Childe of my Heart ~ Chapter Thirty-three
by Shanyah
 

Time and space, Xander had an abundance of both. He rattled around the Pool House, counted eleven rooms not including his room and the War Room. A bathroom large enough for ten people to use at one go and a porch running under the entire length of the right wing. As for the hours, they merged into one long hour divided by meal times: breakfast at 5p.m., lunch at 9p.m. and dinner at 2a.m. Around 2:30, chef went home, leaving the assistant chef to cater for Xander and the skeleton staff on duty.

“You ain’t gotta serve up three course meals. Hot drinks and cold sandwiches is all they get,” chef would recap to his assistant every night. “Anybody got a problem with that, they can take it up with me in the morning…uh, afternoon.”

Nobody had a problem with cold sandwiches because by 3a.m., activity in the Baths dwindled and fell sharply when the rising sun heralded the start of the vampire night at 6a.m. Xander trained whenever it suited him, which was often between 3 and 6a.m. His El Eliminati, sparring partner, Salma, frowned about having to work when others were settling down to sleep. She took it out on Xander in the padded training pool.

“You will sleep well today,” Salma said at the end of the session. Vindication glimmered in her smile.

Lathered with sweat and floured in sawdust, Xander rinsed off in the shower then wrapped up in a blanket and sat at his balcony table drinking coffee and looking out at the deep purple, pre-dawn garden. Ending the pretence that the notepad was anything other than a journal, he signed off Willow’s nine-page letter, turned to a new page and headed it ‘Day Six.’

Spike drops by with my stuff later each day, he wrote. Yesterday, he napped in the room a door away from mine. He’s pulling out. I’ve got to stop waiting for him like this. It’s pathetic. I should go to bed.

He did so and it felt like he’d hardly closed his eyes when knocking woke him. “Spike?” He called, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and blinking bleary eyes at the thin, late afternoon shadows on the floor. “Come in Spike.”

Three Drones came in and crowded on the balcony behind them were more Drones. Xander was off the bed and fumbling on a dressing gown, covering the distance to the door in four big strides.

“Is it Dawn, she’s been acting weird…it’s Spike isn’t it? What’s happened to him?”

“We are here for the day’s instructions,” a Drone said.

Relieved, Xander tied the sash on his robe. “Amo Spike gives the orders around here. I’m just his yes-yes henchman…or I used to try to be.”

“Master Spike has made clear that he instructs Bath staff only and as we are Pool House staff, we are to obtain instructions from you, the Monsieur of the Pool House.”

Xander laughed. He wasn’t monsieur of himself, never mind of the Pool House. The Drones didn’t smile, laugh or go away. They were serious, Xander realized, and they were apparently his responsibility. It confirmed his fears; Spike wasn’t taking him back this time.

“There’s the skylight in the War Room, maybe we could take the board out and replace the glass?” He said, nausea agitating the pit of his belly. “The loose torch brackets on right wing also need replacing and…”

…chipped bathroom tiles, faulty hinges on a quiet room door, overgrown shrubs, cracked paving stones, crumbling plaster on the walls of the room Spike had taken to using - the odd jobs mushroomed and Xander soon had a small scale refurbishment project going.

He tried not to notice that Spike hadn’t dropped by for four days straight and added a variation to his 3-6a.m. routine sometimes swimming after training, sometimes preparing the walls in ‘Spike’s room’ for re-plastering. Running a critical eye over the red bricks of the stripped down walls, he noted the damp patch spreading from the ceiling onto a wall. He added damp treatment, ceiling boards and roofing tiles to the list of white paint and ready-mixed cement on the list on his clipboard and was trying to figure out why this cubby-hole of a room had the largest skylight in all the Pool House when Spike steamed in through the open French doors.

“Spike! It’s good to see-”

“You know the sisters of true likeness?” Spike rushed out over the enthusiastic welcoming.

Xander went to the door, looked up and down the balcony, saw that no stake wielding sister of likeness was after Spike and came back inside, arms crossed and holding the clipboard to his chest. “The side by side doors in Dawn’s Demony book? What about them?”

“Got a lead from a bloke at the gaming pit, reckons some wise old man called Indigo holds Q and A sessions on the doors. Old man shows up on Fifth Ranking library now and then, no warning. I’m thinking of staking out the library for a couple of days, see if I can catch him.”

While you’re at that, see if you can get Aladdin to hand over the genie in a bottle, Xander thought. “The guy who tipped you off, has he actually met Wise Old Indigo?”

“I’d ask him, only he got killed by a runaway soldier a couple of nights ago.” Spike lit a cigarette, puffed and stomped around the room for a good few minutes. “It’s a hoax with Tresten written all over it, I know. But what if it isn’t?”

Xander shook his head. “Spike, I think-”

“Nibblet laughs all the time, giggles to herself,” Spike cut in. “She’s cracking up. Got to get her out. Could be the old man’s the way out.”

Xander had noticed Dawn’s spontaneous giggling too and it seemed to him that now more than ever, she needed the reassurance of Spike’s presence. “Do you want my take on this or did you just come here to wear a trench in the floor?”

Spike stopped pacing, a hand on his hip. He eyed Xander through tendrils of blue smoke, cheeks hollowed with the deep drag he took of the cigarette.

“Dawn needs more upheaval like she needs a hole in the head, Spike. You might want to let her recover from my Unbonding before you go chasing after the Holy Grail.”

Not so much stomping as gliding, Spike crossed over to the hump of furniture covered by a dust sheet in the middle of the room. He lifted a corner of the sheet and gazed so intently at the side-table legs that were sticking up in the air that Xander had to explain.

“It’s a side-table. You put your feet on it when you’re vegetating in front of the T.V.”

A smile played about Spike’s lips. “You turning this into your den?”

“I thought I’d swathe black silk on the walls, the skylight too maybe, and get a sinfully lush carpet for the floor. Make you a lair as a token of my appreciation for those twenty Drones you’re trusting me with.”

“I’d trust you with two thousand,” Spike said, letting the sheet fall from his fingers. “See you around, Harris,” and then he was gone.

He didn’t see Spike around, not the next day or the day after that or the day after that. Spike didn’t show up for breakfast with him, Dawn and Fred, didn’t stand at the side of the training pool, watching Dawn take on her three sparring partners. At the end of another Spikeless day, Xander brought his blanket and journal to the table, rifled the pages to his last journal entry and wrote ‘Day Fourteen.’ 

Spike’s on a quest for the wise old man. I think I met the wise man. He was propping up the bar in an L.A. club called Dominion and giving sex tips to his beer. Variety is the spice of life, be a serial bed-hopper while you’re young, he said. I guess he wasn’t that wise because I was already doing that, serial bed-hopping.

But Spike, he’s many men, I never know what the sex around the corner’s gonna be like with him. He’s all the variety I need.

He wakes me up sometimes, rolls me on top of him and doesn’t say much of anything. He shakes, when I slide onto him. His abs skitter and a vein jumps in his temple. I could do anything to him when he’s this way and he’d just shake. Shake and make sounds in his throat like he’s got words crammed in there. I make it good, ride him long, figure that’ll get him talking. It doesn’t. I’m the one does the sweet talking.

The last time we made love had sex, Spike got me shaking. He closes the door, looks at me and asks if I like black velvet. I don’t answer him, can’t make my lips work. I’m shaking before he even touches me. I know what it feels like to be a leaf. You can’t help it when a storm takes over, you have to move. And even if that storm is a breeze with soft words and slow hands, you move ‘cause you’re caught up in it, in the kindness. When you know that the same gentle breeze can turn hurricane on you and tear you up, you shake more.  Spike closed the door, asked me if I liked black velvet, and I shook, never needed kindness so bad.

Xander turned to a fresh page and found it written on. “Spike, you…” he flicked to the next page and found writing on it too. “Asshole,” he said, glowering at the writing.

Xander,

Allow me to challenge your blinkered reading of the text and subtext.

You say Spike is Scorpio. Obviously, you’re struggling with the concept of Spike and believe the Zodiac book will unpick for you the tangled knots of my traits. It is a book, a non-sentient entity that cannot answer your questions or supply you with more than a superficial interpretation of Spike.  I suggest you shelve the book and learn who I am through the highly under-rated means of verbal dialogue.

“And I suggest you reserve the high falutin’ verbage for Tresten,” Xander muttered, reading on.

You imply that you, Taurus, have few positive qualities and contribute only sex to this tempestuous affair. I disagree. Taurus is earth. He is constancy and steadiness, a vessel for spiritual forces. In you my roots have established a hold, and if they run deep it is because the land to which they hold endures. Simply put, you ground me and anyone who has spent time in my company appreciates my frequent need for grounding.

Xander drew a smiley face in the ‘o’ of ‘grounding,’ smiling himself.

Taurus focuses and concentrates energy, gives it concrete expression. Think back to the first day we Earned the Unbonded. Out of vexation, I aimed to salvage every idle Unbonded that crossed my path and never would have thought to Earn the working Unbonded had you not Earned the market trader first. You tempered my impulsiveness with your focus and helped consolidate my plan into the swiftest coup d'état I’ve ever accomplished; you and I built an empire in fifteen days.

Taurus is persistence; you fuel my determination. Taurus is passionate and sensual, pleasure seeking and pleasure giving; you awaken my whole being, magnify my senses.

Say it again, Xander. Tell me we neither fit nor work.

Xander looked up at the crimson-orange dawning over their empire. “Spike,” he said, a tingle trickling down his spine.

You wrote, ‘Spike hypnotised me.’

I’m not the first to have done this, am I? Dracula thralled you. You were under The Slayer’s spell when I first met you and still are. Faith, according to you, has a rough charm. Anyanka enchanted you to the altar almost. What do Buffy, Dracula, Faith, Anya and I have in common? We hurt things. You’re hypnotised not by me, but by the pain I make.

“You’re wrong and this,” Xander drew brackets around the paragraph, “this is twisted.”

‘Spike is paradoxy.’

I have two warring faces. Did you think that was only skin deep, that the war doesn’t rage throughout me? Furthermore, I’m implanted with William’s memory. I hold recollections of his soulful fantasies and horribly compassionate acts, was sired by the unhinged Drucilla and raised on the blood of Angelus – Evil’s prodigious son. Of course I am paradoxical! You’re going to have to come to terms with it just as I am resigned to your incurable foot-in-mouth syndrome.

Laughing, Xander read this twice over and turned to the next page.

‘Spike cut me loose.’

And why did I? You’re either Master or boy, you cannot be both. I want nothing less than your total and willing submission…

Xander pushed his chair back, stumbling up and away from the table. Submit so Spike could chain him to a stand and beat him black, blue and re-traumatized? Spike had beat on him it was as simple as that. He might have the emotional IQ of a seven year old, but this much he knew: you couldn’t give willing submission unless you trusted and violence didn’t beget trust.

“You’re asking for too much, Spike,” he said and his voice was thick with tears. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he tilted his head back, wanting to hate Spike and managing to want him. “Crap,” he sniffed, going back to the notepad.

I want nothing less than your total and willing submission, but

I don’t always get what I want and I suspect this is an occasion of futile aspiration. Today is the first day of your autonomy. At the end of the twenty-first day, I will confer to you two thousand Unbonded and the Pool House, yours to be Master over and to pave your way home. In addition, I will present you with one of my indigo bands and settle any dispute that might arise with Tresten as a result.

If you find this proposal objectionable and are confident you possess the talent to walk willingly behind a Master Vampire then come to me at the close of the twenty-first day. Whatever the case, the Pool House is yours, for I find proximity corrosive to Taurus and Scorpio’s good intentions. 

Sincerely,

Spike.

PS: Dawn may spend as much time with you as she pleases, but she is on no account to miss training or spend the equivalent of a night away from me.

His teeth tampering with a corner of his lips, Xander closed the journal, conflicted over the options. 

*    *    *    *

He was late for breakfast with Dawn and Fred on the terrace restaurant later that day. Spike was there, looking fresh and pleased with himself.

Fred passed Xander a covered plate and scooted out of her chair. “I’ll be on Xander’s porch, Spike,” she said, picking up a bag at the foot of her chair.

“Wait Fred, two seconds,” Dawn gulped down her milkshake, wiped her moustache off with a napkin and pecked Xander’s cheek. “I hate to run, but I’ve got a meeting with the tailor in about a minute. What are you doing later?”

“Nothing special.”

“Great, I’ll have the tailor fit you in at 8…”

“Whoa there Dawn. I’m sluggish from no coffee.”

“The party season is not sluggish Xander! It’s a glam affair and I’m designing red carpet outfits in case we get invited,” Dawn said.

“Party season?”

“There’re posters everywhere about Tresten’s parties. The first ball’s like six weeks away,” with a theatrical sigh, Dawn grabbed a slice of toast from the rack on the table. “See you at the band reveal, 1:30 am for 2:00 am. Don’t be late,” and she whirled between the tables, joined Fred at the head of the staircase and chattered out of sight.

Xander added a few slices of toast to the scrambled eggs, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms on his plate and drank a mug of coffee. He hadn’t seen the posters that where everywhere. Of course he hadn’t; he didn’t go anywhere, which explained his profound ignorance on Tresten’s balls. 

“Nope. No good. I’m still sluggish on the band reveal,” he buttered a slice of toast.

“She’s on about the wristbands she designed,” Spike said. “The Weavers finished sewing them last night, the Runners are handing them out to the Unbonded as we speak and Nibblet’s surprising us with our bands tonight after dinner.”

Not having been back to the unit after being forcefully ejected, Xander felt a little nervous about returning there. “Dinner at the unit?”

“What, you’re booked up?” Spike refilled his mug then Xander’s.

Xander sugared his coffee, slowly stirred it. “It’s possible. I might have a date with my lawyer to go over the paper work with a fine-toothed comb. You know, protect my interests in the empire I helped build.”

Spike glanced at him over the rim of his mug. “Oh,” he said.

The informative ‘oh’ yanked at Xander and he curled a finger alongside Spike’s on the mug handle, lowering it to the table. “I don’t care how many wars you’ve got raging in there, you stay out of my journal. Clear?”

Spike looked into his mug. “If you didn’t leave it where it would get knocked over-”

“You want me to trust you then don’t lie to me,” Xander said, just short of shouting. He took his hand away from Spike’s mug and hooked it on his own elbow; rubbed his arm from elbow to shoulder, massaging the stiffness from it. He didn’t want another one of their arguments. “Busy day ahead?” He asked with a pent up sigh.

“This and that. I tried wriggling out of a fitting with the tailor, Nibblet made some threats.”

Xander smiled faintly. “What are the chances of us being invited to Tresten’s glam affair?”

“We’re Fifth Rankers love, beneath notice. No chance of an invite to Tresten’s Court.” Spike nodded at Xander’s plate, “your eggs are getting cold.”

*    *    *    *

“So what do you think?” Fred asked.

Spike thought he shouldn’t have lied to Xander. He’d somehow gone from omitting a few significant bits of information to telling great, big whoppers. Normally, lying didn’t bother his shrunken conscience, except Xander was like him; didn’t mind spinning them, but hated being lied to. So he was looking at an ashy future if Cinders found out about the invite to Tresten’s Ball. Which he wouldn’t because Spike had long ago decided they were sitting out that particular dance. 

He circled the workbench Fred had set up at one end of Xander’s porch and gave her invention his full attention. “Looks like a mangled hoover,” he said, “or a short over-fed coat stand…why is there a hole here, run out of scrap metal?”

“That’s where the battery and winch mechanism go,” Fred put her hand into the hole, patted the inside of the contraption and poked two fingers out of a smaller gap above the first. “The chain feeds in through here.”

“Right. Why all this? The sword is a woman’s best friend.”

Eyebrows arched, Fred hassled to the defence of her little one. “With enhanced view finder and engine powered launch action, this mangled vacuum cleaner will scatter arrows faster, farther and with more accuracy than ten El Elminati with cross-bows. The Launcher – that’s what I’m calling it – is the kind of pepper spray every woman should have in the trunk of her car.”

She secured welding goggles onto her face and linked the cables of a blow torch to a car battery, “That’s the idea anyway. Construction is held up by tools that aren’t specific enough to service my vision.”

Spike sat on the porch wall and listened to Fred prattle, gaining more knowledge about levers and tensile strength than he cared to admit. “When you say powered, how powered is powered?” He shouted.

“As powered as you like. We have to factor in the engine size and the hull’s holding strength and there’s the portable aspect. It’s pointless having a canon you can’t move on account of it being an elephant.”

Spike hopped off the wall, circled the invention with new excitement, “I’m no science buff, yeah? But I have vision. I’m brimming with it and you’re going to service me.”

Fred killed the blowtorch and pushed the goggles onto the top of her head, “I don’t think I heard right,” she said.

Spike grinned and slapped the Launcher. “Visioning, Fred. Onward with it.”

CHILDE OF MY HEART ~ CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

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