“Maybe it’s just something I invented,” Spike suggested easily as he wandered to the living room, scanning Samuel’s article as he went.  “To amuse me and Sammy.  Y’know, wishful thinking.  And he wrote it up like it happened.”

“You honestly think I’m going to believe that?” Xander asked as he pursued him.

“You could if you wanted to.”  Spike sank into the corner of the sofa.  Paused in thought.  “No.”

“And would you buy him a laptop as a thank you for merely writing you a story?”

“Might actually.  I have a very generous nature.”  Spike grinned at something on the third page.  “Did you read all of this?”

“No.  Not all, but enough.”

The humour was marred by a glimmer of panic that Spike rapidly concealed.

“You’d guessed, love.  You were glad they got what they deserved.”

“Yeah.”

Xander sat down, perched on the edge of an armchair cushion, studying his vampire intently.  Spike laid down the pages and studied Xander back.

“What have I done to lose your trust?” Xander eventually asked.

“Nothing,” Spike replied calmly.  Too casually.

“But, this…  You didn’t tell me.”

“Look, those men…”

“Fuck the men, it’s not about the men!  It’s about us.”

“No, Xander.  It’s about me.  And we agreed I was entitled to some privacy.”

“Oh, right, yeah.  The…whatever it is you won’t tell me.”

Spike held up the pages to Xander, but the human shook his head.

“Suit yourself.” Spike sighed.  “Believe whatever you want.”

Pause.

“You don’t trust me,” Xander returned to his initial point.

“Bollocks.”

“You don’t think you owe me a little more respect than that?  After what we’ve been through, after…”

“What?” Spike snapped, knee-jerk angrily, up and prowling.  “After what?  Not back to bloody Angel, are we?  ‘Cause, me and Angel…  That treacherous bastard.  You honestly think I would welcome his hands on me?  I promise you, I have had enough unwanted hands on me to last an eternity.  There is no me and Angel, and you know that.”

“I do know that.”

“Then why…?”

“I never mentioned Angel.”

Spike looked surprised at that.

“No,” he subsequently agreed.

“Treacherous?” Xander questioned with a frown.

“Don’t go there, it’s a whole fucking lifetime.”

Pause.

“This isn’t about Angel.  I don’t think.  I don’t know, but…  That wouldn’t make sense, and all I’m trying to do is find some sense here, Spike.”

“Sense,” Spike repeated with a brief, humourless laugh.

“What are you so guilty about?”

“I’m not guilty,” Spike protested, a little too vehemently.

“When you’re guilty you get pointlessly aggressive.  Like this.”

Spike fell still, took a massive breath and released it slowly.  Calm.  The expression he now turned on Xander was routinely affectionate.

“Have you eaten?” he asked, heading for the door, “’cause there’s…”

“The chip, Spike,” Xander interrupted before Spike could get away.  “We need to talk about the chip.”

Spike halted.  Swivelled to face Xander.  Shrugged.

“What’s to say?”

Xander stared at him aghast.

“This is the something you wouldn’t tell me.  The fact that you risked yourself after I asked you not to, I repeatedly asked you not to.”  Spike shrugged again.  “Can’t you see that this is a fucking disaster for us?  I trusted you not to do this, and you promised not to take the chance.  Okay, you do it, but then you can’t trust me enough to tell me.  What does that say about us, about what we have?  About…” Xander’s voice dropped away.  “What we don’t have.”

“You’re reading too much into this.”

“Doesn’t it matter to you?  How much it hurts that you don’t trust me?  Spike…  Sweetheart…”  With that endearment Spike turned away, arms wrapped around himself if they couldn’t be wrapped around Xander, and now…they just couldn’t be.

Xander misread the move as a rejection; he shut up and spent the next few minutes gathering his thoughts and trying to see this from Spike’s point of view.  He could.  And he couldn’t.  The wanting to be free of the chip he understood, but not why it had to kept a secret.  He needed to understand.  He glanced at Spike, the defensive stance, the unmistakeable sense of disquiet.  It was a painful picture.

“You took the risk, okay.  I’m not happy about that, but I guess I’m not mad either.  Kinda scared in retrospect.”

“Must we do this?  You know and that’s the end of it.”

“No, it’s not.  Once it was done, why didn’t you tell me?”  Yet another shrug and Spike was heading for the door again.  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Xander persisted.  “It’s what we wanted, so why leave me out of this?  You let me believe it was still in place, still active.”

Spike swung back.

“I didn’t lie to you.  You asked if I still had it.  I said yes, which is true, I do have it.”

“But it’s not working.”

“Sometimes.  Sometimes it’s not.”

“Tell me.  Please?”

“I—”

Spike bit back his words and wandered around the room, deep in thought.  When he eventually stopped he cast a glance in Xander’s direction, quickly snatching it away.  But not before Xander had glimpsed the depth of his unease.

“You’re so unhappy with this, and I don’t understand why.  You have to let me help.”

“Going to make it all better?” Spike took a heavily sarcastic swipe that Xander refused to rise to.

“Maybe.  If I can.  I’ll do anything for you, you know that.  I guess I’d even let this go if you seemed content with it, but…  Let me help you, Spike.”

Spike slumped, unable to hang onto any kind of resentment in the face of such caring.

“There’s…there’s a spell,” he admitted quietly.  “It wasn’t the risky business.  Angel…  I don’t know what he did, what he sacrificed for it.  He persuaded a bunch of questionable demons you’d never have trusted in a million years to create a spell to knock it out.”

“How questionable?”

“More than I want to think about even now.”

“So it was still dangerous.”

“Yes, but not in the same way, and it wasn’t the method you’d said not to use.  I didn’t go against your wishes.”

“That would have been small comfort if it had gone wrong.”  Spike acknowledged that with a quick, guilty nod.  “And afterwards, you still could have told me the chip wasn’t working; that would have been a relief, to know you were safe.”

“This isn’t about the chip, Xander,” Spike snapped as the inner tension became outer, leaving him somewhere between angry and desperate.  “I wanted to tell you about the chip.”

“Then…what?”

Pacing, back and forth, until Xander was dizzy from watching.  Wracking his brain, trying to find the words.  Spike stopped: pacing; thinking.  Nowhere left to hide.  This moment was about the truth, not the avoidance of the truth.  This moment was very possibly also about the end.  He looked at Xander, saw love and concern and doubt and fear all crushed together in eyes that he’d witnessed pure trust in.  Unwarranted trust.

“It’s what happened when the chip was deactivated.”  Spike said flatly; he hesitated and Xander nodded for him to continue.  Spike began to breathe.  “Angel wanted to be sure that the spell had worked so we went out and…and…”

Xander felt a tremor of anticipation as he immediately guessed where this was going, but he had to hear.  To know.

“How bad?” he asked quietly.

“Angel had picked out this one man for me, bad man, no loss to anyone.  What the old boy calls one of the disposable people.  I deliberately got into a fight with him, threw a couple of punches.  It didn’t hurt.”  Spike took a sharp gasp of air at the memory.  “It didn’t hurt, Xan, the spell had worked and the chip was dormant, no more fucking humans and being at their make-believe mercy.  Heady stuff.”

“How bad?” Xander repeated, watching as Spike’s brow creased at the thought of what came next.  Pacing.

“I kept hitting him.  Couldn’t stop myself.  His face, it was…raw meat.  I just kept hitting him.  And he was anybody who’d dared lay a finger on you, everyone who’d used me, and I kept…”  Spike stopped and looked at Xander.  “You know I killed him.  Too easy to figure that out.”

“Then what?”

“What indeed,” Spike said with a grim and unsteady laugh.  “I went crazy.  Couldn’t contain myself and, if I’m honest, I didn’t want to.  I wanted revenge, I wanted to feel my power, I needed to know my place and that meant predator not prey for the first time in over a decade.  I…  Do you hate me enough already, or should I keep going?” 

“How many people did you kill?”  The question was quietly spoken.  Reservedly concerned.  Spike wished Xander would scream and shout and call him the names he’d been calling himself for weeks, get it over with.  Get the finishing of them over with.

“I don’t know,” Spike confessed, sorry-for-himself tearfully.  “It’s all a jumble in my head.  Tearing people apart, destroying every recognisable scrap of them.  Feeding until I was bloated.  Purging the blood from my system and doing it all again for the sheer pleasure.  It was…so…fucking…magnificent.  It was what I am.  What I am, Xander.”  A tear fell and was swiped away; as he continued his voice trembled with suppressed emotion.  “I do trust you, love, trust you with my very being.  I know, though.  You can’t love me now, can you?  You can’t love this…abomination; evil, evil abomination, exactly what you fought for years.  Good man like you.  You told me once that you’d forgive me anything but…  I know, not this.  I know.”

“Were you…  Crazy, you think?”

“There’s no finding me an excuse.  The only excuse…reason, is…what I am.”

“And Angel just…let you do it?”

“Angel wanted me to do it, he enjoyed it, he wasn’t going to stop me.  He wants me to be strong again, he wants me to be William the Bloody.  He told me that those people were a necessary sacrifice, that I was more important than my victims, that I needed to prove to myself that I was master of my own destiny again.  He told me…  Everything I wanted to hear.”

Xander was silent for a while as he took it all in, mentally reliving Spike’s confession a dozen times a minute and testing himself with it, jabbing the more sensitive areas of his mind and heart and soul with the jagged point of the vampire’s admission.  The more he probed, the less damage he found; the only intolerably sore spot being the ache he experienced when he looked to Spike and witnessed his lover trying to be brave as he waited to be dismissed for his inhumanity.  Inhumanity.  After all Xander had seen, humanity itself left more than a little to be desired.

“Know what?” Xander said softly as he made a slow approach toward Spike.

“What?” Spike responded fearfully, virtually inaudible.

Xander came to a halt before the vampire, and after a minute’s contemplation of this awesome creature he reached out and drew the trembling form into his arms.

“Angel was right.”

Xander jumped as Spike’s arms clamped around him, a muted whine of desperation emerging as Spike buried his face in his consort’s – his sire’s – neck.

“I’m a monster.”

“I know.”

“You can’t love a monster.”

“Don’t assume you know what I think about this.  I was pretty confused when I got here tonight, I was upset about the lies.  But I’m not now.  Not after listening to you.  I keep telling you I’ve changed.  I used to be a good person, I used to see things so simply, but…  I’ve changed.  Life has changed me, you’ve changed me, and…  It’s almost like I’m drawing on something inside of me that I didn’t know was there.  The darkness.  You find a way to touch it, bring it to life, and I have no regrets about that.  Something deep inside of me listens to everything you say and the only response I can find is…good.”

“Good?” came the muffled question.

“Not good as in, ‘Spike’s a killer, let’s celebrate,’ but good as in, yes, necessary, proof that you can feel secure now.  I guess I feel bad for those people, but it’s…it’s not like it was in the past, it’s very…remote.  Like when Angel blew up the Initiative: I could never regret what happened because I know what we did was right.  You have to come first, Spike, what good would I be for you if I didn’t think that?  What kind of partner – consort – would that make me?  I’ve always known what you are, and the risks that entails.  So…priorities.  I promised you, didn’t I, a long time ago that you came first.  It wasn’t a hollow promise.”

“Oh, God, Xander, what have I done to you?  Nothing in this is right…”

“Hey, don’t, don’t.  This is a part of me, don’t look for blame.  This is…”  Nothing summed it up better than Spike’s own words.  “…what I am.”

“I love what you are,” Spike choked out.  “I’ve been so frightened.  Frightened that I’d lose you, I couldn’t tell you…”

“You’re supposed to trust me.”

“I do.  But whatever you think, you are a good man, and I didn’t want you to have to face this about me.  This weakness in me.  I thought you’d hate me.”

“No.  I love you.  This is another shock we have to get over, but we do that.  All the time.”

Spike’s head came up and he searched Xander’s face for the truth; seems he’d heard it.

“I’m not losing you?”

“Not a chance.”

“Oh, fucking hell.”  He kissed Xander hard, unskillfully, as honest a kiss as Xander would ever receive.  “Fucking, fucking hell.”

Xander led Spike back to the sofa and sat him down, the vampire clinging to his hands as if convinced Xander would run away at the first chance.

“I understand why you thought you couldn’t tell me.”

“It was never anything to do with Angel, not in the sense you meant, I haven’t been with him,” Spike assured.  “I would never betray you.”

“I get that now.  And this other stuff is why you said you won’t go back to LA?”

“Partly.  More that I didn’t want you to think the wrong thing about me and Angel, and if that means no more LA so be it.  Like I want to see him right now anyway!  I’m so angry that he didn’t stop me.  That he encouraged me and he’s supposed to be the bloody good guy!  I thought he’d cost me this.  Cost me you.”  Xander shushed and Spike calmed enough to continue quietly.  “I know it’s my responsibility – the killing – I’m not fooling myself.  It’s just easier to share the blame with him.  Like the good old days,” Spike finished with heavy irony.

“Did he…” Xander began hesitantly.  “Did Angel…join in?”  Spike’s awkward glance away was enough of an answer.  “We are talking Angel here?”

“Took me a while to see it, but this Angel is so like Angelus.  I like him, trust him better for it.  Even if I do hate him right now.”

“Are we all safe with him?  Is Buffy safe?”

“Yes,” Spike answered firmly.  “He’s truer to himself, and that actually makes him less dangerous.”

“I doubt the people he killed would agree.”

“But they weren’t important, and they weren’t family.  Family, he’d protect with his life.  That’s him being what he is rather than what he’s been expected to be.”

“It doesn’t sound like the Angelus we knew in Sunnydale.”

“Not that Angelus, I’m talking about the real deal.  The one who hadn’t been caged up by that bloody curse for decades and driven nuts.”

“The way William spoke of him, he was little better when he was so-called sane.”

“You’ll have to take my word for it, this is the best I’ve known him.  No chance of redemption and he’s free; he’s nobody’s champion now.”

“Except for ours.  Buffy’s.”

Spike nodded, grateful that Xander seemed satisfied with what he’d been told and there was no need for further explanations regarding the intricacies of Angel’s screwed psyche.

“Tell me when it all happened,” Xander asked, thoroughly confused over dates now he’d really started to think about it.  “The last time you were in LA?”

“No.  Before the Shakespeare.”

Xander’s jaw dropped at that.

“A couple of months?  But…but…  No, wait.  That guy hit you at the party, and when you tried to hit him back the chip fired.”

“Not when I hit the bloke at the club though.”

“That was…  So Jay…  Explain, will you?”

“I said sometimes, didn’t I?  The spell needs to be renewed every month.  The party happened when it was wearing off.  That’s why I rushed away the next day.  I’d promised myself not again, no more threat of mindless slaughter and you hating me, I’d just take vengeance on the men who hurt you and that would be the end of it.  I’d stay good.  For you.  Not compromise the good in you.  Then, that business at the party…  I tried to kid myself I was just going to LA to talk it all through with Angel, because he’d understand the hatred I had of humans right then.  But I was in a panic.  Defenceless again and I couldn’t cope with that.  The offer of the spell was there and I took it without a fight.”

“Who does the spell?  These demons you mentioned?”

“Angel.  I don’t want it like this, I don’t want to need him…”

“But if it keeps you safe, Spike, it’s worth it.  You have to be whole, you must be safe.”

“Even if it means LA?”

“If it means the moon!  So long as you’re safe.”

“I’d give up on the spell, Xander, if you wanted me kept chipped, never having to worry about me killing.”

“Stop that.  What you are, remember?”

“It’s not so much of a sacrifice after all these years.”

“Listen to me: your safety is a sacrifice I’m not prepared to make.”  Xander squeezed Spike’s fingers in reassurance, and the vampire accepted the words and gesture appreciatively.  “When does the spell run out?”

“’Bout now.”

“And does it take long to perform?”

“No.  But there are two stages, twenty-four hours apart.”

“It can be done in a weekend.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll come with you in future.  It’ll be cool.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Xander grinned.  “Y’know…we have family in LA.”

The smile on Xander’s face was all the encouragement Spike needed, and he pushed Xander backwards, crawling over his prone body and settling down to wrap him in an unbreakable hold.

“If it’s what you want…  I can do it for you, Xander: need that old bastard.  That’s easier than needing him for me.”

“So…  When you had the spell done this last time.  Was there another killing spree?”

“No!  That’s one of the reasons I came back so fast, so it couldn’t happen.  And why Angel finally figured out about you being sire.  The whole thing bothered me so much but not because of my own sensibilities about those people, it was all about you, not upsetting or disgusting you.  The demon will go your way in future, Xander.  It craves your approval and is prepared to give up blood rights for you.  The spell is about me being able to protect myself, not gorge on the masses; I can live on bags, I don’t have a problem with that.”

“And I don’t expect you to relinquish what you are.”

The tone was so adamant that Spike had to lean up once again to see Xander’s face: in the depths of brown eyes he witnessed the darkness Xander had spoken of, could almost feel it.

“You’re saying my feeding is more important than people’s lives?”

“Your welfare.  Whether it’s physical, emotional, psychological, it’s about your welfare.”

“However you want to dress it.”

“You matter most,” Xander told him adamantly.  “If it’s what you need, if you can feed on people without killing them, that’s…acceptable, we can live with that.  If you can take on the kind of scum that doesn’t deserve to live and put them to good use the way Angel does, fine.  If not…  You matter most.  We’ve been so traumatised, we have to put us first now.  Whatever it takes.  And we’ve saved this damn world how many times?  Enough to put our needs before a bunch of strangers who we don’t really give a fuck about, and who don’t give a fuck about us or the sacrifices we’ve made.  We’ve earned this – you’ve earned this.”

Spike obstinately shook his head before snuggling back down onto Xander’s chest.

“I don’t think I’ll ever do it again.”

“Why not?”

“Too much of a risk you’ll come to your senses over me killing.”

“I can’t see that happening.  I’m as damned as you are.”

“Too much of a risk.”  Xander pressed a kiss into Spike’s hair and refused to argue.  “And…” Spike continued uneasily, “I have this…taste in my mouth, bad taste, that I can’t get rid of.  The taste of…them.”

Xander lifted Spike’s head and, after a moment’s reluctance on Spike’s part, brought their mouths together for a long, intimate kiss.

“You taste great to me.”

“No.  I can’t get rid of the flavour of…  Can’t.”

“Here,” Xander eased Spike back to his neck.  “Bite me, then my blood is all you’ll taste.”

“It hasn’t worked.”

“It will.  Now I know what you did, and you know we’re okay.  It’ll work now, all you’ll taste is me.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, sweetheart.  Taste me.”

“Oh, love…”

Spike moaned against the hot flesh, growing hard at the thought of this act, feeling a reciprocal show of desire from his lover.  Xander tugged his shirt aside and Spike barely slid his fangs into the skin, just enough to liberate a trickle of Xander’s blood.

“You can’t ever tell Willow or Dawn,” Xander gasped.  “You especially can’t tell Buffy.”

“I know that,” between licks and sucks.  “Had this conversation with Grandpa.”

“And if you do it again you don’t even have to tell me.”

Spike pulled back.

“If I do it again?  I just said…”

“You’re a vampire, for fuck’s sake!  Be a vampire.  If nothing else, take up the Fan Club’s offer of their blood supply.”  The grin was back.  “You’re whole.”  Xander’s hands ran appreciatively over the head that contained a disabled chip.  “You’re here, you’re whole, you’re mine.  Safe at last.”  Xander laughed at the shock on Spike’s face and became determined to kiss it away.  “You’ll get totally better now,” he murmured between kisses.  “Lose the past.  Be Big Bad.  My glorious Big Bad.”

“Xander.  I killed some humans.”

“Okay.  I’m a terrible person, I’m a total and utter bastard.  Keep it remote and it doesn’t touch me.  Don’t let it touch me, don’t kill my friends, and see if I give a damn.”

“I killed some humans.”

“I don’t care.  I know I should, I really, really know I should, I know there should be the big Scooby save-the-population kick-in happening here but I don’t care.  And the more I want you the less it matters.  God help me, I want you more all the time.”

Past the astonishment at this incredible turn of events, the fear of losing Xander started to recede; Spike tentatively purred and nuzzled.

“My vengeance,” Spike whispered into Xander’s neck.  “Does Sire approve?”

“Yeah.  Sire approves.  Sire thinks you’re the most loyal, devoted, incredible childe in existence.  Wonderfully wicked, and I love you, Sire loves you, Consort loves you.  Xander loves you, Spike.  I love you.”

“Right now you do, while you’re still giddy from getting what you thought you wanted.  How will it be when you’ve slept on it?  Will you still love me in the cold light of day?  When the truth finally sinks in?  You read what Sammy wrote, it wasn’t a quick and painless retribution.”

“That reminds me: I will never let your dog breathe on me again.”

“Cold light of day, Xander?”

Xander wriggled some space between them and considered the question.  He thought about what Spike had gone through, in the past and more recently, tried to imagine the agony of keeping this secret when he needed Xander’s support and comfort, when he needed absolution and the flavour of Xander’s – sire’s – blood to wipe away the badness.  What Xander hadn’t been told made sense, if only in a panicked Spike-sense way.  Any residual misery inside Xander blew apart and he felt a terrific wave of relief wash through him.  No losing Spike to Angel, only gaining his lover’s freedom from fear, liberation from the continual worry of Spike being defenceless, or depressed and humiliated by his vulnerability and his inability to protect Xander.

The truth, when it finally sank in, wasn’t about loving and losing and more years of debilitating pain.  It was about hope.  The future.  Xander was quite prepared to be a terrible person, to give in to the darkness within him.  Because – as firmly as Spike believed of Xander – Spike was the light in his darkness, and Xander would never be completely lost to it with this man to hold onto.

“How could you believe for a moment that I would reject you?”

The latest bout of trepidation passed; Spike’s eyes filled and he let himself be drawn back to Xander’s chest, Xander’s hold tightening until it would have squashed the breath out of a human.  Spike clutched at his partner, desperate for the contact he’d risked losing forever.  Xander was so warm, comforting, good, and at this moment surely loved him more than anyone else ever had or could.

They lay there for a while, Xander thinking past the murder, past the torture, putting his honed avoidance skills to good use and concentrating on his whole, un-chipped lover, and the formidable power of the creature that was cuddled, purring softly, within his embrace.  One of the most terrifying vampires on the planet, a merciless killing machine, fearless enough to face evil gods, but scared that his boyfriend would disapprove of his nature and kick him out.  It might be funny if it wasn’t tragic.

“You know when…”

“Xander, please don’t make me talk about what happened.”

“I wasn’t going to, I never will, unless you need to.”

“I won’t.  Ever.”

“Okay.  Just know you can trust me with it.”

“I do.”

Xander pressed a kiss into Spike’s hair.

“What I wanted to ask about was timing.  That day you came in when it was already light, and you wanted me so badly I blew you in the hall then had to go to work.  That was when you killed those men?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.  And then…  Worthy.  You said you were worthy.”

“You remember that?  In the middle of everything you can’t remember?”

“Yeah,” Xander grinned.  “Yeah, I do.”

“I was worthy.”

“You were so worthy.”

“Lovely blow job,” Spike fondly reminisced.

“How did you find them?  Was it…”

“Sammy.”

“Yeah, had to be, I guess.  When did he tell you?”

“When I went with you to Preston Hill.  The day you returned to work after your recuperation.”

It only took a few seconds for the associated memories to rush in.

“That’s why you went crazy.  You knew and couldn’t do anything about it.  Oh, sweetheart,” Xander squeezed Spike until he squeaked, “I wish you’d told me.  Maybe we could have worked it through without you hurting so badly.”

“Or wrecking the place.”

“Wrecking the place led to major improvements, I think we can let that go.  But you…”

“Let that go too.  Done and dusted.  Like I’m lucky I wasn’t.”

“Never,” Xander promised as he gave Spike another kiss.

More thoughtful silence, broken only by the increased level of purring courtesy of all the kisses.

“Can I learn to do this spell?” Xander suddenly asked.

Spike thought.

“I don’t know.  Perhaps you can.  That would mean so much to me, love.”

“I’ll talk to Angel.”

“That’s right,” Spike smiled.  “You talk to him.  Tell him my sire wants charge of me.”

“If I can’t do it, would you trust Max?”

Spike thought again.

“I would.”

“’Kay, let me talk to Grandpa, then…  Maybe he won’t want to let that connection go.”

“Bet he will.  I gave him bloody hell last time I was there.”

Xander laughed and hugged.  The house creaked, they jumped, Xander laughed again.

“Can’t believe this damn place.  You want to go live somewhere else for a while?  We can rent, or stay with friends.”

“No.  I want to be at home.  Besides, just got the—”

In less than a second Spike had Xander on his feet and was practically carrying him upstairs, hustling him into the bedroom to be confronted by the Cathedral bed, in place and made up with fresh cotton sheets.

“Wow.  That’s…wow.”

“I want to redecorate the room.  Or rather, I want to design it and you can arrange the grunt work.”

“Yes, Master.”  A joke, but Spike’s skin prickled from scalp to toes.  “What do you want done?”

“Me?” Spike suggested hopefully.  “Can I be done?  Now?”

Xander wandered over to study the new frame, running a hand up and down one of the corner uprights in an obliviously suggestive manner.

“Very different in this setting.  I like it better here.”

“That why you’re trying to get it off?”

Xander realised what his action suggested and snatched his hand away from the post.  The good humour drained from his face as he evidently thought of something less amusing.  Spike waited.  Xander sat on the edge of the bed.

“Where are the photographs?”

Spike didn’t pretend not to know what photos Xander was referring to.

“Surely…  You don’t want to see them?”

Xander shook his head.

“They link you to what happened.  We don’t know that Cawley’s finished with us.  If they’re still in your camera…”

“No.”  Spike came and sat next to Xander, taking his hand.  “The memory card is safely tucked away, no-one’s going to find it.  The pictures aren’t in any of our computers.  We’re covered.”

“Sure?”

“Positive.”

Xander breathed a sigh of relief.

“Think we should get Sammy to scrap the story?”

“Xander, love…  If I’m honest, I don’t think Cawley’s pulling out all the stops to discover what happened to those men.  He was more…good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Yeah, but he has to do his job.”

“That’s right.  And while he thinks those shits picked on the wrong bloke in the pub and ended up as landfill, he won’t be looking at us, will he?  Us or Sammy.”

“Okay,” Xander nodded, knowing he just needed a little time to get used to the idea.

The evening’s adrenalin was wearing off and Xander yawned and slumped against Spike, tilting his head to rest against the vampire’s.

“Bedtime?” Spike asked.

“I guess.”

“Want me to let you sleep?”

“I think I need to.  D’you mind?”

“No.  And yes.  I’m still scared you’ll come to your senses in the morning and chuck me out.”

“I’m not promising there won’t be moments when it hits me harder than it has tonight, but it’s not going to be like that turnaround with my parents.”

“If it is, you share it.  Be honest with me and we can get through anything.”

“Oh, yeah,” Xander said wryly, “like you’ve been so honest with me.”

“It’ll be easier now.  There’s bugger all left to hide.”

“I wish…  I just wish you’d trusted me.”

A hug and a kiss, and Xander wearily stood and stripped off, admiring the bed as Spike admired him.  Xander abruptly switched from admirer to admiree when he caught sight of Spike’s desirous expression.

“You want me?” Xander asked.

“All the time.”

“Think you can have me without waking me up?”

“I could try.”

“Then I guess I’d better sleep on my front.”  Xander smiled and slid under the covers, instantly turning onto his belly.  “’Kay?”  Spike chuckled and climbed onto the bed, snuggling up to Xander and nuzzling between his shoulder-blades.  “And if you go out, try to avoid whatever it was that zapped you before.”

“Goes without saying, love.”

“Where’s Henry?” Xander asked on another yawn.

“I put him out the back when they delivered the bed.  Shot off into the woods and I haven’t seen him since.”

“You think…”

“He’s fine.”  Spike paused, hesitated before speaking again.  “Are we?”

“Mmm?”

“Fine.”

“We are.  Promise.  We’ll always be fine.”

“Yeah,” Spike gave his lover an unseen, tremulous smile.  “Always.”

“Hmm.”

“Now…  Go to sleep.”

“Am.”

“Asleep?”

“Fast.”

Spike fussed over Xander for a while longer, purring, caressing, wondering if Xander really could sleep through…  But no.  Whistle up Hamish, and a couple of hours out on the prowl would do Spike nicely; he always enjoyed finding out what new beasties his beloved demon magnet had drawn here for him to kill.  And as for being zapped?  Not fun at the time but he got over it.  The experience certainly hadn’t diminished his zeal for a fight.  But he would take care: he didn’t want Xander to worry unnecessarily.

Xander, who adored him and accepted him and forgave him.  Xander, who wanted him despite the death and destruction.  Xander.  Spike fell back onto the bed and took time to appreciate the lightness of his spirit in the wake of his confession.

“You’re extraordinary,” he whispered to his partner.  “I…” he sighed, unable, as ever, to express the depth of his feelings for this remarkable man.  He settled for the simplicity of, “I love you,” and relishing the accompanying wealth of feeling so much he repeated it a dozen times in a dozen different languages.

Xander missed it all.

He was asleep.

Fast.

Repossession 103       Repossession Index       Repossession Notes

Site Updates     Update List     Home     Fiction     Gallery     Links     Feedback