The One Where Xander Isn't Quite James Bond
"Okay, by no stretch of the word can anyone convince me Spike is a virgin." Xander's incredulity stopped everyone in their tracks.
"Well, no," Giles conceded, balancing the spine of an open book in the palm of one hand. "Not as such. However, the Yiniix are quite fond of technicalities, particularly in this day and age, virgins being," he hesitated with a glance around the room, "so hard to find."
"What are you saying, Giles?" Buffy, arms folded, frowned for them all.
The way Giles's gaze fixed with sudden, deep interest on a nearby lampshade suggested he didn't want really to be saying anything. "Just that perhaps when Spike--er, William--was turned, that he was quite likely a--a typical young man of his time."
Willow looked confused. "But he had to be at least twenty-five, maybe even older." Her scoff made Giles raise his brows and tip his head in her direction, with one of those dry, silent British comments, as if she'd just proved to be typical of her own time. "Oh," she said.
"Oh, man." Xander was amazed and completely satisfied with this gift of knowledge; he hadn't felt this great since his thirteenth birthday, when his grandmother had stunned him with two hundred dollars in sweet green bills. "I'm so not letting that one go unmocked." He could stretch the taunting out for months, maybe even years.
"Xander." Willow tried to reprove him with a little red-headed scowl, but he just grinned at her.
"Now what rhymes with 'virgin'," he wondered aloud, tipping his head back on the couch to contemplate the ceiling and trying to remember playground jeers. "Sturgeon, surgeon--"
"All right," Giles interrupted. "Let's just focus on the problem at hand, shall we?"
Anya raised her hand and kept it up until Giles sighed.
"Yes, Anya?"
"Why are we trying to rescue Spike again? Because this is very inconvenient. Xander and I were supposed to be going to Vegas for the weekend. We were going to gamble and win lots of money and then have spontaneous sex on the cash."
"Ignoring everything after the very good question," Buffy said, sitting on the couch, "why *are* we rescuing Spike?"
"It's not as if anyone here likes him," Anya chimed in again. "Also, he calls Xander names."
"In fairness, he calls everyone names." Willow looked at Xander almost apologetically.
"We're rescuing him," Giles said, cutting across their voices, "because he's saved our lives one too many times. The balance sheet is, at the moment, unbalanced." He sounded as if he regretted this as much as anyone.
Xander thought about the way Spike had pushed him from the path of a raging quarth the week before, and the bloody gash he'd gotten for his trouble. The guy, evil skank though he was, did hang around and help them for no obvious gain other than an occasional twenty and nips of Giles's scotch. That and mockery. Spike didn't seem to have many amusements. Sometimes after a while in Spike's company Xander wondered if vampires might be driven to extremes by boredom rather than pure viciousness. After a hundred years or so, maybe even the antics of do-gooder kids started to look entertaining.
"Okay." Everyone looked his way. "So we rescue him. Big deal. Zip in, free the vamp, kill a few demons, and we're back home in time for Letterman." He paused, trying to read faces, waiting for agreement. "Right?"
"I'm afraid it's not quite that simple," Giles said.
Xander should have known better. It never was.
***
The plan, as it finally shaped up, wasn't what he'd have chosen, but he'd been outvoted, outmaneuvered, and outpersuaded. Anya was the only one on his side, and that hadn't worked out too well, especially when she argued that he wasn't suave enough to pull it off. It was then that he'd felt the familiar sinking sensation of committing himself to an ill-advised course of action that could end in his death.
"Whatever you do," Anya said, "avoid evisceration."
"No problem." He smiled at her, hiding his attack of nerves. "I've been doing that all my life."
"You look very nice in your tux." Buffy brushed at the shoulder of his jacket while Anya fiddled with his tie and Willow peeped over her shoulder, bright-faced. He had a bevy of attentive girls and he was about to go rescue Spike. That was just wrong. Maybe he'd get lucky though and there'd be some other blonde bombshell on the premises more suited to play helpless virgin to his dashing James Bond.
"Okay," he said. "How do I crash this party palace?"
Buffy handed him a embossed invitation on creamy paper with a gold seal and elegantly rough edges; the script on it was in some demonic language. He stared at it for a moment as if he could read it, trying to assure himself it didn't say *Admit one and then kill him*, before tucking it in his pocket with blind faith.
"How did you--" Giles began.
She curtailed the question with a look. "Don't ask."
Xander nodded bravely to them all--we who are about to gate-crash a demonic orgy of death salute you--and left Giles's apartment. At the curb a long, sleek black limo waited, and a thrill went through him that no kamikaze mission could entirely banish. He was the man tonight, The Man. He was Alexander Harris, top agent of an elite secret squadron of demon-slayers. No one else was suited to this job better than him.
He couldn't exactly remember why that was, but never mind the details. He had a tux, he had a limo, he had five hundred dollars in cash and a license to kill. Life was good.
***
"Hi," Xander said. "I'm here for the Seventy-First Resurrection of the Immaculate Morsum." He gave his invitation to the behemoth at the door and ran a hand over his lapels. Cool, calm, collected. Damn, he should have brought cigarettes. And a silver cigarette case. Oh, and a big freaking gun.
"Mgrrtth," the guy said, and waved Xander in.
Inside, it looked like your average seventy-first reunion: crepe-paper streamers, balloons, punch-bowls, a dais decorated with swords. Demons in fancy dress mingled and sipped at drinks, their conversation occasionally punctuated with bellows of laughter.
He grabbed a champagne glass from the tray of a passing waiter and downed it quickly. Too quickly. Coughing into his fist, he set the glass on a table and retreated into a corner until he'd gathered himself. "Hi," he said to a nearby demon who'd turned to give him an odd look. "How've you been?"
The demon turned away again, muttering something to his companions, and Xander eased back into the party flow and grabbed another drink, and then another. He had to blend in, after all.
Several drinks, a handful of what might have been nuts, and many incomprehensible, one-sided conversations later, he began to feel a warm glow and the certainty that not all demons were bad sorts. These guys probably just wanted to have a little fun, get sloshed, and make a sacrifice or two to their gods. Cutting loose once a year after a lot of drudgery and slaying--was that such a crime? It was only after he'd circulated through the room to reach the edge of the dais and saw the half-naked oafs in bondage gear holding scimitars that he sobered up enough to remember why he was there.
As a rousing group cheer went up over by the punch bowl, he took the opportunity to slip into a side hallway and up the stairs. On the next floor it was quiet, a hall of green carpet stretching ahead of him, each side evenly spaced with shut doors. He wandered from door to door, trying each handle. Nada. Zilch. But as he turned the corner and saw the big ugly guard he knew he'd hit the jackpot.
"Hey," he said in a friendly way, approaching the guard with hands in pockets. "I'm here to check on the virgin sacrifice. Do you know if he's in?"
The guard stared stonily at him.
Xander pulled a money clip from his pocket and counted out a few twenties. Anya was wrong: he was oh so suave. "Maybe this will jog your memory." He held out the money. The guard eyed it as if he were offering a handful of mucous, then took it and opened the door.
Boggled at his success, heart slamming in relief, Xander strolled into the room and came to a dead halt at the sight of Spike lounging in silk pajamas on a bed of pillows. The vampire had a whiskey bottle propped between his legs and was noshing a bowl of olives and watching some old movie on a big-screen TV. They looked at each other.
"I'm here to rescue you," Xander said awkwardly, determined not to notice the way the other man's black silk tunic hung loose to reveal the solid length of his torso, or the way his lounging legs hooked across the pillows.
Spike eyed him skeptically and with unfair amusement. "Is that right?"
"Hey! I went to a lot of trouble to get here."
"Dunno why." Spike refocused his gaze on the TV as if this ended the conversation.
"Okay!" Xander made an effort to sustain his anger against the bubbly pull of too much champagne, but a benign effervescence threatened to capsize him. "Well...me neither, but I'm here." He gestured toward the door. "So let's go."
"Nah. I want to see how this ends." Spike poked an olive into his mouth and didn't take his eyes off the flickering images.
"Spike." Xander moved toward him, swimming upstream against a fat wealth of pillows. "Do you know why you're here?"
"Sacrifice, angry gods, some fuss about a resurrection. Wasn't really listening, actually."
Up to his ankles in pillows, Xander swayed, hoping not to fall and crash his cool just when he needed it most. "They think you're a *virgin*!"
"Yeah." Spike paused to regard him, a smile tugging his lips. Xander couldn't miss the dark-blue touch of his eyes and the way his hair stuck out in wild tufts, like an exploded popcorn kernel under the golden-white lights. "Pretty funny, any way you slice it."
"*Not* funny!" Xander flailed for a follow-up. "I'm risking my life here for your not-virgin ass!"
He had Spike's attention now, but it was tinged with annoyance. "Well, that's real swell of you, Harris. But I don't recall asking to be rescued."
"Gee, I'm sorry--you *wanted* your head chopped off. I'll just go now, no problem."
Spike pursed his lips as if debating a rebuttal, then said mildly, "I can leave any time I want." He raised one bare and surprisingly elegant foot to show off the gold ankle chain circling it. "Not exactly high-security measures here. Just thought I'd enjoy the perks till it was time to scarper."
Xander folded his arms and conjured the scornful spirit of Buffy. "Okay. Let's see you escape."
Sighing, Spike jerked at the catch of his ankle chain, then frowned. He glanced at Xander from under his lashes, clearly trying to tell if his unsuccessful yank had been noticed, and then tried again. Same result. He examined the chain, tracing it back to the column where it was anchored. Several sharp tugs at its length rattled the links but didn't dislodge it, and Spike was starting to look worried.
"All right," he said, giving up and sprawling back against the pillows. His gaze knifed at Xander; getting Spike's full attention could sometimes be startling. "What's the plan?"
"Plan." Parroting back some part of the question was one step closer to an answer; he'd learned that in history class. "The plan is, I bribe the guard to undo the chain and we get out of here." He looked around the room, gave a decisive, James Bondian nod. "Through the window."
Spike seemed poised indecisively between cynical doubt and interested respect. "You're gonna bribe the guard?"
"How do you think I got in here?" Xander went to the door and knocked. After a gut-bubbling pause, it opened and the big ugly guard stared down at him. "So hey," Xander said. "I'm guessing a handsome guy like you has a wife or three, maybe a few girlfriends on the side--"
Behind him, Spike snorted.
"And the take-home here just doesn't cut it, am I right? I mean, standing around in front of doors, what's that--minimum wage?" No response, not even blinking. "So how about I give you a handful of Andrew Jacksons and you buy your wives a nice blender?" Big and Ugly took the bills and tucked them in a pocket without counting them. "Great! Now, just come and unlock--"
The door closed again, followed by the sound of a key turning.
"Here's a thought." Spike's voice was smooth and measured in a way that made Xander flinch for a blow. "Before you go chucking cash at folks, you might want to mention that it's *not a bloody birthday present*!"
His anger crashed uselessly between them and Xander tensed. "I'm sorry! I'm not used to bribing people." He began searching the room, opening the drawers of tiny fancy dressers and poking in cupboards. "Maybe there's a key somewhere."
"Leave off. Look, clamber out the window, go grab the slayer--there's a good monkey boy."
Xander glared at him, but obediently pulled open the nearest set of red curtains, only to find the window covered with bars. He tried another, then another--all barred.
"Well, that's just peachy." Spike reached for his abandoned whiskey bottle with a bitter expression, uncapped it, and took a long swig.
"Hey, it's not my fault you're in this situation, *virgin*." His ridicule wasn't as punchy and well-timed as he'd have liked, but still, it was worth getting some mocking in before they both died. When Spike remained silent, Xander stole a glance at his face and found the other man's gaze on him. He had a disturbingly thoughtful expression.
"Come here," Spike invited, all drawl and blue, compelling eyes.
"No." Xander stood his ground on the far side of the room. "Why?"
Spike smiled and settled further into the pillows like a pasha awaiting harem service. "Oh, come on. It's not as if I can hurt you."
True, but that didn't make Xander any more comfortable. He took a step, then stopped. "Why?"
"Because I want to tie your shoelace." The earnestly spoken words made Xander look down. He had no shoelaces. He was wearing his black loafers. "I want to straighten your tie," Spike went on. "I want to nip that loose thread." He finally began to sound impatient, while Xander was just getting more confused. "Shift it, Harris!"
Hating himself, he clumped over to the pillow-bed and worked on his looming skills. "Fine. What is it?"
"New plan." Spike's hand shot out, grabbing Xander's ankle to send him toppling into a plush heap across the vampire's lap. It didn't hurt in the slightest, which had to be why he heard no yelps of chip-induced pain. He scrambled to right himself, but the pillows were too yielding, and in a confusion of limbs and velvet he found himself on his back, pinned down by vampire muscle and black silk.
"Help," Xander yelled, voice coming out weaker than it should have. "Guard!"
"Shhhh," Spike hissed.
Xander opened his mouth to bleat again and found himself with a mouthful of Spike. His heart rate skyrocketed. A nightmare was wrapping itself around him and he tried to shake off the gauzy cloud of champagne and get a grip. He should be able to throw Spike off of him; the vampire was chipped, helpless--the vampire was *kissing* him, but if Xander didn't want it, that made it an attack, right? All the pamphlets he'd read on the subject said so.
But the chip wasn't firing, and he couldn't quite seem to shove his way out from under Spike, who'd dug his grip into the pillows like a cat with claws and effectively made a cage of his body. After a minute Xander stilled, communicating his distaste with silence and passivity. A moment later, Spike stopped kissing him and pulled back.
"You going to be quiet now?"
"If you promise never to do that again, yes." He was sure his voice sounded very firm, very Roger Moore at the top of his game.
"I've got a better deal." Spike smiled down at him in a predatory way. "How'd you like to deflower a master vampire?"
"Wow, that's...not at all tempting. No."
Disappointment and possibly incomprehension entered Spike's face. Xander had a feeling that this wasn't the kind of offer you were supposed to turn down.
"Why the bloody hell not?"
"I'm not gay, I'm not gay, and, oh, I'm not gay. Also, I have a girlfriend." That last reason came as an unfortunate afterthought; it was a good thing Anya wasn't around.
"You here to rescue me or not?"
"What does that have to do with--oh." Xander tried to clear his head. "This doesn't make sense. These guys have to know that you've, you know--" He couldn't quite say the words in relation to Spike.
"Gotten a leg over?" Spike said slyly. "Dipped my wick? Had a poke?"
"Yes! My point is, so what if you do it again--how's that going to stop them?"
"Hard for them to ignore if I'm lying here freshly shagged, dripping with--"
"Gah! I beg you." He closed his eyes as if he could block out the visuals, then opened them again.
From the look on his face, Spike was obviously trying hard to be tolerant, at least until he got what he wanted. He still hadn't rolled off Xander, but the nest of pillows *was* pretty comfortable, so Xander was prepared to wait him out.
"Look," the vampire said, a world of patience in his voice. "Nice mystical theory is, vampires are reborn each night. These louts've got one shot at their big resurrection--tonight. No virgin, no fireworks. Got it?"
"I can't believe you died a virgin," Xander was unable to keep from saying. "Man, that's sad."
With a grit of teeth, Spike edged out the reply, "I can't believe you were born a wanker, but here we are."
"Weren't there any girls who'd sleep with you?"
"They weren't nice girls," Spike said, thoughts distracted inward for a moment with a downward flick of lashes. "And I was a nice boy." He looked up, his irritability back. "You want my life story?"
"Not even the CliffsNotes."
"Let's get to business then." Spike rose into a straddle of Xander's hips and let his shirt flow back off his shoulders. The black silk rippled loose to pool at his hips.
"Wait," Xander said, alarmed at the forward momentum of events. "No! No business."
Calm as can be, Spike shifted his weight forward, then back, gazing down at Xander with his head cocked to one side. At Xander's befuddled gape, he did it again, with a gradually blossoming smile.
The lazy rocking had an almost hypnotic effect, not so much on Xander's brain as on a spot somewhere south of his navel. He cleared his throat and stared up at the heavy velvet canopy that obscured the ceiling. "Stop that," he said to no one in particular that he could see.
"Stop what?" Spike shouldn't have been able to sound so innocent. He tugged Xander's tie loose, then began unbuttoning his shirt. "You're not all that bad," he remarked, as if confirming the adequacy of fruit in a market stall. "You been working out?"
"Yes," Xander said, and swallowed. The canopy was very interesting. "Just, you know, free weights...and, um, I've been digging some ditches. Builds muscle."
"I'll just feel your bicep then, shall I?" Spike followed the question with a squeeze that made Xander's heart skitter around his chest like an addled mouse. "Oh, very nice." His voice had lowered to a murmur, and Xander--through the buzzing of his head--thought that the vampire sounded on the verge of sharing a rich joke.
If he lay here unmoving, he could at least pretend later that he'd been helpless, in thrall to Spike's exploring hands. This was, apparently, the new plan. He felt his belt being slipped free, and then fingers teasing his trousers open. He closed his eyes and bit his lip.
"I'm not--" he said, then the thought broke off and crumbled away.
"Not what?" It was the inquiry of a kindly doctor.
"Mmm, not...sure." Xander gasped back any more pointless words and began breathing heavily. Spike had eased Xander's dick from his trousers and was stroking it with great care, coaxing it to life. Funny, that a vampire could bring something to life, but they could control blood, couldn't they, make it flow, make it rise and heat and sing in the veins. He gasped and his eyes flew open: Spike had shoved the heel of his hand along the length of Xander's aching flesh, as if trying to push all the blood to the head.
"That was," Xander said, feeling increasingly dizzy, "that was--"
"Easy now." Spike stood with admirable balance in the sea of pillows and loosened the drawstring on his trousers. They slithered off his hips, leaving him naked, and he kicked them away and sat back down nicely in Xander's lap. "You just lie there and let daddy take care of things--whoa!"
"Oh my god, no, you did not just say that." Horrified, Xander was trying to levitate free like a dolphin surfacing from water, but Spike's weight kept him in place. "Are you trying to put me in therapy for the rest of my *life*?"
Spike looked sheepish. "Er, sorry."
"Never say 'daddy' during sex! I've told Anya, and now I'm telling you! And before you ask, no, I have no repressed childhood memories."
"Actually, I don't care--"
Xander ignored him. "It's the principle of the thing," he steamrolled on. "Ask Freud, he'd tell you--"
Unfortunately, he didn't get any more of his eloquent and heartfelt pro-Freudian diatribe out before Spike pushed forward and kissed him silent again. Gradually persuaded by the pressure of his mouth, Xander settled back down. When the kiss stopped, he flung an arm across his eyes and waved his other hand loosely. "I'm ready. Have your wicked way with me."
"You're fun," Spike said, in a tone of voice that said *not*. "It's not everyone gets this honor, you know."
"Just promise you'll kill me when this is over?"
"You *are* a tease," Spike said, and sat with no warning whatsoever on his cock.
"Oh, sweet Jesus!" Xander's body stretched, toes curling, muscles quivering in bliss and the anticipation of further bliss. "That's so not right!"
Spike laughed at him, a throaty little chuckle. "Poor boy. All puppyish and confused." He worked himself on Xander as if he had all the time in the world. Well, he did now, didn't he. No longer a technical virgin, he was safe from sacrifice to the angry gods, and Xander could take pride in a successful rescue...the details of which he could never, ever speak of to any living soul.
"You really--oh--you really could stop any time now," Xander got out.
"Yeah, let me just reach the end of this sentence," Spike said absently, and twisted his hips in a way that made Xander gasp and spill. He was coming in a brilliant tickle, wet little pops that wiped out every thought and worry from his head for the duration. Anya could have swept into the room that very second with a hundred and one vengeful hell-hounds unleashed at his throat, and his last thought would be, *oh yeah, baby*.
Still clenched around him, Spike made a guttural sound and sped the movements of his hips. Within a minute, while Xander politely and sleepily waited him out, he'd brought himself off, climbed off, and was searching for cigarettes that refused to be found.
"Damn," the vampire muttered, tossing pillows hither and yon. "Thought I had a pack with me."
James Bond would have cigarettes, Xander thought, and regretted again not bringing any. All in all, the mission hadn't gone as expected. Next time, he'd come better prepared, with contingency plans. And maybe some Kleenex.
***
"You're back!" Willow said, leaping up from the couch as Xander and Spike shambled in to Giles's apartment, the sound of the limo peeling away from the curb behind them as the door closed. "You rescued Spike!"
"I'm the hero." Xander smiled nervously and didn't look sideways to see Spike's smirk.
"You are!" Buffy declared, clearly impressed, and came to hug him. And then Anya in her less than subtle way elbowed Buffy aside, and there was girl-flesh, rosy and good-smelling, and floaty hair brushing against his jaw and nose, and kisses, but then he *did* make the mistake of meeting Spike's eyes, and the look in them stayed with Xander all the way home, following him into the shower and into bed, and even later after sex, with Anya in his arms, the look was still there, he could almost put his finger on it as he lay there staring at the shadowed ceiling and the stripe of headlights passing across it. It had been one of those serious looks, not suited to the crazy, half-drunken tone of the evening, and Xander resented Spike for that, for breaking the mood. But at least he hadn't broken his silence.
Yet.
***
Story request--my paraphrase: Fun, Spike in silk PJs, Xander needs help with his tie, rescue sex. Spike is in trouble, captured by gorgeous-but-evil demon elitist snobs for some blankety ritual involving being sacrificed to Yogsothoth. But sacrifices have to be virginal, and since Spike was reborn he is now a technical virgin. I didn't fulfill this in quite the manner intended, I think, but hopefully close enough. :)
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