NOTHING
IS FOREVER 12
by
flaming
muse
Brimming with energy, Spike pulled on his coat and turned off
the lamp on his desk. He was nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet as he
waited for his computer to shut down. He had spent all weekend working, and the
torture of being pleasant to others when what he really wanted was to be left
alone was finally at an end. The last patrons of Cold Comfort had finally left,
it was a clear, moonlit night, and he was ready to go kill things.
There
was a knock on the door to his office, and Anne stuck her head inside the
darkened room.
"You busy?" she asked.
"Yes." He switched off his
monitor.
"What are you doing?"
"Lights off. Coat on. What does it
look like? I'm heading out."
"We need you for a minute."
"It can
wait 'til tomorrow." Spike shoved his chair into place behind his
desk.
Anne shook her head.
"Not really. Maurice wants you to okay
the new menu."
"Whatever he wants is fine with me," said
Spike.
"He wants you to taste the new dishes."
"Since when does
the menu go through me? You know I don't care about that stuff. That's why I
have you lot."
Anne crossed her arms over her chest.
"Since you
blew up at Alan for buying new plates without your permission."
"You saw
'em; they were flimsy and ugly! Alan deserved far worse than what he
got."
Like evisceration, he thought sourly. Lucky for him he's
human.
"And now Maurice wants your approval before he goes ahead with
the changes," said Anne.
Spike sighed.
"There's no way around
this, is there?"
Anne shook her head.
Spike's shoulders slumped,
and he scowled as he tugged off his coat.
"Knew I should never have taken
over this bloody restaurant," he said.
"Aw, come on. You know you love
it," Anne said, leading the way to the kitchen. "The hectic pace, the endless
crises, the staff waiting to carry out your every command..."
"The
constant noise of the kitchen, the terrible smells, the staff waiting to argue
with me at every turn..."
Anne grinned and pushed open the kitchen
door.
"Like I said. You love it."
"Sometimes," Spike admitted and
followed her inside.
An hour and a half later Spike emerged from the hot
kitchen and retrieved his coat from his office. He was far less excited about
his evening than he had been before the long argument amongst his senior staff
about the new menu, which he still didn't give a damn about despite
having made the final decisions, but he was even more edgy than before. It was
definitely a good night to hunt demons.
Spike let himself out of the rear
door of Cold Comfort and took a deep breath of the cool night air to clear his
lungs of the grease of the kitchens. He hadn't been kidding when he had
complained to Anne about the smells of the restaurant; food odors were an
unavoidable part of the business, but his heightened senses were easily
overwhelmed. He was glad to get out of there.
Hearing his staff getting
ready to leave, he stalked down the street before they could catch up with him
and try to convince him to join them at some after-hours bar or apartment party.
He had chosen them because they were good at their jobs, sometimes to the point
of driving him absolutely mad, not because he wanted to
socialize.
Besides, there had been a rise in the deaths of homeless
people on the Common, and Spike suspected that there was a pack of demons behind
it instead of the cops' theory about gang violence. By dispatching them he'd be
doing the city a favor and would be able to work off some of his own tension as
well. Plus, killing things was still fun, even if the soul restricted his range
of victims. He needed some fun after so much work.
With a slight smile
playing about his lips as he thought about the inky shine of blood in the
moonlight, Spike glanced down a familiar side street and was surprised to see a
light on in one of Xander's windows. It was past midnight on a Sunday, but
Xander was still up. Spike's smile grew, and he turned down Xander's street.
Perhaps they could have some fun together out hunting demons before getting up
to even more fun back in Xander's big bed. Both ways of releasing tension were
better with a partner.
Spike rolled his eyes when he saw that the front
door to the building was held open by an empty pizza box. A handwritten note
addressed to "Maggie" was taped to the door. Spike left the note but kicked the
box out of the way before he went inside.
"Spike!" Xander blinked at him
in surprise as he opened the door to Spike's sharp knock. His hair was rumpled,
and he wore sweatpants and a threadbare t-shirt. He peered out into the hallway.
"How did you -"
"You really ought to discuss the lax security in your
building," Spike said, brushing past Xander and sauntering into the apartment.
"All sorts of undesirables could get in."
"Undesira..." Xander shook his
head and shut the door. "What are you -"
"Get your kit on and grab an
axe," said Spike. "We're going out."
"I'm not going anywhere. I've got
work to do. Besides, it's the middle of the night."
"Better time for
demon hunting than whatever it is you're working on."
"Budgets,"
said Xander, nodding to the papers spread out over the coffee table. "I can't
make them add up right."
"Don't you have people for that? Scrawny blokes
with spectacles and pocket protectors?"
"They're actually frighteningly
together young women with expensive suits and even more expensive calculators,
but, yes. They give me the budgets, but I have to make the one from on site
match up with the one from the home office. They look right, but I can't
get the numbers to come out the same."
"Get Cassie to look at it," said
Spike. "She's probably smarter than the two of us put together."
"She is,
and I would, but she's got the day off tomorrow, and this needs to be finished
by lunchtime." Xander ran his hand through his hair and glanced blearily into
the kitchen. "I should make another pot of coffee."
"You need some
violence to clear your head."
"What I need is for this to be
finished."
Spike sighed. Xander didn't look like he was going to be
persuaded.
"Want me to look at it?" he asked.
Xander shook his
head.
"Thanks, but I'll get it eventually."
"I've had to figure
out how to read these things, myself. Doesn't hurt to have another pair of eyes
look it over."
"Or even one full set." Xander grinned.
Spike
settled down on the couch and scanned the paperwork. He knew that the error had
to be something subtle if it had eluded Xander's careful search for so long, and
he focused on typos, simple mathematical errors, and other things easy to
overlook. Xander puttered around the apartment, and Spike soon found the
problem.
"Think I've got it. You've got a decimal off over here, unless
you really are paying a hundred dollars for each 'antique reproduction
doorknob.'"
Xander sat beside Spike on the couch and flipped through his
papers until he found the proper invoice.
"Nope. Ten bucks each, direct
from the manufacturer. The power of buying in bulk," he said. "So then if we
change the amount there and multiply it by the number of doors in the
building..." He punched some numbers into his calculator. "And now we're in the
right ballpark. Finally." He smiled at Spike. "Thanks. I don't know how I missed
it."
"No worries. It's an easy mistake to make and a hard one to
find."
"Especially when I'm so tired that the numbers are doing the
fandango across the page."
Spike edged closer and took the papers from
Xander's hands.
"Wouldn't it be more fun to do some dancing of your own?
I've got something in mind..."
"Yeah?"
Setting the papers back on
the table, Spike grinned as he heard Xander's heartbeat speeding up. He leaned
forward, brushing their cheeks together and drawing his fingers gently up
Xander's thigh.
"I've got a question for you," he murmured in Xander's
ear.
"What's that?" Xander's voice was husky, and he skimmed one hand
across Spike's shoulder.
Spike slid his hand over Xander's stomach and
nipped gently at his earlobe. He was sorely tempted to continue in this vein,
but his original plan let him kill demons and enjoy Xander naked. He'd
stick to it.
He mouthed along Xander's neck and brushed his fingers
across his abdomen. Xander groaned in response.
"Where do you keep your
weapons?" he asked and sat back with a smile.
"My what?"
"Weapons.
Pointy sticks, pointier swords. Where do you keep them?"
Xander blinked
at him for a moment and then grimaced.
"Bastard. You enjoyed that way too
much," he said, rising to his feet and stretching. He seemed unconcerned that
the tent in his sweatpants was now at Spike's eye-level.
"What? It's a
perfectly reasonable question."
"Maybe in your world. Anyway, I don't
have any weapons."
"What?" That statement shocked Spike enough to draw
his gaze away from its enjoyment of Xander's body. He looked up at Xander's
face. "No weapons? None at all?"
"I think I have a stake or two
somewhere."
"No axes?"
"Nope."
"No
crossbows?"
Xander shook his head.
"Not even a sword?"
"Not
even a bottle of holy water," said Xander.
"Are you completely off your
gourd?" Spike rose from the couch and began to pace around the room. "You grew
up on the Hellmouth, were friends with the Slayer, killed hundreds of demons,
and now you don't have so much as a bloody communion wafer to defend
yourself?"
"Hey, I always wondered about communion wafers. Do they really
-"
Spike stopped suddenly and emptied out his pockets.
"Sword or
ax?"
"Huh?"
"Do you want a sword or an ax? If I make a couple of
calls, I can get you one in fifteen minutes," Spike said, sorting through
receipts, crumpled business cards, and candy wrappers to find the right phone
numbers.
"I don't want either."
"A mace,
then?"
"No."
"A really big knife?"
Laughing, Xander shook
his head.
"Spike, I don't want any weapons."
"So you think your
bare hands are enough when some big spiny demons with acidic ichor and big teeth
corners you in a dark alley?"
"I don't think that I'll be in any dark
alleys at all, demon-inhabited or not." Xander shrugged. "That's not my life
anymore."
Spike clenched his jaw and tried not to yell.
"The
demons aren't going to go away just because you pretend that they're not there,"
he said as calmly as possible.
"I know that, but I can do everything in
my power to avoid them. I don't visit magic shops, I don't go to demon bars, and
I definitely don't go out in the middle of the night to hunt them."
"But
they're still out there."
"I know, but I have a normal life now - well,
as normal as it can be with the friends I have - and I'm not going back. No
swords in my closet and unidentifiable goop on my clothes. No spells, no
apocalypses, no demons. Just regular stuff." He glanced over his shoulder into
the kitchen. "You sure you don't want any coffee? Or a beer? I think we both
deserve a beer."
Xander wandered toward the refrigerator, seemingly
oblivious to the impact his easily-spoken words had on Spike. It's not that the
vampire thought that the two of them had anything much in common besides a
shared history that neither of them wanted to talk about, but Spike hadn't
realized just how much Xander had separated himself from the demon world that
Spike still inhabited. It's not like Spike had a choice; even with getting a
soul, being dusted, and somehow being resurrected again, he was still a vampire.
It was all he could be, and the supernatural was a basic fact of his
unlife. It was why he existed. Xander wanted nothing to do with it.
It
made sense, Spike supposed. Xander had been dragged into the realm of monsters
and magic against his will, and he had always led a normal life outside of his
ex-demon girlfriend and odd group of friends. He had had a succession of
depressing but undeniably regular jobs, and he had only helped out the Slayer in
his spare time. His hatred of all things demonic had never been hidden. Now that
he had become even more independent, it wasn't a surprise that he would remove
himself further from a world that he so obviously found repugnant.
Spike
shoved the papers back in his pockets.
"Don't want anything. Guess I'll
let you get to bed."
Xander shut the refrigerator door and walked toward
him.
"You going to join me?" he asked with a grin.
"Nah. It's a
school night for you, isn't it? 'sides, it's still early for me."
"Bet I
could tire you out." Xander took another step forward, his eyes dark with
promise.
Spike shrugged and stepped out of Xander's reach.
"Maybe
another time."
"Okay," Xander said, frowning. "Uh... thanks again for
your help with the budgets."
"Yeah."
Spike didn't stop to say
goodbye. Instead he kept up an internal running commentary about how much he
didn't care about Xander's blind decision to ignore demons, which would bloody
well get him killed, and it would serve him right, and he wasn't all that fun to
be with, and it's not like Spike wanted anything to do with him anyway... until
he was skewered in the side by a burly demon with a bunch of friends and a very
sharp sword and had to concentrate on fighting for his life
instead.
*
There was something about the neon lighting and
mirrored surfaces of the stairs to HMV that made Xander feel old. Maybe it was
the groups of teenagers clustered around the new releases once he got inside, or
maybe it was the fact that he hadn't heard of half of the bands they were
giggling over, but getting up those stairs and through the crowds at the front
of the store always made him feel like a middle-aged man with a gut and grey
hair. The gut was gone, and the grey hairs hadn't shown up yet, but the years of
life still felt like they were pressing on him.
It probably had to do
with how long ago it felt like it had been since he had been as young and
clueless as the kids gushing over the newest boy band. Okay, maybe unaware was a
better word; Dawn still called him clueless at every opportunity. All that he
had seen through his friendship with Buffy had made him grow up far too fast in
some ways, and, even if he was trying to live his life as a normal
twenty-something with a few particularly talented friends, the days when he
could walk along a mirrored corridor without glancing around to see who didn't
have a reflection were long past.
Still, he wasn't going to wallow in
innocence lost; he'd leave the brooding for Angel. Instead he dodged the
teenagers, nodded hello to Dave, his favorite clerk, and wandered over to the
imports section.
Pulling a printout of Willow's latest e-mail from his
pocket, Xander began to flip through the racks to look for the new indy group
that she was so excited about. She had raved about them incessantly over the
phone and e-mail for the past month, and today's e-mail had been no exception.
He had finally decided to break down and buy the CD that night after work so
that she could move on to bugging him about something else.
"Empty. Of
course," he muttered as he found the slot that should have held their disc.
"Guess I'll have to try Tower..."
Scanning the displays at eye level one
last time, he didn't see the person walking behind him until Xander accidentally
elbowed him as he swung around.
"Watch where you're going, you stupid..."
Spike's insult was cut off when he saw who it was, though the pained look on his
face remained. "Oh, just great."
"Hey, Spike. Sorry about that," said
Xander. He frowned as Spike ran his hand over his ribs beneath his duster. "You
okay there?"
"Bloody fantastic." He grimaced and cracked his neck. "Are
you going to stand there and block the CDs all night?"
"What? Oh, sorry."
Xander stepped aside. He searched for something to say, since Spike was clearly
as prickly as he had been the night before. "Looking for anything in
particular?"
"What - do you work here now? Thought you had finally gotten
beyond your quest for minimum wage."
Xander frowned as Spike flipped
through CDs. Not only was Spike grumpy, but he looked somewhat stiff as he
leaned over the racks. Suspicious, Xander gingerly poked him in the side. Spike
jumped and let out a strangled yelp.
"What the hell did you do that for,
you git?" he asked, clutching the CDs in his hand so tightly that Xander could
hear the plastic cases cracking.
"You are hurt."
"Yeah?
What of it?"
"What happened?"
"Demon got lucky last night, that's
all."
Xander reached out to touch him again, and Spike took a step
back.
"Didn't figure you for a sadist, Harris."
"If it's still
hurting you, it must be serious. Do you want me to look at
it?"
"No."
"Why not?" He glanced at Spike's lean torso beneath his
jacket. The t-shirt clung to him like a second skin. "Have you even bandaged
it?"
"It's not bleeding anymore. Not like I can get an
infection."
"What happened?"
"Just a sword through the gut. I've
had worse. Ruined my coat, though. Good thing it wasn't the duster. Would've had
to kill the buggers twice for that."
"Just a sword through the...
Spike! Why didn't you come to me when it happened? I could've
helped."
"Why the hell would I? Been on my own since your
great-great-great-grandfather was a boy, haven't I?"
"Sometimes it's nice
to have another pair of hands to reach a tricky place," Xander said, swallowing
back the hurt.
"Don't bloody well need yours."
Xander
clenched his jaw and nodded. He refused to show any reaction to such a blatant
rejection.
"Fair enough," he said.
"Good," said
Spike.
"I'll get out of your way."
"I'm done." Spike tossed down
the CDs, and they skittered across the rows of dividers and into the side of the
rack. "I was just leaving."
"Well, so was I."
Not looking at each
other, they stomped out of the store and down the stairs. As always, Xander
glanced over at the mirrored wall.
"Still a vamp, Harris. Still can do
all of the party tricks," Spike said coldly.
Xander frowned.
"I
know."
"Yeah, I bet you do." Spike leapt down the last few steps and
vanished into the crowds of shoppers on the sidewalk outside the store.
PART
13
