Disclaimer: I do not own BTVS, KTE, or any recognizable characters from either show. If I did, I wouldn't be working for the public schools system. Any characters you may not readily recognize are mine to use and abuse. I promise to return the character of Xander and other characters from the shows once I am done, though they might be a bit scuffed when I do.
Warning: potty language, violence, and mild gore
Chapter 6
"Now, that's nice a polite thing to say," Spike smirked, his hand shoved deep into a pocket of his black leather trench coat, fishing for something. "Here I am, minding my own bloody business and here you come disrupting the peace of the night, killing one of my own."
Alex looked at the bleached-blond vampire and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you want to be next?" Alex returned the smirk. "I'm sure the world would be much sadder without your lame-ass self."
"There's no need for any hostilities mate," Spike grinned and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag on the cancer-stick (for humans at least), then blew out a blue-grey stream of smoke. The cloud wafted towards Alex, irritating him. He still hated smoking.
Alex slowly circled Spike, always careful not to lose track of the vampire and his surroundings. He didn't know what Spike wanted, convinced that whatever it was it would be bad on a colossal scale.
"I take it the Slayer and her club of cheerleaders don't know you're here," Spike observed as he sat down on a tombstone giving the appearance of being harmless and benign.
Alex wasn't fooled into believing anything but the contrary. He knew that Spike was a killer, someone that should never be trusted. He was a Primordial after all, a demon that preyed upon the weak humans with no conscious.
"You should know," Alex said his tone dark. "You smell of her. Buffy still buying your weak as a kitten, poor me I've been chipped by the government act?"
"An act?" Spike looked offended. "Me and the Slayer are compatriots, fighters against the wrongs in the world. We are like Batman and Robin, we are."
"You're closeted homosexuals with daddy issues?" Alex retorted, not afraid of the vampire in the least. Back in the day, before Spike had gotten tagged by the commandos, Xander had had a very healthy fear of Spike, knowing that the demon was dangerous, ruthless, and a whole bunch of synonyms. Now they were meeting, not as equals – since it would be a cold day in Hell before any Kindred ever would consider a Primordial an equal, but on a more level playing field. While he was stronger than Spike, Spike did have more experience than he. They were a sort of yin and yang of the blood-drinking sort that would perpetually hate each other for all of eternity.
"Aren't you the witty one now that you got yourself a power up? Were you so jealous of us that mattered to the Slayer that you had to go out and get yourself a shiny power ring and cape? Desperate much are you whelp? Couldn't handle the feelings of insignificance in the larger picture, so you went out and convinced some high and mighty Kindred snob to bring you into the family? And now with this you, an almighty Kindred, lord over us lesser beings, hiding behind your rules, laws, and morality," he used air quotes with the word morality. "You prats like to pretend that you're above us, looking down your noses at us, preferring even the Brujah clan over us. At least we're honest about who we are and don't lie about our nature."
Alex rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah, you're the honest vampires of the world, my kind are posers. Thank God you're keeping it real. Are you done?"
"So why did you decide to join the fang club? I never would have pegged you to join up with a blood-club?"
"Oh, and what did you figure I'd do?" Alex retorted, wondering why he was even bothering with the verbal sparring.
Spike laughed. "You, I figured you to be killed by now, considering everything, though I am not too far off with that assessment, are I?"
"Considering what?" he asked, despite not caring. Why in the hell am I listening to him? I don't care what William the bloody pain-in-the-ass thinks!
"Are you serious?' Spike scoffed. "You with no powers were constantly rushing into battles that were way beyond your abilities to handle. Even Angelus couldn't believe how stupid you were standing up to him. Not to mention you were pretty worthless in the fight."
"Fuck you Spike. I didn't always rush into things, though maybe sometimes," he granted just a bit. "Anyhow, I wasn't ever worthless despite what others may have said. Just because I didn't kiss the almighty-Slayer's ass, didn't mean I was of no value to the Scoobies. Hello? Remember the Judge, graduation, getting Buffy to kill Angelus so your granddad couldn't end the world? Do any of those things ring a bell with you, not to mention getting my fair share of your kind chip-boy? At least they were able to put up a fight. What can you do besides be the Slayer's bitch?"
"I'm nobody's bitch," Spike snarled as he jumped up.
Alex saw the punch coming a mile away and was able to easily grab the fist in his hand, squeezing hard, feeling the tendons grinding on the bone. Tightening his grip, making sure that Spike wouldn't have full use of his hand for a while, he broke several finger bones and then pushed the Primordial back, sending him stumbling back several feet.
"Like you said Spike," Alex mocked the vampire, "I got a power-up. You might want to remember that."
"Bloody show off you are with your powers," Spike snarled, his face in full vampire-mode.
Alex was about to make a witty retort but was interrupted by himself. His face took on a blank look, his eyes glazed and unfocused. His voice clearly his own, but the words came from elsewhere. Undoubtedly, the lights were on but no one was home.
"The first among firsts will emerge, bringing terror from an open doorway between this reality and the next, destroying the ones that can balance between the light and dark. In the end, a sacrifice will be necessary; a chosen one destined to save humanity will give of themselves and be forever shown in the light."
Spike, for his part, immediately shifted out of his more fearsome visage. He stood there, staring at the Gangrel, confused. He was sure that he and the whelp were about to slug it out, but suddenly the fop went all still and blank and started speaking nonsense.
Suddenly, whatever had Alex in its grip, released him, causing him to fold and stumble. He would have collapsed entirely if Spike hadn't un-expectantly caught him, helping him to stand upright.
"What is hell were you yammering about? Portals and a sacrifice?" Spike yelled at the youth (while Xander may be Kindred, he was still younger than him).
"Not so fucking loud!" Alex hissed, squeezing his eyes shut, hoping that would stop the blinding headache that was forming behind his eyes.
"What were you saying just now?" Spike demanded.
"What the hell are you talking about? And why in the hell are you holding me?" Alex asked opening his eyes and seeing Spike's arm looped under his arm, holding him up. He then shook off the offending limb and gingerly tested his legs on his own. Unfortunately, he wasn't ready for such a feat and found himself face down on the grass, getting intimate with sod, earthworms, and dirt.
Spike, sighing at the way his night had turned out to be. Originally, he had been cutting through the cemetery, on his way over to the Slayer's house for an evening of Passions and waiting for the Fox Soccer Report on Man U's match that day against Arsenal. Now he was standing in the cemetery having a bizarre conversation with the last person he ever expected to see. He briefly thought about kicking the sod in the ribs and continuing on with his evening festivities. Instead he rolled Xander over on to his back and gently nudged him in the ribs, hoping that would be enough to bring him around.
He was not to be disappointed and Alex immediately came around. "What the fuck happened?" he asked and slowly sat up.
"You passed out mate," Spike chuckled, amused to see the Gangrel a bit off.
"Why?" Alex asked testily. "What the hell happened?"
"Don't get your scanties in a twist. You started speaking like it wasn't you and then you snapped out of it and then took a dive like a striker from Liverpool."
"I'm going to pretend that I understood all of that," Alex said, shaking his head and wearily got to his feet. "I take it I went blank and started talking about something weird."
"Is this something that occurs a lot?" Spike asked, watching the kid carefully.
Alex shrugged. "It happened once before. Supposedly my brain somehow taps into something on the astral plane. A demon once called me the One Who Sees. I guess you could call me a seer, but it isn't something that happens a lot. Last time I supposedly started talking about a hell beast and the sacrifice of the innocents. We still don't know what that was about. What was I talking about this time?"
"Something about a first, destroying the ones who balance, and portals," Spike shrugged and lit another cigarette, having lost the previous one in his slight tussle with Xander.
"I hope you have an idea about what that means. Shit, I was warned about the dangers of being on the Hellmouth. Now my brain feels like it's been scrambled. I need to get my mom off this pile of crap ASAP."
"So are you leaving now? Are you going to stop by and see your old mates, play catch up?" Spike said, immediately returning to the verbal sparring that they had engaged in before. They had been too close, physically and feeling-wise for his comfort and preferred to fall back into the familiar pattern of sarcasm and biting wit.
Unfortunately for him, Alex wasn't up for it. "No. I don't want to see them and they don't need to see me. They're part of my past now."
"You sure," Spike pressed, knowing that Xander had no idea about Anya and the baby. "Maybe they've come into something big that you'd want to know about. I am sure your precious little Anya would love to see you."
Alex shook his head. "Anya doesn't need me and Buffy and the others would bring me nothing but more pain. They drove me away and now they get what they wanted. They don't need me in their lives and I sure as all hell don't need them. Plus, how would it look to have a member of the Kindred hanging around a Slayer? Probably about as weird as a Primordial hanging around a Slayer," Alex couldn't help himself, grinning at seeing Spike visibly bristle. He enjoyed getting under the vampire's skin.
"Yeah, well, sod off wanker," Spike said and started to turn away, finished with the whelp.
"Oh Spike, I forgot," Alex called out.
Spike turned around to fully face the Kindred and found a stake shoved deep into his gut. "Something is telling me that killing you wouldn't be the best thing to do, but this is for all of the shit you did to me when I was living here. Consider it a down payment for what will happen if I ever see you again."
With that, Alex disappeared into the night, taking with him all of his hurt, anger, and despair. It had been a rough night made even rougher by the appearance of that bastard Spike, but shoving his last stake in the jackass' stomach made him feel just a tad better.
A/N: Well, what do you think? Crap or not? Hit the shiny review button and let me know.
Do you have any idea how hard it is it write in a working-class British voice when you are as American as baseball and apple pie without coming off as trite and retarded? I hope I didn't offend too many of the Brits out there and if I did, I am heartily sorry. Blame it on watching way too much of Man U, Tottenham, SkySports news, and the rest of the EPL and a few crappy sites I looked at for British slang expressions.
Also, I am sorry if my Batman and Robin comment offended anyone. It stems from a conversation between a co-worker and me about my action figures and her need to "violate" them by putting them in sexual positions for me to find when I come back from a day off. I of course am too mature to retaliate and mess with her crazy cat lady action figures (sure, whatever). Also, I am a big closet nerd who used to work at a comic book store and I would argue about the the proclivities of Batman with someone who would get so offended and couldn't tell I was just messing with him.
Anyways, thanks for reading and hopefully reviewing. I am pretty sure I have only one or two chapters left in this story before I refocus on NLTZ 3 and my Immortal Spacemonkey 2 (I have no idea what the real title will be for this one) stories. Take care and have a wonderful and blessed day.
Cheers!