Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Hard-Bitten (1/11)
Title: Hard-Bitten
Chapter: 1/11
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I'm not Joss
Warnings: m/m, some violence and angst, and, well, biting
Author's Note: This is for xmas_n_july. The fic is complete and I'll post a chapter each day. Thank you to lil_coyoteand faketoysoldierfor the perfect banners. And thank you to whyskeyeyes  for the awesome prompt which was: It's post Buffy, Post Angel. Xander stops at the entrance to a sewer tunnel and sees Spike huddled against a wall.(He's been searching for him) He approaches him. As Xander touches Spike, Spike slams him to the ground and bites him ..... you take it from there... why is he there and what happens next.
As always, I adore feedback!

Chapter One

There was nothing like Chicago sewers in the summertime.

Thank the gods.

Because he’d visited a sewer or two in his time, but this was horrific. The stench was beyond awful, and if he’d had anything to eat for dinner he would have lost it long ago. They were going to love him when he returned to the hotel with this reek permeating his skin. He was just going to have to burn his clothing. And then there were the local residents. The junkies who’d been too wasted to do more than follow him with their hollow eyes. The crazy homeless guy with the aluminum foil hat who’d taken one look at Xander and his patch, and started screeching about Cyclops aliens invading the planet. The animal that scurried by and was either an enormous rat or a hideous dog. Or maybe some kind of demon. An alligator or two might be comforting right now.

He hadn’t started out down here. He’d begun with more obvious places for Spike to hang out—demon bars and whorehouses and suckhouses—but found no sign of him. But Spike had a way of drawing attention to himself wherever he went, and Xander eventually found a couple of Yarbnies who admitted they’d seen him a few weeks back. That led him to a specific bar, a seedy dive that somehow reminded him of the cantina scene in Star Wars. He’d scowled around and dropped Slayers’ names ominously until a group of purplish things with wings said they’d seen him down in the sewers. An ugly furry guy who looked like a mutant monkey backed up their story, as did a vamp with a bad overbite and a Russian accent.

So he’d gone to the sewers with a stake in his back pocket and a flashlight in his hand. It turned out that there were a whole lot of tunnels in the Windy City. The purple guys had given him a general area, though, and he’d come down in mid-afternoon, figuring Spike at least wouldn’t be anywhere out in the open then. He wandered for hours, getting pretty much hopelessly lost, seeing way more of the guts of this city than he’d ever wanted to.

And then, as he hesitated at the intersection of two major lines, he thought he saw something hunched in the gloom. “Spike?” he said. There was no reply other than the echo of his own voice. Still, there was something about the way this figure was bent into itself, something about the angle at which it sat.

Cautiously, he stepped closer. “Spike?” he said again, and still there was no answer. But now he could tell it was definitely a person, a person dressed in black and huddled against the wall, head against knees and arms protectively over head.

A few more feet, and he could make out details. Long leather duster, caked in grime. Scuffed heavy boots. Pale, almost delicate hands, the nails speckled with the vestiges of black polish.

At first he’d thought the person might be asleep, but now he saw that the entire body was trembling, as if the person were terrified. Even if this wasn’t Spike, he had to find out what was wrong, didn’t he?

Moving very slowly, he closed the gap between them, until his own filthy Nikes were nearly against the man. He bent down, gently touched one hand to a shaking shoulder, and, in a voice barely over a whisper, repeated the vampire’s name.

The person burst upwards, and Xander stumbled back, nearly falling. His flashlight went flying out of his hand. He had just enough time to see the face before him, almost if it were frozen in a flash photograph, and sure enough, that was Spike. But oh, shit, that was Spike in game-face, and the vampire was roaring and launching himself at Xander. Then Xander was flat on his back in the fetid muck, the air knocked out of his lungs, Spike pinning him in place with the weight of his body. Before Xander could even gather the breath to scream, sharp teeth were descending towards his neck, were tearing into him.

Back when he was in school, his father would glance at his report card, curl his lip in disgust, and call him an empty-headed little shit. Xander learned to duck the blow that always followed. The truth was, he wasn’t empty-headed at all. In fact, he was full-headed, too full-headed. He would sit in the classroom and think about, say, Cordelia, and how far she was likely to let him go during their next session in the closet or behind the stacks of books, and how he could persuade her to go a little farther, and whether his desire for her to go farther was actually outweighed by his being scared half to death at the thought of it, and, speaking of death, weren’t they supposed to patrol tonight, and he hoped there were no more Mnunga demons, not like last time, because then he’d ended up with all that disgusting green stuff all over him, and what was that stuff anyway, he probably didn’t want to know, and how come it was always him who ended up covered in toxic demon goo, not too unlike the goo his chemistry teacher was currently swirling around in a beaker, and wow, the chem teacher was kind of hot, but, oh, hot science teacher, don’t go there, Miss Cortez might be another giant bug thing who wanted to mate with him and then eat him and that was not of the good, well, not the eating part anyway, but maybe the mating part, except not with a bug, no, with a nice, warm, soft girl, ormaybeahardsexyboyohfuckhedidnotthinkthat, girl, yes GIRL, like Cordelia or Buffy or Willow, no, not going there either, definitely not Willow, but like Cordelia or Buffy except with Buffy there was the whole Angel thing, and Angel was kind of hot—gah! No! Vampire! Male vampire! Not hot!—but yeah, Cordelia, and why was Devoto over there giving him the evil eye, that prick wasn’t going to try to bully him again after class was he, but if he did the Xan-man would just smoothly walk by because that kind of stuff was beneath him, couldn’t touch him at all, no way, because he killed demons dammit and Cordelia Chase was his girlfriend and—Shit. Did Miss Cortez just say something about a test tomorrow?

See? Full-headed.

Was it any wonder he tended to have troubles managing to conjugate French verbs?

So now, as the life was being drained from him, one swallow at a time, he thought about how this was exactly how he’d expected to die, except for the Spike part. He hadn’t expected to die at Spike’s fangs for nearly a decade now. And he really didn’t want to die. Not now. Well, not ever, if he could help it. But, Christ, this felt really good. Why hadn’t anyone told him how good this felt? He took back everything evil he ever thought about Riley Finn paying to get bitten. He’d pay for this. If he actually had any of his own money, that is, and not just a stingy expense account from the Council, because the Council probably wouldn’t be very pleased to shell out dough for vamps to feed off him. But, hey! They didn’t have to, because right now Spike was doing it for free. Xander was pretty sure he was actually straining his hips upward against the body astride him, and he was about to come in his pants. That was going to be really embarrassing when they found his dried-out husk of a corpse, and then they did the autopsy or whatever and discovered semen in his briefs, so maybe he should try to think about baseball right now, but he wasn’t sure if that worked with vamp bites anyway, and, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh—

With a terrible howling cry, Spike pulled himself away.

He got up, stumbled, got up again, and ran, deeper into the sewer. Xander staggered to his feet, too, he wasn’t sure whether to chase after the retreating vampire or run away, but either was pretty much out of the question anyway. Lightheaded and dizzy, he slumped heavily against the wall.

“Spike!” he called weakly.

But Spike never even looked back.

When he went looking next time, he’d carry his stake in his hand.

The Irony Fairy had been very generous lately.

Dead Boy called Buffy for help. Help for Spike, of all people! He’d sent Spike off on some sort of errand, and then didn’t hear from him again. He insisted that something had gone wrong, that this wasn’t just Captain Peroxide’s normal not-overly-reliable ways. Couldn’t go after him himself because, as usual, some sort of apocalypse was looming over LA. But Buffy couldn’t go either, not with the baby due in less than a month, and boy wouldn’t Xander have loved to see the look on Angel’s face when he got that bit of news.

Willow would have gone if Buffy had asked her to. And if she hadn’t got her magics all screwed up the previous week fighting the latest apocalypse in their neck of the woods. Wouldn’t have that fixed up for a couple of months yet, she said.

And Giles. Wouldn’t have wanted to go, but might have if Buffy made that doe-eyed pouting face at him. But he had some big important Watcher something to work on, so he was out, too.

So that left Expendable Guy himself flying around the globe to a city he didn’t like in search of a vampire he couldn’t stand. And when he’d finally found him, the fucker had bit him.

Xander wished the Irony Fairy would lay off for a while.

It took two days for Xander to recover. He didn’t think Spike had actually taken that much blood. Maybe a little more than one of those nice Red Cross ladies with the cookies and juice. But he’d been jetlagged to begin with, and his back was bruised pretty well from the fall, and he just wasn’t all that keen to go stalking around in shit tunnels looking for psychovamp. In fact, he probably would have just got on the next plane back to England, except he kept picturing the look on Spike’s face as he tore himself away from Xander’s neck. He’d still been vamped out, his fangs dripping with blood—Xander’s blood!—but his yellow eyes had held horror and fear. And that sound he made! Xander thought that was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

So Xander spent two days soaking in the hotel room tub, cursing the tiny little cakes of soap and the itty-bitty bottles of shampoo. He watched pay-for-view porn on the tv. He revived his iron levels by ordering steaks from room service and washing them down with lots of beer—which, strictly speaking, did nothing for his red cell count, but sure tasted good. And somebody else was paying, the Watchers Council or Angel, he didn’t know and didn’t care.

Around lunchtime on the second day, he called London. Buffy and Willow were sympathetic and worried about Spike, but neither had any clue what was going on. So he called Giles, who “good lorded” satisfyingly over his tale of the attack, and promised to do some research, but with so little to go on wasn’t very optimistic. So then Xander took a deep, resigned breath and dialed LA, at least slightly satisfied that he’d almost certainly be waking the big vamp up.

The phone rang nearly a half dozen times, and then there was a crashing sound, like when someone drops the receiver. “Huh? Wha?” said the voice on the other end, and Xander smiled to himself.

“Angel?”

“Yeah. Whozzit?”

“Xander Harris.”

“Xander!” Angel suddenly sounded a lot more alert. “Where are you?”

“Hog butcher for the world.”

“Have you found Spike?”

“You could say that. What the hell’s wrong with him?”

“What’s—What do you mean? What’s happened?”

Xander sighed. Looked like he was getting more questions than answers here. He told Angel about looking for the wayward vampire, and about the sewers, and about what happened there. Angel was silent, except for one loud exclamation when Xander told him about the bite—“Fuck!”—and another—“Shit!”—when Xander described the expression on Spike’s face, just before he’d run off.

“So you want to tell me what’s going on, Angel? Seeing as how I still have vampire spit imbedded in my skin?”

There was a brief pause. “Look, Xander, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. If I’d had any idea he was going to come after you like that—“

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you’re all broken up over it. C’mon. What do you know?”

“Not much.” There was a loud puff of air. “He drove there to pick up this talisman we needed. The Eye of Raflos. He was supposed to come right back with it.”

“You couldn’t have just had someone Fed-Ex it to you?”

“No. Someone had to negotiate for it in person.”

“You sent Spike to negotiate? Kind of like sending an elephant to tapdance, isn’t it?”

Angel kind of groaned. “I didn’t have any choice. Besides, he’s not that bad. He can be…fuck. Never mind. So he went, and that was it. He was supposed to call when he got the thing, but he never did. I can’t get any answer on his cell. After a couple of days I contacted the guy who was supposed to sell us the Eye, but he said Spike never showed up. That’s all I know.”

Well, that was helpful. “How did you know he didn’t just take off somewhere?”

“He’s not—he hasn’t been that flaky for a while, Xander. Besides, if he did, he didn’t drive. His car was impounded in Chicago about a week after he left here. It sat on the street without being moved for too long.”

“Do you know where they found it?”

“Yeah. Hang on.”

There were some rustling noises, and the smack of something hitting the floor, then more rustling. Then Angel was back on the phone, reading off an address. Xander dutifully wrote it down.

“Xander? The situation here in LA’s not pretty. There’s this clan of Efrehok demons, and they’re planning—“

“Save it. I got it. I’m not gonna get any relief from vamp retrieval, am I?”

“No. Sorry. Look, I’ll…I’ll owe you a big one, okay?”

Great. Xander rubbed his eye tiredly. “Fine. But if you find out anything else in the meantime, let me know.”

“I will.”

“Okay. B—“

“Wait!”

“What?”

“One more thing. I still need the Eye. Think you can get it and send it to me? Whatever that guy wants, I can get him. I really need this thing.”

“Anything else I can do for you, Angel? Wash your car? Do your taxes?”

“Be careful, Xander.”

Xander decided to deal with the talisman first. The irony of him trying to wheel and deal over an eye was not lost on him. Damn Fairy.

The guy who had it was named Danny Vega. He was a wizard of some sort, and he owned an occult bookshop off of Wabash. It was within walking distance of the hotel, actually, so Xander slapped a bandage on his neck—never travel without a first aid kit, that was his motto—and tromped over there through air hot and humid as a sauna. He was damp and crabby by the time he got there. The store was small and slightly cramped, but it was air-conditioned, and it smelled nice. Like flowers.

Vega was younger than Xander had expected, and not at all Dumbledoresque. Actually, he was short and muscular, with thick black hair. He looked like more like a soccer player than a magician.

“Can I help you?” he asked, smiling.

“I think so. I’m here for the, uh, Eye of Raflos? Angel sent me.”

Vega’s smile grew warmer. “Ah! But you’re not Spike.” He gestured outside, at the sun-drenched street from which Xander had just entered.

Xander snorted. “No. Name’s Xander Harris.” He came closer to the counter and they shook hands.

“Angel called a while back asking about Spike. Is everything all right?”

“I don’t know,” Xander replied. He didn’t really want to get into the whole thing. “You still haven’t seen him, huh?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. The, um, Eye?”

“Of course. Just a minute.” Vega disappeared for a moment through a doorway behind the counter. He came back holding a red drawstring bag. Untying the top carefully, he upended the bag over the counter, and a small object fell out. It looked like—ugh—a human eye, fine veins and all. Kind of greenish iris. But there was a sparkly red stone of some kind set where the pupil would be, and a small silver hoop was inserted in the top. A fine chain ran through the hoop.

“Do you know what this does?” Vega asked.

“No. Don’t particularly want to know, actually. Just doing a guy a favor.”

“I understand. Now, the terms of the purchase?”

“Yeah, um, whatta ya want for it?” Xander hated to haggle. He’d had to do it a lot when he was in Africa, and it always made him feel uncomfortable, and he always came away feeling as if he’d probably been cheated. In this case, he had absolutely no clue what this little trinket was worth.

Vega looked at him consideringly. “I was going to ask forty grand.” Xander had to stop his jaw from dropping. “But I’ll tell you what. I can let you have it for thirty…if you’ll go out to dinner with me tomorrow.”

Xander felt himself turning bright red. “I…uh…didn’t realize a date with me was worth ten k,” he stammered.

Vega raised one eyebrow and grinned. “I’m willing to take that chance.”

Xander blushed even more, if that were possible. “I’m flattered. Really. But I’m not gay. Sorry.”

Vega’s smile didn’t falter. “Doesn’t matter to me. I can be pretty persuasive, you know.”

Deep in his heart, Xander had an inkling that not all that much persuasion would be required. “I’ll bet you can,” he replied. “But right now…I really need to deal with the whole missing Spike thing.”

The wizard looked disappointed, but he nodded. “I understand. I’ll compromise. How about thirty-five thousand and a kiss?”

Xander blinked at him. For all he knew, the stupid thing was only worth twenty bucks. But Angel said whatever Vega wanted. And the man did have a full bottom lip, and—“Okay. But I’ve never smooched a guy before, so no guarantees about the quality, right?”

Vega laughed and caught at Xander’s hand, which was on the counter. “It’s not all that different from kissing a girl—as long as your partner has shaved recently.”

“What’s the deal? Why are you so interested in me anyway? I’m not exactly irresistible.”

“I don’t know. There’s something about you, Xander Harris. Something really intriguing. Besides,” he shrugged, “I like a little challenge.”

The term “demon magnet” popped into Xander’s head, and it occurred to him that Vega might not be quite as human as he looked. Before Xander could do anything about it, though, the other man had come around the counter and wrapped Xander in his arms. This close, he smelled of aftershave and herbs. It wasn’t unpleasant. He tipped his head upward—Xander was several inches taller—and pressed in close, touching his soft lips against Xander’s.

It felt…nice.

When Vega applied just a bit more pressure, Xander allowed his own lips to part a little, and then he was tasting another man for the first time, the flavor of salt and mint and it wasn’t bad at all. In fact it was pretty damn good.

Five thousand dollar kiss, Xander thought, and he rubbed his hands against the strong, broad back and clenched the other man’s body closer to his until they were touching from chest to toe. Vega dug his fingers slightly into Xander’s hips and moaned quietly.

When they pulled apart, they were both a little breathless.

“Worth every penny,” Vega said, his eyes sparkling.

“Guh,” said Xander, with as much eloquence as he could muster.

Vega walked back around the counter and scooped the Eye back into the bag. He held it out toward Xander.

“Um…the, uh, thirty-five grand?” Xander said.

“Have Angel call me with the credit card number, or wire me the payment. I’m sure you’re good for it.”

Xander took the bag. “Um, thanks.”

The wizard beamed at him. “Anytime. I’m sorry Spike is missing, but I’m not at all sorry Angel sent you in place of a vampire. When you get this Spike thing settled, if you want to take me up on that dinner after all, you know where to find me.”

Xander smiled back. “Okay.”

He headed for the door, but before he pulled it open, Vega said, “Xander? If I can help find him, let me know.”

Xander turned and nodded. “Thanks.”

And he walked back out into the oppressive sun still tasting the man on his lips.

Chapter Two