Another Chance (4/9)

[stillrose]

Title: Another Chance (4/9)
Fandom: BTVS;  Spike/Xander
Warnings: Slash, AU 5^th/6^th season, violence, character death
Rating:NC-17
Summary: Another Spike shows up in Sunnydale insisting he has a soul…and that he loves Xander.

UNBETAED

 

Previous parts here.

 **********
“Yeah, and wot happened to ‘im?” Xander’s Spike asked as he placed a second hand possessively on Xander’s hip. The vampire’s beer was suddenly on the coffee table.

Spike? Xander thought in confusion. One, Spike had never touched him like this and two, why wasn’t Xander jerking away from him?

“He..I..he’s dead,” the other Spike finally managed to confess.

“DEAD?” Xander gasped while his Spike clenched him tighter.

***********

“Yes!” The other vampire yelled suddenly as his half empty bottle of beer was launched through the air to crash against the far wall in a violent explosion of glass and larger.

“Hey!” Xander yelled while the vampire behind him growled and practically pulled him across his lap.

The black shirted Spike stood up and paced. Xander struggled against his Spike’s hold but the vampire growled and held firm.

“We..we were on patrol,” the new Spike began to explain. “Just a stupid feckless patrol like any other since that twat slayer got herself killed.”

“HEY!” Xander yelled. “No one talks about Buffy that way!”

“Buffy?” the other Spike asked. “I’m talking about Faith.”

“Oh,” Xander said. “Sorry. You and Xander were patrolling after..Faith was killed? I don’t understand.”

“Xander, once his eyes were opened to the beasties and the nasties he just couldn’t go back to pretending like they weren’t there. He couldn’t just leave well enough alone..so he decided he had to be the great white knight and save all the clueless citizens of Sunnydale.”

Not just a Zeppo, Xander thought in pride of his other self.

“He knew without Dru I was lost. Angelus had put a mark on my head for betraying him. Xander gave me an option, safe haven in Sunnydale for training and helping him.”

“Angelus?” Xander asked.

“Dru?” Spike whispered from behind him.

The other Spike stopped his pacing and stared at the two figures on the couch.

“I’m not sure how things went down in this ‘verse,” he said, “but in mine after Angel lost his soul to Buffy he tore through her and Cleveland like so much tissue paper. He came here looking for Acathla a couple of years later. I came here looking for him to help Dru.”

Xander winced. What this Spike was telling him about Angel, Buffy would have only been fourteen!

“I don’t buy it mate!” Spike growled from behind Xander. “Peaches maybe a wanker and a pain in the arse but he ain’t no diddler of little girls!”

“What? No, ya twat! There are many paths to perfect happiness!” the other Spike said in shock.

“Like what?”

“Buffy..needing a father figure.  You know the perfect happiness that comes from a moment of perfect trust and love.”

“Peaches! A father figure..?”

“Well, more like a big brother anyway. She trusted him. Trusted him more than the watchers. He bailed her out time and time again. He was always there for her and in one moment..poof! There went his soul.”

“Buffy!” Xander gasped. Once again the arms of the vampire behind him tightened.

“By the time he got here you, Jesse and Faith were a tight group.”

“Faith? Jesse?” Xander asked. “What about Willow?”

“The witch? Wasn’t here.  Hadn’t heard of her until tonight,” the other Spike said.

Xander paled. There had been that time when he was eight when Willow’s family had talked about moving out of Sunnydale. Her mom had a job offer. Xander had laid a wake in his bedroom every night with for a week with his backpack stuff with toys ready to sneak into a moving truck if the Rosenburg’s left.

Guess the other Xander didn’t make it out, he thought.

“Yeah, you and Jesse were tight. Thought you were more than just friends the way you looked at him.”

“We were NOT!” Xander blustered then blushed. Jesse and he had been best friends. Yes, they had confided to each other about the big changes that happened as their voices deepened and hair sprouted out in embarrassing places. They had even had made a game of “The Most Embarrassing Places and Times for a Happy.” Yet they had never been more than that.

“’S OK, pet. Didn’t take long ta figure out he only had eyes for the slayer,” the other Spike explained.

“Jesse? And Faith?”

“So, let me guess,” the original Spike interjected, “Angelus came to town. Found you and Dru. Helped her out in exchange for help with Acathala. You didn’t like Dru and Daddy back together again. Made a new deal and things went sour?”

The other Spike nodded.

“Faith reneged on the deal. She killed Dru. Angelus killed her. Jesse ran ‘Gelus through closing the portal he’d managed to open. Angelus managed to twist out of the maw and sent the lad instead down the express chute to hell.”

“Jess!” Xander gasped.

“I went toe to toe with ‘Gelus until I ran out of feet. Then he nearly had me ready for a pick up by a Hoover when Xander here managed to shove a stake up the dick splat’s spine. Missed his heart but hurt him bad.  Bad enough he crawled away without finishing Xander off.”

“Yeah?” the red shirted Spike said with a pride in his voice.

“I came too and there you were, lying unconscious in the corner,” the other Spike said to Xander.

“And you didn’t eat me?”

Spike grinned evilly and said, “That came later.”

“La…la…la Can’t hear you!” Xander said plugging his ears with his fingers.

His Spike reached up from behind him and pulled his hands away from his ears.

“Why didn’t you off the boy?”

“Patch of sunlight between me and him,” Spike snorted.

“Convenient,” the original Spike said.

The other Spike laughed, “Bloody Inconvenient!”

“Still, when Xan came round, it gave us a whole day to talk.”

“Surprised you listened,” Xander said.

“We were both hurt. Both grieving. Both of us lost our worlds.”

“Still…”

“Do you have any bloody idea how bloody convincing you can be, Xander? Ya ever really listen to yourself? Sure yer mouth can run on more than that demonic pink bunny with the drum on the telly but ya got a way of getting to the heart of things, pet! Sometimes there’s just a raw truth in what you say that can’t be ignored.”

“Huh?” Xander asked.

Both Spikes stared at him then smiled.

“Never change, Harris,” Spike said from behind him.

“Ya made me an offer, pet. I took it. I figured I could always change it. Change you if I was bored but in the end…”

“In the end?” Xander asked.

“In the end you and I were something special. I helped you learn ta stop tripping over your feet and stop fighting vampires by hitting their knuckles with your face. You helped me find a spot a violence that was just more than random killing. We became legends on the Hellmouth.  Things that went bump in the night ended up being squished by dawn.”

Xander’s eyes widened at the picture Spike was painting. He couldn’t even imagine himself as some sort of Xanderish Dark Knight.

“What? Did I wear a cape and mask too?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“Only when you wanted ta slide down my bat pole,” the other Spike said with a wink.

Xander blushed and sputtered. There was a deep laugh from behind him.

“Yeah, pet, we became lovers too.”

“But boobies! I’m a big fan of the boobies!” Xander quickly shouted.

“And ya never let me forget it,” Spike said.

“But…then.. I mean…”

“Ya liked boobies but then ya also liked it when I sucked your cock.”

“Oh…No!” Xander sputtered, twisted and jumped up and away from the Spike still seated on the couch. Quickly he backed away from the two vampires.

“Xander,” the original Spike said as he got off the couch and tried to approach the human. Xander quickly crossed his right forefinger behind his left forefinger.

“Back!” he shouted.

“Pet, it’s OK. No one’s gonna…”

“That’s right no one’s GONNA…”

“Is the thought really so horrible?” Xander’s Spike asked softly and almost sadly.

Xander paused and stared at him. He locked eyes with the vampire he’d known for several years now and yet there was an edge of something unknown in that question. The sadness in Spike’s voice was confusing and somehow compelling.

“I..It..I mean,” Xander struggled for an answer. The twenty-something fiercely heterosexual male inside him demanded an immediate an unequivocal answer but the part of him that had been conjuring forbidden sights and sounds of Spike since his doppelganger had arrived insisted he think carefully before answering.

“I..I just..I mean girls, Spike!”

“Nuthin’ wrong with a bit of soft thighs, slow curves and sin pillows,” the red shirted Spike said as he took a step towards Xander, “but hard planes, firm grasps, and someone who knows how to handle the equipment has its advantages too.”

Xander swallowed as he continued to hold up his hands. He was sweating. Did he need to turn on the air conditioning?

“So you..?” the other Spike began to ask.

“No he hasn’t,” this universe’s Spike answered for the still dry mouthed Xander. “So if that’s what ya come lookin’ for..another Xander ta pluck ya can just go back ta where ya came from.”

Xander kept his eyes locked on his Spike.  They were communicating again on that weird intimate level they never acknowledged except this time there was acknowledgement.  This time there were tingles and a heightened awareness that danced down along his skin.

His Spike was still slowly approaching him. Xander’s heart was beating rapidly but his feet were still. He licked his lips. Spike’s eyes dilated even more. Xander’s hands lowered of their own accord.

“Spike?” Xander whispered.

“’S Ok pet,” he said.

Xander wanted to tell him he wasn’t his pet, but the words never made it past his lips. He just stared at Spike as the vampire took another step closer to him.

“Wait..I thought ..I mean..he hates you,” the other Spike said.

“Ya should know as well as I hate’s just the flip side of the same coin.”

“Same coin?” Xander whispered.

“Doesn’t matter, pet,” Spike whispered as he moved to stand right in front of the human. He didn’t touch him and yet Xander’s skin screamed with awareness of the vampire.

“What’s going on?” Xander asked.

“Just protecting..claiming what’s mine,” Spike whispered.

“Yours?” the other Spike asked. “I don’t smell…”

“Sire gave him to me years ago,” Spike said as he continued to bore into Xander with his piercing gaze.

“Angelus gave him to you?”

“Well, Peaches, really..but doesn’t make the claim any less valid,” Spike argued as he slowly raised a hand and began to lightly slide a finger down Xander’s nose and over his lips.

Xander’s breath caught. Once again his brain seemed to freeze. His cock twitched.

“That was just..it wasn’t re..it was just a ploy,” Xander finally managed to say when his brain came back online. Spike’s evil finger slowly made its way down over Xander’s chin to glide down his throat. Xander swallowed.

“Doesn’t matter,” the other Spike whispered. “Not among vampires.”

 TBC...