Irony

*

“I do believe I’ve won our little bet.”

“You had an unfair advantage with your history in Section 15,” a nasally voice responded, and I groaned under my breath- great, another visit from Dr. Pimples and Dr. Pencil Neck. “The vampire’s superior strength made the assignment of dominance a rather easy task,” the first bragged, and here we go back to the land of the circle jerk. I wondered if the other scientists got as tired of this as I did. Of course, if they did, one of their colleagues would have put strychnine in the coffee long ago.

“So, did you finish the tests on seventeen?” the second voice asked, and I perked up my ears without actually perking my ears or perking anything else since I was trying to be all stealthy with the fake sleep.

“Oi, you lot mind holding down the noise before I go get the super?” Spike complained from the other side of the room, and yep, there went the stealth. With a heavy sigh I sat up and looked through the glass at the two men who had tried their best over the past… god, who knows how long we’ve been in here, but anyway they’ve tried to turn me into a pin cushion, an ashtray, an electrical circuit, and any number of other things the human body was never meant to be. Well, not unless you're into kinkier stuff than I am because the blood from my last fight with Spike was about as kinky as I got, and oh god, don’t think about the blood. Too late. I squirmed as my cock filled again, and I almost felt sorry for whatever scientist was in charge of coming up with a theory to explain my amazingly headstrong body part.

The scientists ignored Spike and continued their conversation. “Yes, I did think it was a waste of time to repeat the same tests we’ve conducted on two dozen other vampires, but Dr. Childs did insist on being thorough given the subject’s aberrant behavior. Have you finished with 223?”

“No, not yet. I do wish I could keep 17 around a while longer though. 223 has exhibited more deviant pathology since being housed with 17.” As the words sunk in, I turned to look at Spike. I don’t know what I expected to see, but his face had gone emotionless so that he appeared to be utterly indifferent to the two scientists who were talking about not keeping Spike around, and I really didn’t have any illusions about them retiring Spike to the Old Vamps Home. As I watched the scientists consult some numbers on their charts I felt an overwhelming urge to rip their guts out. Well, actually I felt an overwhelming urge to rip out their guts and then eat them, but I’m trying to stay in denial about that second part for as long as possible.

“When will you take 17 down to Disposal?” Dr. Pimples asked as calmly as if he were talking about the weather rather than talking about destroying Spike. I mean, yes, he’s annoying and snarky, and a giant pain in the ass, but he’s a pain in the ass with a personality and hopes and desires and frustrations, and a good 80% of all those things that make us human. Destroying him was like…okay, it was like staking a vampire which I personally did as often as possible, but I *knew* this vampire and staking him just wasn’t an option.

“After 17 has been disposed of, where will you be transferred?” Dr. Pimples asked, and I realized I had just missed a rather important answer because I was too busy growling at the two scientists who stood inches from a very slow and painful death. Hyena were actually rather famous for playing with their food, not that these guys were food because calling people food was very, very wrong in the getting you locked up for the rest of your life kind of way.

“I hope to get a transfer to Aberrations permanently,” Dr. Pencil Neck responded.

“Oh, that would be nice; I have to admit that I’ve enjoyed working with you.” Okay, I just couldn’t take it any more. I couldn’t take their callous discussion of Spike’s death…well, Spike’s dusting, what with the whole already being dead thing. I was sick of their insensitivity, casually arranging Spike’s “disposal” right in front of us. I was sick of their constant tap dancing around each other when they obviously just wanted to get it on. I think my next comment may actually qualify as a snap.

“Oh for God’s sake I am so sick of hearing you two suck up to each other. Either rip each other’s clothes off and start fucking like horny weasels or shut the fuck up,” I snarled without even bothering to stand up. Both scientists froze in place, but Spike’s instant deep laugh rang down the halls. I turned to see Spike leaning against the wall laughing so hard that little tears appeared in the corner of his eyes, and if the joke wasn’t that funny, I wasn’t going to call him on it. If I’d lived through a hundred and twenty years of Angelus and Darla and revolutions and massacres and hunters just to get taken out by geekoids like these, I’d be approaching hysterical too.


“Bloody hell, whelp. Didn’t know you had it in you,” Spike finally commented as the two scientists bustled off in a chorus of ‘hrumphs’ and ‘well reallys’.

“Sick of listening to them,” I said with a shrug.

Spike paused and looked over at me. “Seem to have a problem there, mate.” I glanced down at myself down and really, I couldn’t exactly deny what he said, what with the fully erect cock that all but bobbed between my legs.

I dropped my face into my hands, sighing. “Fine, just get the insults over with…what’s it going to be today? Do you want to point out how I’m not really a man since I’m Buffy’s butt monkey even though she treats me like the party guest that no one wants around? Or maybe you’d like to point out my lack of non-humiliation jobs. Say, how about the time I had to dress up like a hot dog to advertise the new hotdog-on-a-stick booth? With all the pork on the hoof around here lately, that should be good for a laugh or two.”

Yep, when all else fails it’s full babble ahead for the Xan-man.

I absolutely refused to look at Spike because I didn’t want to see the mocking expression. Of course I also felt like the biggest heel in the world for picking a fight after the latest bombshell, but at least I managed to bite my own tongue before making chipped vampire jokes, which means for me the day was actually a diplomatic success. Yeah, I know, I’m pathetic. Thank god no one ever relied on me for my diplomacy skills, because that’s a big no on the ‘Xander being tactful’ front. Hell, my tactful scale went from “blatantly insulting” to “obliviously rude”. Yep, that was about my range.


“Bloody hell, not sayin’ anything of the sort, ya wanker. Ya really aren’t very good at hearin’ what I’m actually sayin’, are ya?”


“Nope, and that would be why my third grade teacher wanted me to repeat the grade. However if you have a new one to add…maybe something about how I can’t take care of myself or hunt my own food, you just go right ahead and jump in here.”

“Pet, look at me.” The gentleness of his voice surprised me and I looked up before I could even catch myself. Spike was squatted down like he so often did, but of course the whole lack of jeans thing meant that his squat was so much more interesting than when he did it on patrol, which was of the good, because if Spike squatted like this on patrol with his danglies all dangling I would definitely get eaten by something. Hell, I might not even notice getting eaten. I would just die happy looking at Spike’s cock. His fully engorged cock. His beautiful head poking out of the foreskin with a single drop of precum just gathering at the slit, and oh my god. Okay, unless he had done something really kinky on the other side of the room without me hearing, there was no reason at all for him to have that response. However, my own inflating, deflating wonder, which had deflated during my tirade, was now inflating again at the sight of Spike so hard and needy.

“Spike?” I asked uncertainly even as my body made some rather salacious suggestions.

“Right; I know the Primal’s doing some hijacking there, and you’re safe as houses, Xander. You’re a great bloody pain in my arse, but ya tried to protect me, which is more than most anyone else, so thanks mate.” I sat, stunned and still trying to understand the first half of Spike’s statement when it occurred to me that he was saying goodbye. No no no. I was not going to let him get away, not when I’d just figured out something important. At least, I thought I had just figured out something important. Either I’d figured something out or I was about to make the biggest fool out of myself in the long history of Xander Harris’ making a fool of himself.

“Wait, Spike, you think the Primal’s the one who’s… well… yeah, you know what I mean.”

“You’re a soddin’ adult, Harris. You’re allowed to say the big bad naughty words now.” I felt myself blush deeply.

“Fine, you think the Primal is the one who’s lusting after you.”

“Not like I can help noticin’ the conflict of opinion there.” Spike gestured toward my groin, and I blushed even deeper. Who knew I had this much blood for my cock with enough left over for every square inch of my body to turn beet red?

“Not planning to jump you, so you can just relax,” he finished calmly. Oh, I so totally wasn’t even worried about him jumping me, that wasn’t the real danger, I thought as I started to smile. Right now I was thinking he had a lot more to worry about than I did what with my whole jumping Spike fantasy that now started running on in my head. Knowing what Spike looked like naked really did make the naughty fantasies a whole lot more interesting.

I took a deep breath. “It’s not the Primal, Spike.”

“Wot?” Spike had that wonderfully cute confused-as-hell expression: head cocked to one side with his brows beetled together.

“Primal wants sex… can’t say that she really cares where it comes from. Last time she came out to play I liked Buffy, so the Primal chased after Buffy and tried to take her as a mate. This time, I like you, so the Primal keeps trying to push me into… you know.” I just couldn’t look Spike in the eye and admit my fantasies including throwing him to the ground and pinning him down until he showed me his neck and yielded to my claim. Oh god, I almost broke my cock at just the thought of that. Ow.

“Well that’s a bloody insult,” Spike nearly whispered, and that took care of my cock problem right away. Yeah, I should have known he’d be insulted at the lust of the donut boy, but I hadn’t thought that even Spike would be rude enough to say it. Okay, I had thought it, but I had hoped he would have at least some courtesy, like not saying it in front of god knows how many scientists who would now know that William the Bloody was insulted by the attentions of Xander Harris, Zeppo extraordinaire, and hey, did I just miss something?

“…like me has no business chasin’ after Slutty the Vampire Lay-er. I mean really, I’m a hell of a lot sexier than that bony twat.”

“Huh?” Okay, so that was a yes, I obviously missed something important.

“I said,” Spike gave an exaggerated sigh as he looked me in the eye, “anyone who has the good sense to fancy me has no business goin’ for Slutty.”

“What, you mean you aren’t insulted that I…” I stopped when I saw the eyebrow go up.

“Okay, fine I’m being stupid, but I really think I need to know where I stand here,” I said as I stood up and crossed my arms. Spike mirrored my actions on the opposite side of the room as he stood. Oh god, stop looking at his cock I ordered myself. When my eyes wandered up to his face, I would see that sly, amused expression he sometimes got when he knew something that no one else did. Okay, I think I could assume I wasn’t being subtle with the whole cock-staring thing.

“Fine, from where I’m standing I want to throw you down on the floor, feel you writhe under me as I lick the sweat from your body and then slam my cock into you so deep that you beg me to make ya whole.” Spike looked straight at me as he said it, and I couldn’t help but let the hyena up a little to meet the challenge; I felt my vision shift as the hyena surfaced. Then I suddenly found myself looking at a game-faced Spike.

“I don’t think you can do it,” I told him. “I think it’s more likely that you’ll be laying under me, begging me for my cock right before I fuck you into a quivering mass of need and frustration, never letting you actually come until you yield to me,” I answered, shocked at my own mouth, and hoping Spike’s last act wouldn’t be to tear my tongue out of my mouth for even having the fantasy in my head much less the temerity to say it to him. Spike started growling, and I growled back as he stepped toward me, but somehow I just knew physical harm wasn’t on the agenda although physical action might be. Rather than retreat, I stepped forward so that we were chest to chest, and I used my height to look down on him.

“Don’t think ya have it in ya,” Spike said with a snarl, but it didn’t scare me at all. In fact, I was very close to throwing Spike down and fucking him like a cheap whore right in the cell, cameras or no cameras, scientists or no scientists. However not all my luck had changed because at that moment I felt the tranq hit my thigh. Spike looked down at the tuft of synthetic fur decorating his own tranq dart before he looked back up at me.

“Sorry we won’t have the chance ta find out, pet.” Spike’s legs collapsed and he went to the ground like a sack of cement, the only ungraceful move I’ve ever seen him make. It took me a moment to realize that I’d fallen to the ground myself. I expected the abyss to take me, to pull me into the nothingness, but at the same time I fought it. They were going to take Spike; cowards who wouldn’t even face him were going to take him and kill him. I struggled to keep my eyes open just far enough to see his face as he lay crumpled next to me.

I didn’t even notice the unfamiliar grinding noise until a black boot stepped in between me and Spike so that my vision was filled with the boot of the thing that was going to take Spike…kill Spike….turn my mate into dust. Mate? Yeah, we may not have worked out the details, but the challenge had been issued, and he had responded. I reached into myself, and I didn’t just allow the hyena to come up, I pulled at her. I could feel the drug dragging me toward oblivion as I struggled to make my limbs answer, and I found myself praying to be able to find the strength to do one thing right in my life. I promised to forgive myself for every mistake I’d ever made if I just did this one thing. Staking Jesse, falling asleep on Oz-watch, the whole clothing fluke, thinking that magic made for a good post-breakup revenge, poor Cordy falling through those stairs: I’d forgive myself every stupid thing I’d ever done if I could just not screw this up. If I failed Spike… well I just wasn’t going to even think about that. I couldn’t bear it. Not now.

The drug clouded my eyesight as the boots faded to gray, and I struggled to stay awake as I opened myself up and pulled the hyena into me. No more her versus me, no trading off time in the body, no negotiation, just one merged creature strong enough to fight the drug and save the mate. I opened myself totally, both surrendering to and commanding the hyena, and she surged forward in triumph just as I began to lose my grip on consciousness. The world tilted dangerously, and I actually had to throw my hand out to steady myself which really was kinda stupid since I was laying on the ground so the chances of me falling were not so good. Luckily the guards didn’t notice, but then I was just the Zeppo; I wasn’t the dangerous one. Yeah, I think they missed a memo there somewhere because I suddenly didn’t feel like a Zeppo.

My eyesight cleared and sharpened as two uniformed soldiers bodily hauled Spike off the floor and dropped him on a gurney. A white-coated tech had just fastened the first strap when I boiled up from the floor and darted out of the cell before the soldiers could lock me in again. The hyena’s power and rage pounded through my body as I grabbed one soldier and cleanly snapped his neck before I even realized what I was doing. That sounds like an excuse, but I didn’t need an excuse for taking out these men who tortured and killed without remorse or pity. They were as evil as demons, almost worse in way because these were humans who were supposed to have souls.

Anyway, I hardly knew what I was doing with blind instinct taking over, and the other soldier didn’t realize what I had done either because he turned with his buddy’s name on his lips and then stood frozen for that critical second as I reached forward. He grabbed for his gun, and my left hand went down to trap the weapon in the holster even as the scientist-techie screamed and took off running down the hall.

Realizing that I didn’t have much time, I slammed the soldier’s head against the wall hard enough to either stun him or crush his skull, I’m not sure which. This time it was my turn to freeze- part of me wanted to chase down the fleeing white-coat prey, and another part wanted to just grab the mate and escape.

Deciding that I really didn’t have time to stop the alarm from being raised, especially with two bodies lying in the hallway for anyone to see, I grabbed Spike up and threw him over my shoulder and ran for the exit sign, and god please let these soldiers be anal retentive enough for the exit to actually be an exit. And should they really have big glowing exit signs in a demon prison? Are there building codes for secret government torture labs?

I slammed through the door a half second behind the blaring alarm, but I just started climbing stairs with Spike thrown over my shoulder, and damn, look at all those stairs, I told myself as I considered the nearness of that sexy butt dimple. My arm gripped his firm waist, his hips and legs bounced against the front of my body as I ran, and who knew how lickably soft a vampire’s skin could be? I thought being regular teenager made me horny enough, but the hyena’d up me? Very, very horny. Horny and naked and holding a naked Spike which sounds pretty damn tasty, until you consider all the soldiers out to kill us.

I could hear steps pounding down the stairs from above so I took the first door off the stairs into a level that was all white doors and hallways… big surprise there. These people seriously needed to hire a decorator. A desperate giggle rose in my throat at a sudden mental image of the “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” boys tut-tutting as they swished around the labs. Right, so not gonna happen. And so not helping me and Spike right now. And how the hell was I carrying a passed out Spike up stairs without even breaking a sweat? And oh god, I had just completely lost my mind as I thought as I stood in the middle of the Initiative trying to figure out what to do.

Just then a familiar scent hit my nose, and I turned my head to the left, nostrils twitching, and how weird was that? I really couldn’t even figure out what I was smelling since the whole sniffing the air thing was kinda new for me, and oh god, was that wonderful smell Spike? I glanced at the ass draped over my shoulder and had an overwhelming urge to mate, but then he wasn’t conscious, and doing the not moving dead guy…so not a good mental image. And really, I should probably be thinking of escape, so back to the familiar smell…anything familiar in this place was of the good. Taking a quick sniff to get a location, I turned to the left. Shifting Spike’s limp body higher up on my shoulder, I took off down the left hallway, turning at the second hallway on the left and then again at the third hallway on the left, and how big was this place anyway? Shouldn’t someone have noticed the government digging a frikkin’ city under the frikkin’ city?

I had just taken another turn when I skidded to a halt as a door opened and the familiar smell snapped into my memory like a rubber band that breaks and hits you right between the eyes.

Riley.