Becoming

by
Sorrel

Part Seven
The Inward Side

Spike wasn’t happy.

Well, understatement, but still truth. He was sitting in the middle of a sodding cage with bars of iron, or somesuch, and he was stuck with not Angel, not Angelus, but some weird mishmash of both. And the bugger was deteriorating fast, far as Spike could tell- he was currently curled up in the corner, muttering to himself about blood and screams and all that rot. Spike touched the bruise on his cheek and winced- he’d be up and about soon enough, looking for a spot of torture and with Spike firmly in his sites, since there wasn’t a sodding person in miles except for his own fine self.

He was worried, too, what with Xan out and about with his doubles, and Dru and Ethan still on the loose, and Anyanka come back to haunt them, or torture them, or something. The bint was mad, no doubt about it- she’d bloody well been the one who left, and was ranting and raving ‘cause Xander had the sense to find someone new? Sod that. He hadn’t been about to leave Xan crying and alone like Anyanka had hoped he’d be, and now she was after his own ass. Angel’s, too, since it’d take less than a demonic sense to notice that Angel had been in Xander’s bed, and recently too.

And on top of all this shite, he was bored. Wasn’t like there was anything he could do in this cage, ‘cept maybe sit here and count sheep, or sing “One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” or something. There was a lovely sharp piece of glass that he’d managed to snag from the ground, right outside the bars, but he was afraid that carving on himself would just wake up Angelus ahead of schedule, no matter how distracting the pain would be. And yeah, there was blood loss to consider, since it wasn’t like he could see getting a snack in the near future, but he could just cut little shallow cuts, and...

And yeah, that was Angelus, all right. No one else had that particular edge to his snarl, and no one could mistake that sneer for Angel’s hangdog expression.

Shite.

“Yeah, Anya,” Xander said. “I’d like to know what you did with Spike and Angel. I’m in sort of a hurry now, if you hadn’t noticed.”


“No, I really hadn’t,” Anyanka said with a sneer, and Vamp-Xander couldn’t help but laugh.

“She got you there,” he pointed out. “Here we are, strolling along with our lollies as if we hadn’t a care in the world. Girl could be forgiven for thinking that we weren’t really in much of a rush.”

“Fine, I grant you that,” Xander said, then turned the full force of his coldly furious glare on the demon blocking their way on the road. “But you didn’t answer my question and believe me, I’m not letting you outta here until you do.”

“Oh, that’s sweet, if a tad unrealistic,” Anyanka sneered, but before she could blink out and prove her point, Xander lunged forward and grabbed her arm, and she found that she couldn’t go anywhere.

“Figured out a nifty new trick in addition to all the other neat stuff I got when I got these powers,” Xander said in a conversational tone, still holding her arm fast in the band of steel he called his grip. “I’m immune to magic. Isn’t that neat? And while I’m holding you, so are you.”

“I still have my strength,” she gritted out, and flipped him neatly onto his back.

Which would have worked better if Vamp-Xander hadn’t been waiting for that exact moment. He grabbed her from behind, wrapped his arms around her waist in a mockery of a bear hug, pinning her arms against her sides and immobilizing her for a split second. That was all that Xander needed, and with a decidedly inhuman snarl he grabbed her jaw in both hands, and twisted it sharply to the side, breaking her neck.

He twisted it back the next second, and she stared at him with wide, fearful eyes, her demon constitution keeping her alive when a mortal would have been dead already. She wasn’t dead, wouldn’t even be seriously injured with a few hours to heal herself, but Xander only needed a couple minutes to get the information he wanted, and the gentle yet implacable grip he now had on her wrist warned her that he would do the same to every bone in her body with half a chance, all without words. The look in his eyes gave a hot promise of hell, and she felt a chill go down her spine. This wasn’t the Xander she had left behind, just a few short months ago. This was someone- possibly something- completely new.

“So,” he said softly, and the chill grew into a full-blown shiver. “Talk.”

Xander’s face was the sweetest thing Spike had ever seen.

Of course, he couldn’t see it very well, not the way his eyes were swollen almost shut, but he recognized Xander’s scent right enough, and the oh-so-wrong death-decay smell that was mixed up in Xander’s scent, that meant that his vampire double was still tagging along. Not the soldier-boy, though, so that was good enough, at least.

“Don’t come too near the bars,” he gritted out. “Angel’s not gonna come back for a few minutes yet.”

“So sweet, boy,” Angelus purred behind him, back in the shadows, probably. Where Xander wouldn’t have seen him. “Warning your lover like that. I’d hoped that you couldn’t talk still, but I see that I didn’t do a good enough job. Ah well. William’s right, of course, Alexander. I’ve still got a little time before that cringing, whining, miserable little piece of shite comes back. Want to see what I can do now?”

“Less than you think,” Xander said calmly.

“More than you know, boy,” Angelus snarled. “What could you possibly know about me other than what you’ve read in the Watcher’s books?”

“More than you think,” Xander echoed. “Like you’re not as confident as you think you are- you stink of fear. Must be something to do with being in that cage, with me out here.”

“You know who else is in the cage?” Angelus said. “William, here. He’s here, where I can reach him, and you can’t. Just think of all the things I can do to him in the next few minutes, till the sniveler comes back.”

Xander stepped closer to the bars, the blur that was Vamp-Xander following just a step behind. “You can’t do anything to him that won’t heal, Angelus,” he said quietly. “Being Angel’s really taken it out of you, haven’t you noticed? I mean, I used to get the creeps just thinking about you, and now... nothing. Huh. Guess you’ve lost your bite, baby.”

Angelus took a snarling step closer, and then another. “You think I’m going to let myself be provoked by a carpenter turned Superhero? You think I care what you say to me? I know I’ve got the advantage here. I’ve got something you want, and you want him undamaged. You can’t even get me out of here. Angel’s coming back in a few minutes anyway, so why should I care?”

His voice changed, going lower and slowing down, drawling and syrupy and crawling down the spine like some evil serpent. “You should hear the things that Angel thinks of you, sometime. Blood things, and the way that you’d look with your intestines pulled out and wrapped around your body. The way you would scream without words if your tongue were cut out, if he fucked you and dug his hand into your stomach. The way you would want it, up until the moment you died.”

“You’re such a sweetheart,” Xander said with a little grin. “You say the nicest things. Did I mention that I brought a gun?”

And just like that, he pulled it free of his waistband, behind his back where Angelus hadn’t seen it, and shot him straight through the heart, then again, and a third time for good measure.

Angelus dropped like a stone, and seconds later Spike heard the clink of keys in the lock, and then his Xan’s arms were around him, holding him tight like he was never gonna let him go. And it didn’t matter that he hurt, that he couldn’t feel anything below his waist and that terrified him more than he could say as sick memories washed over him, because Xan was there. Everything was fine, because Xan was there, and Xan was holding him.

“You look like shit, Spike,” Xander said bluntly, while his double stood behind him silently. Spike smiled fuzzily up at him and shook his head a little, ignoring the short shot of pain at his movement.

“S’not so bad,” he denied. “’m good.”

“You’re a bad liar,” Xander said affectionately, and then he was fading out for a minute, listening to Xander say something, and his double say something back, sharp with denial, and Xander arguing for minute, but he couldn’t make out the words. He had the sudden thought that he was losing consciousness, and made a frantic effort to stay awake.

“This’ll make you strong again,” Xander said, and Spike could hear Dru’s words in his head, from years ago, saying, “-strong again. Like me,” and he shook his head in denial, because he wasn’t crippled, just a little tired was all. Nothing wrong with him, honest.

And then there was the hot, spicy smell of blood, real blood, Xander’s blood, and the slightly cloying smell of older blood, dead blood, and somehow there were two wrists pressed against his mouth, and he could feel all that blood rushing into his body, feeding half-dead and starved nerves and bone and flesh. He shook his head frantically, shoving Xander and his double away with one convulsive movement, and crawled backwards till he was as far away as he could get, his back pressed against the bars and his eyes wide as he stared at the double image of the love of his unlife.

“You’re healed now, Spike,” Xander said softly, and took a step closer, holding out a gentle hand. “You’re okay. We’re all okay.”

“’m not sodding okay,” Spike growled. “What the hell did you think you were doin’, feeding yourself to a starving vampire? Haven’t you learned any-bloody-thing?”

“And haven’t you figured out by now that I’m strong enough to shove you off if you’d started taking too much?” Xander said. “I can handle myself. We’re okay, alright? I’m good, you’re good, and even Angelus is gonna be held back for a while by the bullets I put in his chest, even if Angel doesn’t reappear sometime soon. We’re all good, and now we’ve got bigger problems to deal with right now than whether I was a moron or not. Can we just go?”

Spike jumped to his feet, then hauled Xander close and just... held him, for a minute. Would have done more than just hold him, except for the time constraints, and the fact that they had an audience.

Xander hugged him back fiercely, then pulled back just enough to place a soft kiss on the side of his neck. “We gotta go,” he whispered against Spike’s skin. “Drusilla and Ethan Rayne are still runnin’ loose.”

“I know,” Spike whispered back, then sighed, and with extreme reluctance, turned Xander loose.

“Let’s get the hell outta here,” Vamp-Xander growled, apparently tired of all the sap, and stalked out of the cage.

Xander and Spike exchanged a glance, shrugged, and followed him out, completely forgetting about Angel, lying on the floor behind them.

Ethan Rayne and Drusilla were currently holed up in the crypt where Spike had used to live, and Spike figured that was just because it was the only place Dru remembered from when she’d come back to Sunnydale, that last time. Ethan had put up some sort of ward around the place, and it clung like cobwebs to their skin when they tried to walk through- well, it did to Spike’s anyway, and even a little to Xander’s double, but Xander himself just walked through like the ward wasn’t there at all.

“Immune to magic,” Vamp-Xander muttered at Spike, and Spike nodded with quick understanding. That made a lot of sense, when he thought about all the fights they’d had over the last week or so- some of the creatures had been spellcasters, and not one of them had had any effect on Xander, but Spike just assumed that it was luck or the Powers lookin’ out for him or something.

But finally they were through the wards, Spike managing it from sheer willpower alone, and instead of takin’ a look through the window like Spike would have done, Xander just walked right up to the door, casual as anything, and opened it like he was goin’ to tea at the witches’ or something. A pretty strong burst of magic surged out, but it just blew past Xander and eddied around the nearby headstones, turning several of them into some sort of demon, tall buggers build like trucks, with horns and claws like daggers and lots of teeth. Spike and Vamp-Xander exchanged a glance, then charged into the fray with no more weaponry than their own two hands and fangs.

Xander charged into the crypt, a grin on his normally harmless-looking face that promised blood, and knocked Ethan Rayne unconscious with one blow. He turned to Drusilla, and smiled, and bowed. She bowed back.

The two of them circled each other for a long, timeless moment, and then Drusilla struck first. Xander ducked easily, landing a glancing blow of his own on the already-moving Drusilla, and the fight was on.

Outside, Spike and Vamp-Xander were hard-pressed to just hold their own. What the hell were those things? Nothing that Spike had ever encountered, that was for damn sure, and Vamp-Xander didn’t seem to know what they were either, so they were both really damn relieved to find that beheading worked as well on these things as it did on most demons. This was a problem, since Spike had only managed to behead the one with the help of a low-hanging and sharp tree branch- Spike had pushed it back till the branch pierced the back of its neck, then managed to rip it the rest of the way off with one heavy yank. And one less was a good thing, neither of them was complaining, but there were five more, all charging at once, and Spike was starting to feel like he might not make it out alive.

Xander had never felt so damn alive, never in all his twenty-one-and-a-half years. He’d been in fights aplenty since Buffy had moved to Sunnydale, and literally dozens in the last week alone, not even counting the sparring he’d done with Spike and Angel. But this, fighting with Drusilla- this was taking it to a whole new level. For the first time since his change he felt like he might actually lose the fight, and instead of scaring him, it sent all the nerves tingling with near-painful intensity.

Fighting with Drusilla was an almost surreal experience- she was eerily silent, and the only noises between them were the thud of Xander’s boots on the floor, and him panting for breath, and tiny cries of pain when either one of them landed a blow. There was no full-throttle pummeling, or the strain of muscles as he went toe-to-toe with something hugely bigger and stronger than he was. There were only the small sounds between them, and the feeling that they were dancing more than anything, and she flickering in and out and around him, and him increasing his speed to match hers, a speed that he didn’t know he could attain. He got the feeling that anyone watching them would see little more than moving blurs, and the occasional drops of blood when her nails scored his skin, or when he sliced her with the tiny knife he’d taken from his boot. He still had his gun, but felt that it would be... wrong, somehow, to use it for this. This was just the two of them, and discovering who was the better dancer.

Spike began to maneuver the fight farther back, pretending that they were retreating, and Vamp-Xander knew what he was doing instinctively. Spike could feel the same closeness that he always felt with his Xan during battle, and he thought that not everything was lost when you were turned.

They managed to get far enough back that they were right by the crypt, and Spike looked around frantically for the weapons he kept around, just in case something like this happened. There! He could see them, but they were too far away, out of his reach, and there was no way he could get to them, not with the way that the five demons were crowding close, pinning them back against the wall, fighting for their unlives.

Vamp-Xander followed the direction of his panicked glance, and understood the situation in a second. “I’ll distract them!” he yelled, and dove forward, right into the grasp of the foremost demon, who sunk its claws into his body and ripped.

Xander was getting tired. He could feel the drag of it in his muscles, the ache that went bone-deep. He was getting worn down, his movements slowing, and Drusilla didn’t seem effected at all.

One slash from her sharp nails ripped his shirt open completely, and he quickly discovered that having it flapping around him hampered his movements. He skipped back and, quick as he could, stripped it from his body, leaving him bare-chested.

Drusilla flashed around behind him, and he spun around just in time to block her descending hand. The block caused the bones in his forearm to grate under the strain, and he grimaced. And then the grimace turned to a gasp as he felt a rending pain in his chest and stomach, like claws ripping into him.

Drusilla took advantage of his momentary weakness and pressed forward, shoving him with all the strength concealed in her dainty form. He staggered backwards and fell, landing in a painful sprawl on the stone floor, wrapping his arms around himself in a vain attempt to block some of the agony, and she moved to stand over him, one hand raised to slit his throat.

“Sweet child,” she crooned. “Spike’s sweet little boy. You’ve so alive, I can taste you under my tongue, sweet like cotton candy and hot like pepper. Don’t you want to be with Spike? Don’t you want to be with him forever?”

He stared at her in horror as she sank to her knees, pinning him effortlessly with one hand. She shifted, arranging her skirts in a pretty fan around her body, and then her features shifted with a sharp crunch to demonic, and with a sweet smile she leaned towards his neck.

Spike was able to get the hidden sword while Vamp-Xander distracted them by getting himself ripped up, and with a vicious snarl he threw himself at the demons. The force of his fury carried him through the bloody haze of the next few seconds, and when he came out of it, he was standing on the grass, with no demons left standing and with their heads- or any other extremities either. He just stood there, panting, for a second before a groan from near his feet distracted him, and he knelt to see Vamp-Xander lying there, curled around himself, bleeding out onto the ground.

“C’mon, mate,” Spike said, not letting his worry show on his face or in his voice. “You’re gonna get better, yeah?”

“Not gonna get better,” Vamp-Xander said, his voice thick with pain. “Gonna disappear again. But that’s okay- I’m gonna go home.”

Spike couldn’t really deny the truth of this, since the vampire’s injuries were bad enough that he was gonna be dust in the wind any minute now. And since he was so close to death, he had to ask now.

“Why’d you do it? Charge in like that?”

“I’m just an echo,” Vamp-Xander said. “Not the real thing. Xander’s the real thing. And now that I’m here too, instead of just being a part of him, it’s like he’s the whole world. There’s nothing but him. I know what he wants me to do before he can even think to ask me. He makes me feel things that no vampire should feel, just because he can feel them. So I have to do anything for him that I can.”

“I get that,” Spike whispered. “I really do.”

“I know you do,” Vamp-Xander said weakly, and tried to smile at him, though it came out as more of a grimace of pain. “It’s why I did it.”

Then his head lolled back, and he just sort of melted away into ash. Spike stared at the ground, and then saw the glow, the faint glow that came from the ash clinging to the blades of grass, and a brighter light coming from inside his crypt. There was room for only one thought in his head.

Xander.

Drusilla was close, far too close to his neck, and he knew that any minute now she was going to sink her fangs in, and he was gonna die. He was gonna die, and was going to come back evil.

He didn’t want to die.

And then all his pain melted away, for just a second, followed by a searing pain in his chest, a pain that consumed the whole world. Drusilla and imminent death were forgotten as his whole body arched, caught in the grip of an agony so strong that he couldn’t even scream.

The mark on his chest was glowing, bright enough that Drusilla gave a little shriek and clapped her hands over her eyes. Xander’s body slowly relaxed, and Spike, running into the room, saw him slump to the ground, boneless and seemingly unconscious.

Spike forgot everything in his panic and ran to Xander’s side, terrified that he had died. But just as he got to Xander, his lover’s eyes snapped open, and Xander jumped to his feet like he’d never been in a fight, never felt any pain at all.

Xander smiled, and Spike could see something behind that smile, something that had been missing since they’d woken up this morning, and he knew that it was Xander’s vampire-self, safe inside him once again. Spike smiled to himself, and stepped back, leaving this all to Xander.

Who didn’t really need to do anything, because Drusilla was cowering on the ground before him, covering her eyes with her hands. “An angel, he says, it’s an angel, come to judge me for my sins. The light, so bright, divine, heavenly, it wants to burn me for what I have done. Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned, please don’t leave, don’t take me away, don’t make me disappear. Please, please, forgive me, I’ll be a good girl now. Please, Daddy, please.”

“For God’s sake, Spike,” a voice said from behind them, “This is why she always comes back to me. You can’t give her what she needs, and so she has to run to Daddy.”

Spike and Xander both whirled around, and saw Angelus standing there, smirking.

No one moved for a few seconds, and then Xander started laughing. Really laughing, and Spike was afraid that his pet had finally cracked, because there was an edge to his laughter than made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and the nerves on his spine tighten painfully.

“You always come back, don’t you, Angelus?” Xander said, still gasping with laughter. “Should have known it wasn’t over. He was right. God, he was right. It doesn’t stop. It never stops.”

“Don’t worry, Alexander,” Angelus said with a little smile. “I’ll make it stop.”

“You sure about that?” Spike said, and when Angelus swung his head to look over at him, Spike added deliberately, Xander’s dream that had started it all firmly in his mind, “Sire.”

Angelus froze, and then shuddered. His body collapsed in one long slow slide to the ground, where he curled around himself, twitching. He was muttering under his breath, and Spike was left with no doubt in his mind that this was Angel, not Angelus.

“Angel,” Xander said softly, all traces of hysteria gone. “Angel, it’s okay. It’s over with. It’s all over with, and you can come back now.”

“Can’t- hurt- them- can’t-“ Angel stuttered, and curled tighter, shivering. Spike and Xander exchanged a glance, and both nodded, knowing what they had to do.

What they wanted to do.

Angel was lost, floating in the gray place where all he could hear was the screams of the damned and the innocent alike. He could smell the blood, and the fire, and he knew that this, this was Hell.

Then there was a warm touch on the back of his neck, and a cool one on his chest. Warm arms encircled him from behind, holding him tight, but it felt comforting, not confining. Like safety. A cool body covered his own, and he realized that at some point his clothes had been removed, or had he always been naked?

The cool one was kissing him, gently, sweetly, like he had all night. Then more firmly, with purpose, and he felt a tongue stroking the seam of his lips. He opened his mouth with a gasp, and the tongue slipped in, tangling with his, and he became aware of the cool one’s erection pressed against his belly, and the warm one’s pressed against his back, and slowly he was beginning to respond too, to harden and pant into the kiss.

Warm hands were stroking up his sides, and when the cool one slid down, scattering wet, sucking kisses over his chest, he arched, just a little, trying to encourage that wonderful mouth to move farther down, to the part of his body that wanted it the most.

The mouth was scraping sharp teeth over his belly, and the warm hands came up to tweak at his nipples. He whimpered, and one of the hands disappeared, leaving him bereft. The hand reintroduced itself, sliding over his ass, and he could feel something slick coating the fingers. Then the cool mouth engulfed his cock, just as one of those slick, warm fingers pressed against the opening of his body and thrust in sharply.

His head snapped back, and he just let himself sink into the sensation. Cool mouth moving over his cock, clever tongue curling around and sharp teeth just skimming, till he wanted to scream. A second finger joining the first, and both of them moving inside him, till they brushed a spot that felt so good he did scream.

A voice behind him said, “Now, god, so now,” low and soft into his ear, and without warning the fingers slid out of him and a thick, hot cock took its place.

He arched, unable to keep his body still, and just lost it, orgasm slamming through him with the force of a freight train, caught between the cool suction and the heat throbbing inside him. And as he came he suddenly remembered, and he knew who he was with.

Spike and Xander. Spike sucking his cock for every last drop and rubbing against Angel’s thigh desperately, and Xander thrusting into his ass, groaning into his ear as he followed Angel into orgasm. Spike came a second later, and the vibrations of his desperate moan around Angel’s cock was almost enough to make him lose it again.

They collapsed together in the graveyard grass, and Angel relished the feel of the small prickle of the grass blades against his skin as he lay there. He was back. He wasn’t evil, and he wasn’t insane with grief. He was back.

“That was worth fighting evil for,” Xander said thoughtfully, behind him. He felt Spike’s laugh, muffled against his stomach, and smiled a little himself.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. Spike snorted and lifted his head, half-glaring at him.

“What’re you thankin’ us for? We got a good shag out of it. Even trade. Bugger the thanks, mate. Don’t want ‘em.”

“As much as I hate to admit it,” Xander said, “Spike’s right.”

“Oi! I’m always right!”

“Keep telling yourself that, chip ‘n dip,” Xander said, and slowly pulled his cock free of Angel’s body. Angel hissed, and then Xander was standing up and stretching, moaning as the movement pulled sore muscles and bruises. He fastened his pants while Angel looked around for his clothes.

“There,” Spike said, gesturing towards a spot on the ground, where everything had been piled at the base of a tree. The younger vampire was already getting dressed, and Angel hurried to catch up with him, wincing a little at the soreness in his ass.

Xander put a hand on his shoulder to stop him when he was about to put on his coat. “Mind if I borrow it?” he asked, looking a little sheepish, and gestured to his shirtless state. “Mine got a little shredded.”

“Sure,” Angel said, and pretended that he didn’t notice the way that the black of the leather coat contrasted with the tan of Xander’s bare skin. Spike pretended no such thing, and leered openly at him when Xander walked back to the crypt.

He emerged a minute later, with the unconscious form of Ethan Rayne draped over his shoulder. “Drusilla’s gone,” he reported. “Took off while we were, um, otherwise occupied. I’m not gonna worry about her- get this bastard to Giles’, get home, sleep. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Spike said, and the two of them started walking in the general direction of Giles’ house. Angel followed, trying hard not to let himself think at all, but one question remained in his mind-

What came next?

Epilogue

Spike had tried several times, on the way over, to get Xander to hand Ethan over to him. Xander refused, since he knew damn well that Spike was gonna “accidentally” drop him, and while he wasn’t real fond of the bastard at the moment, neither did he want him permanently damaged.

They swung by Giles’ place first. Spike picked the lock, and they tied up Ethan in Giles’ favorite chair, Spike snickering all the while. They snuck out, Spike carefully relocking the door behind them, and headed for Revello Drive, where Willow was living with Tara and taking care of Dawn.

A sleepy-looking Willow answered the door, then did a double-take once she got a good look at them. Xander minus the shirt, Angel’s coat slung around him and wearing it like it was made for him, and the rune harsh on his chest, still glowing a little. Spike looking pounded, and Angel with bullet holes through his shirt, all of them rumpled and grass-stained and generally looking like they’d fought and then fucked in the graveyard.

Willow, though, was a Scooby to the bone, and didn’t bother commenting on their appearance. Just said, “Did you win?” and then added, before anyone could answer, “What happened to vamp-you, Xander?”

“We absolutely won,” Xander assured her. “And he got dusted.”

“He’s gone?” Willow demanded, aghast, and Xander shook his head with a little smile.

“Nah, he’s back in the Xander Mix,” he said. “Right in the nick of time, too.”

“Drusilla? Ethan?”

“Chaos bloke’s all tied up at the Watcher’s,” Spike answered. “Dru ran off- we were a bit busy, didn’t see where she went.”

“Don’t care as long as she’s not here,” Xander put in. “We had to run Anya off, too. Anyanka, rather.”

“Anya was here?” Willow said. “Seriously? Was she... causing trouble?”

“Locked up Spike with Angel of the none-too-steady soul,” Xander said. “She learned the error of her ways.”

His smile didn’t invite any further questions, so Willow let it go. She leaned against the doorframe, looking tired and older, somehow. “What are you going to do now?”

“Right now? Go home and sleep. After that...” He stopped, shook his head. “I don’t know. Leave, probably. The Slayer’s been called- she’ll be here soon. Hellmouth doesn’t really need me anymore.”

Spike said nothing- he’d known Xan would do this soon, though he hadn’t realized it would be now. Angel made a low noise behind him, possibly protest, possibly just surprise, but said nothing more. Willow accepted the blow with a composure that she wouldn’t have had a few short months ago, paling almost unnoticeably. “Where are you going to go?” she asked, trying in vain to hide the little quaver in her voice. “Or do you know?”

“LA, first,” Xander said, and shot a little teasing glance at Angel that Willow didn’t miss, but didn’t comment on. Spike thought that there were more things that weren’t being said, than things that were. “Then... I dunno. Wherever we’re needed, I guess? It’s complicated. I might get sent somewhere by the Powers. We may just wander and help where we can. I like the sound of that, personally, but- don’t have to decide right now. We’ve got time.”

“You’re not going right away, then?” Willow said eagerly, clearly grasping at straws. Xander shook his head, then touched her cheek gently, helping to heal some of the sting of that blow.

“Soon as we can pack, baby,” he told her. “Sunset tomorrow, the day after that at the latest.” A single tear spilled down Willow’s cheek, catching on and pooling around his thick, calloused index finger. “We’ll come by and say goodbye before we take off,” he continued. “We’re not just gonna leave without any trace. You’ll still hear from me, I swear.”

“Will you come back?” she whispered. Xander let his hand drop from her cheek, then gripped both her upper arms with his big hands, and leaned forward till his forehead rested against hers.

“I will always be back,” he whispered hoarsely. “Just to see you. That promise you can take to the grave.”

“I know,” she said, and then they were hugging, tightly, completely lost to their surroundings. Spike and Angel stood silently, uncomfortably, side by side, and tried not to feel like they were watching something they shouldn’t.

When he pulled away, kissed her on the forehead, and walked away, Willow watched him go. She watched him leave, with Spike and Angel following like two fools who loved him, and the tears rolled like acid down her cheeks.

That morning had been awkward, getting home just before sunset and Angel suddenly turning shy, not wanting to get in bed with them, even after what they’d done. Especially after what they’d done, and he’d tried to go sleep on the couch, but Spike had smacked him on the back of the head, called him a wanker, and yanked off his clothes before he could protest. Xander’s sleepy smile had clinched it, and so here they were, at four in the afternoon, with weak reflected glow shining on the floor from behind the blinds that covered the windows.

Angel was wide awake. He never needed much sleep- well, he didn’t need much in the regular run of things, when he didn’t have his formerly-dead Sire keeping him in magical dreamland. He’d gotten a couple hours, but mostly he’d just lain awake and thought, and tried not to think too loud because he knew that Spike would wake up and smack him. Then Xander would wake up, and Xander would give him the Xander look, the one that managed to scold him and laugh at the same time.

Easier to just think quietly, all things considered.

And he had plenty to think about, though he knew he would get laughed at if he said as much to the other two. He’d had sex with them. With both of them. Cool vampire wrapped around his body and his cock, and hot, hot human inside him. He’d had sex with them, and now he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do about it.

Xander said that the two of them were going to LA with him. They weren’t planning on staying forever, he’d picked up on that much, but they were planning on staying a while, so that meant something, didn’t it? Something more than bringing an Angelus-crazy vampire they sort of liked back to something vaguely resembling sanity?

He was such a girl.

“Shut up and go back to sleep, ya ponce,” Spike mumbled sleepily from somewhere near his stomach. Angel started, then relaxed back again and muttered sulkily, “I didn’t say anything.”

“Can hear you thinking,” Spike complained, and see, he’d been right. Couldn’t think too loud because Spike would hear him. Even if he didn’t get smacked.

Even in his own head, that last sentence sounded wrong.

“Angel, I can hear you thinking,” Xander said on a yawn. “And I’m not awake.”

“You’re talking, aren’t you?” Spike said.

“I can talk in my sleep,” Xander said firmly. “I can talk anytime, under any circumstances. I will be able to talk when I’m dead.”

“Don’t doubt it a bit,” Spike muttered, and Angel heard the smack of Xander’s calloused palm smacking Spike’s bare shoulder. “Oi! What was that for?”

“For being an asshole, Blondie,” Xander retorted. “It’s something you’re good at.”

“Well, yeah. Evil, remember?”

“Don’t I know it. You wanna come over here and prove it?”

“Rather prove it right here,” Spike said, and bit gently into the skin around Angel’s stomach with blunt human teeth in a way that he knew would tickle. Angel jumped and cursed, and Xander laughed out loud, and Spike smirked at them both.

“See? Still evil.”

“Bastard,” Angel grumbled, just as Xander demanded, “Hey, don’t I get some?”

“Good idea,” Spike said, but turned back to Angel after a second’s consideration. “I’m thinkin’, though, that I’ve got better fish to fry. What about you?”

Xander turned his own considering gaze to Angel. “Hmmm. You may be an asshole, chip dip, but you got good ideas.”

“Damn straight.”

“Sometimes,” Xander amended. “You have good ideas sometimes. It just so happens that this is one of them.”

“Are you going to continue to talk over me like I don’t exist?” Angel enquired.

“Why, you got a problem with it?” Spike demanded, and got smacked again for his trouble.

“Shut up, Spike. Nah, I think it’s time we paid him some attention. Don’t you think so?”

And the question seemed to have been aimed at Spike, but his hot-eyed gaze was focused on Angel, and Angel knew exactly what he was thinking, and his dick rose in response. Xander laughed a little, grinned like a hyena, and then bent down to eat him up.

They were all packed- finally- and ready to go, it seemed. Spike couldn’t believe the amount of sheer stuff that the two of them had managed to accumulate in the last couple months, and that wasn’t even counting all the stuff Xan had had before he’d gotten involved with Spike. It was a good thing that all three of them had more than human strength and multiple cars, because they were going to need it to get all these boxes down the stairs and to LA.

“There’s no way we’re going to able to carry all this stuff with us if we do the traveling thing,” Xander said as he stared at the pile of boxes. “Remind me again why you two talked me out of throwing most of this away?”

“Because you might need some of it, and you can store it in one of the empty rooms at the Hyperion,” Angel said patiently. “We’ve got more room than we know what to do with. Won’t kill you to pack the stuff away for a rainy day.”

“Might kill my back,” Xander grumbled. “And what about you, Spike? Why did you vote for the packing brigade?”

“Wanted to make sure Peaches didn’t wiggle out of carrying duty,” Spike said with a shrug. “Figured he wouldn’t be able to if we packed enough stuff.”

“Somehow,” Xander said with a sigh, “I’m not surprised.” He turned his unhappy gaze back to the pile of boxes, then sighed again. “Alright. Let’s get started.”

The knock on the door startled them all. Spike and Xander exchanged glances while Angel stared at the floor, and after a long second Xander sighed a third time and went to answer the door.

Dawns stood there, looking incredibly young, with Willow and Tara behind her. Xander just stood there for a minute, trying to get his brain off the “packing/arguing-with-Spike-and-Angel” track and onto the “visits from estranged friends” track.

“Little Bit!” Spike said cheerfully, breaking the spell that held Xander still. “And the witchy ones. Good to see ya. Come on in.”

“Should know better than to say ‘come in’ in Sunnydale, Spike,” Xander said, without turning around or taking his eyes off the three girls who filed through his front door. “You, especially, should know better.”

“I’d know if they were vampires, Xan,” Spike said slowly, and Xander didn’t have to turn around, this time, to hear the ‘’duh” in his voice. “’Sides, even if they were, you saying we couldn’t take them?”

Xander did turn around this time, to smirk at Spike. “To save my hide from either potentially offended party, I’m just gonna plead the fifth.”

Willow sorta-smiled at him. “Spike’s just trying to cause trouble again, isn’t he?”

Dawn snorted before Spike had a chance to answer. “When isn’t Spike trying to cause trouble?”

Spike looked offended. “Hey! I’ll have you know that I can be quiet and peaceable and law-abiding sometimes.”

“Yeah, like when?” Dawn demanded.

“Er...” He glanced around, obviously at a loss, and then brightened. “Xan can get me to behave if he pouts at me enough.”

“Yes thank you Spike,” Xander said dryly. “Any other parts of our personal relationship you’d like to share?”

Spike brightened again, but before he could answer a large hand descended from behind to cover his mouth, and Angel nodded at Xander. “He’ll be quiet.”

A muffled yell came from behind Angel’s hand, and the older vampire looked down at Spike. “Well, relatively.”

“Relatively is more than I usually get,” Xander assured him, and turned back to the girls. “Sorry about the circus act. Something you three lovely ladies needed?”

“We, well, we actually came by so that we could say our goodbyes, officially, anyway,” Willow half-stammered. “Giles would have come, but, well...”

“He’s too busy drinking and cursing both Spike and Angel’s name?” Xander offered, with just a tad bit of bitterness in his voice.

Well, just a tad was all he’d own up to.

Willow gave him a reproachful look. “He’s busy watching over Ethan, and possibly torturing him with old Broadway tunes. I thought I recognized something from Annie Get Your Gun, but, well, I didn’t ask.”

“Didn’t want to know,” Tara put in, speaking up for the first time. Willow shrugged an agreement, and Dawn faked a shudder.

“Well, either way, he’s not here, and you are. What was your official goodbye plan, anyway?”

“We wanted to give you, well, this,” Willow said, and she turned to get the small houseplant that Tara had been holding behind her back. Xander looked at it in confusion, and discovered after a moment’s examination that it was, indeed, a small cactus.

“You got us a cactus,” he said, then repeated, “You got us a cactus?”

“Houseplants are a traditional home-warming gift, and we didn’t want to drive all the way up to LA to give it to you, so we figured that we’d give it to you before we leave. And, um, it’s a cactus because it’s practically impossible to kill a cactus.”

Xander laughed. “Wills, you know us too well.” He leaned forward to give her a kiss on the cheek, then turned to do the same to Dawn and Tara, both of whom blushed. Spike, behind him, made a protesting noise and then got free of Angel’s grip, and bounded forward to, somehow, wrap all three woman in a tight hug. All three of them emitted some sort of high-pitched noise of surprise, but Dawn was the one to recover first and hug Spike back.

Spike turned them loose after a minute, and Willow, looking unusually solemn, stepped past Xander to stand in front of Angel. Angel looked uncomfortable and hunched his shoulders, clearly expecting the worst, and so the expression on his face when she wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug was nothing short of comical.

“Watch out for them,” she whispered into his ear, and both Spike and Xander pretended that they didn’t have super-strength hearing and therefore hadn’t heard what she’d said, and that it hadn’t given them a little warm glow of pleasure, anyway. She smiled at them, and something in her smile told them that she knew it anyway, so it was all okay.

It was another hour till last goodbyes had been said and the three of them managed to get all the boxes loaded into their respective cars. Angel looked properly horrified at having to drive Xander’s beaten-up car, but he manfully slid into the driver’s seat when Spike started to openly laugh at him. Xander took a moment to glare at Spike, and pointed out that they were junking his car as soon as they got to LA, and Angel would never have to drive it again because he’d have his own car. This assuaged Angel’s battered pride a little- though privately he wondered what was the point of trying to hang onto his pride at all, if Spike and Xander were going to be along- and so after a sneering comment from Spike about seeing him in several hours because that’s how long it was gonna take him to drive the fairly short distance to LA, he slammed the driver’s side door shut and drove off.

Spike flicked him off, the good, old-fashioned, American way to make sure that he understood, and followed, with Xander laughing beside him.

They were on their way.

The End

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