Love's Bitches

Title: Love's Bitches 4/?
Author: Rowaine (rowained@yahoo.com)
Pairing: Spike/Xander, eventually
See first part for disclaimer, warnings, etc ad nauseum
Feedback is welcome, but please limit yourself to constructive comments. Flames will be forwarded to my hormonal teenagers for their weekly bonfire and weenie roast.

Funny... I remember writing the third part last night. Remember posting it and everything. But after waking from a bad 6 hours sleep, I had to reread the entire thing to recall what was going on and where I was heading. Hate it when that happens. Maybe it's the fact that I'm out of coffee and pepsi, having to make do with my daughter's Sprite Remix crap. *shudder* Anyways, hope this blends in ok.

:: On the road again... or still ::

They make their way back to more civilized areas, letting Xander choose the route (with frequent commentaries from the blond avenger). Big cities and small villages fly past, blurring together at night and barely better during daylight. Once every few hours, they stop for food and gas, streching their legs and sharing a laugh as they try to mimic the local accents.

And yeah, Xander knows he should be going solo. But he's having too much fun to argue so far. And how weird is it, that after a year and a half of life without the former big bad, eighteen months of floating in half-life and watching everyone else move on, that just a few days with Spike have helped bring him back to his own brand of normality?

Not that he'd tell the blond menace that, oh no. Still... this is his friend. A guy friend, almost like poor dead Jesse, but better in some ways. Jesse was part of his childhood -- fragments of innocence, fumbling over their too-big feet as they tried to grow up, stilted and often sullen as any adolescent. Spike? He'd caused alot of the subsequent changes, directly or not. He'd been there to witness what Xander's world had become, thrown in his own assistance (for whatever reasons) often enough, and eventually become as good a friend. Sad that it had taken his death and the destruction of his home town for Xander to realize this.

But trips into reflection down memory lane could wait, right? They're almost to the Florida border, stopping once again for dinner and fuel.

"Hey Spike, whatcha want to eat? Bigger town, we've got loads of choices."

Apparently, the vampire is cruising down his own version of memory byways. He starts at the question, then quickly masks that by changing CDs. "Eh, no matter. Cajun sounds good, but we should wait for New Orleans for that. They don't do it right anywhere else. Maybe seafood?"

Another thing that he found beyond humerous -- it would seem that the new, improved model of William the Bloody had a mild allergic reaction to strawberries. As proven by yesterday morning's all-you-can-eat breakfast. The telling rash is mostly gone now, but Xander allows a mental giggle at the remembered sight.

This close to the coast, they've got an abundance of options for seafood restaurants. Finding a half-hidden little dive, they make their selections and eat in relative silence. Not that it lasts.

"Right then. This is your little trip, pet. Not trying to nose into your business, not really. But you haven't explained why you're *here* when the rest of your group is scattered in either direction." Yeh, he knew I'd ask. But hell, there's only so much introspection anyone should have to take. When it's someone else's gig.

Brandishing his crab leg in the vamp's face, Xander growls around his rice pilaf, "Don't knock it, buddy. This is the first road trip I've taken that didn't have me stranded a hour from home, leaving me at the tender mercies of bored housewives and their husbands' money to get my car fixed."

Alright... where'd that come from? Ah yeh, the much talked about Oxnard experience. Everyone speculated, no one had confirmed facts. "Bored housewives? The horror! Seriously though, something dragged you out of your nice little delusions, sent you running for the hills (literally, from where I found you), and you haven't said two words about Red or Slayer since that first morning."

Xander chews thoughtfully for a minute, dipping his second crab leg in garlic butter sauce and watching the little flecks of herbs dance in their sea of yellow stuff. "Ever have one of those conversations with someone who isn't there anymore, where you ask them all sorts of things and just imagine their responses? Like asking them *why* they didn't get out in time, or what the hell were they thinking? Replaying it over and over to try to make sense of it? But there's no way to get their real opinion, cus they just aren't *there* anymore? Damn, I must've spent more time playing that game in the last year than sleeping or eating, or dodging well-meaning friends trying to get me to talk about it..."

"Don't think the demon chit would want you to do this to yourself -"

"Shut up! You asked me something, and I'm going to try to answer. They're gone, and nothing you can do will bring them back, so the answers are as flimsy as smoke rings in a hurricane, ok? All the why's and what if's, running a marathon in your head, and you can't get the truth cus you can't speak to the dead. And whatever witchy friends you've got think it's 'unhealthy' to even try, so no spells or seances. Like that'd do any good, right?" He pops the cooling piece of seafood in his mouth, gives it a couple of passes through his teeth and swallows without really tasting.

"So your questions keep chasing you, and awake it's bad enough. But what really gets to ya is the dreams. Nightmares. Whatever. Cus that's when your imagination runs wild, and the most farfetched reasons start coming out. Eventually, it's hard to tell what your logical mind comes up with versus the crazed fantasies from sleep, yeah? And it just gets worse when your friends try to rationalize it. They mean well, sure, but they never bothered getting to know the person as well as you did. So all their guesses and excuses don't add up, but they play hell on what you remember that person's motives to be."

Right, Xander-babble. He's more lucid than I'd have thought, but we're still going around in circles. "Alright mate, what's the starting question then? You know Anya's in heaven, right? She died a human, paid her dues -"

Choking on his latest bite, Xander stares at Spike as if he's grown another head. "What makes you think I'm talking about Anya?"


:: And here there be monsters ::

He sees the cogs of Spike's mind trying to wrap themselves around that question. In another place and time, it would be vastly entertaining. Here and now... there's nothing he can do but forge on.

"Here's the thing. I know it needed to be done. I know there were only two choices. But what right did Buffy have to force that choice? It was Angel's job, all that saving the world shit. Did you even stop to think that maybe someone didn't want to see you die? Yeah, so you had loads of guilt from your nifty new soul helping push you into 'doing the right thing'. I get that, I do. But did you *one*time* ask yourself if it was your duty to dust yourself?"

Spike's silence is almost eloquent. The expression on his face ruins the moment by conveying that of a comical fish.

"And everyone else is all 'Oh poor Spike, he did such a wonderful thing, so let's thank the gods that we're still here by never talking about him'. And I just couldn't take it anymore. They've all got lives and missions and *meaning*, and I'm stuck with the questions no one wants to answer. And til a few days ago, you couldn't have said anything if I'd known how to ask them." A couple of sips of heavily sweetened tea later. "So, that's what prompted this little excursion. Satisfied?"

All the nightmares, both during sleep and while awake, flit through Spike's mind as he rehashes that period of time before the final showdown. He tries to remember just when he and the whelp became friends, what hurdle they'd crossed to pass the point of not-enemies into something more. Memories surface, but nothing clear. The only blaring fact he can grasp is the lack of men in this mortal's circle. Witches and slayers and balls of cosmic energy masked as teenaged girls, yeh. Only the watcher to commiserate on the overflow of estrogen, and Rupert remained so aloof, so parental of them all, that he couldn't be counted as the whelp's mate.

So Xander counted him a good enough friend to be angry over this? Interesting. Unexpected too.
ght ght then. Dunno what you want to hear first. Was alot of confusion at the time, had no sense of self-preservation left. Only knew that Buffy found a way to save you lot, and that she handed me the key. Was I supposed to tell her no?" Won't get pissed at him. Dunno why I should care, but...

"Might could've asked 'what's the catch' or something! Given us time to say goodbye at least. Gods Spike..." the last came out as half a gasp, before Xander buries his face in one hand. "You've still got my wallet. Pay up when you're through eating. I'll be in the car."

Making his way out to the parking lot, Xander knows he's on borrowed time again. The fleeting sensations he'd had before Sunnyhell's destruction coming to the fore, it's only a matter of time before Spike demands answers. And beyond what he's just told the peroxide vamp, these are the ones he's been searching hardest to find.