The Cost of Butterfly Kisses

[lit_gal]

The Cost of Butterfly Kisses, Part 31
Fandom/Pairing: BtVS, Spike/Xander
Rated: ADULT


Summary: Spike is out of the chair--and in this world, the First never captured him--but that doesn't change the fact that bad stuff is coming.



(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 ) ( Chapter 27 ) ( Chapter 28 ) ( Chapter 29 )  ( Chapter 30 )

Chapter 31

Spike got just inside the bedroom door before throwing himself at the wall, his hands clutched to his head.

"Spike?" Xander ran to his side and caught Spike around the waist, half afraid that he was about to go crashing to the ground.

"Bloody hell, I'm fine." Spike tried shoving his hands away only to fall to one knee.

"Oh yeah, you're doing really fine. Stop being an ass, Spike." Xander heaved him up onto the bed.

"It's passing."

"Is this a 'the First is telling you to slaughter us all' kind of pain or a 'damn I haven't been drinking enough blood' kind of pain?"

"Neither," Spike lay on his back in the middle of the bed. "Why's your shit in my room?"

"Because it's the only room with a private bathroom, and in case you haven't noticed, we're the only guys in a house full of girls…. Well, except for Giles, and I'm still a little pissed with him so I'm not counting him. I need to have a bathroom that doesn't threaten to suffocate me with the glorious stink of hairspray in the morning."

"So you took over my room?" Spike was looking unhappy at that…. Not homicidally unhappy, but more like the dog that got kicked unhappy, which was an expression that just did not belong on Spike's face.

"No, I moved in with you. Would you rather share a room with me or listen to the drama that will follow if Dawn and Buffy have to share? Personally, I happen to think life is too short to put up Summers drama."

Spike snorted. "Bloody right."

"So, we're back to what kind of pain you're having."

"I'm fine, Harris."

Xander didn't even bother to answer that. If Spike started calling him by his last name, Xander knew one of two things: either Xander had just done something stupid or Spike was about to do something even stupidier.

"Sod off," Spike suggested when Xander continued to just look at him. When Xander still didn't budge, Spike pushed himself up and stripped off his shirt. "Going to stay for the floor show then, are we?" he asked with a salacious wiggle of his eyebrows. Xander could feel himself turn instantly red, his face burning.

Staring at the ceiling, Xander still refused to leave. "Something is hurting you, and I'm not leaving until you 'fess up. Unless you physically push me out, but if you do that, I'll just go get Buffy," Xander added when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

Spike sighed loudly. "You're a berk, Harris."

"Even without knowing what that means, I'm going to agree," Xander said. "So, what's up with the pain?"

That got an even louder sigh out of Spike. "Chip's firing."

Xander looked at Spike in horror. "The chip?The pain chip? It's just… just going zap for no reason?"

Spike shrugged.

"Well, shit. That's what they get for buying American," Xander said. "We need to tell Buffy."

"Why?" Spike asked.

Xander stared at him, his mouth open.

"She can't do anything, luv. This would just be one more burden for her to carry."

"And if you drop dead? Deader?"

Spike shrugged again. "Then you don't have to worry about the First using some soddin' trigger to turn me into his bitch."

Again, Xander was left just wordless for several long seconds as his whole image of Spike did a total and complete 180. Self-sacrifice and emo were not the first words Xander would have associated with Spike. "That's like curing the flu with a bullet to the brain."

"It's just the truth."

Xander couldn't even gather his thoughts well enough to answer that—it was just that stupid. Stupid and melodramatic and way more worthy of a hormonal pre-slayer than a century old vampire. "So, you're just going to brood yourself to death? Hey, I'll call Angel and you can show him how a real vampire does emo and brooding." Xander crossed his arms and didn't even flinch when Spike flashed into game face and snarled at him. "Forget it, fangless. I am not intimidated by a drama-queen, teeny-bopper, suicidal vampire waiting to die."

Spike leaped forward and caught Xander by the shirt and slammed him back into the wall. Gasping for air, Xander clawed at Spike's shoulders as Spike snarled and twitched, the chip going off. "You're frying your brain, dimwit."

Suddenly Xander found himself flying across the room and landing on the bed on his back. Spike followed and pinned him down, and for a brief, blindingly panicked moment, Xander really thought he was about to get eaten. Then Spike sort of collapsed on the bed next to him. They both lay panting heavily, the sound of their gasping breaths filling the room.

"Soddin' little shit. Calling me Angel was a low blow."

Xander struggled to catch his breath and stared at the ceiling. "Consider it shock therapy."

"Prat."

"Are you over the epic brood?"

"Shut your gob," Spike snarled.

"I'll take that as a 'yes.' So, clearly we need to get your chip fixed or out or whatever you do with chips that aren't being chip-like. So, if you're done being a goober, I'm getting Buffy."Xander groaned as he considered getting up. Roughhousing with Spike was a little on the stupid side.

"You okay?" Spike asked.

"Just bruised and reminded once again that human strength is pretty much not strong," Xander admitted.

Spike snorted.

"And it is me or is it a little weird that we're laying on a bed together?"

"My head hurts too much to care," Spike answered. "We could take care of this without Buffy. The Initiative had some good drugs. When the soldier boys got a little too enthusiastic, they'd give me this shite that made everything hearts and puppies for a while."

"Do I want to know what you mean by too enthusiastic?"

"Hell no," Spike quickly answered.

Xander sighed and thought back to his youth when he honestly believed that demon meant evil and human generally meant good. He'd been an idiot. "The drug won't stop your brain from getting fried."

"It'll buy us some time," Spike countered.

"Um… not really. Let me repeat this slower: your brain will still be getting fried."

Spike didn't have an answer for that, and they lay on the bed, their breathing slowing. Spike twitched again, and Xander wondered if the chip had fired again or if he was suffering through the aftereffects. "So, we tell Buffy," Xander said. Yeah, Buffy couldn't do much, but Willow and Tara might be able to come up with something or they might be able to call Riley and see if the Initiative had a mad scientist in the area or…. Or they were going to watch Spike die. That was bitter in Xander's mouth, and yeah, he saw the irony in that. At one point he wanted Spike dead. Not now. Not like this. They'd lost people in battle—Ms. Calendar and Kendra and even Faith had, in a way, been lost in battle, but the idea of losing someone slowly scared the shit out of him.

"You okay, mate?" Spike asked. He sat up and swung his legs off the bed.

"Peachy," Xander answered. "Would more human blood help you heal?"

"You volunteering?"

"I have volunteered, dork. Who do you think has been spiking your O negative cow?"

"You, Tara and Buffy," Spike said simply. Xander sat up and looked at Spike, surprised for a second. Well, Tara didn't surprise him because they were family. Even back when Buffy and Willow were doing their whole dark quest thing, the three of them had been the left-behinds, the normal ones trying to find a way to just exist—well, except that Spike wasn't exactly normal. But if Buffy was slipping her blood into the cow supply, he was guessing that she'd had come to terms with what Spike had done.

"Well, we're tired of hearing you complain about the lack of fine dining," Xander said. "So, would going to Willie's and getting you a steady supply of human help?"

Spike shrugged. "Some, not much. It's not just the fact that it's cow blood, pet. Vampires are used to drinking from the source when the blood is still rich with life."

"I'm not volunteering for that." Oh hell no. Especially not after the way he reacted the last time Spike bit him. He'd always thought he was pretty vanilla when it came to sex, but having a feral Spike holding him so close that he could smell the musk of his skin and then having Spike drink from him.... Well, it had made him question a flavor choice or two. When Spike had been sucking, Xander had been equal parts terrified and horny. Back when Riley had been letting vamps drink from him, Xander thought the man had lost his mind. Now maybe Xander understood the reason why he would do that.

"You didn't seem to mind that much last time, luv."

Xander glared at Spike. It was like he was reading Xander's mind or something. "Yeah, dream on drama-boy. Buffy will get this fixed and then that will be the last you taste of Xander blood pudding."

Spike's eyebrow twitched like a telegraph that seemed to say that it knew Xander was lying. However, this was not the time to deal with Xander's issues. Getting to his feet, Xander headed out the bedroom door. A dozen potentials had gathered outside his room.

"Are you okay?" the annoying one asked, her glare finding Spike. Spike was just pulling his shirt on, and Xander was suddenly hyper aware of the fact they were both flushed and rumpled.

"Oh, they look just fine to me," another said.

"We were just—" Xander stopped. What had they been doing? Fighting, yes, but not in the way the girls would take it if he said fighting.

"Oh, we can tell what you were doing." One of the girls elbowed her friend, and Xander gritted his teeth.

"That's gross. He's a vampire. That makes him like a dead body."

"A really hot dead body."

Xander ignored them all. God, if he'd been half this annoying when he was young, maybe he could understand why Giles got so frustrated. Instead of snapping at them, Xander headed for the stairs.

"Now, pet, don't be like that!" Spike called after him, teasing. Xander just walked faster. If Spike wasn't already suffering from the chip misfiring, Xander would be tempted to push him down a couple of flights of stairs. Behind him, Spike laughed.

Xander hit the first basement and headed for his old bedroom. "Buffy?" he called, knocking on the door.

"Xander?" Next door, Dawn opened her door and Bonnie peered around her.

"Hey, there you guys are." Xander smiled at them. Bonnie had taken his suggestion that she give Dawn a chance as some sort of order. He wasn't sure that was exactly the best thing because it meant she was hiding all her emotions, but when he'd tried to explain that he wanted her to forgive Dawn but that he was okay with her still being angry, he had just managed to confused the crap out of her. Yep, that was his special power: confusion.

"Clem was just torturing us with the history of crusades."

"It's interesting," Bonnie disagreed, but then Xander was pretty sure she was disagreeing on the principle of it, even if she was doing her best to play nice.

"I would hope so," Clem said from inside. "The history of the Buta clans' involvement in the battle over Alexandria is one of the great turning points in the human/demon world. I mean, before that, the demon communities lived openly, but after the Muslims and Christians were…"

"Clem, I love that you're so good at what you do, but seriously, I failed history the first time around. I'm not really cut out for it," Xander interrupted.

"You lot were too busy killing nasties to worry about rot like that," Spike said. "Slayer around?"

"Buffy?" Dawn's voice had an odd tone. "Oh, well, I'm sure she's around somewhere. Everyone wants her, so look where everyone else is." Dawn turned her back and flounced back into the room. From the pinched expression on Bonnie's face, she really wasn't okay with the attitude. Xander just sighed while Clem looked confused as hell.

"Maybe we should go back down to your room," Clem whispered to Bonnie, clearly still confused. She nodded and caught his hand before pushing out between Spike and Xander.

"You aren't staying in my room, too, are you?" Spike demanded suspiciously.

"Nope. Xander told my whole clan we could have the dungeon. It's got great camouflage on the entrance, and Tara's spell covers the…"

"Don't care, mate," Spike cut him off. "Where's the slayer?"

"Still upstairs," Clem answered without getting upset.

Spike strode off toward the stairs. He may not have wanted to tell Buffy, but now he almost seemed in a hurry to get it over with.

"Sorry about that. He's just feeling extra-special rude," Xander told Clem.

Clem cocked his head for a second. "What rudeness?" he asked.

Xander opened his mouth to explain exactly why the bleached one was rude like a really, really rude thing, but then he just shrugged and headed upstairs. There were some things that demons and non-demons would just never agree on, and the definition of rude was one.

"Are we done with the history stuff?" Dawn asked in a tone of voice that made Xander cringe. Clem and Bonnie both flinched with him. Okay, so some kinds of rude crossed over the species line. Xander wished he had a way to make any of this easier on Dawn because he did understand how much it hurt when Buffy and Willow shut you out as the "normal" and "helpless" one, but he had no idea how to have that conversation with her. None. Besides, Spike's exploding brain trumped Dawn's teenage angst.

By the time Xander got up to the main floor, Buffy was on the phone. "Yes, Agent Finn, Riley. Tell him we're having a problem with Spike's chip. No his chip. Spike." Buffy was sounding pretty frustrated, and Xander exchanged a look with Spike. Yep, Spike was all kinds of pissed at the thought of asking Riley for help, but tough cookies. He'd live. Hopefully.

"No, no, Finn is his last name. Yeah. Well, did he used to work there and then he got transferred?"

Spike jerked, and Xander thought for a second that he was going to make some rude gesture at the thought of Riley showing up in town, but the jerk became a thrashing and he hit the wall, his whole body convulsing. Rushing to his side, Xander got an arm around Spike's waist and supported him. Willow showed up in the arch from the kitchen, and Spike shoved at him. Yep, death before letting someone you don't like see you in pain. Xander wasn't sure if he was more bothered by the fact that Spike was hurting so much or by the fact that he refused to let Willow see it.

"Oh, is this actually a flower shop, or is this one of those things where I'm supposed to play along to show that I know it's really secret ops? Oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that. Oh, OK, right. Well, if some guy named Finn shows up to buy flowers— Yeah. Thanks." She hung up the phone and turned around, her eyebrows going up. "What's up guys?" she asked.

Xander realized he was standing close enough to Spike for their shoulders to touch, but he wasn't going to back off just to have Spike hit the ground. "Just keeping Spike from—"

Spike made a guttural growl, and Xander swallowed his comment. "So, any word from Riley?" Xander asked, changing the topic.

"Wrong number. Or a giant government conspiracy, one or the other."

"I vote conspiracy," Xander said. He didn't know if it was true, but if it was a covert ops security office hiding behind a flower shop, then maybe—just maybe—word would get through to Riley. Xander thought about the last time he'd seen Riley, back when the man had been all worried about Buffy getting hurt in the Spike and Buffy show. Even then, there was some part of Xander that suspected Spike was the more vulnerable of the two. And boy was he never sharing that thought. Spike would gut him, soul or not.

"What's the what?" Willow asked.

"Nothing." After snapping out his answer, Spike turned to give Xander the hairy eye. Xander studied the pattern on the gray carpeting.

"Spike's chip is doing a tango, even when he's playing nice," Buffy answered. Xander could practically see Spike sag.

"It's fine," he said without sounding like he meant it. Xander studied Buffy, watching as she headed for Willow, seemingly without even noticing that she's just stuck a pin in the balloon that was Spike's ego. Maybe he was wrong when he said that Buffy was getting more demonish, because Xander was thinking Clem or Bonnie would have noticed.

"Well, we'll fix it," Buffy said firmly. "We'll hit serious research mode—"

"Try Behavioral Modification Software Throughout the Ages," Spike muttered.

Xander put an elbow in Spike's side, and for a second, the two of them glared at each other. That seemed to make Spike feel a little better. "Been giving me a few jolts now and then. Not problem, luv. Vampire here—we don't mind a bit of pain.

"Unless it gets to be a whole lot of pain." This time, Xander was muttering.

"We can find something. We can totally find something," Willow said. Turning around, she headed into the kitchen.

"Someone should tell Tara that Willow is going for the witchly research," Xander pointed out. None of them were particularly comfortable with the idea of Willow going off all witchy without someone to watch. Buffy looked at him, her expression making it pretty clear that she wanted him to be the one doing the telling, but Xander just looked right back at her. He wasn't leaving Spike, not when he was clearly feeling pretty shitty.

Buffy got a little exasperated, but Xander just crossed his arm.

"Bloody hell. You two should just take a piss on a tree or something," Spike complained before he walked right between them and dropped down into his chair—the chair he'd been chained to for the last week.  "I know we talked about me going out with your kiddies, Buffy, but I think maybe I shouldn't go out terrorizing the potentials tonight," Spike said. "Having both the fighters out of the house is bloody stupid, especially when we already know the First made a run at Glinda and Harris."

"It's not like either of us could stop that," Buffy said.

Xander flinched. "Hey, consider me happier to have someone around to tell me that I'm seeing things. Spike is weirdly good at comforting," Xander butted in. He got another exasperated and confused look from Buffy, and it occurred to Xander that Buffy might be hurt that he was turning to a vampire over her. "Not that you're bad at comforting, because you aren't. You were big with the comfort after the whole…" Xander's brain blanked for a second. "After the whole hyena thing… and the… the Glory thing." Xander sighed. So much for trying to play peacemaker. Some days he was just an idiot.

"I'm going to go get Tara," Buffy said. Her voice was flat, and Xander wanted to say something helpful and supportive and encouraging, but he was coming up blank. He collapsed on the couch and watched as Buffy disappeared downstairs.

"I fail at friendship," Xander complained softly.

"She's not the easiest to be friends with, pet. Got equal parts demon and human going in there, and you're never sure which end of the beast you're going to get."

Xander sighed. Spike was right; he knew that. "It didn't used to be like that."

"Tinkers used to travel the high road, pet."

"What?" Xander had thrown his arm over his eyes, but now he lifted it so he could look at Spike with confusion.

"The world changes, luv. That's about the only thing you can count on in this world."

"Way to bring the Prozac moment," Xander complained, and Spike didn't have any comeback for that.