EmC Song-Ficathon Entry!
So, here's my offering.
I'm kind of frowny about it, but I hope you like it, Green!.

For:-
Name: xanphibian
Preferred Pairing: S/X
Preferred Rating: NC-17 or Hard R
3 things you do NOT want to see: non-con, character death [dude, this nearly drove me insane because I so desperatly wanted to kill people off :)], lubeless mattress dancing.
Favorite Genre of fic: Schmangst

Song: Hold On, Jet.

Hold On

by
Nasty Shrew

Hold On

“You tried so hard to be someone
That you forgot who you are.
You tried to fill some emptiness
‘Til all you had spilled over.
Now everything’s so far away
That you don’t know where you are.” - Hold On, Jet

She never saw it coming. The bag over her head, the sharp jab in her arm – she barely had time to scream before she hit the floor with a body on top of her. Her arms were tugged behind her back, rough scrape of rope pulling against her dark skin.

Later the hood was removed and she was allowed to look at the face of the man who had taken her, shoved her into his black Land Rover that smelled like old blood and peppermint. He was white, one eye, greasy hair and awkward bones that emphasised the lines around his mouth. He was ugly, though he may not always have been.

“I hate you,” Xander said, low tone of menace he couldn’t quite pull off when wearing leather trousers and scarlet lipstick. He looked like a mime. “I look like a mime! A gay mime!” he moaned, pulling a hand through his hair, crisp with gel.

“Bet’s a bet,” Spike crowed, eyes sweeping up and down Xander’s body, near tangible caress. “And I like gay mimes,” he added, hand groping in naughty places, cool huff of laughter when Xander arched his body but mustered enough control to glare and mutter,

“Nobody likes mimes, gay or otherwise.”

She asked him where they were going, he said nothing. She asked him if he was going to let her go, he said nothing. She tried to kick his seat and jump out of the car and it was only then did he speak his words she couldn’t understand in his brash American accent. He gave her another injection and she felt her newly found strength leaving her, limbs growing slack. She didn’t try and escape again.

“Come on, don’t ...” Spike growled in frustration as he suddenly remembered who he was, what he was. “Fuck this. Not going to hang about if you’re going to act like a sodding woman,” he snapped, angry swirl of leather, gulp of cheap booze from the bottle in his hand. “I’m leaving,” he announced, opening the door. Xander stared at the television, didn’t look up. “Right now!” Spike shouted, making sure the door scraped noisily on the carpet. No reply. Click of the remote as Xander flicked through the channels on mute, swallowed hard on words climbing up his throat.

Spike heaved a sigh, scuffed his boot on the wall and watched the yellowing plaster crumble. “I’ll stay if you ask me to,” he said eventually, having slammed the door shut twice and still not received any reaction.

“If I asked you to stay, that would mean talking. Which you told me not to do. Because my ‘natter is about as interesting as the bloody shopping channel’,” no hurt easily detected in tone, but the words were enough. Spike scratched the back of his neck, shifted his weight.

“Was in a bad mood. Haven’t killed anything in a while, I get antsy,” he muttered. Not quite an apology, but close enough. Xander unfolded his arms and didn’t protest when Spike flopped down next to him, kicked off his shoes and offered Xander the best cheap booze this side of Malaysia. Which led to fucking, as most things did.

As words poured from Xander’s mouth, “harder, faster, more,” dirty gasps and throaty moans, Spike decided he would die before he let Xander go silent again.

On the first night, they stopped at a bar filled with men who ignored her pleading looks, cast their eyes to the battered television with practice. These men were used to ignoring things and she suspected they were used to the white man bringing young girls with him, pushing them into a bedroom. She started screaming then, expecting the worst, waiting for the inevitable sin and pain – but it never came. He nodded to the bed and then settled himself on the floor, pointing at some clean clothes her size and gesturing to the bathroom with no windows. She didn’t get any sleep that night, waiting for her chance to escape. She didn’t get one – he didn’t sleep either.

“You’re really getting on my wick with this,” Spike muttered darkly, another evening of Xander nearly collapsing onto the floor with purple shadows under his eyes.

“Have to – since Buffy … we need to patrol more since she isn’t here,” casual tone belied by the shudder that ran through his body. His skin was too pale, green veins and yellow bruises, red streaks that claws had left. He looked like a violent rainbow of sickly colours.

“You don’t sleep. Lie awake at night pretending you are,” Spike observed dryly, hiss of his cigarette as he took another drag. He’d been chain smoking again.

“I can’t. She’s there when I shut my eyes, Spike,” Xander had whispered long after the conversation had ended and they had both had their respective screams and smashed at least one ugly house warming gift. After they had crushed together roughly, fists dissolved to kisses, wounds bit open or licked shut, fear and reassurance.

“I’ll be there when you open your eyes, love. Always will,” Spike had said into his hair, words muffled, arms almost uncomfortably tight around Xander’s waist.

“I know.”

“Name?” she asked later, as they were climbing back into the car after her third injection. His gaze flickered, unnerving as there was only one eye to look at. He didn’t have another one – she had seen the sickening flat eyelid that morning when he removed his patch.

“Xander,” he said. The word sounded foreign to him, as though he were repeating one that was not his own. Maybe it hadn’t been his name for a long time, and maybe he was lying.

“Farah,” she said with a nod, a little desperate to gain some sort of friendship - she wanted to be released, to go home. “You have … sad name?” she asked when she noted his obvious unease, stringing words with caution – she didn’t want to anger him. He didn’t look at reply, stared at the road and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

“I want you to put Xander on the grave stone. Not Alexander. And I want a party – not a funeral. Everyone’s been to too many of those,” he rasped, whirrs and beeps of the machines around them, organised chaos that made hurt his head. Spike looked away angrily, voice rough and catching on the words.

“Fuck off – you’re going to be alright,” he insisted. He didn’t know who he was trying to convince.

“Please, Spike,” shallow breaths, pushing away Spike’s hand then he tried to slide the oxygen mask back up his nose. “Please.”

“Don’t,” Spike warned, fury now, pure and absolute, “don’t you fucking dare give up, Harris. You stupid bastard, you deadbeat loser, you stupid fucking bastard,” he was sobbing now, pressing his head against Xander’s hand.

Xander decided to survive solely to inform Spike that insulting the Dying Hero didn’t really constitute a good bed side manner and was definitely against hospital etiquette.

Nothing more was said and Farah only cried a little when she was pulled onto the private plane and strapped into the seat by a different man. She saw Xander standing on the runway watching her leave with a half smile that changed his face completely. He was a boy then, young and untouched.

“Recite poetry to me,” Xander said one evening with a sadistic grin. Spike had taught him too well.

“There was an old man in Dunhick,
Who had a rather large …”

“Poetry you wrote. From when you were human,” roll of his eyes, legs falling open as he shifted his position deliberately showing off his assets. Distracting, making Spike more vulnerable – oh yeah, he’d taught his boy far too well. “Bet’s a bet, after all,” challenge and a smirk as he sipped the lukewarm piss he called beer. Spike took the spliff, pulled the smoke into unmoving lungs and shut his eyes with an exasperated groan.

Xander threw his head back, laughed as his hands drifted over his crotch and his eyes darkened. Spike reasoned that his embarrassment would definitely be worth the reward.

Farah slammed her fist against the window, still too weak to do anything but bruise her knuckles. She looked out and watched Xander’s smile fade as he fiddled with a silver ring on a chain around his neck and his face twist back into the façade of the uncaring white man. She wondered who he might have been, whether the ‘uncaring white man’ was a façade at all - whether perhaps he had turned into the man to escape his own pain and had, in the end, surrendered himself to his own lie.

Sometimes, he wondered too.

~*~*~*~*~

“He’s not dead? He’s … not … he’s human!?” was that his voice? Huh. It sounded strange, remote. He slid to the floor with the phone in his fingers, gripping so tightly his arm was numb.

“I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you sooner, Xander,” Giles’ voice said calmly, slowly. Xander had never known words could knock him to his knees before then.

Spike was alive. Spike was Alive. Warm lips, warmer hands. Was his hair soft now? Did he breathe deeply because he hadn’t needed to before? Did he … why didn’t he? Why hadn’t he?

“Why hasn’t he called me … how long has he been alive?” Xander was desperate now, his words slipping off his tongue and his heart banging in his brain.

“You’ve been in Africa for so long – we tried to contact you but you were always travelling and …”

“How long?”

“About a month. That new girl you sent to us – Farah Alasad. She told us the location of the hotel you took her to. Willow found it, called there and they …”

“A month?” he felt like he was sinking into the floor, cacophony of voices in his head and the rushing blood through his ears.

“He’s in Los Angeles – he only found us a few days ago and …”

Xander dropped the phone to the dirty concrete with a clatter along with the mask he’d nearly become.

The End

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