Childe of my Heart ~ Chapter Twenty-two
by Shanyah
 

Xander sighed, pausing the scissors as Dawn patted the back of her head. “You’re taking too much off the back,” she said.

“Tresten took too much off the back, I’m leveling it out.” Xander resumed shaping her hair into a bob.

“Be grateful you still have head cover Dawn, I feel the sun on my scalp,” Fred said.

“It had to go pet, was a mess.” Spike said, trawling a comb through Fred’s hair.

Time was when he extorted free haircuts from London’s barbers, now he was the sodding barber. To be fair, Fred had done a good job on his hair by the feel of it and he was only returning the favor – nothing poncy in that. Besides, it was a non-violent way to bond, the four of them grooming one another and getting slowly toasted by the Dyulin sun. He slotted two fingers into his breast pocket, pulling out a folded piece of paper as the courtyard gate squeaked open. Jude came through carrying a cooler as he did every second day at three p.m. on the dot.

A man ruled by the clock if he’d ever happened across one.

“Chore for you,” he flipped the paper onto the cooler when Jude set it down. “Get the Pirates to fetch everything what’s on there and I want the genuine articles. Not interested in knocked off goods.”

Jude scanned the list and folded the paper into a square wad with perfectly lined edges. “Your requirements are very specific Mi Amo, it may take a few weeks to make arrangements.”

“Get arranging then,” he evened a few wisps at Fred’s nape, combed the layered crop through and swept the towel from around her shoulders before Jude had reached the courtyard gate. “More speed, Jude.”

“Yes Mi Amo,” Jude gently closed the gate, his footfalls out in the corridor no speedier than they’d been in the courtyard.

“He’s right annoying,” Spike said of Jude, then nodded at Fred, “smashing hairdo, if I say so myself.”

“Is it?” Fred felt her hair over and glanced at Dawn. “Now be honest Dawn, I can take it,” she said.

“You don’t look like a thirteen year old boy at all,” Dawn said.

“Mirror!” And on that horrified gasp, Fred ran for the bathroom.

“I’m teasing,” Dawn laughed.

Fred was already in the bathroom, door closed.

Spike sat on Fred’s stool, sharing in Dawn’s laughter. “She’s fun to tease.”

“So easy,” Dawn said.

“I could tease her all day,” he said.

Xander stepped back from Dawn and looking at Spike’s crotch, snipped the scissors in the air.

Spike smiled sweetly. You’d miss it, he thought.

“Am I done?” Dawn swiveled her head towards Xander and knuckled the tip of her nose, sniffing. “You’ve been smoking - in Spike’s duster,” she said, her tone disapproving.

Spike’s skin tightened several sizes too small, his fangs pushed out without his bidding. The stool toppled over with his hurry to put some distance between himself and Dawn. At the fire-pit in a nanosecond, fanning the flames high as he vehemently waved Fred’s towel over it, ostensibly dusting her hair off.

Sounding unperturbed, Xander cupped and turned Dawn’s head to face front. “I don’t smoke and Spike would never let me wear his precious.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Dawn. “Willow sometimes borrows Buffy’s Charlie and it smells different on her than on Buffy, but you can tell it’s the same perfume. You’re like that, you have that same leatherish-smokish trace as Spike, but it’s different on you. Weird huh?”

“Bizzarro. Now gimme two seconds and you can go be beautiful retail therapy people in the bazaar.”

Spike stuck a cigarette into his mouth and circled the pit, pelting Dawn with a barrage of glances. He and the Slayer had been banging away under her nose for months and Bit hadn’t caught on. He screwed Xander a couple of times and suddenly she was a ruddy bloodhound? Bizzarro didn’t begin to cover it.

*    *    *    *

Dawn was going to buy a cashmere shawl, silk pants and a Cheongsam. Fred liked the hair, but wanted styling mousse to define the edges more, plus her wardrobe could do with a few mega-feminine articles of clothing, she said.

“Be home before dusk,” Spike inched a comb through Xander’s wet, tangled hair, trying to detangle the Dawn problem.

“Something not right about her. Felt it the day I woke up, been winding me up something unholy ever since,” he cut and combed, the scissors flying around Xander’s head. “Nibblet’s an average fighter, six out of ten on a good day. Ten out of ten yesterday, didn’t break a sweat. How?”

“Have you seen our training schedule lately? Dawn hasn’t been average for a while, Spike, none of us have been. We’re six out of ten on a bad day.”

“I’m not measuring Dawn now against Dawn in Sunnydale. I’m comparing last week’s Dawn to yesterday’s Dawn and I’m stumped. People don’t turn Zorro overnight, Xander.”

“I noticed a lack of mask or bad Spanish accent. Zorro she ain’t, try Power Puff Girl.”

It wasn’t only Nibblet bothering him was it? He had an unshakeable feeling that things were stirring in his compound. Nothing he could put a finger on, but it was stirring and he didn’t want to trade wisecracks with Harris about it. He wanted to pulverize a large beast or several medium ones.

“Treat this figuration with the contempt it deserves, but we’ve all made changes to get by in The Trail and maybe for Dawn those changes mean stronger key energy,” Xander said.

“Don’t stop there,” he said without contempt.

“You said it yourself, Dawn’s ancient - the key is anyway. Ancient things are ancient because they do the Darwin to survive. So…”

“…evolving into a sensory improved Power Puff Girl is an ace way to survive in a demon dimension,” Spike said.

“Right out of my mouth,” Xander pulled the towel snugger around his shoulders. “I mean that was literally every word except the ace,” he said, light, quick delivery, nervous.

He’d do well to be nervous. Harris and him were completing each other’s sentences, connecting to survive. Not a big deal, except the demon had dropped the quasi in childe.

By turns dense and astute, a bloody selfish git and a selfless Slayerette, needy and self-reliant, Xander was the magnum opus of opposites. Him and his demon thrived on opposition. He craved Xander in ways that clashed and it bred disharmony between himself and himself. Want him, True Childe! the demon had been harping on since yesterday, was harping now. Fancying Xander’s strong heartbeat, he shook his head.

“Sod off,” he said.

“Me sod off?” Xander asked.

“Not you,” snappy like the scissors.

He trimmed Xander’s hair, shushing the demon with vows of a long and bloody fight with a Gangr’al in the pit later, and at the same time causing it unrest by studying the point on Xander’s neck mid-way between base and ear. Gangr’al twice the size of me, he assured, a full grown male with sledge-hammer fists, a real brutal son of a bitch. Leave the boy be and the Gangr’al’s in the bag.

The rioting in Spike’s veins diminished and he bent to press his lips on the vein in the warm neck. “Go inside, warm the lube,” he said, “and wait for me while I clean up.”

If only Xander moved as quickly in the gaming pit.

*    *    *    *

He closed the shutters, left the door ajar for light and undressed, swathing the sheet over him so he looked irresistibly sexy – he hoped. Lifting his head off the squishy pillow, he extended his arm for the box of lube on the corner of the nightstand, but had misjudged the distance. He stretched his fingers, smiled as he grasped the box in his fingertips. The box slipped from his tentative grasp and dropped onto the bedside rug with a dull thud.

“Damn,” he grunted, leaning over to pick the lube up and free-falling, frozen over the edge of the bed.

*    *    *    *

The weapon wakes him. He hears it fall on the floor and feels the pillow yanked out from under his head. He’s sleepy and everything is happening fast, it’s hard to tell if he’s really awake or dreaming. The door is open a little; light comes in from the hallway. It’s not bright light, and it goes out when the pillow comes down on his face. He’s dreaming because when he’s awake, the pillow doesn’t hide his face, it hides his weapon. Someone sits on top of him. They’re heavy and he can’t move. The person doesn’t feel like a dream, they feel real and they’re squishing the pillow hard on his face.

He wants to kick the person where it hurts, where Tony said to kick people, but Jessica says it’s naughty to fight and he mustn’t fight. He doesn’t kick and he doesn’t scream. Tony says screaming is for little bitches. Inside him it feels all hot and his tummy hurts like when he ate too much Halloween candy. His head is getting bigger, maybe it’s gonna burst and he’s getting scared because he can’t breath. He’s trying to wiggle and shout, but he can’t because he’s trapped by the person and the pillow and he’s scared, he’s so scared now.

Then there’s no heavy on him and the pillow’s gone and he’s breathing so fast he’s gonna throw up. He sees his sword and bends to get it, falls out of bed and pukes on the carpet.

They are on the carpet also. Yelling and rolling close to him he can smell lemon and scotch. They are very close together they look like one thing fighting with itself. He doesn’t know which part of the thing sat on him and which part helped him. It doesn’t matter, they’re one monster.

He crawls to his hiding corner. He holds the weapon straight up and pushes the button on the handle. If they come at him again, he’ll cut them, he’ll cut them even if it’s naughty. He’ll see them coming this time because his sword is special. It’s a Jedi sword and it glows green in the dark.

*    *    *    *

Spike looked from the pillows strewn on the floor to the bed empty of Xander, fed-up to the back teeth with humans and their double-speak. Demons were straight-forwardly dishonest, he knew where he stood with demons. Snarling, he snatched a leather satchel from a hook on the door. He’d go down to the gaming pits, look for a Gangr’al twice his size.

Xander was out in the corridor and tunic back-to-front, turned a corner like the Hellmouth had yawned open behind him. He scowled and strode in the opposite direction. Served the boy right if he tripped over his trailing shoelaces.

*    *    *    *

Grooming round the corner was Skinny Al, tongue to paw, licked paw passed over ear. Just like a cat to sit in the middle of the road and expect traffic to go around him, Xander thought.

After meticulous whisker licking, Skinny Al jogged towards the market tunnel and seeing this, Xander turned in the direction he’d come from. “I’m not going that way today, I’m…” he inhaled, once, twice, three times, ruffled his hair, bit on his lower lip. Looked down at his sneakers. “I’m heading back,” he said.

Al padded up behind him, slinked between his legs and sat at his feet, meowing up at him, making a racket. Copying the cat, Xander sat in the hallway, back against a wall. “How ‘bout you shut up,” he tied his shoelaces and patted his lap. “You listen and I talk – deal?”

Its thin body quivering with purrs, the cat climbed onto his lap and kneaded his thigh before curling up. Not quite courageous enough to get to the nitty-gritty of why his constricted chest and queasy stomach, Xander stroked the ball of soft white fuzz and spoke of past hopes and the fucked-upness of finding solace in Spike. Voice lilting with gaiety, dimming with solemnity and at times simply failing him, he talked into Skinny Al’s cocked ear.

CHILDE OF MY HEART ~ CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

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