Playing to Win

Laying it All Out

Disclaimers and Summary: see chapter 1

A/N: here comes some Spander... finally

Feedback: I love it and those who send it :)

"So," Willow was the first to recover after Giles came back, "has anyone, um, noticed anything."

"Strange," Giles murmured, looking at what appeared to be a blank scroll.

"Yeah, strange," Willow trailed off as she realised Giles wasn't replying to her, "Er, never mind."

"Very strange. Gil Giles trailed off, lost in thought and oblivious to the blank stares of the other three.

"I know I'm not the greatest with the catching on, but I'm officially without a clue," Xander quipped sardonically at Giles, who remained lost in thought.

"Hmmmm?" Giles murmured distractedly, some small part of him cognizant of the rest of the world.

Buffy couldn't help giggling a bit as Giles looked up, alarmed and a little bit ashamed.

"So, G-man, what's up?" Xander asked, deliberately reverting back to his high school persona just to annoy the visibly shaken older man.

"It's gone," Giles said, softly, looking down at the parchment that was once covered in ancient Greek script, "The Scroll of Chronos is blank."

"The scroll of kr..." Willow started, only to be interrupted.

"...­ and I'm guessing that's not of the good?" Buffy asked, her voice carrying over Willow's.

"No, I'm going to say it's officially 'not of the good', Buffy," Giles quipped tiredly.

"The Scroll of Chronos, also known as the Scroll of Vez, the Scroll of Dasha, although my Sanskrit is not what it should be, and many others, in all of the ancient language trees, Indo-European, Proto-Bantu, Ural-Altaic, etc; they are all parts of a lost scroll, from before civilization, before man, before..."

"Time," Willow finished, wonderingly.

"Precisely," Giles said.

"... ­and this has, what, disappeared?" Buffy queried, not quite getting what was going on.

Giles flung the tattered scroll on the table; it was blank.

"I'm guessing that's not of the good," Xander reiterated Buffy's statement from earlier, "but what I'm not even wanting to guess is why."

"Look, I need to think about this, make some phone calls, and probably have a very strong drink," Giles trailed off before correcting himself at their looks of horror,"... of tea! So, why don't you all go out, do some patrolling, or something productive, while I do what I can here; needless to say this could have dire consequences."

Buffy giggled, inappropriately, at that.

"What?" she protested off Giles's look of exasperation, "Just last week you said that about chewing too fast," she shot out as Willow grabbed her and pulled her out the door.

"Bye G-man!" Xander called, darting through the door before Giles could hit him with that evil British glare of disdain.

"Ok, talk Buffy!" Willow demanded as soon as they were out the door.

Buffy glanced pointedly at Xander, who was standing there, trying his best to look clueless - he had found he was able to be privy to a lot more girl-talk that way. Willow followed out Buffy's gaze to also rest on Xander, who backed away, an expression of false innocence on his face.

"Look, this is me being somewhere else,­ right now," he muttered as he headed in the opposite direction, before doubling back to follow them.

Willow lost no time getting right back on topic, "All right, spill; what's up with the Spike and the you and the 'you and Spike'" she grilled.

"Can we do this over some lattes, please?" Buffy asked, resigned.

"Sure," Willow agreed, before adding with a smirk, "but you know that caffeine is bad for a headache, right?"

Buffy groaned and didn't speak again until both girls were settled with caffeinated beverages in hand - well, Buffy had opted for decaf after all for her shot of coffee flavoured courage. Seated at a small table at the Espresso Pump, she stared into her cup, dejected, until Willow cleared her throat pointedly.

"I don't think that coffee cup has the answers, although, judging by what I think you've done, it may have better ones than you lately," Willow offered helpfully.

"All right, I didn't sleep with Spike," Buffy said quickly, "That's what you want to hear me say, right? I know that's what I want to hear me say."

"But is that true, Buffy, because there were vibey things going on in there between you two today, besides the obvious headache and pervasive sexual chemistry that was, just for today, even stronger than the one he's got going with Xander lately - Oh God! Xander's sleeping with Spike, or not..." Willow ticked off the evidence on her fingers before giving up and gulping more coffee, desperately.

Buffy looked at Willow dully, "Believe me Willow, there was no sleeping involved, not then and not for many, many nights to come I imagine," she paused, considering, "What it was, Wills, was painful, hurtful and absolutely amazing sex - the kind of sex that sex has dreams about, but that's all it was, for both of us."

Willow just gaped at her.

"I've already had the one 'love of my dreams' get in me and rip out the seams - there's nothing left Wills, nothing except this," Buffy admitted, with an honesty Willow wasn't sure she'd ever really heard from her.

"You mean...­ Angel?" she asked in a soft voice, hesitant.

Buffy laughed bitterly; "Yeah, he had something to do with it..." she started, before her face closed back off to the Buffy Willow was used to seeing.

Suddenly Willow was struck with the thought that she never really knew the pain her friend felt, and, shivering from the bleakness of Buffy's expression a few moments ago, she was just a little bit glad, however bad a friend that made her.

They both fell silent, and Buffy let herself remember her dreams and the face that had been haunting her. Willow didn't know how far off the mark she had been.

Xander ignored the coffee that the waitress was holding out to him at the counter after hearing the voices of Willow and Buffy drift over to him with lazy precision and fled the shop. He kept running until he made his way to the last place he wanted to be, Spike's crypt. Unfazed now that he was there, he strode through the door, banging it loudly against the stone walls in the silence of the tomb, in spite of the telly blaring in the corner and the most alive undead thing Xander had ever known that was watching it avidly.

"So, what brings about this pleasure?" Spike asked, without breaking his gaze from the programme he was watching.

Xander started to answer, when he noticed what Spike was watching, horrified, he backed away from the site in front of him.

"What are you watching?" he asked in shock.

"What does it look like?" Spike asked glibly, looking up briefly from the National Geographic special on penguins that had so captured his attention. "I mean, this old antenna I ripped off from the dump isn't likely to bring in the Playboy channel, now is it, shaggy; so, I make do with PBS - and what's wrong with penguins?"

"Well, at least there are those specials on primitive tribes where everybody's naked," Xander agreed, deciding to skip the inflammatory penguin question altogether.

Spike just looked at him, assessingly.

"So, you like the primitives, huh? Naked. What is it that does it, the bestial passion, the exotic sensuality¡­ or is it you're just too pathetic to get a real woman naked?" Spike asked, laughing cruelly, before giving him a mock seductive look, "or maybe it's the naked men you are longing to see, eh pet?" he asked, running his hand across his chest which was shaking with laughter.

"You're just trying to be evil and goad me into saying something stupid again and get myself into something even worse than that damn bet I accidentally made," Xander sputtered.

"Ahhhh, now I get it, a little eager to pay up though, aren't you?" Spike smirked.

"Pay?" Xander was already backing up to the door. "You so have the wrong idea here, buster; there is no 'paying', none of any kind. I'm beyond words that Buffy would ever, ever sleep with you," he spat out as Buffy's words came back to him, 'Believe me Willow, there was no sleeping involved,', before continuing shakily, "but I will never go down to that level, EVER."

Spike waved that away with a sweep of his hand, "Looks to me like you're on the right track, already talking about going down."

Xander looked right at Spike, meeting his gaze for a moment, fighting the pull of those hypnotic blue eyes before breaking away, hot and flustered. Spike just smiled, almost sweetly, at him. Xander found himself smiling back, leaning into the hand that reached up to cup his face, so gently. How did Spike know that was what would turn him on more than anything,­ feeling safe? That alone was enough to make him jerk out of his warm stupor and try to break away, but the vampire's very not safe hands were on him, holding him. It wasn't enough to hurt him, a nod to the chip Xander imagined, but with strength to spare to prevent him from going anywhere while Spike did whatever he wanted to him, and what he wanted was apparently to kiss him. He felt soft, cool lips brush against his possessively before claiming them in something much wetter and wilder.

Xander melted into it, this forbidden realm for so many reasons, all of which were very important but not nearly as important as getting more of this right now. His hands reached down to explore the body that Spike seemed so proud of, that Anya had wanted to include in her games, in their bed, the body that Buffy had desired and pleasured and been pleasured by so recently, and he was seized by a dark desire to force it into submission, to own it and punish it, to be on his own knees worshiping it. Sharp, insistent teeth were worrying at his throat while knowing fingers coaxed buttons out of holes and hard nipples out of hiding.

Xander flung himself back violently, shivering from fear and unwanted lust as the vampire stared at him with glazed eyes and a lazy grin.

"This is not going to happen, Spike, not to me, not with you; I've had enough of sleeping with psycho killers that don't stay around to cuddle," he called out as he ran through the door into the night once again.