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lit_galMore SPURTING??!! This is the THIRD chapter of the day, so get 'em in order folks.
Gray
After having her world destroyed by the Winchesters, Eve wanted to rebuild her family. She claimed a soul with his own dark power and his own moral gray. He would be her champion. Hopefully. Xander just wanted to go home, preferably before the hunters Sam and Dean Winchester caught up with him.
Chapter ONE :: Chapter TWO :: Chapter THREE :: Chapters 4+5 :: Chapter SIX :: Chapter SEVEN :: Chapter EIGHT :: Chapter NINE :: Chapter TEN :: Chapter ELEVEN : Chapter TWELVE :: Chapter THIRTEEN :: Chapter FOURTEEN :: Chapter FIFTEEN :: Chapter SIXTEEN :: Chapter Seventeen :: Chapter Eighteen :: Chapter Nineteen :: Chapter TWENTY :: Chapter TWENTY-ONE :: Chapter TWENTY-TWO : Chapter TWENTY-THREE :: Chapter TWENTY-FOUR :: Chapter TWENTY-FIVE :: Chapter Twenty-SIX :: Chapter Twenty-SEVEN :: Chapter Twenty-EIGHT :: Chapter Twenty-NINE :: Chapter Thirty :: Chapter THIRTY-ONE :: Chapter Thirty Two :: Chapter THIRTY-THREE :: Chapter THIRTY-FOUR :: Chapter THIRTY-FIVE ::
Chapter THIRTY-SIX -- Saturday
Chapter THIRTY-SEVEN -- Sunday Morning
Chapter THIRTY-EIGHT -- Sunday Afternoon
Chapter THIRTY-NINE -- Sunday Evening
Xander wants a new child.
Spike drove though the split rail fence that looked like it had been standing since the 1800s. “Do you think Benny lived here?” Xander asked. If Elizabeth were his descendant, maybe she had inherited his house. “When he was human, I mean.”
“The land, maybe,” Spike said. “But that house doesn’t look old enough.”
“It looks pretty old.”
Spike snorted. “This part of the world is rough on buildings. Trust me, if that were a hundred years old, it wouldn’t look that good.”
Xander didn’t answer. An old truck sat by the front door, and a jeep was parked under a tarp that someone had put over a framed out garage that someone had left unfinished. Before Spike had turned off the car, the door opened. Benny stood there looking about as wary as a man can get.
“We can turn around and drive off, luv,” Spike offered. Part of Xander wanted to. Desperately. Turning Benny into one of his children or minions or whatever… it felt like turning a monster loose on the world. But if he didn’t, a good man was going to get trapped by his own hunger. Xander knew the near-pain of smelling a leviathan, the way he didn’t seem to have any control. He couldn’t let Benny suffer under that curse, especially when Benny wanted to like humans.
“No,” Xander said. This might not be the right thing, but it was less wrong than walking away. Xander briefly wondered what Dean would think of this. Would he approve? Did he know how close Benny was to the edge?
Dean was probably heading for that meeting with the general or tracking down his brother, or both. But he’d walked away when Benny really needed family, and Xander had to believe that was because he didn’t understand. He didn’t know how much Benny needed him, and Xander wasn’t going to walk away.
Xander got out of the car, butterflies already setting up camp in his stomach.
Elizabeth appeared at the door behind Benny, and she stood there with her hand on his back, watching. Spike got out of his side of the car and slammed the door hard enough that a small flock of birds rose from the trees that surrounded them.
“You ready?” Spike asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” Benny answered. His gaze was locked on Xander.
Xander wondered what it felt like to know that you were turning yourself over to another monster, to know that you might just die. He glanced over to Spike. Fact was Spike could kill him any time, and the fact that Xander had more power wouldn’t stop it. Spike was older and trickier, and he cheated. Like ninety percent of the time he cheated. If Spike wanted him dead, he’d be dead.
But that was different because Xander had learned to trust Spike. Spike had saved him from the preacher and saved everyone from the First. But Benny had one day to build some sort of trust with Xander.
Xander’s doubts started pressing to the surface. “If you can’t trust me, accept the energy I push into you, this could be very bad,” Xander said when he stopped at the bottom of the steps.
Benny stepped back and held the door open. “You had a chance to kill me. You didn’t.”
“But I hurt you. And if I’m trying to give you energy and you’re afraid of being hurt again—” Xander broke off and let the silence carry all his worries.
Elizabeth looked concerned, but Benny started laughing. “Cher, I’ve been hurt worse than that by those who claimed to love me.”
“I knocked you out.”
“Exactly,” Benny said with a chuckled. “Get yourselves up in here.”
Xander waited until Spike passed him and then he followed. The living room was small with handmade quilts on the walls and an old couch decorated with colorful pillows. Spike sat on one arm, and watched the room. Xander had expected him to storm in and start directing traffic, but he seemed happy to sit and watch. Xander stood near him, not sure what to do. With Dorsey, instinct had sort of taken over.
“You knocked me out,” Benny said, the humor gone. Maybe he realized Xander was freaking out a little. “I’ve had people who claimed to like me tie me down and torture me. You weren’t trying to do no harm, and I can tell the difference between an honest mistake and malicious intent. Of course, you might want to keep in mind that you look a good deal more threatening than any human, so you can see how Dean and I got a little twitchy, seeing as how we didn’t know what your intentions were.”
Xander cleared this throat. Yeah, he probably had kicked that hornets’ nest. Pretty much every time he tried to do the right thing, he did the wrong. He hadn’t been lying to Dean about that.
“So, how do we do this?” Benny asked. He stood in the middle of the living room with an almost defiant expression, and Elizabeth stood near the front door with her arms wrapped around her waist. There were a lot of uncomfortable people in the room, and Xander was counting himself in that number.
“He needs to drain off your energy,” Spike said when Xander couldn’t seem to find the words.
“Right. Feeding,” Xander said weakly.
“But you won’t kill him, right?” Elizabeth asked. She looked at Benny with all this worry, and Xander could almost taste her desire to help him.
“I’ll try not to,” Xander said. “I really am new at this.”
“Then we’d best get this done.” With that, Benny stepped right up close to Xander. Xander was surprised to find that Benny was a couple of inches shorter. He had a lot of presence that made him seem larger than life, but he wasn’t actually a very large man. He tilted his head back a little, and Xander felt his fear at showing weakness.
“You don’t have to do that,” Xander said. He reached up and caught Benny by the back of the neck, pressing so that Benny would stop baring it that way. Benny didn’t deserve to be forced into submission, but Xander had the feeling that’s what he expected.
“What do I need to do?” Benny asked.
“Give me a second while I try to stop hyperventilating,” Xander confessed.
Benny gave him an incredulous look.
“The boy is better when he doesn’t think about it before he does it,” Spike said. “Get him thinking too much and he worries the edges of bloody everything.”
“Sounds like Lizzy,” Benny said.
Xander gasped as he finally found whatever internal switch let him feed. Benny’s mouth fell open and his eyes got large and Xander felt the energy flow into him. He didn’t even have to pull at it. The energy was more like water flowing downhill, and panic rolled through Xander as he tried to slow the current. He finally did, and now Xander could feel the emotions rushing in with the power. Fear. Loneliness. Helplessness. Benny was dying an inch at a time, scrambling to find a reason to spend one more day avoiding the hunters’ blades. Xander could also feel the hot need Benny had felt at the idea of joining a crew again. He needed to belong. Loss. He’d had so much loss. Xander got a flash of Dean walking away, and Benny carried that like a deep wound, even if there was forgiveness clinging to the memory as much as pain.
Benny sank to his knees, his eyes starting to roll back in his head, and Xander refocused on the pure energy, sinking down with Benny. When Benny started to rock from side to side, Xander caught his arm and lowered him down to the deep plum rug in the center of the room. Fear. Guilt. A deep sense of failure and weakness.
Shoving all those aside, Xander gathered up his own strength and waited for some tipping point that his instincts told him hadn’t come yet. Benny grew weaker, and his skin turned the color of old parchment before finally his eyes started to close. In the distance, Xander could hear Elizabeth’s cries and he knew Spike was moving, but Xander focused everything on Benny. He shoved his energy back down that pathway he’d just used to feed. He pushed energy and more energy, and Xander could feel it slide off as if it were hitting a forcefield.
He kept shoving. He thought about Elizabeth and Dean. He thought about how much Benny could protect the fragile humans if he only took some of the energy. He focused on that and pushed with all his might. Dorsey had unconsciously reached out and grabbed at the energy Xander had offered, but Benny wasn’t.
Xander looked over at Elizabeth’s tear-streaked face and thought about that as he shoved another pulse of energy out, and this time, he could feel a small crack. Focusing on that, Xander concentrated. He drove every ounce of energy he could muster at that point, and it was like glass shattering.
The sudden lack of resistance startled Xander so much that he fell forward across Benny. They lay in a heap, the energy tangling between them, and then Benny gasped loudly.
“Damn.” Benny sounded dazed.
Xander understood the feeling. Even without soldiers around to zat him afterwards, making a child was hard. Spike’s hands pulled him up and helped him settle back down onto the couch. Elizabeth crouched near Benny, not touching but staring at him with worry even as she wiped her tears away.
“Are you okay?” She reached out, hesitated, and then pulled her hand back.
Benny struggled to sit up, and Xander reached out to help, but Spike caught his wrist and held it.
“Yeah. I’m fine, cher,” Benny said.
“Are you changed,” she asked next.
Benny frowned and ran a hand over his face. “Yeah. I reckon I am. I feel whole, like the part of me that was always pulling at me is gone.”
“Pulling at you?” Elizabeth moved closer and laid her hand on Benny’s arm. “What do ya mean?”
“Can’t really say,” Benny said slowly. He looked down at Elizabeth’s hand, and Xander could feel the shifting. Benny looked up at her face, and a spark seemed to flare up between them before it faded. “I always felt this pull, but it’s gone now.”
“Could be the vampire alpha was trying to call you,” Spike said.
Elizabeth helped Benny to his feet, and for a second, he clung to her. “If so, he wasn’t being real clear,” Benny said, “but I didn’t know how strong that pull was until it was gone. Thank you for that,” Benny said, holding out a hand to Xander. It felt strange, shaking hands like they had just finished a business transaction, but Xander solemnly took Benny’s hand.
When they made contact, Xander could feel Benny’s emotions wash over him. Relief. Obligation. Fear. Regret. Joy. All of them tangled up until Xander pulled his hand back and broke the connection.
Benny smiled at him. “I guess you’re my pappy now. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Xander said. He pulled his hand back, and Spike slipped an arm around his waist and held on tight.
“You both look rode hard and put up wet. I’ve never let a man go hungry, so if you come on in, I’ll make another one of those shrimp poboys you inhaled at the café,” Elizabeth offered.
Xander looked at Spike. He wanted to stay. Some part of him really wailed at the thought of leaving Benny. He wasn’t like Dorsey who had a whole base full of people who would support him—he only had Elizabeth. Not that he would ever call Elizabeth an “only.” Nope, he was way too smart to say anything that stupid out loud.
“We’ll stay,” Spike said.
Elizabeth’s face lit with a smile. “Good, because this one will not be passing out like that Dorsey man did. I want to know everything,” Elizabeth said. Benny got an embarrassed look on his face.
“Now, cher, I’m sure they want to get clear before the Air Force turns up.”
“It sounds like the Air Force is avoiding them,” she said. She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek before she turned and headed for the kitchen. “So, explain how feeding off energy works, and how often do you have to do it?” she called over her shoulder.
“Lord have mercy, I have turned her into a mother hen,” Benny said sadly, but he still had a crooked smile.
“She can mother hen with Spike. He does it too,” Xander said with some sympathy. It was nice to know you were the center of someone’s life, but it did get a little much sometimes.
Benny eyed Spike. “Yeah, I can see you’re the sort.”
Spike flipped him two fingers before standing up and heading for the kitchen himself. “The first thing you have to know, mum, is that the idiots will try and starve themselves rather than admit they need more food and energy than normal,” Spike said. Xander cringed.
“Sorry,” he whispered. He stood up, and the world spun a little. Benny reached out and caught his arm, steadying him.
“I do that now, so if I inherited more of a tendency from you, I suppose she should know,” he said. “Mind you, I’d prefer him phrasing it a little different.”
“That’s sorta Spike,” Xander said by way of an apology. With that, he headed into the kitchen. Yeah, Spike was going to embarrass him, but Elizabeth was making poboys, and her cooking was definitely worth it.
They talked until the sun came up, and then Spike and Xander crashed in the spare bedroom with blankets tacked up around the windows. While Spike had revealed all kinds of embarrassing details, including how sometimes it was important to just take a slayer demon in hand and throttle him until he stopped being an idiot, Benny had gotten his own back by teasing Spike mercilessly about having to avoid the sun like some sort of fictional horror movie vampire. It felt almost like home. Xander knew they couldn’t stay because Spike’s paranoia about the Air Force was way too thick for that. Besides, as much as Benny and Elizabeth felt like home, this universe didn’t. But for one night Xander let his guard down, and when he curled up and felt Spike’s arms around him, he could honestly say he was happy.
GrayAfter having her world destroyed by the Winchesters, Eve wanted to rebuild her family. She claimed a soul with his own dark power and his own moral gray. He would be her champion. Hopefully. Xander just wanted to go home, preferably before the hunters Sam and Dean Winchester caught up with him.
Chapter ONE :: Chapter TWO :: Chapter THREE :: Chapters 4+5 :: Chapter SIX :: Chapter SEVEN :: Chapter EIGHT :: Chapter NINE :: Chapter TEN :: Chapter ELEVEN : Chapter TWELVE :: Chapter THIRTEEN :: Chapter FOURTEEN :: Chapter FIFTEEN :: Chapter SIXTEEN :: Chapter Seventeen :: Chapter Eighteen :: Chapter Nineteen :: Chapter TWENTY :: Chapter TWENTY-ONE :: Chapter TWENTY-TWO : Chapter TWENTY-THREE :: Chapter TWENTY-FOUR :: Chapter TWENTY-FIVE :: Chapter Twenty-SIX :: Chapter Twenty-SEVEN :: Chapter Twenty-EIGHT :: Chapter Twenty-NINE :: Chapter Thirty :: Chapter THIRTY-ONE :: Chapter Thirty Two :: Chapter THIRTY-THREE :: Chapter THIRTY-FOUR :: Chapter THIRTY-FIVE ::
Chapter THIRTY-SIX -- Saturday
Chapter THIRTY-SEVEN -- Sunday Morning
Chapter THIRTY-EIGHT -- Sunday Afternoon
Chapter THIRTY-NINE -- Sunday Evening
Xander wants a new child.
Spike drove though the split rail fence that looked like it had been standing since the 1800s. “Do you think Benny lived here?” Xander asked. If Elizabeth were his descendant, maybe she had inherited his house. “When he was human, I mean.”
“The land, maybe,” Spike said. “But that house doesn’t look old enough.”
“It looks pretty old.”
Spike snorted. “This part of the world is rough on buildings. Trust me, if that were a hundred years old, it wouldn’t look that good.”
Xander didn’t answer. An old truck sat by the front door, and a jeep was parked under a tarp that someone had put over a framed out garage that someone had left unfinished. Before Spike had turned off the car, the door opened. Benny stood there looking about as wary as a man can get.
“We can turn around and drive off, luv,” Spike offered. Part of Xander wanted to. Desperately. Turning Benny into one of his children or minions or whatever… it felt like turning a monster loose on the world. But if he didn’t, a good man was going to get trapped by his own hunger. Xander knew the near-pain of smelling a leviathan, the way he didn’t seem to have any control. He couldn’t let Benny suffer under that curse, especially when Benny wanted to like humans.
“No,” Xander said. This might not be the right thing, but it was less wrong than walking away. Xander briefly wondered what Dean would think of this. Would he approve? Did he know how close Benny was to the edge?
Dean was probably heading for that meeting with the general or tracking down his brother, or both. But he’d walked away when Benny really needed family, and Xander had to believe that was because he didn’t understand. He didn’t know how much Benny needed him, and Xander wasn’t going to walk away.
Xander got out of the car, butterflies already setting up camp in his stomach.
Elizabeth appeared at the door behind Benny, and she stood there with her hand on his back, watching. Spike got out of his side of the car and slammed the door hard enough that a small flock of birds rose from the trees that surrounded them.
“You ready?” Spike asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” Benny answered. His gaze was locked on Xander.
Xander wondered what it felt like to know that you were turning yourself over to another monster, to know that you might just die. He glanced over to Spike. Fact was Spike could kill him any time, and the fact that Xander had more power wouldn’t stop it. Spike was older and trickier, and he cheated. Like ninety percent of the time he cheated. If Spike wanted him dead, he’d be dead.
But that was different because Xander had learned to trust Spike. Spike had saved him from the preacher and saved everyone from the First. But Benny had one day to build some sort of trust with Xander.
Xander’s doubts started pressing to the surface. “If you can’t trust me, accept the energy I push into you, this could be very bad,” Xander said when he stopped at the bottom of the steps.
Benny stepped back and held the door open. “You had a chance to kill me. You didn’t.”
“But I hurt you. And if I’m trying to give you energy and you’re afraid of being hurt again—” Xander broke off and let the silence carry all his worries.
Elizabeth looked concerned, but Benny started laughing. “Cher, I’ve been hurt worse than that by those who claimed to love me.”
“I knocked you out.”
“Exactly,” Benny said with a chuckled. “Get yourselves up in here.”
Xander waited until Spike passed him and then he followed. The living room was small with handmade quilts on the walls and an old couch decorated with colorful pillows. Spike sat on one arm, and watched the room. Xander had expected him to storm in and start directing traffic, but he seemed happy to sit and watch. Xander stood near him, not sure what to do. With Dorsey, instinct had sort of taken over.
“You knocked me out,” Benny said, the humor gone. Maybe he realized Xander was freaking out a little. “I’ve had people who claimed to like me tie me down and torture me. You weren’t trying to do no harm, and I can tell the difference between an honest mistake and malicious intent. Of course, you might want to keep in mind that you look a good deal more threatening than any human, so you can see how Dean and I got a little twitchy, seeing as how we didn’t know what your intentions were.”
Xander cleared this throat. Yeah, he probably had kicked that hornets’ nest. Pretty much every time he tried to do the right thing, he did the wrong. He hadn’t been lying to Dean about that.
“So, how do we do this?” Benny asked. He stood in the middle of the living room with an almost defiant expression, and Elizabeth stood near the front door with her arms wrapped around her waist. There were a lot of uncomfortable people in the room, and Xander was counting himself in that number.
“He needs to drain off your energy,” Spike said when Xander couldn’t seem to find the words.
“Right. Feeding,” Xander said weakly.
“But you won’t kill him, right?” Elizabeth asked. She looked at Benny with all this worry, and Xander could almost taste her desire to help him.
“I’ll try not to,” Xander said. “I really am new at this.”
“Then we’d best get this done.” With that, Benny stepped right up close to Xander. Xander was surprised to find that Benny was a couple of inches shorter. He had a lot of presence that made him seem larger than life, but he wasn’t actually a very large man. He tilted his head back a little, and Xander felt his fear at showing weakness.
“You don’t have to do that,” Xander said. He reached up and caught Benny by the back of the neck, pressing so that Benny would stop baring it that way. Benny didn’t deserve to be forced into submission, but Xander had the feeling that’s what he expected.
“What do I need to do?” Benny asked.
“Give me a second while I try to stop hyperventilating,” Xander confessed.
Benny gave him an incredulous look.
“The boy is better when he doesn’t think about it before he does it,” Spike said. “Get him thinking too much and he worries the edges of bloody everything.”
“Sounds like Lizzy,” Benny said.
Xander gasped as he finally found whatever internal switch let him feed. Benny’s mouth fell open and his eyes got large and Xander felt the energy flow into him. He didn’t even have to pull at it. The energy was more like water flowing downhill, and panic rolled through Xander as he tried to slow the current. He finally did, and now Xander could feel the emotions rushing in with the power. Fear. Loneliness. Helplessness. Benny was dying an inch at a time, scrambling to find a reason to spend one more day avoiding the hunters’ blades. Xander could also feel the hot need Benny had felt at the idea of joining a crew again. He needed to belong. Loss. He’d had so much loss. Xander got a flash of Dean walking away, and Benny carried that like a deep wound, even if there was forgiveness clinging to the memory as much as pain.
Benny sank to his knees, his eyes starting to roll back in his head, and Xander refocused on the pure energy, sinking down with Benny. When Benny started to rock from side to side, Xander caught his arm and lowered him down to the deep plum rug in the center of the room. Fear. Guilt. A deep sense of failure and weakness.
Shoving all those aside, Xander gathered up his own strength and waited for some tipping point that his instincts told him hadn’t come yet. Benny grew weaker, and his skin turned the color of old parchment before finally his eyes started to close. In the distance, Xander could hear Elizabeth’s cries and he knew Spike was moving, but Xander focused everything on Benny. He shoved his energy back down that pathway he’d just used to feed. He pushed energy and more energy, and Xander could feel it slide off as if it were hitting a forcefield.
He kept shoving. He thought about Elizabeth and Dean. He thought about how much Benny could protect the fragile humans if he only took some of the energy. He focused on that and pushed with all his might. Dorsey had unconsciously reached out and grabbed at the energy Xander had offered, but Benny wasn’t.
Xander looked over at Elizabeth’s tear-streaked face and thought about that as he shoved another pulse of energy out, and this time, he could feel a small crack. Focusing on that, Xander concentrated. He drove every ounce of energy he could muster at that point, and it was like glass shattering.
The sudden lack of resistance startled Xander so much that he fell forward across Benny. They lay in a heap, the energy tangling between them, and then Benny gasped loudly.
“Damn.” Benny sounded dazed.
Xander understood the feeling. Even without soldiers around to zat him afterwards, making a child was hard. Spike’s hands pulled him up and helped him settle back down onto the couch. Elizabeth crouched near Benny, not touching but staring at him with worry even as she wiped her tears away.
“Are you okay?” She reached out, hesitated, and then pulled her hand back.
Benny struggled to sit up, and Xander reached out to help, but Spike caught his wrist and held it.
“Yeah. I’m fine, cher,” Benny said.
“Are you changed,” she asked next.
Benny frowned and ran a hand over his face. “Yeah. I reckon I am. I feel whole, like the part of me that was always pulling at me is gone.”
“Pulling at you?” Elizabeth moved closer and laid her hand on Benny’s arm. “What do ya mean?”
“Can’t really say,” Benny said slowly. He looked down at Elizabeth’s hand, and Xander could feel the shifting. Benny looked up at her face, and a spark seemed to flare up between them before it faded. “I always felt this pull, but it’s gone now.”
“Could be the vampire alpha was trying to call you,” Spike said.
Elizabeth helped Benny to his feet, and for a second, he clung to her. “If so, he wasn’t being real clear,” Benny said, “but I didn’t know how strong that pull was until it was gone. Thank you for that,” Benny said, holding out a hand to Xander. It felt strange, shaking hands like they had just finished a business transaction, but Xander solemnly took Benny’s hand.
When they made contact, Xander could feel Benny’s emotions wash over him. Relief. Obligation. Fear. Regret. Joy. All of them tangled up until Xander pulled his hand back and broke the connection.
Benny smiled at him. “I guess you’re my pappy now. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Xander said. He pulled his hand back, and Spike slipped an arm around his waist and held on tight.
“You both look rode hard and put up wet. I’ve never let a man go hungry, so if you come on in, I’ll make another one of those shrimp poboys you inhaled at the café,” Elizabeth offered.
Xander looked at Spike. He wanted to stay. Some part of him really wailed at the thought of leaving Benny. He wasn’t like Dorsey who had a whole base full of people who would support him—he only had Elizabeth. Not that he would ever call Elizabeth an “only.” Nope, he was way too smart to say anything that stupid out loud.
“We’ll stay,” Spike said.
Elizabeth’s face lit with a smile. “Good, because this one will not be passing out like that Dorsey man did. I want to know everything,” Elizabeth said. Benny got an embarrassed look on his face.
“Now, cher, I’m sure they want to get clear before the Air Force turns up.”
“It sounds like the Air Force is avoiding them,” she said. She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek before she turned and headed for the kitchen. “So, explain how feeding off energy works, and how often do you have to do it?” she called over her shoulder.
“Lord have mercy, I have turned her into a mother hen,” Benny said sadly, but he still had a crooked smile.
“She can mother hen with Spike. He does it too,” Xander said with some sympathy. It was nice to know you were the center of someone’s life, but it did get a little much sometimes.
Benny eyed Spike. “Yeah, I can see you’re the sort.”
Spike flipped him two fingers before standing up and heading for the kitchen himself. “The first thing you have to know, mum, is that the idiots will try and starve themselves rather than admit they need more food and energy than normal,” Spike said. Xander cringed.
“Sorry,” he whispered. He stood up, and the world spun a little. Benny reached out and caught his arm, steadying him.
“I do that now, so if I inherited more of a tendency from you, I suppose she should know,” he said. “Mind you, I’d prefer him phrasing it a little different.”
“That’s sorta Spike,” Xander said by way of an apology. With that, he headed into the kitchen. Yeah, Spike was going to embarrass him, but Elizabeth was making poboys, and her cooking was definitely worth it.
They talked until the sun came up, and then Spike and Xander crashed in the spare bedroom with blankets tacked up around the windows. While Spike had revealed all kinds of embarrassing details, including how sometimes it was important to just take a slayer demon in hand and throttle him until he stopped being an idiot, Benny had gotten his own back by teasing Spike mercilessly about having to avoid the sun like some sort of fictional horror movie vampire. It felt almost like home. Xander knew they couldn’t stay because Spike’s paranoia about the Air Force was way too thick for that. Besides, as much as Benny and Elizabeth felt like home, this universe didn’t. But for one night Xander let his guard down, and when he curled up and felt Spike’s arms around him, he could honestly say he was happy.
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Date: 2013-08-04 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-04 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-05 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-05 12:13 am (UTC)Benny did the linking up on his own. After all, not every slayer demon is going to have their alpha there to choose for them.
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Date: 2013-08-05 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-05 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-05 01:38 am (UTC)Now back to 40.
Shakatany
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Date: 2013-08-05 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-05 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-05 06:15 am (UTC)