Irony

***PLEASE GO TO http://www.litgal.vague-disclaimer.org/ FOR THE EDITED AND CORRECTED COPY***


--Rating---------------------
You have to wait a while, but there is eventually explicit, explicit sex.
--Pairing(s)-----------------
Spike/Xander
--Feedback----------------------
Craved, needed like air, big old feedback whore here.
--Beta-----------------------
Velvet Virago
--Author's Notes-------------------
The most up do date version of this story is available at http://www.litgal.vague-disclaimer.org/
--Disclaimer-----------------------
Totally don't own these characters. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox and not making ANY money at all. So, this and all later chapters are written just for fun.

I remembered waking up and thinking I was in a hospital, but the bed I was laying on was more than even hospital uncomfortable, it was prison cell uncomfortable. Not that I knew anything about prison cells, except of course of a couple nights in the brig for punching a superior…that was straight from my soldier memories. Then the two lab coats came.

“The demonic traits exhibit atypically blah blah blah,” offered Dr. Pencil Neck.

“We had thought to bypass examining this target, believing him to be unaffected by aberrant genes yadda yadda,” replied Dr. Too Many Ho-Ho’s

It took me a while to remember, to overcome the effects of the tranquilizer dart, to figure out what I’d been doing that could have attracted the attention of the Initiative. Luckily, I had the time. Hours strapped to a table and now days sitting in a cell staring at the same four walls, at least when they weren’t poking, prodding, sticking, pulling, or burning me. Oh yeah, I remembered and made my little mental hit list. People in white were at the top followed by Riley and then Spike.

Sitting in the white room watching the white coated scientists discuss me as if I were nothing more than an animal to be dissected, I just couldn’t miss the irony. That’s right, irony. Everyone thought I slept through class, and maybe I did my time desk-drooling with the best of them, but I occasionally listened. Irony: when one takes an action and then gets the opposite of what one intends or expects. Woo Hoo—2 points for the Giles impression.

Yep, irony. I still remembered the night in the hyena house, the demon being pulled from my body, the sight of Willow with that painted geek holding a knife to her throat trying to prove his worthiness to carry the hyena spirit. Dr. Nutso thought he could attract the demonic hyena spirit by committing violence. Instead, the sight of my Willow in danger had made me rage and feel such a desire to kill the bastard that the hyena had been sucked right back into me.

And Buffy. Sweet girl, not always the brightest. She’d killed Dr. Nutso thinking to save us all. Instead, by the time I figured out that the laughing barks weren’t memories, the one human who would have taken the spirit off my hands had already passed through various digestive tracts on the way to rejoining the natural world in the form of hyena poo.

And then the hyena itself. It thought it was getting some blood-thirsty fighter who would feed its appetite. Instead it got stuck in the Zeppo, the loser, the “would you like that pizza to go ma’am” moron. And without a pack to back it, encourage it, call it up, it just cowered in a corner of my mind popping up at inconvenient times.

Of course, the scientists were discussing their own form of irony out there on the other side of security glass where people were allowed simple things like clothes. Silly me, I thought gym class with Larry hadn’t provided enough humiliation in my life, but no, the universe had to stick me in a cage naked as fully dressed soldiers marched by.

Truthfully I’d only partially listened. The first day I clung to every word like a lifeline, but I’d discovered that understanding what they planned for the day’s testing just made things worse, so I tended to create my own little imaginary dramas. Right now I had just finished a dialogue where Dr. Pimples confesses his love for Dr. Pencil Neck right before Asshole Riley walks in on them making out.

I was doing a pretty good job of amusing myself until I heard Willow’s name. Well, Willow’s and Tara’s actually. Riley with his famous reports had told them that the girls were witches and were heading out for a coven retreat. That had the scientists getting all steamy in the underpants, and ew, really need a new metaphor for that. There would be no steamy underpants around his girls, unless they were mine. And my underpants hadn’t seriously steamed for anyone since Faith. Well, sort of. Anya certainly got the equipment moving even if the lust didn’t extend beyond my cock. Anyway, the Initiative thought to grab the girls so that it would take Buffy a week or so to notice them gone.

I tried not to make a face at that news. Damn this electrified cage that kept me from ripping their heads off. Usually I frown on the whole violence thing, but a couple of days of electroshock, starvation, experiments, and nakedness left me feeling a little grouchy. Damn scientists who thought they could diagram and count and measure everything. They wanted to get my Willow and her Tara and cut them apart to measure their magic, maybe force them to work for the Initiative or maybe just kill them because they’re all cowards down deep. And damn vampires in general. My capture was his fault. Why did Buffy always ask me to patrol with Spike? Most of the time I blamed this whole mess on the Initiative, but when I got bored, Spike and Buffy took their fair share of the blame too.

Yep, damn Buffy with her “Please Xander, you don’t know how hard it is to patrol with both Riley and Spike. Just go with the Bleached Wonder and remind him that if he does anything he doesn’t get paid and he’ll have Mr. Pointy to deal with.”

And damn Spike. When the Initiative soldiers had shown up, all I had to do was play it cool. Yeah, Spike would get caught, but I’d faked hateful for so long it should have been second nature. Fangless, Impotent One, Willie Wanna Bite, I had the names down. I should have been able to fling off an insult and walk away, or run away and get Buffy. That would have been the smart move, but no one ever accused me of being smart. Well, this teacher in the third grade did once, but I proved him wrong by sticking chalk up my nose.

Anyway, what did I do? Did I run for help? Did I call Buffy? Nope. I went all green-eyed growly and tried to take out the whole damn unit by myself. I’ve had this discussion with my hyena friend many times. Yes, Spike is one strong bastard who’s survived more than most vampires ever will before turning to dust. But Spike hates me, which is fine with me because it makes it easier to pretend to hate him. But, and this is a big but, I’m going to have trouble convincing anyone that I hate Spike after I went all protective over him. I’m pretty sure I killed one of the soldiers, not that I’m having a case of the guilts. I’m having trouble even caring. In fact, the hyena is practically bouncing over the fact and my soldier memories are all stoic about known risks and dying in the line of duty.

But none of this helps me now. Now I’m sitting on the floor naked, listening to two Mengele wanna-be’s talk about Willow and Tara like their new prized heifers about to be brought to the farm. Spike obviously had his own accommodations down here somewhere, unless the scientists had dusted him, and I could hear myself growl at that thought. Oh great, I just gave the scientists another happy as they got to write down another aberrant behavior. Humans don’t growl, I reminded myself, but the hunger and the fear and the knowledge that I had failed Spike made it difficult not to growl. Made it difficult not to throw myself against that electrified glass, and you would think I would be better at repressing after all these years of practice, but nope.

Here comes Ms. Piggy right on cue. I refuse to do it. Hunger and my hyena see the piglet that’s been lowered into my cell as one big hot dog on legs, but I remember the last time I did that, and I never quite got over it. Well, that and the fact that the pack had gone from the school mascot to the principal. I still had trouble eating bacon without thinking of Mr. Flutie, so I really wasn’t eating another pig no matter how hungry I got or how many scientists wanted to observe my “aberrant behavior.”

When the scientists finally gave up and used another tranq dart to send me to la-la land and retrieve the pig, I had reached a breaking point. I wanted to kill them was my last thought as I sunk into darkness.