The Cost of Butterfly Kisses

[lit_gal]

The Cost of Butterfly Kisses, Part 26

Fandom/Pairing: BtVS, Spike/Xander
Rated: ADULT

SPURTING AHEAD    SPURTING AHEAD
Summary: The events of season seven keep coming, even when the crew is doing everything they can to head it off.  Since the First's attack on Xander failed, it's time to make a new plan.

Fanart: There is a really awesome piece of fanart (worksafe) over at sutekh_nubt's website here: http://sutekh-nubt.livejournal.com/3156.html

(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 )  ( Chapter 22 )  ( Chapter 23 )  ( Chapter 24 ) ( Chapter 25 )

Chapter 26

After he hung up the phone, Xander groaned as he looked at the clock. Five a.m. His alarm would be going off in fifteen minutes anyway. Swinging his legs over the side of his bed, he rested his head in his hands and wondered how much longer he could keep doing this. Fighting evil had been a lot easier when he’d been a couple of years younger. Between trying to spend time with Bonnie and working and answering Buffy’s five a.m. calls, he felt like shit. But she had to be feeling worse. In three hours, she had to be at school dealing with all hormonal teenagers. You couldn’t pay Xander enough to deal with that. No thank you—he preferred missing concrete deliveries and idiots who couldn't read code or an architect's plans.

"Something wrong?" Spike asked. Xander looked up to see Spike standing in the doorway to Xander’s bedroom. Xander flopped back so he was laying sideways on his bed, his feet still on the floor.

"Buffy called."

"Couldn’t be good news this early."

"She said to keep an eye on you," Xander said as he stared at his ceiling. It really was too damn early for him to deal with any of this. Spike came over and sat on the corner of Xander’s bed.

"Why? Does she think I’m going to burst into flame or something?" Spike smelled of cigarette and whiskey, two things Xander didn’t want to face at five in the morning.

"You stink."

"Sod off, Harris."

"It’s my bedroom."

Spike shoved at Xander’s leg as he took up more space on the bed. Xander tilted his head up and glared, and Spike was looking at him with pursed lips. "Nice erection, pet," he offered.

"Fuck off." Xander grabbed a sheet and pulled it over his crotch to hide his morning erection. Spike laughed. Spike’s odd habit of showing up in his bedroom had started after their encounter with the not-K’wani. Xander never would have guessed it, but Spike was a mother hen. Okay, maybe Xander would have guessed it because Spike always had fussed over Dru, but Xander never expected Spike to fuss over him. "So, who’ve you pissed off lately that you have Buffy all twisted up?" Xander asked. He pushed himself up so he was sitting next to Spike. Laying down with Spike sitting on his bed was actually a little disturbing if Xander thought about it too long.

Shrugging, Spike shifted so he gave Xander more room to sit up. "No idea, pet. Most of the demon community would like to see me dead."

"Yeah, well I’m not thinking highly of the demon community right now."

"Bloody hell, pet. It’s not like Bonnie's folk are particularly evil. K’wani’s mother was just a heartless bitch, a little like your mother, pet."

"My mother never got me killed," Xander muttered. His stomach still soured every time he thought about the fact that K’wani’s mother had taken her away only to let her die. Xander should have shot the old bat. Maybe they could get K’wani’s mother and all the men from Tara’s family, lock them in a warehouse and then set the thing on fire.

"She led the danger away from her girl…. That’s what mothers do."

"She should have just shot her mother."

Spike didn’t answer immediately. "You remember what it felt like to have the demon in you, pet?"

"I know I had an overwhelming urge to bite things, but I’m pretty sure I still wouldn’t have killed my daughter, if I had one at the time."

"Didn’t you ever feel the need to follow someone, even when you thought they were bloody idiots? Even when you were pretty sure their idiocy was going to get you killed?"

Xander frowned and studied Spike. The light the spilled in from the hallway, but it wasn’t enough for Xander to really see Spike’s expression. Xander rubbed a hand across his face. "Sadly, the only thing I remember is a whole lot of aggravation. I was aggravated that Buffy kicked my ass and then didn’t seem interested in it, and I would never admit this if I weren’t sleep deprived, but I was even aggravated that the others ate Principal Flutie without me."

Spike frowned at him.

"What?" Xander demanded.

For a half-second, something was there in Spike's face—some disbelief or surprise, but then the expression just vanished. "Just noticing your overwhelming stink," Spike said with a nasty smirk. Xander sighed. Yeah, Spike was hiding something, but he had no illusions about being able to get information out of a reluctant Spike.

"It’s harder to notice from your own bedroom," Xander suggested. Getting up, he grabbed his robe off the floor and rubbed a hand over his face. More and more workers were vanishing from the worksite, so Xander was guessing the shit was about to hit the fan demonically speaking. It was funny; the people of Sunnydale were blind, but when things really started getting dangerous, they’d just start drifting away. Most of the parents hadn’t even shown up for graduation when the mayor when all snaky. It was like some inner sense told them something was in the dark hunting them even as they refused to believe in monsters than lurked in the dark.

"So, did Buffy give you any hints about why you’re supposed to watch me?" Spike asked.

Xander tied his robe’s tie and headed out into the hall. His first stop was Bonnie’s room. He cracked the door open and peeked in on her. She was sound asleep with one arm hanging over the edge of the bed. Spike stayed quiet as Xander pulled her door closed and then headed for the bathroom. Toothbrush next. Xander felt like a gerbil died in his mouth.

"Nope. She was just really clear that I was supposed to keep an eye on you." Xander said.

"Sounds ominous." Spike started to say something else, but Xander closed the door on him. He might be more comfortable around Spike post-soul, but a man wanted a little privacy when it came to peeing.

"Oi!" Spike shouted from the other side, but then he fell silent. Xander turned the shower on to heat up and hoped that he hadn’t woken Bonnie up. She was cranky in the morning, and as much as he loved his daughter, he really didn’t want to be around her when she was grumpy. She tended to get a little brutally honest when she was grumpy.

Showering quickly, he slipped into the clothes he’d set out on the counter the night before. Hopefully Buffy would be quick and he could get to work and figure out how many men had called in or just flat-out quit. Xander opened the bathroom door and let a cloud of steam escape into the hall. Spike was nowhere to be seen, so Xander headed up to the first floor. If he’d just gotten home, he’d be going for the blood.

Spike wasn’t in the kitchen, but Tara was. When Xander walked in, she stood looking at him with wide eyes, her hand reaching for the door to the basement just as Xander came out. "Hey," Xander said. He smiled, but Tara's face was just sort of frozen in shock. For a half-second, Xander thought something was really wrong. Then he frowned as he noticed her blue shirt. "Isn’t that what you were wearing last night?" he asked. Tara blushed deep red, which was a 'yes.'

"Oh. So, you’re casting spells together again, are you?" Xander wiggled his eyebrows. Tara’s blush deepened.

"We were talking. I fell asleep."

"Talking," Xander said with a knowing nod. "Is that what those crazy kids are calling it these days?"

"I—" Tara stopped and aimed a mock punch at Xander’s arm. "We’re going slow. It’s hard to rebuild the trust, so we’re just… we’re not up to casting spells again," Tara finished.

"Yeah, I get that. I kind of hate that I have this little flinch when Willow walks past a spell book. She’s my best friend, but—"

"You love her without trusting her," Tara said softly. She ducked her head, and Xander wondered if any of them would ever get over the damage they’d done to each other in the last year. It was funny, but Spike and Glorificus and Angelus and the mayor had all tried to destroy them, and none of them had done as good of a job as they’d done on each other.

Xander brushed his fingers over the back of her hand, a quick touch. "Seriously, I hope you two can work things out without a repeat of the whole mind-wiping, magic-abusing parts of the relationship."

Tara‘s mouth quirked into a grim smile. "Me, too. I do love her, and I think she's starting to really understand that we have to go slower—that I have to really trust her to get through disagreements and fights without resorting to magic. But right now, we aren't fighting much, so...."

"So you already trust her to be a good girlfriend through the good times, and you're waiting until you see the bad," Xander concluded. He could understand that. "I was the opposite. When times were bad, I stuck with Anya, proposing so she would feel the love she needed so much at a time when we were at our lowest. But I sucked at the good times."

"You weren't that bad," Tara disagreed.

"Yeah, yeah I was. I was always telling her how she should act and I didn't even trust her enough to tell her about my daughter, which really says something. I just wasn't good at just being with Anya when there weren't demons breaking down the door. So, you need give your relationship with Willow some time to see how it goes, good time and bad. That's fair."

Tara stepped closer and slipped her hand in his as she smiled at him. "You're the most loyal man I know. You're loving and warm and willing to give yourself to everyone you love. You will find the right relationship, someone who knows all your secrets, and then it'll be right in good times and bad."

Xander wasn't sure why, but he could feel his eyes sting a little at her softly spoken, but confident, proclamation. He wanted someone. Since Anya had formally invited them all to not come back to the Magic Box unless they were making purchases, he'd felt cut off from the part of himself that even looked at girls. Maybe it was his daughter or the fact that he was distracted by the latest evil from below, or maybe it was that he just didn't know how to reach out to people who weren't in his group.

Instead of getting into any of that, he asked her, "Aren’t you up a little early?" Xander headed for the coffeepot. "You were trying to time it so I’d be in the shower, weren’t you? And here I thought you were the innocent one."

"Not that innocent," Tara said with just a bit of coy in her expression. "However, you’re ahead of schedule today."

"Well, Buffy called and said she was coming over. Something about keeping an eye on Spike, so I’m up a little early."

"Buffy’s coming?" Tara’s eyes got even larger, and then she turned and bolted for the basement stairs.

Xander shook his head and headed for the refrigerator. Since he was up early, he might as well make himself some eggs. Eyeing the carton Xander thought about Buffy. If she’d been out all night slaying something bigger than usual, she was going to be ready to eat a whole herd of horses. He pulled out the entire carton and set it next to the stove as he went in search of a pan and bowl. Clem seemed to have some sort of religious objection to putting dishes back in the same place. He’d tried to explain it to Xander, but all Xander could get out of it was that Clem’s people were anal retentive about being reverse anal retentive. Putting things in the same place was somehow a taboo. A demonic psychologist could make a fortune around here. Or not. Clem didn’t seem all that interested in changing, so Xander had gotten used to the endless search for dishes.

He found a bowl behind two bags of flour and the pan was propped up in narrow cabinet where Tara kept several magic books. The neighbor’s dog started barking like mad just as Xander started cracking the eggs on the side of the bowl.

A key scraped in the lock. "Xander?" Buffy shouted from the small mudroom that connected the kitchen to the backyard.

"Here, Buff," Xander answered. He started cracking eggs faster. Buffy came in the back door with a wild look in her eye.

"Where’s Spike?"

"His room, probably."

"I told you to keep an eye on him!" Buffy sounded like she was pretty close to a snapping point, and Xander stopped cracking eggs so he could really look at her.

"Buff?"

"Was he home last night?"

"No. Creature of the night, you know."

"Do you know where he went?"

"Out creaturing maybe. I don’t know. Why?"

"I should go get him." Buffy turned toward the basement stairs, and Xander felt a momentary twinge of anxiety at the thought of her going into the basement. Those lower levels were for family, and Xander had no idea when Buffy had stopped being family, but he just didn’t want her down there. Maybe their year of secrets had left deeper scars than he’d realized, but he hurried to follow her, searching his brain for some plausible excuse to keep her out of the bedroom level.

"Should go get who, luv?" Spike asked as he came up from the basement. Buffy jerked back, and Spike froze in place.

"I was-- I mean. Where have you been?" Buffy finally blurted out.

Spike looked over to Xander for some sort of explanation, but Xander could only shrug. "Right here," Spike said.

"All night?"

Spike made a little huffing noise and headed for the coffee. "Not bloody likely. Went out to find a little action."

"Um, Buffy," Xander said, "you’re really freaking me out here. What’s going on?"

Buffy looked from one of them to the other, and Xander could feel a cold panic start to stir in his stomach. "Holden Webster." She blurted the name out and then stared at Spike. Spike stared back at her, the silence grew so long that Xander started to fidget.

"Webs? The guy from school?" Xander asked.

"You remember him?"

Xander shrugged. "Well, yeah. He had a massive crush on Harmony, but I'm pretty sure that was because he had no chance at getting her. He was the skinny guy who sat near you in that class where I never listened to the teacher."

Spike gave up on the coffee and turned to face Xander and Buffy. "I thought that described all your classes," Spike pointed out. The soul had definitely not slowed down his ability to insult. This time, though, he was right.

"True, but this teacher had a big picture of swords on the wall. I once impressed Giles with my ability to tell a broadsword from a schiavonna because I stared at the picture when I wasn’t busy staring at Cordelia’s boobs."

"Classy, pet," Spike said with more sarcasm than usual.

"Okay, you two can stop being weirdly friendly any time now," Buffy said. "Holden’s dead."

Xander’s smile faded. "Way to bring the unhappy. Was he killed tonight?"

"He rose tonight." Buffy was back to staring at Spike.

"Wot?" Spike finally demanded.

"Doesn’t his name mean anything to you?"

With a snort, Spike turned away from them and headed for the cupboard. "Wasn’t paying attention to your mates when you lot were in school." Xander might have made a joke about Spike being more focused on trying to kill them, but after he’d opened his mouth, he decided against it. Yeah, Spike hadn’t been acting crazy for quite a while, but every once in a while, he’d get this far away look in his eye or he’d flinch at a shadow. Murder jokes were probably not in the best taste.

"So, doesn’t that name mean anything to you?" Buffy followed Spike to the cupboard where he kept his Jack Daniels. Despite Clem’s habit of moving everything in the kitchen, Spike’s booze and Tara’s magic books never moved. Xander suspected threats were involved.

"Nope," Spike agreed.

"He said you sired him." Buffy’s blurted out words seemed to make the whole room freeze, like time got stuck or something, which wasn’t totally out of the question given they were on the hellmouth.

"Spike?" Xander finally asked, his voice squeaking a bit at the end. Spike was staring at Buffy with shocked eyes, so Xander was guessing that was a clear ‘no chance in hell.’

"Why would a vampire lie about who sired him?" Xander demanded. "What’s that? Some kind of status symbol for the undead? My sire can beat up your sire?"

"Bloody right it’s status--as long as the sire actually claims you as opposed to just treating you like cannon fodder," Spike said, his voice oddly distant. "But I didn’t bloody sire anyone. I can’t. The chip would fry my brain from the inside."

Xander didn’t say anything, but he suddenly wondered if American technology was really up to par. Spike had proved that he could hurt Buffy. "So, would a vampire lie about who sired him?" Xander asked again, only this time he looked at Spike for an answer. From the sour expression on Spike’s face, it was pretty clear they wouldn’t.

"A new-risen fledge shouldn’t risk me hearing him boast, because I’d rip his soddin’ intestines out through his nose. But clearly this git was stupider than most." Spike pulled out his Jack Daniels and took a drink right from the bottle. Xander looked at Buffy, worried that Spike was hedging his bets with his answer. With the bottle still in his hand, Spike headed for the stairs. "I’m going to turn in before I drop. ‘Night kiddies." Buffy still had her mouth open to say something when he vanished down the stairs with superhuman speed.

"Well, crap," Buffy said. Xander agreed--that hadn’t gone all that well. "The sun's coming up. I need to get home and check on Dawn. We need to keep an eye on Spike."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. When you say we you mean me. And me's got go to work. I got a big client meeting in a couple of hours, and I know I’m going to have all sorts of workers missing. The rats are starting to leave the ship, which makes me think we’ve sprung a leak somewhere."

"Xander, this is serious. We cannot let him leave this house until we know if he's killing again. We need to find someone that can watch him."

"I’ll ask Tara to keep an eye on him until Clem gets here," Xander said as he headed for the basement door.

"Tara?" Buffy’s voice was sharp enough to catch Xander’s attention. He turned to look at her. "Tara’s here?" Buffy demanded.

Xander’s brain went into Defcon One as he realized he’d let that slip out. While his brain went spinning around like a gerbil on a wheel, Buffy’s eyes got big.

"She lives here," Buffy blurted out. "That’s why she has the answering machine at the dorm room. She’s not there."

"She just needs a little space from Willow."

"So she has to lie about where she lives?" Buffy demanded. Xander sighed and silently cursed himself out. He was clearly an idiot. "I thought we decided to get rid of all the secrets." Buffy put her hands on her hips.

"Hey, this is not a secret. It’s more something that hasn’t been mentioned up until now."

"Not mentioned? The way I didn’t mention sleeping with Spike and the way you didn’t mention having a daughter?"

"No, more the way you don’t mention your home address when you first start dating someone or the way you and Riley didn’t mention being demon hunters the first time you went out for ice cream."

Buffy blinked at him, and Xander had the feeling he was about to get totally blasted. It was too damn early in the morning for this, but he’d rather have Buffy go off on him than Tara. "She’s hiding from Willow!"

"She’s going slow with Willow. Mind-wiping, magical roofies, and manipulation, oh my," Xander sign-songed. Buffy’s face turned hard.

"That’s not fair."

"As someone who had his daughter magically erased from his brain, I’m thinking it is," Xander said.

"So, you want me to lie and keep secrets," Buffy concluded.

"Nope, I want you to not mention this since I’m an idiot and I fail at the not-mentioning things. But if she asks if Tara is living here, I wouldn’t lie to her. I’m just trying to be big-old staying out of it boy."

"You don’t trust Willow." Her voice was flat.

Xander had to think about that for a second. He loved Willow. He loved her almost as much as he loved Bonnie, and more than he loved anyone else, but did he trust her? "I’m trying to," he finally said.

Chewing on her lip, Buffy just looked at him with such deep sorrow etched in her expression that Xander wanted to just erase it all. The problem was, he didn’t know how. He didn’t know what he could say to make all the messiness of the last year go away. "I really, really want to trust her," Xander added.

Buffy sighed. "This is never going to be over."

"What?"

"The drama. The consequences for screwing up."

Xander thought about that for a second. "Maybe it will. Maybe we just need to give it more time."

"Uh huh. Look, tell Tara to call me if he stirs from the house."

"Will do," Xander agreed. He looked over at the counter at the cracked eggs waiting for some cheerful breakfast where they all sat and discussed the latest big-bad while tossing jokes around the table. It had been a nice fantasy. "So, do you want some eggs," he offered weakly.

Buffy looked over at the mess. "Nah, I should get home to Dawn."

"Sure. I’ll see you later?" Xander asked.

"Sure." Buffy tossed the answer off quickly, but then she stopped and took a step toward him. "We’ll be okay, right?"

Xander opened his arms and Buffy came to him, hugging him a little harder than human ribs appreciated. "We’re totally be okay. Hey, if there’s a big bad on the horizon, that’s good. We always pull together in the face of big-badness."

"That’s true," Buffy said, her voice muffled by his shoulder. For long seconds, they held onto each other, and then Buffy loosened her grip. "I should get home to Dawn. She’s probably freaking by now."

"Well, Tara will call you the second Spike stirs, and if some vampire is impersonating Spike, look at it this way, we’ll get the joy of watching Spike pull the thing apart limb from limb."

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "He would, too."

"Hell, yes."

"Are you sure you’re okay with him here?"

That was another of those questions that Xander had to think about. Worst case scenario, Spike had found a way to kill. Weirdly, Xander was pretty sure Spike wouldn’t kill him and he was absolutely sure Bonnie was safe. Tara was somewhere in between, safer than him but Xander could imagine a world where a chipless Spike might strike out at Tara with all her powers.

"I’ll warn Tara to be careful," Xander promised.

Buffy nodded. "I guess that’s the best we can do."

"Yep," Xander agreed. Without any more words, Buffy turned and headed toward the back door, leaving Xander with a whole bunch of raw eggs in a bowl. "I guess I’m having scrambled eggs for breakfast and lunch." The clock warned that he was late, and Xander slammed the pan on the burner to heat up before making a dash to Tara’s room to warn her that they might just have a problem.