Disclaimer: Spike, Xander, Anya, Willow, Tara and the Buffy-Bot are not mine, neither are any of the other characters mentioned in this fic. They all belong to Joss.
AN- This fic was meant to be one about Xander poking fun at Spike, but it kinda came out like this instead. I swear my muse is just practising Anya for that Spanya fic that has been kicking around my head for over a year now. Also, if anyone has some good, hard crit then please send it as I'm sure many characters are a little out of whack but any comments are always appreciated. Forgive the crap title, muse wouldn't cooperate with it.
Cold Wait
Xander shivered in the chilly night air. Standing beside him, he noticed Anya do the same, holding her hands around her mouth in an attempt to warm them with her breath. It didn't appear to be working, Xander noted wryly, while he shoved his own deep into his pockets. That didn't really help either, but short of either sitting on them – which was sure to make them numb – or maybe stuffing them into his armpits – which was sure to make them stink – he could think of no other way to keep them warm. So he stood in the middle of a cemetery in the middle of the night with his very pissed off girlfriend and hoped that they could get back to the relative warmth of their apartment sometime soon.
"Where the heck is everyone?" Anya growled, glancing up and down the path that ran through the somewhat deserted graveyard. He mentally cringed at the irritated tone of her voice. He didn't exactly blame her though. They had been in the middle of having sex when Willow had called and told them to meet Spike over at Crescent Cemetery. That had been a little over two hours ago and so far, the vamp was a no show. It also didn't help that the witch had taken to using telepathy to contact everyone rather than the more conventional telephone and there was not a bigger turn-off than having your best friend's voice in your head when you are having sex. Anya had found that out pretty quickly and completely hated the fact it always worked on Xander.
"They're probably having a party over at Giles' place," he told her, a wide grin on his face. She glared at him, his attempt at a joke falling flat. A shiver ran up his spine that had nothing to do with the fact that it was cold. He had a nasty feeling he wouldn't be—
"Hey, guys, he's on his way."
Xander flinched at the unexpected voice in his head and beside him, Anya let out a stream of curse words that would make a sailor proud and although half of them weren't in English, he still got the gist of what she was saying. It was enough to confirm that he wasn't the only one hearing voices.
"You said that an hour ago, Wills," Xander said out loud before Anya could start another rant that would probably bring them some very unwanted attention.
"I know," the witch replied. "But he's in the cemetery with you, about two hundred yards away."
Xander knew that Anya would probably start shouting, although when the explosion actually came, he still jumped at the fury behind her words.
"How do you know that when you're probably sitting at home with your fluffy bunny slippers on your feet and them up on a stool with a nice little cup of tea in your hand?"
"Location spell."
"Oh."
That was it; he was definitely not going to be having sex when he got home. Anya would be too tied up with getting revenge on Willow to even think about sex.
They fell silent for a while, and Xander was glad for it, he could tell that Anya wanted to get home and out of the cold air and the sooner that happened, the better. Silently, he hoped that Spike would hurry up so that they could both go back to their apartment but he knew that the vampire would probably take his time just to annoy them both. Xander scanned the cemetery to make sure that the demon wasn't sitting on top of one of the crypts or leaning against a tombstone watching them and mentally sighed when he didn't see the vampire in sight. Of course, that didn't mean the vampire wasn't lurking somewhere in the shadows but he still felt a little better that they weren't standing there looking like fools when they could be at home going at it like rabbits.
"That's it! I am leaving!" Anya grumbled. Xander turned back to look at her as she started to walk off along the path in the direction of the gates.
"Hey, Ahn, wait up," he called after her. Suppressing a shiver, he followed, his longer legs easily catching up. "Come on," he said, "At least wait for ten more minutes, then we can go home. Please?" She paused and glared at him. He gave her his best puppy-dog eyes look that she usually gave in to and asked gently, "Please?"
He watched as she closed her eyes for a moment and her shoulders relaxed slightly.
"Alright, then," she said at last. She held up a finger in warning and he backed away in anticipation of physical injury, but she merely pointed at his face. "But only for ten minutes. Any longer and you will get no sex for a week."
"Ten minutes it is, then," he grinned at her. She rolled her eyes and slowly, they trekked back towards their original waiting spot.
This time, Anya folded her arms and leaned against the mausoleum wall. Xander sat on a gravestone a next to it and within seconds found he had to continually shift positions so that the cold wouldn't make his ass numb. He had had a feeling he should've worn something a little more cold-friendly than jeans but all of his other clothes needed to be washed and it hadn't really looked as cold as it was outside when he'd looked out the window. He let out a sigh and checked his watch, feeling his heart sink at the knowledge that he had only been sitting for barely a minute. Maybe he should've just let Anya have her way so that they could get home and get warm.
Tonight had to be one of the coldest nights he could remember, probably one of the coldest summers as well and living in California, both were rare to come across. Xander shivered again and pulled his jacket closer, but it did little to stop the breeze from slipping up his back.
Footsteps in the darkness made both of them look up and a figure emerged along the path. Xander frowned, standing so that he could move closer to Anya in case it was a vampire or demon looking for a meal but he relaxed when the figure spoke.
"Bloody hell, you two are still here?" Spike asked as he came to a stop along the path, cigarette dangling from his lips and hands shoved deep in his pockets. There were several green globs of what could have possibly been blood on his jacket and draped over his shoulder was a long thin strip of red that Xander was sure actually belonged inside a body and not outside it.
"Finally!" Anya let out a breath and rubbed at her arms. "Now why are you late?"
"Late?" Spike raised an eyebrow and let out a stream of smoke through his nose. "'M not late."
"So what, we're early?"
"No," he let out a heavy sigh. "Had to lose the 'Bot, soddin' thing wouldn't leave me alone."
"Oh."
Xander caught the look on Anya's face as the anger drained out of her and she looked at the ground. He moved closer to her and reached for one of her hands. The fact that they had to use the Buffy-Bot to keep up the pretence that the Slayer was still alive was something that weighed heavily on all of them, most of all Dawn and those that had been close to her.
"Can we go now?" Anya asked softly. Spike nodded and flicked the cigarette away.
"Yeah, s'pose I should head home too," he said, glancing back at the path with a frown. "Bugger," he growled, "Here comes the cavalry."
Voices drifted to them along the path and soon enough, three figures emerged from the darkness. Spike took the opportunity to disappear before the robot knew that he was there and melted into the darkness as Willow waved to Xander and Anya.
"Hey, guys," the redhead grinned at them. "Thanks for waiting for us."
"Yeah," Anya grumbled beside him. "We've been waiting for you guys to show up for hours." She stressed the last word through gritted teeth and whirled around, grabbing Xander by the arm and practically dragging him along the path, muttering under her breath. "I can't believe they did this. And you convinced me to stay. You are so not getting sex for two weeks now…"
Xander glanced over his shoulder to apologise to the witches but hesitated when he saw them exchange a look. A look that he knew only too well; they were hiding something. Willow was worrying her lower lip, eyes fixed on the ground in front of her, while Tara looked torn between apologising to them and consoling the redhead. The robot however, managed to beat her to it.
"Why are you guys complaining?" The machine strode forward and smiled too brightly at them. Behind it, Willow and Tara started to move forward, but it spoke before they could stop it. "You guys were the most important part of all: The bait!"
Anya stopped, almost tripping Xander up, and marched back to the robot, dragging Xander along with her.
"We. Were. The. WHAT!"
"Well, there were these demons and they were in this lair and we needed bait to lure them all out so that me and Spike could kill them and where is Spike, have you seen him?" The robot said, tilting her head curiously at Anya, who stared at her in shock at how much it had spoken before the shock quickly gave way to anger.
"Are you saying you dragged me and Xander into a cemetery in the middle of the night just so that we could play 'the bait'?"
Willow stepped forward to try and calm the ex-demon, but instead, Anya switched her focus to the witch and Xander took the opportunity to untangle his arm from his girlfriends. As much as he loved Anya, he did not like being with her when she was angry at someone, unless it was him, in which case they usually ended up having make-up sex soon afterwards.
"I-I'm sorry about this," Tara grinned up at him.
"It's okay," Xander managed to muster a grin back before another draught wiped it off his face and he shivered. "When d'you suppose they'll stop? It's kinda cold out here."
"I-I like it," Tara said quietly, smiling up at the sky. "It's nice."
"Yeah," the robot said, turning away from the fuming Anya. "It kinda reminds me of Spike's eyes…"
Xander turned to Willow as the robot went off on a long ramble about Spike. Anya had fallen quiet, but was still glaring daggers at the redhead.
"Didn't you program all of that out of her?" he asked, wincing as the machine described a certain part of Spike's anatomy that Xander did not want to hear about. He would never know how it would manage to skip from one part of the body to one that had nothing to do with the other within a few seconds.
"Yeah," Willow answered, throwing a worried glance at the machine in question. "I'm sure I did, but it must have been recovered somehow. Those pathways are so difficult to figure out. It's like one is motion and the one right next to it could be memory."
Tara smiled and brushed a few strands of Willow's hair behind her ear. "You'll figure it out, sweetie, you always do."
Willow offered her a smile in return and leaned in for a quick kiss.
"No wonder Spike hates having the thing around." Anya muttered under her breath as the robot went into some extreme detail. Xander sighed, no one liked having the robot around, but without it, the town would be overrun with all kinds of demons trying to either open the Hellmouth, create havoc or just kill as many humans as they could without the worry of running into the slayer.
Without warning, Anya swung around, frowning at the machine. "Just how big did you say Spike was?" she asked.
Trust Anya to be all pissed off one minute and then back on sex the next.
Xander did the only thing he could to try and block out the robot's inevitable response – he covered his ears with his hands and sang 'La, La, La, La, La' over and over again in his head. After all, what man in their right mind would stand and listen while his girlfriend and a machine discuss someone else's body parts? That would be just… wrong.
End (?)
AN2- I was thinking of continuing it but it seemed alright to end there. Please review.