Chapter Five: Waiting for Tomorrow. Short chapter.
Xander was in an extremely bad mood, and it showed. Spike sprawled on the couch and watched with interest as he stomped around the room, retrieving bandages and ointment from various places that they'd been scattered to last time he'd gotten cut up on patrol. He made as if to get up from the couch, but Xander glared at him and he settled back down again. No point in pissing the boy off even more.
"I'm gonna kill the stupid bastard," Xander muttered to himself. He picked up the tube of ointment that had somehow ended up underneath the kitchen sink, and stared at it with puzzlement in his eyes before shaking his head as if he just didn't want to know.
"Which stupid bastard, luv, me or Angel?" Xander opened the tube, then promptly threw it across the room when he found out that it was empty. Spike winced at the new dent in the wall. "No need to take it out on the wall, luv. I doubt it had anything to do with it. Whatever it is."
"Angel," Xander answered, once again searching for a tube of ointment, one that actually had some in it this time. "Bastard took off before we could lure him into staying the night here. And you, because you got hurt, thus allowing him to get away with taking off before we could lure him into staying the night here."
Spike winced again. He'd hoped that Xander would forget that minor detail.
"Er, you do know that we have weeks to seduce Angel? Tomorrow, even," Spike pointed out, when Xander glared at him. The glare didn't lessen any at his hasty addition.
"No, we don't have tomorrow. Something bad always happens tomorrow, don't you know that?"
There was an undercurrent to his tone that sounded more like hysteria than irritation, and Spike frowned. There was something going on here. Something much more than his Xander simply being pissed about losing a chance to seduce his Sire. Because, sure Spike was looking forward to it, if it ever worked, but this was... beyond the scope of sex, and more into the reach of danger, real danger, the kind where even the best fighters aren't sure that they're going to win.
His skin tingled just thinking about it.
"What's wrong, pet? I mean really wrong."
"It's tomorrow, see? Something's going wrong tomorrow."
"Xan, luv, you aren't makin' a bit of sense."
"I can't say any more than that, because I just don't know. All I know is that something's going wrong tomorrow because it's this big itch between my shoulder blades and shadow images whenever I close my eyes and it's bad, Spike, really bad and I don't know what to do to stop it."
Spike reached out and snagged a pacing Xander by one arm, neatly hauling him down onto the couch next to him. Ignoring the chunk that the demon had taken out of his shoulder, Spike wrapped one arm around his lover and rubbed his cheek against Xander's. "Calm down, luv. You're tellin' me that you're getting some sort of message from the Powers or somethin', aren't you." It wasn't a question.
Xander slumped against his side. "Yeah. Something like that. Only they won't tell me what's going to happen. They're just sort of suggesting that something is going to happen."
"Not too helpful," Spike growled. "Not too helpful at all, damn it. Buggerfuck. What are we supposed to do, then?"
"Warn Angel?" Xander suggested. "Should probably drop a word to Willow, too," he added doubtfully. "Wonder if she would actually listen to me?"
Spike snorted. "Not bloody likely," he said scornfully. "Not after your little scene in the Magic Box a week ago. She probably thinks you're one of the bad guys now after the right proper cut-down you gave to the Watcher."
"She might," Xander insisted, then deflated. "No, she wouldn't. So warn Angel, then... wait? Or something?"
"Sounds 'bout right," Spike said. His voice sounded just as tired as he felt, even to his own ears. "Bloody hate waiting."
"I know," Xander said soothingly. He shifted a little, then noticed Spike's hiss of pain when the movement jostled his shoulder. "Shit, Spike, I'm sorry."
"S'okay, pet, it's healing over already. No point in bandages and all that. Jus' be careful of it, yeah?"
"Sure," Xander said, and when he stood up he gripped Spike by the arm and hauled him gently to his feet. "I'll be real careful," he added, leading Spike back into the bedroom. "You can just lie there and let me do all the work."
Spike grinned at him as he began to unbutton his shirt. "Lie back and think of England, that it?"
"Something like that," Xander said with a wicked smile. Spike stretched lazily, making sure that his admittedly gorgeous body was displayed to best advantage.
"Do you worst."
Xander finished shedding his shirt and crawled onto the bed till he was looming over Spike, grinning fiercely down at him. "Oh, I intend to."
The knocking came to his ears as if through a very long tunnel. He slowly surfaced from the heavy blackness of sleep, and it occurred to him that the knocking was someone at his door, wanting inside. Reflexively he checked the angle of light seeping around the edges of the drapes, and guessed that it was roughly ten o'clock in the morning. Too early a start on what he was somehow sure was going to be the Day From Hell.
He leaned over and pressed a kiss on the still-asleep Spike's forehead, and staggered out of the bed. Spike immediately curled into the warm spot he'd left, a little wrinkle of irritation forming between his eyebrows, and Xander smiled affectionately at the lump under the covers as he pulled on a pair of jeans. Zipping them up, he emerged from the bedroom and made his way across the living room floor, hoping that whoever had been knocking was still there because he would be really upset if he'd gotten up for nothing.
It was Dawn, and she hadn't gone away. Instead she was standing on his doorstep, looking a little uncertain, with a small leather bag in her hands. Xander didn't ask, just looked at her for a long moment before stepping away from the door and gesturing for her to come in.
She did, looking around with a slight expression of nervousness on her face. "Where's Spike?" she asked, her voice low. Xander shrugged.
"Still in bed," he said. "Spike's not an early-risin' kinda guy." Neither am I, his expression said, but he was just barely polite enough not to say it out loud. She saw it, though, and blushed a little as she twisted the drawstring of the leather bag between her fingers.
"I... missed you guys. So I asked Willow and Tara to drop me off here."
"What did they say?" Xander said, with a small degree of curiosity. Dawn tried out a small smile.
"They didn't say anything, but Tara tossed Willow the keys, and Willow picked up this and told me to give it to you before I got out of the car." She proffered the little leather bag and he took it, hefting its slight weigh in his hand with an expression of slight puzzlement.
"It's a spell of binding," Dawn said. "That's all she told me. I saw something like it in one of... in a book, recently. It's supposed to bind lovers closer, or something like that. I think she was giving you two her blessing."
"Red's got hidden depths, then," Spike said from the bedroom doorway. Dawn looked up and blushed when she saw that all he wore was a sheet wrapped around his waist.
"Yeah, Willow does that sometimes," Xander said absently, still staring at the bag. "Spike, go put some clothes on."
"'S not what you told me last night," Spike said with a tiny smirk, but went back into the bedroom obediently when Xander gave him a Look. Dawn's face was a little bit awed by the show of obedience.
"What am I supposed to do with it?" he asked Dawn. "Spells aren't exactly my area of expertise."
"I think you're supposed to put it under your pillow," Dawn said, and blushed again. God, she looked young. Xander nodded and set it on the nearest surface, which happened to be the coffee table.
"Tell Willow thanks for me. Oh, and one other thing," he said, and his expression was serious when Dawn looked at him. "There's going to be all Hell breaking loose today. I don't know what, and I don't know how or why, but I know that there'll be lots of bad. Tell her to protect herself. Tell her that I'll deal with the rest of it."
"All on your own?" Dawn asked. Worried for him, how sweet. Cold, Xander, cold. He wondered if it was the vampire in him that darkened his soul, because he found it hard to care how callous he was being, even if it was in his own head.
"I have Spike," was all Xander said. Then, after a pause for thought, he added maliciously, "And Angel to watch our backs, of course."
"Of course," Dawn said, made her excuses, and left.
"Angel! What the hell happened to you, mate?"
Angel groaned as Spike's voice assaulted his already pounding head. "Drusilla," he managed to get out from between clenched teeth. "Got through the ward because she's my blood, same way you did. She's here with a Chaos mage; I could smell the stench all over her."
"Shit," Xander said succinctly, and grabbed at Angel's shoulder. Angel was opening his mouth to protest when Xander got a proper grip and hauled him neatly into the air and over his shoulder. Angel was too shocked to protest when Xander started walking away- where were they going, anyway? He knew was hurt pretty damn bad when he couldn't even care that the upside-down Spike he could see from his point of view of somewhere near Xander's ass was smirking at him, just like the real Spike would. Damn Spikes. Should have known better than to let Drusilla wander after pretty boys into dark alleys when she wanted a playmate... Ow!
Ten minutes later a very shaky Angel was deposited unceremoniously on the bathroom floor and was promptly stripped of his torn and bloodied clothing. He finally succumbed to unconsciousness while Spike busily sponged him off, and so wasn't able to scold the younger vampire for licking away the worst of the blood instead of washing it off in slightly more mundane ways. Xander came back in and picked him up again while Spike looked on in deep appreciation- damn his boy was fine- and dumped him back down again, this time in the bed.
The two of them collapsed onto the thankfully large bed with a long sigh and curled against the larger bulk of the unconscious vampire. They fell asleep instantly, and Xander didn't even think about the little leather pouch that he had placed under his pillow earlier that morning until the next morning.
By then it was too late.