Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me

“Everything seems normal. Not a snake or a wasp.”

Xander groaned. Willow was just way too cheerful about being able to go back to school for his taste. He was tired and still feeling sick and just wanted to go home. Spike was out trying to track Angelus back to his new lair, and Xander was stuck with the others until he got back or else his lover would throw a hissy-fit at him. Not that vampires had hissy-fits, mind you. Spike was more vicious than that.

Xander rolled his eyes at that thought, but when Buffy gave him a look he grinned and decided to tease Willow instead. “Explain to me how that's a good thing.”

Buffy jumped up to sit on the table and thought for a moment. “I got nothing.”

Giles came out of his office with bottled water and some aspirin for Buffy. “Are you feeling any better?”

Buffy shrugged. Since being possessed—over-shadowed, really-- by James she had been extra quiet. “I guess. I just...James was so sad. I guess that's why he picked me, somehow he related to me. Or something.”

Giles sat down in a chair beside his Slayer. “Well, they can both rest now. Ethan has finished cleansing the school of their taint, at least.”

Buffy sighed again and Xander and Willow gave each other concerned looks behind her back. “I just...I don't understand. How could she forgive him? I mean, James killed her. Just because she was breaking up with him. And it was the right thing to do. I'm not big on the age thing but Grace was his teacher. That's, like, totally frowned on in all Fifty States even now, much less in 1955. And she forgave him for everything.”

Giles patted her on the knee before standing up. “Does it really matter?”

“I guess not. I don't know. Maybe.”

“Don't worry, Buffy, it will work out in the end. You three stay here and rest a bit. I need to check in with Ethan.”

They nodded and Giles left after throwing Buffy a concerned glance. As soon as they were all sure he was out of earshot, Willow pounced. “So, tell us. How did you go from being all hatey at James to feeling sorry for him?”

Buffy shrugged again and Xander hated seeing her so lost. “I don't know. I just...I could feel everything he was doing. It was like he'd thrown a comforter over my head and everything was muffled but I could hear and feel and see everything, I just couldn't do anything about it.” Buffy turned to Xander. “Is that...is that what happens to you?”

This time it was his turn to shrug. “Sometimes. Sometimes it's like I am that person, or like I'm watching it on a TV with bad reception.” What he didn't say was that when he stepped into that person's shoes, as it were, he could feel everything as well. More often than not this only happened in his dreams, which were bad. He had less control when he was asleep and, if Spike didn't keep an ear out, Xander was afraid the dreams would go too far one day. One morning he had woken up with bruises around his wrist that Spike had not put there. They'd faded within an hour but it had scared him.

Xander really didn't want to find out if he could be killed in his dreams. He doubted if that would fade away.

Buffy must have sensed that there was more that he wasn't going to say. “God.” She shook herself. “Anyway, I could feel how much he loved Grace, how much it destroyed him when she lied and said she didn't love him. I guess, with Angel, I could understand.”

Silence fell. Xander wasn't sure what to say. He figured there wasn't anything he could do to make it better. Willow was looking down at her hands. They were folded in front of her and she was playing with the cuff of her sweater.

“Buffy, what would you say if...well, I've been going through Miss Calendar's files. All her stuff, for teaching, and I found her techno-pagan sites and information. Spells, charms, invocations...I think I may be able to reproduce the spell that gave Angel his soul.”

“Willow...”

Xander's heart twisted in his chest. Buffy sounded so hopeful, so happy. As for himself, it just seemed so wrong. For one thing, Angelus needed to die in the worst way, and for another...if they gave Angel his soul back, the man could never be happy. That just didn't seem like a good thing to him.

Willow and Buffy continued talking around him. “I don't know if I could do it yet, ‘cause I've just started researching. With enough time, though, I think I might be able to do it.”

“God, Willow, if you could do that, if I could have Angel back...”

“You're crazy. You're both crazy.” Xander knew he was sounding harsh but he didn't care. “Don't you see how wrong that is?”

“Xander, it's not wrong. Angel's soul being taken from him was wrong. If you want...I could do it to Spike, too. That way he wouldn't...”

Willow's words were like ice water running down his back and Xander stood up and turned away from his two friends. “That way he wouldn't kill, is that what you're saying?”

“Well, so he wouldn't feel bad about drinking from bags. It would make it easier for him...”

“Easy? Destroying part of my lover's nature would be easier for him?!” Xander felt his hands clench but it seemed from far away. “Hate to tell you this, ladies, but Spike may love me but he still hunts. That is who and what he is.”

Buffy's voice was flat. “What do you mean, he still hunts?”

“Don't know, don't ask. I just know there aren’t any weird bottles of tomato juice or wine in the fridge. Oh, and that Spike stopped going to the Bronze without me but he does visit the more...unsavory parts of town. Sunnydale may not be a big city like LA, but with the bus station and the interstate and the docks...well, there's plenty of bad guys that stroll through town, you know?” He shrugged.

“Doesn't that bother you?” Willow's eyes were wide and Xander was reminded of how innocent she was.

Xander wasn't sure what to say. “Yes, and no. It's complicated. Spike will never be good. I don't want him to be. If he was good, he wouldn't be who I fell in love with.”

“But!! But I could make him good! With a soul he wouldn't do...that.”

The ice water running down his back suddenly changed and Xander felt like he'd been hit with a wave of it. He took a deep breath and turned to look at the girl who had been one of his best friends for such a long time. “If you do it, if you give him a soul, Willow, I swear to god I will make him as happy as I can. And when he's back to normal, I won't stop him from coming after you, not this time.”

Both Buffy and Willow gasped. Xander ignored the looks on their faces. “And if you think that Spike will play games like Angelus has, you haven't got a clue as to what he is. You're both my friends and I care for you but if you two do this, giving a soul to something that isn't meant to have one, Spike will not leave bits and pieces around for your mothers to find. They won't find anything at all.”

He turned and walked out, feeling sick. The thought of what Spike would do to them if they even tried tagging him with a soul made him want to puke but the actual images he'd gotten from focusing on it were disturbing, to say the least. He would wait outside for Spike. Sure, he'd fuss, but right now he couldn't handle being near anyone.

He barely made it out one of the side doors and to the parking lot when he started throwing up.

******

“Feeling better, luv?” Spike handed Xander another cup of tea. He wished he could blame this sudden relapse, if that was what it was, on the flu Xander had, but something told him that more than just the remainder of a virus and a brush with Casper had made his boy so sick and pale.

“Yes. No. Just...hold me?”

“'Course, luv, how could I not? Not gonna spew again, are you?” Spike didn't even wait for Xander's answer, but crawled into their big bed and took Xander in his arms, being careful not to spill his drink.

“Nothing left to spew.”

“Gonna tell me what got your knickers in a twist, then?”

Xander sighed and Spike pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. Sometimes Xander seemed so confident, their time together and away from the influence of his parents giving him the room he had needed to grow. Tonight, though, when Spike had returned from tracking Angelus to his new mansion he'd found a shaken Xander waiting for him in the parking lot. They'd barely made it home before Xander had sprinted from the car to be sick in the loo. Whatever had happened had gotten the boy terribly upset and Spike was torn between comforting Xander and calling the Watcher to demand to know what the bloody hell was going on.

Xander carefully set the mug he'd been sipping tea from on the bedside table and burrowed down in the bed so that his head was on Spike's chest. That was unusual as well; most of the time Xander liked to talk looking into Spike’s eyes. “Willow's decided to play around in Miss Calendar's files. She thinks she might be able to give Angel his soul back.”

“Bloody hell!” Spike felt his true face slip forward and he threw his head back until it banged against the headboard. While he hated Angelus, past, present and souled version, the thought of Red doing magics that big disturbed him.

“It gets worse. She offered to give you one. I told her no.”

Xander's arms squeezed him as if in reassurance but still Spike had to fight back a growl. The thought of being chained to a soul for eternity clamped his gut in a vice and if he'd have eaten any human food he probably would have puked as well.

“Relax. I told her no.”

“Decided you didn't want to make me more human, did you?” Spike couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice, despite the fact that he was glad that Xander hadn't tried to change him.

“It would never work. I'd make you happy and you would have been pissed off and done nasty things to Willow and Buffy. I told them that but I'm not sure if they understand.”

Spike had to fight the urge to push his lover away. He wanted to get up and pace, he wanted to go out and fight...

He wanted to find Red and show her just how stupid it was to be playing with demons and souls.

“I'm not sure even you understand, Xander. What I'd do to them, luv, you can't understand.”

“Understanding here. Full on vision in color kind of understanding. With scratch and sniff, too. Why else would I puke up everything I've eaten in the past three days? I saw everything you did to them, Spike, or what you would do. Everything.”

“And you're not running for the bloody door?”

“Nope. It grossed me out, yeah, but, well, they were warned in that time line too. By me, and Giles and Ethan. More than once. Listen, can we not talk about it? I'd like to keep the tea down.”

“Sorry, luv.” Spike hugged him in reassurance, trying not to let the stiffness in his muscles show. Xander snuggled on his chest even more, almost as if he were seeking the heartbeat that wasn't there. Spike ran his fingers through Xander's hair, trying to soothe.

They'd have to talk about it, of course. Soon. It would destroy too much of Xander's soul if Spike killed his friends, so that would mean that he would probably have turned the boy earlier than he had planned in that future to keep him from worrying. Spike found that distressing too; he wanted it to be Xander's choice, not his.

And the thought that this Xander had seen what he would have done, what he was capable of at his worst and to his friends had him twisting too. Damn Red and the Slayer both! Fucking about with things best left alone. He'd make sure to have a word in the Mage's ear and perhaps Cordelia's as well once the girl was better. She had a shrewd mind and would know to keep the other two from distressing Xander more than he already was.

“Spike?”

“Yeah, pet?”

“Spring Break is week after next. Can we...can we go somewhere? No Scoobies or Angelus? Just the two of us?”

If Spike had a beating heart it would have broken at the sad sound in his lover's voice. “Of course, luv. It’ll do you good to get away from the Hellmouth. Nasty vibes for you here, pet. We'll find someplace nice for us to go. The Slayer can keep watch. We'll talk to Giles tomorrow.”

Spike would talk to him, all right, and about more than just Xander taking a week or so off.

“Thanks, Spike.”

“You're welcome, luv. Still sore?”

“Yeah, I feel like my sides are on fire.”

Spike chuckled softly. “Well, luv, that's what happens when you throw up till your toe nails come up.”

“Ewww, Spike, just...ewww.”

“Get some rest, brat. We'll talk about everything else tomorrow.”

“Mrphf. Tomorrow. Night, Spike.”

“Night, pet. Sweet dreams tonight, luv.” Spike continued to stroke Xander's hair, hoping it would help banish any images left over from his visions. He was definitely overdue a talk with the Mage and Watcher.