Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me

Xander wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans and took a deep breath before walking in the door. He could feel the other shoe about to drop and it was one of those clunky Birkenstocks and Xander just knew it was going to hit him right between the eyes and hurt like hell.

Because the gang was going to find out about Spike. And Spike was just waiting for his cue to make his grand entrance. His best friends could be trying to kill his boyfriend before the hour was over and, in his heart, he knew if it came down to that he'd be rooting for Spike to win.

What was really crappy was that his new 'gift' wasn't helping. It was like there were too many possibilities, too many ways this meeting could go so his brain couldn't pick just one. Spike was right; he really needed training, and soon. Otherwise he would go a little crazy.

Well, crazier. No one normal would date a vampire and take a gift from his ex-girlfriend. His dead and dusted ex-girlfriend. So it could be said that the crazy came before the gift bit. Now if only he could figure out the chicken and the egg.

Xander leaned his forehead against the library door in frustration and then jumped back. The anger Angelus had felt at being barred from the Library had soaked into the wood and he could still feel it. It sizzled across the inside of his head and gave him a bad taste in his mouth. Angelus really had gone off the deep end, he could sense that. However, he couldn't tell what the vampire was going to do. Insanity was unpredictable, so it wasn't like he'd be able to tell Buffy to wait down on 3rd Street on Tuesday and she'd be able to kill him.

Besides, after the serious mind fuck he'd done on her, he doubted the Slayer would be up to slaying anytime soon. And in the meantime, people would die. So he needed to get his head out of his ass and walk into the Library and get this meeting started, because they were going to need Spike as much as Spike needed the backup.

So he took another deep breath, and still another. Then he figured he'd better stop or else he'd hyperventilate and pass out in the hallway and that wouldn't be good. He couldn't do a damn thing if he was unconscious and drooling and acting like the Amazing Human Doorstop.

He pushed open the door and walked in. It looked like, with the exception of Ethan and Giles, he was the first one there. He thought about making a nervous joke about the judicious use of the big table but figured he didn't want Giles to be any more pissed at him than he already was.

“Hey, Ethan! G-man!”

Ethan just nodded at him but Giles came out from his office and looked at him over his glasses. “Xander. I do hope you've come prepared to answer some hard questions about your new...abilities.”

Xander sighed and started looking for a chair he could sit in that wouldn't give him a headache. “Yeah, Giles. I have a whole lot of stuff to tell and you're not gonna like it all. We can do it when the gang's all here, though, right? Because I get confused myself about some things; it'll be worse if I have to do this more than twice.”

“Twice?”

Xander turned and grinned at Ethan. “Yeah, twice. I'll have to go over it all with Willow again later. She's a genius when it comes to computers and books and math and stuff but sometimes she's a bit...” He trailed off. He wasn't sure how to put it. He didn't want to say that Willow was stupid about people, because she wasn't. She just didn't understand some things easily.

“Naive is the word you're looking for, Xander, and, yes, we can wait. To tell the truth, I expected everyone to be here by now. I wonder what's keeping them.” Giles moved over to the Library door and peered out.

Xander gave up on finding a place to sit. The only chair that didn't have some sort of weird vibes was the one next to Ethan and he figured Giles would take that. And he wasn't sitting on the table again because he was still scarred from seeing the half minute flash of naked Librarian and he didn't want his third eye blinded.

Finally he gave up and sat on the desk where people checked out, crossing his legs on the counter so they wouldn't dangle. Ethan grinned and Xander figured he'd realized what was going on, but Giles looked at him oddly.

“What? The chairs have weird vibes. Hell, the entire Library is weird now, or it was always weird and I didn't realize it. I'm not sure which.” He shrugged and tried to find something for his hands to do. He was so nervous he felt like he could pass out but Xander knew that he had to act as calmly and normally as possible. He pulled over the box of paper clips and started playing with them. It was better than nothing.

There was a shadow and he looked up to find Giles looking at him. “Xander, are you sure that it's not...well, that it's not you that's...”

“Weird? Crazy? No, I pretty much figure that's at least half of it. I just don't know if some of the stuff I'm picking up on now was always there and I'm just able to know it now. Like, well, like that.” He gestured at the middle of the Library floor where the Hellmouth itself swirled oddly. “Giles, I can see the actual Hellmouth. It's swirling like a dark whirlpool and when I walk near it it feels, well, really gross. But did it always look and feel that way or is it something new? I don't know, it's like the lines are blurred in my head.”

He just shrugged. Giles would understand more after his story. Xander only hope that his mentor would still want to help after he found out that Xander was sleeping with the Evil Dead.

The doors opened and Cordelia swept into the room. “All right, can we get this over with? It's Saturday night and, evil vampires or not, I have a date to do some serious flirting at the Bronze tonight.”

Xander grinned at his friend. “Wow, Cordy! Going for the junior dominatrix look, huh? Nice! If I wasn't gay I'd drool all over you!” She was wearing black leather boots with high heels and a red mini-dress. A black leather coat completed the look and she did look slightly dangerous.

“Hey, I figure a girl can't be too careful, especially since Angel's gone all insane. It's not like you and your boy toy are going to be around to screen my dates, so I've got to do something. I even blackmailed my Dad to order me a special crucifix, with a mirror behind it. That way I can check if the hottie I wanna dance with is trying to get in my panties or just wants me for a midnight snack.”

She stood by the table with her hands on her hips before pinning Xander with a stare. “Is there a reason you're not sitting in any of these?”

Xander just shrugged and nodded and Cordelia turn her stare onto Giles. “God, you'll do it anywhere, won't you?! Are all you stuffy British types closet kinks?”

Xander howled in laughter at seeing Giles blush and stutter, and even Ethan's jaw had come slightly unhinged. Finally, Ethan pulled himself together enough to speak. “I can assure you, Miss Chase, that, while we have been rather adventuresome, we aren't quite that bad! Although, I must confess to feeling rather flattered. You'll have to ask Xander why he's avoiding the chairs, however.”

Xander gasped for air so he could answer. “All of them are safe from body fluids, Cor, they just have weird vibes. All of them are safe except the one next to the end. Synder switched it from his office and it has his cooties.”

“Eww.” She used her foot to scoot that one chair away from the table and even Giles looked faintly distressed. He moved the chair to the wall and they both found seats. Now all they had to do was wait for the others.

Xander sighed and started making a paper clip chain. He hated waiting.

*****

“Okay, I've got to start this story a couple of centuries back. Please, don't ask any questions. You'll only confuse me and make it worse. You guys can fire me from a cannon or whatever when I'm done.” Everyone's eyes were on him and he felt like he was having that living nightmare of being naked in front of class again. He looked down and checked, just to make sure, but he was still wearing the blue jeans and black tee-shirt he'd started out in. His paper clip chain had ended up being nearly a yard long and he twisted it in his hands.

Buffy had been the last to arrive and the feelings of grief and depression radiated from her so badly that he had flinched when she came into the room. Willow and Oz had arrived minutes before, softly talking. Willow had looked at him with big eyes and Xander felt guilty because he knew he was going to hurt her by telling the truth, but it had to be done.

“A couple of centuries ago a Master Vamp went looking for the perfect Childe, someone as cold and calculating as he was, since the current Slayer had killed two of his Childer so easily. He found a Madame, who was known for being vicious in businesses as well as in her personal life. She was dying of something, god only knows what, but that didn't matter. And so Darla was born.”

He tried to ignore Buffy's scowl and Giles's look of impatience. He figured Giles thought he knew everything from the Watchers' texts, but he didn't. Spike knew more.

“Fast forward about a hundred and fifty years. Darla had fallen out of favor with the Master for being too independent. She went looking to make her own Childe. She wanted someone who could be as cold as her but had a brutal quality. In 1753 she was in Ireland, and heard rumors of the son of one of the local lords who loved nothing more than to chase the local peasant girls and get into drunken brawls. She figured him to be someone she could control, led by his dick if not by his drink. By the time Darla lured Liam into a back alley, he had already killed three men in fights. And so Angelus was born.”

Buffy visibly flinched, as did Willow, but Oz and Cordelia looked interested, as did Ethan. Giles was now hanging on his every word. It wasn't in the Watchers' books that Angelus had killed while he was human. That was something only Spike would know, but Giles hadn't figured that out. Not yet.

“Twenty-three or so years later, Angelus created his first Childe. I don't know much about Penn,” other than the fact that Spike hated him for being such a high and mighty prick, “Only that, according to my source, he's still out there and just as psychotic as ever.”

Xander took a deep breath. “Next in the vampire family tree is Drusilla, also known as Dru the Mad. Dru had some psychic powers before she met up with Angelus, and he used them against her. Her family thought her crazy and sent her to a convent. Long story short, he tortured everyone she ever loved and she was locked away, wasn't able to stop it, but able to see everything he did with her Sight. By the time he got into the Convent and killed every nun and postulant inside, she was insane. He kept her as a human pet, long enough so that her brain was totally warped. Nowadays we call it Stockholm Syndrome, I guess. When he'd broken her so completely that her entire world centered around him, Angelus turned her.”

Xander took a deep breath. This was hard to tell, and harder still because he knew that some of the things Angelus had done to Dru he'd been doing to him, or trying to. Thank god he had Spike, and while the gang may not totally understand, they believed him. They wouldn't die as easily as Drusilla's sisters had.

At least, he prayed they wouldn't. He couldn't stand to hear Willow's voice in his head, crying for help, begging for death.

“Of course, being someone's obsession is tiring, so after a while he started ignoring Dru. So when she ran into a young man in an alley she decided to create her own Childe, one that would love her as much as she loved her Daddy. And so she created Spike. The four of them became known as the Scourge of Europe.”

Xander took a deep breath and tried to stay still. “You pretty much know the rest of the story. How Darla brought Angelus a gypsy to eat and her family cursed him. And it is a curse; it wasn't meant to give Angel a soul so he could go around saving people, and until he came to Sunnydale that didn't happen.” Xander wanted to say more, about how Angel spent nearly a hundred years lost in self-pity and guilt when he could have done something about it, or how Angel could have done more than just watch as Darla dragged Jesse underground.

But he didn't. Buffy was hurting enough, and that would hurt Willow, too. Besides, he was about to be in bigger trouble. “The Scourge broke up when Angelus got the soul. Well, a year later, actually. During the Boxer Rebellion, when Spike killed his first Slayer. Darla came here, to serve the Master. Spike, who hated both Darla and Angelus with a passion, took charge of Dru and they traveled the world. Until this past Spring, when a mob caught up to them and Drusilla was killed.”

Xander didn't go into any detail and he closed his eyes. He hated talking about this part because it still hurt Spike. And somewhere in the stacks Spike was waiting to make his dramatic entrance. And he was remembering a mob tearing his lover of a hundred plus years apart.

Oddly enough, the others were still quiet. Even Giles and Willow, though he could tell they were dying to ask questions.

“And so Spike came here, looking for Angel, wanting to kill him before walking into the sun. Only he got distracted from that and started building a life of sorts here.”

Xander looked down at the chain of paper clips in his hands. He'd been twisting them and several of the links were mangled now. “You guys know that a couple of weeks ago I started having dreams. Nightmares, really. The night before last I decided to try to do a lucid dreaming thing, to figure out why.” He didn't look at Ethan, not even for a moment. “When I did, well, I dreamed of what would have happened if we hadn't stopped the Judge last night. It really wasn't pretty.”

“Drusilla was there. In my dreams. She's how I got this shiny new psychic power. The same psychic power that drove her nutty, with Angelus's help. I don't know how, but she did it so I could save her Childe. See, Angelus decided he wanted his family back and wasn't taking no for an answer. He'd been torturing Spike. So Dru gave me her gifts so I could find him.”

Giles's face had a look of horror and Xander knew he'd connected all the dots. Buffy looked suspicious, too, but then again she hadn't heard that much about him and his new boyfriend. No, that was Willow, and she was still confused. So was Oz. Ethan was blank and Cordelia...well, Cordy looked like she wanted a big bucket of popcorn and was waiting for the fireworks to start.

Back to Giles, though, who was looking like he was either about to start polishing his glasses till the lenses fell out or turn Xander over his knee and spank him in a not sexy sort of way. “No...you wouldn't...”

“I did, Giles.”

“Xander! What were you thinking?! Spike would kill you as soon as look at you!”

He turned to look at Buffy and he could see how worried she was for him, how scared. “Buff, listen, I knew I was safe.” That was an outright lie, but at the time he hadn't cared if he wasn't. Not that he was going to tell anyone but Spike that. “It's just that, well, Spike's real name, in case you've forgotten, is William.”

“Xander, I don't understand.” Buffy wasn't angry, thank god, just confused. Giles had slumped down in his chair and Ethan was rubbing him on the shoulder and saying something so low that Xander couldn't hear, but he hoped the man was getting Giles ready to accept Spike.

“What he's saying, Slayer, is that Xander and me have been playing grab ass for a while now, and you haven't figured it out. For Christ's sake, how many older Englishmen by the name of William do you people know? You lot are daft.”

Spike, in all his glory, had stepped out from behind the stacks and down the steps and sat on them. He was in his usual outfit of black jeans and shirt and red overshirt and that damn duster that in the far back of his mind Xander compared to Linus's blanket. He was handsome and gorgeous and Xander found himself grinning. At the same time, he rolled his eyes at his lover's rudeness and jumped down off the desk to go and join him on the steps.

“Spike! You could have said something else besides grab ass. I doubt if anyone besides you and me really want to know about our sex life.” He sat down on the step beside his lover and tried to ignore the surprised faces on the majority of the room.

Spike snorted and put an arm around his shoulders. “Not like they haven't thought about it. Well, the Cheerleader Princess has at any rate, I'll bet. That reminds me.” Spike dug in his coat and Xander fought the grin that was wanting to stretch across his face. His lover pulled out a slim case and tossed it onto the table in front of Cordy. “Cheers, ducks, enjoy.”

Cordy didn't even pause to wonder if it was deadly; she opened it up and squealed at the sight of the tennis bracelet inside. “Ooh! Thank you, guys! I'll drive your getaway car any day! It is diamond, right?”

Xander finally allowed himself to smile. “Like we'd give you anything else.”

“Can we get back on track, please?!” Giles sounded more Ripperish and Xander wondered if maybe he should have had Spike bring jewelery for everyone, not that Giles would wear anything like that. “Just why are you telling us now about your...arrangement?”

“Because we all want the same thing. You want Angelus dead, I want Angelus dead. I'd like to torture the bloke for a few days first, maybe shove one of my railroad spikes where it would do the most good, but for the most part we have the same goals. Problem is, you lot have killed off all of the master vampires in our order, 'cept for me and Angelus, and since he's the Master of the Line now I'm supposed to obey him, no matter what.”

“Now, I could just tell him to sod off and take Xander here and run for the hills, but he'd worry about all of you. So, I need to break away from the Aurelius Clan and start my own by declaring a Blood Feud. To do that I need minions to fight against Angelus, but minions are stupid and more of a pain in the arse than they're worth. Plus, it would get Xander's knickers in a twist.”

Spike leaned back on his elbows and grinned. “But if we work together, you lot can be considered my minions, and maybe we can get Angelus before he kills half the town. What do you think?”

******