Musical Wars
Chapter 3 -- Demon's Deal
"Yeah, business first, then? Need to drive this wanker off since I don't really want vamps hangin' out round ya." Spike commented as he continued nipping at Xander's neck.
Xander scanned the crowd; he didn't see anyone suspicious, but if Spike said a vamp was out there feeding on the crowd, he didn't doubt it for a minute.
"I've gotta…" he gasped as Spike nipped particularly hard at his shoulder. Xander Jr. gave a simultaneous twitch of his own. "I've gotta tell T," he finally gasped out.
"Right, I'll wait here then." Spike let go so suddenly that he found himself struggling to keep his balance. He turned to glare. "What?" Spike asked innocently although the corner of the mouth twitched twice.
"Evil vampire," he hissed as he tried to rearrange his jeans so he could walk. Now Spike openly smirked. He gathered up his food and made for the bar as fast as he could with Xander Jr. pressing against the zipper. He felt hands reaching for him, but he side-stepped and spun out of reach all the way to the bar where T worked one end. When he dropped the tray on the bar and leaned over to get T's attention, he felt hands slip inside his shirt. He looked back to see an older man in a plaid shirt smiling, but in the background he could also see Spike leaning against a wall, watching. He had an evil thought, and his demon whole-heartedly approved of the game.
He slowly wiggled his butt as the hand under the shirt slid down to the jeans. Spike's eyebrow shot up, but otherwise he remained motionless. Xander could see that T would still be another minute, so he deliberately smiled at Mr. Plaid and pushed back. The hand now slid all the way in the jeans, and he could feel fingers exploring down the crack. He kept his eyes on Spike, and now he could see the lights of the club reflecting softly in eyes that probably had gold in them now. As fingers reached the puckered goal, he shivered and then reached up to touch Mr. Plaid's cheek. "No more," he whispered, and he could see the disappointment as the man sadly smiled his acceptance. The hand withdrew for a moment and then returned with the dry feel of paper against skin as the man slid a tip in equally far. Xander had a sudden image of getting a paper cut and having to explain it to the doctor, and he had to stifle a laugh just as T came up.
"You leaving us then?" T asked with a nod toward Spike.
"Actually, you have a vamp hunting in here." T's eyes suddenly narrowed as he inspected the crowd. "Spike and I are going to go see if we can't get it out and stake it," he quickly added. When T shot him a disapproving look, he amended it. "Fine, Spike will get it outside and stake it while I watch from a safe distance."
"Darling, you watch your back."
"Hard to do that what with the eyes being in the front an all," he quipped, but the worried expression in T's face made him stop. "I'll watch Spike's back, and I trust Spike to watch mine."
"More than you trust Gunn?" T asked sadly. He had to really think about that. A week ago he would have followed Gunn to hell, but how would Gunn take the knowledge that he wasn't entirely human? How would Gunn react to his coming out of the closet. Hell, how would Gunn take him sleeping with *any* vampire, male or female?
"Spike can protect me better than Gunn can," he finally told T before returning to Spike's side. The trip back across the club proved a little easier without his hands full, but he still had to sidestep several interested customers.
"Not nice, pet." Spike said when he arrived. For a minute he thought Spike was talking about his comment regarding Gunn, but then he remembered Mr. Plaid. Spike took his arm and started walking him toward the far end of the dance floor.
"Yeah, well it's your fault for getting everyone worked up with a floor show before sending me through the crowd alone."
"Nearly came over, threw you on the bar, and claimed you right and proper for everyone to see." Xander Jr. jerked to life so suddenly and painfully in the confines of the jeans that he physically tripped, but Spike simply reached out and pulled him close before he could hit anything. "Like that thought, do ya?" Xander wished he could come back with some witty comment, but even his babble abandoned him in the face of the mental image Spike had created. Spike laughed.
"There's the wanker now," Spike said as he nodded toward a tall thin black man with actual red hair who had his limbs tangled around a hunky line-backer type. He watched at the vamp laughed at something and then kissed the man on the lips before nuzzling into the man's neck. He would have cried out a warning right there, except Spike held him back. Caught between wanting to save the man and following Spike, he physically swayed, and Spike's arm tightened around his waist.
"Ya don't want to interrupt him right now, luv. Dinner might not survive it." Before he could ask what Spike meant, the vampire raised his head, still showing human features and planted another kiss on the man's lips. The man had a dazed, happy expression, and the vamp backed him toward a wall, where he left him leaning. With a glance in their direction, the vamp started for the door. He felt himself pushed along as Spike followed. Once out in the night, he couldn't see the vamp anywhere, but Spike didn't hesitate as he moved north up the street and toward a closed and boarded up gas station.
"He's there," Spike commented as they came to a halt outside the station. They stood there for several minutes.
"Aren't we going in, I mean, it's a little hard to stake a vamp if you don’t actually go in."
"Who said anythin' about staking?" Spike turned to him with a confused expression-the eyebrows drawn down so that the wrinkled form an upside-down V on his forehead.
"You said we were going to get rid of him, that's how you get rid of a vampire." Spike simply snorted at that, but then the conversation stopped when a tall, red-haired vampire stepped out from behind the station. Spike grew suddenly still, and he felt himself for the second time thrust behind his lover. The vampire's hair curled in tight coils and he walked with a gangly stride that suggested youth.
"Wha' ya want den?" called the other vamp, and he could see each of the vampires subtly shifting their bodies. Spike took a step forward and raised his head as if he was sniffing the air. The other vamp shifted to the side, closer to the gas station, and showed his demon features.
"Want ya' away from what's mine," Spike finally announced.
"He be yers?" the vamp asked, and Xander found himself trying not to laugh at the competing accents.
"Yeah, mate, he is."
"Yer a master, can smell ya. Knew I's run into one'a ya's sometime or ruther. If ya want, I's fittin' to move on. 'Bout time to anyways."
"Just don't want ya near my pet. You got control enough to feed without killin', so I don't mind ya in the area or even in the club, but ya smell my pet, and you'd better clear out, mate. Got it?" The other vamp suddenly lost his demon features and dropped his head.
"Raht, Ah won’t go neah him,” the vampire agreed. Spike stood there glaring for a few seconds and before turning and sweeping Xander away down the street.
"That's it?" he asked, indignant. "You want to go vamp hunting and we end up nicely asking the vamp not to kill anyone. At least I think that's what you asked. I swear, I thought I had trouble with English what with the constant D's and all, but I'm not entirely sure you guys know how to actually speak English."
"Pet…"
"Don't 'Pet' me," he groaned softly when he realized his mistake, “I mean, don't go saying 'Pet' at me, AND don't actually pet me right now; I'm mad. That vamp was hunting in T's club, and you didn't do anything." He felt himself pulled toward a parked car. Spike jumped up on the hood and pulled him into an embrace between his legs before covering his mouth with a cool hand.
"Pet, do ya want T and the customers in there safe?" Spike asked seriously before removing the hand.
"Of course I do."
"And do ya trust me to keep you happy and safe?" Spike asked as strong arms settled in at the small of his back, pulling him in closer.
"Well, yeah." He had to admit that he actually did trust Spike, he just sometimes wondered how much of that trust came from the demon in his head and how much came from his own thoughts, not that he had always picked the best people to love or trust.
"So do ya trust me to keep your soddin' club safe?"
"Okay, we have a problem there, because that club is just a buffet for you, and you can't convince me of anything else, blondie," he pointed out.
"Bloody right, they could all get eaten tomorrow and I wouldn't care, but you would, so I'll keep those gits alive just to avoid the emotional scene you'd throw if ya found them all dead."
"You'd actually protect them? They're like walking meals on wheels to you, without the wheels part, but still. Why would you do that?" Spike simply snorted.
"Not sayin' more emotionally supportive crap tonight, don't want my reputation to be completely buggered, but that vamp is old, older than most and old enough to have control. If he's huntin' in there, it'll keep most of the others out."
"He's a master?"
"Bleedin' hell no, a master would’ve fought for his territory. He's old enough to be, has to be at least fifty, but without someone to teach him, he'll just be a really old minion." Spike fell silent for a long time. "Surprised he can feed without killin', that's usually a master's trick."
"So with him draining a few pints here and there…"
"It takes the club off the huntin' list for other vamps," Spike finished.
"My hero," he purred agreeably as he pushed into the embrace, pushing his own hip into Spike's groin.
"Bloody hell, don't go spreadin' that bollocks around or I really won't have a reputation. And if you keep up with the teasin', you're goin' to get tied to the bed and ravaged." Xander Jr. had his oh-so-predictable response to that threat, and Spike laughed, his eyes ringed in gold. "Oh, yeah. You're mine."
"Yep," he agreed amiably. Times like this when Spike acted like one of the good guys, it was just so easy to say.
"Well, let's grab some dinner before we have to go and see Peaches," Spike announced and the mood evaporated.
"Dinner as in Italian?" he asked hopefully, even though he knew the answer.
"Wouldn't mind a Luigi or a Leonardo," Spike agreed and Xander groaned.
"I was thinking pizza," he argued as Spike jumped off the car and started back toward the club.
"Let's get your kit and drop it off first, right?" It didn't escape him that Spike totally avoided the conversation, but he couldn't ask a lion to go vegetarian, and he couldn't ask a vampire to give up blood. He did wonder why Spike so adamantly refused to do what the other vamp did and drink just a little.
Xander followed and made the right noises at Ross, the only person he ran into as he dashed through the kitchen to grab his bags before meeting Spike out back with the motorcycle. Once the bags were stowed, Spike turned the bike toward a part of town full of junkies and whores, and within minutes of parking the bike, he had pinpointed a small man who robbed two different street-people while they watched.
"He bad enough for ya?" Spike asked with a nod.
"You can't think I'm going to give you permission to kill someone. Oh, no. So not going there, Spike."
"That’s all right pet. I know he's bad enough. Can smell the blood on him from here, even with all the soap he used to wash it off. Probably forgot to clean his boots, most of 'em miss them."
"You mean he killed someone?" Xander turned in horror to watch the young man laugh as he grabbed a bottle of alcohol from some older man and then chased the older man down the street.
"Evil don't just come with the demon package, luv," Spike announced before he started walking toward the mugger. Xander followed at some distance, trying to ignore it when Spike maneuvered his prey into an alley and slid his dagger into the man's neck before drinking deeply and making little happy sucking noises. Ew. When had he started thinking of sucking noises as happy? He severely chastised his demon before returning to ignoring the whole scene.
"Right then, suppose it's time to face Peaches, pet." Xander watched as Spike calmly licked the blood off the knife as they walked down the street.
"Aren't you afraid of someone seeing that and assuming you're some sort of serial killer?" he asked as he glanced nervously around at the pedestrians.
"First rule of the night: people ignore anythin' they can't explain away. A hundred years ago, I'd of worried. Now, people see what they want. Long as they don't have hard proof, they make up all sorts of excuses." Spike finished the cleaning job and replaced the knife, tucking it into a duster pocket. "S'why I use a knife, don't pay to leave proof laying around with teeth marks in them."
"Is that why you won't leave people alive…because they'd see proof?"
"Don't go there, pet." Spike reached the motorcycle and quickly mounted.
"Don't go where, Spike? Don't talk about why you kill?" He stood on the sidewalk, determined to have the conversation. If the minion in the club could feed without killing, he didn't understand why Spike couldn't as well.
"Xander," Spike's voice drew the name out into a clear warning.
"Spike," he returned in the same tone of voice.
"Enough," Spike bellowed in a deep, loud tone, and Xander felt his knees go out from under him. A couple on the street turned to look in shock as he neatly collapsed to the ground in a heap. The echoes of Spike's cry chased each other through his brain, and he struggled to clear his ears enough to even hear the distant voices. The demon struggled against his control, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he silently hummed Rubber Duckie. Thank god for his arsenal of Sesame Street songs because he had worked through four or five before he trusted himself to open his eyes.
"Spike?" he called softly before he realized that he lay in the vampire's lap with a cool hand smoothing the hair away from his face.
"You’re all right, pet. Be just fine in a bit. Just had a spill, that's all." He could hear the slight panic in Spike's voice, and he looked around for what might have caused the fear, but he only saw the faces of curious bystanders who whispered to each other and watched with meaningful expressions.
"Spike?" he called again, confused.
"Are you sure you don’t want an ambulance?" a man with a cell phone asked, and Xander waited for the guy to get told off, but it didn’t happen.
"Thanks mate, but he'll be fine. Goin' to hospital won't help epilepsy." He reached out and took one of Spike's hands so that the vampire looked down at him.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Just a spell, that's all. We'll get you back on your feet and you'll be right as rain." Xander felt himself pulled up as Spike stood so that he now leaned back against Spike. He tentatively put some weight on his legs and felt a wave of relief when his legs held without buckling. "Let's go sit," Spike said, and he felt himself guided toward a nearby bench. Now that the invalid had gotten scraped off the sidewalk, the crowd slowly dispersed and they were left on the bench without any observers.
"What the hell was that, Spike?"
"Bloody hell, I don't know. That shouldn't have happened." Spike watched him silently for several seconds. "Tell me exactly what it felt like from your side."
"You yelled," he began, and he could see Spike flinch at the words. "I felt this moment of pure panic so strong that my knees just sort of stopped working and I started going down. I wanted to get back up, but I could feel the demon struggling, struggling harder than it has since the day I took control back and killed Cassidy. Eventually the demon stopped struggling, and I that's when I opened my eyes.
"Bloody hell," Spike repeated.
"Why? What did it look like from out here?"
"You just soddin' collapsed without a sound."
"Oh god, maybe the demon has done some sort of damage to my brain. Shit, I don't have so many spare brain cells that I can afford to have a demon randomly frying them."
"Shhh. That's not it, pet."
"If ya have a theory, I'd love to hear it because I've left freaked out behind days ago and I'm quickly approaching the land of blind panic."
"It shouldn't have happened, didn't mean to cause that."
"Whoa, what did you cause it and how do we make sure you never cause it again because that was just plain unpleasant."
"Used sire's voice," Spike began softly, as though he were admitting some great sin.
"I missed out on vampire anatomy and psychology in school, you know. Kept trying to get the principal to add it as an elective, but they insisted that I should take physics instead. Vampire anatomy would have been more useful." When Spike only looked at him with a guilty expression, he abandoned jokes for the direct route. "I have no idea what that means, Spike."
"Sire's voice keeps fledges in line. When they hear it, they soddin' well stop whatever nonsense they're doin' and follow their sire's commands."
"And your sire's voice dropped me to the ground? Can I vote for you never using that again? Shit, that's just totally not fair." Xander leaned back against the building feeling the cool bricks through the thin shirt material. He had never felt so entirely helpless; Spike could control him with a single word, leave him twitching on the ground with the demon raging in his mind. Shit. Why hadn't he staked Spike when he had the chance? Oh yeah, he'd never had a chance. And he'd fallen for the bastard. Life would be much simpler if he hadn't fallen for the bastard, but he'd fallen so hard that he didn't think he could get back up even if he wanted to.
"But it shouldn't have worked," Spike objected. "Wouldn't have used it on you on purpose."
"Um, if that's not working, I really don't want to know what sire's voice does when it does work. I felt like a kitten grabbed by the back of the neck. Not that I'm kittenish because I'm a man, so I'm more like a manly thing, a bear or a lion or something: a completely helpless bear all curled up and quivering, but a bear nonetheless." He opened one eye to glare at Spike, but the vampire simply watched the traffic.
"That's just it luv, that's exactly what happens to a fledge. But pets don't have enough of the demon in them to react like that. Pets just get uncomfortable. Occasionally I've seen pets lose control of their bladder, but I've never seen one react like a fledge."
"You thought I might pee myself?" Xander opened both eyes and looked over toward Spike in horror. "And ya know what? I'm starting to get a real inferiority complex about this whole pet thing. If either you or Angel point out one more way that I'm doing this pet thing wrong, someone is not getting any more sex…unless it's Angel, him I'll just stake." Spike laughed.
"I like the way you do things, so I'm not complainin'."
"Good, so can we go home?" Xander had regained control of all his limbs, but he still felt shaken up by the revelation that someone had that much power over him. Of course his demon was stupidly happy, damn thing would be happy to lay on the floor under Spike's feet.
"Sorry, luv. Have to go see Peaches, don't we?"
"Um, no?" That earned another one of Spike's laughs.
"Well that's the condition he put on us hangin' around. This is his turf, and I won't fight him over it. Means we either have to go make nice with the pouf or get out of L.A."
"Shit, I thought when I took up with a vampire that I didn't have to deal with the in-laws."
"Yeah, well wouldn't mind skipping town and leavin' the nancy-boy wonderin' where we went."
"Um, so not okay with the leaving town part, Spike. At least not now."
"So, we see Peaches."
"No chance you could drop me off at home?" he asked hopefully as he pushed himself up onto his feet.
"Bloody well wish I could, but the wanker wants to see that I haven't been torturin' you. Has it in his mind he has to save every bleedin' soul that crosses his path, even the ones that don't need him." Xander grumbled, but he followed Spike to the bike and got on, shoving the helmet over his head before leaning into the strong body in front of him.
When they stopped at a normal-looking office, Xander had to smile. He expected some grand mansion with gargoyles or maybe an abandoned building with heavy velvet curtains lined with dust. Instead they got a perfectly normal little office with "Angel Investigation" painted on a sign at the front.
"A vampire detective agency?" he asked skeptically.
"Yeah, Peaches does do his own thing," Spike agreed as the two of them went into the office.
"Man, where the hell have you been hiding your ass?" demanded an angry voice as soon as the door came open. He could feel Spike shifting into game face behind him before he could even react. He watched as the speaker's eyes snapped open and the man reached for a stake.
"Gunn, I can explain," he insisted as he stepped between his friend and his vampire.