shadowscast | How the Light Gets In (8/?)

And this time, a real chapter!

This is part of my Fragments series. It's a sequel to "Late Night Porn Store Blues," which is in turn a prequel to "Human Frailty."

Title: How The Light Gets In

Author:

shadowscast

Rating: R for the language at the moment. There might be some sexual content later.

Warnings: Spoilers for all of BtVS and AtS. The whole series was originally just an excuse to indulge my hurt/comfort kink. Somehow a plot crept in too (funny how that happens!) but expect lots of hurt/comfort still to come. My Spike's kinda broken, and my Xander's got problems of his own.

Summary: It's a few months after "Not Fade Away." Giles sent Xander to L.A. looking for a Slayer, and what he found was a human Spike and a not-human Illyria. Now Xander's supposed to recruit one or both of them for the Council.

Previous parts can be found here.

How the Light Gets In, Chapter 8

At about ten thirty the next morning, Xander stared up the stone steps at the big wooden front doors of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.

Intimidated? A little. Weirded out? A lot. When Illyria had told him where to find Spike, he'd thought at first she had to be joking. Or, given that she wasn't big with the humor—lying. She'd stuck to her story, though, even when Xander said it was an emergency, so here he was, climbing the steps.

Funny thing was, Xander had never been in a church before in his life. Walking through the door, he wasn't sure what the rules were—was he supposed to check in with someone? Take his shoes off? Drop to his knees and say three Hail Marys?

But no one stopped him; in fact the vestibule was empty. So he passed through the next set of doors and hey, there were all the people. Just like on TV, the huge stone room had stained glass windows, rows and rows of wooden benches, and a pulpit at the front with a priest behind it. There were maybe eighty people in the room, more grey haired than not. Spike was easy to spot by his electric white bleach job—that, and the fact that he was sitting alone on the last bench, just a few feet in front of Xander.

Xander slid into place beside him and whispered his name. Spike turned and his eyes widened. There were still smudges of black eyeliner ringing them, Xander noticed. Spike was dressed a bit more formally than last night, though—a gray button-down shirt with his black jeans.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Spike whispered.

Xander resisted the urge to throw the question right back at him—there'd be time for that later. "The Council needs you," he said instead.

"Right now?"

"Lives are in danger. Every minute counts. Come on, you know the drill."

Spike gave Xander a skeptical look. In the background, the priest droned on, telling a story about some guy called Lazarus. "Illyria must've told you where to find me, right?" Spike whispered. "If there's something needs killing, she's your girl."

"Not killing. Translating. Giles says you know Ancient Greek."

"Yeah, and? So does he."

So Giles had been right. Weird. No way would Xander have guessed Spike for a dead languages scholar. Of course, there's also no way he would've expected to find him in church, so hey. Weirdness abounding here.

"There's plenty Greek for the both of you," Xander explained. "He needs an entire book translated A.S.A.P." A gray-haired lady sitting a couple rows in front of them glanced backward with an annoyed expression, and Xander realized his voice had exceeded whisper. "Seriously, lives depend on it," he added more softly, but quickly. "Come with me now, I'll explain the rest."

"It's always something, innit?" Spike muttered, looking unenthusiastic about helping—but he followed Xander off the bench and out of the church.

On the way to the internet café, Xander gave Spike the run-down. One Slayer and two civilians had been bit by a giant snake-like demon in northern India.

"Oh, like that mayor of yours turned into?"

"Not that big. More like jumbo python-sized, with extra teeth."

Now the three people who'd been bit were sick. Their limbs were getting stiff, and their skin strangely hard. The elaborate and grotesque statuary in the den where two other Slayers had tracked down the snake demon suggested that the victims were actually turning to stone.

"And I come into this where?" Spike asked as they pulled into a parking space outside the cyber café.

"Giles found a reference to a cure, but the only surviving copy of the book it's supposedly in is in Ancient Greek. It's about four hundred pages long, and we need to find the right part fast. Giles thinks the people who got bit have a couple days, tops, before they turn into astonishingly lifelike lawn ornaments. So, division of labor—Dawn's scanning a part of the book to give to you."

"Dawn," Spike echoed softly as he followed Xander into the café, but he didn't follow up on the thought. "So, what, I'm going to sit here sipping a latté and translating the ancient mystical text? It's a bit public, innit?"

Xander shook his head and said in an undertone, "Dawn said I should print the pages and give them to you. You can take them home or whatever."

He paid for some time on one of the computers, and Spike silently watched as Xander logged onto his email account. There were a bunch of new messages from Dawn, all with big attachments: p1.jpg, p2.jpg and so on. "Hope we didn't just trap a demon in the Internet," Xander muttered, double-clicking the first one to open it.

"Can that happen?" Spike asked, crouching in close to see the window that popped up. He put his hand on Xander's shoulder as he leaned forward, and Xander felt suddenly warm. Last night's kiss flashed through his mind, and—Dammit, Xander, focus. Crisis.

"Surprisingly, yeah. This one time in high school, Willow accidentally released Moloch the Corrupter into the network by scanning the book he'd been trapped in since the Dark Ages," Xander explained absently as he clicked print and tried to ignore Spike's hand, still on his shoulder. "Then she had an internet affair with him, and then he turned into a giant robot and tried to kill us all. Just your average week at Sunnydale High."

He jumped up to get the printout, conveniently escaping Spike's touch at the same time. The page looked okay to him, so he handed it to Spike, who squinted at it for a few seconds then nodded. "This'll do. Do you have to print them all one at a time like that?"

"Yeah, I think so. She's sent every page as a separate file." Xander clicked the next one open.

"Right. Gimme your car keys, then." Spike held out his hand.

"Why?"

"Been over a century since I bothered with this shite. Gonna need a dictionary."

"Okay." Xander tossed him the keys. The Council was paying for the rental, anyway. "Where will you go, UCLA?" Spike gave a half nod, half shrug. "UCLA," Xander repeated more firmly. "I'll meet you there when I'm finished printing."

***

Printing the pages was a mindless task that gave Xander time to finally think about last night.

Spike. Lips of Spike.

They hadn't gone any further than kissing. He remembered being disappointed about that when he'd dropped Spike off at his place sometime around 2:30 a.m.. Now he knew relief of the profoundest, most knee-wobbling sort.

Bad enough that he'd gone home drunk with Andrew and had sex with him that one time. At least Andrew had felt as awkward about it as he had the morning after. Spike would have gloated. He would've seen it as a conquest, and he would've used it to mock Xander into the ground.

But...fucking hell, that kiss had been hot.

***

Finally done printing, he collected all the pages and took a cab to UCLA, where he found Spike in the humanities library. Spike had found the book he wanted, but needed Xander to pay for a library card so he could take it out.

"Though of just nicking it," Spike commented as they headed for the car, "but they have those magnetic sensor thingies at the doors..."

"Hey, you're supposed to be non-evil now." He glanced sideways at Spike, who shot him a who, me? grin.

And then Xander caught sight of the car.

"Spike," he said in a very mild tone, "When you borrowed the car it had two headlights, right?"

Spike shrugged. "What. The Council did spring for insurance, didn't it?"

"Fuck." Xander took in the damage. "Just tell me the police aren't after you." The right front headlight was smashed to bits, and the hood and bumper around it were crumpled.

"No problem there," Spike assured him, sounding totally unconcerned about the whole thing. "Look, it still runs fine. The damage is just aesthetic, like."

Xander smacked the hood of the car with his fist. "Fuck! There's no time for this." This was the Spike he remembered from Sunnydale—the one whose picture should be listed under 'irresponsible' in the dictionary. "You are such an asshole," he said through gritted teeth, and he must have sounded dangerous because Spike visibly flinched before he covered it up with a roll of his eyes and a muttered insult. Xander unclenched his hand and reminded himself: Lives are at stake. "Okay, if it can drive, we're driving. Get in the damn car. Passenger side!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

julia-here.livejournal.com

Well, that was nice and quick and faster than I would have believed! And do I espy the thin end of the wedge, there, with the translation?

There are no words for how much I love this story-world, and how glad I am you're writing it so very well.

Julia, transported

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How the Light Gets In (8/?)

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