*****

Chapter 6:

"So you're telling me that Angel really..."

"Yes and it was bloody hilarious. The way Darla was sticking her nose up in the air at him. He always thought he was the shit. Hell even Dru could ride a horse. But he said he could ride it.

"Said that he'd ridden horses before. Darla even said he did, but we're running away from this town after killing a few people and he falls off his horse. Straight into a pile of cow shit. I had to drag him up on my horse and ride with him while he smelt like cow shit."

"Oh that sounds unpleasant. I bet he wasn't too happy."

"Oh he was complaining the whole way out of the town. He wouldn't let up not once. It was horrible. And he was acting like a poof talking about his clothes and his hair. It was all so terribly poncy." Spike said.

He and Xander were lounging on Xander's bed sitting shoulder to shoulder their fingers occasionally twining together. The Scoobies had decided to give him the night off for once. They had really been working him to the bone making him flex his powers to their fullest extent.

The problem was that while Xander was testing out a power a new power would arise and they would have to figure out how to keep that one under control as well. It seemed like there was just too many to get a good scope of just how powerful Xander was, but the Scoobies had decided to go with pretty powerful and leave it at that.

Especially after a particular grueling session of power testing which left a few of the Scoobies knocked unconscious. Giles had discovered by accident when Xander got upset that a vampire got away that Xander could blow things up. Xander tried to ignore Willow and Tara's giggling that he reminded them of the witches on Charmed and had agreed to test this new power out so he didn't just blow things up for no reason especially his friends.

He had spent some time blowing up random objects before Giles decided to call it a night and let everyone go home. They were lounging around Giles's apartment for a bit when Angel came up behind Xander and scared him, by accident and Xander blew up Giles's coffee table.

But before it could go boom it froze mid explosion.

"Are you doing that." Giles asked examining the coffee table in it's almost blown up state. It was weird to look at.

"I guess. It's just I've caused so much damage to your coffee table that I didn't want it to get ruined again." Xander said.

"This is really quiet fascinating. We just seem to keep encountering one power after another." Wesley said getting in close to examine the coffee table as well. Willow and Tara stood by them too examining the magic.

"Now you're really like the witches on Charmed." Willow giggled.

"Oh yes thank you so much for that." Xander said rolling his eyes.

"Should you be standing so close to that. Only I don't think people are gonna like what happens if that kid accidentally on freezes the thing." Doyle said at a safe distance behind the couch. Cordelia and Buffy stood with him watching as well.

"Yeah, it's clear Xander doesn't know everything about his new parlor tricks. He could accidentally blow up an entire city block. Or freeze everyone during the day." Cordelia said. Buffy nodded in agreement.

"Hey it's not my fault here that Deadboy can't understand the concept of personal space. It's called a bell, look into it." Xander said sarcastically.

"Sorry, it's just... you smelled kind of..." Angel didn't finish his sentence.

Xander had accidentally unfroze the table and a ripple of magic had sent Tara, Willow, Giles and Wesley flying backwards and Xander and the couch moving backwards as well dragging Angel back with them.

Doyle, Buffy and Cordelia were lucky enough to be far away from the blast when it occurred. Xander had compulsively apologized for the incident, but the Scoobies told him everything was okay. Xander assumed there wouldn't be any testing for a long time now.

"Yeah he seems into his hair. I mean... how does he do it? His hair I mean. How does he get it to stand up all spiky?" Xander asked.

"How the bloody hell should I know? When I was around him it was long and held back in a ribbon. There was that short time when he became Angelus again and tried to suck the world into hell, but I never saw him do his hair."

"Well how do you do yours? Without a reflection. How do you even know it looks good? It could look really terrible."

"Well, I don't know how it looks really. Though you know vampires do come out on camera."

"They do? I didn't know that. I mean... there's a lot of little things about vampires, like they come out on camera, that I don't know. We're just supposed to stake them."

"I've never seen myself... well it's been awhile. I just figured it looks good. Never heard any complaints from anyone." Spike said with a leer on his face.

"Well... I suppose you look good. I mean... for an undead guy." Xander said with a smile.

They're quite for awhile, television making weird sounds in the background. Xander wasn't sure what to say. He and Spike had been flirting around with this thing for quite some time now. Ever since that drunken kiss that Xander still couldn't get out of his brain.

It really wasn't fair that the best kiss of his life had been when he couldn't quite remember it. He'd remembered making out with Cordelia in the janitor closest and how fun that had been, but it had been quick and only made good cause of the hormones involved.

Then there had been Faith. There hadn't been much kissing with Faith. Lots of touching and groping and heavy breathing, but the kisses had been few and far between and Faith had liked to bite... hard. It was like she had forgotten that Xander was just an average guy and let it all out. Not exactly something dreams were made of.

Kissing Anya had been a bit more memorable if not a little weird. It always ended up being sex with Anya. Kisses were preludes to sex. Innocent brushes of skin and hands were preludes to sex. It was never sweet and it was never very long. Anya had been a great kisser though and Xander had missed it despite there never being much interest in it.

He'd kissed Spike twice now. The first time obviously being when he was drunk and in a stupor. The next time he'd been experimenting. He'd kissed Spike goodbye before he went to work that morning. Nothing extravagant, there hadn't even been any tongues. Just a sweet brush of lips sliding against lips and Xander had really enjoyed it.

When he'd pulled away Spike had been looking at him like he'd grown an extra head, but he'd gotten out of his shock and smiled at Xander. He'd even told Xander to have a good day at work and handed him his lunch.

It was weird that before Xander's relationships had been with somewhat normal people and they'd been so weird that Xander didn't know what to make of them yet his relationship with the person who was definitely the most abnormal of the bunch was the most normal relationship he'd ever had.

It was definitely something he spent time pondering on. He didn't even let himself think about the male factor. He'd always known, sometime after the Larry incident and how Larry had dragged him off to a gay guy's social in LA so he wouldn't get caught, that he'd been slightly attracted to guys. Never more then girls, but attracted nonetheless.

"So, how's the construction thing working for you?" Spike asked.

"I actually like it. A lot. Never thought I'd like a job this much. It's like not even a job. I enjoy getting up and going to work everyday."

"Beats you coming home and smelling like fast food." Spike said dryly.

Xander glared at him.

"I didn't smell that bad."

Spike cocked an eyebrow at him and smirked.

"You smelled like a slaughter house."

"Well sorry if I offended your precious sensitive smelling abilities."

"It was tolerable."

Xander gave him a questioning look, but didn't say anything. Xander had worked fast food when Spike had been hoisted off to him by Giles. He hadn't worked that kind of job in awhile. One construction job had led to another construction job and then there was a period when he was working fast food, but he'd gotten a call about another construction job and had jumped on it.

"I'm just a little worried that I might have to go back to fast food after this job is over. I haven't exactly been picked up by a team yet so it's just kind of fly by. The only reason I've been able to keep it steady is because I keep getting referrals by bosses."

"Well I'm sure they'll see how good you are and want to keep you." Spike said as encouragingly as possible.

It always shocked Xander a little how caring and sensitive Spike could be to his feelings. And it seemed to not be limited to only Xander. He was sensitive to Willow and Tara and a tad bit to Buffy and Giles. He still made fun of them and counted the ways they were stupid, but he tried to keep it to a minimum when around Xander.

"Sure, I guess. But you know I'll take whatever job can pay the bills."

"You know with these new powers you could just..."

"No."

"You don't even know what I was going to say."

"Yes, yes I do know what you were going to say. You were going to suggest I use my new found powers for evil instead of good. Well I've got news for you, buddy, it ain't gonna happen."

"You white hats are all the same." Spike grumbled.

"Yeah okay so it would be kind of cool to use them for the dark side... but you're right about the white hats thing... we're supposed to be good Spike. Shiny and good and all that." Xander said.

"If power ain't gonna corrupt someone it's you pet."

Xander looked a little confused, but smiled at Spike.

"Good because power corruption isn't really my style. I mean I don't even know how to use half of these powers and they're supposed to be mine in the future. I mean I wasn't even ever interested in magic and yet I'm supposed to be so big wig in the future. How does that even happen."

"Well, there's gotta be a reason. Gotta be something you do or something that happens to you that makes it that way. Maybe it's in your blood."

"My blood? Spike you've seen my parents. Two of the most normal people that you'll ever meet."

"So maybe you don't get them until you become a Power."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe when you become a Power that's when you get the powers. Maybe that's where they come from."

"But how would I even become a Power if I didn't have powers in the first place. I mean there's gotta be a reason they'd chose me and I'd have to be special so I'd have to have special powers."

Spike nodded, but stayed quite and Xander got a feeling that there was something Spike wasn't telling him.

"I'm just saying you can't rule out that it's gonna be awhile before you get these powers." Spike said.

"What I want to know is why they even gave them to me right now. I mean, what's the reason."

"Weren't you listening to that Higher Being. She told you that you were straying from your path."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe she meant that had she not intervened you would have done something... bad."

"You mean like evil."

"I'm just saying..."

"No, there's no way I would have done something evil. I mean sure my life was going pretty crappy before, but I would never... I fight the good fight Spike and I always will so even if something like a crappy life was getting me down I would never..."

And suddenly Spike's lips were on his, insistent and needy and full of passion. This kiss did have tongue and this kiss wasn't sweet like the other two. This kiss was demanding and Xander could feel himself drowning in it, could feel himself clutching hold of Spike.

When Spike pulled back Xander pushed forward still trying to keep his lips in contact with Spike's. Spike laughed a bit and placed a kiss on Xander's forehead.

"I wasn't saying you were evil pet. People make stupid decisions when they've been pushed to their limits. It's clear to me that you're not evil, but maybe certain circumstances were conspiring against you. Doesn't mean you're going to end up evil. Apparently you're too important for that."

Xander nodded his head. Maybe he was too important for that, but he felt a little unsettled. It was a real possibility that maybe he would have ended up going to a place he didn't want to be in. Entirely possible that that place would suck him in.

"I guess it's just scary to think about is all." Xander said after a long moment of silence.

Spike took Xander's face in his hand and moved it to look at his own face. Xander felt himself drowning in the blue of Spike's eyes.

"So don't think about it." Spike said in a voice that held lots of conviction.

"Okay." Xander said before his lips were caught up in more kissing.

TBC

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