Irony

*

“Xander? What th… What are you…” You know, you’d think that crack commando teams would be, I don’t know, more crack. First the guy who didn’t even react to me until I’d bashed his head against the wall and now Riley with the stammering thing, and I was starting to think that these people were not getting their money’s worth on the whole commando front. Riley must have realized just how wrong things looked what with me being naked and Spike being naked and me touching a naked Spike because his hand went to his sidearm, and I reached out and grabbed his wrist as I pushed him back into the large room he was trying to leave. I could already tell from the smell that there weren’t any other people in there, and one hiding hole looked pretty much like any other. Of course, if I couldn’t get the brain to work a little better, a hiding hole wasn’t going to actually help us for long. Following my nose…brilliant plan for dogs, not so good for people. I gotta remember that next time.

“Xander what are you doing here?” Riley finally finished a complete sentence as I dropped Spike to the ground and tightened my grip on Riley’s hand. Spike might wake up bruised, but at least he would wake up.

“Where else should I be, Riley?” I asked him right back as his eyes tightened in pain even thought he wouldn’t loosen his hold on the gun.

“Seattle.” Okay, that threw me.

“Why would I be in Seattle?” I asked, and I was so surprised at that answer that my grip loosened and Riley took that opportunity to try his moves. To his credit, the moves were good with a slide to the side with a blow with his free hand to the inside of my elbow. Two weeks ago, the move would have worked. Hell, ten *minutes* ago the move would have worked. However, I was just starting to figure out that I was a good deal stronger now.

So, my elbow only bent slightly even as I grabbed Riley’s free hand and put enough pressure on the inside of his arm using my finger tips that he gasped. Of course the gasping was a little less important than the letting go of his gun part, and I quickly reached across his body and grabbed the weapon before backing up a step.

“And again, why would I be in Seattle?” I asked him as I trained the weapon his head. I didn’t plan to actually shoot him, well not unless he did something stupid like breathe or look at me wrong.

“You got that construction job supervising the site. You called Buffy last night,” Riley said even as he rubbed his sore arm and looked at me in a way that made it clear that given a chance he’d break my neck, which was fine by me because he wasn’t getting the chance.

“Never happened,” I said as I backed up some to look down the aisles in a locker room. Yep, lockers. I don’t know what I was expecting, but an elevator with the words “Secret Escape Route” would have been nice. “Where is everyone?” I asked as I realized that the scent of wet hair and male sweat was still fresh in my nose.

“They’re responding to the alarm, which I have to assume is for you.” Riley’s voice suddenly dropped into a more friendly tone, and I immediately turned all my attention back to him. I’m not stupid enough to think Riley would be friendly to me without some ulterior motives what with the hating him and taking him hostage and making fun of him to Buffy. Some guys get cranky about stuff like that. “You’re nowhere near an exit here, Xander. Whatever reason you have for saving the vampire, just look at this logically. You’re in the Initiative and every exit will be covered by now. You need to just give me the gun and let me take Spike into custody.” Um, okay, as far as arguments went that stank… even I could come up with a better argument than that.

“And then you’ll let me go back to Seattle where I have the wonderful construction job?’ I asked sarcastically.

“Exactly,” Riley agreed with such honesty that I realized he could never fake that level of concern. Say what you want about Riley, he wasn’t a liar. Even when he wanted to lie he sort of sucked at it, like worse than me sucked, and I haven’t been able to keep a secret from Willow since second grade. Well, other than the one, and that doesn’t really count since I was lying to myself most of the time. Told myself that the hyena was going away and didn’t really bother me, and I don’t think I can believe that anymore since I could now feel the hyena needs not at a tingling in the back of my mind but as part of Me. Very of the creepy making. I looked at Riley again, seeing him not as an Initiative soldier but as one more sap in the middle of a giant pile of demon poo.

“Well this is ironic, but then that term has been popping into my mind quite a bit lately,” I said to Riley who looked at me as I if I’d slipped off my gears. Maybe I had.

“Xander,” he said in that tone of voice that psychologists on TV use to try and talk someone out of jumping off a building.

“It seems like I know something about the Initiative you don’t. They’re following a new mission statement, and someone forgot to give you the memo.” Riley looked at me suspiciously and then glanced toward the door as footsteps pounded past.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Xander, but the fact is that Spike is a hostile… even if he is harmless, he needs to be destroyed. It’s us versus them. Humans versus demons.”

“Well, the Initiative seems to have redefined humanity and Willow and Tara and I don’t fit into their new definition. I’m sure Buffy and Giles will be following soon, and then who knows, maybe you’ll lose your pure human card for sleeping with a slayer.” With a shudder I realized just how ugly this was about to get. Giles never talked about the whole demon community in Sunnydale, but me plus bored had equaled following him on more days than I care to admit, and he had some pretty interesting friends and business partners, and I *knew* Giles wouldn’t work with people who were dangerous. Well, he wouldn’t work with people who were dangerous in the actively killing people kind of way. Like that tiny old woman with skin that would go all bluish when she was arguing prices with Giles, that wasn’t very damn human, but I couldn’t see the government dragging some 90 year old woman or demon or whatever she was into a lab. Some things are just wrong, even when it comes to demons.

“Xander, someone’s obviously said something to confuse you…” Riley interrupted my thoughts.

“Confuse me?” I asked, indignant. For once, I knew I was right and knew for a fact I *wasn’t* confused which was a new feeling for me. I hovered on the edge of hysteria and I tried to swallow down the fear and the pain and the helplessness until a time when I could feel all those things without some soldier taking advantage of the moment to throw me back in a cage.

“I’ve never been to Seattle, Riley, but I’ve been to a few interesting places around here.” I held out my arm. A dozen track marks wandered up until they faded into the thickest part of my bicep, a strip of still healing pink skin a half inch wide and two inches long covered the area just above my elbow on the inside, and the wrist had faint burn marks. I had grown used to these injures earned one at a time but as I watched Riley’s face pale, I looked down and realized that the arm was a roadmap of torture that left my stomach feeling knotted and heavy.

“Oh shit.” Wow, managed to make Riley speechless. But I had more important fish to fry.

“You told them that Willow and Tara were going on a Wicca retreat this weekend…have they gone?”

“Xander, it’s only Thursday,” Riley said in a ‘what an idiot’ tone of voice, and maybe the hyena made me more cool because my old reaction would have been to splutter and protest and babble, but instead I just looked at him with my best imitation of the patented Spike one-eyebrow-up expression. He glanced at me, did a double take, and then his face sort of melted into this expression of embarrassment. And there’s another shout out to irony because I was usually doing the blushing and wishing the hell mouth would open thing, and I wondered if my normal expression looked at stupid as Riley’s did right now.

“But I guess you don’t know the day,” he said softly. I should have just let it go and kept doing the cool silent thing, but the hyena’s powers were obviously too limited to overcome the Xander dork factor entirely.

“No duh, ya think so?” I asked, realizing a minute too late that I had just left the land of cool with that statement. However, it must have been the right thing to say because Riley shook his head and I could see the tension going out of him even though I still had the gun trained on him.

“It really is you.” He said with a sort of sad wonder, and I felt partially relieved that I had won at least part of the battle and partially offended because Xander Harris with a gun was not worthy of relaxing around. I’m big, I’m bad, and I’m dangerous, damn it! He should’ve been terrified of what I would do in my righteous anger about my treatment. Instead he turned his back to me and went over to the door without a word, and HEY—guy with the gun here. I was just about to point out that hostages really shouldn’t be checking the hall without at least ASKING the hostage taker, but after he stuck his head into the hallway, he pulled it back in and asked me a question before I could get my indignant thoughts together.

“How did you know about the girls if it wasn’t you that called Buffy and Willow last night?” Riley asked, and yeah, it hurts that the girls couldn’t even tell the difference between me and some Initiative poseur. I tried really hard not to be utterly offended.

“I knew because two of the scientists were discussing them. The Initiative is planning on waiting until they get on the road and then bringing them back here for ‘study’.” I made the little air quotes in the air with one hand while the other still held the gun steady.

“But our mission doesn’t…” Riley just stopped mid sentence, and I watched a number of expression cross his face in lightening flashes, and it made me glad not to be a lightning rod because his last few expressions were filled with fury and determination. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter; what matters is getting you out of here and letting Buffy know what’s going on.”

“Spike too,” I hurried to point out

“Xander, we don’t have …”

“When are you planning on getting the message: Initiative, bad…Initiative, bad… Initiative, bad. I’m not leaving Spike in here.”

“Okay Xander, calm down.” I would have told Riley what to do with his calm but just then I heard a soft moaning sound and I lowered the gun to point at the floor while I knelt next to a waking Spike.

“Did they take you together?” Riley asked, and I wondered what the hell difference that made. Captured is captured.

“Soddin’ unfair, I shouldn’t have to put up with Captain Cornfed even if I am in hell,” Spike groaned and I tried to stifle a hysterical giggle. He was okay enough to complain, which was of the good.

“Whatever, just stay out of my way,” Riley snapped as he walked past us and went to the lockers, and again with the HEY! Guy with the gun here! But Riley ignored my indignant expression, or rather he didn’t notice because he didn’t bother to look, and I nearly snarled when something touched my arm. Looking down I realized that Spike had put a hand on my arm and was looking at me a little strangely.

“Not worth it, pet,” he said even as he started to pull himself up. What? I would asked him what the hell he was talking about except I really didn’t want to look even more clueless in front of Riley who was pissing me off to a level I had never experienced pissed offness before.

Here, put these on, Riley said as he tossed clothing at us; I caught the ugly brown shirt and started pulling it over my head. Spike’s snort was the first indication of a problem, and the fact I couldn’t get it all the way on was my second.

“Wanker,” Spike said without even a trace of our former animosity as he yanked the shirt off hard enough to make me yelp.

“Watch it blondie,” I snarled, perfectly willing to take my frustration in general out on Spike. I don’t know what I expected, but Spike leaning over to give me a quick kiss wasn’t it. Oh sure, I’d had plenty of fantasies about that, but those fantasies were still distant enough that you couldn’t really call them thoughts that crossed my mind. With the brown shirt still in hand, Spike just leaned in and pressed his soft, cool lips against my own, and in the space of one second, I was once again hormonally raging, and shit, Riley was in the room. Spike pulled back and slipped the shirt over his own head, and when his face reappeared, the smug expression on his face told me everything I needed to know.

“You asshole, what are you doing?” I demanded as I realized I now had a hard on that even Riley couldn’t ignore, and that boy seemed pretty capable of ignoring much of reality.

“Wot?” Spike asked with a flip of his eyebrow, and I heard a growl coming from me before I even realized that I was capable of the sort of full growl that I heard from Spike every time I used all the hot water.

“You did that on purpose.”

“Yep,” Spike agreed with a smile as he thrust a hideous green pair of slacks at me, and that was not the type of thrusting I wanted here.

“Asshole,” I repeated as I slipped the pants on and tried to get angry enough to make my hard on go away.

“Seem a bit obsessed with that word,” Spike pointed out, and I just snarled at him. A banging locker announced Riley’s imminent return, and yep, that took care of one problem right there. Spike was just pulling uniform pants on when Riley reappeared with two pair of boots.

“Put ‘em on,” Riley said before he went and checked at the door again.

“Really? Thought I might use ‘em for target practice. Stupid nit.” Spike snarled under his breath, but Riley was ignoring him too, so at least I didn’t feel singled out by Riley’s threat assessment of me that placed me somewhere between 5 year old girl and bunny rabbit. You’d really think I could get at least a little respect with the whole taking his gun thing, but nope. Since I obviously wasn’t winning the intimidation portion of the day’s festivities, I stuck the gun in a pocket and grabbed the shirt Spike held out.

Spike and I slipped on the boots, and with the addition of some stupid hats, we could almost pass as soldiers. Well, except for the bleach blond hair and the body odor and the way the clothes almost but didn’t quite fit. We were *so* going to die, but at least I had the pleasure of knowing we were taking Riley down with us.

“Okay, we’re going to try for the portal room. Give me the gun back.”

“Not a chance” and “What the soddin’ hell’s a portal room” came out at once.

“Will you two shut up before you get all three of us killed?” Riley hissed. Oh yeah, feeling a real desire to pull all his hair out by the roots now.

“I’m not giving you the gun back. I took it fair and square.” The minute the words came out of my mouth I realized that they only made sense in a hyena sort of way what with the strong taking whatever they were strong enough to keep. In human terms, that argument really didn’t work, but I wasn’t about to back down to Captain Cardboard.

“Xander, I’m not walking around with an empty holster; that screams hostage, so give me the gun.”

“Take off the holster,” I countered.

“Xander.” Great, now Riley was using that frustrated tone of voice my mother used when I didn’t clean my room, and I hated that tone from my mother, but from Riley it made me damn near homicidal.

“Bloody hell, you two can play ‘who has the bigger dick’ later, right now I just want out of this soddin’ hell hole.”

“You’re just…” Riley started, and I could tell from the expression on his face that he was about to say something I was going to have to kill him for.

“Riley,” I snapped louder than any tone I’d ever before used around the soldier, “I’m not giving you the gun so you can get rid of the holster or keep the holster or eat the holster, but you’re going in that all without anything *in* the holster.” Riley actually stopped talking, which surprised me, and looked at me as if he’d never before seen me. He gave me that look that two guys in a bar give each other when they like the same girl. And yeah, the irony there wasn’t lost on me since my days of girl gazing had just come screeching to a halt if my cock’s reaction to Spike was any gauge. It’s not that I didn’t still think girls pretty, but after the whole Cordelia/Willow thing I tended to lust after one person at a time, which left me with one ex demon sized problem, but one disaster at a time. I’d just have to deal with Anya later and hope I got through with all my parts still attached. She’d had this whole Lorena Bobbitt altar thing that made me worry about her reaction— demon powers or no demon powers.

“Fine,” Riley finally said through clenched teeth as he went back into the lockers. One good slam later he came back without the holster, and he stormed past us into the hall without another word. I looked at Spike with my best ‘not my fault’ expression, but he just gave a quick snort and followed Riley out into the hall. Still worried about whether I had pushed Riley too far, I trailed the other two, my hand in my pocket where I wrapped my fingers around the butt of my gun.

The trip walking through the various hallways and passages all painted the same exact shade of white… one of the worst memories of my entire life, and I have a few really bad memories up there. However bug ladies and Angelus and bloodthirsty demons all together didn’t scare me as much as these humans who so coldly considered my death an acceptable loss in their little war. When Spike had been on the other side of the evil fence, he was just being Spike. Not that he was really on the not-evil side now. He was just on the vegetarian evil side of the fence, unless the upgrade put him back on the hunt, and I so don’t even want to consider that as a possibility. But back to the point, Spike was just following instincts that said humans were a food source. That wasn’t evil; it was just…creepy and predatory. But these scientists had no instinct to cut me up and use me like their bottom boy; they did it because they were curious or they enjoyed it or some combination of the two. *That* was evil.

“Now just be quiet and let me do the talking,” Riley said as we came to a stop outside one more door that looked exactly like every other door in this whole damn place.

“Like I want to talk to any of you wankers,” Spike said with a sneer, and I only hoped that Riley didn’t hear the nervousness in Spike’s voice. Of course anything that made Spike nervous left me wanting to collapse into a puddle on the floor. If asked, I would have sworn that my stomach actually did flop around a bit in my stomach, but I tried to keep a stoic face as I followed Spike and Riley into a large control room. God just please don’t let this be the place where Riley turned us in to the demon Nazis I thought as the door closed with a soft snick behind me.