In which it picks up a bit.

[shadowscast]

Another snippet of a fic post for the lovely dodyskin and trepkos.

The words are coming a bit more easily now. It helps when Spike finally shows up, I think. But now I have to sleep. Stupid bodily needs.

Anyway, I bring you the beginning of Chapter Two:


Chapter Two:

As soon as Xander stepped out onto the roof of the high-rise apartment block, the wind made him stagger two steps sideways. He hunched his shoulders and tugged his borrowed scarf a little tighter. It was seven in the morning, and the sky was still completely dark. If it weren't for the sodium light burning brightly over the access door, he wouldn't be able to see a thing. This northern latitude thing was going to take some getting used to.

Spike had his back to Xander. He was thirty feet away, standing with his feet braced wide on the low wall that edged the roof. The wind whipped his long black coat around his legs - a new coat, not the duster - while he stayed motionless, scanning the horizon with binoculars. He was facing into the howling wind, so he couldn't smell or hear Xander. He wouldn't know Xander was there until Xander wanted him to.

Xander walked closer. The wind whipped tears from his eyes that had nothing to do with emotion. He'd always thought that 'wind like a knife' thing was just a lame-ass simile, but it really felt like it was cutting through his wussy California jacket. Great rendez-vous place, Spike!

Spike's hair was longer than Xander remembered. Dark roots showed where the wind parted it in a crazy disappearing-reappearing dance. Xander flashed on a memory: his fingers twisting through Spike's hair as Spike went down on him. Don't think about that! Suddenly the icy wind felt good against Xander's hot cheeks.

Enough with the vampire-gazing. "Hey, Spike!"

Spike half-turned, lowered the binoculars. "Harris."

There it was again: Spike was calling him by his last name. All manly and remote. It was a hell of a long way from crying in Xander's arms and telling him he was in love with him, and that was a relief, right? "Nice coat. Very Matrix: Reloaded."

Spike tilted his head slightly. "Why are you here, Harris?"

"You tell me - you're the one who thought it'd be fun to meet on top of a thirty-storey building."

Spike just scowled at him, so Xander stopped pretending not to understand the question.

"Okay, Willow heard about your chip going off at the blood bank. We thought you'd gone underground, maybe you were in trouble. Then Giles acted really weird on the phone, and Buffy decided we needed to find out what's going on. So? What's going on? And would you get down from there, I'm getting a crick in my neck."

Spike shrugged, took one last look at the horizon, then hopped down off the wall. "Thought Olivia would've told you - Rupert's playing cloaks-and-daggers with the Council. He's using me for muscle, and he doesn't want them to know."

Finally seeing Spike up close, Xander noticed he had a half-healed cut marking his lower lip, and a shadow of a bruise on one cheek. "So, what, you're like his replacement Slayer?"

Spike snorted. "S'pose so. Think Buffy'll be jealous?"

"Relieved, maybe. What happened at the blood bank?"

Spike gave an annoyed grimace, and dug a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. "Was in a pissy mood, is all. Bit drunk. Tried to push the bint aside when she was too slow with the good stuff, and the chip zapped me." He tried to shield his lighter from the wind; Xander could see it wasn't going to work.

"From what Willow said, it zapped you with a lot of zappiness."

"Wasn't a tickle. Fuck!" The expletive was directed at his lighter, which he snapped closed with disgust and shoved back in his pocket. The unlit cigarette went sailing over the edge of the building with far more force than necessary.

"Littering," Xander observed. "Didn't they tell you? The good guys aren't supposed to do that."

The glare Spike shot at Xander went deeper than the joke. "Never said I was a good guy, did I?"

"Well, if you're working with Giles-"

Spike cut Xander off with a raised hand, his attention drawn suddenly back to the horizon. "They're coming." He threw open his coat, and Xander saw he had a sword-belt hidden underneath, with a sword hanging to his right and a dagger to his left. He quickly pulled the sword out of its sheath and handed it, hilt-first, to Xander. "Here, try to do some damage."

"To what?" The sword's hilt was wrapped with leather; it was a one-handed grip. Xander kept the point up, tried to remember the lessons Buffy'd been giving him, and looked in the same direction as Spike. All he could see in the pre-dawn city glow was the tops of buildings, white smoke rising from hundreds of chimneys, and a couple pale-feathered birds.

Big birds. Headed straight for them. Really big birds. "What the hell are those things?"

"Called Aetos," Spike explained, drawing the dagger. "Descendents of the demon eagle that used to eat that Prometheus bloke's liver every night."

"The who that what?"

Spike smirked. "Right brilliant product of the American educational system you are. Just make'em bleed, all right?"