Childe of my Heart ~ Chapter Thirty-one
by Shanyah
 

His boy was in a bad way. He had brandy snaps smiles, brittle. Had nightmares. He’d panic awake, clawing at his throat. “I’m okay, I’m fine,” he’d gasp after a few seconds, but he’d not catch his breath until he’d been held, his hair stroked. Xander had sandpaper kisses, lips that scratched because he was forever biting new cuts on them as the old ones scabbed over. He ate for four and burnt it all off with jittery energy.

Xander behaved, paid him lacklustre attention. “Yes Spike, no Spike. Three bags full Spike.”

Xander spent minutes staring at nothing. He spent minutes watching Xander stare at nothing and the vacant eyes wooed him to bring on the torture. Put a spark in them with lit cigarettes. Stitch his mouth closed with cat-gut, and the hands that gave Spike’s touches to someone else – cuff ‘em to the bed posts. Watch them shake to be untied, fingers convulsing like each finger-pad was wired to a chip.

Growling, he glanced up from the cobbled market street, scanned the crowd to escape from his thoughts. Pretty young maiden with the maroon band, out shopping on her lonesome and skipping towards him. Tasty slip of a thing would do nicely. He’d tear her tongue out and imagine it was that bastard’s hurtful flapper.

She skipped past and her red cloak brushed his coat, her scent stuck to the lining of his nostrils. Thinking how lax some Earners were with their scarce human resources, he turned to walk behind her. Stalked her, taste buds tingling for a mouthful of sweet, hot…Reality, such a mood spoiler.

In reality, he had three with sweet, hot blood kipping in their beds in the unit, was sire of precious resources. He’d made an enemy of Tresten and couldn’t go making more enemies by culling the town’s human Earned. Now if he’d been here with Dru’ he’d have gone ahead and culled because she was good at protecting herself. Had bite, did Dru’, could gnash her way out of a staking. Harris, Nibblet and Fred sometimes seemed like they couldn’t chew through knitting wool. Heaven help them if they ever had to fight off a demon mob bent on revenge.

He heaved a hard done by sigh and abandoned the chase, stalked through the furniture section, which was what he’d come to the market for. Picked out bean-bags at one stall and asked the vendor to deliver them to the Pool House. Ran his hand over a rug displayed on the top of another stall.

“You got anything less colorful?”

“One moment, Mi Amo,” the vendor said, ducking into the back room.

“See if you have an oak double bed while you’re back there, and a night stand.” He fingered the tassels on a cushion, wondered whether Xander liked black velvet. He knew loads about Xander, but not whether he liked black velvet. This lack of knowledge bugged him. He frowned at the vendor staggering out of the store room with a rolled up gray rug over his shoulder.

“It is woven of the best quality wool, Mi Amo,” the vendor dropped the huge rug on the counter. “Unfortunately, I do not have an oak bedstead or nightstand, but can have them carved within the week.”

It was no good. He needed to know. “Okay, yeah, a week…” wasn’t long.

He ran back to the unit, hadn’t taken a step into the room before Xander was sitting up. He closed the door and Xander glanced at the shuttered window, and the glance was a bird’s wings battering against the bars of a gilded cage.

“Black velvet, do you like it, Xander?” The cage door flew open by his asking.

Xander said nothing, but his hands started shaking. He slipped them under the sheet and it shook where it covered his hands.

Mixed feelings beset Spike; guilt, worry and above all spite. Xander, Fred and Dawn, all had been sneaking around his back, all had put each other’s safety on the line. They’d all done wrong and yet Xander was the only one he’d punished and out of spite, he carried on punishing the boy. It wasn’t right or just and he’d tried getting past Rhiana’s backroom, couldn’t do it. Spite had destabilised him and when malice did that to you, when it made you want to hurt someone you’d stopped hating long ago and reminded you how ably you could desecrate human flesh, the thing to do was look at the man, see him and not the flesh. Lay spite down for a moment and when that moment was over and the spite engulfed you again, you made sure the man you’d stopped hating wasn’t around for you to tear him a new one.

He swallowed his grudge, let spite go for the moment. Went to the bed and showed Xander just how much he didn’t want to hurt him.

*    *    *    *

Spike had the main pool drained and its floor padded with sawdust. He sent word round to his Unbonded, advertising two hundred and fifty Select vacancies, his person specification straightforward: only vampires, were-demons and El Eliminati need apply. 

Vampires because they had a built-in understanding of status and loyalty.

Were-demons because they had a strong pack mentality and their instincts were tied into nature, sensed when it was off-balance. Plus he’d come up against a were-demon once. Hobbled out of it feeling like he’d been pummelled by Armageddon – respect where it was due.

An El Eliminati was born with a steel sword in his hand and died for his Master’s cause, enough said.

From the thousand applicants, Spike short-listed five hundred. He tested the short-listed men and women in the saw-dusted pool, working eighteen hour days to get through the numbers. Crawled home, grateful for the foot rubs, back rubs and first aid he got from Xander. Drank blood like he was dying of thirst, slept like he was dead. Too tired for shag, too shagged to talk and the next day, he was in the padded pool fighting his Unbonded. Pushing himself and the recruits, intolerant with his errors and theirs.

They were calling him Brutus Le Brute behind his back, Dawn told him.

*    *    *    *

The toughest of the short-listed became Spike’s Select. He stationed them in the units around his and in the games courtyard, now called the Guard House. The Select sentried the Bath’s doors twenty-four seven and from their number Spike hired three for Dawn, Fred and Xander’s personal sparring assistants, their brief being to, “polish up Fred and Xander’s fighting techniques, tire Nibblet out. Want to see how strong she’s becoming.”

The short-listed but not selected became Drones. They observed Tresten’s Bath Staff at work, shadowing them in all tasks from lighting the furnaces to watering the fuchsias in the hanging baskets on chef’s terrace restaurant.

Chef noticed he was getting fewer food orders from Tresten’s staff. He glanced out at the terrace one day to see an El Eliminati with a sword holstered across his back and a watering can in his hand, drizzling water onto the flowers, ominous non-presence of Tresten’s Earned by his side.

“May I trouble you for an ox steak sir?” The El Eliminati came into the kitchen to all but whisper.

“No trouble, sir. Old Bob don’t want no trouble at all. I keep my nose clean and my head down. Forty years I been cooking for all kinds in this very same kitchen you see here. I didn’t do that by troubling no customers, is it a rare steak you wanting, son?”  

The Drones also had the job of organizing training sessions for Spike’s Reserves on Fourth and Third Ranking. “I’m not asking for killer karate chops. The feel of a weapon in their hand again, an hour of scrapping a day should be all they need to jump-start their fight-muscles and self-respect. I won’t have five thousand people pee themselves behind me every time Tresten giggles. I’d drown.”

Dawn, in the meantime, was put in charge of designing wristbands for the Unbonded. “Go wild,” Spike told her.

“Seriously?” Her eyes glowed.

“Crazy wild. Make me proud.”

*    *    *    *

His house in order, all that remained for Spike to do was inform the three that Xander was relocating. Dinner eaten and dishes washed, the clan sat around the fire in the unit courtyard. Spike vacillated. One minute he decided he and Xander would be better off apart, the next he decided apart was unsafe, would give Groza a chance to assault Xander. But if he was honest, Xander wasn’t all that safe from his Amo.

Dejected, Spike watched the others. Fred played darts with par-charred bits from the bucket of fire sweepings at her feet, aiming chips of wood at the bull’s eye of the fire’s glowing centre. Dawn played with the poker, batting back the chips Fred threw before they hit the fire. She’d been yawning on and off these last ten minutes, missing more than hitting the chips.

She rested her cheek on Xander’s shoulder, “it’s nearly sun up, bed-time I guess.”

“Definitely,” Xander said, looking muzzy, flushed from the fire.

No, they couldn’t go to bed yet. He had an announcement to make and if he didn’t say it now, it’d be harder to say tomorrow. “Xander’s going away,” he said, banding an arm around his waist in a self-hug. “He’s, he’ll be staying in the Pool House.”

Fred and Dawn blinked owl eyes at him.

“When?” Xander asked.

“Tonight, now,” Spike said, wanting some sign from Xander to show he gave a damn, and getting none. Not from Xander at any rate.

“Why?” Dawn poked the fire.

“It’s complicated, Nibblet.”

“That’s your answer to everything, it’s complicated, Nibblet.” Sparks flew from the fire as Dawn jabbed the logs with the poker, “You’re Unbonding him again because you guys had a bust-up - again. And because you can’t act mature, I lose out on having Xander around. Selfish is not that complicated, Spike.”

Xander wrapped his hand around Dawn’s, preventing her from jabbing a great fiery log. “The Pool House isn’t on another planet Dawnie, I’ll still be around for you.”

Dawn twisted her hand free and stabbed the log. “You want to break the gang up?”

“That’s not what I said.”

Dawn gave the fire a few good jabs. “So stay.”

Harris glanced at him, didn’t seem bothered one way or the other.

“He’s gotta go. No room at the Inn,” he upped the venom, twisting inside.

“I’ll get packed,” Xander said, standing up.

“Take what you need for a couple of days. I’ll fetch the rest tomorrow,” he wanted Xander gone, immediately. Clean cut and all that.

Xander ducked his head in a small nod and left. Dawn clattered the poker to the flagstones and marched to her room. Fred threw a piece of coal into the fire.

“Silent treatment, is it Fred? He asked.

“That’s a bad tactical move. It’s bad for morale, all round bad. I know he can’t stay, I’ve seen what you’re like around each other and sometimes it gets me thinking you’re Angel and Wes incognito and I’m scared Xander’s going to do something unforgivable like give away your baby boy, if you had a baby boy, but you don’t so…”

“Get to the nub of it for Christ’s sake,” he interrupted.  

“The Baths are a mile and half away, Spike. That’s a long way when you’re already a whole dimension away from home. Let me go with Xander so he’s not alone out there.”

Out of the question. He’d sworn to Angel that he’d keep Fred close. Honoured his promises, even if he was a bastard in other ways. “Why’d you come here? Angel gave me the low-down on the state of you after Pylea. Why put yourself through all this again?”

Fred rolled a coal between her palms. “Pylea stole so much from me Spike. I have phobias they don’t even have a name for,” she smiled, a morose, short-lived curve of lips. “I figured if I slid under controlled conditions and by my choice, did things differently, maybe I’d come back normal this time.”

He’d gone sliding with whackos; Harris, Fred, Nibblet even, head cases. “I’d have hired a shrink, me. The best Angel’s money can buy,” he said.

“He would have asked how much per couch hour and told me to slide on out, it’s cheaper,” Fred said.

They broke into laughter at Angel’s expense, Spike lightly cuffing her chin. “You’re good for morale Burkle and this camp needs cheering up. Big, strapping lad like Harris will be alright, it’s not like the Baths aren’t guarded.” 

Xander came to the fireside as they were talking, and Dawn strode out of her room right after, thrust a folded up towel at Xander and hoovered up Spike and Fred’s smiles in her stroppy tone.

“Fred just asked to go, but she gets to stays. Xander doesn’t want to go, but he has to. Explain the difference between Fred and Xander to me.”

Where do I begin, Spike thought. “Why are you arguing? Harris isn’t and it’s him that’s going.”

“I know that look, Spike. The stalkery, googly-eyed, hiding a Buffy-bot look and it’s why you want Xander out of the way, so you can trade in your Fred-bot for the actual Ms Geeky Brainiac.”

Fred mumbled something about a thermos for Xander and stole away from the high-tension atmosphere. Relieved that Dawn was wide off the mark and dismayed that his Xander inspired googlies were displayed in his eyes, Spike abstained from meaningful comment.

“You’re grounded,” he sternly told Dawn.

She raised her chin, looked at him and flicked Xander a glance. Spike could virtually see her wrestling with her insight, taking a mental step back to view the picture afresh.

“Are you grounding me for caring about my friends or for saying what I think – or for thinking?”

“Spike and I, we’re compromising,” Xander shoved the towel Dawn had given him into his cotton drawstring bag. “We’re not breaking up the gang, we’re compromising because Buffy should never have pushed us together. We don’t fit, we don’t work and if we don’t find middle ground now, we’ll pay later. I’m a poor man, Dawn. I can’t make the payments on any more colossal blunders.”

Breath stirred in Spike’s lungs and he groped for a cigarette, lit up, good excuse for shuddery inhalation. How could Xander say they didn’t fit? They fitted, very well as he remembered.

Dawn placed her hands on her hips, determination in the set of her face. “Please don’t throw compromise and complication at me guys, that’s for people who just met you. You’ve had fights before, every week you have a fight. Why’s this the Big One?” She asked Xander.

Spike also asked Xander, with a glance he asked Xander for that sign. A look or a smirk or a gnome carrying a placard that said Harris felt something. No glance, smirk or gnome showed up.

Cold son of a bitch took the thermos Fred brought out of the room, said thank you and held his hand out to Dawn. “A rib-crunching Dawnster hug would be nice?”

She strutted off, threw herself into the hammock.

Xander packed the thermos into his drawstring bag, pulled the strings tight, fumbled the bag onto his shoulder and finally looked at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

The hopeful look came too late. “Budge up, pet,” he said, joining Dawn on the hammock.

Xander dragged a hand through his hair, gazed at the flagstones, swallowed. “Spike I…do you have a second, I-” he gestured at the door. “We need a second.”

Xander gone was what he needed. “Salma’s out on the ledge. She’ll walk you to the Baths.”

Xander got a rib-crunching hug from Fred and strode out to the ledge. Fred came to the hammock, had a go at him with her peepers.

“Give it a rest,” he said, sore.

CHILDE OF MY HEART ~ CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

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