Love Is More Thicker Than Regret

Love Is More Thicker Than Forget

Xander really didn’t want to be there, but he’d promised. More like had his arm twisted. Literally. Dawn wasn’t a true slayer, but she sure trained like one; Buffy had seen to it. It was the tears in her voice as she’d pleaded with him to come, though, that had made him cave. Made him extend his single day debrief with Giles into a week-long layover in London so that he wouldn’t miss the Council’s Halloween party.

So there he was, dressed to the nines in a black tuxedo – it was either that or full blown 18^th century regalia – looking ridiculously out of place with his eye patch and overly long hair. At least he’d shaved.

He’d nicked himself, of course, and when he’d not felt an invisible presence at his back lean in to lick away the stray drops of blood, he’d been hit with a wave of grief—

Shaking himself at the sudden memory, Xander pushed away from the wall and made for the door. It had been a mistake to come. To stay. He wasn’t in a partying mood; he doubted he ever would be again. Better if he had just submitted his report, gotten his new assignment and left on the next flight out of London.

He was almost to the exit when he felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach.

What the hell was Angel doing here?

Then his mind shut down and rage kicked in. If he’d had a stake on him, he damn sure would have used it. Or tried to anyway. As it was, he didn’t even get a chance to lay a hand on the vampire before some invisible force seemed to surround him, preventing him from taking another step forward.

Willow.

Then Kennedy was there, holding him back. And if he wasn’t mad before…

The elbow to the Slayer’s gut was instinctive, and Xander smiled coldly at her surprised grunt of pain. Her hold loosened and he struggled to free himself. He finally managed to get his right arm free and clipped Angel’s jaw with a wild swing. It made his hand hurt like a bitch, but he didn’t care. He was past caring.

“Willow, so help me, if you don’t get your girlfriend to let me go…” The threat went unfinished.

He was released almost immediately, and he turned an accusing stare on his friend. Soon to be former friend at the rate things were going. “How could you? I told you, no more magic on me. Ever!”

“I’m sorry, Xander. But—”

“No ‘buts’. I’m tired of ‘buts’. You just… you don’t think. You just—argh!” He threw his hands up in frustration. “I’ve gotta go.”

Xander brushed past Angel without another word and left, ignoring Willow tearfully shouting his name. If he stayed, whatever was left of their friendship would be over.

~*~*~*~*~

Xander opened his eyes to find Spike watching him. If he wasn’t so used to it, he’d be creeped out. As it was he just smiled and lovingly rolled his eyes.

“Morning,” Xander murmured, leaning in to press a kiss to Spike’s lips.

“Morning yourself, luv.”

“How long have you been awake?”

Spike replied by taking Xander’s hand and putting it on his erection.

“That long, huh?”

Spike nodded pitifully and Xander had to laugh.

“Poor baby.”

Xander gave Spike a hard squeeze and quickly found himself flat on his back with a horny vamp sprawled on top of him.

“Xander.”

All Spike did was say his name, but it was the way he said it, with just the right mix of love, need, and please can I have you now because if I don’t I’m going to die, that settled in Xander’s chest and made him wonder how he’d ever gotten so lucky to have someone love him so completely as Spike did.

He nodded and Spike kissed him. Kissed him with tongue and teeth and a little bit of fang, and Xander wasn’t sure if it was his blood or Spike’s that he was tasting, but it didn’t matter. It was perfect.

The knocking wasn’t, however.

Whoever it was seemed pretty determined too, because it was getting louder, and more insistent and… voices?

“… Xander, I know you’re in there. Open the damn door!”

Xander’s eye narrowed, recognizing the voice. Angel obviously had a death wish to show up at his flat.

He jumped out of bed and paused only long enough to grab his sweat pants off the floor and yank them on and snatch cross and holy water before confronting the vampire. He realized he’d forgotten his eye patch when he opened the door and witnessed the brief moment of revulsion on Angel’s face at having seen his sunken eye socket… quickly masked, of course. He took perverse pleasure in wiping the look off the vampire’s face by pelting him with holy water, and cared not that he was now confronted with the demon standing before him promising all kinds of pain if he were to leave the safety of his home.

“What are you doing here?” Xander demanded, thrusting his cross in Angel’s face when the vampire took a menacing step forward.

Angel said nothing for the longest time, and Xander matched him glare for glare. Until finally, Angel relented.

“It’s about Spike.”

Xander felt something in the region of his heart clench at the mention of the vampire’s name but allowed nothing of his inner turmoil show on his face as he waited for Angel to say more.

“He’s missing.”

“So go find him,” Xander snapped back. He made to shut the door; he couldn’t let Angel know he’d scored a direct hit.

“I can’t.”

“Not my problem.”

“Xander—”

“Not. My. Problem,” Xander reiterated and this time, closed it with a finality the vampire probably didn’t get. “You saw to that, didn’t you, asshole?” he muttered as he headed towards the kitchen, knowing that Angel could easily hear his parting shot.

He really needed a drink.

~*~*~*~*~

He managed to make it all the way to China before consciously thinking about Spike and what could have happened to him. It seemed only fair as his dreams were constantly full of the vampire, of the six idyllic months they’d spent together until Angel’s jealousy and Willow’s meddling negated the spell that had taken hold of them both.

Sighing, knowing in all likelihood that he was going to regret getting involved, Xander placed a call to Andrew in London. If anyone could glean the whereabouts of Spike, it was Andrew. He’d proved himself surprisingly resourceful, having embraced the Watcher credo. And, he could be discreet.

“Xander! How’s China?”

“Just landed, actually. Listen. I need a favor.”

“You want me to figure out what happened to Spike.”

Xander could only shake his head. He should have known the brief scene he’d made at the Halloween party would have made the rounds, and figured it was probably a good thing he’d left London when he had. It meant he’d avoided the “Intervention”.

“Yeah. If you could,” Xander replied, rubbing at his temple at what was sure to become one whopper of a headache soon. Too much alcohol and too little sleep. Throw in a little jet lag, and yeah. Definitely fun times ahead.

“Sure. Should I email you what I find?”

“No!” Not if he didn’t want Willow hacking his account. Nowadays he didn’t put anything past her. “Just leave me a message on my phone. I’m gonna turn it off soon and get some sleep.”

“Okay.”

“And, Andrew? Keep this under the radar, would ya?”

Xander hung up, knowing that he’d wake to a message on his phone with some clue as to Spike’s whereabouts.

~*~*~*~*~

Xander deleted the message from Andrew and stared at the paper where he’d jotted down the information on Spike’s last known whereabouts. It had to be a coincidence. Surely Giles hadn’t—

No. There was no way Giles would have deliberately put him in Spike’s path. Not after all the conversations he and Giles had had. His “it’s for the best, Xander” speeches. Like Giles had said – repeatedly – he and Spike had barely even tolerated each other’s presence, though their animosity had thawed somewhat in the wake of Buffy’s death a few years prior.

At least, that’s what Giles thought. What he didn’t know, what Xander had never told anyone, was that he and Spike had built a tentative friendship, had even gotten together a few times over the last two years.

It had been the spell that had changed things. Turned like into love…

“Tell me you love me, Xander.”

“Of course I do. You know I do.”

“Say it.” Spike was almost pleading. Like he knew something was about to happen.

“I love you, Spike.”

Xander reached up and cupped Spike’s cheek, urged him to lean down for a kiss. Spike complied, but only for a moment. Rearing back almost as soon as their lips touched as the smell of sulfur and magic suddenly seemed to taint the air and take hold.

When the dust settled, the spell having been broken, they’d still been intimately joined. Both opened their mouths to say something. Anything.

Instead, they both looked away. Spike pulled free – and wasn’t that awkward, having Spike’s dick up his ass – and sat on the side of the bed staring at the wall, shoulders slumped. He seemed almost fragile sitting there.

Xander reached out a hand as if to comfort him, then quickly snatched it back, instead using the opportunity to get out of bed and dressed. He left the room and was confronted by a smug Angel and a magic-wiped Willow, who had no clue as to the damage she’d just wrought.

Somehow a stake materialized in his hand and he lunged forward, determined to kill Angel for doing this to him. To them. He was caught from behind before he had the chance, Spike easily disarming him.

Angel’s gaze had held a note of superiority, of triumph, and Xander couldn’t take it anymore.

“Oh god. I’m gonna be sick.”

Xander twisted free of Spike’s hold and raced for the bathroom.

He wasn’t sure how long he spent in there. Long enough for Spike to come check on him and for Xander to scream back to be left alone. When he finally emerged, the place was deserted.

Wanting to put the matter behind him, because he could deny like the best of them, he grabbed a duffle bag, shoved a few day’s worth of clothes in it, snatched his wallet from the night stand and left. He didn’t bother with a note. Besides, what would he say? The spell made me do it?

It wasn’t a spell that had him retracing Spike’s steps that day, or the next. Finally catching a break the third day, the information nearly costing him his other eye. Thankfully the demon had settled for the wad of cash thrust his way.

Now armed with a destination and enough artillery to put a Marine recon team to shame, Xander set out to find his wayward vamp. No, not his. Spike. He was setting out to find Spike.

Because they were friends. Well, not friends, exactly. Not after all that had happened, and hadn’t happened, this last year. They weren’t enemies. At least not any more…

They fought for the same side? He was just looking out for one of the good guys. And that sounded corny even to his own ears.

Suffice to say, they were… something.

~*~*~*~*~

“Jesus, Spike,” he muttered under his breath as he knelt down beside the beaten and bloody vampire. His body was covered head to toe in bruises, his face barely recognizable. If not for the bleached blond hair, Xander would have had cause to wonder if it was really Spike.

Nodding to the skittish slayer, Li, a new recruit he’d found – because he was all about multitasking, especially when it garnered him muscle for a rescue mission – Xander gently lifted Spike’s upper body and waited as Li did the same for his legs.

He heard something or someone moving his way, and Xander sacrificed hurting Spike further rather than risk getting caught by hefting Spike over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, leaving Li free to lead the way out. Thankfully, or perhaps not, Spike didn’t make a sound when his stomach connected with Xander’s shoulder the first time, or the many times after as he was jostled while Xander jogged behind Li as they made good their escape.

A rather easy escape, now that he thought about it… but not for long. He was soon too busy worrying about getting Spike settled in the car without hurting him further, getting a blanket wrapped around his cold, naked body. But what consumed him was the fear that Spike was too far gone to be saved.

He was far too quiet for Xander’s peace of mind. Spike had made not a peep – no moan or grunt, not even a grimace of pain – as Xander had gotten him inside the hotel suite Giles had secured for him for his assignment in China.

Spike needed blood, and fast. The stronger the better, though he couldn’t very well ask Li to open a vein. Hell, it had taken a lot of negotiating skills on his part just to get her to come along, let alone help, once she found out she was saving a vampire.

“But he has a soul,” he’d explained in broken Chinese.

And hadn’t that been a laugh, using Buffy’s words to rationalize his actions to a slayer.

He assured Li he’d be fine being left alone, gave her the key to the adjacent room, and watched her leave.

“Don’t think this is going to become a habit,” he told Spike and grabbed his knife out of its sheath and sliced into his wrist. Yet, even as he said the words, he knew it could easily happen. He’d shared his blood often with Spike when they’d been lovers.

At first, the blood just trickled into Spike’s mouth, and Xander massaged his throat to try and help him swallow it down. It was slow going, more miss than hit, with a good majority of Xander’s blood spilling out of Spike’s open mouth and down his chin. But after a handful of half-hearted swallows, Spike’s mouth finally closed around Xander’s wrist. He winced reflexively, knowing it had to hurt Spike as his demon came forth.

When Spike’s fangs penetrated his flesh, Xander was hard in an instant, and he had to bite his lip to keep from moaning out loud when Spike started to drink on his own.

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