Irony

*

Angel drove the car through the empty streets and the atmosphere was just about the opposite of the previous night, not that Angel seemed any happier now. In fact the great broody one seemed even more aggravated as he slammed the car around corners and hit the brakes way harder than necessary at every red light. Spike just sat silently in the front seat with his arms crossed, and I sat in the back seat behind him equally silent. Yep, the Xan-man could in fact be quiet, when I was angry enough. And talking about myself in third person borders on pathetic.

I put up my hand to brace myself against the seat as Angel hit the brakes again, this time next to a dark playground where moonlight on the empty swings and monkey bars cast strange blue shadows. I looked around for anything that might be a den of demons. Nada.

"Okay you two, out," Angel ordered as he opened his car door and slid out before slamming it shut a whole lot harder than the door really needed in order to close properly. I didn't bother with the passenger side door since that would have meant getting near Spike. I sorta crawled over to the driver's side and threw a leg over the side of the car to get out. Angel had already walked around to the passenger side, so I followed him, and why was I here again? The middle of some demon city with Spike and Angel was not sounding like much fun. I really couldn't figure out which part of my brain had voted for going on this little jaunt.

"Right, where are the demons?" Spike asked briskly as he started walking into the park, and he just looked smaller without the leather coat. Instead he had on black jeans that looked poured on and a black t-shirt. It actually would have been good camouflage in the dark except for his shocking white-blond hair.

"Right now the only demons I care about are you two," Angel said through tight lips, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize that I was one of the two demons. Still didn't sound right.

"Bloody hell, Peaches, just keep your nose out of it."

"No, I don't think so. I'm not liking this new Xander much, and I’m liking you even less, boy."

"Can't say I care," I snapped at the same time that Spike gave Angel a two fingered salute. Angel just sighed, but at least Spike stopped and leaned against the ladder portion of a tall slide.

"What happened between last night and now?" Angel demanded as he crossed his arms. Spike pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, and I started wishing I smoked, well not in the smelling of smoke part of smoking, not that Spike smelled *bad* when he smelled of smoke, and I had just lost my train of thought again.

"Xander?" Angel demanded and I narrowed my eyes at him as the darkness suddenly became much less dark through my demon eyes. If Angel wanted to talk to Spike about that fine, but he wasn't in my pack. I didn't have to answer him. "What is wrong with you?" Angel asked as he stepped closer to me, and I sidestepped away from the car and brought my hands up close to my waist.

"Oh for god's sake, I'm not about to attack you," Angel sighed heavily and turned back toward Spike. I dropped my hands to the side and leaned a hip against the car as I waited to see Spike brought to task by his sire. I suppose this was going to be the one advantage of having the two of them keeping their clan ties: watching Angel torture Spike. Of course I got myself so distracted that I didn't actually notice Angel's attack until strong arms wrapped around my upper body, trapping my arms next to my side which is what I had been trying to avoid in the first place.

I snarled at Angel, but he just manhandled me away from the car and toward the park, glaring down at me in game face. I struggled against his grip as he held me in a bear hug, which huggage from Angel… so not okay with that.

"Stay out of this Spike," Angel ordered harshly, and I assumed Spike had made some move, but I was a little busy to stop and actually check since I was trying to wiggle my way free.

"Since you won't talk this out like a human being, I guess I'm having this discussion with your demon," Angel said and his teeth made his voice unfamiliar, foreign, and waaaay too close. Angel bent his head down and I realized what he was going for. Oh no. Not submitting. Really, really not submitting to Angel. I did the only thing I could; I bit Angel's arm as hard as I could, which was really hard. I could feel the silk of his shirt catching in my teeth and taste the zing of vampire blood through the awful chemical tang of his fabric softener, but Angel completely ignored me.

I struggled harder as I felt the teeth go into my neck. And I brought up my knee as hard as I could. Angel grunted his pain and went to his knees, dragging me down with him. And now I really started squirming because DAMN, that bite hurt. Angel pushed me the rest of the way to the ground, and I could feel one particular rock digging into my shoulder blade and I squirmed. He pressed me into the cold damp ground, and I tried to bring my knee up again, but I just didn’t have the right angle. My leg just sort of flopped ineffectively. Oh, I could get my heel around to kick at the back of Angel's calves, but it didn't seem to do any good at all. Changing tactics, I tried to strain to one side and flip us, and that just got me a sore shoulder as Angel bit in even harder. Fine, it was time to pull out the big guns.

"Damn it Angel, if you want to know why I never liked you, this would be it. Hello, you're supposed to be the good guy as in you don't go around biting people any more, or did Spike actually manage to make you happy enough for a return visit of our favorite psycho?"

Okay, I don't know why it never occurred to me before, but Angel and Spike probably meant sex and add that to their sudden new interest in sticking together and the biting and then you come to the “holy fucking shit” portion of the evening. I bucked up as hard as I could and struggled to get my arms free, but I couldn't do more than wiggle uselessly under Angel's body pinning me to the soft ground. And really the pinning worried me a lot less than the biting which felt like he was taking my throat out, and hey, if we were talking Angelus, throat ripping was a very real possibility. I wiggled harder.

Ironically, with the demon upgrade I could smell my own fear. Something else that was new: I could feel a strange, nameless compulsion rising up. It's like when I have a really, really intense craving for chocolate. I had this really bad case of the flu when I was a kid, and I *knew* I shouldn't eat anything, knew in the “projectile vomiting” kind of knew. But I had found my mother's stash of old Halloween candy, and that chocolate just called me like I had absolutely no self-control. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep it down, I knew I was going to be sorry, but I just couldn't NOT eat that damn chocolate. I felt that feeling rising up only magnified by about a thousand. The need to tilt my head and acknowledge Angel's strength just pissed me off.

"Buffy is so going to stake your sorry ass, you pathetic excuse for a vampire," I hissed as I doubled my efforts. Simple math fact: zero times two still equals zero, so I still didn't get anywhere. See, I can do math. I felt myself stilling, and I forced my body into fighting again, struggling this time to dig my heels into the ground and push myself away from those teeth that had clamped onto my neck. The zero times anything rule still applied because I made zero progress there, too. I panted with the effort of fighting: both fighting the vampire currently attached to my neck and fighting with my own need to not fight. It would just be so much easier to submit, but I couldn't. Spike… maybe. Angel… not a chance in every hell Giles had ever described.

Eventually I let my body go limp and settled for trying to rein in my hyena instincts. I just had to hold on and fool Angel into cutting this little exercise in demon dominance short. Wait him out. Let him get off and then run like hell. Just wait. I focused on trying to breathe, my gasping breath whistling through my teeth which I kept clamped as I tried to hold on, not submit, wait him out. Angel growled and dug his teeth a little deeper and the dam broke. The air flowed out of me in a giant sigh as I went limp and tilted my head to give Angel access to my neck, and god I hated vampires. In particular, I hated one over gelled, know-it-all, manipulative son-of-a-bitch who bit down a fraction more making me flinch before he pulled his teeth out.

I felt the tongue on my neck, and I shuddered, but I also couldn't do anything. Two or three swipes and Angel stood up, which left him conveniently standing over me looking down. He held his hand out, and I half rolled to my side before getting up on my own. I moved away to the monkey bars, and how convenient… monkey bars, butt monkey. Now if we just had schmuck bars for Angel we'd be all set.

I stood mostly facing away, but I couldn't help but keep an eye on Angel as he wiped blood off his lips with something that looked like disgust. Ya know, the only thing worse than having some vampire use you as a midnight snack is having a vampire use you as a midnight snack and then not like your blood. It's ungrateful. And kind of insulting.

"Now, I'm not going to take any more from either of you. Is that clear?" Angel demanded. I don't know what Spike did, but I just broke eye contact and looked at the ground. I didn't want to look at the ground, but my eyes just kind of did that on their own.

"Now, Xander. You're starting. Exactly why did you go from trying to jump Spike to trying to kill him?" I held out. Oh, I wanted to say something, but the very fact that Angel was asking also made me want to say something rude about Ireland and stupid European football which is really soccer because football is a man's game with lots of tackling and broken bones. So, I settled for saying nothing. I knew I was dealing with Angel when my silence got a sigh and not a bone-crushing backhand.

"Xander, so help me I am running on my last nerve here so you either start talking, or I will drive you back to Giles and let him deal with your demonic mood swings." I considered my options, but Angel was right. I wasn’t controlling my emotions and I really didn't want the others to see that. Giles would start with the polishing and then Willow would give me those big watery eyes, and I simply had no defense against the power of Willow-eyes. And I didn’t even want to think about how Buffy would react; my wrists were still sore from the last time.

"He submitted to you," I said grudgingly. I still couldn’t bring myself to look at either of them.

"Bloody wanker had me by the neck, slayer'd stake me if I actually damaged her pet vampire," Spike said with disgust in his voice.

"Boy," Angel growled and then Spike gave a rather rude response back which I think is physically impossible because sheep are actually not… no don't go there I ordered my brain as I considered the logistics of Spike's comment.

"Xander, I took over siring him from Drusilla. My demon is older and stronger." Angel was calm, and I was kind of hating how my demon seemed to be nodding inside. It made sense, but I didn’t have to like it.

"Older, mate- not stronger. You have about a hundred years of drinking soddin' rat while I was dining on the good stuff. Killed my way Europe after you left, drank socialites and left their corpses in the alleys of Prague." And that would be the cocky Spike talking, and no I don’t want to think about Spike in terms of cocky, and yes I’m babbling to myself again. God.

"I thought we settled this earlier tonight, Spike. If you need another lesson, *boy*, I will be happy to give you a rematch." Spike fell silent, which for Spike was speaking volumes.

"Xander, just tell us what you were thinking. Primals aren't vampires even if we have a lot of the same basic instincts." Again with the calm, reasonable voice. Stupid vampire.

"You can't be in two packs," I pointed out, and then it dawned on me. Angel had just claimed me away from my pack. I felt my knees go weak and I sat down on one of the lower bars.

"You thought that by submitting to me he was rejecting you," Angel said. I just looked at him. I didn’t want to say it out loud.

"Oi, boy's not that stupid. My unlife is bad enough without you comin' in and pretending to be sire. You bloody walked out on me once and I'll stake myself before I ever trust you again.” Spike actually sounded… pissed?“ When I get this chip out, I'll take my boy and go somewhere so you can't come chargin' in and playing the high and mighty 'I am sire' bit."

Whoa. Didn't see that one coming. I just stared at Spike as I considered what he was declaring. He submitted to his sire but he rejected his sire and that wasn't normal. Or actually, maybe it was. Hell, I wasn't a vampire, and maybe I'd done a little too much assuming.

"I'm thinking that now I'm really confused," I admitted.

"You bloody thought I'd pick the brooding pouf over you?" Spike asked, and his tone of voice shifted from angry to worried almost immediately. I opened my mouth, but I really couldn't find anything to say to that.

"I have to go see some demons. You two work this out, and I don't care how as long it takes as you promise to never tell me the details," Angel said as he turned his back and walked to the car.

"But what did this… " I struggled to find a word that described what had just happed between me and Angel. "What do you want?" I finally settled on. Angel stood with his hand on his open car door looking right at me.

"Xander, I don't want anything. You and Willow and Buffy and even Giles became my clan when you gave me something to fight for, when you gave me a reason to climb out of the gutter." Angel's voice cracked slightly on Buffy's name, but other than that he presented the same unemotional face that he always showed. Only now, demon instincts in me understood Angel's declaration as being the deepest emotion a demon could hold.

"You were my family even if I was too scared and maybe even too jealous to ever really push my way in. *You* were the only one who never saw that, Xander. You were so busy being insecure and angry and quite frankly childish that you didn't see anything except what you wanted. So as far as I'm concerned, nothing's changed. You are still part of my clan the way you have been since you broke into my apartment with that cross and that absolute conviction that you were going to stand with Buffy even if it got you killed." Angel got in the car and started the heavy roaring motor. "And you still annoy the shit out of me," he added, yelling a bit over the engine noise as he put the car into gear and started down the street.

I sat with the monkey bar rung nearly cutting off circulation and with my neck still throbbing. Wow. I had really fucked that one up. I hadn't ever screwed up this bad, except for the time when I was doing the whole kissing on Willow thing when Cordy saw us or the time that I tried to rape Buffy or possibly the time drove the whole female population insane with that love spell, and I was just going to stop thinking there because I had really screwed up a lot more than one person should.

I tilted my head a bit so I could see Spike who watched me with undisguised shock.

"We need to talk, pet. You really thought I was pickin' the pouf?" Spike stepped closer, and I stood up and got to the side of the monkey bars. Already been chewed on my one vampire tonight, and I was not keen to make it two.

"Well… yeah."

"Moron," Spike said as he took another pull at his cigarette and leaned against the far side of the monkey bars.

"Yeah, well excuse me, I'm kinda new at the whole demon thing. And that is *still* not sounding right," I complained.

"Wot?" Spike cocked his head to the side and words like cute and flawless and sexy floated up, and yeah, Spike would kill me if he knew I even thought words like cute when I saw him. Didn't stop me from thinking them.

"I spent the last four years fighting demons. It just doesn't sound right to call myself one. I feel like I should be grabbing an ax and chasing myself down the street although I was actually the one who usually ran from demons so that should probably be me grabbing an ax and running from myself down the street."

"Loon."

"Probably."

"Thought you got back with your mates and had second thoughts about declarin' an interest in me." He sounded casual, but his eyes were burning into mine. I shivered.

"Oh, I had second, third, and fourth thoughts because Buffy, she is so going to kill both of us. But all those thoughts aside, I still am interested in you. Not even fear of Willow eyes and slayer fury could change that." And oh god, was I starting to blush? Great.

"Red does have a pout on her, doesn't she?" I looked over and Spike had this odd wistful look on his face, and given my knowledge of the Evil Undead, that was not a comforting expression.

"Spike?" I demanded in a tone that promised much pain and no sex if he didn't cough up the information.

"What? I just always thought I'd get to have Red as my own. If Angel and Slutty hadn't stopped me, the minute she did her love spell, I'd have made her my first childe." He’d actually mustered a look of hurt innocence in his sexy blue eyes.

"Of all the… I'm telling you how much I care about you, and your answer is to tell me how much you want to kill my best friend? Please tell me you see a problem here." Spike just got an obstinate expression on his face.

"Always had a soft spot for Red, but it doesn't change how much I want you. Besides, I said I'd turn her, not kill her. Why the hell do you think I took *you* with me that night? I certainly didn't need you to do the spell, but I thought you two would make a vicious pair of childer for me to take home to my plum."

"I don't even have words for how wrong that is," I spluttered.

"What? To want to have you with me? I planned on taking you as my childe so we could hunt together through the centuries. Course now that you're a demon, I figure I don't even have to turn ya. Makes it safer if one of us can go out in the sun." And how wrong is it that my demon was agreeing with him on the last part, there?

"Why did have to fall for the psychopath?" I asked the stars, but unlike Drusilla, I couldn't hear their answer, which was probably of the good. I had enough problems without adding that one. And funny enough, there was this little part of me that practically danced at the thought that Spike wanted me, even without the hyena he'd wanted me. "Wait, I thought you hated me," I pointed out as the memory of those horrible weeks in the basement assaulted me.

"Hated that you refused to bloody submit, hated those soddin' names you called me." I looked over in surprise, but he just gazed back calmly, and boy had I gotten that one wrong.

"I called you those names to try and make my hyena stop yapping about wanting you. I figured *you* hated *me*, so I needed to make her back off."

"And now? That hyena of yours still yappin'?" Spike took another step forward, and I pulled up my fists and squared off my feet. I was not going down easy. At least, not again. In fact, if I had my way, I wasn't the one going down at all.

"Nope." I watched confusion flash across his features and smiled.

"Hyena's gone, or rather part of me. There is no what she wants versus what I want."

"So, we just have one matter to work out then," Spike said with a lascivious grin.

"Actually, two," I corrected him. "First, promise me that you will never go after Willow."

"She'd make a beautiful vampire; she's got depths of darkness and a love of chaos hidden in that little body." That wistful expression went across Spike's face again, and just ew. The guy I lusted after should not be lusting after Willow because that was just wrong. The thought of Willow and Spike in a bed crossed my mind, and I shuddered at the thought of that red hair against a pillow lying next to Spike's pale arm as he leaned over her and my own hand reaching across…. Oh no no no no no. Just no. Focus damn it, I ordered my libido, which hadn't actually hijacked the brain since tenth grade.

"And you're never, ever going to set it free," I demanded as I pulled myself out of that fantasy. No thinking of naked Willow because that way just led to despair and destruction, and with her new powers and recent gayhood, possibly shriveled genitals.

"Fair enough. Red and even Glinda have a free pass no matter what happens, even if Slutty comes after me again. So, on to matter number two," Spike stepped closer and that wicked grin, the hint of tongue, the sliver of white teeth, the smell of desire and the bulge in his jeans left me breathless and damn near brainless. Luckily I still had one or two grey cells on the job.

"Right, matter number two would be the Initiative soldiers moving this way," I pointed out as I sniffed the peculiar stench of gun oil and testosterone in the air.