Pairing: Xander/Spike
Rating: Mature Audiences – for content and themes
Summary: The hellmouth has its way with Xander, this time it involves Chlorophyll, Spike and a bunch of other world beings that the Scoobies are not quite used to.
Spoilers: Sometime in early season five – or possibly late six BtVS.
Warnings: M/M – if you don’t like boys together, don’t play here!
Disclaimer: Don’t own the characters nor make any money from stories etc, and bow down to their original creators Joss, et al., plus all the wonderful online writers who continue to give the Buffy/Angel verse characters life.

A Wooded Future

by
Josie_H

Part One

It was early autumn and a full moon. All he had done wrong was to lean against the liquid amber at the edge of the cemetery to wait for Spike. One minute Xander was standing by the tree, and the next he… was engulfed by it.

He desperately tried to call out, but a frond slid into his mouth, effectively gagging him. The next few minutes were spent in a fruitless struggle to free himself as more and more fibres bound him tight. He was slowly raised from the ground and his unwilling form stripped of its clothing. Finally he felt the sharp pain in his side and he registered a cold chill spreading through his being, he remained conscious for just long enough to watch in horror as the veins in his arms and legs stood up and slowly turned green.

When he next woke he felt… different not in pain exactly, but aware that his life force was being subsumed. He felt his toes and fingers stretching and joining with the bark of the tree and in the haze he fancied he heard the leaves whispering before the root gagging him began to extend. He swallowed frantically as the living frond pressed down his throat and into his stomach. He registered that he was being filled with something and felt an odd chill as the cool fluids forced their way through his system changing and replacing warm for cool. A strange tingle starting in his chest became excruciating pain as his body began to alter at a cellular level. Finally he passed out.

Spike worried. He was supposed to meet Xander before the Scoobie meeting. Xander might have been many things but unreliable was not one of them. The others thought he must simply have gone away for the weekend, but when his apartment remained empty and job unattended the following week, his friends began to worry. Willow performed a locating spell but there was nothing, simply a series of green sparkles somewhere near the cemetery. They searched the cemetery thoroughly for two nights. Spike knew he could smell Xander, but the scent was too old to track and seemed to finish at a gnarled old tree near the perimeter.

Spike asked demon acquaintances, even venturing to Willie’s – despite the risk to himself. There was no body and no new fledges; there was no extra demon activity and Willie had heard nothing.

Eventually Spike even rang his Grandsire though sadly Angel’s team had little to offer. Angel was at least sympathetic, knowing that despite both Spike and Xander’s protestations to the contrary, the two were allies, fighting together and that Xander had taken Spike in (albeit initially reluctantly) after he was chipped. Angel knew his Childe enough to be aware that he was loyal to a fault, and would not ask for assistance from his ensouled relative before exhausting every other avenue to find a friend.

After a month of searching, Giles filed a missing person’s report. After four months Anya moved away, his apartment was ‘let go’, and his friends began to believe that he might truly be dead.






It had been late autumn when the tree claimed him and he remembered waking once after the change, but was oddly comforted by the enveloping layer of bark and the feeding frond holding him inert. He felt increasingly sleepy and though drifting in and out of consciousness for several days he eventually gave in to the tree’s winter hibernation habits.

The first full moon of spring marked his partial waking. Vague memories mixed with sleepy observations from his new circumstance and he reveled in yet another torrential downpour and felt his body begin to swell as his cells absorbed the precious fluids. He felt the tree responding to the warmer earth and reveled in the heat as the sun warmed the trunk of his prison.

He considered his position and pondered the bizarre fact that he was still sentient, aware of his own existence while feeling utterly connected to the tree who had taken him for her own. He felt her joy as buds burst open and new leaves emerged, and fancied he could feel the breeze on his own face, though knew it to be transferred sensations from the tree. Still he was nourished by his captor, moved with her when she swayed and felt ever more connected to the earth.

With no choice, he resigned himself to his inert role and his sense of time shifted with his reassigned status. But on the summer solstice, something remarkable occurred. There had been chanting – Willow and four of the visiting English Coven sat in at the points of a salt pentagram in the clearing at the base of his tree to call on the Goddess to bless the season.

Xander panicked as the chanting began and his tree stirred. He was not sure how much later it was but the wind picked up and he felt a distinct prickle and shift in the bark surrounding him.

For the first time in months relieved to find himself able to open his eyes, but closed them again in terror as he felt the feeding frond begin to withdraw. With no frond he instinctively knew he would starve. Like a newborn creature, he began to breathe actively for the first time in months though was instinctively aware that it was not necessarily oxygen he sought.

He tried to hold on, embedding his now iron hard nails into the wood of his protector, his mother, but it was too late. He, like so many before him, had made the change, had been loved and protected and now he was free to return the favor. The wood nymph slipped from his tree, landing inelegantly at its roots and pausing for a time to hug the bark covered safety of his relative, now his charge while he took in his changed form fully for the first time.

His skin was smooth and pale like that of a ghost gum – native eucalypt of Australia, though soft to the touch. His unclad body was leaner than he had been when first taken with the only adornment being a large piece of amber around his neck and circles of leaves growing from his ankles and wrists giving the impression that he was wearing some form of jewelry.

A soft flap of bark obscured the direct view of his nether regions though all traces of hair had disappeared, just as the hair on his head had been replaced by feather soft tresses of new leaves.

He found a puddle and sat wondering at the image of himself in the moonlight. He was just about to stand and explore his surrounds when an enormous hairy beast fell in front of him its throat torn out. Too frightened to run, he curled up against his tree, wishing again for her to envelop and protect him as a figure in a long leather coat – obviously the hunter – approached.

“Bloody Hell… Harris?”

Part Two

Frightened brown eyes framed by other-worldly long dark green lashes lifted to meet Spike’s crystal blue orbs, as the terrified, newly freed nymph pushed himself harder against the tree.

“It is you… Harris… !! Where the bloody hell have you…? And what the… you’re…?” Spike stood back, cocked his head slightly, pushing the leather folds of his duster aside by placing his hands on his hips in his typical stance, as he stared hard at the pretty pale figure and felt… magic.

The newly emerged creature, Xander, was not sure what to do. The other being looked familiar, yet caused Xander to shiver as its demon ‘signature’ registered. His old life had faded until but a distant and rather confused memory to his new form, and he was still grieving and confused by the impromptu release from his tree. He recalled that greetings were expected with other beings and attempted to say something, opening and closing his mouth twice as the other spoke, but finally accepted that his throat was incapable of producing sound after so many months of accommodating the feeding root.

The blonde haired being seemed to be agitated, so Xander did as any other wild creature might and prepared for fight or flight. Even as he blinked, he saw the twitch of preternatural muscle moments before Spike made his move. And though vampiric speed was gifted to the hunter he faced, Xander’s reaction was instinctive and far quicker.


The nymph had disappeared high into the tree before the vampire had even had a chance to initiate a grab for him. Instead, Spike’s attempt at catching hold of what he thought to be his transformed former ‘flat mate’ resulted in a rather unexpected collision with a broad tree trunk, and him promptly landing hard on his backside.

From his sprawled position he yelled up into the greenery, “Bloody Hell! You little…”, before regrouping and launching himself up into the canopy after the nymph. Several frustrated minutes later, the vampire landed grumbling on the ground, almost certain that it had been the missing ‘Scoobie’. He wondered how the boy had been taken by an ‘other’, and though sensing the shift to magical being, Spike was not yet willing to share the distressing information with others, at least not until he could be sure.

He stomped back to his current crypt-abode to spend an uncomfortably cold night worrying (again) about the friend the others were so prepared to declare dead and gone.





Xander’s terrified flight into the tree was so sudden and so effective that it took some seconds to register that he had come to rest fifty feet up with his arms firmly wrapped around the thinning trunk of his tree. His coloring was such that he was virtually invisible from the ground but still trembled as he realized that he had no idea how to get down.

One pointed ear rested against the bark of his beloved tree and he closed his eyes to take comfort in the almost imperceptible swoosh of life fluid through the tree’s central system as he slowed his own body to match the calm, familiar pulse.

As the moon set, Xander found himself sliding easily, naturally, down his beautiful protector’s trunk, stopping here and there to free a balloon tangled in the foliage or tend to an injury done by a stray baseball. In the latter case the urge to lean down, bite off the small branch cleanly, then lick the limb, came so naturally that it shocked the newborn nymph. Then he felt his tree sigh and knew he had done well.

As dawn approached he wrapped his arms around the base of his wonderful tree and hugged her.

The panic of earlier had all but disappeared and he leaned in against the robust roots. As dawn broke he felt himself fall forward and relaxed as he recognized the feel her bark enveloping him and the sun beginning to warm the beloved covering. Though aware he was still hungry, he was safe again – at least for a day.







Spike normally slept easily – at least for the first five or six hours. Granted he had issues after that, but this… ‘issue’ would not be quiet.

He had seen him. Xander Harris… Alexander Lavelle Harris…

The boy was no more dead than he was… granted he suspected that neither of them needed oxygen to survive, but surmised that his former ‘flat mate’ still required some sort of sustenance – and judging by the emerald hue of the boy, it was of the carbon dioxide, water and sunlight variety.

What puzzled Spike was the reason for the change. Wood nymphs were usually taken from intrinsically magical families, marked from birth and pledged to their tree or thicket. It was unheard of that a fully grown human with no connection be randomly taken… unless…

He knew he should tell the Watcher – the fellow had been the father figure for Xander forever, but the sod had gone to England, finally returning home to grieve and regroup.

It was no good telling the Slayer. Spike knew enough of her to work out that she had little time for her ‘side kicks’, and would just as likely try to stake the boy. Admittedly shoving a wooden stake into a Wood nymph would simply annoy the creature not kill it… nevertheless.

Willow was caught up in the whole Coven ‘womyn’ thing and he was not sure that she could do anything to reverse any spell or transmutation. The change was permanent, and the old trees claimed their own as a Sire took a Childe – for all time, until the tree was dead.

Angel was caught up saving the world, though Spike resolved to keep that avenue open if it was still needed – the team in LA might yet prove useful.

That left Dawn, whom he had pledged to protect beyond his own unlife… Ergo he would not risk the Bit by involving her with possibly mythically transformed (though allegedly deceased) friends.

Thankfully the sun set fully just after six pm. He was positioned for surveillance in a thicket of bushes some thirty yards from the base of the tree by six fifteen.







Xander stirred as the prickle of sunset marked the change in processes for his wonderful keeper.

As the bark that had surrounded and protected him for the day withdrew, he registered a feeding
root had again pushed its way into his semiconscious mouth to drip in water and sustain him.

He pressed against the strong trunk, slid to the ground again and stood for a moment gaining his bearings and sniffing the night air.

The moon was in full view and the young nymph was aware of heartbeats and movements – and even other ancient trees in the area, but oblivious to his blonde observer.

He sat in a small clearing that gave uninterrupted moonlight and Spike watched as the boy examined his own form properly for the first time.

Xander could have sworn that the wrist and ankle adornments, the circles of leaves, were thicker and darker than the previous night. He ran the now inch long curved silver nails through his green tresses, tugging at the leaves in amazement – it hurt to pull one out!

The exploration went on. He ran a sharp nail over the almost imperceptible belly button, then the puncture scar in side – the latter causing a shiver. Then he lifted the bark flap that covered his manhood and gasped at what he found.

His skin had a natural sapling pale hue, with nipples that appeared like knot holes, but his nether regions were definitely a healthy green. Xander looked around and seeing no one sat at the base of his tree to further examine his most intimate of parts. He was apparently unchanged in structure – though the dual sac was now covered in a green feather like moss and seemed so much more sensitive than when he was human.

He scratched lightly along the green shaft with his elongated fingernails and felt a more than definite twitch. He knew that feeling from the ‘before’ but could not quite place the tingle, so stood and looked at his legs and toes. The extremities, like his arms and torso, were essentially unchanged, though his inner thigh bark seemed extraordinarily sensitive and toenails long.

Spike let out an involuntary, almost inaudible moan as the nymph made the self-exploratory strokes and caresses. He assumed he was quiet enough, but the other creature had heard the sounds, and froze.

Spike was sure it was Xander now, so threw caution to the wind and stood away from his hiding place, arms out and palms down – trying to indicate his peaceful intentions. At the last moment he bit his wrist and let the blood drip onto the ground as he stood motionless, allowing the other creature to draw its own conclusions.

On instinct Xander dropped to all fours and pressed his nose close to the ground scenting the rich fluid. He looked puzzled then soundlessly mouthed, “Friend?”

Spike didn’t move, but night sight allowed him to catch the nymph’s gaze and silent word via the moonlight, “Yeah mate. Friend.”

Spike then let out the unnecessary breath he realized he was holding. Xander knew him as a friend… it was a start.

Part Three

“Steady on… Harris… You’re Xander Harris aren’t you?? C’mon pet… steady… ‘s ol’ Spike here… you remember… basement… savin’ the world… Slayer’s friend … Vampire?”

The Wood Nymph stood transfixed. Residual memories mixed with new thoughts as he tried to decide why he felt he should understand who the other creature was.

The blood on the ground did not smell of a threat, indeed it smelt familiar. And he recognized the demon race as one that did not hurt his kind, nor do ill to the trees. He opened and closed his mouth again, trying desperately to form words before he noted the other beginning to approaching achingly slowly.

Spike continued to hold out his hands, speaking in low soothing tones as he edged toward the nymph. A sudden gust of wind caught the leaves of the old tree, creating just enough distraction for Spike to be able to strike.

His arm shot out, grabbed the startled nymph and drew him into a close hug before the creature could react further. The ensuing struggle was fierce though only resulted in the two floundering on the ground.

Eventually the Spike’s ‘street smarts’ paid dividends and he managed to pin the former Scoobie face down on the ground, though only after binding scrabbling hands and failing arms behind the green back with his belt, catching wriggling legs firmly with his own, and seating himself firmly on the soft brown bark that now covered Xander’s rather taut behind.

Spike had had enough. Apart from anything else, the Wood nymph was exactly that – wood - and he had at least three rather large splinters embedded in various parts of his anatomy, plus had leaf parts stuck between his fangs like some bizarre parody of a post spinach luncheon and lack of dental hygiene!

He spat the latter out dramatically and resumed his litany of swear words in various human and demon languages before calming enough to growl. “You f’ing sod! Bloody well stay still or I’ll find a decent pair of garden snips and trim some of yer pretty dangly bits!”

The green being below him seemed to submit, but Spike knew better and simply waited for the being to buck again, before binding the thrashing legs with his own (now shredded) shirt.

The nymph knew he had no chance of defending his tree in his current position, and wondered at his captor’s constant reference to a name he remembered vaguely from before. Coupled with the familiarity of the scent and apparent lack of real malice beyond the other magical creature’s desire to subdue him, Xander relaxed a little and tried to convey his peaceful intentions in the only way now available to him. He ceased all resistance.

Spike carefully turned the nymph onto his back with no further protest then watched with fascination as the being processed how he might communicate with his captor.

Xander’s lack of working larynx did not prevent him whispering his message and despite the sound resembling the faintest rustle of leaves, the message was clearly mouthed and in English. Preternatural hearing had no trouble discerning the message.

“Please… I need to protect her… Please?!”

Spike suspected the answer to his next question but asked anyway, “Who’s her, pet?”

“My dearest, my maker, my Mother tree… I…I am pledged to her. She needs me! Please let me go… I will do you no harm… Please…!”

Spike's eyes narrowed for a moment and he leaned forward to taste the pale brown fluid that oozed from a small cut on Xander’s upper arm. The wood nymph expected to die, but the vampire on top of him simply licked the wound clean. Then to the puzzlement of his captive, the blonde sat back looking genuinely sad before brushing some of Xander’s stray leafy tresses from the nymph's eyes.

“Oh pet… Wouldn’t hurt you for the world… Not then and not bloody now… You really are lost to us aren’t you… One of the fae now… One of the ‘other’ for all time… Like your's truly innit... Soddin’ universe ‘as screwed you over good an’ proper… good an’ proper.”

Xander blinked slowly as the vampires baritone voice trailed off, and found himself leaning in to what could only be called a gentle caress though unsure of what he should do or say.

Spike seemed lost in thought for the moment and continued the soft touches with one hand while absently releasing Xander’s arms and legs with the other.

Even after being freed Xander remained, lulled by the calm hand, enjoying the unfamiliar touch, and taking in the creature above him fully. Fine featured, in fact ethereally beautiful, yet a body obviously capable of great savagery, a hunter with preternatural speed and strength. Xander scented the air properly as the hand brushed his forehead again, and it suddenly struck him. He knew this creature from his 'before'.

His memories were all jumbled but he thought he could knew that this was a friend – a good friend, a brother in arms, someone of value. He knew the leather and tobacco smell so well, intimately even and his eyes went wide as the continued caress combined with the line of thought caused an unfamiliar tingle in his groin, and his features under his bark flap to stir a little.

As Spike ceased his caress, the rather confused wood nymph acted on impulse and with preternatural speed slid from under the vampire, kissed him hard on the lips, then disappeared up his tree in a flash of green.


An astonished Spike stood staring up for a moment before stomping off mumbling in frustration, “Typical bloody Wood Nymph! All enigmatic whispers and soddin’ camouflage!”

Hours later, a rather confused Xander finally slithered down his tree to settle for the coming day. He had much to contemplate, but knew without a doubt that he hoped to see the vampire again. He felt joy and hope at the thought that he truly did have a friend from the 'before'!






It was four nights before Xander saw his friend again, four very painful nights for both other worldly creatures.

Spike, for his part, had a fractured wrist, fang missing, a gaping hole in his right buttock and bruises in every place imaginable by the end of the first evening.

He had literally crawled home after their altercation with the Initiative’s obviously domesticated and trained Groxlar beasts. Their collars gave away the identity of the ‘owners’, though the motivation for the attack was still one of conjecture amongst the remaining Scoobies. If it had not been for Willow and her wiccan groupies, Spike would have been dust and Buffy, Groxlar pie.

The stale animal blood he kept in the cooler at the rear of the crypt only lasted for a day, and he had wondered then if he would starve to death or simply wait until another ‘beastie’ decided to use the crypt and finally dust his injured self.

Then Dawn arrived on the second evening. His lovely ‘Bit’ brought seventeen bags of just expired human blood with her, along with nearly ten kilos of ice and promised to deliver more in a couple of days. His lips and mouth were so swollen and sore that he could not even express his gratitude, but she understood as unbidden tears fell from near closed eyes. She squeezed the only part of his right arm that was uninjured before silently feeding him three bags of blood, then departed.






The Wood Nymph spent two nights watching for his friend and tending his tree, but was unworried. Time moved differently when directly connected to such an old being and the ancient living rock that was Earth.

Late on the second night, he had seen a pretty female with a large box moving in the direction that his friend had gone the previous couple of evening and idly wondered if they were known to each other.

He sat high in his tree after seeing the girl and watched as satellites moved by, grinning as a shooting star flared and wishing… his friend well. The third night came and went in much the same fashion.

On the fourth day, late afternoon, he woke to excruciating pain. They were carving her! His beautiful tree. Someone was scarring her bark with an ugly knife. He was happy that he was in the way and his being would take most of the marking, but as the next slice occurred, the tree shuddered with her protector’s agony and all magical creatures in the area felt the trace of one of their own in desperate pain.

As evening fell, Spike limped to the tree where he had last seen the nymph, Harris, aware that he had failed to visit for nearly five days.

He saw a pale figure curled up and tucked into a crevice at the base of the enormous root system, and moved toward it with caution.

As he approached the figure pulled in tighter on itself, and Spike gasped as he saw the damage to the being he now knew to be Xander.

The formerly flawless pale back now sported a raw and oozing large love heart complete with arrow and “WB 4 AL” at its centre. The scoring was so deep that Spike fancied he could see bone.

He shrugged off his duster and flung himself onto the ground beside the injured nymph before easing the surprisingly light body into the soft leather, careful not to aggravate the horrendous injury.

With no real idea how to assist a creature of the woods, he cut his wrist on his fangs and dripped the magical blood onto the worst of the wounds.

Completely intent on his task, Spike missed the sparkle of magic as blood met bark, and also failed
to hear the sighed blessing of the old tree as one of her own was cared for by a most unlikely savior.

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