Becoming

by
Sorrel

Part Three
Thou Invisible Spirit

Angel followed an unusually quiet Spike down the hall, taking in the unobtrusive affluence of the building. Xander had come up in the world, apparently.

The door opened just as Spike raised his fist to knock, revealing a grinning Xander Harris wearing a pair of black sweatpants and a healing burn on his chest. Um. Well. The boy had certainly filled out, that was for sure.

“Excuse me,” Xander said to Angel, and hauled Spike across the threshold and into a deep kiss.

Angel tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels as he tried not to look at the entwined couple in the doorway. He kept sneaking glances at them, though, no matter how much he pretended that he wasn’t.

The two of them finally pulled apart, a flush warming Xander’s cheeks and a happy smirk on Spike’s face. Keeping one arm around Spike’s waist Xander said, “Welcome home, honey,” in the smarmiest possible tone to Spike, then gestured airily at the room behind him. “Come on in, Deadboy,” he said to Angel, and detached himself from Spike before wandering into the kitchen. Spike, rather obviously not appreciating being detached, wandered after him.

Angel stepped in and shut the door behind him, leaning back against it as he watched the laughing couple in the kitchen. Spike had set down the groceries on the counter- and damn if that hadn’t been a mind-blowing experience, going grocery-shopping with Spike- and Xander was putting them away while Spike shucked out of his duster before taking a packet of blood out of the fridge and putting it in the microwave. The vampire lounged against the counter while his blood warmed, making no attempt to help Xander and every attempt to distract him, stretching and rubbing his taut stomach and chest. When that failed, he hooked Xander’s foot with his own and pulled him in for a kiss while the boy was trying to carry a box of soda back into the pantry. Xander tickled him in the ribs to get released, and the incredulous expression on the Spike’s face was almost enough to make Angel laugh.

They looked... happy. At ease with each other. As comfortable and settled as an old married couple, and it showed in the easy domesticity of the chore.

“How was work today?” Spike asked from his comfortable lounge against the counter, mimicking Xander’s smarmy welcome-home tone of voice. Angel was again forcibly reminded of an old married couple- or Cordelia and Wesley on one of their better days.

“Pretty good, actually,” Xander told him. “Couple guys gave me some trouble, but nothing big.”

“Nothing to eat ‘em for, then?” Spike asked, and Angel reflected wryly that clearly, he had an odd view of domesticity.

“Nothing to eat them for,” Xander confirmed, and came over to stand near Spike as the vampire sighed in disappointment. Spike shifted till he was standing behind Xander and wrapped his arms around the boy’s waist. Resting his chin on Xander’s shoulder, he nodded at Angel.

“You gonna stand there forever, or are you gonna come in and get comfy?”

Angel gingerly stepped away from the door and crossed the living room to lean on the kitchen counter, instead. Spike snorted at him, but Xander just smacked his hand and cocked an inquiring eyebrow at Angel.

“So, what’d you find out about the cattle brand?”

“It draws Fate’s attention to you, causes you to Become all you’ve been before.”

“Even I can hear the capital letter ‘B’,” Xander said. “So, in other words, I’m a soldier, a hyena, and apparently? A vampire.”

“How do you know?” slipped out of Angel’s mouth before he could stop it, though he really didn’t want to know how Xander knew.

In a sort of answer, Xander tilted his head back and latched his teeth lightly into the pale skin of Spike’s throat. Angel saw the muscles move in Xander’s jaw as he suddenly bit down hard, hard enough to draw blood. Spike purred and Xander drew back enough to lick the red stain from his lips and smile at Angel.

“Answer your question?”

Angel was hard. He was disgusted with himself because of it, but it had been... a long time. And these two together were potent. Spike, lean and hard, covered with leather and silk and with years of blood and sex vibrating between them. Xander, the Slayer’s best friend who he still hadn’t been able to stop looking at, even then, who stood barefooted and bare-chested in from of him now with muscles earned on the construction site and the wicked twinkle in his eyes that hadn’t been there a couple of years ago. Spike with his cold-heat magnetism and leather and cigarettes and drawling sarcastic purr, and Xander with all his flaring warmth and boy-next-door good looks and the grin in his eyes that said he was banging the brains out of the girl next door.

Or maybe the boy.

Spike had always been like this, but this faintly predatory sexuality of Xander’s was new. The two of them together were a picture of blatant decadence, and nothing in their attitude suggested that they were ashamed of it.

And he was hard. For Spike. And Xander. Together. And it was just wrong.

“Yeah,” he said. “That answers my question.”

Standing outside the door to the Magic Box, trying to nerve himself to just open the damn door. Shouldn’t be that hard, should it? He even had Spike standing next to him, holding his hand like some toddler at the doctor’s, and Angel’s looming shadow comfortingly close to his back. He should be able to do this. He should.

“Um, should warn you, Angel, that it’s not going to be pretty in there,” he said slowly, trying to hold himself together even though all he wanted to do was fly apart. “Since.... since Glory, it’s been a mess, and everyone’s falling apart and we haven’t really talked much. Like, at all. It’s gonna be like walking into a battlefield. One with bullets and bombs. And land mines underneath your feet.”

“I got it, Xander,” Angel said, but there was no irritation in his voice. “It’s okay. I’ve been through worse in the last couple of months, trust me.”

“I doubt it,” Spike said, “But it doesn’t really matter either way, because we have to go in. Xander luv, want to do the honors?”

“Not really,” Xander muttered, but because Spike’s hand was laced tightly through his, he gritted his teeth hard enough to make his skull ache and opened the door.

He walked in with a badly cracked but cheerful smile pasted on his face. Willow was sitting on the couch with Tara at her feet; Dawn was sitting at the table with a mug of hot chocolate in front of her, and Giles was behind the counter, scribbling something quickly on a scrap of paper. Anya wasn’t there, because Anya had taken off after Buffy’s death, which had led to his relationship with Spike. Xander tended to think that he was better off.

He sort of waved to them, unobtrusively freeing his hand from Spike’s, and Spike let him. No need to remind everyone that he was sleeping with the vampire; there had been enough fighting the first time that information had made the rounds. The last time he was in this room, in fact, and it had resulted in his and Spike’s hurried retreat from the building and weeks of utter silence between them and the rest of the Slayerettes, which had only recently been broken. Just an hour before, in fact, to call and tell them that they had something they needed to talk about.

So to say that Xander was tense would be a rather astonishing understatement, and he wanted very, very badly to be anywhere but standing in the middle of the room with everyone’s eyes on him. Back in his apartment, in bed with Spike, was his personal preference.

“Hey,” Willow chirped, falsely cheerful, but at least she was trying. Tara smiled a little, but Dawn was staring at him in an odd way, and Giles’s gaze was hard and almost vicious, especially when he looked past Xander to Angel, still standing in the doorway.

“What’s he doing here?” Willow demanded before Giles had a chance to, and Xander winced a little but spoke up quickly in Angel’s defense.

“I invited him,” he said, just as Spike said, “I brought ‘im.” The two of them exchanged an amused glance, then looked at the ceiling as Giles glared harder at them for the little moment of intimacy.

“Yes,” Willow said patiently, “but that doesn’t explain what he’s doing here. Oh, and why.”

“I’d like to know that as well,” Giles said, his gaze fixed diamond-hard on Angel. “Seeing as he didn’t see fit to show up for the funeral.”

Xander could smell the pain and worry and guilt that were suddenly pouring off Angel’s skin, and he glared back at the Watcher. “Giles, play nice.”

“It’s not as if I was surprised,” Giles continued, unheeding. “Walked away and broke her heart, not there when you were needed and could have bloody saved her and couldn’t even be bothered to show up at her funeral. She-“

Giles never got a chance to finish, because Xander was suddenly across the room, much too fast for a human to have moved, and was glaring straight into framed brown eyes. Making an abrupt decision, Xander said, “Spike, take him outside, will you?” His voice was mild. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

He saw Spike shoot him a worried look out of the corner of his eye, but his lover was for once mercifully silent and took Angel by the arm and hauled the older vampire out of the building and onto the sidewalk outside. Hearing the door click shut behind them, Xander said, very sharply, “Don’t say a single word.”

Willow’s mouth, which had been opening to say something or ask something, Xander didn’t care which, snapped shut as her unhappy eyes stared at him.

He slowly unbuttoned his shirt, then pulled it off his body. He stood shirtless in the middle of the room, the healing rune visible in stark relief against his tanned skin. Willow and Tara both gasped, while Dawn just stared in morbid fascination, still silent.

“I got this in a dream the night before last,” Xander said slowly, every word aimed like little hammer blows at Giles’s quiet, closed face. “It’s a rune of Becoming. The Powers have decided, for some reason, that until they can find someone better that I’m to guard the damn Hellmouth. We came here tonight to get your help, but I can see that you’re no Watcher anymore. You’re good for nothing but drinking your life away and bitterly blaming everyone that you come in contact with for Buffy’s death. Well, wake up. She’s dead. She’s not coming back. And you’re the worst tribute to her life that you could possibly be. Don’t say anything,” he reminded Willow when she opened her mouth again. “I’m almost done. Now, we came here tonight for your help, but you don’t have any to give. Which is fine by me, actually. We’ll keep the beasties away from your door, and you can curl up in a little ball and drink yourself to death. And when the next Slayer is called- I’m guessing a couple months, at the outside- then she’ll come here. And I will find her, and tell her the way of things, and let her know not to come to you for help. There’s a perfectly well-trained Watcher close by in LA, and if she needs something then Wesley can do it for her.” That got a reaction, and not a happy one. Still jealous of your Slayer? She’s gone, move on. He stared hard at Giles, then sighed and finished his little speech.

“Because you’re useless.”

He shook his head with disgust and turned sharply, heading for the door with long strides. Then he stopped, just for a moment, and turned his head to look at the rest of the room. Everyone was frozen, stuck in ice and unable to react. He snorted and left the building, slamming the door shut behind him.

He found Spike and Angel a few steps down the sidewalk. Angel was leaning back against the building, eyes closed, with a bleak expression on his face. Spike allowed himself to shoot a worried glance at Xander, and he smiled to himself in response, knowing that Spike would never have done it if Angel hadn’t had his eyes closed.

“Giles has been living at the bottom of the bottle for months,” Xander said slowly. “He’s not really in his right mind, or even his left or any mind at all that ever belonged to Giles. Except maybe the scary teenage version, and that is so not the point.” He shook his head slightly, refocusing his thoughts. “He tries to blame everyone else because he doesn’t want to admit that he blames himself.”

“Don’t worry,” Angel said. “You don’t need to explain. I get it.”

“You don’t get a bloody thing, mate,” Spike said calmly. “You usually don’t. Too much hair gel, fries the brain.”

“Says the guy who uses half a bottle every morning,” Xander said. “But Angel’s grooming habits are definitely not the point.”

“Angel’s grooming habits are a point all on their own,” Spike argued, then held up a hand before Xander could say anything. “Yeah, I know.” He turned to his Sire. “Cliffnotes version of that little byplay? You’re a moron who lets the angry words of a drunk get to you even when there’s not a grain of truth in ‘em. Now come home with us and we’ll get you drunk and make you watch bad movies till you stop brooding for a bit.” He cast an amused look at Xander. “You might want to put a shirt on for a bit, luv,” he said with a bit of a laugh buried in his voice. “Might get arrested or something.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Xander said, and shrugged into his shirt. He put one hand briefly on the bottom button, then shrugged and left it open. He took one of Angel’s arms, Spike took another, and they dragged him off without looking back.

Angel was drunk. He hadn’t been drunk in a very long time, but then Spike knew how to mix a drink to get anyone smashed- even him. Liberal amounts of something strong mixed in with blood- human blood, and wasn’t that a kicker, Xander getting rejected donor blood for his boytoy from the hospital?

They were piled onto the couch in Xander’s living room, staring with varying degrees of vacancy at the tv screen. John Carpenter’s “Vampires.” Christ, what an awful movie- Xander had a decidedly twisted sense of humor. Spike was curled tightly against his right side, almost asleep, with his head pillowed against Angel’s chest. Xander was draped over his left side, grinning at the screen and occasionally reciting the worst lines with a mockingly cheesy voice. All in all, it was the most of any sort of physical contact he’d received in a couple years.

Christ, he was so hard he hurt.

He let his head drop back against the back of the couch. This was bad. He had to get out of here. Because he had two men who were lying half on top of him and pretty soon one of them was going to notice the erection straining against the fly of his jeans.

He shifted a little, wanting to see if he could get away with actually moving, but Spike muttered something in his sleep and just curled closer. He couldn’t tell if Xander had noticed his movement or not, but one leg curled around his and the arm draped across his stomach tightened a little, trapping him from the other side. Right, so... new plan of action.

“Do you want us to move?” Xander asked. Yeah, maybe he had noticed his movement.

“Yeah,” Angel said, neglecting to mention why. Xander tilted his head up a little to give him a warm, sleepy smile, and slid up his chest until his face was just a breath away from the vampire’s throat. Angel felt the boy’s warm breath on the skin of his throat, and then a hand resting on his thigh. All perfectly innocent, almost, except...

Except Spike was suddenly moving on his other side, and had slid one hand up to the top of his chest and was slowly pulling the buttons out of their buttonholes, one at a time, while his free hand was mimicking Xander’s on his other thigh and was slowly sliding higher. Xander moved just a breath closer and licked his throat lightly, right along the place where a pulse would have been throbbing if he’d been human and that should have bothered Xander except he was already sleeping with a vampire and should be used to it and oh Christ Spike had gotten his shirt unbuttoned and was licking at one nipple while rubbing the other with his free hand and the two hands, one cool and the other warm, were almost at their goal and if they got much higher than his control would definitely snap and he’d do something that he would definitely regret in the morning...

“Stop, please,” he whispered, his voice just a broken thread of sound, and Xander moved his head just enough to look at him though Spike didn’t bother, just switching his attentions to the other nipple while his hand wandered down to brush feather-light circles on his stomach. Xander smiled a little at him and tilted his head, a question in his eyes that was slowly finding its way to his lips.

“Do you really want us to stop?”

His brain stuttered and ground to a halt just before he could tell them that yes, he really did want them to stop, because he suddenly had two hands on his erection and even though the sensation was blunted by the fabric of his slacks it was enough to make him arch off the couch, his head thrown back and his eyes closed. He felt Xander’s smile against his throat, and then Spike was moving lower, pressing moist kisses to his belly and then hands were tugging at the buttons of his slacks and this was so, so wrong but it felt so damn good and it had been so long and the sound of the zipper being lowered was loud in the quiet of the room, and it was almost enough to bring him back to sanity except Xander’s mouth was on his throat, sucking lightly right over his jugular and he could feel a cool breath over his cock and he’d lost all power to speak, to think, and he was dying...

The smash of the door splintering off its hinges screamed into the sound of muffled breathing, and his eyes snapped open to see a tower of blue slime with eyes standing in the doorway, looking like it was ready to munch on anyone that came near it. Or would be ready to munch on anyone that came near it, if only it had a mouth.

Xander was away from his side in an instant, and Spike leapt up too but kept back as Xander snatched up a sword that just happened to be lying on his coffee table and advanced on the demon. Only one of the Scoobies would keep a sword on the coffee table, he found himself thinking hysterically, and quickly zipped up his pants over his deflating erection and got ready to lunge off of the couch to help Xander.

Only Spike pushed him back down, and when he tried to fight the unyielding grip on his arm he leaned down and hissed into his ear, “Boy’s got to learn how to fight all over again now that he has his powers, doesn’t he?”

“Now’s not the time,” Angel argued, but the point was moot since Xander had neatly ducked the first clumsy swing of a slime-tentacle and had stuck the sword straight through the middle of the thing and yanked sideways, cleanly severing it in half. Blue slime exploded everywhere, then evaporated in seconds, just as the one that they’d killed the night before had done, according to Spike.

Xander turned to them and grinned widely, shaking his dark hair out of his eyes. “Self-cleaning demons,” he said, and there was a wealth of satisfaction in his voice. “Only the best for the newly-made warriors, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Spike said with a proud grin, and jumped up to wrap Xander in a hug. The boy chuckled, then turned in the vampire’s embrace to regard Angel with his dark bedroom eyes.

“Demon has a bad sense of timing,” he said after a long moment, and Spike nodded silent agreement. Angel found himself pinned by their combined stares, but managed to shake himself free and stood up before starting to button his shirt.

“I can’t,” he said harshly, far more harshly than he’d meant to. “I have to go.”

He’d expected Xander to look hurt, but the boy just shook his head with a grin and started back to the bedroom with Spike.

“Sure,” he said over his shoulder. “We got the power turned on in the old factory and it’s actually got running water this time, so you should be pretty comfortable there. Lock your door on the way out.”

Then the door was shut behind them and Angel was staring after them with a severely bemused expression on his face. Then he shook his head, clearing his thoughts away for the time being, and left the apartment, making sure to lock the door on the way out.

Part Four
Three's the Very Best Number

“So, bleach-boy, you gonna tell me what the hell that was about?” Xander said as he grabbed a can of soda out of the fridge. “I mean, that was... Angel. And we were all over him. And now I’m sulking because we got interrupted and I want him to come back so we can be all over him again. When did this happen?”

“Breathe, pet,” Spike told him with a little grin. “What exactly are you worried about, anyway? I mean, I wasn’t the only one messing around with the nonce, so there’s no reason for you to be jealous or anything.”

Xander smacked him on the back of the head and settled back with the can of soda in his hand. “Yeah, you weren’t the only one messing around. It’s just... it’s weird. It’s not like we’ve ever talked about him or anything, and then we were just lying there watching tv and then all of a sudden we’re both playing with him and he’s getting into it and it was just... weird, okay? Weird that we were playing with someone like that, weird that we were doing it so smoothly we should get paid for it-“ Little snicker from Spike at that one. “-And it was weird that it was Angel, of all people, and it was weird because I don’t know how far we would have taken it if we hadn’t been interrupted, and it was weird because I want to find him and start it all over again, and it’s all even weirder because I shouldn’t want to start over again when I’ve got you. And a bit weird because I feel a little jealous anyway.” He paused and took a huge gulp of air, and then looked at Spike. “Um, was any of that English?”

“I think I got it fairly well, luv. You want me to answer them, or are you just complaining?”

“Answers would be nice,” Xander offered, and Spike sighed before settling back against the counter next to him, his hip nudging against the boy’s.

“Was afraid you were gonna say that,” he sighed, but gave his answers anyway. “Take ‘em in order, yeah?” When Xander nodded, he continued. “Right. Well, I don’t see how actually talking about it makes any difference to wantin’ the pouf, because everyone does even though it’d take hot pokers to get most of them to admit it. It’s not that weird to play with someone who’s as gorgeous as my Sire is, not that I’ll ever repeat that within hearing range of the wanker. That sort of cooperation... that’s a bit different, but it’s just a bit of what it’s like when we’re shaggin’, readin’ each other’s minds or near enough, so that really shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Angel’s a bit... different from most people, pet, you should know that, and we’ve both had some history with ‘im, so it bein’ Angel isn’t quite as weird as you think. Workin’ up to the end of your little speech, no point in feeling guilty because you liked it, or have you forgotten the lesson I gave you on that after the first time we shagged?”

Xander flushed a little, because he remembered it very well, and gave Spike a half-angry, half-laughing look at the reminder, and waved his soda can for Spike to go on.

“Right, so nothing’s wrong with your memory. Anyway, the last bit, ‘bout bein’ jealous... you don’t have to be. You don’t ever have to be jealous of me. I was hopin’ you’d learned that bit already, but since you haven’t, I’m sayin’ it now. Just because I might want someone else, or even play with someone else while you’re playin’ too... It doesn’t mean a soddin’ thing. I’m yours. For as long as you want me.”

Xander was rendered almost completely speechless, which anyone could tell you was almost unheard of, and in absence of words he pulled Spike into an almost painfully tight embrace. Spike wrapped himself around Xander’s body and purred a little, low in his throat, resting his head against Xander’s shoulder as they stood in silence.

Xander untangled one arm to set the soda can down on the counter, then wrapped it around Spike’s back again. “Sometimes,” he said, very slowly, “sometimes I wonder that I’m going to go completely insane one day. That everything I’ve experienced, everything I’ve done and all the things I’ve learned about my life that I’d just as soon not know will just... crush me like a load of bricks and I’ll lose my mind and nothing will ever bring me back.”

Silence hung heavily in the air again, and then Xander dipped his head just a little bit to press a kiss into the stiffly gelled curls at the top of Spike’s head. “And then I remember that you’re here, and I know that I have nothing to fear.”

Spike made a wordless, needy noise at the back of his throat and kissed Xander with rough desperation. Xander kissed him back just as hard, and then finally eased back a bit, breathing hard.

“So,” he said casually, then smacked Spike when the vampire broke down into a fit of laughter. “You didn’t even hear what I was gonna say!”

“Don’t need to,” Spike said, still snorting. “Anything that begins in ‘So’ after a scene like that is bound to end badly.”

“That’s what you think,” Xander retorted. “What I was gonna say was, “So, what do you think about playing with Angel some more?”

Spike blinked at him, then started grinning like a maniac. “Definitely keepin’ you, pet. We’ll have so much fun.”

“I know,” Xander said. “And just think of all the mayhem we can get into now that I can actually fight.”



~One Week Later~

Various noises were sounding from somewhere just below his ear, and he wondered in an abstract way what the hell they were. Then he managed to force himself into something more closely resembling consciousness, and he realized that the noises were actually voices from the sewer line that ran directly under the warehouse.

“I can’t find the bleeding opening.”

“Somehow, I find myself not at all surprised by this. Spike, you’re a moron.”

“Not my fault I never went underground when I was here! I was in a bloody wheelchair, mate! Not exactly easy to find a damn doorway when you’ve never gone through it!”

“Yeah, yeah. Shut up for a minute, will ya? I’m trying to focus here.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Xander said triumphantly, “I got it. Right there,” which was probably accompanied by Xander pointing at the doorway.

“You bloody well smelled the damn doorway? That’s just not normal. Are you sure that’s it?”

“No, Spike, it’s not normal. I was never meant to channel my inner hyena, but I am and since I’ve been through this before, I know what I can do. Go over there and open the damn door, Spike.”

Angel heard the door opening somewhere a few feet to his left, and then a few seconds later booted feet were thudding on the floor, coming in his direction. He opened his eyes, hoping against hope that it was all a hallucination, but as it turned out, no such luck. Spike was looming over him, grinning cheerfully, looking far too wide-awake, considering that this was Spike. Spike never got up this early. For Christ’s sake, it was only a couple hours past dawn, and knowing those two they’d been up till way past midnight, combing the graveyards and then going back to their apartment to have sex.

He’d heard the rumors on the few occasions he’d ventured out of the warehouse in the last week and went to some of the demon bars in Sunnydale. Spike was up to his old tricks again, killing his own kind and everything, but now he had a sidekick that was stronger than any vampire. A few of them thought that he looked a lot like one of the former Slayer’s humans, but the idea was quickly dismissed because the Slayer’s groupies were all human, and had certainly never fought like this.

“What the hell are you doing up?” he demanded, which probably shouldn’t have been his first question but he was tired, damn it, having only gotten a couple hours of sleep. Spike just grinned at him some more and leaned against the hearth.

“I made him get up,” Xander said as he closed the door again. “And I have to admit I’m curious as to why you’re asleep on the couch when there is a perfectly good bed about ten feet away, through that doorway.”

“Too tired,” Angel muttered. “Why are you here?”

“Have something I have to prove,” Xander said cheerfully. “But you’re not gonna have the energy to play, apparently. Got a present for you.”

Angel blinked at the apparent change of topic, and said, very slowly, “And what would that be?”

“This,” Xander said, and took out a knife. Angel’s eyes widened, and his muscles tensed to roll away, but Xander brought the knife down on his own arm and sliced a shallow cut open neatly on his inner arm.

“Drink,” he said.

Angel started to shake his head, but then the smell of blood hit him like a physical assault. Warm, fresh blood. Human blood, only it wasn’t quite human- there was a smell of magic in it, of magic and demon and vampire, and he wanted to say no but couldn’t... quite... resist....

Angel drank.

Not a lot. He was worried about weakening the boy, though he suspected that it would take a lot more than a little blood loss to slow down the particular Powers-created fighting machine. But still, he didn’t take much, if only because it was already coursing through his own bloodstream and he was afraid that if he took too much he was going to be drunk, drugged on Xander Harris’s blood. So he stopped, already looking around for a bandage.

“Don’t bother,” Xander said, guessing his intent, and gestured to his arm, which was already closing up. Angel watched, fascinated, as the shallow cut literally disappeared from sight.

“Even a vampire doesn’t heal that fast,” Angel said slowly, and Spike came over to stare with interest at Xander’s arm. Xander grinned at them both.

“A vampire does if he was turned by the Master and shares blood with another vampire,” Xander said with a grin. Angel looked at Spike, who looked at the ceiling. “And my flesh is part human, which wants to heal faster, for some reason.”

“Your vampire self was turned by the Master?” Angel asked, and Xander nodded. Something in his eyes was making Angel’s skin crawl, though, and he couldn’t quite understand why. It had been bothering him since Xander had first entered the room, and he was beginning to guess that it had something to do with Xander-the-vampire.

“There’s something else,” Xander said slowly. “The vampire me, in the alternate dimension? He, well...” He paused, struggling for words. Spike looked just as curious as Angel, so apparently Xander hadn’t told his other half everything.

“He was with Willow, I guess you know that much. And vampire-Willow was more than a little psychotic, which I think you also know. She liked to play. With a puppy.”

Angel was starting to think that he really didn’t want to hear this.

“The ‘puppy’ was you, Angel. That’s why your skin is pouring off fear right now, because some part of you remembers the vampire me, and you’re terrified.”

Angel nodded slowly- this made sense. This made a bit too much sense, if you asked him, which no one did because since when did anyone ask his opinion any more and actually care about the answer? Which was not the point. His brain had gotten off track yet again.

“So, it’s like this. We’ve been killing lots of things, and it’s fun and all, but it occurred to me recently that I should probably learn slightly higher-class fighting skills than Spike’s particular brand of street fighting mixed with poking things with sharp metal poles. And you’re the only one we’ve got to learn from, at the moment. So here we are.”

Oh, bad idea.

“Xander, I don’t think-“

“That’s it’s a good idea?” Spike finished for him. “Well, I’m not all that fond of the idea either, mostly because you’re gonna try to teach ‘im Tai Chi or some foofy shit, but you’re going to do it anyway.”

“Why’s that?” Angel wanted to know. He wasn’t exactly convinced that this was the best idea, but Spike was starting to make sense. Which was just weird. Especially considering that Spike wasn’t making any effort to convince him at all, and was essentially telling him what to do. But then, he still felt a little out of it from Xander’s blood, so he was going to use that as an excuse for actually considering doing something Spike told him to do.

“Because Xander’s right, and there’s no one else. He’s a blend of vampire, and hyena, and soldier, and a gormless carpenter geek.”

“I heard that,” Xander said.

“Giles used to be a decent fighter,” Spike said, ignoring him, “but we all know what he’s turned into now. ‘Sides, I know you used to spar with the Slayer, before you skipped town.”

“Buffy was something different,” Angel protested. “She wasn’t like any other fighter, ever.”

“Well, neither is Xander,” Spike growled back. “What part of vampire-hyena-soldier did not sink into your soddin’ thick skull?”

“Spike, shut up,” Xander suggested pleasantly. “We have bigger problems right now, like a Hellmouth to deal with, and I can’t deal with it unless I have some better training, which we’re going to start now. And you don’t really have any sort of excuse to get out of this, Angel, because you’re more than awake. Bet your skin is buzzing right now, isn’t it?”

Angel nodded, puzzled. “How did you-“

“Can smell it, can’t I?” Xander said irritably. “Now, can we get started now?”

“Yeah.” Angel stood and stretched. “Yeah, I think we can do that.”

“Ow.”

“Spike, stop whining. I barely tapped you. I’ve hit you harder before got all magicked up.”

“Ow, ow, damn it all to sodding hell, Xander, you were supposed to have my right side, not my left. Ow.”

“No, I was supposed to take your left, since Angel was supposed to be on my left, because we’re fighting with me in the center, remember? Stop whining, you big vampire baby. It’s your own fault for forgetting which side you were supposed to be on, not mine.”

Angel watched this all with a great deal of bemusement. Xander was... beautiful to watch in motion. He and Spike had started out sparring, leaving Angel to watch for a while before he joined in. The two had clearly fought together before, because every move they made was a perfectly choreographed improvisation of fists and booted feet and swiftly moving bodies. They’d finally let him in, and it had taken him a few minutes to adjust to their pattern, but once he found it the three of them had settled into the movements as if they were born to them. When Spike could remember which side he was supposed to be on, anyway.

“Dinner break,” Xander announced, as he turned and made his way back into the kitchen. “You two dig into the nummy O positive I left in the fridge; I’m ordering pizza.”

“Don’t get it with bloody pineapple!” Spike howled as Xander started dialing. “I can’t stand the stuff.”

“Hello, I’d like an extra large Hawaiian and a medium Meat Lover’s. Yep, thanks,” and there was a long pause. Xander sighed and rattled off an address, too fast for Angel to hear, before hanging up. Spike was giving him a sulky look, his lower lip looking like it was ready to slide into a pout any moment. Xander sighed.

“What did I do this time?”

If anything, Spike’s sulky lip quivered just a little bit more. “I don’t get an extra large?”

“You’re drinking blood, Spike,” Xander said patiently. “You don’t need the pizza, and I know for a fact that you only eat it because it grosses me out to see you dunk it in blood. So no, you don’t get an extra large. Live with it. Or unlive. Or whatever.”

Quiver... twitch... BAM there went the pout. Angel felt himself melt a little on the inside- never could resist Spike’s pout- but Xander just laughed, right into Spike’s face. Apparently Xander was a little more immune, living with the vampire as he was.

The boy glanced out the window, and saw that the sun had gone down. Angel watched as his muscles grew considerably more tense, and he moved casually to the front of the building, where he could see anyone coming up the road. Or anything. He carried on a bantering conversation with Spike, but his eyes never stopped roaming restlessly about the grounds.

Spike evidently noticed that Xander’s heart wasn’t in their argument, and demanded to know what was wrong. Xander shrugged a little and said, “You know how Willow once cast a spell so that her will would be done?”

“Bloody hell, couldn’t forget being engaged to her Buffyness,” Spike said with rancor. Xander shot him a little half-glance out of the corner of his eye before fixing his gaze back onto the road.

“Yeah, well, it made me into a demon magnet. Don’t want to be caught napping, is all.”

Oh, so that’s what it was. “Xander,” Angel said gently, “this building is warded. You don’t have to be on your guard here.”

Xander relaxed a little, though not all the way, and gave him a relieved grin. “Good to know. Don’t supposed you could give me something like that for my apartment building?”

“Sure, I can do it. May have to call Wesley for some expert advice, but yeah, I can do it. I can actually call Wes and get him to see if there’s some sort of shielding spell for the demon magnet affect- there may be something that you could turn on and off at will, so that you could go to work or even go out at night without worrying about being attacked all the time.”

“That would be bloody perfect,” Spike said with a groan, and settled into an overstuffed armchair with an air of a man who doesn’t feel like moving another step. “Took out three demons and two vampire on the way here, and I’m not looking forward to the trip back, either. Least it’ll be through the graveyard, rather than stuff in the sewers. Not exactly a hell of a lot of room to swing, is there?”

“Yeah!” Xander agreed emphatically. “You chipped my best sword, damn it!”

“Not my fault!” Spike growled at him. “Not a whole hell of a lot of choice, there, pet. It was pretty much me or the edge of the blade, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Xander muttered. “You always say that. Well, room to swing or not, I’m still not looking forward to the trip home.”

“You don’t have all your fighting moves down yet or anything,” Spike chimed in, and that was the first inkling that Angel got that there was a plot afoot, because Spike never agreed with Xander unless it had something to do with sex. The two of them seemed to enjoy their constant battles, almost like it was another form of foreplay, and oh shit moving his brain away from there. He didn’t need to think about warm tongue and lips and cool hands and teeth worrying his nipple... No, not thinking about it. Bad Angel.

Either way, he should have paid better attention to his instincts when they screamed at him that this had to be a setup of some sort, but they were all dead- figuratively- after the exhausting day of fighting. Xander, who’d had the least experience of all of them, should by all rights be the most tired, but instead he seemed to be almost overflowing with energy. It was unnatural.

“I’ll walk back with you,” Angel offered, and then realized that he’d been manipulated by a couple of masters, and he was now stuck going back with them to their apartment, which he had planned to avoid at all costs. They both gave him identical wide, guileless grins, and Angel let his head drop with a thunk onto the coffee table in front of him. Right, don’t damage the brain cells, Angel, you’re gonna need them to think your way out of this mess....

“Which is a good thing,” Xander said cheerfully, “because the pizza guys won’t deliver out here. Too many of them have gotten eaten, what with the history you two have with this place. We need to head back just about now to get there before the delivery man.”

Oh shit... It was even worse than he thought. Not only had Spike and Xander managed to get him back to their apartment, but they were gonna do it before he had a chance to think of a way out of it, too. There was no other way of looking at it- he was fucked.

Which was exactly what he was afraid of.

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