Sore - A Love Story
By Xanpet
Chapter Eight
"Why does it hurt so much when you're dead?" Complained Xander, rubbing his head where he'd hit the far wall. "It sure wasn't in the manual!"
"And dead bodies bruise an' all." Said Spike distractedly, looking around and taking in their new surroundings.
The third chamber was no more than a small box hollowed out of the rock. It was lit, not by torchlight but by a phosphorescent mineral deposit embedded in the stone. The floor was littered with small boulders and two bodies crouched in the far left corner.
"That's never a good sign." Xander said, "Nothing says failed like desiccated skin." He dragged himself to his feet and peered at the corpses. They reminded him of mummies. The leathered flesh was taught over the bones, the lips had shrivelled away to reveal sharp, white teeth and the hands were bent into grotesque claws. "Why are the eyes still there?" He asked, "And looking at me?! And moving?!! Alive, Spike. These guys are alive!!!"
Even with vampire-enhanced speed, Xander wasn't quick enough to jump back before those claw-like hands were wrapped around his neck. They couldn't kill him this way he knew, but he felt himself begin to black out anyway. Then Spike was there, beating at the nearest corpse with his fists.
It turned and snarled at the blond, its features morphing into those of a vampire. Spike felt his already chill body grow colder. Vampires! So hungry that they would go for what amounted to carrion. He wrapped his arm around the neck of the closest one and heaved it from Xander, throwing it against the wall.
"Mine!" He growled at the other, like possession was going to stop the starving beast. He let his demon out to play and, taking hold of its hair, pulled so hard Xander heard the snap of bone. But no sooner was one off then the other attacked. Xander threw a couple of good punches at the one with the broken neck and its head lolled in the most bizarre fashion.
Spike aimed a flying kick at the gut of the other before it could stagger to its feet. It reeled away but he followed, only to take it by an outstretched arm and swing it into the first. He wrenched and twisted the arm until it broke off at the shoulder with a sickening rip. There was little blood. These things were all but dry. He began to beat the monster about the head with its own arm, screaming obscenities in time with each hit.
Xander stumbled back and tripped over a rock that sent him sprawling to the floor. He scrabbled backwards to put some distance between himself and the mummified vampires. "Since when did Hammer Horror start producing my fight scenes?" He exclaimed mentally. It was like a bad B movie, to fall over at precisely the wrong moment.
Quickly, he took off the rucksack and dug deep into it to find a stake. Old 'broken neck' came tottering towards him just as he turned. He thrust upwards, whether by virtue of added vampiric strength, or just the sorry condition of the body, the stake slid into its target without effort, and suddenly Xander was showered with vampire dust.
The other vampire heard the scream and spun round. Spike tossed the arm aside and leapt onto its back. Taking hold of its head, he twisted, pulled, and landed in a heap on the floor in another shower of dust.
"Well that was fun." He said, brushing the remains of the vampire from his coat. Xander wasn't totally sure he was joking. He sank back against the wall, sitting on a flat flagstone at its base. Above him, a small platform was revealed. Xander used his new skills to jump up and land neatly on it, only to have it disappear. He landed in a heap on the floor.
"Oh very graceful." Observed Spike. He moved closer to the wall, trying to see if there were any other platforms. As he stood on another flagstone, to the right of the first, a different platform emerged. Xander jumped up onto it, and this time descended perfectly as it slid away the moment Spike moved.
There was a third stone in the far right corner of the chamber, "We need something 'eavy." Spike said, looking around.
Xander stared too and an idea came to him. He emptied the rucksack and began to fill it with stones from the floor of the cave. He put the contents back on top and turned around to find Spike unravelling the rope from the bag. He stared for a moment.
"What?!" Snapped Spike, looking up.
"Just marvelling at the stereotype."
"We're going to need it, twannock." Spike tied the rope to the handles of the bag and tested the knot. "See, tighter than a boy scouts..."
"Thank-you! Mental image so not needed!"
The three stones at the base of the wall all triggered ones further up. If Spike and Xander stood together, different ones emerged. Finally, after a few test runs they decided to start on the far left. Clutching the bag, Xander climbed onto Spike's shoulders on the first platform. Two more instantly appeared, arranged like steps from left to right.
"I know this," Said Spike,
"The Tower of Hanoi." They chorused.
With his enhanced abilities, Xander threw the bag to the far platform and jumped to the middle one. He pulled the bag back by the rope and tossed it to Spike. Then he jumped to the far platform.
Spike threw the bag to Xander, nearly taking him right off the ledge. He leapt to the centre and caught the bag as it came flying at his head.
"Okay, point taken." He grumbled. He tossed it to the lowest platform, holding on to the rope. He had a good mind to drop Xander, but caught him neatly as he flew through the air at him. Spike passed Xander the rope and Xander reeled the bag in.
Now all three were on the centre platform. They carried on in order, Xander tossed the rucksack to the far right and then he headed for the left. He slipped and missed his footing. Scrabbling, he was amazed to find he could hang on and swing himself up onto the ledge. Spike just pulled a face. He tugged at the rope, bringing the bag back and tossed it to Xander, almost forgetting to let go of the rope as he made his last leap to the far right.
Xander heaved the rucksack over his head and aimed it at Spike as soon as the vampire was ready. He jumped to the middle platform. "I pick a mental game next, please Richard." Griped Spike.
Xander smiled, "Nearly there." He said, as he caught the bag. Just a few more steps, bag to the left, Xander to the right.
With a final great heave Xander pulled the weighted bag onto the end with Spike and himself. They were all on the highest platform. It shot up, the roof opened, and they found themselves in a wonderful forest.
"Oh wow!" Exclaimed Xander. "And trees underground?" But Spike didn't answer. "Spike, not talking to me? Spike?" But when he looked round, Spike had gone.
Chapter NineSpike stood alone surrounded by trees. The forest had an eerie quality to it and the trees seemed to shift in and out of phase as if in a dream. A low mist sent out tendrils around his feet and the silence was deafening. "Okay where are you?" Muttered Spike. How could Xander and he have become separated when Xander had been on his shoulders? This whole thing was becoming exasperating and was about to become more so for, from between the trees, came four figures. They swayed with a ghost like grace and he recognised Drusilla, Angel, Buffy and Harmony.
Xander found it hard to see beyond the edge of the mist but something was definitely moving. Four people slid from in between the tree trunks. He looked harder as they got closer and finally made out, Cordelia, Buffy, Anya and Willow. "Oh brother! What now?" He complained.
Neither could see nor hear the other, but to each their quartet began to chant,
"Each task more deadly than the first,
Now you've reached the most perverse,
Take your chance and face your curse,
You must pick your life's reverse.""And they used to say I was a bloody awful poet!!" Scoffed Spike to the air.
"First and perverse so do not rhyme!" Snapped Xander as if he'd heard.
Growling low and hard, Spike tried to sweep the apparitions aside. But for all their ephemeral appearance, they were strong and solid and he could not get past. He tried to dodge between the trees, but they too conspired against him, until he tired of throwing himself at them. There seemed nothing to do but solve the riddle. He should have known better than to verbalise a wish of any description even in jest, he reflected. This was certainly a mental puzzle!
Xander thought about who could be his life's true reverse. He considered Willow, "She's a girl and I'm not. She's gay and.... Okay not Willow! How about Cordy, she's shallow, self-centred and...probably not my reverse either." He recalled his behaviour of late.
Spike looked at Drusilla. She wasn't his reverse. They were both vampires. Okay so she was insane and he was...a sociopathic killer. "Sorry Princess, not you." He looked at Angel.
"Are you Angel or Angelus?" He asked.
"Neither," Of course just an illusion. "And both." A fucking annoying illusion. So it didn't matter to his choice which persona this had. Spike truly hated riddles. He was a good enough linguist but he just didn't have the patience for this lark. The temptation to take a chance and hang the consequences loomed large. "Not you," He said finally. "Whichever you are, we're way more similar than I'd like to admit and I'm sorry but not you either Harm. I'm never going to pick you no matter how different we are. You are nothing in my unlife, not even its reverse."
"Anya," Thought Xander, even knowing that these images had to be illusions, waves of guilt began to wash over him. She was a demon, except that she wasn't, not any more. She was human and that made them the same. Mind you, she was honest and he wasn't. She was faithful while he played away with Buffy's toy vampire, which brought him to....
"Buffy!" Thought Spike. "Slayer, girl, naturalish blonde, alive, good, pretty much opposite."
Xander and Spike considered Buffy at the same moment. Xander couldn't understand why she had been thrown into the mix but she seemed damned opposite to him. She was supernatural and he wasn't. She was blondish and he wasn't. She was a girl and something wasn't right. If Spike was being faced with a similar nightmare, surely Buffy should be with him? Xander's schoolboy crush had long since evaporated in the heat of friendship. A friendship he knew he was jeopardising by being with Spike, but he couldn't help it. He had never felt more complete than in the arms of the vampire. Spike was everything he was not, "And isn't that another word for reverse?" He thought.
"Spike, Spike? Spike! SPIKE!" Xander began to yell. "Spike, I choose Spike. He's my life's true reverse."
"Where the blue blazes are you, Xander?" Spike wanted this to be over. He wanted to wrap his cool body in a warm 'Xander' blanket and let that good soul caress his worries away. He loved the soppy date even though he was more opposite to Spike in many ways than any of these. A sudden realisation came to him, "XANDER, he's my fucking choice, okay? I choose Xander."
Suddenly the forest trees began to creek and fall and all eight images rose into the air becoming distorted and shrill. Spike and Xander could now see one another. The two 'Buffy' images drew themselves together and the others continued to grow and morph until they filled the space. Xander grabbed Spike and they clung together, ducking as seven Cupid flew over their heads and disappeared into the gloom.
Chapter TenWhen they raised their heads, they were in a large hay meadow. Butterflies flitted from flower to flower and a brook babbled further on down the hill. They could hear bees buzzing, cow bells and the sound of children's laughter.
Panic gripped Spike and he couldn't shake it. "I'm going to burn!" He thought.
He looked around for cover. "I'm going to burn, I'm going to burn." That came out loud.
"No, you can't, still underground. Illusion, remember?" But panic was taking hold of Xander as well. After all, these tests were meant to stop them. If Spike believed he was on fire, maybe he would be, and they had only just found each other in every sense of the word. For both of them to have past the last task, Spike must have chosen him and Xander didn't want to go on alone. He didn't want to be without Spike ever again. He'd been such a fool to think that he could marry someone else when his true love was right here. Except for the fact that he wasn't.
"Where are you going?" He yelled after Spike's retreating back.
Spike turned and Xander stared in horror. "Spike, what's with the game face?"
"I'm not."
"Er...I think I know game face, fangs pretty much a give."
Spike felt his fangs with the tip of his tongue. He shook his head slightly and then more vigorously, but his features wouldn't morph. He screwed up his face in concentration, nothing, and the hunger.... It rose in waves like nausea. He looked at Xander and snarled.
Xander felt what colour death had left him, drain from his face at the sound of the growl. "Like my blood knows when to hide!" He thought. Confronted by a human predator, everything he intellectually knew to be true vanished. Friend, lover, partner, even chip, gone in a blaze of mind numbing fear. Spike couldn't eat him, he was dead, but that Spike was going to, he was in no doubt. He turned tail and ran.
The grass swished about his ankles and gave way to stone. It was dark and he was again in the cave. He stopped running and put his hands on his knees. "Breathing why?" He thought. "Dead Xander, and in a cave." He made a conscious effort to stop.
The strength of his reaction startled him. He'd been fighting the evil undead since he was fifteen years old, he'd never run like that from a vampire before and certainly not from the Fangless Wonder. It was instinct, instinct over intellect. Spike's instinct was to attack and his to run, as much as it was to breathe hard when he stopped. It was habit, the nature of the beast, natural law. So, where was the beast? Spike hadn't followed him. He stepped back to the edge of the illusion and that's when he heard the screams.
Spike's instincts were so much stronger than his. Spike was going to fail this test. Xander took off, back towards the stream and the playing children he had forgotten about in his haste. "Way to go, Hero!" He chided himself.
Hunting was such a glorious feeling. Spike had forgotten just what a thrill the chase could be. He hadn't snuck up on the children because he hadn't needed to. They could run but they couldn't hide. "I'm gonna get you, little kiddie!" He sung to himself. One child tripped and fell, the smell of the blood from her cut knee made his mouth water. He was on her before she saw him move.
"Yes," He thought, "Scream away, Ducks. All that adrenalin to make the blood spicy and thick." He brought his fangs to bear down on her jugular and was about to bite when... "OOF!" He grunted out loud, as he was tumbled from behind by something much larger than a child.
Xander threw himself at Spike's crouching form, toppling him away from the child and down the slope. "NO!" He yelled as they rolled together over and over, to land in the stream at the bottom. Spike was hard to hold on to. He snarled and kicked, using his superior weight to dislodge his attacker, but Xander held on.
They grappled with each other. Spike tried to pull Xander's hair but Xander had seen that trick and held Spike's wrists away from him. He pulled back as far as he could to keep his face and eyes out of reach of the enraged vampire.
He had enough vampiric blood on board that Spike didn't try to bite him, at least not to feed. Eventually, bruised and aching, he straddled the vampire, "Spike!" He yelled over the roaring of the beast, but Spike didn't seem to recognise his name. Xander tried something else. "William, for God's sake stop. William, it's me. Bum chum, remember? Wil' please!" He could feel tears starting to burn his throat when a flicker of recognition crossed Spike's face. Xander leant forward, "I love you." He said brown eyes meeting yellow and he kissed the vampire hard on the mouth.
That tiny piece of humanity, that some vampires retain, heard a name it used to know. Heard a voice it knew it trusted. Heard a word it trusted was true. Love.
"Xander?" Spike fought with his demon and this time he won. His features morphed and his human face returned the kiss. They stayed like that locked in each other's embrace, kissing like it was going out of fashion. Xander ran his hands up the inside of Spike's wet shirt, to caress his chest and draw tiny circles around each nipple with his cool fingertips.
Spike drew in an unneeded breath and buried one hand deep into Xander's thick hair, sliding the other into the back pocket of his jeans. He squeezed his arse and pulled him even closer. They felt the illusion melt away and they were back in the cave.
"Thank-you." Said Spike. "But I think we'd better stop, Sweetmeat, before we can't." Nevertheless, he ground his hips into the groin of his lover.
"Now with the brain power?! What no more instinct-vamp?" Xander grinned. One more quick peck and he stood up. Holding out his hand, he pulled Spike to his feet. The water was apparently real. Just one of those underground rivers that had formed the caves in the last ice age. They were both soaking.
"I do you know - love you."
"Yeah well, moment of crisis. Don't tell me; show me when we're safe at home. Cos we are going home, China."
Xander kept his mouth shut. He'd done this too many times, mistaking blind panic for love. He didn't know how to prove it to the vampire but he did love him. It was perhaps time to be proactive rather than reactive and that meant commitment in thought, word and deed. Whatever the outcome of this mission, he knew now he was ready for that commitment.
Chapter ElevenBy the time, they reached the end of the tunnel, they had dried out a little, though their jeans were stiff and beginning to chafe. Xander still carried the rucksack. He'd ditched the rocks only when he remembered why the darn thing was so heavy! The tunnel curved round to the left and opened out into a short, narrow cavern with an impossibly high ceiling. Its walls were smooth and it was brightly lit, although by what they couldn't tell. Almost at once, the entrance was sealed behind them.
"Think they're trying to tell us something?" Asked Spike with slight sarcasm in his voice.
"Like any of that needs revision?! I got the first time, honest. Straight 'A' student here."
In front of them was a wall of glass. It had deep fractures running right through it. A series of horizontal and vertical lines that reminded Xander of the crackle glazing on a particularly ugly vase Anya had bought on the insistence of his mother. There was a slight opening and Spike pushed his way into the gap, fully expecting it to close on him, but it didn't. Instead, the two pieces slid away from one another. They were heavy but moved smoothly and through the glass, he could make out a door. Move the walls, get to the door. Simple enough. Spike slid another huge block away, "Hey!" Yelled Xander now trapped behind it. He gave it an enormous shove and it shot into another, like giant marbles.
"Stop fuck-arsing about and let's get on." Spike growled. He had no idea how long they'd been down there but he knew it had been well over twelve hours since he'd fed. Time was running out.
Xander took off the rucksack and slid the block nearest him, gently. The pieces were irregular shapes, some interlocked and some definitely didn't. There was enough space to turn them a full three hundred and sixty degrees, "We s'pposed to make something?" Asked Xander, "It's like one of those tray puzzles in 3D."
"Demonic Rubik's cube?" Suggested Spike.
"All Rubik's cubes are demonic." Came the reply.
They began to slide various pieces, but as fast as Spike thought he was getting somewhere, so Xander would undo his hard work. "So much for working together," He griped mentally.
"Stop." He said suddenly, jumping straight up onto the top of the nearest block. The ceiling seemed a lot nearer up here.
"Well?" Called Xander.
"Deep hole, lot of water at the bottom, sometimes runs dry. Shh, I'm thinking." He sat down and pulled his cigarettes from his pocket. They were wet but he tried to light one anyway, it helped him to think.
Xander joined him on the block. They sat next to each other, feet swinging staring at the layout below. Spike felt Xander's fingers brush his as he leant forward. Company, at the end of the day, that's all he wanted, someone to spend a small piece of eternity with. Someone who didn't talk to the furniture, rape him or beat him senseless. Someone who he could drink and laugh with. Someone who...
"When you say thinking, about this yeah? No daydreaming on the job, Bleach-boy."
Spike always smoked when he was in 'figure-it-out' mode thought Xander. "And he's uber perceptive, and reads way more than he let's on." It amazed him that he knew the vampire this well already when he'd never paid him much mind before. He took off his watch and rubbed his wrist. He looked at the object carefully but somehow it had got broken. The inscription could still be read however. 'Always have time for each other.' Anya and he didn't even give each other enough time to discuss the purchase of hideous vases let alone changes in their feelings towards one another.
Spike had so many layers it would take him the rest of his life to work them out. "A page-a-day lover." He mused. To share his life with someone like that made him feel - well...lucky.
Spike stood, stretched and his hands grazed the ceiling. Wasn't that further away before? "Oh my fuck, the ceiling's dropping!"
"No sweat, the blocks will stop the squish factor."
"Yeah, but it will rest below the level of the door! We won't be able to move the blocks or open the door even if we get there!" Exclaimed Spike.
Xander was good when motivated. He stared at the blocks and pattern began to emerge below him, like laying out the pieces for a carpentry job. Spike dropped to the floor and pushed as Xander directed. Soon they had more blocks behind them than in front. Spike heaved the door open and Xander slid from the block he had been lying on, it had become impossible to stand, just in time. They were through it just as the clunk told them that the ceiling had hit the blocks. The abandoned rucksack still sat on the far side of the chamber. They'd lost it.