Update: Before the Time of Dawn
Nov. 6th, 2005 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowscastI've got another chapter done! At the expense of many other things I should be doing in my life (how do those dishes pile up so fast?) but hey, it's worth it for the art, right? *g*
Before the Time of Dawn (WIP: 4 of ?)
By:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadowscast
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: R for naughty language and implied sexual situations
Summary: Post-series Spike and Xander must travel six years back in time to prevent an apocalypse in the future.
Notes: This chapter is about 3000 words. Beta read by the lovelyflurblewig. Feedback and concrit welcome in comments or by email.
Click for:
Previous chapters in "Before the Time of Dawn"
Previous stories in the Fragments 'verse
Cross-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spike_fics
Cross-posted tobloodclaim
Chapter Four
"We're going to the hospital."
"No, we're bloody well not."
"You got bit, Spike. You're bleeding from the neck." Xander managed to keep his voice from cracking, but he had to clench his fist hard to keep his free hand from shaking. The other hand was tucked under Spike's armpit, holding him up.
"It's nothing." Spike moved his hand, uncovering the neck wound. "Is it spurting?" He waited for a second until he could answer his own question. "No. Not spurting. He didn't get the jugular. He was a sodding fledge, fresh outta the ground. I just need a bandaid and I'll be fine. We go to the hospital, things get very fucking complicated."
"Okay," Xander conceded reluctantly. "Let's at least get back to the motel before any more of the Sunnydale nightlife tries to eat us."
He tucked the broken fence slat under the back of his belt, just in case. Then they made their limping way towards the Downtowner, avoiding graveyards and dark alleys.
"So do you think that dusting that fledge will screw things up?" Xander asked.
"Moot point now," Spike observed. He shrugged, and winced. "I didn't recognize him. Probably in the original timeline Buffy dusted him some night on patrol. Shouldn't make a difference that we saved her the trouble." He stumbled, and Xander caught him.
"I will be really pissed," Xander said, making sure Spike was steady before he let go, "if we get back to the future and find out that vampire was supposed to have saved the world."
They made it back to the Downtowner without any more excitement. When they got close Xander kept out a wary eye for any other guests coming or going—specifically, Faith—and with the coast clear, they ducked quickly into their room. Spike tossed his blood-soaked shirt in the garbage, Xander cleaned the bite and taped a bandage over it, and they collapsed into bed together.
The bed squeaked.
"Well, that was a fun day," Spike said. "Wonder what tomorrow will bring?"
"And you said I was jinxing us."
"Touché," Spike admitted.
Xander rolled up on his elbow and took a good look at Spike. He'd taken the brunt of the beating from that vampire; Xander had just got knocked to the ground once, and then run off for the stake. Spike's face was almost unmarked, which was a good thing considering that they still needed to move inconspicuously around town: there was a scrape just outside his right eye, probably where he'd banged against the fence, but that was all. Then there was the white bandage taped to his neck with two red dots already soaking through: not an uncommon injury in Sunnydale, though usually a fatal one. His torso had taken most of the damage, and Xander wondered whether Spike would even tell him if he had a broken rib. "Hey, Spike," Xander said softly, touching his undamaged cheek, "how badly are you hurt?"
"I'll be fine," Spike said predictably, avoiding Xander's eye.
"Seriously, I want to know." Xander ran his finger down Spike's cheek to his jawbone, trailed down to the collarbone, hesitated there. "'Cause I really wanna have sex with you and I want to know if it's okay."
"Oh." Surprise, pleasure and relief mingled in the syllable. Spike looked at Xander straight on. "In that case—it's perfectly okay, luv, but we'd best be gentle, I'm a bit banged up."
Sex was slow, sweet, life-affirming. A lot of kisses before anything else—exploring, testing, celebrating. When they were done they lay snuggled together until the shift in Spike's breathing let Xander know he'd fallen asleep. About the same time, Xander's stomach started growling. Between jet lag and time travel Xander's inner clock felt like a Salvador Dali painting, but he suddenly realized it had been a hell of a long time since he last ate.
It wasn't even very late, local time—not quite ten o'clock. There was a 7-11 a block away from the motel, so Xander left Spike sleeping and came back ten minutes later with two plastic-wrapped ham sandwiches. He woke Spike up, they shared a not very exciting dinner and watched basketball on cable—"I think I remember this one," Xander said, "The Lakers win,"—and they finally went to bed for real. Xander pretended not to notice that Spike took a couple of prescription-strength painkillers along with his normal bedtime pills. If he said anything about it he worried Spike would just start hiding them from him again the way he had the first few months they'd lived together.
"I love you," Xander whispered once the lights were off and Spike's warm body was pressed against his.
"Love you too," Spike whispered in return.
***
Xander woke up before sunrise. He lay quietly in bed beside Spike until there was enough light to distinguish the patterns in the wallpaper from the water stains, and then he slipped out from under the covers. The digital clock said 6:47. He pulled on shorts, a T-shirt and running shoes, and threaded the room key onto a chain he could wear round his neck. He opened the door a crack, peeked down the walkway to make sure Faith wasn't around—if memory served she'd probably be asleep at this hour, but if she wasn't she was more likely to be on her way in than out—and seeing that the coast was clear he eased out the door and closed it gingerly behind him. He was always so careful not to wake Spike up, even though he knew from experience that these hours in the morning were the time Spike was most deeply asleep.
Keeping the Faith problem in mind, he jogged immediately away from the motel, covering a couple blocks at a gentle pace before he stopped to stretch.
These morning runs had become routine over the past few months. He'd needed something to do to fill the time until Spike woke up. Spike needed a lot of sleep, about nine hours a night, while Xander could never manage more than about six. Even when they were in their own apartment in Rome, it was hard for him to kill three hours in the morning without disturbing Spike. So he left the apartment—he went running.
He'd been surprised at how much running seemed to help with everything else. It was like meditation, kind of, only without the need to sit still. Things would come up in his mind while he ran, and the rhythm of his sneakers on the ground and his in-and-out breath would keep him from getting lost in the worry or fear or regret, and then after a while the thoughts would slip away and there'd be nothing but the running. He didn't have nightmares about the Congo anymore, or about Caleb, or even about high school. And as an added plus, he was in the best shape of his life.
One thing he thought about a lot when he ran was Spike. They'd been dating now for over half a year, counting from that night in Germany. Xander tried to imagine what his younger self, probably asleep now in his parents' basement, would say if he told him. He wasn't even sure which factor would freak him out the most: that he was dating a former vampire, that he was dating a guy, or that he was dating Spike.
Probably his younger self would punch him in the face, call him a liar and a demon, and go running to Buffy for help. Good thing he wasn't planning on making that visit.
Still, he let the dialogue with his younger self play out in his imagination.
"He's not evil anymore," he silently told teenaged Xander. "He's human now. And he died saving the world—twice! And even before that, he went and got a soul—on purpose, not like Angel. And even before that he helped us fight demons, baby-sat Dawn, let Glory nearly kill him. I don't think he ever was all that evil, not like other vampires."
"Are you insane?" his younger self exploded inside his head. "You know when the last time I saw Spike was? He gave me a concussion, threatened Will, and kidnapped us away to the old factory. Cordelia caught us kissing and got impaled on a piece of rebar!"
"Well, okay, yeah," Xander admitted, "I mean, he was a vampire."
"So what the hell do you see in him?" younger Xander asked.
"For one thing, he's fucking hot," Xander said. "You can't tell me you haven't noticed—I know damn well you have."
"No comment," said younger Xander, since of course he couldn't deny it what with older Xander knowing his every thought. Well, and it didn't hurt that older Xander was actually controlling both sides of this conversation.
"You wouldn't believe the things he knows how to do with his tongue," Xander went on. "I mean, seriously: think over a century of practice."
"Does he still do that thing where he tilts his head a bit and raises his eyebrow and looks at you like he's thinking about eating you?" younger Xander asked. "'Cause that always was weirdly sexy..."
"Now you're getting it!"
"Okay, but even if he's sexy, and not necessarily evil, what about the fact that he's an asshole?"
"Hey, you're the one who dated Cordelia."
"Technically, wasn't that you, too?"
In the real world, Xander came to a red light and jogged in place, waiting for the green. "Try to stay with the point, okay?" he thought at younger Xander. "The thing with Cordelia worked for as long as it did because insults are sexy. Fighting with her made you hot. You never wanted to date someone sweet; if you had, there was Willow." The light changed and Xander loped forward. "And hey, Spike can be sweet. But he's also snarky and prickly and a little bit dangerous."
"Oh yeah, that sounds like a great basis for a relationship," younger Xander said, bitingly sarcastic. "I mean, okay, I'll admit that me and Cordelia weren't the poster children for happily-ever-after. But that was a high school thing. You're, what, twenty-four? Shouldn't you be taking things more seriously now?"
"This is serious," Xander said. "Maybe I'm not explaining it right. Being with Spike is really good, okay? Good like the best times with Anya. He's ... I'm better, when I'm with him. I stopped smoking, I stopped drinking, I can talk to him like no one else. He gets me. And you know, I think I'm good for him too. I think he was kind of ... lost, until I came along."
Younger Xander stayed silent for a moment, as though in contemplation of the many very serious issues Xander had raised in that little speech. Then he asked, "Who's Anya?"
Xander laughed out loud. He broke his own rhythm and stumbled over a crack in the pavement and steadied himself against a nearby brick wall, still laughing. "I don't even know who Anya is yet!" he said to the wall.
"Hey man," said a strangely familiar, slightly out-of-breath voice behind him, "are you okay?"
Xander turned half around and his eye widened. Larry. He barely stopped himself from saying the name out loud.
"Xander!" Larry said, sounding surprised. "I didn't recognize—I've been pacing myself off you for the past couple blocks, hope you don't mind. I didn't know you ran," he added.
Shit. Shit. Shit. "I'm sorry," he said, "you've got the wrong guy." He turned all the way to face Larry, revealing his eyepatch.
Larry frowned slightly. "Oh, yeah, now I see—man, you look just like this guy I know. Only, I guess he's a bit younger. Hey, you wouldn't be any relation to Xander Harris, would you?"
"Oh, Xander Harris," Xander said, grasping at the straw Larry had just handed him. "Yeah, actually. He's my cousin."
Larry nodded. "You've got a major family resemblance going on there. Oh," he held out his hand, "I'm Larry. I go to school with Xander."
Xander shook his hand, feeling very weird. "Rigby," he said, giving the name of his real 30-year-old cousin in Tulsa. "Nice to meet you."
Larry grinned and gave Xander's hand a healthy squeeze. "I'll have to tell Xander I ran into you."
"No!" Xander said quickly. "I'd, uh, rather not let the Harrises know I'm in town. I'm just here on business. We're not on good terms."
"Oh. Uh, sorry to hear it," Larry said, looking a bit awkward now. "Anyway, I'd better get going before I cool down. I won't say anything to Xander."
He started to turn to leave, and Xander suddenly flashed on the memory of the last time he'd seen Larry. Graduation Day.
Xander sprinted to catch up. "Hey," he said, "I have to finish my run, too. Mind if I join you?"
What the hell are you doing, you idiot? Xander asked himself. This is the opposite of being careful and lying low!
He thinks I'm Rigby, he told himself. He won't say anything to anybody. And he'll be dead in six months.
That's what it was about, of course. If Sunnydale was a ghost town, Larry was one of the ghosts.
Not like they'd ever exactly been friends, but Larry had proved himself in the end. Hell, if he'd survived Graduation Day he might be an Associate of the new Council now, just like Xander and Spike.
"I'm gay," Xander said out loud suddenly, without preamble. "That's why the Harrises don't like me."
"Huh?" Running alongside, Larry cast him a startled look. "No kidding! So am I!"
"I know," Xander said without thinking, and then bit his tongue.
"Xander tell you?" Larry asked.
"Yeah," Xander agreed quickly, "I realized it was you when you told me your name." Oh yeah, Xander, you are a smooth operator, he winced mentally.
"Is he out to you?"
Xander thought about his eighteen-year-old self, about the desperate panic that had seized him every time Larry tried to have a frank talk with him about sexuality. "No," he said, thinking it was an honest answer in some sense. "I don't think he's even out to himself, yet."
"It's weird," Larry said, "he came out to me last year—gave me the courage to face myself, you know?—but ever since then he's been living in Narnia."
"Narnia?" Xander repeated, slightly confused.
"Way the hell in the back of the closet," Larry explained with a grin. "Hadn't heard that one before?"
Xander shook his head, grinned back.
"Maybe you should talk to him about it," Larry said.
"It'll happen when he's ready," Xander said. "I think he needs to grow up some more—get out of Sunnydale, maybe."
"Hell, we all need to get out of Sunnydale," Larry said, laughing-serious.
Suddenly there was a lump in Xander's throat and he couldn't reply. He swallowed hard and concentrated on the rhythm of their sneakers on the sidewalk. "Someday," he managed to say, "he's gonna look back on all this and admire you."
"I guess," Larry said, not really listening. "Hey, I have to turn off here."
"Okay," Xander said, slowing down alongside Larry and thinking of all the things he wished he could say. Stay away from giant snakes. Look behind you. Tuck and roll. "I'm really glad we met," he said. "Good-bye."
***
Spike stirred in bed when Xander closed the door behind himself. "Luv?" he said sleepily. "That you?"
"It better be, or you're in trouble," Xander pointed out. He kicked his sneakers off and went to sit on the edge of the bed beside Spike.
Spike took his glasses from the bedside table and blinked up at Xander. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Xander said.
"Don't give me that. It's written all over your face." Spike braced himself on one elbow and sat up so he could cup Xander's cheek in his hand. He brushed his thumb along Xander's jaw and said, "Tell me."
Xander was distracted for a moment by the sight of Spike's chest—the blanket had slipped down to reveal numerous bright red bruises, big and splotchy. There were bruises on his forearm, too, where the vampire had grabbed him. "Shit," Xander said, "you're a mess."
Spike narrowed his eyes. "Don't change the subject, pet."
"Okay," Xander sighed. "I ran into someone I knew from school. Larry. We talked a bit. It was a head trip."
Spike raised his eyebrow. "You didn't say anything foolish, did you?"
"Nah. I said I was my older cousin, and we just talked about life and stuff." Xander let out a slow breath, and then added, "He was one of the kids who died fighting the Mayor."
"Oh," Spike said. "Like Harm."
"Yeah, only he didn't get vamped, just dead."
"Sorry, luv," Spike said softly. "You want to talk about it some?"
Xander shook his head. "Nah. It's okay. I'd better have a shower."
Spike shrugged. "Then let me come along and wash your back."
"I kinda want to be alone," Xander said.
"No you don't." Spike touched Xander's hair and seemed to consider kissing him but decide against it. "If you did, you wouldn't have come back here yet."
"You're hurt," Xander said, protesting for form's sake now because he really did want Spike to take him into the shower and kiss him and make him forget that there was no real reason beyond the capriciousness of the universe that Larry had died and Xander had lived.
"Bruises, scratches, nothing serious," Spike said. "Hot water will do me good."
So Xander let Spike lead him into the bathroom, waited for him to run the shower, and then in the wet and the steam he closed his eye and let the gentle feel of Spike's hands take him away from everything else.
Before the Time of Dawn (WIP: 4 of ?)
By:
shadowscastPairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: R for naughty language and implied sexual situations
Summary: Post-series Spike and Xander must travel six years back in time to prevent an apocalypse in the future.
Notes: This chapter is about 3000 words. Beta read by the lovely
flurblewig. Feedback and concrit welcome in comments or by email.Click for:
Previous chapters in "Before the Time of Dawn"
Previous stories in the Fragments 'verse
Cross-posted to
spike_ficsCross-posted to
bloodclaim"We're going to the hospital."
"No, we're bloody well not."
"You got bit, Spike. You're bleeding from the neck." Xander managed to keep his voice from cracking, but he had to clench his fist hard to keep his free hand from shaking. The other hand was tucked under Spike's armpit, holding him up.
"It's nothing." Spike moved his hand, uncovering the neck wound. "Is it spurting?" He waited for a second until he could answer his own question. "No. Not spurting. He didn't get the jugular. He was a sodding fledge, fresh outta the ground. I just need a bandaid and I'll be fine. We go to the hospital, things get very fucking complicated."
"Okay," Xander conceded reluctantly. "Let's at least get back to the motel before any more of the Sunnydale nightlife tries to eat us."
He tucked the broken fence slat under the back of his belt, just in case. Then they made their limping way towards the Downtowner, avoiding graveyards and dark alleys.
"So do you think that dusting that fledge will screw things up?" Xander asked.
"Moot point now," Spike observed. He shrugged, and winced. "I didn't recognize him. Probably in the original timeline Buffy dusted him some night on patrol. Shouldn't make a difference that we saved her the trouble." He stumbled, and Xander caught him.
"I will be really pissed," Xander said, making sure Spike was steady before he let go, "if we get back to the future and find out that vampire was supposed to have saved the world."
They made it back to the Downtowner without any more excitement. When they got close Xander kept out a wary eye for any other guests coming or going—specifically, Faith—and with the coast clear, they ducked quickly into their room. Spike tossed his blood-soaked shirt in the garbage, Xander cleaned the bite and taped a bandage over it, and they collapsed into bed together.
The bed squeaked.
"Well, that was a fun day," Spike said. "Wonder what tomorrow will bring?"
"And you said I was jinxing us."
"Touché," Spike admitted.
Xander rolled up on his elbow and took a good look at Spike. He'd taken the brunt of the beating from that vampire; Xander had just got knocked to the ground once, and then run off for the stake. Spike's face was almost unmarked, which was a good thing considering that they still needed to move inconspicuously around town: there was a scrape just outside his right eye, probably where he'd banged against the fence, but that was all. Then there was the white bandage taped to his neck with two red dots already soaking through: not an uncommon injury in Sunnydale, though usually a fatal one. His torso had taken most of the damage, and Xander wondered whether Spike would even tell him if he had a broken rib. "Hey, Spike," Xander said softly, touching his undamaged cheek, "how badly are you hurt?"
"I'll be fine," Spike said predictably, avoiding Xander's eye.
"Seriously, I want to know." Xander ran his finger down Spike's cheek to his jawbone, trailed down to the collarbone, hesitated there. "'Cause I really wanna have sex with you and I want to know if it's okay."
"Oh." Surprise, pleasure and relief mingled in the syllable. Spike looked at Xander straight on. "In that case—it's perfectly okay, luv, but we'd best be gentle, I'm a bit banged up."
Sex was slow, sweet, life-affirming. A lot of kisses before anything else—exploring, testing, celebrating. When they were done they lay snuggled together until the shift in Spike's breathing let Xander know he'd fallen asleep. About the same time, Xander's stomach started growling. Between jet lag and time travel Xander's inner clock felt like a Salvador Dali painting, but he suddenly realized it had been a hell of a long time since he last ate.
It wasn't even very late, local time—not quite ten o'clock. There was a 7-11 a block away from the motel, so Xander left Spike sleeping and came back ten minutes later with two plastic-wrapped ham sandwiches. He woke Spike up, they shared a not very exciting dinner and watched basketball on cable—"I think I remember this one," Xander said, "The Lakers win,"—and they finally went to bed for real. Xander pretended not to notice that Spike took a couple of prescription-strength painkillers along with his normal bedtime pills. If he said anything about it he worried Spike would just start hiding them from him again the way he had the first few months they'd lived together.
"I love you," Xander whispered once the lights were off and Spike's warm body was pressed against his.
"Love you too," Spike whispered in return.
Xander woke up before sunrise. He lay quietly in bed beside Spike until there was enough light to distinguish the patterns in the wallpaper from the water stains, and then he slipped out from under the covers. The digital clock said 6:47. He pulled on shorts, a T-shirt and running shoes, and threaded the room key onto a chain he could wear round his neck. He opened the door a crack, peeked down the walkway to make sure Faith wasn't around—if memory served she'd probably be asleep at this hour, but if she wasn't she was more likely to be on her way in than out—and seeing that the coast was clear he eased out the door and closed it gingerly behind him. He was always so careful not to wake Spike up, even though he knew from experience that these hours in the morning were the time Spike was most deeply asleep.
Keeping the Faith problem in mind, he jogged immediately away from the motel, covering a couple blocks at a gentle pace before he stopped to stretch.
These morning runs had become routine over the past few months. He'd needed something to do to fill the time until Spike woke up. Spike needed a lot of sleep, about nine hours a night, while Xander could never manage more than about six. Even when they were in their own apartment in Rome, it was hard for him to kill three hours in the morning without disturbing Spike. So he left the apartment—he went running.
He'd been surprised at how much running seemed to help with everything else. It was like meditation, kind of, only without the need to sit still. Things would come up in his mind while he ran, and the rhythm of his sneakers on the ground and his in-and-out breath would keep him from getting lost in the worry or fear or regret, and then after a while the thoughts would slip away and there'd be nothing but the running. He didn't have nightmares about the Congo anymore, or about Caleb, or even about high school. And as an added plus, he was in the best shape of his life.
One thing he thought about a lot when he ran was Spike. They'd been dating now for over half a year, counting from that night in Germany. Xander tried to imagine what his younger self, probably asleep now in his parents' basement, would say if he told him. He wasn't even sure which factor would freak him out the most: that he was dating a former vampire, that he was dating a guy, or that he was dating Spike.
Probably his younger self would punch him in the face, call him a liar and a demon, and go running to Buffy for help. Good thing he wasn't planning on making that visit.
Still, he let the dialogue with his younger self play out in his imagination.
"He's not evil anymore," he silently told teenaged Xander. "He's human now. And he died saving the world—twice! And even before that, he went and got a soul—on purpose, not like Angel. And even before that he helped us fight demons, baby-sat Dawn, let Glory nearly kill him. I don't think he ever was all that evil, not like other vampires."
"Are you insane?" his younger self exploded inside his head. "You know when the last time I saw Spike was? He gave me a concussion, threatened Will, and kidnapped us away to the old factory. Cordelia caught us kissing and got impaled on a piece of rebar!"
"Well, okay, yeah," Xander admitted, "I mean, he was a vampire."
"So what the hell do you see in him?" younger Xander asked.
"For one thing, he's fucking hot," Xander said. "You can't tell me you haven't noticed—I know damn well you have."
"No comment," said younger Xander, since of course he couldn't deny it what with older Xander knowing his every thought. Well, and it didn't hurt that older Xander was actually controlling both sides of this conversation.
"You wouldn't believe the things he knows how to do with his tongue," Xander went on. "I mean, seriously: think over a century of practice."
"Does he still do that thing where he tilts his head a bit and raises his eyebrow and looks at you like he's thinking about eating you?" younger Xander asked. "'Cause that always was weirdly sexy..."
"Now you're getting it!"
"Okay, but even if he's sexy, and not necessarily evil, what about the fact that he's an asshole?"
"Hey, you're the one who dated Cordelia."
"Technically, wasn't that you, too?"
In the real world, Xander came to a red light and jogged in place, waiting for the green. "Try to stay with the point, okay?" he thought at younger Xander. "The thing with Cordelia worked for as long as it did because insults are sexy. Fighting with her made you hot. You never wanted to date someone sweet; if you had, there was Willow." The light changed and Xander loped forward. "And hey, Spike can be sweet. But he's also snarky and prickly and a little bit dangerous."
"Oh yeah, that sounds like a great basis for a relationship," younger Xander said, bitingly sarcastic. "I mean, okay, I'll admit that me and Cordelia weren't the poster children for happily-ever-after. But that was a high school thing. You're, what, twenty-four? Shouldn't you be taking things more seriously now?"
"This is serious," Xander said. "Maybe I'm not explaining it right. Being with Spike is really good, okay? Good like the best times with Anya. He's ... I'm better, when I'm with him. I stopped smoking, I stopped drinking, I can talk to him like no one else. He gets me. And you know, I think I'm good for him too. I think he was kind of ... lost, until I came along."
Younger Xander stayed silent for a moment, as though in contemplation of the many very serious issues Xander had raised in that little speech. Then he asked, "Who's Anya?"
Xander laughed out loud. He broke his own rhythm and stumbled over a crack in the pavement and steadied himself against a nearby brick wall, still laughing. "I don't even know who Anya is yet!" he said to the wall.
"Hey man," said a strangely familiar, slightly out-of-breath voice behind him, "are you okay?"
Xander turned half around and his eye widened. Larry. He barely stopped himself from saying the name out loud.
"Xander!" Larry said, sounding surprised. "I didn't recognize—I've been pacing myself off you for the past couple blocks, hope you don't mind. I didn't know you ran," he added.
Shit. Shit. Shit. "I'm sorry," he said, "you've got the wrong guy." He turned all the way to face Larry, revealing his eyepatch.
Larry frowned slightly. "Oh, yeah, now I see—man, you look just like this guy I know. Only, I guess he's a bit younger. Hey, you wouldn't be any relation to Xander Harris, would you?"
"Oh, Xander Harris," Xander said, grasping at the straw Larry had just handed him. "Yeah, actually. He's my cousin."
Larry nodded. "You've got a major family resemblance going on there. Oh," he held out his hand, "I'm Larry. I go to school with Xander."
Xander shook his hand, feeling very weird. "Rigby," he said, giving the name of his real 30-year-old cousin in Tulsa. "Nice to meet you."
Larry grinned and gave Xander's hand a healthy squeeze. "I'll have to tell Xander I ran into you."
"No!" Xander said quickly. "I'd, uh, rather not let the Harrises know I'm in town. I'm just here on business. We're not on good terms."
"Oh. Uh, sorry to hear it," Larry said, looking a bit awkward now. "Anyway, I'd better get going before I cool down. I won't say anything to Xander."
He started to turn to leave, and Xander suddenly flashed on the memory of the last time he'd seen Larry. Graduation Day.
Xander sprinted to catch up. "Hey," he said, "I have to finish my run, too. Mind if I join you?"
What the hell are you doing, you idiot? Xander asked himself. This is the opposite of being careful and lying low!
He thinks I'm Rigby, he told himself. He won't say anything to anybody. And he'll be dead in six months.
That's what it was about, of course. If Sunnydale was a ghost town, Larry was one of the ghosts.
Not like they'd ever exactly been friends, but Larry had proved himself in the end. Hell, if he'd survived Graduation Day he might be an Associate of the new Council now, just like Xander and Spike.
"I'm gay," Xander said out loud suddenly, without preamble. "That's why the Harrises don't like me."
"Huh?" Running alongside, Larry cast him a startled look. "No kidding! So am I!"
"I know," Xander said without thinking, and then bit his tongue.
"Xander tell you?" Larry asked.
"Yeah," Xander agreed quickly, "I realized it was you when you told me your name." Oh yeah, Xander, you are a smooth operator, he winced mentally.
"Is he out to you?"
Xander thought about his eighteen-year-old self, about the desperate panic that had seized him every time Larry tried to have a frank talk with him about sexuality. "No," he said, thinking it was an honest answer in some sense. "I don't think he's even out to himself, yet."
"It's weird," Larry said, "he came out to me last year—gave me the courage to face myself, you know?—but ever since then he's been living in Narnia."
"Narnia?" Xander repeated, slightly confused.
"Way the hell in the back of the closet," Larry explained with a grin. "Hadn't heard that one before?"
Xander shook his head, grinned back.
"Maybe you should talk to him about it," Larry said.
"It'll happen when he's ready," Xander said. "I think he needs to grow up some more—get out of Sunnydale, maybe."
"Hell, we all need to get out of Sunnydale," Larry said, laughing-serious.
Suddenly there was a lump in Xander's throat and he couldn't reply. He swallowed hard and concentrated on the rhythm of their sneakers on the sidewalk. "Someday," he managed to say, "he's gonna look back on all this and admire you."
"I guess," Larry said, not really listening. "Hey, I have to turn off here."
"Okay," Xander said, slowing down alongside Larry and thinking of all the things he wished he could say. Stay away from giant snakes. Look behind you. Tuck and roll. "I'm really glad we met," he said. "Good-bye."
Spike stirred in bed when Xander closed the door behind himself. "Luv?" he said sleepily. "That you?"
"It better be, or you're in trouble," Xander pointed out. He kicked his sneakers off and went to sit on the edge of the bed beside Spike.
Spike took his glasses from the bedside table and blinked up at Xander. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Xander said.
"Don't give me that. It's written all over your face." Spike braced himself on one elbow and sat up so he could cup Xander's cheek in his hand. He brushed his thumb along Xander's jaw and said, "Tell me."
Xander was distracted for a moment by the sight of Spike's chest—the blanket had slipped down to reveal numerous bright red bruises, big and splotchy. There were bruises on his forearm, too, where the vampire had grabbed him. "Shit," Xander said, "you're a mess."
Spike narrowed his eyes. "Don't change the subject, pet."
"Okay," Xander sighed. "I ran into someone I knew from school. Larry. We talked a bit. It was a head trip."
Spike raised his eyebrow. "You didn't say anything foolish, did you?"
"Nah. I said I was my older cousin, and we just talked about life and stuff." Xander let out a slow breath, and then added, "He was one of the kids who died fighting the Mayor."
"Oh," Spike said. "Like Harm."
"Yeah, only he didn't get vamped, just dead."
"Sorry, luv," Spike said softly. "You want to talk about it some?"
Xander shook his head. "Nah. It's okay. I'd better have a shower."
Spike shrugged. "Then let me come along and wash your back."
"I kinda want to be alone," Xander said.
"No you don't." Spike touched Xander's hair and seemed to consider kissing him but decide against it. "If you did, you wouldn't have come back here yet."
"You're hurt," Xander said, protesting for form's sake now because he really did want Spike to take him into the shower and kiss him and make him forget that there was no real reason beyond the capriciousness of the universe that Larry had died and Xander had lived.
"Bruises, scratches, nothing serious," Spike said. "Hot water will do me good."
So Xander let Spike lead him into the bathroom, waited for him to run the shower, and then in the wet and the steam he closed his eye and let the gentle feel of Spike's hands take him away from everything else.
