"You can't play that card there, Xander."
"What? Why can't I? You're cheating again, Ahn. And would you pull your damn robe up, *please*?"
Anya sat up, yanking up her robe. "You can't play an opposite suit against the dealt hand! How many times do I have to tell you that?"
Xander flicked his hand of cards at her, scattering cards everywhere. "I don’t want to play this game any more, Ahn. It's stupid and you *cheat* at it. You cheat at *all* the card games you want to play!"
"And you notice it's that I cheat at every card game you *loose*"
"I loose because you *cheat*! I only *loose* because you *cheat*! Notice that phenomena? The parallel? You cheat and I loose. You change the rules to make *sure* I loose!"
"I do not! I don't have to cheat to beat you! And would you tie your robe, please! I don't want to look at your stomach and it's rippling muscles!"
"Fine!" Xander stood and yanked his robe closed, cinching it tight with a breath-stealing yank. "Perhaps my stomach muscles and I will just head to bed. How'd you like that?" He demanded with a whisper, his breathe stolen from his massive robe tie.
Anya shrugged, her robe drooping. She yanked it back up. "Makes no never mind to me; take them to bed. Who cares? I certainly don’t. I don’t need them or you."
They heard a scratching at the door and froze.
They grinned at each other. "Chair is in the room?" Anya asked, moving to the door and locking the lock Spike had just unlocked.
"It is."
Anya relocked another lock. "Okay. 1, 2, 3." She relocked all the locks. *Go*."
They ran to the Spike room and sat at their pre-planed and pre-posed places, picked up their stacked hands of cards and waited.
Spike stopped in the kitchen and they both shifted uncomfortably sharing an aggrieved look.
Spike came into the room whistling. He stopped dead and coughed. "Sorry. You two wanna use this room?"
Anya laid a card down and looked over her shoulder to smile and laugh flirtatiously. "Why yes. We wanna play cards, Spike. With you." She leaned forward and her robe stayed modestly upright. She glared at her shoulder.
Xander picked up a card, played it and discarded another. "Yeah. Wanna play with us?" He ignored the glare that Anya turned his way, well aware that he'd stolen her line, and leaned back in his chair. He almost tipped over and windmilled his arms to stay upright, jerking forward. Anya snickered at him.
"Oh, yeah sure, rummy is it?" Spike came around and sat in his chair. He swiped up the cards and began to shuffle. "New deal?" He'd all ready pulled the aces out and placed them on the bottom. "My deal."
"Spike!"
"Spike, what happened to you?"
"What?" Spike looked around him, checked his hands and arms. "What?"
"You're bleeding!"
"What? I am? Where?"
"Your eye! Over your eye."
Spike swiped the back of his hand across his forehead. He pulled it back and looked at it. Bloody. "Oh, yeah." He licked the blood from his hand and continued to shuffle. "Yeah. He got in a good one. I'm fine. Just fine . . ." he looked up and surveyed the empty room. "Guys? Ahn? Xan? What? We can't play cards cause I didn't duck a punch? That hardly seems fair."
They both rushed back into the room, Anya with a damp cloth and Xander with the first-aid kit. Spike shrank back against his chair. "Guys? M'okay, really. It's just a nick."
Anya swabbed his cut. He pulled further back. "Bloody hell, Ahn. That hurts! What's it? Petrol? *Not* an approved germ-killer and by the by, I don’t *need* a germ killer." He turned his beseeching gaze to Xander. Xander moved Anya's hand and it's evil antiseptic doused cloth back to his cut. "Ow! *Stop* that!"
Anya looked at Xander. "It needs a butter-fly patch, don’t you think?"
Xander nodded. "Yeah. Maybe two."
"It does *not*." Spike told them, offended.
Anya reached out and began pushing the open ends of the cut together. "Tape 'em."
Spike knocked her hands away and stood to avoid Xander's hands and thier plasters. "What in the bloody hell is wrong with you two? It's a cut. A gash. A boo, bloody, boo. Not a stake near me heart! Not even a splinter. My boo-boos heal just fine on their own, thank you very much. Vampire perk." Spike glared at them. "Are you two stoned? Have you been into my drink? Without asking?"
"Are you hurt anywhere else, Spike? Places we can't see?"
Spike took another step back. "Um. No. I'm peachy. Really. You can even call Buffy and ask her."
Anya and Xander both placed their hands on their hips in unison and glared at him. "We only want what's best for you, Spike." Xander told him, his voice the very tone of reason.
"You look hurt and we only want to help!" Anya said, her voice ringing with that special combo of concerned hysteria and miff, reserved for lovers and mothers. Spike liked it when it was directed at Xander; directed at him, however, was something completely different. Something creepy and scary.
Spike took another step back from the pair. "The both of you look all done in. What say you have a lie-down and I'll bring in a nice pot of tea, yeah? With lot's o' lemon and sugar? Yeah, that'd hit the spot, wouldn't. Go on." Spike moved to them and grabbed their arms. He propelled them out the door and pushed them towards their room. "Just rest a bit and I'll be back right quick."
"Well, okay. Are you sure? You're not feeling dizzy?" Anya wrapped her arm around Xander. "Do you think he should be making tea, Xan?"
"Well, no. Maybe I should help him."
"No!" Spike barked. "No. Really. I'll be fine. You two just lie down and rest. I be be back with the tea. You've both gone wonky. Hell, I'll even read you a story. Prove to you that I've all my mental faculties firmly about me." Spike continued to move them towards their room and had them lieing in bed and before they could say 'join us', he was out the door and in the kitchen.
Spike picked up the phone and punched in some numbers as he placed a kettle to boil.
"Yes?"
"Giles!" Spike reached for the tea, rejecting the breakfast blend and pulled down the soothing bedtime-mint with its cute bedtime bear.
"Spike? What is it? What's happened?"
"They've gone *nuts*, Rupert. Nuts."
Sigh. "Who's gone nuts, Spike?"
"You know!"
"What have they done?"
"They are trying to *patch* *me* *up*."
Pause.
"Patch me-"
"Yes, yes. Are you in pieces?"
"No! That's the thing! I'm *fine*! I came back with a cut over me eye! And that's it. And I swear, Ahn and Xander are about to do open, bloody, heart surgery on me."
"The"They're just worried about you."
Pause.
"Worried a-"
"I damn well heard you, Rupert!"
"Spike?"
"Yes?"
"I'm hanging up now. Go talk to your." Pause. "Go talk to Xander and Anya. And Spike?"
"Yeah?"
"Never call me again."
"As you say, Rupes, old boy. Call you later." Spike hung up the phone.
No help there; bloody useless watcher.
Spike prepared a tea tray. Tossed some cookies on a plate and added that. Perhaps it was low blood sugar. That did strange things to humans, he knew. He thought of all the candy they'd had at the carnival and put the cookies back, grabbing a bottle of vodka instead. Maybe sugar was the whole problem. And anyway, the vodka was a good idea. He'd need it if theldheld him to his word and made him read a bedtime story. He wouldn't put it passed them and he'd be able to fill 'em up with enough vodka to have 'em pass out.
He headed back to Xander and Anya's room and, not bothering to knock, just barged in, expecting to find the two in bed w he he'd left them.
They weren’t in bed where he'd left them. Bloody hell. He placed the tray on the bedside table and then his hands on his hips. "Where'd you two bugger off to?"
The door slammed shut and he turned to find Xander and Anya glaring at him.
He smiled.
They glared.
"Guys?" Spike cocked his head. He moved along the bed, keeping to its edge. He came to stand in front of it. He tried his smile again, the really *good* one. And they only glared.
"All right, now. 'Nuff o' this! What is wrong with the two of you?"
"Xander?"
"Yes, Ahn?"
"That stupid wrestling you make us watch?"
"Yeah."
"Close-line."
"Good idea." Xander reached out his hand and locked it with Anya's. The two rushed forward, catching an unprepared Spike across his chest and knocking him to the bed.
"What the bloody hell is *wrong* with you two? And I *demand* to know, right now!"
Xander and Anya ignored him, reaching for an arm each instead and pulling him up the bed until Spike's head hit the headboard.
"Opps."
"Sorry."
"'So' Kay. Just tell Spike what's yer malfunction and I'll make it all better. Can't be chip problems, or can it? You two get chipped while I was out for smokes? Whatever it is, I'll make it all better. Promise. I'll get the watcher on it. The witches. The slayer. Dawn,n. n. She's gotta be useful for *something* right? Guys?"
They ignored him, looking at each other instead. They smiled and then Xander's face bloomed into full on grin. The evil grin Spike thought so pretty.
"Hey, Ahn?"
"Yes?"
"We've got, Spike."
They turned their grins and gazes to Spike.
"Yes, we do." Anya winked down at him. "What are we gonna do with him?"
tbc
