Spike's Holiday Hunt

Willow flung open the front door and rang a small ceremonial bell in her hand. “Happy Solistice!” she cried to the newcomer. The visitor’s face was obscured by the stack of boxes he held balanced precariously in front of him.

Tara, standing behind her effusive girlfriend, peered uncertainly at the person on the porch. “X-xander? Is that Xander? It’s hard to tell with all of the boxes, but the grumbling sounds like Xander, doesn’t it, Willow?”

The pile of boxes tumbling to the floor effectively resolved the question. “Yes, yes, it’s me,” Xander said in a crabby tone. His face cleared, however, as soon as the presents he had dropped were righted and arranged under the tree, and he grinned easily when Willow offered him a candy cane.

“Thought we weren’t going to do any of the traditional holiday trappings, Willow,” he teased her, holding up the candy cane and gesturing to the tree.

“Ha!” Willow responded hotly. “The tree is a pagan symbol; the ever-green pine represents growth even a time of desolate fields and long winter’s nights.”

“And the candy canes?” Tara asked innocently, crossing her eyes at Xander when he looked in her direction.

“What, like the Christians who persecuted the witches and attacked the true rites as superstitions have cornered the market on candy?” Willow asked in a huffy voice.

“Wow, if that’s true, I’m totally going to sign up for this Christian thing. I mean, candy! ‘That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown’ ” Xander started, then laughed helplessly at Willow’s cry of “Aaaaarrrggghhhh!!!!!!” and watched her stalk out of the room.

“I mean, seriously,” he observed to Tara. “Have the Christians cornered the market? Because with the holiday season and all, those churches are open 24-7 lately, and we could totally hit up 8 or 10 of them tonight and raid their supply of sweet, sweet candy.”

Tara ducked her head and smiled, then pulled at Xander’s sleeve. She led him over to the eggnog station and ladled him a cup.

“Willow has been a little stressed about the solistice celebration. Kind of like Buffy is about Thanksgiving, or so I’ve heard?” When Xander nodded at her, she continued. “She just wants everyone to have a great time, and really share the spirit of the season with one another.”

“I’ll tell you where that comes from,” Xander observed conspiratorially. “Solistice probably looks waaaayyy better than the Chanukahs Willow’s parents celebrated with her. I mean, eight nights of polyester jumpers, underwear, and teen books like the Sweet Valley High series? For some reason, those two didn’t catch on that Willow started reading Tolstoy in the fourth grade.”

“Yeah,” Tara agreed, “and the pile of socks and the copies of _Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus_ and _You Can Be Married By Thirty!_ they sent her this year didn’t help her mood any.”

“Did they send the gelt?” Xander asked earnestly. “Because they usually get the high-quality chocolate kind. They give good gelt.”

Just then the doorbell rang once more, and Giles, Buffy, and Dawn chorused cheerful greetings before handing over shopping bags full of gifts. Willow returned to the room just in time to greet the new guests.

“This will be so super fun!” Dawn cried out as she bounded from admiring the tree to tasting the eggnog to knocking over Xander with a bear hug to petting the little plush reindeer on the mantle. After snagging a handful of candy canes, she darted off to find her camera and start snapping pictures.

“Hey, you two,” said Buffy wearily as she gave Tara and Willow a hug. Willow squeezed Buffy back, and wrinkled her nose as Xander, but his forlorn look soon made her pull him into the embrace. The three of them turned to grab Giles, but he sidestepped their group hug, instead patting them all affectionately on the shoulders.

Tara and Giles smiled at one another awkwardly, then blinked to try to clear their eyes after Dawn’s flash went off in their faces.

“Has she been like that all day?” Xander inquired, nodding towards Dawn, who was now dancing around Giles, trying to get him to reveal how many presents he had bought for her.

“No, she’s calmed down a lot in the last thirty minutes,” Buffy remarked, and then whispered, “It’s tiring, but I don’t mind too much. With mom gone, I’m just glad she can be happy today. And with the whole key thing, even though she has memories of previous Christmases, she knows that there have been very few real ones, and I think she wants to make the most of the day.”

“Yeah, plus all the over-excited teenage hormones making her act so goofy,” Xander noted wisely. “But let that be the last time you mention the word ‘Christmas,’ in this household, because Willow is hell bent on all of us celebrating Solis --”

“Happy Holidays, Spike!” Willow said excitedly before Spike dropped his armload of presents and swung her around the front hall.

“Hey!” Xander complained, poking Buffy to make sure she also witnessed this travesty. “How come Spike gets to say the C-word, and I get in trouble if I even so much as sign a card ‘X-mas’?”

“Oh, hush,” said Buffy absently. “I think that this is the first holiday gathering Spike has been invited to since he was turned. Well, the first that didn’t involve riot and slaughter, anyway. Let him have his fun.”

Dawn shrieked and hurled herself at Spike, knocking him and his presents to the floor. “What’d you bring me, what’d you bring me?” she asked excitedly as Spike rubbed his temporarily bruised elbows with good humor.

“Bit, that’s for you to find out when you open yer prezzies,” he said, and then raised a warning hand, “and that’s not until after dinner!”

“That’s right,” said Willow, pleased to have someone else who wanted to do the holiday right. She and Tara supplied everyone with drinks and appetizers, and had each person sign a photo mat would be used in the framed group picture from the celebration.

Despite Dawn’s fussing that everything was taking far too long, dinner was served soon after, and the trio of main entrees (roast beef, vegetarian lasagna, and tofurkey) was rapidly decimated as people helped themselves to seconds and thirds.

“Well, should we serve dessert and coffee first, or begin opening the presents?” Giles asked drolly as he raised his eyebrows at Dawn.

“Presents, presents, time for presents!” she demanded, and dashed off to the living room with Xander’s hand in hers.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow,” Xander shrieked manfully as Dawn released his arm and aimed something hard at his stomach.

“Xanderrrr!” Dawn remonstrated. “You don’t say ‘ow’ when someone gives you the wonderful Christmas present that they got you!!!”

Dawn’s present to Xander turned out to be a beautiful, blue-marbled bowling ball with his initials engraved on it. “That’s just from me,” she said smugly, as Buffy suppressed a smile. Dawn had purchased her presents with a large advance on her allowance, but Buffy was going to forgive the debt as a New Year’s surprise.

“Wow, Dawn,” Xander exclaimed, genuinely excited despite shooting abdominal pains. “It’s fantastic. It’s the bowling ball of my dreams!”

The room was filled with exclamations of surprise and reassurances of gratitude as everyone handed their gifts around and settled down to opening their own presents. Tara displayed to Willow the new journal and jade necklace and matching earring set from Xander and Buffy, and the candle-making kit and silk scarf from Dawn and Spike. Giles handed out gift certificates from the local bookstore to everyone, sputtering indignantly when Spike informed him that he had taken the lazy way out of buying gifts.

Xander, Willow, and Tara thankfully provided Buffy-approved gifts for Dawn: a drawing pad along with pencils and charcoals; a slew of new CDs; a brand-new cordless phone for her room (to match the brand-new phone line Dawn had asked Buffy for); and stacks of tank-tops, flippy miniskirts, and funky shoes. Dawn squealed with pleasure at the ever-growing group of pretty things in front of her and ripped into the wrapping paper on every box with vigor. Buffy looked daggers at Spike when Dawn waved around the concert tickets that Spike had gotten for her. “You couldn’t have given her something less freaky than the all-access passes to the speed metal festival?” she asked furiously.

Luckily, Buffy was distracted and laughed when she noticed Giles opening the presents from Xander, consisting of a framed cartoon-drawing of a librarian super-hero dubbed “G-Man” and two dozen chamois clothes in various colors for, as the card said, “the delicate task of glasses-wiping.”

Her attention was diverted once more when she discovered that Xander had given her the leather boots she had been eyeing, in not only the burgundy but also the camel color. She shrieked happily, and left ten finger-print sized bruises on Xander’s arms when she grabbed him for a thank-you squeeze.

After releasing Xander, she opened Spike’s present. When she saw the heavy bag filled with bus tokens that Spike had given her, she frowned, whacking him upside the head when he explained that he wanted to keep her from driving at any cost.

Willow had a new spellbook that Spike had found for her at a flea-market, a gift of cooking classes for herself and Tara from Buffy and Dawn, and, from Xander, a pile of holiday-themed DVDs (including, of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas) and three gorgeous black and white prints of real winter scenes of snowy landscapes in moonlight. “The series is called ‘Solistice,’ Xander explained as Willow tearfully wrapped her arms around him and brushed her lips against his cheek.

Giles thanked Willow for the offer to detail his car once again (“ ‘cause you did such a bang-up job of it last time after your will-be-done spell went wrong,” Spike teased Willow), and seemed very moved by the framed photos of Buffy and Dawn that the girls had had professionally taken just for him. Tara had surprised him by giving him a care-package of what Xander called “merry olde” products, such as PG Tips, chocolate digestives, Branston’s Pickle, and an assortment of jams and mustards that were impossible to find in California. Spike grinned and handed Giles his own gift, a “get over it, you’re in America now” kit, complete with Elvis CD, framed reproduction of “American Gothic” and McDonald’s McDollars.

Xander looked up from his new kung-fu threads and gift certificate to take a full year of classes at the Sunnydale kung-fu studio and grinned. “Thanks, guys,” he said, nodding towards all the girls and Giles. “The classes’ll be fun, stress-relieving, and, of course, life-saving. A present for all seasons.”

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Xander said as he looked suspiciously at the package. “What is it?”

“Well, you’ll find out when you open it, won’t you?” Spike said with exaggerated diction and slowness.

The girls gathered around to watch Xander unwrap the last gift of the evening, curious themselves to know what Spike had decided to give him.

Buffy and Dawn exchanged a glance, then Buffy said gently, “Xan? What is it?”

Giles had been relaxing over in the corner in the comfy wing chair, but he sat up suddenly at Xander’s soft explanation and leaned in to listen.

“Jesse’s mom gave them to us when we were eight. She said we talked so much alike and acted so much alike, we were practically twins, and she needed us to wear them so that she could tell us apart.” Xander looked up and grinned faintly at Willow.

Willow smiled back sadly, leaning against Tara when Xander looked back down at the bracelets and lifted them gingerly out of the box.

“We wore them all though grade school. God, I don’t think I took that thing off once, not when I went to Y camp and swam in the lake, not when I had to wear a suit to my cousin’s wedding, not when some girl I had a crush on said it was stupid for boys to wear ID bracelets.” Xander breathed deeply for a moment.

“How come they’re together now?” Dawn asked, quiet for the first time that day.

“Funny thing,” Xander said ruefully. “The weekend before um, Jesse died, I slept over at his house. We helped his dad with a project, working on the addition. His mom was going to have a baby, another kid after years of trying, and they needed another bedroom. When I figured out we’d be painting, I decided to take my bracelet off. Jesse said it was a good idea, and took his off too. We didn’t want to do anything to mess them up.”

“Then . . . after, it wasn’t until a few days after the funeral when I looked at my wrist, and . . . Jesse’s family moved out of town as soon as they could. I think it hurt his mom too much to stay, and his dad took a transfer. I guess they . . . with the new baby, and not wanting to have to worry even more . . . just wanting to get somewhere not here, maybe.

“I never knew what happened to the bracelets. I thought they were gone forever. Until now,” he concluded in wonder, cradling the matching silver objects in his hand.

“How --” Buffy started, but Willow shook her head, and Buffy dropped it. It didn’t really matter how at this moment.

“Right,” Spike broke in suddenly, and moved towards the door in haste. “Going to smoke outside, Red.”

“Um, Xander?” Dawn pulled at his leg from her position on the floor. “I don’t mean to change the subject, or, well . . . but what did you get for Spike?”

Everyone started at this question, and Xander’s bleary eyes came back into focus rapidly. “For Spike,” he said dumbly, and then “Oh, fuck!!!!”

“You didn’t get him anything,” Dawn pointed out unnecessarily, “and he got you that? Who knows how much time it took him, and, how the heck he even figured it out, and what are you going to do, because it’s kind of weird if you don’t give him a present, right?”

Buffy jumped up. Clearly it was time for action. “Is there anything you can use here, Will? Maybe something you didn’t want, that you can re-gift? Or, hey, Xander. Pretend you left it at home? I think there are some stores open late because of holiday shopping.”

“Well, it isn’t yet Christmas,” Giles began, cringing slightly at the reaction he anticipated Willow would have at that word. She was too wrapped up to notice, however, so he went on with renewed boldness. “Today is the solstice, the 21st of December. You technically have four days to obtain a thoughtful present for Spike and offer it to him by the 25th.”

“I’ll figure something out in four days. Um. Yeah. Four days. I’ll just . . . uh . . . Oh, fuck!!!”

“I don’t know what the hell to get Spike!” Xander yelled. “I have no clue what he’d want. It doesn’t matter if I have four days -- or four years! I’ll never be able to get him something as right as this. I can’t possibly come up with anything like what he got me.”

“Well,” Tara said reasonably. “Why don’t you just ask him what he wants? That way, you can be sure that he’ll like it.”

“We’re so dumb,” Buffy berated the rest of them. “Ask him. It’s so obvious. It’s diabolical!”

“Well, it’s hardly that, Buffy, but --” Giles began, but Xander didn’t stick around to hear any more, just jumped out of his seat to pursue the vampire.

Spike was stalking up and down the driveway in the moonlight, already on his second cigarette by the time Xander screeched to a halt at his side.

“Spike!” Xander said, and realized that he didn’t have a follow-up sentence planned.

“Um. Thank you.” Xander knew he couldn’t come up with anything fancy to say, but he was really so grateful, he had to let Spike at least know that. He dropped his eyes thinking about how to approach the next half of his delivery, so he didn’t notice how the vampire’s eyes had softened at the simple words.

“I didn’t . . . well, I didn’t get you anything yet. I feel like a jerk. Especially because I had no idea, no idea at all that you’d think twice about me, no clue that you’d find something so . . . amazing.” Xander looked up quickly into Spike’s eyes and saw something that he didn’t understand. Could Spike be upset? Confused?

“None of that, now,” Spike said as he started to come to himself. “You don’t need to get me anything. That’s what presents are for, right? You give something, and you don’t expect anything in return.”

“Maybe. But I’d really like it if I could give you something.” Xander looked away again, trying to just work up the courage to ask the basic question. “Is there anything that you . . . need?”

“Me, I’m the vampire who has everything,” Spike announced grandly, twisting his lips into something like a smile.

“Okay. So there’s nothing you need. But maybe something you want? It’s just . . . the ID bracelets, Spike. You’ve given me something I thought I’d never see again. You’ve handed me part of myself that I thought . . . was lost.” Xander stilled himself to try to get a little control of his heady emotions. “Please, I’d like to give you something like that.”

“Well, let me think a mo, then,” Spike said, and turned to go back to the house.

Xander had started to follow him when the vampire suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“You know, pet, maybe there is something. Something, like you said, that I thought I’d never see again? Something of myself that I thought was lost?” Spike turned around slowly, facing Xander.

Smiling, Xander shook his head. “You’ll have to help me out more than that, Spike. I mean, I’m not sure where to start, and like Giles said, I really only have four days left to get you a Christmas present.”

“Oh, but it’s so easy, really, to guess. Why, if I’d realized that people could ask for things . . . I might have just written it on a list or something.”

“Well, it doesn’t sound like it’s too hard, if it can go on a list,” Xander said anxiously. He really wanted to do the right thing, get something for Spike that would be wonderful, that would show him how much Xander appreciated Spike’s efforts.

“No,” Spike laughed, “it’s not too hard at all. Four days, should be about right. Pet?”