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The Cost of Butterfly Kisses
The Cost of Butterfly Kisses, Part 22Fandom/Pairing: BtVS, Spike/Xander
Rated: ADULT
Summary: Again, it's time to race to the Taming the Muse prompt deadline. *curse, mutter, curse, snarl* It's also time for the two halves of Xander's life to collide head-on.
(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 14 . ) ( Chapter 15 ) ( Chapter 16 ) ( Chapter 17 ) ( Chapter 18 ) ( Chapter 19 ) ( Chapter 20 ) ( Chapter 21 )
Xander headed into the living room and moved the chip bowl.
"It'll be fine," Tara said.
"Daddy's scared," Bonnie whispered to Tara, but her childish voice carried into the living room.
"He's nervous," Tara corrected her.
"Spike would make him happy again. Spike's good at happy annoying." Bonnie had taken up complimenting Spike ever since he'd disappeared, absconding with Xander's van in the process.
"He was good at annoying, anyway," Xander agreed. Bonnie looked through the arch, her forehead wrinkled in a miniature frown. Oddly, Xander missed Spike, too. He missed him and worried about him. With the chip, he couldn't defend himself, but Spike was 120 years old. He could take care of himself. Usually. Xander was trying hard to not think about the spectacular examples of just how self-destructive the vampire could be. "He'll come back when he wants to." Xander moved over to Bonnie and took her hand, walking her to the kitchen table. Bonnie sat in one of the chairs, and Xander sat next to her. Holding her hand, he looked at her for a second. When he'd told Spike that he couldn't come in any more, he had no idea that Bonnie would give him more of a guilt trip than Spike ever had. One glorious guilt-inspiring pout and Spike was gone—although Xander figured if he ever told Spike that he'd looked like a pouting child sitting in the grass, the vampire would find a way to pull Xander's spine out, chip or no chip. Then, hauling Spike's drunk, confused ass to the van had inspired more guilt than Xander had ever expected.
However, all of Spike's guilt-inspiring drama paled in comparison to Bonnie's big-eyed and silent stare. "Honey, Spike had to go away."
"Because you made him," Bonnie said sadly, but she managed to sound resigned rather than angry. The problem was, she was never angry, not even when she talked about her grandmother's hatefulness. So the resignation in her voice now just made Xander feel like more of a shit.
"I just told him he couldn't stay in the house with us. He could have stayed in the tunnels under the house. There are four rooms down there." Xander didn't mention that they were dungeons. Spike had stayed in worse, though.
"The why isn't he here?" Bonnie asked with a tremble in her voice.
Xander looked at Tara helplessly, but she simply shrugged. "Oh, honey," Xander said, "I really don't know."
Bonnie chewed on her lower lip. "Did he find a better clan?"
Xander's heart tightened when he was the rejection and resignation in her eyes. "No, he didn't, Bonnie." Xander pulled his daughter close and hugged her. "He just couldn't stay when things changed, but he still thought we were the best clan around." Xander figured he was stretching the truth on that one, but he was putting it down to parental prerogative.
"So, he doesn't like the rules?"
"Yep," Xander agreed.
"Can we change them back?" Bonnie pushed herself back away from his hug and smiled up hopefully.
Xander had always hated it when his parents dismissed him with a 'you're too young to understand' argument. However, he was so very tempted right now. How was he supposed to explain souls and rape and the idea of a moral compass, or, in Spike's case, a missing moral compass. He took a deep breath and blurted out the truth. "I can't let them." Xander braced for the disappointment and betrayal on Bonnie's face. Instead, he saw only confusion. "Honey...." Xander groaned. Where was the demon attack when you needed it?
"Spike's not coming back," Bonnie whispered.
"We can't know that," Xander answered, and after years of wanting Spike to go to hell, he was a little surprised to find he really did miss fangless. Spike had been an important part of their lives... not always a particularly good part, but an important part. It was like missing your first car—the one that took every dime of your money for gas and oil and still broke down on you. Yeah, the car was just bad news, but you liked it anyway. And Xander was not even going to think about what a shit that made him because Spike had hurt Buffy. He'd actually hurt Buffy, and Xander still couldn't seem to stop himself from feeling some sort of sympathy there. After all, he'd been the one at home when Spike had come home with marks and a ridiculous grin that meant he totally didn't understand what Buffy was doing.
"He won't. He won't come home." Bonnie pulled her hands out of Xander's grip. "It's okay, Daddy." She gave a weak smile.
"No, it's not." Xander sighed. Sometimes being a father just sucked. "He hurt us. It's not okay, and some days I want o track him down and drag him back here while insulting his intelligence. "
"Can we?" Bonnie's eyes brightened.
"Spike wouldn't appreciate it." Xander looked at his daughter's hopeful expression. "But who knows—if he's not back in a year, maybe we can. You could do a tracking spell, couldn't you?" Xander turned to Tara.
She smiled at them. "It wouldn't be easy with a vampire. Most tracking spells use life force, but I bet Bonnie and I could go through the books and find the right spell." Tara's words made Bonnie bounce on her chair.
She turned to Xander. "You can make him be okay with being dragged home, Daddy," Bonnie said with confidence. "You can make the slayer lady be nice to him."
Xander leaned back in his chair and exchanged a look with Tara before he focused on Bonnie again. "I can't make Buffy do much of anything."
Bonnie didn't look as happy at that.
"Do you want to help me pick pizza toppings?" Tara asked. Bonnie's face lit up and she slid off her chair to head over to where Tara was holding out the toppings menu. Xander flinched because Bonnie did pick some revolting combination. Funny, Xander remembered the day when he ate anything on a pizza, but these days, pineapple and asparagus should not ever touch the same pizza. Actually, asparagus just shouldn't touch pizza at all.
Bonnie studied the menu intensely, and Xander went back to pacing. The two halves of his life were about to collide, and he was on the verge of developing an ulcer. The doorbell rang, and Xander jumped-his heart pounding painfully. Okay, he could do this. Xander headed for the door and plastered a smile on his face before opening the door. "Hey!" He greeted Buffy and Willow who stood on his porch with overly wide smiles.
"Hey," Willow echoed.
"Way to be responsible home-owning man," Buffy said.
"I thought I'd grow up. It seemed better than the alternative." Xander had meant that as a joke, but Buffy and Willow just stared blankly at him. Clearly he'd missed the funny.
"Willow," Tara whispered from behind Xander. Xander could hear the hunger and fear in her voice, and Willow ducked her head.
"Hey," Willow answered, sounding as unsure as the ninth grade girl who had blushed every time Jesse said 'sex.' When Xander stepped back to let them in, Willow drifted toward Tara. "I tried calling to see if you needed a ride over." Tara ducked her head, but she didn't volunteer the fact that she was living with Xander. "Oh," Willow said in surprise. Bonnie appeared from behind Tara's legs. "Hi there." Willow gave Bonnie a bright smile. Instead of smiling back, Bonnie looked over at Xander, her cheeks darkening.
"Honey, this is Willow," Xander said. He walked over to the couch, sat down, and held out his hand. Bonnie darted to his side and stood with both hands clinging to his arm. "Willow, this is Bonnie."
"Hi," Willow said again.
"Please to meet you," Bonnie offered, her childlike voice very formal. Willow's smile faded a little, and for a second, Xander thought she was going to correct Bonnie's grammar. She didn't.
"And this is Buffy," Xander said.
"Hey." Buffy kept her greeting pretty casual and dropped into a chair. "You look like Xander."
"You're the slayer," Bonnie announced. That seemed to catch Buffy off guard.
"Where's Dawn?" Xander asked quickly.
Buffy turned to look toward the door and frowned. "I don't know. She just needed to grab something out of the trunk, but she was right behind us." She got up and headed for the door. She was almost there when Dawn came charging through the still open door.
"Hi! Oh my God, Xander, you should have told me that you had a really cute boy living next door."
"I do?" Xander sat up and tried to figure out which house Dawn might be talking about, because this might be really, really bad.
"Yeah. The house next door with the blond boy. He's so sweet. He offered me a piece of gum."
Xander cringed. Oh yes, this was going to be bad.
"And what's this boy's name?" Buffy asked suspiciously. After Dawn had accidentally dated the vampire, Buffy had gotten a little paranoid, and Xander just didn't have the heart to point out that Dawn hadn't dated half the psychopaths the rest of them had.
Dawn shrugged. "I don't know. I was busy looking into his blue eyes. So, you must be Xander's daughter. I would kill for those curls. I used to have a crush on Xander so bad, and I swear it's the way his curls look when he needs a haircut and then he gets them messed up. I'm Dawn." Dawn introduced herself to Bonnie and then turned back to Buffy, seemingly without noticing that Bonnie was clinging to her father's arm more than ever. "And you can just stop being so overprotective," Dawn told Buffy.
"I'm your sister. It's protective, not over-protective."
"Are you going to kill Halvard?" Bonnie asked, her eyes focused on Buffy. For a second, the entire room seemed to freeze. Willow and Tara were standing in the arch to the kitchen, Buffy was standing near the chair she'd claimed, and Dawn was next to her, and they were all looking at Bonnie.
"Um, I wasn't planning on it," Buffy said with a confused look at Xander. "I don't kill people."
Bonnie cocked her head to the side, and Xander had that feeling like when you see your soda going over, and you know you're about to get ice cold Coke all down your shirt and in your lap and you just can't do anything to stop it.
"You're the slayer, and they kill people like us."
And yes, that would be the soda hitting. "Honey," Xander said in the awkward silence that followed, "Buffy focuses on bad vampires and people who try to end the world."
"So, she wouldn't kill Halvert?" Bonnie turned to look at him.
"Of course she wouldn't," Xander said, and he was praying for two things. One, that he was right, and two, that Bonnie would just change the topic.
"I thought maybe because he was a krakonos that the slayer would just kill him because he wasn't human. Grandmother always said that slayers came from human magic where humanity was trying to push the native people of Earth off into other dimensions, and that they didn't care if people were good or bad, only if they were human or demon."
Xander's stomach developed three ulcers, but Bonnie just looked over at Buffy. "But my grandmother was wrong about a lot of things. She said Daddy was a worthless pile of meat."
"She did?" Buffy sounded almost winded.
"So, he's a demon?" Dawn asked. "He's so cute."
"He can do this thing where he grows wings and he makes shadow puppets real good," Bonnie added with a smile.
"He's actually a really good kid," Xander said with a weak smile. Right now, an attacking horde would earn his eternal gratitude if it would only pick his house.
"Krakonos are peaceful," Tara offered. "They can call up fogs or snows to protect their secrets, and legend says they're keepers of medicine and magic that they share only with people who have a pure heart."
"Cool." Dawn sat on the opposite end of the couch from Xander. "But knowing Sister Worrywart over here, she won't let me date a demon."
"I never said that." Buffy's gaze flicked over toward Bonnie who was watching with wide eyes. What had made Xander think for even one second that this was a good idea?
"So I can date him?" Dawn sat up and gave Buffy a smile that was either excited or manipulative... Xander couldn't figure it out.
"Hey, you have a spell oven," Willow said in an overly bright tone of voice. She practically fled into the kitchen, and Tara followed her. Xander might have gotten cranky with Willow, but she was living with Buffy and Dawn, so he supposed she had a right to avoid one more sibling fight.
"I didn't say you can date him. I don't even know him."
"But you don't want me dating him?"
"I didn't say that." Buffy threw her hands up and turned on Xander. "Did I say that?"
"She did too, didn't she?" Dawn demanded. Xander stared at them both with his mouth open. Okay, this would be why Willow had fled.
"So, the pizza should be here soon. Any oddities in the toppings are not my fault. So, the school is well on its way to being a school again instead of a pile of rocks. And can I say that it's a little weird to get paid to build something when I was the one who blew it up in the first place? Have to love those soldier memories."
"That is too cool," Dawn said, following him onto the new topic. "I wish I could tell everyone that my family blew up the school. Actually, you'd think they'd know since you weren't exactly secretive, but people really are blind when it comes to mayors turning into giant snakes." Dawn leaned in toward Bonnie. "Has Xander told you that story?"
Bonnie nodded. "Daddy and the slayer blew him up."
"Yep, they did." Dawn smiled. "So, do you have your own room? When I was your age, Mom made me and Buffy share, and I don't think I ever recovered from the trama."
"You didn't recover?" Buffy demanded, her voice incredulous.
Bonnie looked at Xander with wide eyes and shadowed cheeks, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. "It's okay," he told her. "They aren't like most company. They're more like clan, so you can show them downstairs. In fact, it might be a good idea if Dawn knew where the entrance to tunnels were, just in case." Xander felt a twinge when he realized that they'd have to go into Spike's room to see that.
Bonnie smiled and turned to Dawn. "I'll show you." She finally let go of Xander's arm and headed for the stairs.
"Cool." Dawn turned to Buffy and gave her a not-nice smile. "Don't go killing anyone when I'm gone, oh great slayer of native people of Earth."
Buffy stiffened, but before she could say anything back, Bonnie and Dawn were through the door to the basement levels. Sagging back into the chair, Buffy closed her eyes. "I swear, I'm going to kill her and hide the body. Some days she's great, but other days, she's this giant pain in my ass. I think it's pretty clear which one she's being today."
It was oddly comforting that Xander's demon daughter didn't even cause a big enough ripple in the water for Buffy to make a comment.
"You're trying to be mom and sister. It's easier when you only have to be the parent," Xander said.
Buffy opened her eyes. "Huh. Xander Harris, father extraordinaire. That's a little bit cool. Or a lot." She smiled at him. "So, how's the father thing going for you, and where did you get this house because I'm feeling whole lots of materialistic jealousy here."
Xander looked around at the intricate carvings on the exposed beams and the hand plastering work with niches built into the thick walls. The floors had some sort of hard wood with a waving grain that made Xander suspect it might be from some demon dimension because it wasn't in any of his woodworking books. "It is nice, huh?"
"Only totally awesome. I'd get up to see what made Willow so excited about your kitchen, but Dawn has sapped all energy from me, so I'm here until someone feeds me pizza," Buffy said as she spread out her arms so they'd dangle over the sides of the chair. "How'd you find this place?"
"It's a funny story," Xander said as he thought back over the past year. " You know about the night with the hyena, but I guess the story of this house started about a year ago." Xander leaned back on the couch and thought back to how much life had changed in the last year, and how much his view of the world had changed, too. "It started with Spike and a little blackmail, but I guess that's not surprising considering this is Spike we're talking about..."
This would be the end of my season six. However, I will have an abbreviated season seven as part of this same fic because I want the slash, dammit. What is up with my boys lately? They just don't seem to get in bed on cue.
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