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rsadelleFic: Love Me Like A Man (Buffy, Spike/Xander, 11,500 words, FRAO, 1/2)
Title:Love Me Like A Man
Author: Ruth Sadelle Alderson
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: FRAO
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, I'm not making any money here.
Summary: Anya gets her old job back and leaves Xander a girl to take care of.
Warnings: Heterosexual sex, same-sex kissing, pregnancy.
Author's Note: Thanks to Melle, Sky, and varying Escapade attendees for encouragement. Thanks to Sky and Molly for beta/read through services.
Day 0
It started with the appearance of a demon, of course.
"D'Hoffryn!" Anya came out from behind the counter. "What are you doing here?"
"The vengeance business is in a sad state these days, Anyanka." D'Hoffryn glanced around the shop. "The workload just keeps getting higher and higher, and my staff just can't keep up with it." He held out a small box. "I need you back."
Anya opened the box and drew out the pendant. "Oh, D'Hoffryn." She held the pendant up to the light. "Do you really mean it?"
"I don't make offers of employment lightly."
"Anya." Xander finally came around the table and up the three steps to stand next to D'Hoffryn.
Anya looked from the gem to Xander. She wrapped her arms around him. "I love you, Xander Harris," she said. "You've been good to me. I promise I won't leave you alone. I'll leave you someone to take care of." She stepped back and dropped the necklace over her head.
"Oh," she breathed. "Oh, thank you, D'Hoffryn."
Xander didn't really know what she was like before she was fully human, so he couldn't tell if the way everything about her brightened was her natural state or just relief at having her powers back.
She didn't even say goodbye before she and D'Hoffryn disappeared into nothingness.
***
Day 1
"Spike?"
Dawn's astonished question made them all look up.
Those were Spike's clothes all right. But the rest of it wasn't quite right. For starters, the person in the clothes was standing in the beam of sunlight shining through the door. The hair wasn't quite right. The expression on the face actually looked a little scared. And there was something else, something different.
"Breasts!" Xander was too surprised to be embarrassed by his outburst. "You have breasts!"
"Oh, yeah, hadn't noticed that." Spike's new voice was a lot like his old voice, sarcastic and a little rough around the edges. The sarcasm couldn't quite hide the fear. He turned his glare on Willow. "What'd you do to me, Witch?"
Willow's eyes widened. "Me? I didn't do anything!"
"Yesterday I was a bloke," Spike growled, "and today I've got these." He let the duster flare out behind him and gestured at his chest. "Has to be some kind of mojo at work."
"It wasn't me, I swear!"
"Anya!"
Xander's head whipped around.
"Oh, no," Buffy said, "she's not here." She gave him a lopsided, apologetic smile. "But she did say she'd leave you someone to take care of."
They all turned to look at Spike.
Spike defensively crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't need some half-grown boy to take care of me."
Dawn came over to hover around Spike. "You're not dust," she pointed out. "That means you're not a vampire anymore."
"Don't need anyone's help," Spike sulked.
"Yes, you do," Dawn said with the firmness that only a teenager could muster up. "You will. You can stay with us. Right, Buffy?"
"Dawn," Buffy hedged, "I don't know."
"She, er, he, er, Spike will need some place to stay," Giles said. "A crypt is no place for a, um, young woman to be living."
"And clothes!" Dawn all but clapped her hands together. She eyed Spike speculatively. "I don't know if anything of mine will fit you, but Buffy has more clothes than she needs."
"Come on," Xander said to Spike. "They'll be fighting about clothes for a while now." He took Spike down to the table. "Sit down. You look like you could use a rest. Are you hungry?" Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed up a paper plate and dished out a little bit of everything from the Chinese food cartons spread all across the table.
Spike eyed the food skeptically, but once he started eating, he wolfed down the whole plate. Xander refilled it without being asked.
"Feeling better?"
"Can't get used to this body," Spike admitted. "Hurts."
Xander frowned. "Where?"
"All over."
Xander put his hands on Spike--weird to feel him warmer than room temperature, weird to feel him at all, really--and pressed his thumbs into the soft spots at the base of Spike's skull. He drew his hands down Spike's neck and out onto his shoulders. He kept working his way down Spike's spine. Spike seemed to be relaxing, but then he jerked away from Xander's touch and out of the chair.
"We goin' or what?" The shaking in his voice was enough to stop the argument Dawn and Buffy were still having.
Dawn put her arm around Spike. "Yes," she said. "We're going."
Buffy scowled, but she went with them.
***
Day 3
"You have to do something!" Buffy slammed the door closed behind her.
Giles looked up from where he was helping a woman who couldn't decide if she needed sage or stinging nettle. "I'm with a customer," he said, "and I'll thank you not to further damage the premises."
Buffy stopped her headlong rush toward him and smiled at the woman who had hurriedly picked something. She paced around the edges of the shop while Giles rang up the woman's purchases.
"I can't stand it!" she burst out when the woman was finally gone. "They're driving me crazy!"
Giles took off his glasses and wiped at them with a handkerchief. "Perhaps you could start at the beginning, or even somewhere closer to the middle."
"Dawn and Spike," Buffy said impatiently. "Dawn's PMSing and Spike's such a bitch. They won't stop and they keep ganging up on me."
"Oh!" They all turned to look at Willow. "Spike could be PMSing."
Xander pounded the hammer into his thumb instead of a nail. "Damn!" He dropped the hammer and stuck his thumb into his mouth.
Willow, Buffy, and Giles all turned to look at him and then turned back to each other.
"She could be right," Giles opined. "If Anya did turn him into a woman, we have to assume he will, ah, experience all that comes with that."
"He did say he hurt," Xander volunteered, even though they weren't really including him. "That could have been cramps."
They turned to look at him again.
"Spike actually told you that?" Willow asked.
"Yeah." Xander looked from her to Buffy to Giles. "I think he was a little upset."
"Maybe you could talk to her," Buffy suggested.
Xander shrugged. "I can try. I don't know what makes you think I'll be able to do anything."
The bell rang, and Buffy made a face as Dawn and Spike came through the door.
"Bitchy," Spike greeted her.
"Spike," Buffy ground out.
"Anything goin' down?"
"Nothing we need you for." The fake sweetness made Xander cringe.
"Course not." Spike threw himself into a chair.
"What's this?" Dawn asked about something she'd found on a shelf.
Buffy took it away from her. "It's not your homework." She pointed Dawn toward the table. "Homework first."
"I bet you didn't do your homework first when you were my age."
Xander tuned out the argument and went into the back to run some cold water over his thumb. He grabbed the Tylenol on his way out.
"Your new body still hurting?"
Spike scowled at him. "Get bent."
"I'll take that as a yes." Xander got a glass of water and shook two Tylenol out. "Start with this." He went back to the training room and rummaged through the various first aid supplies until he found a heating pad. He tossed it in the microwave and juggled it back into the main room. "This'll help too. Sit forward a little." Surprisingly enough, Spike did as he was told and Xander slipped the heating pad between the chair and the small of his back.
"What's that supposed to do then?"
Xander looked to the rest of the room for help, but everyone else was suddenly busy. "We think you're going through some really rough PMS."
Spike gaped at him.
"The heat should help you relax. You can try it against your stomach too and see if that works better."
"PMS?" Spike found his voice again. "You think I have PMS?" If Xander didn't know better, he'd think those were tears starting to gather at the corners of Spike's eyes. "I swear, Anyanka, if I ever get my hands on you." He left the threat unfinished.
Xander put his hands on Spike's shoulders. "I know this is tough," he said. "I remember when Anya went through some of this." He pushed his thumbs into the tight spots he remembered from the first day Spike had been a girl. "We'll help you through it."
***
Day 7
Xander left Dawn and Spike chatting on the stairs and went to the adults consulting a book on the counter. "Did anyone give Spike the safe sex talk?" he asked into a pause.
Horrified looks were quickly exchanged.
"No," Giles said. "I don't believe we'd considered that."
Xander nodded. "While we're on the subject," this time directed at Buffy, "have you had that talk with Dawn?"
Buffy looked even more horrified than before. "*No.* She's too young for that."
"Buff, she's sixteen," Xander pointed out. "I'm thinking that you can just give them both the talk."
"Me?" Buffy shook her head vigorously. "I'm not giving them the talk."
"You're raising Dawn. It's your job."
"Anya gave Spike to you to take care of," Buffy countered.
They turned to look at Willow.
"Not me," she said. "I already explained tampons to Spike."
The three of them turned to Giles.
"Giles," Buffy wheedled, "you're a teacher."
"I'm afraid this not an area of my teaching expertise." Giles looked up at them. "And more to the point, I won't do it. You'll have to work it out yourselves."
"They're girls," Xander pointed out. "They'll be more comfortable with you."
"I can't talk to my sister about sex," Buffy insisted.
"Ewww," Dawn said from behind her. "I don't want to talk to you about sex either."
"See?" Buffy said. Xander could tell she was trying not to smirk openly.
"What's going on?" Dawn asked.
Everybody else looked down at the books, leaving Xander to answer her. "Saturday," he said, "after lunch. This means you, too, Spike," he said loud enough for it to carry. "Somebody has to have The Talk with you, and everyone else is too cowardly to try."
***
Day 9
"You so owe me for this," Xander hissed at Buffy as she escaped the house. He took his paper bag of supplies into the living room.
Spike and Dawn protested when he snapped off the TV--"We were watching that!"--but Xander ignored them and sat down on the other side of the coffee table. He put the paper bag down next to him.
"I'd rather be at home watching TV, too," Xander said, "but we get to do this instead." He pulled a book out of the bag, opened it to the marked page, and put it on the table between them.
"First step," he said, "biology." He pointed to the book. "Body parts, proper names, ask if you don't understand something."
Almost as one, Dawn and Spike slid off the couch to sit on the floor in front of the coffee table.
"Why," Spike asked, "are we lookin' at diagrams of the human reproductive system?"
"He's giving us The Talk," Dawn explained, which only served to confuse Spike further.
"Which talk is that then?"
"The sex talk," Xander supplied.
Spike looked offended. "I'm a dozen times older than you two children. I think I know about sex."
"I think you don't," Xander said. "You were a man, and you never had to worry about safe sex."
"What," Spike scoffed, "like don't get staked while doing it?"
"No," Xander said evenly, "like don't get pregnant, don't get sick, don't do anything you don't want to do." He stared Spike down until he gave in with an irritated grumble.
"Don't want the Bit gettin' herself knocked up."
Xander rolled his eyes. "Body parts. Giles said you could hang on to the book for a couple of days." He flipped the page. "This is where babies come from." He pointed at the diagrams. "Sperm meets egg, nine months later there's a baby."
"Little short on details there," Spike observed.
"I'm leaving the book. That's the part you can read about." Xander looked from Spike to Dawn. "You can ask questions later." He settled back.
"If you ask Buffy," he said to Dawn, "she'll tell you you shouldn't have sex until you're thirty." He smiled ruefully. "I think we all want you to wait until you're thirty. We don't even want to think about you having sex," he said to Spike. It made both girls laugh.
"None of us are exactly poster children for waiting until marriage, so I'm not going to give you that lecture. But don't have sex just because you can. It's not-- You see it on TV and in the movies, and it's always perfect. In real life, it's not. Sometimes it's good, but sometimes it's awful, and first times are notoriously bad."
"Was yours?" Spike, of course, was no less capable of asking tough and embarrassing questions as a human woman than he had been as a male vampire.
Xander shrugged. "It was kind of a blur," he admitted.
"Who was it?"
Xander looked from Spike to Dawn and back again. "Faith."
Dawn gaped at him. "Faith? Crazy slayer Faith?"
He nodded. "Yeah. That's the other thing about it. Everything's more complicated on the Hellmouth."
"Even sex," Spike filled in.
"Especially sex," Xander corrected. "If you find out your significant other is a demon or a vampire or something else that might kill you, come tell one of us." He glanced at Spike. "We also have experience with the bad things that happen when we don't tell each other about things like that, so don't keep it a secret."
Dawn raised her hand to interrupt his lecture. "But what about the non-Hellmouthy stuff?" She blushed. "Like how do you know you're ready for sex?"
"Um, well. You just know, I guess. Not a great answer, I know," he said, forestalling the objections he could see forming on both their faces. "But no one else can tell you when you're ready."
"That mean we're not s'posed to listen when some bloke says, 'If you loved me, you'd do it'?"
Dawn and Xander both turned to stare at Spike.
"What?" he said. "I watch daytime TV."
"Yeah," Xander said, "and that doesn't make it any less disturbing. I don't think anyone actually says that, but if they do, don't listen to them. If they really love you, they'll wait until you're ready." He made a face. "I don't think I could be any cheesier if I actually were on daytime TV."
"At least you said it with a straight face," Dawn said.
"Able to jump cliches in a single conversation, that's me." Xander smiled weakly at her. "Any more questions of an emotional nature I can answer with cliches? Or even, possibly, real answers?"
"Don't do emotional questions," Spike said, twisting his fingers in the way that Xander was learning meant he wanted a cigarette.
Dawn just shrugged.
"Okay, moving right along." Xander pulled a stack of brochures out of the bag and dealt them out on the table. "STDs, birth control, Planned Parenthood services, rape crisis hotline," he explained as the stacks grew taller.
He reached into the bag again. He tossed one box of condoms to Spike, who caught them, and another to Dawn, who fumbled the pass.
"The condom," he explained, "is the basic unit of safe sex. When used properly, condoms are about eighty-six to ninety-eight percent effective in preventing pregnancy. They're also the best thing to keep you from getting an STD. They're not perfect, but if you're having sex with a man, use one." He pointed at the boxes. "Those are yours to keep. If you don't use them by the expiration date, throw them out. They're no good after that."
He paused to pull a small bunch of bananas out of his paper bag.
"You got a kitchen sink in there too?" Spike asked.
Xander grinned at him. "Kitchen sinks don't have much to do with safe sex." He pulled the bananas apart and handed one to each of them. "Don't eat that." He reached into the bag for a handful of loose condoms. "This is the practical portion of the lesson." He picked up one of the condoms from the table. "If you don't put it on properly, it won't be as effective."
He tore the condom wrapper, pinched the tip, and slid it down his banana.
"Your turn," he said, pushing a condom at each of them.
Spike got it on the first try--"Seen a lot of porn, haven't I?"--but he had to make adjustments to Dawn's technique. And the less said about that the better. This was embarrassing enough as it was.
"If you want to," he said, "you can learn--" He had to stop and catch his breath. Spike's condom-filled mouth was almost all the way down over his banana. "To do that," he choked out.
Spike backed off of the banana, leaving the condom in place. "Lot of porn," he explained.
Xander forced down his reaction and swept the remaining condoms back into the bag.
"If--" He had to clear his throat and start over, pointedly ignoring Spike's smirk. "If you do decide to have sex with a man, you'll probably also want to go on the Pill, especially if you're in a monogamous relationship. If you're on the Pill, and you know you're both clean, you can do away with the condoms."
He reached across the table and took Dawn's hands in his. "If you decide you want to go on the Pill and you don't want to talk to Buffy about it, come to me. I'll take you to Planned Parenthood."
"What?" Spike protested. "I don't get the special treatment?"
Xander let go of Dawn's hands and sat back. "If your cramps are that bad next month," he said to Spike, "you're going on the Pill whether you like it or not."
Spike screwed up his face in what was really a very cute expression of confusion. "What's that got to do with contraception?"
"The Pill," Xander explained, "works on your hormones. It can help with cramps." If he ever got tired of construction, maybe he could get a job at good old Sunnydale High. He had to be better at this than Mrs. Wilson.
Spike's eyes burned with the fire of unholy excitement. "Take me to get some of that now."
"Willow thinks they might have been bad only because it was your first time. We don't know if drugs will affect you differently, so we don't want you taking any unless you have to." He reached out and patted Spike's hand. "If they're bad again, we'll get you drugs, I promise."
He looked down at the table and then forced himself to look up. "Pregnancy is about the only thing we've never had to deal with. If you do get pregnant, we'll help you." He nodded at Spike. "This goes for both of you. If you get pregnant, we'll help you no matter what you want to do."
"You condoning abortion?" Spike asked. "Wouldn't think it of you, what with the saving of lives and all."
"If you get pregnant," Xander said, to them both, "and you want an abortion, I'll drive you to the clinic and hold your hand."
Dawn reached across the table and hugged him. "You're a good brother, Xander."
Xander hugged her back. "I'm about to be a better brother." He reached into his bag for the last thing. "This," he said, holding up the box, "is a too little known secret of safe sex."
"Saran wrap?" Dawn asked. "How does that help?"
Xander took a deep breath. "The basic idea of safe sex," he said, "is to keep from exchanging fluids. If you're--" He stopped to think about how he could express this, and decided to be direct about it. "Oral sex," he said. "Condoms for a guy, saran wrap for a girl."
Spike cocked his head. "That right?"
Xander tore off a length of saran wrap and tore it in half. "Put that over your hand," he instructed, "and, um, lick."
They looked at him like maybe he was going crazy, but they did as he said.
Dawn made a face. "That's weird."
Spike raised an eyebrow and licked a broad stripe across his palm. And then he did it again. "Nice," he decided.
Xander reminded himself that this was Spike. Evil. Planned to kill him a couple of times. Newly female and shouldn't be taken advantage of.
"That's about it," he said when he could breathe again. "Don't get sick, don't get pregnant, and check Brown's Demon Compendium if you have doubts about your date's humanity."
"Can we can still ask you questions?" Dawn asked.
Xander gave her a soft smile. "Of course you can, Dawn. Any time you need to." He extended his smile to include Spike. "You too, Fangless."
"Thanks," Spike said dryly, but Xander could tell he actually meant it.
"One more thing," he said to Dawn. "It might be best if you don't tell Buffy I gave you condoms. I'd like to live to see my next birthday."
***
Day 32
Xander kept one eye on the game while he went to answer the door.
"Had a fight with the Slayer," Spike said sullenly, and were those tears in his eyes? "Can I stay here?"
"Yeah, of course." He was always a sucker for a damsel in distress, even this one. He closed the door behind Spike and followed him to the couch. They watched their way through a second down. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No, I don't bloody well want to talk about it," Spike snarled at him.
Xander let it go. "You want pizza for dinner?"
"Pepperoni," Spike said, and that's what Xander wanted too, so that worked out well.
Spike barely spoke to him--"Give me another slice." "Got any soda?" "I'm not sleeping on your couch."--while they finished off the pizza and the Raiders lost.
It was easier to let Spike borrow a t-shirt and boxers and crawl into his bed than it was to argue with him.
***
Day 33
Xander wasn't too worried when Spike was still sleeping when he left to work; it wasn't even five-thirty and the only people awake at that hour were people who had to be at work.
He was more worried when he got home at three and Spike was still in bed. He knelt down on his bedroom floor and looked into Spike's drawn face.
"Spike? Are you okay?"
Spike opened his eyes and glared at Xander. "My cramps aren't any better this month. You promised me drugs."
Xander's hand stroked through Spike's hair without his brain telling it to. "I did." He went back out into the living room and looked up the number of Willow's gynecologist. That was another conversation he preferred not to think about. The woman was able to squeeze Spike in before closing.
Xander went back to the bedroom to gather up clean clothes. "You have an appointment in half an hour," he told Spike. "I'm going to take a shower first." His hand did the thing where it stroked Spike's hair again. "Get dressed."
He waited in the aptly named waiting room while the doctor examined Spike, but he went in afterwards to hold Spike's hand, literally and figuratively, while the doctor explained his options and wrote him a pair of prescriptions.
"Do you want me to drop you off at Buffy's while I have these filled?" Xander asked on the way out to the car.
"Not goin' back there," Spike said, and Xander pointed the car towards the nearest drugstore.
Spike fidgeted endlessly while they waited in two of the drugstore's three chairs. Xander sat back and watched him. He liked Spike as a girl. Spike as a girl was pretty, and Spike as a short-haired girl in combat boots was hot. He'd always liked strong women. And, yeah, Anya was right. He liked to take care of people. Some part of him he didn't usually acknowledge regretted that he never made a full-time job out of taking care of Willow.
"Let's find you some water," he said after he paid for Spike's drugs. Spike swallowed down a painkiller before he even finished the sentence. "Or you can take it dry."
"Let's go," Spike growled.
Xander obligingly took Spike home. He filled a glass with water and made Spike drink it and follow it up with an apple. He left Spike curled up on the couch and went to the bathroom to run a bath.
"Come on," he said, hauling Spike up by one arm. "There's hot water. It'll make you feel better until the painkillers kick in." He pushed Spike into the bathroom and tried not to listen to the moan that accompanied Spike's descent into the water.
He had dinner ready when Spike came back out, dressed in his clothes again. Xander made a mental note to stop by Buffy's and pick up Spike's own clothes. This was driving him crazy.
"Feeling better?" he asked.
Spike shrugged. "Little." He dug into his share of dinner and didn't seem inclined to talk.
There wasn't anything good on TV, but they watched anyway, Xander sprawled over one end of the couch and Spike curled up at the other. He turned it off when he realized Spike was almost asleep.
He steered Spike into the bedroom and tucked him in. His hands pushed Spike's hair back from his forehead before he could stop them. He backed away and went to brush his teeth.
***
Day 34
Spike was awake and blinking sleepily up at him when he got out of the shower in the morning.
Xander crouched down to put himself at the same level as Spike. "Hey."
"Hey." Spike's voice was still rough and sexy with sleep.
"How are you feeling?"
Spike half shrugged. "Okay."
Xander couldn't keep himself from stroking Spike's shoulder. "The painkillers are in the medicine cabinet, and there's cereal when you're ready for breakfast." He shook Spike lightly. "Don't spend the whole day in bed." He stood up before he could let himself touch Spike anymore.
"I won't."
Xander's efforts didn't work, and he had to touch Spike's cheek before he could leave.
***
Day 56
Spike went back to Buffy's with surprisingly little grumbling. For a while, things got back to what passed for normal in Sunnydale.
Xander was late to the Scooby meeting where the balance was upset again.
"What's going on?" he asked Dawn with a nod toward the center of the shop.
Dawn leaned up against him. "Angel wants to take Spike with him."
"Xander!" Cordelia slowed down for the last two steps that brought her up to Xander. "Hi."
"Hi, Cordelia." Xander met her with a hug.
"They've already decided to ignore Spike," she said, gesturing to where Wesley and Giles were nervously watching Angel and Buffy argue. Spike was sulking around the edges of the room.
"What're the odds?" Xander asked.
"Buffy's got the advantage," Willow said.
"Wesley's not the wimp he used to be," Cordelia added.
The four of them surveyed the scene.
"Could you do something with Spike?" Dawn asked.
Xander nodded. "I'll try." He caught up with Spike in the middle of the room.
"What do you want?" Spike snarled at him.
"Want to spar a little?"
Spike's eyes gleamed. "Yeah."
Xander was made to understand, on a regular basis, the wisdom of learning to fall. He'd also long since gotten over the indignities of being beaten by a girl. He was reminded of this every time he sparred with Spike.
The fourth time Spike took him down, he didn't rush to push Spike off of him. "Feeling better?"
Spike sat back on Xander's thighs and considered. He'd lost some of the hysteria. "I'm not going with him."
"No," Xander said.
"Slayer agrees with him, can I stay with you?"
Xander put his hand on Spike's hip. "Yeah."
Spike nodded and then pushed himself up. "Get up, Harris."
Xander groaned loudly. It wasn't that much of an exaggeration. "Swords?" he offered. It might take Spike a little longer to take him down that way.
Spike bared his teeth in a fierce grin that looked surprisingly natural. "Yeah," he breathed. He grabbed a pair of wooden practice swords from the wall and passed one to Xander.
Spike had the advantage of having lived in a time when swords were a regular combat weapon, but Xander was stronger and more comfortable in his own skin, so they were still chasing each other around the floor when Buffy and Angel brought the argument in to them.
"You're coming with me," Angel said to Spike.
Spike wasted no time in bringing the point of his sword to Angel's chest.
Xander lowered the point of his own sword to the ground. "Hold, Spike."
Spike didn't move.
"Spike," Xander warned, "you agreed to the rules." When Spike still didn't move, he said, "If he hurts you, I'll hold him still so you can get the perfect angle. Right now, he's just being an asshole."
Spike lowered the sword and handed it over to Xander. He passed them on to Dawn to be put away.
"Not going anywhere with you," Spike sulked.
"I'm your sire," Angel said. "You're coming with me."
Spike planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. "You sired Dru. She sired William the Bloody. Willa Joyce's a different person." He smirked. "Got a social security number and a driver's license and everything."
"Spike," Angel said with exaggerated patience, "we can try to find a way to fix this."
Spike stepped back. "Don't know that I want it fixed." He shrugged. "Things aren't so bad. Livin' with the Slayer and the Little Bit, Harris got me some nice painkillers, Watcher's givin' me a job. Get to see the sun."
"I'm not going to lock you up in the basement." Xander could almost hear Angel's teeth grinding.
"I'm not going with you."
"You have to," Angel insisted.
"Spike doesn't belong to you," Buffy said. "You can't just order her around."
Angel growled almost too low to be heard.
Xander slipped himself between Spike and Angel. "Did anyone tell you what happened?" He smiled at Angel. "My ex-ex-demon ex-girlfriend told me that she'd make sure I had someone to take care of. The next day, Spike woke up a girl." He reached one hand back toward Spike and was pleased when Spike folded it into both of his. "I'd say that means that unless he decides otherwise, Spike belongs to me."
"Wow, Xander," Cordelia said. "I don't think you've ever said that much to Angel."
Xander flashed her a quick grin. "You can't take him against his will anyway," he said to Angel. "I'm sure the LAPD would be very interested to hear about you kidnapping an innocent woman."
"See?" Spike said. "Not goin' anywhere with you." Xander could almost see his smirk.
"Spike," Angel said, but it was clearly a last ditch effort. He looked over Xander's shoulder at Spike and finally shook his head. "Fine," he said. He stepped around Xander to look directly down at Spike. "If you change your mind, you can always come to me."
Spike nodded. "Get out of here, you great poof," he said. Angel scowled even as, or maybe because, Spike stepped in closer to Xander.
Spike refused to let go until sometime after Xander gave Cordy a one-armed hug goodbye.
Part 2
Title:Love Me Like A Man
Author: Ruth Sadelle Alderson
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: FRAO
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, I'm not making any money here.
Summary: Anya gets her old job back and leaves Xander a girl to take care of.
Warnings: Heterosexual sex, same-sex kissing, pregnancy.
Author's Note: Thanks to Melle, Sky, and varying Escapade attendees for encouragement. Thanks to Sky and Molly for beta/read through services.
Day 0
It started with the appearance of a demon, of course.
"D'Hoffryn!" Anya came out from behind the counter. "What are you doing here?"
"The vengeance business is in a sad state these days, Anyanka." D'Hoffryn glanced around the shop. "The workload just keeps getting higher and higher, and my staff just can't keep up with it." He held out a small box. "I need you back."
Anya opened the box and drew out the pendant. "Oh, D'Hoffryn." She held the pendant up to the light. "Do you really mean it?"
"I don't make offers of employment lightly."
"Anya." Xander finally came around the table and up the three steps to stand next to D'Hoffryn.
Anya looked from the gem to Xander. She wrapped her arms around him. "I love you, Xander Harris," she said. "You've been good to me. I promise I won't leave you alone. I'll leave you someone to take care of." She stepped back and dropped the necklace over her head.
"Oh," she breathed. "Oh, thank you, D'Hoffryn."
Xander didn't really know what she was like before she was fully human, so he couldn't tell if the way everything about her brightened was her natural state or just relief at having her powers back.
She didn't even say goodbye before she and D'Hoffryn disappeared into nothingness.
***
Day 1
"Spike?"
Dawn's astonished question made them all look up.
Those were Spike's clothes all right. But the rest of it wasn't quite right. For starters, the person in the clothes was standing in the beam of sunlight shining through the door. The hair wasn't quite right. The expression on the face actually looked a little scared. And there was something else, something different.
"Breasts!" Xander was too surprised to be embarrassed by his outburst. "You have breasts!"
"Oh, yeah, hadn't noticed that." Spike's new voice was a lot like his old voice, sarcastic and a little rough around the edges. The sarcasm couldn't quite hide the fear. He turned his glare on Willow. "What'd you do to me, Witch?"
Willow's eyes widened. "Me? I didn't do anything!"
"Yesterday I was a bloke," Spike growled, "and today I've got these." He let the duster flare out behind him and gestured at his chest. "Has to be some kind of mojo at work."
"It wasn't me, I swear!"
"Anya!"
Xander's head whipped around.
"Oh, no," Buffy said, "she's not here." She gave him a lopsided, apologetic smile. "But she did say she'd leave you someone to take care of."
They all turned to look at Spike.
Spike defensively crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't need some half-grown boy to take care of me."
Dawn came over to hover around Spike. "You're not dust," she pointed out. "That means you're not a vampire anymore."
"Don't need anyone's help," Spike sulked.
"Yes, you do," Dawn said with the firmness that only a teenager could muster up. "You will. You can stay with us. Right, Buffy?"
"Dawn," Buffy hedged, "I don't know."
"She, er, he, er, Spike will need some place to stay," Giles said. "A crypt is no place for a, um, young woman to be living."
"And clothes!" Dawn all but clapped her hands together. She eyed Spike speculatively. "I don't know if anything of mine will fit you, but Buffy has more clothes than she needs."
"Come on," Xander said to Spike. "They'll be fighting about clothes for a while now." He took Spike down to the table. "Sit down. You look like you could use a rest. Are you hungry?" Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed up a paper plate and dished out a little bit of everything from the Chinese food cartons spread all across the table.
Spike eyed the food skeptically, but once he started eating, he wolfed down the whole plate. Xander refilled it without being asked.
"Feeling better?"
"Can't get used to this body," Spike admitted. "Hurts."
Xander frowned. "Where?"
"All over."
Xander put his hands on Spike--weird to feel him warmer than room temperature, weird to feel him at all, really--and pressed his thumbs into the soft spots at the base of Spike's skull. He drew his hands down Spike's neck and out onto his shoulders. He kept working his way down Spike's spine. Spike seemed to be relaxing, but then he jerked away from Xander's touch and out of the chair.
"We goin' or what?" The shaking in his voice was enough to stop the argument Dawn and Buffy were still having.
Dawn put her arm around Spike. "Yes," she said. "We're going."
Buffy scowled, but she went with them.
***
Day 3
"You have to do something!" Buffy slammed the door closed behind her.
Giles looked up from where he was helping a woman who couldn't decide if she needed sage or stinging nettle. "I'm with a customer," he said, "and I'll thank you not to further damage the premises."
Buffy stopped her headlong rush toward him and smiled at the woman who had hurriedly picked something. She paced around the edges of the shop while Giles rang up the woman's purchases.
"I can't stand it!" she burst out when the woman was finally gone. "They're driving me crazy!"
Giles took off his glasses and wiped at them with a handkerchief. "Perhaps you could start at the beginning, or even somewhere closer to the middle."
"Dawn and Spike," Buffy said impatiently. "Dawn's PMSing and Spike's such a bitch. They won't stop and they keep ganging up on me."
"Oh!" They all turned to look at Willow. "Spike could be PMSing."
Xander pounded the hammer into his thumb instead of a nail. "Damn!" He dropped the hammer and stuck his thumb into his mouth.
Willow, Buffy, and Giles all turned to look at him and then turned back to each other.
"She could be right," Giles opined. "If Anya did turn him into a woman, we have to assume he will, ah, experience all that comes with that."
"He did say he hurt," Xander volunteered, even though they weren't really including him. "That could have been cramps."
They turned to look at him again.
"Spike actually told you that?" Willow asked.
"Yeah." Xander looked from her to Buffy to Giles. "I think he was a little upset."
"Maybe you could talk to her," Buffy suggested.
Xander shrugged. "I can try. I don't know what makes you think I'll be able to do anything."
The bell rang, and Buffy made a face as Dawn and Spike came through the door.
"Bitchy," Spike greeted her.
"Spike," Buffy ground out.
"Anything goin' down?"
"Nothing we need you for." The fake sweetness made Xander cringe.
"Course not." Spike threw himself into a chair.
"What's this?" Dawn asked about something she'd found on a shelf.
Buffy took it away from her. "It's not your homework." She pointed Dawn toward the table. "Homework first."
"I bet you didn't do your homework first when you were my age."
Xander tuned out the argument and went into the back to run some cold water over his thumb. He grabbed the Tylenol on his way out.
"Your new body still hurting?"
Spike scowled at him. "Get bent."
"I'll take that as a yes." Xander got a glass of water and shook two Tylenol out. "Start with this." He went back to the training room and rummaged through the various first aid supplies until he found a heating pad. He tossed it in the microwave and juggled it back into the main room. "This'll help too. Sit forward a little." Surprisingly enough, Spike did as he was told and Xander slipped the heating pad between the chair and the small of his back.
"What's that supposed to do then?"
Xander looked to the rest of the room for help, but everyone else was suddenly busy. "We think you're going through some really rough PMS."
Spike gaped at him.
"The heat should help you relax. You can try it against your stomach too and see if that works better."
"PMS?" Spike found his voice again. "You think I have PMS?" If Xander didn't know better, he'd think those were tears starting to gather at the corners of Spike's eyes. "I swear, Anyanka, if I ever get my hands on you." He left the threat unfinished.
Xander put his hands on Spike's shoulders. "I know this is tough," he said. "I remember when Anya went through some of this." He pushed his thumbs into the tight spots he remembered from the first day Spike had been a girl. "We'll help you through it."
***
Day 7
Xander left Dawn and Spike chatting on the stairs and went to the adults consulting a book on the counter. "Did anyone give Spike the safe sex talk?" he asked into a pause.
Horrified looks were quickly exchanged.
"No," Giles said. "I don't believe we'd considered that."
Xander nodded. "While we're on the subject," this time directed at Buffy, "have you had that talk with Dawn?"
Buffy looked even more horrified than before. "*No.* She's too young for that."
"Buff, she's sixteen," Xander pointed out. "I'm thinking that you can just give them both the talk."
"Me?" Buffy shook her head vigorously. "I'm not giving them the talk."
"You're raising Dawn. It's your job."
"Anya gave Spike to you to take care of," Buffy countered.
They turned to look at Willow.
"Not me," she said. "I already explained tampons to Spike."
The three of them turned to Giles.
"Giles," Buffy wheedled, "you're a teacher."
"I'm afraid this not an area of my teaching expertise." Giles looked up at them. "And more to the point, I won't do it. You'll have to work it out yourselves."
"They're girls," Xander pointed out. "They'll be more comfortable with you."
"I can't talk to my sister about sex," Buffy insisted.
"Ewww," Dawn said from behind her. "I don't want to talk to you about sex either."
"See?" Buffy said. Xander could tell she was trying not to smirk openly.
"What's going on?" Dawn asked.
Everybody else looked down at the books, leaving Xander to answer her. "Saturday," he said, "after lunch. This means you, too, Spike," he said loud enough for it to carry. "Somebody has to have The Talk with you, and everyone else is too cowardly to try."
***
Day 9
"You so owe me for this," Xander hissed at Buffy as she escaped the house. He took his paper bag of supplies into the living room.
Spike and Dawn protested when he snapped off the TV--"We were watching that!"--but Xander ignored them and sat down on the other side of the coffee table. He put the paper bag down next to him.
"I'd rather be at home watching TV, too," Xander said, "but we get to do this instead." He pulled a book out of the bag, opened it to the marked page, and put it on the table between them.
"First step," he said, "biology." He pointed to the book. "Body parts, proper names, ask if you don't understand something."
Almost as one, Dawn and Spike slid off the couch to sit on the floor in front of the coffee table.
"Why," Spike asked, "are we lookin' at diagrams of the human reproductive system?"
"He's giving us The Talk," Dawn explained, which only served to confuse Spike further.
"Which talk is that then?"
"The sex talk," Xander supplied.
Spike looked offended. "I'm a dozen times older than you two children. I think I know about sex."
"I think you don't," Xander said. "You were a man, and you never had to worry about safe sex."
"What," Spike scoffed, "like don't get staked while doing it?"
"No," Xander said evenly, "like don't get pregnant, don't get sick, don't do anything you don't want to do." He stared Spike down until he gave in with an irritated grumble.
"Don't want the Bit gettin' herself knocked up."
Xander rolled his eyes. "Body parts. Giles said you could hang on to the book for a couple of days." He flipped the page. "This is where babies come from." He pointed at the diagrams. "Sperm meets egg, nine months later there's a baby."
"Little short on details there," Spike observed.
"I'm leaving the book. That's the part you can read about." Xander looked from Spike to Dawn. "You can ask questions later." He settled back.
"If you ask Buffy," he said to Dawn, "she'll tell you you shouldn't have sex until you're thirty." He smiled ruefully. "I think we all want you to wait until you're thirty. We don't even want to think about you having sex," he said to Spike. It made both girls laugh.
"None of us are exactly poster children for waiting until marriage, so I'm not going to give you that lecture. But don't have sex just because you can. It's not-- You see it on TV and in the movies, and it's always perfect. In real life, it's not. Sometimes it's good, but sometimes it's awful, and first times are notoriously bad."
"Was yours?" Spike, of course, was no less capable of asking tough and embarrassing questions as a human woman than he had been as a male vampire.
Xander shrugged. "It was kind of a blur," he admitted.
"Who was it?"
Xander looked from Spike to Dawn and back again. "Faith."
Dawn gaped at him. "Faith? Crazy slayer Faith?"
He nodded. "Yeah. That's the other thing about it. Everything's more complicated on the Hellmouth."
"Even sex," Spike filled in.
"Especially sex," Xander corrected. "If you find out your significant other is a demon or a vampire or something else that might kill you, come tell one of us." He glanced at Spike. "We also have experience with the bad things that happen when we don't tell each other about things like that, so don't keep it a secret."
Dawn raised her hand to interrupt his lecture. "But what about the non-Hellmouthy stuff?" She blushed. "Like how do you know you're ready for sex?"
"Um, well. You just know, I guess. Not a great answer, I know," he said, forestalling the objections he could see forming on both their faces. "But no one else can tell you when you're ready."
"That mean we're not s'posed to listen when some bloke says, 'If you loved me, you'd do it'?"
Dawn and Xander both turned to stare at Spike.
"What?" he said. "I watch daytime TV."
"Yeah," Xander said, "and that doesn't make it any less disturbing. I don't think anyone actually says that, but if they do, don't listen to them. If they really love you, they'll wait until you're ready." He made a face. "I don't think I could be any cheesier if I actually were on daytime TV."
"At least you said it with a straight face," Dawn said.
"Able to jump cliches in a single conversation, that's me." Xander smiled weakly at her. "Any more questions of an emotional nature I can answer with cliches? Or even, possibly, real answers?"
"Don't do emotional questions," Spike said, twisting his fingers in the way that Xander was learning meant he wanted a cigarette.
Dawn just shrugged.
"Okay, moving right along." Xander pulled a stack of brochures out of the bag and dealt them out on the table. "STDs, birth control, Planned Parenthood services, rape crisis hotline," he explained as the stacks grew taller.
He reached into the bag again. He tossed one box of condoms to Spike, who caught them, and another to Dawn, who fumbled the pass.
"The condom," he explained, "is the basic unit of safe sex. When used properly, condoms are about eighty-six to ninety-eight percent effective in preventing pregnancy. They're also the best thing to keep you from getting an STD. They're not perfect, but if you're having sex with a man, use one." He pointed at the boxes. "Those are yours to keep. If you don't use them by the expiration date, throw them out. They're no good after that."
He paused to pull a small bunch of bananas out of his paper bag.
"You got a kitchen sink in there too?" Spike asked.
Xander grinned at him. "Kitchen sinks don't have much to do with safe sex." He pulled the bananas apart and handed one to each of them. "Don't eat that." He reached into the bag for a handful of loose condoms. "This is the practical portion of the lesson." He picked up one of the condoms from the table. "If you don't put it on properly, it won't be as effective."
He tore the condom wrapper, pinched the tip, and slid it down his banana.
"Your turn," he said, pushing a condom at each of them.
Spike got it on the first try--"Seen a lot of porn, haven't I?"--but he had to make adjustments to Dawn's technique. And the less said about that the better. This was embarrassing enough as it was.
"If you want to," he said, "you can learn--" He had to stop and catch his breath. Spike's condom-filled mouth was almost all the way down over his banana. "To do that," he choked out.
Spike backed off of the banana, leaving the condom in place. "Lot of porn," he explained.
Xander forced down his reaction and swept the remaining condoms back into the bag.
"If--" He had to clear his throat and start over, pointedly ignoring Spike's smirk. "If you do decide to have sex with a man, you'll probably also want to go on the Pill, especially if you're in a monogamous relationship. If you're on the Pill, and you know you're both clean, you can do away with the condoms."
He reached across the table and took Dawn's hands in his. "If you decide you want to go on the Pill and you don't want to talk to Buffy about it, come to me. I'll take you to Planned Parenthood."
"What?" Spike protested. "I don't get the special treatment?"
Xander let go of Dawn's hands and sat back. "If your cramps are that bad next month," he said to Spike, "you're going on the Pill whether you like it or not."
Spike screwed up his face in what was really a very cute expression of confusion. "What's that got to do with contraception?"
"The Pill," Xander explained, "works on your hormones. It can help with cramps." If he ever got tired of construction, maybe he could get a job at good old Sunnydale High. He had to be better at this than Mrs. Wilson.
Spike's eyes burned with the fire of unholy excitement. "Take me to get some of that now."
"Willow thinks they might have been bad only because it was your first time. We don't know if drugs will affect you differently, so we don't want you taking any unless you have to." He reached out and patted Spike's hand. "If they're bad again, we'll get you drugs, I promise."
He looked down at the table and then forced himself to look up. "Pregnancy is about the only thing we've never had to deal with. If you do get pregnant, we'll help you." He nodded at Spike. "This goes for both of you. If you get pregnant, we'll help you no matter what you want to do."
"You condoning abortion?" Spike asked. "Wouldn't think it of you, what with the saving of lives and all."
"If you get pregnant," Xander said, to them both, "and you want an abortion, I'll drive you to the clinic and hold your hand."
Dawn reached across the table and hugged him. "You're a good brother, Xander."
Xander hugged her back. "I'm about to be a better brother." He reached into his bag for the last thing. "This," he said, holding up the box, "is a too little known secret of safe sex."
"Saran wrap?" Dawn asked. "How does that help?"
Xander took a deep breath. "The basic idea of safe sex," he said, "is to keep from exchanging fluids. If you're--" He stopped to think about how he could express this, and decided to be direct about it. "Oral sex," he said. "Condoms for a guy, saran wrap for a girl."
Spike cocked his head. "That right?"
Xander tore off a length of saran wrap and tore it in half. "Put that over your hand," he instructed, "and, um, lick."
They looked at him like maybe he was going crazy, but they did as he said.
Dawn made a face. "That's weird."
Spike raised an eyebrow and licked a broad stripe across his palm. And then he did it again. "Nice," he decided.
Xander reminded himself that this was Spike. Evil. Planned to kill him a couple of times. Newly female and shouldn't be taken advantage of.
"That's about it," he said when he could breathe again. "Don't get sick, don't get pregnant, and check Brown's Demon Compendium if you have doubts about your date's humanity."
"Can we can still ask you questions?" Dawn asked.
Xander gave her a soft smile. "Of course you can, Dawn. Any time you need to." He extended his smile to include Spike. "You too, Fangless."
"Thanks," Spike said dryly, but Xander could tell he actually meant it.
"One more thing," he said to Dawn. "It might be best if you don't tell Buffy I gave you condoms. I'd like to live to see my next birthday."
***
Day 32
Xander kept one eye on the game while he went to answer the door.
"Had a fight with the Slayer," Spike said sullenly, and were those tears in his eyes? "Can I stay here?"
"Yeah, of course." He was always a sucker for a damsel in distress, even this one. He closed the door behind Spike and followed him to the couch. They watched their way through a second down. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No, I don't bloody well want to talk about it," Spike snarled at him.
Xander let it go. "You want pizza for dinner?"
"Pepperoni," Spike said, and that's what Xander wanted too, so that worked out well.
Spike barely spoke to him--"Give me another slice." "Got any soda?" "I'm not sleeping on your couch."--while they finished off the pizza and the Raiders lost.
It was easier to let Spike borrow a t-shirt and boxers and crawl into his bed than it was to argue with him.
***
Day 33
Xander wasn't too worried when Spike was still sleeping when he left to work; it wasn't even five-thirty and the only people awake at that hour were people who had to be at work.
He was more worried when he got home at three and Spike was still in bed. He knelt down on his bedroom floor and looked into Spike's drawn face.
"Spike? Are you okay?"
Spike opened his eyes and glared at Xander. "My cramps aren't any better this month. You promised me drugs."
Xander's hand stroked through Spike's hair without his brain telling it to. "I did." He went back out into the living room and looked up the number of Willow's gynecologist. That was another conversation he preferred not to think about. The woman was able to squeeze Spike in before closing.
Xander went back to the bedroom to gather up clean clothes. "You have an appointment in half an hour," he told Spike. "I'm going to take a shower first." His hand did the thing where it stroked Spike's hair again. "Get dressed."
He waited in the aptly named waiting room while the doctor examined Spike, but he went in afterwards to hold Spike's hand, literally and figuratively, while the doctor explained his options and wrote him a pair of prescriptions.
"Do you want me to drop you off at Buffy's while I have these filled?" Xander asked on the way out to the car.
"Not goin' back there," Spike said, and Xander pointed the car towards the nearest drugstore.
Spike fidgeted endlessly while they waited in two of the drugstore's three chairs. Xander sat back and watched him. He liked Spike as a girl. Spike as a girl was pretty, and Spike as a short-haired girl in combat boots was hot. He'd always liked strong women. And, yeah, Anya was right. He liked to take care of people. Some part of him he didn't usually acknowledge regretted that he never made a full-time job out of taking care of Willow.
"Let's find you some water," he said after he paid for Spike's drugs. Spike swallowed down a painkiller before he even finished the sentence. "Or you can take it dry."
"Let's go," Spike growled.
Xander obligingly took Spike home. He filled a glass with water and made Spike drink it and follow it up with an apple. He left Spike curled up on the couch and went to the bathroom to run a bath.
"Come on," he said, hauling Spike up by one arm. "There's hot water. It'll make you feel better until the painkillers kick in." He pushed Spike into the bathroom and tried not to listen to the moan that accompanied Spike's descent into the water.
He had dinner ready when Spike came back out, dressed in his clothes again. Xander made a mental note to stop by Buffy's and pick up Spike's own clothes. This was driving him crazy.
"Feeling better?" he asked.
Spike shrugged. "Little." He dug into his share of dinner and didn't seem inclined to talk.
There wasn't anything good on TV, but they watched anyway, Xander sprawled over one end of the couch and Spike curled up at the other. He turned it off when he realized Spike was almost asleep.
He steered Spike into the bedroom and tucked him in. His hands pushed Spike's hair back from his forehead before he could stop them. He backed away and went to brush his teeth.
***
Day 34
Spike was awake and blinking sleepily up at him when he got out of the shower in the morning.
Xander crouched down to put himself at the same level as Spike. "Hey."
"Hey." Spike's voice was still rough and sexy with sleep.
"How are you feeling?"
Spike half shrugged. "Okay."
Xander couldn't keep himself from stroking Spike's shoulder. "The painkillers are in the medicine cabinet, and there's cereal when you're ready for breakfast." He shook Spike lightly. "Don't spend the whole day in bed." He stood up before he could let himself touch Spike anymore.
"I won't."
Xander's efforts didn't work, and he had to touch Spike's cheek before he could leave.
***
Day 56
Spike went back to Buffy's with surprisingly little grumbling. For a while, things got back to what passed for normal in Sunnydale.
Xander was late to the Scooby meeting where the balance was upset again.
"What's going on?" he asked Dawn with a nod toward the center of the shop.
Dawn leaned up against him. "Angel wants to take Spike with him."
"Xander!" Cordelia slowed down for the last two steps that brought her up to Xander. "Hi."
"Hi, Cordelia." Xander met her with a hug.
"They've already decided to ignore Spike," she said, gesturing to where Wesley and Giles were nervously watching Angel and Buffy argue. Spike was sulking around the edges of the room.
"What're the odds?" Xander asked.
"Buffy's got the advantage," Willow said.
"Wesley's not the wimp he used to be," Cordelia added.
The four of them surveyed the scene.
"Could you do something with Spike?" Dawn asked.
Xander nodded. "I'll try." He caught up with Spike in the middle of the room.
"What do you want?" Spike snarled at him.
"Want to spar a little?"
Spike's eyes gleamed. "Yeah."
Xander was made to understand, on a regular basis, the wisdom of learning to fall. He'd also long since gotten over the indignities of being beaten by a girl. He was reminded of this every time he sparred with Spike.
The fourth time Spike took him down, he didn't rush to push Spike off of him. "Feeling better?"
Spike sat back on Xander's thighs and considered. He'd lost some of the hysteria. "I'm not going with him."
"No," Xander said.
"Slayer agrees with him, can I stay with you?"
Xander put his hand on Spike's hip. "Yeah."
Spike nodded and then pushed himself up. "Get up, Harris."
Xander groaned loudly. It wasn't that much of an exaggeration. "Swords?" he offered. It might take Spike a little longer to take him down that way.
Spike bared his teeth in a fierce grin that looked surprisingly natural. "Yeah," he breathed. He grabbed a pair of wooden practice swords from the wall and passed one to Xander.
Spike had the advantage of having lived in a time when swords were a regular combat weapon, but Xander was stronger and more comfortable in his own skin, so they were still chasing each other around the floor when Buffy and Angel brought the argument in to them.
"You're coming with me," Angel said to Spike.
Spike wasted no time in bringing the point of his sword to Angel's chest.
Xander lowered the point of his own sword to the ground. "Hold, Spike."
Spike didn't move.
"Spike," Xander warned, "you agreed to the rules." When Spike still didn't move, he said, "If he hurts you, I'll hold him still so you can get the perfect angle. Right now, he's just being an asshole."
Spike lowered the sword and handed it over to Xander. He passed them on to Dawn to be put away.
"Not going anywhere with you," Spike sulked.
"I'm your sire," Angel said. "You're coming with me."
Spike planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. "You sired Dru. She sired William the Bloody. Willa Joyce's a different person." He smirked. "Got a social security number and a driver's license and everything."
"Spike," Angel said with exaggerated patience, "we can try to find a way to fix this."
Spike stepped back. "Don't know that I want it fixed." He shrugged. "Things aren't so bad. Livin' with the Slayer and the Little Bit, Harris got me some nice painkillers, Watcher's givin' me a job. Get to see the sun."
"I'm not going to lock you up in the basement." Xander could almost hear Angel's teeth grinding.
"I'm not going with you."
"You have to," Angel insisted.
"Spike doesn't belong to you," Buffy said. "You can't just order her around."
Angel growled almost too low to be heard.
Xander slipped himself between Spike and Angel. "Did anyone tell you what happened?" He smiled at Angel. "My ex-ex-demon ex-girlfriend told me that she'd make sure I had someone to take care of. The next day, Spike woke up a girl." He reached one hand back toward Spike and was pleased when Spike folded it into both of his. "I'd say that means that unless he decides otherwise, Spike belongs to me."
"Wow, Xander," Cordelia said. "I don't think you've ever said that much to Angel."
Xander flashed her a quick grin. "You can't take him against his will anyway," he said to Angel. "I'm sure the LAPD would be very interested to hear about you kidnapping an innocent woman."
"See?" Spike said. "Not goin' anywhere with you." Xander could almost see his smirk.
"Spike," Angel said, but it was clearly a last ditch effort. He looked over Xander's shoulder at Spike and finally shook his head. "Fine," he said. He stepped around Xander to look directly down at Spike. "If you change your mind, you can always come to me."
Spike nodded. "Get out of here, you great poof," he said. Angel scowled even as, or maybe because, Spike stepped in closer to Xander.
Spike refused to let go until sometime after Xander gave Cordy a one-armed hug goodbye.
Part 2