepy as this sounds, I'm going to be siding with Spike on that if you keep trying to hurt Buffy." Xander didn't move as Spike walked up to stand at Xander's side. Yep, they were a united front on this issue, and being all 'united front' with Spike was badly rearranging his brain.

"So, L.A?" Jonathan looked up. His eyes were red and swollen, but he'd either fought back or wiped away the actual tears.

"Yep. Hey, you'll like this guy. He was totally dweebish, only he was all geek boy with demonology books instead of comic books."

Spike looked over in horror. "No!" Spike crossed his arms.

"What?" Xander looked up with his best innocent smile as he pulled out his cell phone, but Spike's glare just got fiercer. Clearly he was not amused at Xander's big plan.

"You are not giving that wanker a valuable piece like a magic user."

Xander dialed the number. "Hey, look at the bright side," Xander said with a smile, "Angel is going to rip his hair out wondering where the trap is." Xander turned to Jonathan. "Angel is Spike's souled up sire, and he's a giant pain in the ass. He spends a hundred years crawling around alleys doing absolutely nothing to help anyone, and he thinks that makes him a champion. Personally, I think he's just a walking commercial for Prozac, but does anyone listen to me?"

"Not usually," an unhappy voice answered over the phone. Xander closed his eyes and cringed as it occurred to him a little too late that the phone had stopped ringing.

"Deadboy!" Xander faked enthusiasm, and Spike snorted his disgust at the whole mess.

"Is something wrong?" Angel was sounding a little more testy than usual, but Xander didn't actually care.

"I wanted to talk to Wesley. Is he around?"

"Wesley?"

"Yeah, Wesley. Former watcher. Demon expert. Rogue demon hunter. You know, Wesley."

Angel didn't answer.

"Or I suppose I could ask Spike to drive me down to L.A. so I could talk to him in person," Xander offered. Spike's scowl turned into an amused smirk as Angel immediately called for Wesley to come to the phone. "Wanker," Spike whispered before he pulled out a cigarette and walked to the far side of the room to lean against the wall and light it.

"Mr. Harris?" Wesley asked in a confused voice.

"Hey, Wes. Long time no verbally torture."

"Yes, I had rather enjoyed out growing schism."

"That sounds vaguely insulty, and I was actually calling to do you a favor."

"Oh?" Wesley sounded a lot more interested now.

"How much natural magic would it take to create a time loop that traps a slayer?"

"Buffy's trapped?" Wesley sounded alarmed, and Xander could hear a half dozen voices in the background. Angel probably had them all ready to come riding to Buffy's rescue, which wasn't all that comforting because when she really needed him, like when she was emotionally drowning and doing her weird sex thing with Spike, then he wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Not anymore. She broke loose, but not after really having a really bad day. Over and over," Xander said. "And then the same guy, and keep in mind this guy has very little training. He's doing this mostly from reading spell books, but anyway, he cast a spell over the entire town, and everyone thought he was perfect and worshipped him, only that somehow created a monster that was just as horrible was we all thought this guy was wonderful. So, how much trouble could this guy really be?"

"Good lord," Wesley breathed, and for a half a second, Xander could almost hear Giles in his voice. It made his chest tighten because things hadn't been the same since Giles left. Part of Xander could understand Giles because it was pretty much ripping Xander to shreds to stand back and watch Buffy self-destruct, but Xander still thought Giles should have stuck it out with the rest of them, miserable or not. "Xander, this person could be an extreme danger to all of you. Are you sure that he has no formal training, that he can control this sort of power without opening a channel to tap other sources?"

Xander turned to Jonathan. "Has anyone ever trained you?"

Jonathan shook his head. "A girl showed me the glamour spell and people in L.A. sold me books that they said I could use, but no one really taught me anything."

"Any chance you're channeling energy?"

Jonathan shook his head even more vehemently. "I would be too afraid that someone might drain me. Rack, he does that. He tells people that he's helping them and he taps into their power to either take their magic or to dump his magic into them when he needs to get rid of a lot of power fast. They say one witch blew up." Jonathan lowered his voice as if Rack might hear him.

"Rack that Willow went to, that Rack?"

Jonathan nodded solemnly.

"Okay, ew."

"Xander!" Xander blinked as he realized that Wesley was almost yelling into the phone.

"What?"

"Is he there? The man with this power, is he right there?"

"Well, yeah. That's why I was asking him about your questions, and he says he definitely hasn't trained and he's scared of tapping into others' power because he doesn't want his own to get drained. So, do I take it that this is interesting?"

"Interesting?" Wesley's voice went up. "Interesting? Someone with that much power could be exceptionally dangerous. You should get Buffy to handle this."

"Oh." Xander smiled at Jonathan. "So, you would say it would be a bad idea to, I don't know, kidnap him, tie him to a chair, and let Spike threaten him with slavery if he doesn't stop playing games in Buffy's territory?" Xander nearly laughed as Wesley started spluttering. Tilting the phone out and leaning forward, Xander let Jonathan listen to the random noises of borderline panic. Every dork needed to sometimes feel like maybe he had something a little dangerous going for him. Xander remembered when he'd faced down Jack O'Toole. Jonathan deserved that moment.

Jonathan actually smiled.

"I don't plan to throw any fireballs in here," Jonathan said into the phone.

Xander took the phone back, and listened to the absolute silence on the other end. "Wesley, Jonathan's friends are just getting more and more with the creepy and potentially felonious, and he really needs someone to show him the magical ropes. I was thinking maybe you could do that."

"Me?" Wesley sounded genuinely confused.

"Sure. I mean, you have all the book learnin'," Xander said. "And I know you wouldn't go trying to blackmail or strong arm Jonathan into putting Buffy into a time loop, so that's a plus."

"Jonathan?" Wesley's voice got quiet. "The young man who tried to kill himself his senior year?"

"Yep," Xander agreed. He waited, but the silence on the other end told him what he needed to know. Wesley was just like him and Jonathan... one more dork looking for a place to belong. "Wesley, he can't even go home because Warren is getting really dangerous, and it's not easy for Buffy to see a human as a real threat, so we're trying to work around some stuff here."

"We have rather a lot going on here as well." Wesley sighed. "But I could use a hand with all these blasted prophesies. I'm feeling rather buried alive in parchment."

"So, it's settled. You'll give Jonathan the low down on how to not blow anything up with his powers and not ask him to break any major laws—"

"I can hardly promise that. I seem to find a new one to break on a weekly basis, but I can assure him that I would never ask him to act unethically. Xander, perhaps I should speak to Jonathan."

"Sounds like a plan." Xander handed the phone over to Jonathan. Spike raised an eyebrow, but he didn't protest as Xander headed for the door they hadn't come in. "I'm assuming this goes up to the house."

Spike strolled over, giving Jonathan a look as the man tentatively said 'hello?' into the phone.

"We done then?" Spike asked.

"Yep," Xander agreed. He'd have to come back down and take the cuffs off and figure out transportation, but he figured they really were just about done with Jonathan. He couldn't go running back out the sewers without Spike's magical rune, so they could give him some space. Hopefully he'd find someone to cling to other than Warren.

"If the poof can't be bothered to drive up, I'll take him down." Spike glanced over at Jonathan who had the phone clutched in his cuffed hands, but after just a second, he turned back to the door and unlocked it. It led into a narrow passage with stairs Xander had never seen before. The walls had an odd glow that suggested something other than electricity worked down here. If Willow had gone all dark magic and Buffy hadn't come back from the dead, would he have turned into Jonathan—following the wrong person just because he needed to follow someone? His head said that Willow would never go that dark, and that Xander had more sense to follow if she did. Xander wasn't so sure that his heart agreed.

Spike reached the end of the narrow passageway and pushed his shoulder into what looked like a solid wall. The whole thing slid forward, and Xander found himself following Spike out into his room. Grandma had her secrets, that's for sure.

Walking over to the bed, Spike flung himself down so that he was leaning back on the pillows. Xander narrowed his eyes and stared at Spike. If Spike was the big bad, who was making his bed so that all the pillows were set up like a fancy hotel?

"Wot?" Spike glared at Xander suspiciously.

"Nothing. I'm just a little freaked out over our first felony." Xander walked over to a chair and sat down. "And can I just say that I'm so very happy that we aren't going to take up slavery, because this house is kinda screwy and dysfunctional now."

"As long as the git is under control and out of Buffy's territory, I can't say I care what happens to him."

"Yeah, I got that," Xander agreed. Spike had way more to him than the normal fledge who cared about blood and not getting dusted, but that didn't mean that you could expect him to have actual morals.

"I didn't understand two bloody words you said down there, pet. You need to read something other than comic books."

"I did say that we nerd types had our own language, didn't I?"

"Don't know." Spike shrugged. "It's not like I listen to anything you say."

"I'd believe you more if you didn't offer to give Jonathan a ride."

"Just want him out of my territory." Spike sat up. "If he pulls any more stunts around Buffy or Dawn or Bonnie, I'm going to have to rip his intestines out, and that's going to be bloody painful."

"Well, yeah. Intestine ripping usually is."

"Not for him, you nob." Spike frowned for as second, but before Xander could point out Spike's illogic, Spike kept talking. "Well, actually it would be for him, but I don't bloody care. I meant for me. The damn chip would make the job a mite bit more difficult than it should be."

"Uh huh," Xander said, not even pointing out that if Spike were really thinking about eviscerating Jonathan, the chip would be going off now. Sometimes, just sometimes, Xander did not understand Spike. Most of the time, Spike was just Spike. He was a vampire who wanted to feel good and control his world and eat and have sex until he felt good. That part of Spike was actually pretty damn easy to understand. But sometimes there were parts that Xander really didn't understand.