Elderly Pets

Fic: Elderly Pets

Author: josie_h

Pairing: Spike/Xander

Rating: Mature Audiences (M/M sexual content! And themes)

***Warnings: D/s, Major character death, slavery***

It’s an AU!..... The Premise: A hundred and fifty years after the final battle with the Senior Partners… Demons rule the world. The luckier humans are pets…. Most are bred for food. Spike survived, and in the early days found Xander at an auction, purchased him and did what Spike does best…. Made the most of it.

Author’s Note: Don’t own the characters etc and bow down to their original creators Joss, et al., plus all the wonderful online writers who continue to give them life.


Half an hour later, Spike lay unmoving, arms locked around the figure of his now cold and lifeless Pet. He could still taste his beloved’s blood on his tongue. It was the flavor of unadulterated love and devotion and….Xander. He doubted if he would ever drink again.

…………………………

When they took on the Black Thorn they all knew it could be bad but their final battle had been exactly that, final.

It had been dark as he crawled, literally, from under the belly of the beast. He’d watched in horror as his grandsire had dusted. He had still been fighting… however many demons, and was trying *so* hard to reach Angel… He almost did it too, but only in time to watch the dragon slain and then see his grandsire’s head sliced from his body by an unseen assassin. Moments later the headless dragon carcass collapsed over him and all went black. Had he been human he would have suffocated, instead the huge corpse saved him… though at the time, and for many months that followed, he could not find any reason to be grateful.

When Spike clawed his way from under the putrid body of the beast twenty four hours later, Gunn was obviously dead. He never found Illyria, nor heard anything of her afterward. What he did discover very quickly was that the demons had kept coming. Something the Senior Partners at Wolfram and Hart had not planned on. The demons that won over Angel and his little band had been brought through a simple portal. Unfortunately the Partners had failed to notice the powerful M’gattar demon coming through the portal along with their demon army. Magically inclined, the M’gattar widened the dimensional rift, then held it open for long enough to change the balance of power on earth forever.

The demons had organized, recruited from their ranks already around the world, and taken control. In the two years that followed every country fell to demon control. The wholesale slaughter of humans slowed once total power was gained. It was quickly determined that all humans who survived should be rounded up and sold as slaves or food. The trade in homo sapiens began.

Spike initially headed for England but found the new Watcher headquarters destroyed and all the slayers dead. He discovered that Willow and her coven had all been taken alive but Giles had been slaughtered along with his fellow watchers. Spike then sought out Buffy in Italy, quickly learning she had been killed in the first wave of fighting. Dawn had been captured. Grieving and alone, he survived. He traversed Europe attending every slave auction he could, desperately searching for the girls. He initially bought as many humans as he could then released them, but stopped the practice when he learned that they were all consequently recaptured and sold again, or killed.

Ten years on he had all but given up hope but his luck changed one freezing night on the London docks.

Xander was captured in the eighth month of fighting. He had been in the back of a truck heading out of London with seven others when they came upon the demon road block. He was one of four from their vehicle that survived. He had spent all his money in a desperate effort to smuggle himself to England where Willow months earlier (via a miraculously still working internet) had assured him human forces were gathering for a last stand. By the time he arrived the last stand had been a last slaughter, and the ‘round up’ had begun in England as well.

Pulled from the truck and forced to his knees on the roadside gravel by a posse of Fyarl demons, Xander assumed he would die. Instead his hands and feet were bound tightly, then the three individuals who were obviously in their sixties or seventies, and the elderly driver of the truck, were separated off. The remaining humans listened helplessly to the sounds of them being killed and…. consumed.

The remaining group had been drugged for transport, Xander waking to find himself on his side in a stock vehicle, collared and chained.

He had been ‘passed over’ in two sales, probably due to his missing eye. He spent three months in the holding area for household slaves, and learned from the smatterings of English used by the handlers, that he would soon to be shifted to the ‘food stock’ pens. But he was saved from that.

One of the handlers brought through a family friend and his tiny daughter. The demons were of a species Xander recalled from Sunnydale… they looked like Spike's card playing buddy Clem. All the humans in his pen had been forced to their knees, yet again, as the tiny girl with (at that stage) a toothless grin and bright red eyes wandered down the line with her father. Courtesy of Xander not attempting to move away or hurt the tiny demon when she reached out to touch him, he was privately sold as ‘child friendly’ household slave.

In the ensuing nine years, Xander learned to cope. His role in the household was essentially a combination of nanny and children’s pet. They were a well off family with all manner of human slaves, but his job was to care for and amuse the children. Why they chose a male human for the task was no doubt a foible of the species, but after less than a year, Xander learned that he should be grateful for his lot. Slaves talked. He was fed well, and after his initial ‘training’ by an outside handler, he had never really been severely disciplined. The children were easy to be around and growing up in the liberal household, treated Xander with respect and love.

In his fifth year with the family he heard that the demand for human blood, flesh and working slaves had driven the human population to a dangerously low point. The whole family worried, they were not flesh eaters but knew that short supply would cause trouble. The unrelated warring between demon factions that began in the eighth year only made things worse. In the tenth year it became critical. On one fateful day in October, the household became one of those targeted by the ruling clans of South England. Rich but peaceful, the family holdings were now prime targets for the marauding rabble spilling in from the European wars. To date they had paid their way out of any trouble, but apparently… not any more.

Within the month, a decision was made to move the whole extended family to New Zealand, a demon territory reknowned for its tolerance and willingness to accept peaceful refugees from other regions. They would have to sell everything to afford safe passage.

Five inconsolable, young, loose skinned children petted their ‘nanny’ for the last time and bade Xander farewell as he was loaded into the truck with the other household slaves. As before, the others were sold quickly, but despite his ‘good record with children’, his marred countenance and age of thirty three meant that interested buyers were few.

Chained, starved and reeking of his own excrement, he was in the process of being led onto a stock ship destined for the food lots in Germany, when his demon handler forced him to his knees and a familiar voice caused his breath to hitch.

“I want this one…. ‘ow much?”

Spike had been idly wandering through the docklands primarily seeking a few pints of animal blood, though it was almost as expensive as human these days. The Demon Sarantsi disease had all but wiped out the world’s domestic pig and cattle stock, leaving limited options for the vampire, as taking forcibly extracted human blood was simply not an option for the ensouled Spike. It was entirely by chance that he happened to glance over at the line of chained humans as he wandered past, and saw the boy… well man now… but nevertheless…

As a Master Vampire, Spike had the right to purchase any human he wished. The handlers saw it as a cash sale and easy money.

Xander never forgot to remind Spike of the first words he heard from his new ‘master’ and soon to be life partner on that day. “You’re mine now pet.”

………………………

Tears streaked down the pale countenance as Spike began to rock slowly, “So glad I found you Pet …. So glad I found you! And you were mine…. you were always mine…. and oh gahhhh...." He inhaled again unnecessarily, ".... and I was yours…. was always yours....I still am Luv … always. ”

………………………

Unhooked from the rest of the group, Spike had led Xander away by the crude chain fixed to his steel collar, his arms had remained bound behind his back. Weak from lack of food, and with his legs in still in shackles, his progress behind the vampire was labored.

Xander had no idea what to expect… Spike was supposed to be dust! More than a decade ago… dust and Sunnydale destruction…. As the blonde led him down a dark alleyway it suddenly occurred to him that the vampire might now be ‘without soul’. Spike had yet to say anything more to him and the clink of the shackles around his ankles and pad of his bare feet on asphalt were the only sounds made as he followed the blonde obediently in the fashion society required.

Spike remembered his utter disbelief at finding the ex Scooby by chance after ten years. It was such an extraordinary coincidence… He recalled the look on Xander’s face as he pushed him up to the brick wall of the alley, dropped the lead and simply kissed him as a long lost relative might.

His lips finally released, Xander had said, “God…. Spike? Um…. Thanks but um…. Just so’s we’re clear…. *so* not gay!”

...They had laughed over that line for years afterwards.
……………………………

Spike stroked his beloved’s features again, giving a small smile as he remembered. He let out another hitched sob as he noted the new found stillness of the human’s chest.

………………………………
In the privacy of the alley, Spike had continued to hold Xander with preternatural strength.

“I can’t free you Harris, you know that….”

Xander pulled away a little to stare at his old ally, then dropped his gaze out of habit, “Yeah I figured that.”

They had exchanged blood for the first time in that alley. Spike ‘marking’ Xander as his own by taking the man’s blood and under protest, feeding him some of his own. It was enough at the time to protect Xander as ‘Spike’s property’. They had no idea, at that moment, of their future together or the effect the vampire blood would have.……………………..