Part 3
Bronzing. With Spike. Xander had spent his life, since Jesse died, drowning
in estrogen, so the whole beer and pool after the Friday night sweep was
new. Odd, he would never have pegged Spike for the male bonding type.
Although the only people, in the loosest form of that word, that he had ever
seen Spike interact with, outside of the gang, were either dead or dust. Not
counting Deadboy, and Dru, and, ‘snerk,’ Harmony. Whoop; not wise to snerk
when the vampire misses a shot. ‘And, hello William the Bloody.’ Luckily
even under Spike glare Xander made a fairly complicated bank shot. Not that
he was into the game, but the shot would pass the inopportune snerk of as
comment on how Spike had set up the shot for him and not a shot at his
romantic entanglements.
Guy speak. A grunt or a nod covered most topics. You didn’t have to take
out the broken pieces of your live and poke them around. There was much to
be said for the unexamined life when the wounds were so raw. No need to
pick at the scabs with Spike. Not that they didn’t talk, they had some
spooky parental like conversations about Dawn when she wasn’t with them. He
hadn’t really had a guy friend since Jesse. G-Man didn’t count. Not that he
wasn’t a guy. Well he wasn’t. He was an adult. Someone you could go to if
you needed to know how to kill a Cltari demon or break a spell, but Xander
was pretty certain they would never have a belching contest while watching
‘Pinky and the Brain’.
He had tried the whole bonding thing with Riley, but they hadn’t been able
to fool each other. Xander had been wrapped up in Anya at the time and
Riley had pretty much fallen into the category of ‘this guy makes Buffy
happy so I’ll be nice to him.’ Like Tara, who having survived the trial by
fire was now part of the pack, Riley had started out as a friend’s
accessory. Riley had fallen by the wayside, like Cordy, like Oz, like Anya.
That wasn’t really fair to Cordy. Willow had told him about the vision
thing. So the alpha female had gone off to form her own pack. More proof
that once you life was touched by the Hellmouth that there was no where to
run. He felt bad that Willow had made that trip alone. It couldn’t have
been easy for her, telling Deadboy; Willow could never bear to cause anyone
pain. He hadn’t counted Angel in his list of former fringers, because he had
never considered him even a fringe member of the pack. He had been alone in
those feeling, so once Angel left, the issue hadn’t been worth crossing his
alpha.
‘Whoa, got stop the hyena thoughts.’ Xander didn’t have the enhanced senses,
or the drive to hunt trumming through his body anymore, but he did remember.
Remember how simple it had been to divide the world into pack and not
pack. You protected pack. Everyone else was prey or predator. He had been
surprised how well that had carried over to his life after the demon had
been banish. The only difference was you didn’t hunt the prey, you protected
it. Giles had never told that Xander still had the memories, so he never
talked about them. Buffy had thought that the mating urge was fueled by
human Xander attraction to her. Attraction had nothing to do with picking
her as a mate. Hyena Xander was only concern with what was best for the
pack. She was the strongest female; she would have been perfect, the best
hunter, and the best protector for the pack. He shook off that line of
thought. They turned the pool table over to the guys waiting for it and sat
at the bar.
“Just say it whelp.” Spike snarled leaning over the counter and helping
himself to a beer, and stealing one for Xander as well.
“Huh?” Oh, I should probably pay for those, Xander thought and pulled a ten
out of his wallet to appease the bartender.
“You’ve been doing an impression of the Poof all night. Your in a snit over
my giving the watcher what fore so spit it out.” Spike flipped the top of
the beer back over the top of his head, it bounce of a light hit a moving
waitress in the head and landed with a ‘plunk’ in a pitcher of beer on a
table over eight feet away. It didn’t set the chip off, and the people at
the table were looking in the wrong direction due to the numerous banks,
cool. Oh yeah, Spike, Giles, major blow up, multiple ‘Sod offs’.
“You mean all that bugger, wanker, piss off and other English type slang
your two were hurling when Dawn and I showed up?” It hadn’t occurred to
Xander to ask. One thing his parents had taught him, although he doubted
they knew it, was the advantage of keeping you head down and pretending you
didn’t know what was going on.
Spike just snorted, and drained half his beer.
Using both his vast experience in ducking his friends menstrual cycles and
his inborn guys speak knowledge, Xander interpreted that to mean that maybe
Spike needed to talk. “So what was that all about?” There that was vague
enough, encouraging him to talk while not taking sides. How much worse
could this be than a pmsing slayer after the whole Parker debacle.
“Xander.” Exasperated Spike, so not good and he was using Xander’s name; he
never used his name.
“He’s really hurting, Spike” Suddenly, he didn’t want the beer and set it
down on the bar.
“We’re all hurting; we all loved her.” Xander wondered if Spike said we to
see if he would call him on it.
“No, we loved her; Dawn loved her. Giles was responsible for her.” Xander
held up both hand to stop Spike, and continued. “You know what he’s been
doing every day? Besides trying to pickle himself in single malt? He’s been
reading his journals. Every line, and between the lines. He is examining
every action, every word to see how he let her down. He’s trying to find
what he could have done different, which time he wasn’t hard enough on her,
when he missed the opportunity to pass on that one piece of knowledge that
would have saved her life.”
Spike’s eyes had never left his, but where they had been the cold eyes of a
merciless killer when he started, by the time he finished Xander thought
they were starting to gloss over with tears. ‘Oh God, please don’t’ he
thought. He hadn’t seen Spike cry since That Day. If Spike started crying
Xander would loose it, they would have to scrape them both up off the floor
in wet little puddles.
“I promised her...” Spike’s voice was low and he was obviously fighting the
need to cry.
“I know.” Xander spoke equally softly, and hoped he wouldn’t choke on his
words. “When we were sixteen, and were told how short a slayers life was, I
promised Buffy if anything happened to her I would look after the people she
loved. I never thought I would have to keep that promise. I mean, she
always seemed so indestructible.” Xander’s had been anywhere but on Spike
while he spoke, thinking that that would keep him from bawling like a baby.
But as he ended his eyes met Spikes and he said, ‘Let’s get the hell out of
here.”
About a block form the Bronze, Xander said. “That’s not all.”
“All that you promised?” Spike had his emotions back under control and
sounded like his old self.
“All that’s got the G-Man courting disaster. The whole Ben thing. I mean, I
don’t think I could have done it. Not that I’m condemning him but, you
know, wow.” They had cut across through the park and were almost to the
playground, the trees were cut back and since it was a clear night the area
seem bright with moonlight.
“What are you babbling about?” Spike stopped with his hands thrust deep in
the pockets of his duster.
“I guess you were up protecting Dawn at the time.” Spike nodded so Xander
continued. “Well.” This was the first time they had spoke of that night.
Xander turn and walked over to the swings and sat down. Spike followed and
sat on the next swing. Briefly, Xander flashed on that peculiar nightmare
after Adam and Spike as a watcher. It was enough to break the mood. He
could do this he could talk about That Night. “Well. I said that already
didn’t I?” He took a deep breath. “After Buffy pounded Glory into a fine
red paste, she changed back to Ben. Buffy left him there bleeding and
gasping for air, and went to rescue Dawn” Did my voice just crack? God I
can’t even just say it, poor Giles. “Giles knew. He knew even if Glory
couldn’t complete the ritual, once Ben recovered, there would be no stopping
her. She would just make this world into another hell dimension. Giles, he
just did what had to be done.”
“How did he do it?” He wished Spike sounded gleeful or ruthless, but he just
sounded tired. Tired the way Buffy had seemed before the final battle. Tired
the way they had all seemed since Buffy died.
“Quiet. He just clamped his hand over Ben’s mouth and held his nose shut.
One handed.” Was he expecting one of the Scourges of Europe to understand
what killing an innocent had done to a good man? Maybe. “God, I said it
there in the shop and hated myself for it. His life’s work is protecting
people.
“It’s done.” Okay maybe, not. “He has the rest of his life to examine his
actions and motives. Xander, the bloody watchers are coming again; he is
going to need his full faculties to make sure they don’t find out about
Dawn.” Spike took a swig from his flask, and offered it to Xander. “I don’t
trust them not to turn her into some sort of lab rat. I won’t let that
happen to her.”
“When are they coming?” The pack, protect the pack.
“Monday, late.” Spike was looking at him expectantly. One hundred and twenty
something vampire looking to a glorified bricklayer for a decision. Ironic.
“Let’s go see the witches.” Xander got up, and Spike followed. Another day,
another battle.
Part 4
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