A Spot of Trouble (1/1)
Mar. 26th, 2009 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sevendeadlyfunPairing: Spike, Xander (pre-slash)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “I spend so much bloody time hiding in alleys,” he grouses, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “There’s nothing heroic about skulking in an alley."
A/N: This was supposed to be my entry for the Spander Valentine's Day Ficathon. I ended up roadblocked and didn't get to post it. It's taken two and a half months to write it, it's pre-slash, and definitely not in line with the original requirements. I give!
This is comics-canon compliant and set in a not-to-distant comics canon future. It is compliant up to AtF 19 and S8 23. After that, Joss only knows (and remember that he's the trope namer).
The first night he sees her, he convinces himself it wasn’t real. Not her, not here, trick of the light. The second night, he convinces himself it wasn’t her. It’s dark, he’s drunk, and he only saw her for a second. Besides, what the hell would Dru be doing in London?
What the hell is he doing in London?
Escaping from Hell-A cost him. Cost Angel more, he thinks. But he’s not sure. Is one human worth more than another? Connor, Fred, Wes, Gunn…their faces swim in front of him, driving him so deep into the bottle he sees the world in shades of amber now. Until the third night, pissed to the gills and spouting poetry, he all but trips over her in the alley that saw his last breath.
Seeing Dru sobers him. She didn’t come home for a rest cure or a bit sightseeing. Not his girl. She’s on her comeback tour. She’ll blaze a bloody streak though the town like they did back in ’80. It won’t be long before the bodies start turning up.
He stumbles across the first one on the fourth night. A big bloke, weightlifter or boxer maybe, face down on the pavement outside a sweet shop, body still warm. Spike sighs. Half the times he got a bollocking from Angelus about his messy eating, it’d had been because of Dru.
He kneels there, fingers trailing through blood gone tacky. His head swims with the scent of death and Drusilla. He can feel her in his arms, her seemingly hollow bones nestling into his own angles; the sweet burn of the half-moon gouges she used to scatter across his pale body. She is his walking, killing scrapbook, a bundle of memories and emotions pacing the outlines of his existence.
But this is only the first body.
He spends his nights half-searching for her. He follows women with dark hair, women wearing red scarves, trails down alleys after women whose voice sounds almost right. It’s never her and he fights against the heavy sigh of relief resting at the base of his throat. What would he do if he found her?
He won’t stake her. He knows he won’t. Can’t. She’s his, even when she isn’t. It’s always been his worst nightmare, almost as terrifying a vision as the hell Pavayne showed him. His soul burns him hollow, shoving memory after memory of bleeding toddlers and chalk-white mothers. He doesn’t care. Can’t. She’s his and no one and nothing will take her from him.
“Copy that. We’ll do another sweep before heading back.”
The voice is crisp, young. Spike pulls back into the shadows. This is what Angelus tried to teach him so many years ago. This fear. He wonders if Angel knows that self-preservation requires more than just not wanting to die. It needs something to live for. He remembers the last fight, the limp body cradled in Angel’s arms, and the suicidal charge that changed the world. He figures Angel probably knows.
The pair step into the yellow-white light radiating from the street lamp. He knows them. Not their names, but he knows them. The predatory walk, the keen eyes, the large bits of wood at their belts; Buffy’s Slayers, here in London and Spike stiffens as they walk towards the body.
The taller one still has her cell in hand. The device crackles as she speaks. “Yeah, we got another body. That’s three tonight. Tell General Harris to send out another team.”
The dark messy hair of the other Slayer obscures her face as she kneels beside the corpse. Spike wonders if he knows her from Sunnydale, if it matters. She pulls a butcher knife from her pack. Spike closes his eyes as she pushes through the neck, shudders when the blade shatters the neckbones. It’s an erotic, sickening crunch.
“So, Alina, we have anoth…Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! Does she need to do that here? Now? Also, here?”
General Bloody Harris. Xander Harris, in an alleyway in London and suddenly Spike feels a peculiar longing seize him. He wants to step out of the shadows. He doesn’t, but he wants to and it’s one of the odder experiences of his life. Not quite as odd as the hard, passionless kiss Illyria gave him to claim him as her pet, but up there.
Harris drones on, lecturing the Slayers on something Spike’s fairly sure he wouldn’t care about even if he were listening. But that familiar voice, deeper and more resonant than he remembers, stirs his memories of Sunnyhell. The almost friendship he and Harris formed in that sad apartment, two extraneous pieces of a dangerous machine. They slid together, almost colliding, never clicking but he’s here, now, in this sad alley and Spike steadies himself against the sweet, sharp tug in his gut.
Spike smirks. He imagines Harris doesn’t feel similarly nostalgic about their time together. General Harris doesn’t look like the kind of man who gets those types of yearnings. Spike hunches forward, a self-protection reflex he can’t shake. His hands ruffle through the spacious pockets of his duster, fingers scrabbling through the small scraps of paper and detritus that sticks to him, bits of baggage he can’t ever manage to offload. The cool smooth metal fits neatly into his hand.
He’s a fiddler. Another piece of life he never shifted. The metallic snick of the lighter opening and closing vibrates through his body, calms the insane urge to step forward into the light and join the little knot of action in the alleyway. He hates waiting. He gets so bored.
The Slayers finish their tedious, grisly work. The body, or what’s left of it, is dragged away. It’s just General Harris, standing in a pool of light.
“You suck at stealth,” he says. “That lighter of yours echoes like crazy in this alleyway. You’re just lucky the Slayers are so jumpy or they’d have clued in on your ass.”
Spike stares at him for a minute, contemplates leaving. But he doesn’t. He shrugs and steps out of the darkness.
“I spend so much bloody time hiding in alleys,” he grouses, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “There’s nothing heroic about skulking in an alley. “
The rasp of the flint, the first thick drag, the almost ordinariness of being in an alley with Xander Harris is sweet. It’s home in a way that London isn’t anymore, in a way Sunnydale never will be again.
He stares, pulling his coat around him as much for protection as anything else. It’s been too long and the same uncertainties that kept him away after his resurrection keep him quiet now.
“It’s Dru,” he finally blurts out. “Know you know and ‘m sure the Slayer’s handed out marching orders and whatnot. But…it’s Dru.”
“What’s Dru?” Xander asks him slowly, forehead furrowed in confusion. His head tips slightly to the side, a gesture Spike knows intimately, translates effortlessly.
“The bodies,” he grits out. “The bloody bodies and that’s bloody with a capital bloody. It’s Dru.”
Xander stares at him for another second.
“No,” he says finally. “It’s not.”
“I saw her, Harris,” Spike insists and he can’t believe he’s actually arguing the point. He should just nod and smile and agree, be grateful Drusilla’s latest hasn’t gotten them all in deeper and that she’s not slated to be so much dust at the end of a Slayer’s stake. “In the alley. She was there.”
Xander laughs, his head dipping as the laugh ripples through him. He shakes his head, and Spike thinks there’s something like relief in the movement. But he knows he’s the one who’s relieved. What’s one more vampire to Xander Harris?
“She’s got a groupie,” Xander tells him as the laughter tapers off. “A real live undead imitator. Besides, I think being your ex’s ex gives you special Slayer immunity or something. Drusilla’s not in danger from Buffy.”
Spike scowls, the expression automatic and familiar. “Saw her myself, Harris,” he stresses. “Not likely to be fooled by some cheap imitation, am I?”
“Spike, I say this with what passes for love between us. You smell like the bad end of a month-long bachelor party.” Xander raises an eyebrow. “I’m thinking you may have had some impaired vision.”
“Well,” Spike says grudgingly. It’s as close to an admission as he gets and Xander knows it. “Anyways, how the hell did Dru end up with a groupie? She’s never fancied the limelight.”
“Blame Harmony,” Xander answers flatly. “She’s made female vampires the toast of the town. Every brain dead Barbie girl between the ages of 15 and death’s door is trying to become the next Queen of the Damned. Besides, Dru’s got that whole Dark Princess thing working for her. That and a Slayer to her name.”
Spike rolls his eyes. Five minutes of that horror and he’d been ready to send L.A. back to Hell himself just to get away from the vapid cow. Harmony as a reality superstar was far worse than anything he’d experienced fighting in Hell A.
“Don’t see why Dru gets all the attention,” he grumbles quietly, dropping his half-smoked fag to the ground. “She’s a vision, yeah but if it’s glory they’re seeking, I have a few stories that’ll top anything Dru can claim.”
“That’s the Spike I know and tolerate,” Xander says with smile. “Listen, I’ve got to go. The bodies start to pile up and we’re not exactly popular at the moment. If you want…”
Xander’s voice trails off and Spike jerks his head up to stare at the half-shadowed face. He’s not sure why the pause. If he wants what? He wants a lot of things, a few of which Xander Harris would probably faint if he knew.
“Yeah,” Spike answers. “All right.”
Xander inhales deeply, huffs the air out in a quick sigh. He nods and jerks his head towards the light and noise of the city. Spike stuffs his hands in his pocket and follows. He’s not sure what Xander was going to ask him. It doesn’t matter.
Won’t be the first time he’s started over, likely won’t be the last. But there are worse places to be than London and worse people to have at his back than General bloody Harris. Besides, Xander said they weren’t popular. That means trouble and there’s nothing he likes better than a spot of trouble.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “I spend so much bloody time hiding in alleys,” he grouses, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “There’s nothing heroic about skulking in an alley."
A/N: This was supposed to be my entry for the Spander Valentine's Day Ficathon. I ended up roadblocked and didn't get to post it. It's taken two and a half months to write it, it's pre-slash, and definitely not in line with the original requirements. I give!
This is comics-canon compliant and set in a not-to-distant comics canon future. It is compliant up to AtF 19 and S8 23. After that, Joss only knows (and remember that he's the trope namer).
The first night he sees her, he convinces himself it wasn’t real. Not her, not here, trick of the light. The second night, he convinces himself it wasn’t her. It’s dark, he’s drunk, and he only saw her for a second. Besides, what the hell would Dru be doing in London?
What the hell is he doing in London?
Escaping from Hell-A cost him. Cost Angel more, he thinks. But he’s not sure. Is one human worth more than another? Connor, Fred, Wes, Gunn…their faces swim in front of him, driving him so deep into the bottle he sees the world in shades of amber now. Until the third night, pissed to the gills and spouting poetry, he all but trips over her in the alley that saw his last breath.
Seeing Dru sobers him. She didn’t come home for a rest cure or a bit sightseeing. Not his girl. She’s on her comeback tour. She’ll blaze a bloody streak though the town like they did back in ’80. It won’t be long before the bodies start turning up.
He stumbles across the first one on the fourth night. A big bloke, weightlifter or boxer maybe, face down on the pavement outside a sweet shop, body still warm. Spike sighs. Half the times he got a bollocking from Angelus about his messy eating, it’d had been because of Dru.
He kneels there, fingers trailing through blood gone tacky. His head swims with the scent of death and Drusilla. He can feel her in his arms, her seemingly hollow bones nestling into his own angles; the sweet burn of the half-moon gouges she used to scatter across his pale body. She is his walking, killing scrapbook, a bundle of memories and emotions pacing the outlines of his existence.
But this is only the first body.
He spends his nights half-searching for her. He follows women with dark hair, women wearing red scarves, trails down alleys after women whose voice sounds almost right. It’s never her and he fights against the heavy sigh of relief resting at the base of his throat. What would he do if he found her?
He won’t stake her. He knows he won’t. Can’t. She’s his, even when she isn’t. It’s always been his worst nightmare, almost as terrifying a vision as the hell Pavayne showed him. His soul burns him hollow, shoving memory after memory of bleeding toddlers and chalk-white mothers. He doesn’t care. Can’t. She’s his and no one and nothing will take her from him.
“Copy that. We’ll do another sweep before heading back.”
The voice is crisp, young. Spike pulls back into the shadows. This is what Angelus tried to teach him so many years ago. This fear. He wonders if Angel knows that self-preservation requires more than just not wanting to die. It needs something to live for. He remembers the last fight, the limp body cradled in Angel’s arms, and the suicidal charge that changed the world. He figures Angel probably knows.
The pair step into the yellow-white light radiating from the street lamp. He knows them. Not their names, but he knows them. The predatory walk, the keen eyes, the large bits of wood at their belts; Buffy’s Slayers, here in London and Spike stiffens as they walk towards the body.
The taller one still has her cell in hand. The device crackles as she speaks. “Yeah, we got another body. That’s three tonight. Tell General Harris to send out another team.”
The dark messy hair of the other Slayer obscures her face as she kneels beside the corpse. Spike wonders if he knows her from Sunnydale, if it matters. She pulls a butcher knife from her pack. Spike closes his eyes as she pushes through the neck, shudders when the blade shatters the neckbones. It’s an erotic, sickening crunch.
“So, Alina, we have anoth…Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! Does she need to do that here? Now? Also, here?”
General Bloody Harris. Xander Harris, in an alleyway in London and suddenly Spike feels a peculiar longing seize him. He wants to step out of the shadows. He doesn’t, but he wants to and it’s one of the odder experiences of his life. Not quite as odd as the hard, passionless kiss Illyria gave him to claim him as her pet, but up there.
Harris drones on, lecturing the Slayers on something Spike’s fairly sure he wouldn’t care about even if he were listening. But that familiar voice, deeper and more resonant than he remembers, stirs his memories of Sunnyhell. The almost friendship he and Harris formed in that sad apartment, two extraneous pieces of a dangerous machine. They slid together, almost colliding, never clicking but he’s here, now, in this sad alley and Spike steadies himself against the sweet, sharp tug in his gut.
Spike smirks. He imagines Harris doesn’t feel similarly nostalgic about their time together. General Harris doesn’t look like the kind of man who gets those types of yearnings. Spike hunches forward, a self-protection reflex he can’t shake. His hands ruffle through the spacious pockets of his duster, fingers scrabbling through the small scraps of paper and detritus that sticks to him, bits of baggage he can’t ever manage to offload. The cool smooth metal fits neatly into his hand.
He’s a fiddler. Another piece of life he never shifted. The metallic snick of the lighter opening and closing vibrates through his body, calms the insane urge to step forward into the light and join the little knot of action in the alleyway. He hates waiting. He gets so bored.
The Slayers finish their tedious, grisly work. The body, or what’s left of it, is dragged away. It’s just General Harris, standing in a pool of light.
“You suck at stealth,” he says. “That lighter of yours echoes like crazy in this alleyway. You’re just lucky the Slayers are so jumpy or they’d have clued in on your ass.”
Spike stares at him for a minute, contemplates leaving. But he doesn’t. He shrugs and steps out of the darkness.
“I spend so much bloody time hiding in alleys,” he grouses, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “There’s nothing heroic about skulking in an alley. “
The rasp of the flint, the first thick drag, the almost ordinariness of being in an alley with Xander Harris is sweet. It’s home in a way that London isn’t anymore, in a way Sunnydale never will be again.
He stares, pulling his coat around him as much for protection as anything else. It’s been too long and the same uncertainties that kept him away after his resurrection keep him quiet now.
“It’s Dru,” he finally blurts out. “Know you know and ‘m sure the Slayer’s handed out marching orders and whatnot. But…it’s Dru.”
“What’s Dru?” Xander asks him slowly, forehead furrowed in confusion. His head tips slightly to the side, a gesture Spike knows intimately, translates effortlessly.
“The bodies,” he grits out. “The bloody bodies and that’s bloody with a capital bloody. It’s Dru.”
Xander stares at him for another second.
“No,” he says finally. “It’s not.”
“I saw her, Harris,” Spike insists and he can’t believe he’s actually arguing the point. He should just nod and smile and agree, be grateful Drusilla’s latest hasn’t gotten them all in deeper and that she’s not slated to be so much dust at the end of a Slayer’s stake. “In the alley. She was there.”
Xander laughs, his head dipping as the laugh ripples through him. He shakes his head, and Spike thinks there’s something like relief in the movement. But he knows he’s the one who’s relieved. What’s one more vampire to Xander Harris?
“She’s got a groupie,” Xander tells him as the laughter tapers off. “A real live undead imitator. Besides, I think being your ex’s ex gives you special Slayer immunity or something. Drusilla’s not in danger from Buffy.”
Spike scowls, the expression automatic and familiar. “Saw her myself, Harris,” he stresses. “Not likely to be fooled by some cheap imitation, am I?”
“Spike, I say this with what passes for love between us. You smell like the bad end of a month-long bachelor party.” Xander raises an eyebrow. “I’m thinking you may have had some impaired vision.”
“Well,” Spike says grudgingly. It’s as close to an admission as he gets and Xander knows it. “Anyways, how the hell did Dru end up with a groupie? She’s never fancied the limelight.”
“Blame Harmony,” Xander answers flatly. “She’s made female vampires the toast of the town. Every brain dead Barbie girl between the ages of 15 and death’s door is trying to become the next Queen of the Damned. Besides, Dru’s got that whole Dark Princess thing working for her. That and a Slayer to her name.”
Spike rolls his eyes. Five minutes of that horror and he’d been ready to send L.A. back to Hell himself just to get away from the vapid cow. Harmony as a reality superstar was far worse than anything he’d experienced fighting in Hell A.
“Don’t see why Dru gets all the attention,” he grumbles quietly, dropping his half-smoked fag to the ground. “She’s a vision, yeah but if it’s glory they’re seeking, I have a few stories that’ll top anything Dru can claim.”
“That’s the Spike I know and tolerate,” Xander says with smile. “Listen, I’ve got to go. The bodies start to pile up and we’re not exactly popular at the moment. If you want…”
Xander’s voice trails off and Spike jerks his head up to stare at the half-shadowed face. He’s not sure why the pause. If he wants what? He wants a lot of things, a few of which Xander Harris would probably faint if he knew.
“Yeah,” Spike answers. “All right.”
Xander inhales deeply, huffs the air out in a quick sigh. He nods and jerks his head towards the light and noise of the city. Spike stuffs his hands in his pocket and follows. He’s not sure what Xander was going to ask him. It doesn’t matter.
Won’t be the first time he’s started over, likely won’t be the last. But there are worse places to be than London and worse people to have at his back than General bloody Harris. Besides, Xander said they weren’t popular. That means trouble and there’s nothing he likes better than a spot of trouble.