The Twelve Days of Spander
Twelve
Drums
by
piratepurple
aka Luminosity
Notes
Xander woke just
as the sky turned bloody with the African sunrise. He threw off the mosquito
netting and slid out of his hammock, trying to shake the smell of whiskey and
smoke from his head. He hadn't been able to stop dreaming about Spike. They
had made love once, and only once, the night before Sunnydale became a
crater. Xander had been unable to leave it behind, though he knew the vampire
had probably just been seeking comfort.
He opened the door to his
hut. The tribe had helped him build this little hut the day he told them he
would like to stay, the same day he sent his last slayer to England. The same
day he threw his cell phone into the Zambezi River, after telling Giles he
couldn't do it anymore and not to look for him until he came back on his own.
Tossing on some shorts and his patch, Xander was drawn outside by the sound
of drumming.
The Elder stood at the northeast edge of the circle of
huts, with a drummer squatting at his left-hand side. Xander went and stood
at a respectful distance until the elder addressed him. Xander was
unable to get the excited Elder to speak English, though he frequently
spoke more eloquently than some members of the council, and Xander's
pidgin of the tribal language was not enough for him to understand
the rapid-fire words accompanied by wild gesticulation. He wished, not
for the first time, that he had Spike's gift with languages.
That
night a second drummer joined the first, with a counterpoint rhythm. Xander
woke at midnight from a dream of fire and Spike and the sinkhole that used to
be his home. The vibrations from the drumming thrummed in his skin, making
the fine hair all over his body stand on end. Xander shivered in spite of the
heat, and tried to go back to sleep.
The next morning Xander again
threw on some shorts, tied back his too-long hair with a leather thong, and
walked off into the savannah armed only with a crossbow. Not for the first
time, the shrewd-eyed Elder watched him go. Then he turned his eyes to the
northeast.
When Xander returned four days later, he was no calmer than he
had been when he left. He dragged a sledge behind him with some kind
of gazelle and assorted edible looking fowl lashed to it. His
hyena instincts had served him well in Africa, both in hunting
deranged slayers and in providing food. There were now six drummers
facing northeast. A chill ran down Xander's spine. He could no longer
mistake it. There was something coming.
That night, Xander lay in his
hammock, awake, for several hours before he succumbed to sleep. He couldn't
escape the cool hands and mouth that traveled his body, however, and again
his senses were suffused with the scents of whiskey, leather and smoke. He
heard his name whispered by that familiar voice he had been trying to escape
for over a year now, and woke with a start. His cock was hard and
leaking against his stomach. He refused to acknowledge it, and rolled over
and willed himself back into unconsciousness.
The next few days in the
village were a flood of activity. Many of the women were carefully making
mandalas of colored sand in front of their huts. He received several gifts,
which was not unusual after he came back with a kill, but they were more
insistent that he wear the colored beads, and leather thongs decorated with
feathers from the birds he had brought back. He laughed and let the women tie
the thongs around his arms and drape the beads over his head. Every night
there was another drummer, until Xander's heartbeat was synchronized
with the beat the drummers had chosen, and he was sure it would stop
when they did.
On the night after the eleventh drummer joined the
circle at the edge of the huts, the Elder stopped outside of Xander's hut at
sunset with a pot of white mud, and a knife. When Xander came out, the
Elder directed him to kneel, and gently took his hand. Xander hissed,
but did not flinch, as the knife bit into the flesh at the base of
his thumb. The Elder massaged the wound, bleeding Xander into the pot
of mud. When the wound would bleed no more the Elder painted
Xander's chest and arms in patterns a peculiar mix of white and the old
rust color of drying blood. The Elder then led him to the center of
the circle of drummers. "Drum," he was told in slightly
British-inflected English. Surprised, Xander took the drum and before he
could string together a babble about white boys having no rhythm, the Elder
was gone. Looking around at the other drummers, he copied their
squatting stance and began to drum.
The moon rose, full and
startlingly bright, washing the landscape in a white glow, and Xander could
see someone on the horizon. He drummed and watched the figure come closer. He
would swear that prowl belonged to Spike if he didn't know better. Except
that, the resemblance to Spike only got more and more obvious as the figure
came closer. First he saw the moon glinting off a bleach-blonde head, and the
swing of the duster as it moved in counterpoint to Spike's stride. Xander
was convinced that he was seeing a mirage or some sort of
magic-induced hallucination, until the vampire, in full gameface, grabbed him
by the arms and pulled him to his feet. The drumming suddenly stopped and
in the silence Xander's heart skipped several beats.
"You're not
dead!" they both shouted, after a moment of stunned staring.
Xander
started to babble, "Well you're undead, but last time I saw you Sunnydale was
collapsing on top of you. And Buffy said, the sun, and the fire! I didn't
think you could survive that, and where have you been since then? And why
didn't you contact us? Or me? Or anyone?
At the same time, Spike was
saying, "I've been smelling your blood since sunset, I thought you had gotten
your fool self killed. I've been in Africa for twelve days looking for you.
Started at the Zambezi, where you made the last phone call to Willow and
Giles. I've been in the villages asking about you, but couldn't get anyone to
tell me anything about any white man they'd seen in the area.
They
laughed, and Xander took a deep breath. "But why are you here, Spike? Why
now?"
Spike pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and showed Xander
the date. It was December 24th, 11:45 PM. "It's Christmas Eve,
pet. Couldn't let you spend the holidays all on your lonesome, now.
Could I?
There was an awkward moment, and then Spike pulled Xander
towards him. Xander looked up into eyes the color of a daylight sky they
would never see again. "I've been dreaming about you, Spike. Even when
I thought you were dead, I couldn't get through a night without
seeing your face. Will you come back to my hut with me?"
Spike leaned
forward and gently pressed his lips against Xander's. " I have been dreaming
of you too, pet. You sure you want to invite me in?" He grinned to cover up
his fear that Xander might change his mind, now that he was confronted with a
vampire in the flesh.
Instead of answering, Xander led Spike through what
was now a crowd of onlookers. When he got to the door of his hut, he ghosted
a kiss over Spike's lips. "Come in, Spike," Xander whispered.
The
Elder smiled at the closing door of the hut.