Xander just about knew who he was, where he was.  Wasn’t quite sure what he was, not yet.  He’d remembered vampires and biting, knew Spike – vampire – from William, his William, figured out where Angel – vampire – fitted ­in.  Wasn’t sure if this Alexander Harris character was vampire or human or somewhere in between.  Somewhere in between was his best guess, because each time he was bitten and bled he recovered a little of the sense of himself.  Each time, a little.  That was neither vampire nor human, but somewhere in between.  Not entirely anything and not entirely decent.

Lost without his William and convinced that he would not appear whilst Spike was present, Xander roamed the house, re-learning each room and being shocked by memories that struck him harshly and randomly.  He pieced together this existence and tried to become Xander Harris, who the vampires were waiting for with kind encouragement or frustrated impatience.  Spike was the kind encouragement, the delicate touches because Xander was precious to him, and occasionally tearful eyes that he tried to disguise.  Angel was the frustrated impatience and he talked too hard, too often of what Xander had to be for Spike, never seeing that pressure drove the memories away rather than brought them forward.

They both fussed him when he wanted affection, spoke when he longed to hear voices, but only Spike would answer his demands when the next moment and the next and the next was all about the bite, the fraught desire for the focus that came as he did.  Clarity within the pain.  He thought he was supposed to love Spike best, and so he did, obediently, while inside he longed for William and everything that they had lost.

Xander wandered through the rooms, attempting to put all the pieces together, and just about knew who he was.  Alexander Harris, who loved Spike, accepted Angel, missed William, and…

New room.  Picture.  Two people that made him scream inside.  Frightened, he looked for Spike, couldn’t find Spike, found Angel.  Pushing himself into the vampire’s uneasy embrace he tried to explain, but his whispered nonsense meant nothing.  The fear grew and he presented his wrist, rubbed it over the closed mouth, tried to force the lips open with the fingers of his free hand.  The warning growl failed to register and the strong jaws were opening, skin grazed by razor-sharp fangs.

Spike snatched him away, threw him over a shoulder and sped back to the bedroom they shared without intimacy; on his feet and against the wall, pinned, and Spike was at his throat, the lightest bite, but enough.  Hard against Xander, hard in every sense, grinding and whining in libidinous frustration as orgasm built.  Spike, not his William, against him, respecting him enough not to tear off his clothes and into his body.  Xander’s hand groped upwards, finding the back of Spike’s head encouraging the deep, draining bite that never happened.

Coming together, the most familiar of memories, Spike kissing him, exhausted by lust and desperation and there were the tears again, refusing to be hidden.

“Sorry, love,” was whispered hoarsely, “been so long without you.”

“William?” Xander asked, confused because he felt the love.

“No,” the vampire told him, openly weeping.  “Spike.  Your Spike.”

Xander abruptly recognised that Spike loved him, and that he was required to offer comfort instead of take.  He put his arms around the trembling body and hugged awkwardly, finding a few disjointed words and hoping they were enough because he had nothing more.  Spike folded into him, they fit perfectly, Spike loved him, Xander knew.  And in the absence of William he loved Spike best.

“I love you,” he said, and failed to understand why that didn’t help at all.

…

Early hours of the morning.  Spike sat on the bed and stared at Xander, waiting to see if the attention would wake him.  It did.  He slowly rose from the depths of sun-toasted, ozone-scented confusion that were his dreams, blearily peered through the half-light to where the vampire waited.

“William?”

Beat.

“No.  Spike.”

“Hi, Spike.”

“Hello, Xander.”

“What’s wrong?”

Spike laughed.  Briefly, humourlessly.

“What could possibly be wrong, love?”

Xander considered.

“The tides.”

“Yes, that’s right, the tides, how could I forget the tides?”  Not sarcasm, just sad acceptance of this…insanity.  “If it’s not one of us it’s the other.  Mad as March hares.”

“Are you going to talk to me?”

“Yes, I am.”  Xander liked Spike to talk to him; he wriggled up and got comfortable propped against the headboard.  He smiled to say he was ready to listen and Spike smiled back.  Spike wasn’t William but he loved Xander and Xander appreciated that.  “Comfy, pet?”

“Comfy.”

“Can I take your hand?”

“Where?” Xander teased.

“Just over here.”

Xander gave Spike his hand and smiled more as Spike caressed it and made patterns on the sensitive palm.

“Talk to me.”

Spike thought.

“No-one…no-one but Xander Harris would spend an hour just kissing me.  Know the big sofa downstairs?”  Xander nodded.  “We’d lay on there together – that one or the old one I wrecked – in front of the telly, Xander pretending it was about a Star Trek marathon, me pretending it was about keeping him company while he ogled the birds in the spandex.  Five minutes and we’d be ignoring the screen, and he’d be kissing me.  Technically kissing each other, I suppose, but it always felt like he was kissing me.  He’d touch me with love not lust and I’d never known that.  I didn’t know how to cope with it at first and I was always trying to get into his clothes.”  Spike paused and chuckled at the memories.  “He’d stop me and say, ‘I’ll tie your hands,’ and that’d only make me worse because I wanted him to.  I like being at his mercy, being tied and helpless with him.  It’s a kink, yeah, but it’s also…  There’s nothing I can do to make him stay when I’m like that.  So if he stays it’s because he wants to, wants me.”

Longing and sadness took Spike’s voice, but he kept stroking Xander’s hand, the hand that had touched him with love rather than lust.  Another memory and he was laughing again.

“This is the man who fucked me solidly for a day and a night, fucked me until we were both coming dry, then said to me, and with him still inside me, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this but I think I might be gay’.  He’s funny.”

“You’re talking about me, aren’t you, Spike.  There’s not another Xander.”

“Not another Xander, only you.  Do you mind?”

“No.  It helps.  I like listening to you talk.”

Once more, Spike thought.

“I don’t know that I’ll ever get over the amazement of having my own side of the bed.  Sharing a bed alongside Xander and belonging there.  Sometimes I’ll come to bed and find that Xander’s wandered, probably looking for me in his sleep, and he’s here…”  Spike patted the bed.  “…on my side, so I have to climb into his side, and that amazes me even more.  His side, and I’m allowed there - welcome there.  I don’t sleep when that happens.  I like to stay awake and see his reaction when the alarm goes off, when he has to figure out where he is in relation to it.  He’ll reach over me to switch it off and then he’ll just settle onto me, and he takes for granted the being wanted.  I envy that.  I want to take all this – him – for granted.  Once I would have, but not now.  So I carry on being amazed at having my own side of the bed.”

There was a long pause, and Spike noticed that he had stopped petting Xander and that Xander had started petting him, slowly and sleepily.

“Tired, love?”

“I’m tired.”

“Lay down, go back to sleep.”  Xander did as he was told, sighing peacefully as he relaxed.  Spike leant across and kissed his cheek.  “Night, Xander.”

“Stay?”

“I’ll be back later.”

“Stay.  On your side of the bed.”

Spike swallowed hard at that, giving a nod rather than an impossible word before stripping off and climbing in beside Xander, keeping his distance so Xander wouldn’t feel the need to shift away from him.

Ten minutes passed.

“On my side of the bed.”

Spike heard the invitation and hoped he wasn’t misunderstanding, cautiously moving to press his chest to Xander’s back, his hand resting inoffensively on Xander’s hip.

“Is this all right?” Spike asked.

“The wind is cutting.  You’ll keep me warm.”

“I’m the wrong one to keep you warm.  Can’t keep myself warm.  That’s your job.”

Xander turned, clumsily manoeuvring Spike until their positions were reversed.  Spike groaned pleasurably as the human’s heat seeped into him.

“I’ll keep you warm.”

“Mmm.  ‘Cause that wind: cutting.”

Xander shifted closer still.

“I’ll keep you warm.”

“Love you, Xan.”

“I love you, William.”

“Spike,” an automatic, effortless correction.

“Yes.  I love you, Spike.”

…

Good days, bad days,  This was a bad day.  Spike had made the mistake of asking Xander about repossession.  Whatever it meant, it was a trigger for confusion and sadness and desperation and tears.

“Patrick?”

“Angelus.”

“Find an excuse to visit Xander.”

Angel hung up the phone, irritable and agitated that it had come to this.  In the midst of trusting Patrick totally, he didn’t trust Patrick at all, didn’t want him anywhere near his family.  The niggling instinct that insisted Xander needed him would not be ignored, and if a visit from Patrick would help Xander, that’s what was going to happen.  If Patrick had demurred, Angel would have paid him a visit and dragged him here by the throat.  But Patrick was never going to demur, was he?  Not if this was about Xander.

“I can tell from the snarling that you got him,” Spike said wryly from the doorway.

“Oh, yeah.  He’ll be here.”

“And we’ll keep out of the way.”

“You don’t want to see him?”

Yes.  Desperately.  Family.

“No.  We’ll go out.  Hunt something down and kill it.  I’d enjoy that.  Up for it?”

“Always.”

Spike had got close, close enough to touch.  In a now familiar gesture, he casually ran a hand over Angel’s back, feeling reassured by the contact, knowing that there was someone who still loved him even if Xander’s thoughts and affections were directed almost exclusively toward William.  It wasn’t enough but it was something.

“Xander?”

“More himself,” Spike sighed.  “Saner.  Unhappier.  Breaks his heart every time he sees me and has to correct William for Spike.”

“Have you considered giving him what he wants?” Angel asked apologetically.  The following silence was frigid.  “Spike…”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“William is no threat to you, and he might be what Xander needs to…find himself.”

“Find himself,” Spike repeated scornfully.  “What the fuck is going on inside his head?  Where is he, what’s he remembering?”

“I spoke to Willow, tried to find out if there was something from his childhood.”

“And?”

“Nothing she knew of.”

“It makes no sense to William either.”

“Maybe it’s not a memory.”

“He’s just deranged?” Spike challenged furiously.  “That makes me feel so much better.”

“Face up to the truth.”

“Give me the truth and maybe I will.”

“Why are you fighting?” came from Xander as he walked into the middle of the minor ruckus.

“Who is he?” Angel demanded, pointing at Spike.

Xander’s mouth started to form ‘William’.  He stopped himself and figured it out.

“Spike.”

“So why William?”

“I don’t know,” Xander replied, quickly rising to the level of tension in the room.  “How many times do I have to say I don’t know?”

“Think.”

“Think,” Xander echoed sarcastically.  “Now why didn’t I think of that?  Oh, but that would be thinking, thinking of thinking would be thinking and I cannot fucking think!”

“Xander, love…” Spike came to him, placatingly.

“Back off.  This is your fault.  You made me crazy.”

“Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me…!  You made me crazy, Wi—  Spike.  Whatever your fucking name is, you did this.”

“True,” Spike responded softly.

Xander stared at the guilt-ridden vampire for a moment before tugging him into a rough embrace.

“Oh, shit, oh fuck this.  Sorry.”  He buried his face in Spike’s neck.  “Sorry, sorry, sorry.  Spike.  Sorry, Spike.”

Spike lightly ran his hands over Xander’s sides, afraid to make more of the contact.

“We’ll be going out later.  Me and Angel.  Give you a break, yeah?”

“Yeah.  Break’d be good.”

“I will…”

“Come back.”

“Yeah, I will.  Just…”

“Break’d be good.”

“Yeah.”

…

Left alone, and it was almost more than Xander could cope with.  The confusion, the emptiness.  The unrelenting need.  The…anticipation.

Xander walked around his unfamiliar familiar home, playing at being the Xander he knew he should be, shivering and fighting…  Sun, wind, scent, sea, tides, William.  …the tremors, understanding from what he’d been told…  Sun, wind, scent, sea, tides, William.  …that this was real and…  Sun, wind, scent, sea, tides, William.  …the rest wasn’t.

“Spike,” he told the emptiness, clinging to what he suspected and hazily feared was the only reality.  “Spike, not William.”

The anticipation.  Resolved.  Patrick.  Bitter, aching relief.

Patrick arrived, as Xander somehow knew he would, and Xander let him in without a word.  No doubts about Patrick.  This wasn’t fair but it was real.  Perfectly real.  But not fair.  To see the one person who made Xander feel like he could fall apart and be caught.  Because he couldn’t fall apart.  He was working hard at being this Xander and there was no more falling apart.  He went to the kitchen, clicked on the kettle, got out the good coffee; that’s what you did when people came around.  Xander couldn’t say a word but he could make coffee.  Staring at the kettle, shaking, falling apart, no, not falling apart because he couldn’t, because Spike said and Angel said…  A gentle touch to his back and he was turning, and he was falling apart, and he was being caught.  He knew it was safe.  He could fall.  He would be caught. 

There were arms around him, and he could let go, and he was safe; Xander clung to his lifeline, felt the secure embrace and knew that he could fall apart and be safe; Xander clung and fell apart and sobbed brokenly.  Safely cradled and cherished by a man who knew about the sun and the wind, had shared the scent, the sea and its treacherous tides; who knew William.  Xander fell apart.  He was caught.  And he was safe.

No William.  But he was safe.

…

It took Angel a while to persuade Spike back into the house.  Despite the younger vampire’s desire to be with his partner, the belief that he was either wanted or needed was being eroded, and accepting Xander’s platonic rather than passionate love wasn’t something he was ready for yet.

Fighting and destroying a few members of Death Wish Club at the gates of the house perked him up however, and he strolled into his home with a liberally applied façade of self-assurance.

Xander was still awake, sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a pile of papers.

“Hello, love.  Thought you’d be asleep by now.”

“Hey.  Spike.  Not tired.”

Angel gave Xander the briefest nod of acknowledgement as he crossed to the fridge for blood bags.

“How was your evening?” he asked Xander.

“Umm…  Okay.  Padra…Patrick came by.”

“How he is?” Spike asked, sitting in the chair next to Xander and trying to make sense of the uppermost page in the pile.

“Fine.  Sends his love.  You get to kill stuff?  Stupid question, you need vacuuming.”

“Good night,” Spike lied distractedly.  “We had a good night.  What’s all this?”

Xander pushed the papers across to Spike, who rifled through them, eyebrows creeping up his forehead to his hairline as he took in what he was reading.

Xander met Angel’s questioning look.

“He’s given me the house.  And he’s given me the car.  Plus severance pay.”

“This is…” Spike managed before reverting to gawping.

“Let me guess,” Angel volunteered.  “A phenomenal amount that ensures you’ll never have to worry about money again as long as you live?”

“Pretty much,” Xander replied coolly, knowing what was coming.

Angel gave a chuckle, shook his head.

“Nice trap.”

“I’m not trapped.  I can sell the house.  We can move.”

“Will you?”

“No,” Xander and Spike answered together.

“Listen to you two.  How can you be so easily bought without understanding what you’re selling?”

Spike stared at Angel blankly for a moment, before shaking himself out of his surprise.  He tapped the pages.

“No ties.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Xander told Spike.  “There’s nothing to indicate that the Partnership has been dissolved.”

“That’s good though.  You’ll be going back.”

“I quit.”

“Yes, but…  What did Patrick say about it?”

“He didn’t.”

“We’ve been through this,” Angel reminded Spike.  “We’ve talked about it, this is something I definitely remember talking about.”

“Not now,” Spike’s tone was frigid, and he flashed Angel a distinct ‘back off’ glare.

Xander looked at them, one to the other, back and forth.

“What is ‘this’?  The stuff you’ve been through?”  No response.  “The too good to be true?  Because I knew when Spike said it that he was right: it is all too good to be true.  For me.  Everything about this phase of my life…”  He slapped his hand down on the papers.  “…is too good to be true.  Once the horror and pain and sheer fucking hell is discounted: too good to be true.  Job, house, car, money.  Family.  They love me too much and unconditionally and are too good to be true.”  Angel met Xander’s glared challenge but remained silent, having nothing to add but his agreement.  Xander was up from the table, stalking over.  “C’mon then.  You may as well say it.  I don’t deserve it, haven’t earned it.”

“You deserve it all, Xander, I don’t dispute that.”

“Then your problem is…Pat, Beth?  They enough, or do you hate them all for some reason?”  No response.  “Better be a fucking good reason, Angel.”

Angel took a look at the fury on Xander’s face, the clenched fists, could practically see the displacement where the air around him was vibrating with his overprotective rage.  The two vampires exchanged a glance, the shake of Spike’s head telling Angel to back off.  He reluctantly complied, throwing Xander a disarming smile.

“I have no problems with your family, Xander.”

“You lying cu…”

“Xander!” Spike snapped.  “You heard him say…”

“What are they getting that you want?” Xander pressed Angel, “because this is more about you than them.  Scared they’re getting the love and friendship that should be yours?  Scared you’re going to lose us?”

Angel churned it over in his mind for a few seconds before answering entirely honestly.

“Yes.”

“There’s more to this than Angel being a needy tosser,” Spike protested, throwing a ‘Sorry, mate’ at his grand-sire as he made himself a barrier between the two.  “No buying or selling, but something isn’t right.”

“What something?”

“That’s what we can’t figure out, Xander.  Haven’t you noticed how our memories are being fucked over all the time?  We’ve both been affected, Angel’s halfway there.”

“Wait.  You think that somehow Pat is…  Ridiculous.  He couldn’t do that, he’s just a regular guy and…”  Xander saw the anger flicker over Angel’s face.  “Is that about me standing up for him, or about what you’ve decided he is or isn’t?”

“I think you’re being manipulated.”

“Into…?  Giving him my friendship?  My love?  Not manipulation, I give him all that willingly, and not because he pays my exorbitant wages, or hands over luxury homes for me to take pleasure in and Spike to destroy.”

“What happened earlier?  When he was here?”

Xander thought and, for a second, the confusion showed on his face.  He quickly covered it.

“Nothing happened.  He just visited.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Just…what we talk about.”

“Work?”

“Sure.”

“You said he didn’t mention work.”

“He must have,” Xander insisted, groping after non-existent memories and starting to feel a little alarmed.  “I can’t…”

“What else?”

It was easier to glare resentfully at Angel than answer him so Xander did just that.  Spike crossed to his side, offering a calming touch that he was grateful not to have brushed off.  He stroked Xander’s back, felt crackles of electricity that shouldn’t have been there.

“He touch you?” Spike frowned.

“What!”

“Hug, handshake…?”

“Well…yeah.”  Xander could definitely remember the contact, the utter relief of it.

“I can feel him on you.  Like pins and needles.”

Xander pulled away and stomped to the far side of the room, avoiding Angel’s hand as it stretched out to feel the effect.

“Enough.  I don’t know what’s got into the pair of you…”

“Xander, Patrick isn’t…”

“Not!  Listening!” Xander shouted, slapping his hands over his ears, cutting out Angel’s words.

After a few minutes silence Xander let his hands drop.

“Finished?”

“Sure,” Angel replied lightly.  “You’re not my responsibility, even if you are prepared to sell your soul to…”

“You don’t say that, you don’t imply it, you…”  Xander fought back the fury, let it simmer rather than boil.  Nose-to-nose with Angel: “Don’t you think you’ve outstayed your welcome?”

“I’m here for Spike.”

Angel used the same inoffensive, highly infuriating tone and Xander longed to plant his fist in that face.  Spike let out a subdued moan at the thought of being used as a bargaining tool, turning his back on them and leaning on the counter, head in hands.  Xander heard and saw Spike’s reaction; Spike was his consideration and if Angel was telling the truth he’d bear the inconvenience.

“Then be here for Spike.  Keep out of my way.”

Xander attempted to skirt Angel and leave the room, once again bristling with fury at Angel’s desire to keep him there.  As the vampire’s hand closed around his forearm, Xander turned on him.  A spark of electric blue light flickered in his eyes; the contact point emitted a throb of power and Angel snatched back his scorched hand, watching as a tendril of smoke rose from the damaged skin.

“Get the fuck away from me,” Xander told him icily, and this time Angel was happy to oblige.

Xander left the kitchen.  Spike sighed and pulled himself upright, discarded the blood that had congealed in the microwave and fetched fresh.

“It makes me so proud,” he said heavily.  “The way you two have managed to bond.”

Angel looked up from the examination of his tingling hand.

“Did you see that?”

“What?  You two acting like a pair of gits?  I was trying to ignore it.”

Angel stared at Spike with disbelief, attempting to figure out if his blind spot was about being internally selective or externally coerced.

“Xander…”  His voice faded to nothing as he saw the folly in pursuing the subject.

“Still isn’t well,” Spike said wearily.  “Leave him alone, eh?”

“Yeah,” Angel agreed, flexing his fingers.  “I’ll be leaving him alone.  For the time being.”

Spike warmed their blood and found mugs, tracing the Xander Spike on his, half listening to Angel muttering that he should have bitten the little gobshite when he had the chance and bled some respect out of him.

“I think you should leave,” he told Angel, guessing the response.

“I’m not going anywhere until that boy shows some sense.”

“He’s not your responsibility.”

“Family,” Angel replied sharply.

“We’re not what he needs.”

“Well, that’s fucking tough shit, because we’re what he gets.  Patrick thinks he can stroll in here and…”

“Love him.  Adore him.  Give him everything he wants.”

“No.  There’s something only you can give him, and…  You have to seriously think about it, Spike.”

Spike stared into his mug, appetite gone.

“William.”

…

There was Xander, staring out of the window, same place as he’d spent hours, feeling the wind change, wary of the tides.  Refusing to let himself be rejected without an attempt at contact, Spike snuggled up to Xander’s back as per usual, rubbing his cold nose into thick hair and breathing deeply.  The scent was enough to make him hard, and he pressed his hips forward, nudging against Xander’s ass.

“Want you, Xander.  Think you might want me, hmm?”

He almost groaned with relief as Xander relaxed back into his embrace.

“I do want you.”

Succumbing to the sense of panicked urgency, Spike’s hand found Xander’s growing erection, kneading roughly.

“That’s nice, getting hard for me.  Want me, yeah?  Want to fuck your Spike?”

Even as the name escaped his lips Spike knew he’d made a crucial mistake.  Xander tensed, pushed away Spike’s hands, and turned in the tight circle of his arms.  He studied the pale face that glowed in the moonlight.

“William?”

Spike hesitated.

“Yes.”

Xander took his time considering that possibility.

“No.”

Spike’s grip tightened in desperation.  Xander let himself be kissed, neither protesting nor responding, even when Spike took his hand and laid it over the bulge in the vampire’s jeans.

“Feel how I want you?”

“Yes.  Spike.  You’re Spike.”

“Fuck me anyway, Xander.  Please?  Take me, have me,” Spike begged between kisses.  “I need you.”

“You’re Spike.”

“Just be there for me, I’ll do it all.  Touch you.  Suck you.  Ride you.  Make you feel good.  Make you come for me.”

“You’re…”

“I’ll do the work, you just…  You just have to pretend it’s me you really love.”

Xander gave him the lightest of hugs before trying to put a few inches space between them.

“You’re not William.”

“Please, Xander.  Please.  I need you.  I love you and I need you.”

“I can’t.”

There was a long, stilted pause.

“No,” Spike accepted at last, illustrating his disappointment with a bitter laugh.  “Of course you can’t.”  A final kiss to Xander’s cheek and Spike was backing toward the door with slow, deliberate steps.  “What was I thinking?  Of course you can’t.”

Incensed, distressed, needing to take his impotent fury out on something, Spike ran down the stairs, stopping in the middle of the hallway and staring around him, suddenly knowing.

Perfect.

“Your loss, Xander.  Fuck you!”

Without a second’s hesitation Spike went to the music room and tore apart the piano with his bare hands.

Repossession 84       Repossession Index       Repossession Notes

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