Sore - A Love Story

By Xanpet

Chapter Five

Late the following morning Xander and Giles sat down to breakfast without waking Spike. They made small talk until, a knock at the door signalled the arrival of the Council operative. Colin Hartshorne looked Xander up and down as if he wasn't who he was expecting, "Is this the beast? Well I must say I'm surprised. Don't be under any illusions, vampire. One false move and you're..."

"What?!"

Colin jumped maybe not quite six foot in surprise at the unexpected and aggressive voice behind him. Spike laid a hand on his shoulder and whispered into his ear, "If you ever use that tone with him again, I will 'ang you by your still living entrails."

Xander didn't quite catch the threat but he could see the situation needed a fast injection of humour, "Hey no hard feelings. It's easy to confuse this rugged specimen of Californian manliness with the Peroxide Abuser of Old London Town!"

Giles Just rolled his eyes, made some belated introductions and they all sat down at the dining table. The polished surface showed everyone except Spike.

Colin opened his attaché case and took out some documents. "You have been briefed as to The First I take it? Well, during the Crusades a Spanish Knight, while travelling in the Holy Land found something dark, something of total evil. It turned him, corrupted him and used him to its purpose. He placed this thing in a stick of cedar and with it raised an army of the dead to fight his own war. In doing so, he became one of the undead himself. He created havoc and despair throughout the region and he called himself Orifiel."

"Orifiel?" Spike scoffed, "As in the Angel of the Apocalypse? Apt and before you say nuffink, Watcher, Drusilla had been a Catholic in life, as was Angelus and Darla. I know all about intercession and me mum was quite taken with the idea of angels."

Colin didn't like interruptions. They spoilt his narrative flow, "But he was in fact Roberto De Silva Cassia." He tried to use the tone of his voice to stave off any more. "He eventually became so warped that he tried to complete the separation of darkness and light. He was driven out of Jerusalem, and pursued through Arabia and Europe for three hundred years, until The Watcher's Council finally cornered him, back in Spain." He paused, but this time there was no interruption from the vampire, who was swinging back on Giles' antique chair, so that the legs bowed dangerously, and searching his pockets, madly.

"He managed to board a ship but was wrecked, captured and imprisoned in Heptamychaos, a seven-chambered universe hidden in the caves of Cheddar. With a magically bound piece of The First, he had a great primal power, God. He cannot be killed with anything but his own wand and it was considered at the time too dangerous to bring it close. Now we have no choice but to send you both in with it. He is rattling at his cage."

Spike lit a cigarette and Xander dumped an ashtray under his nose before he flicked it on the tabletop. He flicked it on the carpet.

However, Giles didn't even notice because, as Xander reached across, he spotted a series of cuts on the young man's arm. "Spike!" He thought, "I allowed Xander to travel alone with a dangerous, unsouled, unprincipled, reptile like Spike."

"Ultimate Good and Ultimate Evil were once two parts of the same," Colin seemed well into the flow of his story now. He leaned back, half closing his eyes, "In the beginning, they were separated but kept in balance. De Silva had taken part of Ultimate Evil to raise his army of the dead, but, to those not already dead, it kills them, because it is pure evil, it draws the breath of life right out. Free it, complete the separation, and you bring about the death of humanity, judgement day."

"Hence the Cupid. Yep that's right, we saw a Cupid, not a cute little cherub but a great beast of The First."

So, the vampire had been listening, good. "Then that was clearly a warning. We're in a race against time. You two must take the wand right into the heart of the sanctuary."

Xander put up his hand, pulling his sleeve quickly down over the cuts. Not quickly enough however for Giles not to get another look. "Ah, kinda obvious but...not dead here."

"But, according to Giles, you are relatively unknown to The First, and so will be able to get close, without being spotted. What I am proposing is using the Genesis Charm. It will take your life force and place it into sand in an hourglass. We will then use the vampire's blood to re animate you. At the turn of the glass, you will have a set time to complete the task, before your life is returned to you. It won't take your soul. That will travel with you, to anchor you to your life force."

"NO!" Spike's fist came down so hard on the table, the leg split. "I won't allow it."

Colin looked shocked. "You have no say."

"Unfortunately, I think he does." Giles took hold of Xander's wrist and pushed up his sleeve. "When was the last time he violated you? When did he last feed?"

"Er, so not your business." Xander snatched his arm back, "We were discussing my impending death here!"

"He thinks you will turn." Said Spike, his tone icy. He looked towards the furious Watcher. "Four maybe five days ago. Safe enough and other than that, he's right, not your business."

"And Colin's right, you have no say." Xander looked directly into Spike's blue, blue eyes, "My life here."

"I'll go alone."

"You're a creature of darkness. You'll be tempted by The First and you will fail." Warned Colin.

A snarl emanated from deep in Spike's throat and he stormed to the kitchen, not trusting himself to stay at the table any longer. He could feel his features morphing as he grappled with his rage. He slammed his hands down on the sink edge and watched it buckle under his grip.

Xander got up, "Vampires." He said shaking his head, "I'll talk to him."

He swung the door of the kitchen closed behind him and pulled the blind before Spike's steaming flesh caught light. "It'll be all day with the explaining and the shouting and the possible staking, if you gripe about it. So don't." He said, resting a buttock on the work surface. "I am coming with you, otherwise...I was just your travel snack."

"No," Answered Spike softly without looking up or letting go of the sink, "Never that."

Xander thought he was going to say something more, but when nothing came, he continued, "Ya know, dying not one of my key goals here, but I have to do this. I have to be needed for something. You need me."

"I don't need you to die for me."

"Who says I'm dying for you, Fangless?"

"Doughnut boy,"

"DB Junior,"

"Shit for brains."

Name-calling was enough to break the tension, but still Spike didn't look up from the sink. There was a long pause.

"Hey look, you have the bad boy vamp thing going for you all the time, but the I'm Hellmouth born. You'd think, super power here somewhere, but no. So, let me be the hero, just once. I'll let you do sidekick."

Spike looked at him with a long sideways glance and straightened up. "I s'pose we'd better get back before they think I buggered you over the draining board."

It was all that was needed. Xander looked wistfully at the draining board and headed back to the living room.

It was clear from both vampire and man, that discussion of what had just past, was over. "So how does this work?" Asked Xander.

"I have all the ingredients right here," Said Colin, "We should start. We also unfortunately need the key. It is a word and it's encoded onto this scroll but the code has been lost. I understand you're quite the linguist, beast. Maybe you could..."

"Ask nicely." Said Spike with only the mere hint of a threat in his voice.

"Please."

Spike began on the document while the others went next door. It was all he could do to keep from letting go all together and wrecking the rest of Giles' furniture. Just through the door, the two Council men were killing his lover. Of course, they would never understand, so he hadn't bothered to explain, how death and blood were inextricably bound with turning and siring. All those bits of his vampiric culture he had so comprehensively rejected. He'd been turned by a lunatic in an alley and sired by the most brutal killer. It didn't need Hartshorne to keep reminding him he was a beast, dirt, a monster. He knew this. It needed a human to show him kindness, to remind him he was once a man. It needed Xander. He needed Xander.

The text was complex and simple at the same time. "Okay Spike, work from what you already know." He knew the text was in the Roman alphabet but that it wasn't written in Latin. He knew there was more than one language, that they were mixed, that one was English and the other was European and human. He began to make some notes on Giles' phone pad.

Heptamychaos was Greek, so the key might be in Greek. He sifted out all the English phonemes he could see, but nothing jumped at him. Some patterns and vowels, repeated at regular intervals. Another tack. This was a key to a seven-chambered universe; the Greeks had seven sacred vowels, yes there they were, EEIOUOU and their palindrome UOUOIEE.

He was nearly there. There had to be a reason for the English. Another palindrome, perhaps in the form of a triangle like ABRACADBRA. "Nah," He thought, "Too bleeding obvious. Anyway more likely to be wings or gates, this bloke thought himself an angel and Orifiel stands at the gates."

Palindromes. Palindromes. English and Greek palindromes. "Come on you little bugger show yourself." And suddenly it was there, staring him right in the face. "Got you." He declared out loud.

"Vampire, we need you now."

Spike entered the room and almost wept. Xander lay on the bed. He appeared to be asleep but Spike knew differently. There were only two heartbeats in the room, only two scents of warm, vital blood. Xander was pale and cold. His blood no longer sang to Spike and Spike's demon screamed in the silence. "What do I do?" He barked, "Open a vein and pour?"

"No, no," Said Colin hurriedly, "We don't want to risk any chance of turning." He took out a syringe and a rubber tourniquet.

"You have to be joking! Knock, knock, no circulation. Oh give the bloody thing to me." He snatched the syringe and wincing, sunk it deep into the blue vein that ran along his right wrist. He savoured the pain. "I think one of you girls is going to have to pull here."

Giles obliged. He wasn't gentle but Spike just met his eye and licked his lips. The blood was thick and dark but otherwise no different from human. It gave no hint of the demon hidden within it. When Giles inserted the needle into Xander, Spike turned away. Even if he ever did sire a childe, it wouldn't be like this. This was clinical and human. Almost scientific and he had good reason to hate human science. He believed that childer should be sired in the heat of passion, when there was fire in the blood, not in alleyways and not like this.

"Are you done?" He snapped, as soon as Giles turned the hourglass. They both nodded, "Then get out! Go on sling ya 'ooks!"

They left. Spike went over to Xander and sat down on the edge of the bed. He brushed Xander's hair back with his fingertips and gulped. The young man felt like stone. He took Xander's hand and laced their fingers together. "I would never have done this to you, Sweetmeat." He murmured, "I...I love you."

What passed for an eternity were in fact twenty or so minutes. Spike was aware of movement under his palm and looked up to see Xander open his eyes.

He sat bolt upright, gasping for air and clawing at Spike. The vampire took hold of his shoulders and looking directly into his eyes said, "It's all right, China. Just don't try to breathe. It takes a little getting used to, that's all."

"Christ, what a rush!"

"Are you okay? Not...hungry?"

"Strangely no. Not for anything. Can I just say weird?" Xander examined his hands and felt for a pulse. "It's amazing how much you throb when you don't and that didn't make any kind of Earth sense did it?"

Outside, Giles and Colin paced the living room like expectant fathers. "You didn't tell me that the vampire and the American were involved." Said Colin, abruptly.

"Oh they're not."

Colin's expression was one of disbelief. "It's feeding from him. You said it was neutered. And it got extremely agitated when it thought the man was going to die. Now it's sitting in there as if over a childe waiting to rise."

"Well, that's just instinct," Muttered Giles, taking off his glasses and cleaning them distractedly, "I can assure you, their dislike for one another goes quite deep. Besides, Spike..." He couldn't quite bring himself to refer to the vampire as it, "...Spike has had an unhealthy obsession with the Slayer for over a year and Xander is due to be married. He has a fiancée waiting for him in California. In fact I'd go so far as to say, he's so straight you could draw lines with him."

"You never mentioned that either. You do realise that, even if they succeed, they may not survive. Perhaps it would be better if they were lovers. What will you tell the girl if he's lost?"

Giles never got the chance to answer because at that moment Xander and Spike emerged. "Two walking dead guys, ready and reporting for duty." Xander quipped.

"Did you find the key?" Asked Colin, addressing Spike.

"Yup. How long have we got?"

"Twenty-one hours minus thirty-four minutes and it will take us a good half hour to drive there. We'd better get going." Giles handed Xander a small rucksack that he'd packed with anything he thought might be useful. It included a penknife, stakes, a torch and some rope.

They headed for the door. "STOP!" Yelled Spike as Xander opened it and sunlight flooded in. He reached for him but immediately had to draw back from the strength of the rays, the back of his hand badly burned. "Unholy-mother-of-the-ever-living-FUCK!!" He screamed nursing his burns against his chest.

Giles thought of his neighbours, Colin smiled and Xander stood in the sun, wondering why he couldn't feel its heat.

"Daywalker." Colin explained, "He should have some vampiric traits such as strength, speed and agility, but holy water won't touch him and he's not adverse to sunlight. We'll drive to the tourist entrance of the caves. Xander will pay, go in and wait 'til nightfall. Then he can let you in."

"And just 'ow the bleeding 'ell am I getting there? Oh don't tell me..." He shook his head as Xander handed him the tarpaulin from the car. "Like the Bionic Man," He thought, "Better, stronger, faster." He went to collect the wand from his room. He took it out of its box and wrapped it in the protective charm Willow had woven. He tucked it into the inside pocket of his duster. Then he threw the tarp over his head and made a run for the car.

Chapter Six

It had been a long drive or so it felt for Spike, hidden in the foot well at the back of the car. Xander made sure that the tarp protected him from any stray sunlight and that Giles parked in the shade. He fussed over leaving the vampire until a barrage of abuse, mainly centring on his masculinity, finally drove him away.

Giles, Colin and Xander crossed the car park towards the ticket booth. As they approached a cloud passed over the sun. The light dipped so suddenly that they all looked up. "Now tell me that's a Cupid!" Exclaimed Xander, shielding his eyes.

"It's a Cupid." Said Giles matter-of-factly, "But not a big one. Still, it may be on the lookout, we need to move fast." They bought a ticket and said their goodbyes. Giles pressed a small package into Xander's hands. "It's a wedding present but I want you to have it now."

Confused, Xander opened the box. Inside was a wristwatch. He thanked the Watcher, shouldered the rucksack Giles had packed, and headed for the entrance.

He actually enjoyed his trip round the caves and was sorry when he had to duck back and hide. Once the party had moved on it was lonely and probably cold. "Just one of the wonders of being Deadboy III." He thought despondently, looking at the watch Giles had given him. He took it off. Engraved on the back was 'Always have time for each other'.

He suspected there would be a matching one for Anya but he doubted she would take the advice. Time was not one of her strong points. It was probably because of her age, but she always had an urgency about her. She was rushing him into things. When Joyce died, she went into overdrive. Life was too
short to take time over and she started talking about things like babies. He knew the marriage had been his proposal, but the wedding hadn't. He should have known she wouldn't wait. Time was something the living did not have enough of.

The caves closed at five and the last of the visitors past him at five twenty. He gave it until ten past six, before he crept his way back to the main entrance, and got there just as the lights were switched off. He was amused to see that Giles' car had been clamped. A large yellow wheel lock, marked Avon and Somerset District Council, was attached to the back wheel. It wasn't difficult to disable the alarm in the centre and let Spike in. They made their way back into the labyrinth of caves in silence.

Spike shone a beam, from the torch in the bag, at the walls, looking for the key. It didn't take him long to find the spot either, in an alcove where the cave narrowed to a space, just wide enough for them to stand side by side. He took out a penknife and began to carve huge letters in the rock. E R O S, Eros, the Greek God of Love but also a creation entity that flowed from the darkness, to make the sky and the Earth. On the opposite side he began its palindrome, the English word sore. "Love and pain. Could there be more irony in my undead existence?" He thought, carving the remainder of the double wing formation into the rock face.

EROS SORE
ERO ORE
ER RE
E E

He finished the last E, said the incantation and two huge doors creaked open, right out of the bare rock. They entered what seemed to be a never-ending corridor. Flame torches flickered at intervals, making their shadows jump and dance. The doors closed behind them with a dull thud and left no trace.

This was a one-way trip.

Spike raised the torch and shone it around the walls. Near to where the entrance had been, was a set of instructions, written in the mineral deposits that encrusted the rock.

"Step one, turn ninety on the dial.
Step one, turn ninety on the dial.
Step two, turn ninety on the dial.
Step three, turn ninety on the dial.
Step five, turn ninety on the dial.
Step eight, turn ninety on the dial.
Step thirteen, turn ninety on the dial." He read out loud.

It seemed on the face of it clear enough. They memorised the numbers but couldn't see a dial so they began to walk. One step, no dial, another, still no dial and no turns or bends in the corridor of any kind. They decided to walk a bit further. It was, Xander suspected, quieter than the grave down there. Desperate to break the silence he asked, "So why Eros?"

"Eros the hermaphrodite, symbol of love, sexuality, jealously and deceit."

"Pretty neg for a love god!"

"You think love is all hearts and flowers?"

"Well yeah, according to the commercials." They walked a little further. Spike said nothing. "Well isn't it?"

"No! It's also blood and pain. If you don't have those then how do you know when the good bit begins?"

"And if that's all you got?" Said Xander, thinking of his parents and his own track record.

"Then it's over." Spike said with a shrug. He thought about what had been with Buffy and shook his head. Better to stick with the task at hand, "This can't be right. Lets go back to the beginning." They started to walk back, " 'Course, those can be good bits an' all." He smiled wistfully.

"How!? Stop. How can pain be good? See, that's why you're evil."

Spike stopped walking and sighed, "Probably, but you opened up your arm for me and I stuck a needle in meself for you. Oh come on, don't tell me that razor didn't give you a huge jolly. What you call evil, I call honesty. Don't pretend you don't enjoy what we do. All of it. Why subscribe to the chivalrous ideal of courtly love? It don't exist. Chaucer knew it. You do realise that the Knight's Tale is a bloody parody don't you?"

Xander walked away as quickly as he could. He wasn't into pain! "So why are you fighting the Slayer's cause with no special skills?" Said a snarky voice in his head, "And why did you date Cordy? And why are you marrying Anya?"

Spike caught up and looked at him quizzically.

"You don't think I should marry her!" Xander accused.

"When you're not taking it up the arse, you're giving it to me. No, I don't think you should marry her. I don't think you should make promises in front of a god, you have no intention of keeping, especially if the god is part of Ultimate Good - your god."

They retraced their steps, but there were still no twists, turns or gaps of any kind in the wall. They reached the start and looked at the instructions once more.

"What if we added all the numbers together? And are you asking me to choose between you?" Said Xander.

"It'll make the same difference. And yes, now I think of it. Love of a single beautiful body is the first step on the Ladder of Eros. 'Course, it would be all to the good if it was mine." He added suggestively.

"Step one is repeated. What if you're supposed to add up the rest and then do the whole thing once." He looked at Spike's frown. "Okay, so not really sense making here. Look, this needs thinking and philosophical love/pain discussions - not conducive to the whole thinking experience."

Spike lit a cigarette and looked around the rest of the tunnel, while Xander slid his back down the opposite wall only to sit on something sharp. He pulled the thing from under him and looked at it. It was a human jawbone, "Eww, ahh!" He exclaimed throwing the offending object aside. Spike smiled and, pointing the torch downwards, illuminated a number of complete skeletons. Xander found he was sitting in a heap of bones. He jumped up as though he'd been shot. It seemed the living didn't even get past the first obstacle.

"What do the living have that the dead don't?" Xander muttered.

"A constant need to shit!" Spike replied.

"Okay put it another way, what do the dead have that the living don't?"

Spike thought for a moment, "Time."

"Time," Xander felt an idea coming on. Time? Time! Of course, that was it. The thing the living did not have enough of. The instructions were measured in time. Each turn of the dial was the sundial or clockwise. "And the strange just keeps a coming." He said looking at the watch Giles had given him.

They walked for a minute and turned ninety degrees clockwise. Xander may have had the vision of a vampire, but it was Spike's more practised eye that picked up the slight variation in the texture of the wall. "Can you see it?"

"No. Wait yeah." The wall in front of them was an illusion and thirty-three minutes later, they had travelled the descending spiral and were facing the last one. As they took the final step, their sensitive eyes were assaulted by bright light, and the floor seemed to give way. Xander and Spike found themselves sliding uncontrollably downward. They scrabbled for traction but the surface was smoother than glass. The chamber they tumbled into had about fifteen foot of flat floor, and then what appeared to be a sheer drop.

Spike continued to slither across the bottom. His fully vampiric body, with its greater bone and muscle density, was that much heavier than Xander's and had more momentum. Where Xander slid to a halt, he carried on going, over the edge and down into an abyss that crackled with electricity.

Xander only had time to call out his name, before he disappeared from view.

Chapter Seven

Skittering to the edge, Xander looked over, dreading what he might see. Spike had become a companion so quickly and effortlessly, Xander hadn't even noticed until now, and the thought that he might be gone made his stomach lurch. The bottom was a sea of white light, seething and crackling. Static made his hair stand up and set his teeth on edge. Spike had managed to catch the rim and was literally hanging by a finger. "Well, don't sit there like a bleeding poodle. Pull me up."

Lying flat on the ground, Xander took hold of Spike's wrists and heaved. It was difficult on a frictionless surface and Spike seemed so much heavier than normal. It took no fewer than four attempts before he was finally lying next to Xander on the smooth floor. "Er Spike..." Said Xander with a worried frown, "You seem to have acquired extra balls."

There were seven coloured spheres bobbing at Spike's feet. He kicked at them and shook them free but they seemed to have a life of their own, coming right back at him. He backed away from the edge and the spheres came too. "Bugger off!" He exclaimed jumping up and moving away. The spheres followed. The scene was surreal with Spike slithering and sliding, as he tried to escape his pursuers. Xander sat and laughed. "Oh yeah, ha ha. I'll 'ave you know these things are bloody heavy." Snapped Spike, dodging this way and that.

Something stung Xander, and he flicked it with the back of his hand. Then another thing hit his face and there were more stings under his backside. He looked back at the ledge just in time to see a swarm of tiny gold balls rising up out of the abyss and heading straight for him.

He jumped up and ran for the corner of the room, but literally thousands of the things followed him. Every time they touched his skin, it was as if tiny charges were being set off. "Oww, shit! Get away!! Where's rento..." He never finished his quip as ten gold balls tried to enter his mouth. He spat them out and pressed his back against the polished wall.

The large heavy spheres, each one coloured with a shade of the rainbow, continued to bombard Spike, occasionally with enough force to send him flying across the room.

Xander by now was being inundated by millions of the tiny gold ones. They were not heavy, like those that attacked Spike, but the sting was sharp and they threatened to swamp him. They gathered where his back met the wall, as if they were trying to dig beneath him.

He began to run. It felt like swimming. As he moved around the room he created eddies in the mass of spheres. He couldn't seem to get near Spike and could hardly see him in the gold coloured haze.

He was tiring. It was impossible to run forever, even with extra demon blood in his veins. Finally, heavy limbed, he stopped. "Please make it quick." He prayed. But to his surprise, the golden spheres didn't engulf him completely. They simply began to spin around him. Every now and then, they would try to go under his feet but if he lifted up, they didn't sting his ankles. They formed about seven layers and through them, he could dimly see the rainbow blur that was Spike, still running madly about the room.

"Spike, stay still!" He shouted.

"No can do, China," Came the reply, "The only way of fixing these dratsabs is to run in bleeding circles around them!"

Xander thought. He could only hold still and Spike had to keep moving. He couldn't get near the coloured spheres and the tiny ones wouldn't let him alone. They did however back away from Spike. He had no idea what was going on, but he thought he might be able to solve it. "Spike, on three, run over here. One two...." He was bowled off his feet by the vampire and was sent sprawling to the ground. With preternatural speed, Spike landed in his lap, being hotly pursued by his huge coloured spheres. "I said on three! Don't they count in Vamponia?"

All Xander's gold ones had shot out of the way, as he approached, making him a clear path. Then the strangest thing happened, the tiny golden balls stopped spinning around Xander and began to circle the larger ones. Xander and Spike were left with just the red sphere and a single gold one circling them.

"Sorted." Said Spike, sounding more like an East End tradesman than ever.

"Hey, together we make a neutron!" Grinned Xander.

Holding hands, they walked to the edge of the ledge. Without the spheres, it was possible to see that it wasn't a sheer drop, but an incredibly steep slope that finished in seven doors. There was only one way to go. Xander gulped and they hugged each other tight. He closed his eyes and they rolled off the ledge, tumbling headlong, over and over, through the smallest door and out towards the next chamber.

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