Dogs of War

by
Tabaqui

Part Three

Seventy-two days and Spike looked less like a skeleton and more like heroin-chic. The bruises were almost gone and his cheekbone had mended. The raw flesh of ankles, wrists and throat was healing slower, but it was healing. Xander was pretty sure there would be scars there for a while. The hole in his head - and Xander had to grit his teeth every time he caught site of that square of gauze - was closing. He looked better, but still not right.

Xander had stolen jeans from the discount store - it was still open but at irregular hours and he'd just gone in the broken back door and taken what he wanted. Aware, in a skin-crawling sort of way, that there were others there doing the same thing but trying not to see, hoping that would mean he wouldn't be seen. Boots were harder - they had to fit - but Spike wasn't going anywhere just yet, so Xander left it for the moment. Spike had already taken Xander's only black t-shirt, and it hung on his too-thin frame but he didn't seem to notice or care. He sat cross-legged on the table, watching Xander eat, or strip a rifle down and clean it, or eavesdrop on the Initiative radio. Every now and again he'd reach out and pinch, or pull Xander's hair. Not hard. Not mean. Just - making sure. Xander bore it with a crooked smile, letting him do it. Spike still hadn't said anything; Xander wondered if he could. The damaged brain tissue intruded into his dreams and he started talking just to cover the silence. He told Spike everything that had happened - everything he'd seen, and done. Told him all about Tara and what they suspected was happening to Buffy and Willow. Told him about Giles and Joyce and Dawn and what he hoped had happened.

Spike just listened and watched, wary eyes socketed too deep in his face, the loss of his hair making the curve of skull and cheekbone and jaw more prominent - more elegant. It made Xander think of the vaulting hollows of Gothic architecture; one of the many books he'd pored over in the library when demons had become too boring and Giles' lectures too convoluted to follow. When Spike lay down on the table and slept - catnaps all through the day, getting his strength back - Xander couldn't help but reach out and rub his fingertips over the velvet nap of hair and arch of bone. And Spike twisted a little, sending a screwdriver rolling over the table surface, making the bottle of warm, stolen soda Xander was drinking wobble a little.

Tara brought blood almost every day - brought news, as well. Xander was too nervous to go Above again so soon, especially since the raid, and told Tara to stay away for a few days. But she insisted that she was okay - her spells kept her hidden and she was careful. Besides, Spike needed the blood. It made Xander's heart pound and his stomach clench up tight when she came ghosting in and then ghosting back out, but he was grateful for her courage and her care. Spike - offered up a shy and crooked smile and Tara found him books, and another blanket.

Eighty-three days and Spike was restless. Mostly healed except for the scars, he slipped away one night while Xander was sleeping and came back with blood down his chin and a new pair of boots and Xander knew he'd had a soldier or two. But he couldn't make himself care and every time he looked at the sunken twist of scar tissue that had been a hole in the back of Spike's skull he could put the soldier's deaths behind him more easily. After that Spike went out every night, and when Tara brought him more blood he just shook his head, telling her no. He'd learned some secrets, Xander could tell, about what the soldiers could and couldn't do - some tricks, and some hard-won, first-hand knowledge of their weapons and he was using that knowledge to full effect.

He still couldn't talk much at all and Xander had noticed that he limped if he had to run or walk too far - that the occasional notes he wrote were difficult to produce. His once-fluid hand, that had manipulated bottle or cigarette or knife or pen with ease was now crabbed and cramped and not entirely under his control. It made Spike furious but Xander was pretty sure that would fix itself eventually. Spike was already making noises - trying to force words out past clenched teeth and tangled tongue.

The ninety-third night he came back early - woke Xander with a hard shake and drug him, stumbling and swearing, out of the dead-end tunnel Xander had claimed as a bedroom. Spike had claimed it, too; he slept curled into Xander's blankets whenever Xander wasn't in them, and sometimes when he was, and Xander had gotten used to the iron-earth-cinnamon smell that seemed to just be the vampire.

The lantern was lit in the Hall and someone was standing there - someone Xander knew. Spike pushed him forward with an impatient snarl and Xander just gaped for a moment.

"Wesley? Is that - you?" Buffy's old watcher, looking dapper and too military in an English Army officer's uniform. Wesley took a step forward, hand out.

"It's me, Alex... Xander. William brought me here." Spike snarled at that - snatched something from the table and shoved it into Wesley's face, and the man recoiled. It was a big, chisel-ended nail and Xander had to grin.

"He's Spike, not William. Get it?" Wesley eyed the nail - it had something on it that might be blood -looked at the scarred, furious creature growling less than a foot from him and nodded, eyes wide.

"I - get it. Spike brought me here. I - recognized him from.... Well, from Initiative tapes and... I had to speak to him. And to you." Spike flung the nail, sticking it into the slats of a wooden crate. His expression said quite clearly that he didn't trust Wesley one bit. Xander didn't know what to think

"Git," Spike rasped, the word slurred but clear enough and Wesley ducked his head a little and then looked up at Xander with a slight frown on his face.

"I'm - not here as a member of the Initiative, although they believe I am. They've made me a Lieutenant in a special branch - Occult Liaison, if you can believe it. They seem to finally realize they've gotten in over their heads." Wesley looked at Spike and dipped slow fingers into an inner pocket, pulling out a slip of thin paper - something close to tissue. Something easily destroyed. "Read this before you say anything to me, please." He handed it over to Xander who took the tissue carefully - went over to the lantern that Spike had put on the table and tilted the paper to the light. Spike sidled up close to him, leaning into his side and looking as well and Xander shifted so they could both see. The handwriting was as familiar as his own - Giles' tiny script that he'd seen a thousand times or more.

"Xander. Wesley is working for us - for the Council. He's trying to coordinate a rescue. You may or may not know that the Initiative has taken Buffy and Willow hostage, as well as a number of others. We are doing our best to get them out through normal channels but Professor Walsh is stalling. We - fear for them. Joyce and Dawn are safe here, in England, as is Oz - he made it out in wolf form three days after the lock down. We have several operatives in place who have seen and reported your presence as a free agent in the resistance. We also know that Tara is there, but we have not been able to contact her. We are uncertain about Spike but assume the worst; our last intelligence concerning him was not hopeful. Please - do everything you can to assist Wesley - we hope to have our intelligence organised within the next two to three weeks, and will be affecting an attack if at all possible.
To prove that Wesley is to be trusted and that you can be sure this is the real Rupert Giles: Joyce says to remember the secret ingredient to her hot chocolate is NOT something sweet. I remind you of a night during that dreadful summer that Buffy was gone when I let you get drunk and you told me that you loved her. And Dawn begs to add, in case, for Spike to remember the night in his crypt after Glory had hurt him, and how she tried to convince him to run away with her.
Please be careful, and guard yourselves well. Wesley has things to tell you which will explain our haste.
Giles"

Xander read the note through twice - finally took a long, long breath that came back out shaky - almost a sob. He felt Spike's hand on his back, petting him softly for a moment and then he straightened and turned to Wesley, crumpling the tissue. Spike plucked it out of his hand and fed it into the lantern, watching it burn.

"Okay. I - believe you. We believe you." Spike nodded and leaned back against the table, arms crossed over his chest. Xander noticed that he had a bruise on his arm and blood down one thigh of his jeans, but he decided to ignore it for the moment. "So what's going on? What are you doing?"

Wesley glanced around and then settled gingerly on the crates Spike had flung the nail into. They were painted olive-drab and were full of ordnance; rocket launchers and rounds for the rifles, C-4 and grenades and even some nerve-gas, or tear-gas. Something, but Xander hadn't messed with those much. He's stolen them one at a time from the ammo dump behind the courthouse.

"We had to infiltrate," Wesley began. "We had some people here already - the Initiative had been moving in on the Hellmouth for some time and when the Council found out about it, almost a year ago, they began to try to...dissuade your government from interfering here. Unfortunately, a group of old Englishmen who chase vampires and demons wasn't very well received, as you can imagine." Wesley smiled thinly and Spike made a sort of snorting noise, agreeing. "So we did our best. We planted some Watchers in with the soldiers and the faculty, and have been keeping track of what the Initiative were doing. That was how we managed to get Giles out in time to avoid the coup."

"What about Buffy? And Willow? What about - anybody? Why didn't you get us all out, if you knew already?" Xander fought to keep his voice steady but the anger was surging up hard. He crossed his arms, his fists balled tightly against his ribs, trying not to lose control.

Wesley looked unhappy, but resigned. "We - couldn't get visas for anyone. Your government was being obstructive and we feared that if we merely removed Buffy or - anyone - from the city but not the country we would be facing an international incident. After what happened in New York -" Wesley made a helpless sort of gesture with his hands and Xander considered that for a moment. He knew that after the attack in September, things had changed with the Initiative. Riley had been around less, and tension had been high. The threat of terrorists had been everywhere.

"New York, in fact, made it easier for them. They had an excuse, finally, to go into a full state of Martial Law - and to be above suspicion when they did it. While we were trying to get visas for you and move you out of the country, they were manufacturing all kinds of evidence to show that terrorists were at work here. Their façade is really quite seamless, it's utterly fascinating -" Wesley seemed ready to go off into some sort of tangent and Xander brought him sharply back to the subject.

"So, what now? What's happening that suddenly made this critical? What's the Initiative planning on doing?" Wesley shifted on the crates, his fingertips going out to brush the nail Spike had thrown.

"The Initiative has decided that, via the Hellmouth, they can - obliterate hell dimensions. And the demons in them. They are planning to make some sort of controllable - gateway - at the Hellmouth and use it as a - a jumping-off point to exterminate all non-human life that they find." Spike was growling, an unnervingly deep rumble that made Wesley blink rapidly, nervous. Xander risked uncurling a hand and reaching to lightly stroke Spike's bicep and the vampire shuddered. But the growl subsided a bit.

"So the Initiative's gonna go all 'Stargate' on us, huh? Don't they understand what opening the Hellmouth will do? Don't they get why Buffy's here? Aren't you telling them?" Xander throttled his voice back down from the shout it had risen to and Wesley stood up, pacing in a little, uneven circle.

"Of course we've told them! We've shown them - done everything we could! They are stubborn - and fanatical - and Professor Walsh believes that she can..." Wesley stopped, biting his lip, then he sighed and turned to face Xander - took a step towards him.

"This is going to be very hard to hear, Xander. Please understand that for the last three months we've been doing our best to derail Walsh's plans. And trying everything in our power to get Buffy and the others out. But... It seems that an all-out assault is the only way we're going to stop them."

"Stop them from making a Hellgate? Or from - something else?" The expression on Wesley's face was making Xander nervous and he shifted - felt Spike lean into him a little, comforting weight, and he tried to relax.

"Professor Walsh believes that she can...breed an ultimate soldier. Like Adam, only one that won't - turn on its creators. She believes that she can use Buffy's genetic code to -"

"Stop!" Xander turned away from Wesley, slamming his fists down onto the table behind him, shutting his eyes and trying to shut down his mind. But he couldn't. Tara had told him - strange things were turning up in the incinerator room. Things that looked very much like fetuses. And he had seen for himself the piles of distorted, unfinished looking demon corpses being hauled away on flatbed trucks to be burned somewhere in the city dump. The unease - the suspicion - that had been growing about all this was now being confirmed and he didn't want to know - oh god, he didn't want to know.

"Xander - I must tell you. Walsh is trying to make something to fight anything that gets through the Hellmouth. Something with enough humanity that it will...fight on their side. Something with a Slayer's strength and...instincts."

"Oh, god -" Xander shook his head and Spike's fingers brushed over his knuckles, rapid caress. Then Spike snarled something unintelligible at Wesley and the man gasped.

"I - alright. I'll stop. But they've got Ethan Rayne, Xander. They've kept the man drugged half out of his mind and are making him construct this - this 'Hellgate'. They're using Willow, as well. Drugging her to make her willing."

"Oh fuck..." Xander turned around finally, leaning back on the table again - leaning into Spike. Taking comfort from the only thing he could - the only thing from his old life.

"I've managed to see what sort of magics they're using - and what sort of spells they're constructing." Wesley took another step forward, his eyes wide behind his glasses, his face a mask of anger and sorrow. "They're having them work the problem from two different ends - separately - and while it may look good to the untrained eye... When those two sets of spells collide, Sunnydale is going to be a hole a kilometer deep and a portal a kilometer high and we will...never...be able to close it. They're going to end the world with this, Xander, and we - are doing our best to stop them."

When Wesley had gone it took everything Xander had not to break down into a screaming, wailing tantrum. He wanted to cry - he wanted to hit something - he wanted to end something and god, god, it was so hard. He couldn't. He couldn't. He had to be quiet, had to stay out of sight. He couldn't run screaming, shooting, kicking - shredding every person in his path. Which was what he wanted to do. He tried to clean his rifle but his hands were shaking so hard he couldn't do it and finally he shoved the whole mess aside and sank his head into his hands - fisted his hair and pulled it and rocked a little, his back so tight with tension it ached. He almost jumped out of his skin when Spike's hand touched the back of his neck and he whipped around, teeth bared, doing his best to snarl. Spike was just standing there, jeans and boots and too-large shirt, this smirky little smile on his face and he put his arms up - did that little 'come hither' gesture that Morpheus had done in The Matrix and Xander felt his lips skin back from his teeth. A fight was exactly what he wanted, and he knew he could break himself on the whipcord and bone that was Spike and not have to worry about going too far.

When it was over, and Spike had a black eye and a big bruise on his collarbone and Xander had a split lip and bashed knuckles and aching ribs, Spike pushed him down flat onto his cot and crawled in beside him - fitted himself over and around Xander in the tight space and pushed his face into the sweat-damp hollow of Xander's neck and sighed, content. Xander wrapped his arms around Spike's ribs and rubbed his chin slowly over the prickly-soft hair on the crown of Spike's head. He heaved his own sigh, closed his eyes, and slept.

Part Four

One-hundred and nine days and Xander was in the little alcove that they'd made into a shower; jerry-rigged pipes filching water from the city, very carefully. Stolen water-heater that didn't use a tank, just heated the water as it came through. Bottle of gel-soap 'cause a bar was too messy - no shampoo 'cause there wasn't enough room, or time. Long showers drew notice. He stripped out of sweat-damp clothes, tossing them aside. He'd been Above, looking around, pretending to be a part of a press-ganged detail that was checking empty buildings for squatters. It was warm Above, and sunny, but it had seemed surreal and too bright - too exposed - and Xander had had to force himself to stay up there for five hours, slipping away before they'd all been herded onto a bus. The soldiers were getting overconfident, at least in the daytime. There hadn't been any more big raids, and the civilian population that was left had no fight - no desire to be hurt. They did their tasks and went back home and drew their rations and seemed - to accept. They were slowly being processed out, and Xander knew they were getting some sort of story - some sort of proof nightly on the one Initiative-controlled TV station that was all that was left broadcasting in Sunnydale. And the soldiers goofed around more - joked and played poker and listened to music and got friendly with some of the civilians. Traded cigarettes and candy and condoms for cached alcohol and hand jobs behind the scorched deuce-and-a-half permanently parked outside the defunct Espresso Pump.

The soldiers were easy to fool, anymore - easy to out-wit or out-talk. These guys weren't hard-core Initiative; they were just regular Army, most of them under 21 and all of them cocky and uncaring. The Initiative boys - the special teams that Riley and his crew had run - only came out at night and they were too vicious for Xander to deal with. But Spike dealt, just fine.

Xander turned the water on - you had to use a wrench, but it was easy - and let the water sluice the sweat and grit off of him; the stink of fear and abandoned buildings and the cafeteria-style stew they'd been dished for lunch. He got a palmful of soap and scrubbed briskly, head to heels, and as he turned to rinse his back he saw a glimpse of something pale down the tunnel.

'Spike? Yeah - going to get something to eat, maybe.' He shrugged and finished rinsing - grabbed the wrench and shut the water off and then dried slowly with a stolen hospital towel. It was scratchy, and smelled faintly of must and bleach.

'Need to see if Tara can smuggle these into the laundry - get us some new ones.' He pulled on a worn pair of camo pants - grimaced in disgust but jeans stood out too much - and was turning to find his socks when Spike - was suddenly there, watching him.

"Jesus, Spike! Stop my heart, one of these days." Spike tipped his head a little to one side, his eyes narrow, and then he took two fast strides forward and put his hands on Xander's hips - shoved him back hard into the tunnel wall and followed until Xander was pinned there, Spike pressing against him from the waist down. Xander put his hands on Spike's biceps, just lightly holding.

"Spike?" Xander asked, and Spike just looked at him. Spike had nightmares, sometimes - less often when he shared the cot with Xander. Spike startled easily and lashed out with hard, pin-point punches if you crept up on him or made noise when he wasn't expecting it. Xander had learned to duck, but he'd also learned that sometimes Spike just needed to touch, and that was all right. But this felt...different.

Spike's hands slid slowly up from Xander's hips, smooth and chill on his water-warmed flesh. The muscles in his arms flexed under Xander's fingers like snakes under satin and Xander felt a shiver go through him. Spike pressed his palms lightly over Xander's chest and then slid his hands up further, to curl around Xander's throat. His fingers wove through the hair at the nape of Xander's neck and he leaned forward until they were forehead to forehead.

"Ss-aaann..." he rasped, closest he could get to Xander's name just yet. His breath was cool, tinged with smoke and cinnamon. "Sssaan."

"What? What is it, Spike?" Xander whispered, because this felt - this was different, this was - intense and nothing like the casual way Spike would lean into him as they listened to the radio - nothing like the petting he would unconsciously do while Xander cleaned some weapon or haltingly wrote down his observations for Wesley. Spike would sit cross-legged on the table and smoke and card his fingers through Xander's hair and sometimes Xander would just lean there and rest.

"I...n-nee...d..." Spike's voice was shaking - Spike's hips were moving a little, pressed tight to Xander's, their chests just touching, t-shirt soft as flannel against Xander's bare skin. Xander could feel what Spike needed - could feel the hard length of the vampire's cock pressed into his thigh and he felt his own body react - felt his own cock filling, responding without conscious thought or effort. Spike pulled back just a little and his eyes caught the light from the Hall like a cats - his face was tight with strain and frustration as his mouth worked but no words came out. Then Xander leaned forward and kissed him.

Soft, cool, wet - tasting of cigarettes and cinnamon and blood, teeth small and sharp, tongue clever and slick. Xander sighed into Spike's mouth and tipped his head a little - let one hand drop to Spike's jean-clad hip and pull him closer. Spike was shivering under his hands - gasping for breath and then plunging back in, his fingers tight in Xander's hair and these low, soft groans vibrating up out of his chest.

Xander's whole body was leaping - thrumming - sparking to every touch and movement and sound that Spike made and he couldn't get enough breath, enough contact, enough anything. 'God, oh god....' Xander shifted, opening his thighs, pulling Spike in hard against him and Spike broke away, gasping, his hands slipping free of Xander's hair, his arms winding fiercely around his ribs, almost hurtfully tight. He was mouthing Xander's neck - his jaw - and Xander got his own fingers up under Spike's t-shirt and scrabbled over that cool-silk flesh, mapping bones and muscle. His own mouth found the fading scar of the collar on Spike's throat and he kissed and licked and soothed, wishing he could burnish it away with his lips.

Then Spike's mouth was back on his, pushing and licking and tasting and taking and oh fuck, Xander wanted to give in, wanted to give him something - give him everything.

"Xander? Are you here?" Wesley's voice and Spike twitched and then he was pulling away, his head on Xander's shoulder and his ribs heaving under Xander's arms - his hips still moving. Xander rapped his head back against the tunnel wall.

"Bloody fucking hell," he whispered fiercely, and Spike's head came up and he was grinning, his eyes sparkling in the dimness, laughing almost silently. "Yeah, you think that's funny?" Xander grabbed two handsful of muscle and thrust hard, once and twice and three times and Spike's head went back and his eyes fluttered. He made a tiny little mewl of pleasure and Xander nipped hard at the curved length of his throat.

"I'm just getting out of the shower, Wes, be right there!" he yelled. Spike took a step back - put his hands gently on either side of Xander's face and kissed him on the forehead.

"K-keep," Spike whispered, and then he was gone down the tunnel, opposite direction, and Xander knew he'd come into the Hall from a different tunnel.

'Does that mean - this'll keep? Or- he'll keep me, or -' Xander thumped the wall once in frustration and then he shook his head. Gotta get moving. Hastily he snatched up a t-shirt and pulled it on - grabbed socks and boots and the camouflage overshirt that said 'Waters' and 'U.S. Army' on it and walked briskly up the tunnel to where Wes was waiting, examining the notes he'd been working on the night before.

"Xander! Excellent. I've got wonderful news. One of our operatives had a break today, and she managed to get a prisoner out. She's going to be here in -" Wesley squinted at his watch. "In ten minutes or less."
Xander's heart leapt in his chest and he stumbled, then sagged down onto the milk crates, dropping his boots.

'Prisoner - Buffy? Willow? Oh god -' Spike suddenly appeared, cat-footed, behind Wesley and snapped his fangs at the man and Wesley squeaked and jumped, frowning. Spike eased up onto the table and his booted foot brushed Xander's knee, sending a little tingle of sensation shooting up Xander's leg.

"Who - who is it? How - what -" Wesley smiled suddenly, his whole face opening up and his eyes sparkling. He looked - ecstatic.

"I'll explain. It was chance, pure chance. Xander - we've got Willow."

Xander felt like he'd been punched - like he'd missed the last step. Giddy and breathless. "Oh god! How? How did -"

"It's really bloody amazing!" Wesley looked like he wanted to jump up and down with glee and Xander couldn't keep the huge smile off his own face. "One of our operatives has been monitoring the progress of the spells. You'll remember I told you that they've been using drugs to assure Willow's cooperation?" Xander grimaced - nodded - hating to think of his Wills drugged and helpless.

"Our operative informed us they were moving Willow - new rooms closer to Ethan Rayne. They've some idea to have them work together, apparently. She informed us of the move and we were able to launch a small diversion. The Initiative will have conflicting reports of Willow being taken east and south." Wesley put his hands together behind his back and paced, grinning. "Of course, in an hour or so they'll uncover the truth - Willow was actually taken north with a convoy of escapees. When in reality, she'll be here. Right under their noses." Wesley looked so please that Xander hated to say anything, but he had to.

"But - isn't that dangerous? I mean - couldn't they do a spell and -"

"They can't, actually. What they've done, with the Hellmouth... Magic is getting very, very risky here. Small spells like that have become almost useless - like trying to listen to a radio in the middle of a concert. Too much - background noise." Wesley looked at his watch again.

"S-spike, if you - hear anything, please...inform us? I'm not sure how well Willow is right now. I know that our operative kept at least one dose of the medication away from her today, perhaps two. She'll be more clear-headed, but she'll also be suffering the beginnings of withdrawals." Spike nodded shortly at the Watcher, and then they simply waited, tense and on edge now that the good news was broken. After what seemed an eternity, Spike suddenly lifted his head and then pointed, and Wesley moved forward briskly, going down a corridor that eventually led to the hospital. Xander got up to follow and Spike rose, as well - reached out and touched his arm. Xander stopped - turned to look at him.

"What is it?" he asked, and Spike smiled at him - leaned in close and kissed him, brush of his lips lightly over Xanders.

"Don't...fff-rr-get," he whispered. Xander let his hand come up, and delicately ran his fingertips along Spike's cheekbone and jaw.

"There's no way, Spike. No way I could forget." Spike grinned, and nodded towards the corridor, and they both went to meet Willow.

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