Straight out of badfic, isn't it? You think I'm making that up, don't you? Ha ha ha! Wrong.
Then later I dreamed that Xander was alseep and dreaming. When he woke up he shook Spike awake--they were lying in the corridor of a mall--and recounted his dream in a panic. In Xander's dream, Spike had confessed in a kind of stark but gentle way to having no joy, no fear, no humanity, no love, and when he uttered these words, menacing figures appeared down the corridor--like dementors or zombies or just very dangerous vampires--and advanced toward them. To escape Spike grabbed Xander's hand and they rose straight off the ground and began shooting up through the night sky, ascending to heaven, while Spike explained that demons could not rise this far, but that he'd stripped away the darkness in himself that would have grounded him, and so they'd be able to get away to safety. I'm not sure they were coming back. And then as Xander finishes telling all this, he looks down the corridor and of course the dark figures are coming toward them, and Spike takes him by the hand and they lift up off the ground to escape, repeating the events of the dream.
But then I dreamed that Christmas carolers came to the mall and they'd lost one of their singers, so they grabbed Spike to fill in. He grumbled but did, after making a few jibes at Angel, like: "I'll be thinking of your bland manhood when I'm singing." I think they sang Handel's Gloria in excelsis Deo.
My brain cells are apparently still tripping from ten years ago.