Childe of my Heart ~ Chapter Nine
by Shanyah
 

Initiation Rite

“When’s the next bidding, Fred?” He asked, sizing up the boy.

Xander’s wanting had been knocking on his ass for weeks now, but he hadn’t thought Harris brazen enough to feel him up. A self-respecting vampire had to react to that. Which he was. A self-respecting vampire who’d been cuddling up to Harris. Did it for the warmth, was all. Xander was central heating and his radiator of a chest gave out heat all night long.

“In seven nights if I’m not mistaken,” Fred said.

She jotted down announcement she read from the posters in the Baths. Fred wasn’t mistaken. He was, in thinking Xander sexually passive. Thoughts of Xander vanished from his mind as a flare went off on his chest. Hissing, he dropped the cigarette and beat his chest to put out the fire. They were all doing it; Xander, Bit and Freddy, thumping their chests and gasping. He fished the chain from under his tunic, felt the flutter of a thousand wings in his belly on seeing the blue orb go dead.

“Slayer calling,” vampire exhaling. Still a bitch and still man enough to admit it.

Dawn bounced off the bed and lit the candles on the shelf. Looked at her orb, “It’s true,” she squealed, rolling on the bed. “Glory’s dead, Buffy’s calling,” Dawn waved her legs in the air, “We’re going home ‘cause The Slayer did it again!”

Xander and Fred laughed, teeth flashing in eager-shiny faces.

Spike stretched out on his half of the blanket, folded one arm under his head and listened to the three chattering. They were going to do so many things on their first day back that twenty-four hours wouldn’t cover it. 

The excited pups chased their tails in circles of natter, slower…quieter. Hush of the divine kind. Deep in Buffy, he only noticed that the gap between him and Harris had narrowed to no-gap when a warm thigh nudged his. Like he had done every night for six weeks, he raised his leg, Xander slotted his under it and over his other one.

A band of heat on the back of one leg and across the thigh of the other, Spike reached over and petted Xander’s hair, slowly carding; just like he’d done every night over the past six weeks.

*    *    *    *

The Trail didn’t have named-days, today was the same as yesterday or tomorrow, except if it was Bidding day. Dawn wanted to count the days down and to do that she needed the days to have names. She christened that day Monday. Xander christened it The Day Spike Tried To Get A Tan.

They’d done their laundry in the bathroom basins after showering and Xander, Fred and Dawn were hanging it out to dry on the railings, making noise. Spike was inside, napping. He came out onto the ledge, barefoot, shirtless and without the blanket he used as a sun-shield.

“Next one makes a sound gets this in the gob,” he raised his fist at them.

Dawn made a loud sound, “you’re not burning.”

Spike looked up at the porthole in the roof and laughed into the sunbeams, so alive Xander forgot he was undead.

“Look at me Harris! ‘m a day-walker,” Spike hooted.

“I’m looking,” he said, looking as Spike swayed his hips forward, and rolled his head right back, blanketed by sunrays. That happened to him sometimes too, the sun felt so good on his skin he’d break out in goose bumps and go hard nippled.

Monday night, Xander dreamed he was on his knees, giving Spike a blowjob in the sun.

*    *    *    *

“Six more nights to go,” Dawn said on Tuesday afternoon.

Xander opened an eye, “yay,” and went back to his siesta.

“Could you move across to Fred’s side? You’re on my oil.”

He wriggled his fingers between the mattress and the small of back, pulled out the oil that had been digging into him. Dawn had two more bottles of oil on the bed and Xander had yet to see Spike accept a bottle from the Bath attendants. “Turns my stomach does that whiff of ylang ylang and bloody patchouli,” Spike always said.

“I found them,” Dawn pre-empted Xander’s censure. “You can’t yell at me for finding things,” she shoved the bottles into her backpack along with the rest of her stuff.

Xander settled down for his nap, not about to yell. Six more nights and Dawn’s shoplifting would be Buffy’s problem again.

*    *    *    *

Spike prowled on the landing and sulked most of Wednesday because he was, “out of ciggies.”

“You sure you haven’t a cig in your purse?” Spike paced past him, stopping beside Fred at the railings. “Thought women kept all sorts down to the kitchen sink in their handbags.”

Amusement washed over Xander and he caught himself sharing a smile with Fred.

“I didn’t bring my dishwasher,” she said. “But I have gum in my backpack. It might take the edge off.”

Spike chewed his thumbnail. “What flavor you got?” He asked around his thumb.

Xander knew a fail-proof cure for edginess, but he didn’t think Spike would appreciate his suggestion. So he watched Spike and tried to see the natural born killer behind the pouting lips and yearning eyes.

The big picture must have got hazy at some unknown point, because he only saw the pouting lips and yearning eyes.

*    *    *    *

Speaking to Spike was prohibited on Thursday. He sat on ‘his’ bench with his head in his hands. Xander, Fred and Dawn talked in whispers and walked on tiptoe – barefooted.

Blessed relief when Spike went down to the gaming pit, faked sleep when he came back and stamped about the room, obviously still in a foul mood. Blessed relief when he went out and picked a fight with someone on the ledge.

“I’m never smoking if that’s what it does to you,” Dawn whispered.

Xander figured there was more to Spike’s frustration than going cold turkey.

*    *    *    *

Friday was a replay of Thursday, but ended different. Dawn and Fred were asleep when Spike got in from Main Floor, and Xander was tilting into sleep, but awake enough to note Spike’s improved mood.

“How many did you blame on the Tomb Robbers this time?” He asked.

Spike lounged back on one elbow. “Zero. I’ve been good.”

Xander so much wanted to believe him. “Honestly?”

“Honestly.” Spike turned onto his side and trailed the back of his hand along Xander’s jaw. “You need a shave, pet.”

Xander pinched his arm to make sure this wasn’t another of his erotic dreams because Spike never touched or spoke to him with anything close to this kind of intimacy.

“You’ve been slaying, what – five, six years now?” Spike’s fingers slid into his hair, “reckon you can hold your own?”

Xander closed his eyes, murmured a sigh as Spike’s fingertips massaged his crown. “Sure I can. Why are you doing this again?”

“Just saying goodnight,” Spike pulled his head forward and kissed him, right on the lips. Three times, soft lips clinging a little longer with each kiss and the barest hint of tongue on the fourth kiss. Barest hint just skimming his bottom lip. “Goodnight Harris,” he blew out the candle.

Xander relived those infuriating little kisses over and over, his first man-on-man kisses. She probably wouldn’t, but if Willow asked, ‘have you ever kissed a man before?’ He’d suavely say, ‘honey, what haven’t I done with a man?’

*    *    *    *

He’d come to expect Xander’s self-whispers. Entertaining snippets of what went on in the boy’s head.

“It’s not fair, you rubbing on me like this,” Xander had said the other night.

Life ain’t fair, he’d smirked.

“One of these days you’re gonna wiggle on my Viking, Spike.”

Dream on, he’d snorted.

And tonight, just a minute ago, “Not a gay-kiss virgin anymore, that cherry’s took.”

It surprised him, that did. Pleased him a smidgen too. Pleased him a lot actually, was kind of sweet. Well it was. He’d have taken the whole gay-kiss cherry pie if he’d known it was still up for grabs. Unsettling thought, considering he didn’t like the boy. Had only kissed him to butter him up. Couldn’t bloody stand him and the snog hadn’t exactly been a scorcher neither.

Best to forget it and get some sleep. Which was what Spike did; forgot the cherry, cozied up to the radiator, slept and dreamed of scorching Slayer snogs.

*    *    *    *

Xander shaved on Saturday morning, packed his rucksack, slapped on some suntan lotion and proceeded to sunbathe.

“Well if he can take off his shirt,” Dawn whipped her tunic off, spread it under a patch of sunlight and sent Fred a thoughtful frown. “Should I lose the bra?”

“No!” Spike and Xander exclaimed together.

Fred snickered as she stripped her tunic and lay down next to Dawn who was in a fit of giggles.

*    *    *    *

“I’m off out,” Spike announced close to bedtime. “Coming, Harris?”

Xander drew a line through the diagonal of crosses on Fred’s notepad, “answer me one thing?”

“One,” Spike agreed.

“This place we’re going to, is it thrillinger than noughts and crosses?”

“No contest, pet.”

Xander handed Dawn the pad, climbed off the bed and pulled his stake out of his rucksack’s side pocket. “He’s the boss,” he said with a resigned sigh.

“You want to go, Xander. I can see the wagging in your eyes,” Dawn made a new grid on the pad and drew an O in the center square. “You two be back by midnight.”

Xander closed the door as Fred was saying, “I never noticed his eyes wag. Mostly, they…you know how melted sugar gets when the heat’s turned up too high?”

“Caramelly - burnt sugar? Sure. Wagging.”

Xander couldn’t walk away from the laughter in the room fast enough.

*    *    *    *

He felt like he was in one of his dreams where he was naked in the shower, except he was naked in math class. “Huh,” his laugh was equal parts light and false, “kids say the darnest things.”

Three steps ahead, Spike trailed the tip of his sword on the tunnel wall, scratched an X under a torch, trailed the sword, etched an O under the next torch.

“Fred’s older than you.”

“Yeah, but Dawn’s fifteen,” Xander said, intent on discrediting her observations. “She’s a kid.”

“Bit’s the oldest sort of. Pegs people right with her key energy.” Spike turned the corner to Second Ranking and took the first archway off the staircase, going for the ramp rather than the stairs to the lower floors. “Accept it, Harris. Your eyes wag and you’re the baby of the posse…”

He dropped the sword and wildly patted his pockets. “Damn,” Spike punched his fist into his palm, spinning round to face him.

“What?” Xander touched his tongue to his lips, jittery.

A slow smile spread across Spike’s face, “Forgot your feeding bottle back in the room.”

Xander couldn’t help his own smile. “Screw you.”

“Have to catch me first,” Spike scooped up the sword and backed away.

Xander was walking on air, snared in wanting and just as able to play as Spike.

“No – wait,” he dragged to a stop and drew an invisible line on the stone floor with the toe of his boot. “Come to the start line, even things out a little.”

“Tell you what,” Spike bounced up to him. “You take the head start. Stop round that corner,” he nodded at a bend in the tunnel, “and run for it when I shout. Still gonna catch you.”

“Thought I was catching you?”

“Cluck-cluck,” Spike flapped his elbows.

“I’m no chicken,” Xander clucked, going round the corner. He went a quiet step farther, glanced over his shoulder and went four more steps. “I’m here,” he yelled, taking a giant stride.

“Cheating, by the sounds of it,” Spike yelled back. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Xander said, all nerves and adrenalin and determination to win. “Where’s the finish line?”

“Gaming pit,” brief laugh, pause. “Go!”

Xander went. He tore through those tunnels like a man possessed, shouted “outta my way, outta my way” continuously, and run down those who didn’t move from his path.

The chase became real; real fear pumped through him and gave him an extra spurt of energy. He hurdled over a Town Square gate, heard the thud of boots close behind him. Tingling on the back of his neck when a Spikesque chuckle breezed over him, protest in his soul when a hard body thudded into his back.

Falling, arms around him, fallen, legs around him. Rolling on the ground, Spike on top of him.

“No, no, no,” he was panting and laughing, looking at the crowd around the gaming pit. “So freakin’ close.”

“Not flaming close enough,” wolfish grin.

Nice and close, Xander thought when he became aware of Spike’s ass seated on his hips. That extra shot of energy was still rattling in his bloodstream and it became a new moon rising. And rising.

Spike rose, was on his feet and holding a hand down to him, “Jude’s waiting,” he unbuckled Xander’s wristband and tugged him through the spectators to the edge of the pit.

“Stay here, yeah?” Spike slipped Xander’s wristband into his duster pocket. “Do not move. I’m gonna have a word with Jude.”

Spike skirted the pit and headed towards the demon standing between two low stone tables at pit-side. Neat stacks of jewellery, gold coins, wristbands and miscellaneous articles were placed on one table and on the table behind Jude were bulging cotton drawstring bags and steaming hand towels. Spike took off his duster as he talked to Jude, folded it and held it out to Jude who glanced at Xander and put the duster on the jewellery table.

Xander felt uncomfortable without his band, rubbed his bare wrist as he watched Spike stride back to him.

“I’m supposed to wear the band all the time, Spike,” he said, clearly heard the whiney quality of his voice. Spike snaked an arm around his waist and the tight hold made Xander uneasier. “Spike-”

“Shush. Jude’s talking.”

“…we celebrate a rite of passage,” Jude said in a high voice; whistle calling order. “Amo Etienne from the Second Ranking introduces his new childe, fledged less than two weeks ago and living on elk blood.” Jude paused as a vampire jumped into the pit, “Elk makes poor vampire fare, elk does not nourish a new childe and Amo Etienne’s youngest is hungry. He would cut his teeth on something more substantial, feed as a vampire ought to feed.”

Xander’s stomach rolled. “We’re leaving,” he sniped at Spike.

“Says who?”

“Says me, Spike. I’m not watching a human sacrifice,” Xander turned to delve into the crowd only to be held immobile by Spike’s arm on his waist.

“It’s a fight not a sacrifice,” Spike said, raising the needle on Xander’s anger-meter by lifting and turning him round. “Besides, you won’t be watching it exactly.”

As Xander puzzled over that, Jude carried on with the introduction.

“A rite of passage for fledge and human, my friends, for Amo Spike from the Third Ranking would have his boy sharpen his stake on an unaided vampire kill,” Jude reached into Spike’s duster pocket and took out a lime-green wristband, holding it up for the audience to see.

Cheers from the crowd, confusion in Xander as he recognized his wristband.

“The rules as always are simple: should Fledge win, the boy will enter Amo Etienne’s service to be done with as Etienne pleases. Should the boy win, he will have the pleasure of dusting off his stake.”

Puzzled no more, Xander stared at Spike, hurt.

“In you go pet,” Spike pitched him into the pit.

The band meant he belonged and was wanted and seeing it in Jude’s hand badly upset Xander. A part-formed memory furled its black petals around him, froze him in panic. He wasn’t wanted after all, even though he’d apologized, he was unwanted.

*    *    *    *

The boy just sat there. Just sat in the pit, blinking like a floodlight had beamed full in his face. Not quite with it. Big eyes getting bigger and teeth biting uncertainly at his bottom lip. The fledge wasn’t uncertain, beat a sure path towards Harris to the crowd’s rowdy cheers.

“Time out Jude,” he called, “Jude - five minutes.”

Not waiting for Jude’s nod, he leapt in there, between boy and fledge. “Run back to papa,” he advised the over-confident fledge as he grabbed Xander’s elbow and hauled him up.

“What were you doing in there?” He dragged Xander to his corner, shielded him from the fledge trampling the sawdust behind them. “Harris?”

His boy inhaled suddenly like he’d done a ten-minute stint under water, braced sweltering hands on his chest and looked over his shoulder. The hands were shaking, tremors traveling up Xander’s fingers, erratic tapping on Spike’s chest.

“Xander,” croak of desperation. The shit would hit the fan in a spectacular way if he’d overrated Harris’ fight ability and hatred of vampires. “Listen to me yeah?”

Xander’s gaze followed the fledge’s pacing.

“No pet,” he cupped Xander’s jaw, thumbs stroking underside to where jaw met ear and back where it curved into chin.

Xander shifted glance to his eyes. “Call the fight off.”

“Uhm,” Spike dithered, caught by Xander’s distress. “It’s got to go ahead or Etienne wins on a technicality.”

“I don’ want to do this, Spike. I ca-” Xander bit on his lip, wasn’t breathing.

“You can, Xander. He won’t be thinking straight with the gnawing in his belly,” Spike rubbed Xander’s hands. “He’ll come at you with all that brawn he doesn’t know how to control yet, you use it. Stand your ground till your nerves are so tight they’re going to snap then side-step him and stick your leg in his way.”

Xander’s eyes brows shot to his hairline.

“It works,” slight smile and Spike touched a finger to Xander’s neck mid-point between ear and base. “He’s new, going to be very raw here. Hit him there.” 

Xander blew air out through pursed lips and nodded.

He squeezed Xander’s shoulders and let him go, hopping onto the edge of the pit to sit on the right angle that made Xander’s corner.

“Resume!” Jude said.

The Fledge charged, Xander held his position, swerved too slow and went down under the fledge. His own nerves jangling and his belly filled with hollowness, Spike watched the two scrapping in the sawdust. Xander came worse off. 

“Get stuck in for fuck’s sake,” Spike bellowed, reaching for his cigarettes and slapping the ground when his hand encountered neither duster nor cigarettes.

“He is no use to us dead, Childe,” Etienne counter-shouted as the Fledge consolidated his advantage by sitting astride Xander’s chest.

The Fledge clobbered Xander’s temple, jolting his head to the side.

Xander went wild. Eyes flaming and fist flying, he split the skin over the Childe’s cheekbone, returned his fist for a blow across the fanged mouth. That blow shook a fang loose and blood dripped from a slash on Xander’s knuckle. He changed tact, dug the stake into the fledgling neck mid-point between base and ear.

Etienne’s youngest howled, scrabbled backwards. Effing an’ blinding, Xander stayed on the Childe’s tail. Stabbed the stake home and strode in Spike’s direction before the ash had floated to the sawdust.

Spike sucked in a breath, not sure whether to cock his fists now or wait and see what Harris was planning to do with the raised stake. Xander accepted a hand towel from one of Jude’s Runners, climbed out of the pit and pushed through the crowd.

He dove after Xander, remembered his winnings and doubled back to Jude’s table.

“Gimme my stuff,” he snapped, scrunching his brow as Jude sorted through the bundles, “quickly man.”

A ten pack carton of cigarettes in each outer coat pocket, coat draped over his forearm and Xander’s yellow wristband in his breast pocket, Spike studied a ruby detailed silver bracelet that Jude handed him.

“You made a fine choice, Amo,” Jude complimented.

Fine enough to turn a Slayer’s head, Spike hoped, securing the bracelet in an inner duster pocket. He found Xander on a bench not too far from the pit, arms stretched along its marble backrest, hand towel crumpled on rough flagstones.

“You almost got me killed, fucker,” said Xander, his monotone and inscrutable eyes hinting at neither displeasure nor welcome.

Spike took the green wristband from his pocket and placed it on the bench. “Knew you could do it,” blithe words that did nothing to break the ice.

The chill deepened as each man maintained his stance in the staring contest, Xander strapped his band on, Spike slipped his coat on and the freeze kept on freezing.

“What’s in the coat, Spike?”

“Smokes,” Spike damned the curious eyes.   

Xander gave a clipped smile. “Fighting for your addiction was my rite of passage?”

Addictions pet, plural, Spike thought. “People sell their kids for a fix, happens all the time. Least I took a gamble on you,” he said.

That ended the staring match.

White as a sheet, Xander skittered his glance over the flagstones, tugged the long sleeves of his tunic until the cuffs covered his knuckles, and curled his fingers over the frayed cotton cuffs; attempted to fray his bottom lip with his teeth.

Spike had what he’d come for: a trinket for Buffy and two months’ supply of cigarettes. Even got a cowed boy thrown into the bargain. He crossed the Square ahead of Xander, smirk in place and a grain of guilt bothering him as a pebble in his boot might nag his sole.

CHILDE OF MY HEART ~ CHAPTER TEN

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