Night Of Nights

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Night of Nights

Sajinn

No, they aren’t mine. I wish they were, but they aren’t. They belong to their creators. No money is being made. I just take them out, put them in pretty dresses, and make them fight each other. No harm, no foul. Feed the writer. Review.

The Tenth

Happy Birthday, Burgess Meredith.

"What the hell was that about?" Xander asked angrily as he stormed into the apartment. "Carting me around outside, trying to knock me up the stairs. What, are you bored or something?"

Spike blinked. "Er, no," He said carefully. "I was just--"

"'Cause if you're bored, all you had to do was *say something*, you know. I mean, it's not like you're chained to me," Xander ranted, throwing groceries around the kitchen. "You don't have to do the whole nonverbal communication thing, Spike. For one, I'm no good at reading it. Two, I prefer to be face to face with people when the tell me to fuck off!"

A shiver ran down Spike's back. Was Xander throwing him out? That was what it sounded like. He'd gone too far and now... now he was gone. "What?" He whispered brokenly, shaking his head. "No..."

Xander slammed the Froot Loops on the counter, sending garish, circular cereal flying into the air. Bits of it landed on Spike, twining in bleached locks. "I'm not a toy, Spike, and I don't appreciate being treated like one. I'm not sure what the hell you think you're doing here, but I don't like it."

Spike couldn't listen to any more. He spun on his heel and ran out of the apartment, taking the stairs three at a time. Within seconds, he was gone, fading into the inky black night.

Xander stared after the vampire. "Where'd he go?" The boy asked the empty apartment. "He didn't leave." No, Spike wouldn't leave. Spike loved him. He'd be back.

•••

"Yes, you're quite right, Buffy," Giles murmured. "There *has* been a remarkable decrease in the number of vampire attacks around the hospital."

Xander pretended to listen as Buffy and Giles debated new patrol ideas. Willow and Tara were... doing whatever it was witches did over by the counter. Xander himself was staring at the wood grain of the table, wondering where Spike was. The vampire hadn't returned before morning. Hadn't shown up at sunset. Now Xander was at the Magic Box, having not seen Spike since the night before.

"Did you hear that?" Buffy asked the room at large.

"Hear what?" Willow murmured.

"That banging noise," The Slayer said, picking up a stake. "It's right outside. Come on," She urged, heading for the door. Xander reluctantly stood up and joined the others to investigate, figuring it was kids being idiots, or a policeman rolling vagrants, or skaters jumping garbage cans or...

Spike, hitting a lamppost.

"Bloody bugger!" Spike shouted at the lamppost. "What th' 'ell was that? Bored? Y' thought I was bored?" The lamppost endured a volley of verbal abuse, accentuated by the occasional slap, which echoed loudly through the hollow post. The vampire wasn't actually doing any damage to the thing, just sort of knocking it for emphasis.

"I love you, you bleeding idiot," The blonde moaned, resting his head against the light. "Haven't loved anyone for so long, an' been loved back..." That achingly sorrowful voice wrapped around the black enameled metal of the post, curling and sliding towards the pavement. Cool white hands fluttered along the post, pressing and testing with the care and precision of a gifted lover.

"Um..." Willow began. "Is Spike..."

"Spike's arguing with a lamppost," Buffy stated.

"That does appear to be the case," Giles confirmed. "From the...content of the argument, I would say that he is... inebriated and ruminating over his failed relationship with... Dru?" The last word was more of a question than a statement.

Spike pressed himself more fully against his anonymous partner. This cold, convenient body didn't seem to mind the fact that he was using it to hide, to escape the pain that seemed determined to follow him to the ends of the earth. Cecily, Dru... Xander. Perhaps a bit of mind-melting sex would make this torment go away. If only he could convince this willing victim...

Xander just stared. He knew it wasn't about Dru. As soon as 'bored' slipped out of the vampire's mouth, Xander had known. Now he was watching his maybe-former-lover, maybe-still-lover, drunkenly rail at a utility fixture, pouring out his anger and frustration on steel and mercury vapor. The occasional touch by the vampire's hand made Xander shiver with remembrance of what those hands could do, when they touched just like *that*...

"I can smell the whisky from here," Willow told Buffy. "Do you think he even realizes it's a lamppost he's arguing with? And are those Froot Loops in his hair?"

Buffy cocked her head to one side. "Froot Loops. And I think he's moved from 'argue' to 'seduce'," She pointed out, noting how Spike and the lamppost were now *very* cozy. The Slayer swore she saw him lick the thing, which was really disgusting when she started to think of all the people that had touched the lamppost...

"Maybe we should do something?" Tara suggested quietly.

"Why?" Buffy inquired. "He's not hurting anything," She rationalized. "And the lamppost does seem to be giving in. Actually, we might want to give them a bit of privacy."

Xander was jolted out of his paralysis. Spike was drunk. Drunk and arguing with a lamppost because he, Xander Harris, had inadvertently managed to run him off. He'd made the vampire think he wasn't welcome. That had to be fixed, as fast as possible. The young man stepped off the curb and headed for Spike and his... partner.

"Xander, you might not want to do that," Buffy called out. "Spike's pretty possessive of his uh... lovers!"

Xander managed to restrain himself before he flipped off one of his best friends. "I can handle this. He just needs to get inside someone and sleep it off." As soon as he'd said it, he hoped that the girls and Giles didn't notice the slip... He really didn't want to explain *that* right now. By the time he reached Spike's side, the vampire was nearly motionless, draped all over the lamppost.

Spike was just about to make his move when something caught his attention. Xander. The sweet perfume of his lover. The boy, *his* boy, was close by. What torture! "Go 'way," Spike slurred. "Leave me 'lone."

"Come on home, Spike," Xander whispered. "You need to come home and go to bed."

"Y' don' love me anymor'," The vampire muttered drunkenly. "Don' got no home now. Y' were my home."

Xander fought back his tears. "I still love you, Spike," He said fervently, if a bit more quietly than he'd have liked. "You shouldn't have run off. I was just a bit ticked at you. I didn't want you to leave."

Spike frowned. He needed to straighten this out; Xander was confusing him, and it wasn't fair to his new friend for them to have this kind of conversation in front of him. "Just a sec, k?" Spike told the lamppost with a gentle pat. "Be riiiiiight back." With that he pushed off the post and turned to face Xander.

Xander caught Spike before he fell down. The young man staggered briefly before propping Spike back against the lamppost. "Will you come home with me, Spike?" Xander asked in a low voice.

Spike shook his head. "Can' do it, Xan. Hurts too much. Dru... kept doing this. Can' handle it now."

Xander was pretty sure his heart cracked in a few places. "I promise I'm never going to do that to you, Spike. We just didn't understand each other last night. I didn't want you to leave, I swear!"

Spike glanced around. Damn it, his friend was gone. Well, maybe he *should* go with Xander. He seemed to be the only game in town anyway. "Fine. We go home now. But can' do this again, k?"

"Absolutely," Xander murmured as he draped Spike's arm across his shoulders and heaved the vampire towards his car. Buffy came over to help as they poured a now-unconscious Spike into Xander's back seat. "I'll get him inside," The boy told Buffy. "He'll have the hangover from hell tomorrow."

Buffy smirked. "He deserves it. Make sure he doesn't give you any shit, ok?"

"Oh, he won't," Xander promised. No, there would be no shit given or taken when Spike recovered. Conversation, yes. Discussion, yes. A *TALK*, in all likelihood. But shit? Nope.

The drive home was quiet, but only because Spike was passed out. Xander struggled even more when he had to pretty much drag Spike up the stairs. He was very grateful his neighbors were all asleep because he was pretty sure they'd have called the cops on him. 'No, officer, the unbreathing, liquor-pickled guy on my couch isn't dead. He's just resting. Oh, you're not a Monty Python fan? I'm sure that nightstick is completely unnecessary, Officer. Please, Sir, the only person I like tying me up is Spike, and he's right there! Not dead! Well, not entirely dead, more of a freshly dead... well, not quite dead yet?'

Xander promised himself he'd never watch another tape of The Flying Circus ever again.

Spike's clothes went directly into a plastic bag--even the blessed duster. All of it smelled like the bottom of a Heaven Hill still beer vat, which meant the clothing could probably be declared carcinogenic by the State of California. Finally, though, Xander got Spike on the bed, rubbed down with a damp cloth, and covered up with warm blankets. He pulled off his own clothes and joined the vampire, wrapping his warm body around that cool one.

"That was definitely ten, Spike," Xander whispered into the vampire's ear, rubbing one smooth hip. "And when we wake up, you and I are gonna talk about this lamppost. I won't stand for infidelity in any form, Spike, especially not in public." With a snicker, Xander joined his lover in sleep.

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