shadowscast

Okay, I guess I have to admit this is a WIP, and put together a memories list. But right now I really really need to go to bed, so I'll just say it's continued from here.

Xander figured if Spike was working again today it'd be the same shift as yesterday, so he went by the apartment at four in the afternoon.

Spike opened the door just a crack at first, with the security chain stretched across the gap. Xander saw a flash of rumpled hair and blue eyes, heard a muttered "Oh, it's you," and the door shut.

He lifted his hand to knock again but the door swung away from his knuckles, opening all the way this time, and Spike caught Xander's fist in his cupped palm.

"'Lo," Spike said with a tilted half-smile, not letting go, "What d'you want?"

Xander twisted his hand away from Spike with an irritated jerk. "Just to talk. Can I come in?"

Spike backed away from the doorway, raising an eyebrow. "Not if you need to ask, you can't."

It took Xander just a couple seconds to think that one through. "Huh. That's a good one. I should use that," he said, and followed Spike in. "Is that god-king chick here?"

"Nah. She seems to've killed all the nocturnal demons in the neighborhood, so she's taken to hunting by day." As he spoke, Spike gathered up the loose sections of newspaper that were covering the couch and dumped them in a pile on the floor. "Have a seat. Want a cuppa tea?" He glanced back at Xander, noticed his expression, and scowled. "I just woke up, it's my fucking breakfast, all right?"

Xander held up his hands, still smirking, and sat down on the couch. "No offense, but you just had a Giles moment there."

Spike shot him a look of disgust and padded off to the kitchen. He was barefoot, wearing grey flannel pajama pants and a black t-shirt with a Dark Side of the Moon logo half worn off. His left forearm still had the neat white hospital bandage wrapped around it, and it was sort of weird to think that it was going to be weeks before Spike healed, and he'd probably have a scar after that.

Welcome to the club, Xander thought.

He glanced around the living room; he hadn't had a good look when he'd dropped Spike off in the morning. As low-rent basement apartments go it didn't look that bad—there were only a couple visible mildew stains, high on the wall. Besides the couch there was just a TV and a coffee table for furniture, and the paint-splattered coffee table looked like it'd been pulled out of somebody's trash. There was a Playstation 2 hooked up to the TV, and a controller and a few games were scattered on the table along with a couple empty mugs and plates with crumbs on them. Up against the wall there was a pile of books in want of a bookcase—a colorful mix of paperbacks and hardcovers, too far away for Xander to see what any of the titles were.

Spike came back with a steaming mug in his hands and settled at the other end of the couch, propping his heels up on the table. He ignored Xander, raising the hot drink to his lips for a careful sip. Up close Xander noticed several long pink scars on Spike's unbandaged arm—it looked like last night hadn't been his first fight since turning human.

"So, um, how are you doing?" Xander asked.

"Fine," Spike said. It sounded automatic, kind of curt, so Xander wondered, but he didn't wonder enough to pursue the question.

Last night it'd been obvious enough when Spike wasn't fine—when he'd been passing out in the passenger seat of the rental car, too dozy to even tell Xander where the clinic they were supposed to be going to was, so Xander had just taken him to the nearest emergency room. Now he looked okay—he was holding his mug with steady hands, and not wincing away from the light.

"What was it you wanted to talk about?" he asked now, glancing over at Xander impatiently.

"I talked to Giles this afternoon," Xander said. "He wants me to find out more about Illyria."

"You told him about me, then?"

Xander nodded.

Spike gave a sort of resigned shrug. "Figured you would. Well, if he wants he can ring me and I'll tell him what I know directly. Illyria gave you the number, yeah?"

"He also wants you to come back to Rome with me."

"No," Spike said quickly. "I'm not going to be his bloody science project. Had enough of that already."

"Calm down, he doesn't want to study you. He wants you to join the Council."

That got an amused look from the ex-vampire. "He wants William the Bloody to join the Council of Watchers?"

"He has this theory that you know enough to be useful."

Spike snorted. "He said that about me? Sure you had Rupert on the phone there, not a clever voice impersonator?"

"Don't get a big head about it. Remember, Andrew has a position of authority in the new Council. Our human resources department isn't exactly turning down hundreds of qualified applicants every morning."

"You have a human resources department?"

"Actually, no. That was a joke."

"Oh." That got an eye roll. "What do you have, then?"

"A whole lot of Slayers. Willow thinks there are about seven hundred in the world, and we've managed to make contact with about a third that number. There's sixty-four working full-time with us now, including all the girls who survived Sunnydale. The others we try to get to come to Rome for a few weeks of training, and stay in touch." While he spoke, Xander pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. "Mind if I smoke?" he asked automatically, already shaking out one cigarette.

"Actually...yeah, I do." Spike gave an almost apologetic shrug. "When I woke up human, I wasn't addicted anymore, and...well, I tried smoking one a while later, and it's bloody disgusting, innit?"

Xander stopped just short of lighting up, and gave Spike a curious look. "Were you really addicted? I always kind of wondered how that worked—with vampires, I mean."

"I got shirty if I went too long without a fag, yeah," Spike said, and took another drink of tea. "Dunno if it's the same as for humans."

Xander rolled the Camel between his fingers and gave a moment's thought to all the times Spike had annoyed him with cigarette smoke in the basement, in the Bronze, in his fucking closet. Then he stuck it back in the pack and put it away, because he was trying to recruit Spike to the Council and pissing him off probably wasn't the best way to do it.

"What was it like, anyway? Turning human?"

"Wouldn't recommend it," Spike replied, deadpan. "Woke up exactly as I'd been the night Dru killed me—stupid hair and all."

"Stupider than the bleach job?"

"Hey, I'm fucking hot with the punk look." He smirked. "Never had any problem pulling, birds or blokes."

Xander blinked. "You just lost me there. Pulling what?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "I've gotta get you a bleeding English dictionary."

"So why'd you stop bleaching, if you liked it so much?"

"Thought it better to lie low. Too many demons in town who've heard of 'the vampire with the long black coat and the white hair' and since I don't have the fangs anymore..."

There was something else different about Spike, and it'd been bugging Xander ever since he first saw him in the porn store—and suddenly it clicked. "Hey, you used to have a scar on your eyebrow, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I guess." Spike touched the place where the jagged white scar used to be. "Got it from the first Slayer I killed. Carried it for over a century." His voice sort of faded at the end, faraway. Then he drained his tea and stood up. "Look, I've got to get ready for work. You have anything else to say?"

"You didn't say whether you'd come to Rome."

He shrugged. "I'll think on it. Rupert can ring me, like I said."

Xander stood up too. "There was one other thing. I told him about your headaches, and he said it was possible there was some magical cause. He could look into that, or Willow could."

That stopped Spike. He stared at Xander for a few seconds, only it was like he was looking through him instead of at him. Then the corner of his mouth twisted up at he looked at Xander for real. "That's the deal, then? If I work for him he'll try to fix me?"

Xander shrugged, since that was pretty much what Giles had said. "You got a better offer coming from somewhere?"

"No," Spike admitted, pretty quietly. "Not particularly."

"Hey, before I go—" Xander said, taking a step towards the door, "When you were working with Angel last year did you ever run into Cordy or Wes?"

"Oh. Yeah, uh," Spike rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, like he was trying to figure out how to answer the question. Which gave Xander kind of a bad feeling, because it was a pretty simple question. "Actually, what would you say to getting together for drinks after the store closes?"

"Yeah," Xander said, pushing the worry away for now. "Sure. I'll meet you at two."