Epilogue. The end! At long last!
Spike had tried several times, on the way over, to get Xander to hand Ethan over to him. Xander refused, since he knew damn well that Spike was gonna "accidentally" drop him, and while he wasn't real fond of the bastard at the moment, neither did he want him permanently damaged.
They swung by Giles' place first. Spike picked the lock, and they tied up Ethan in Giles' favorite chair, Spike snickering all the while. They snuck out, Spike carefully relocking the door behind them, and headed for Revello Drive, where Willow was living with Tara and taking care of Dawn.
A sleepy-looking Willow answered the door, then did a double-take once she got a good look at them. Xander minus the shirt, Angel's coat slung around him and wearing it like it was made for him, and the rune harsh on his chest, still glowing a little. Spike looking pounded, and Angel with bullet holes through his shirt, all of them rumpled and grass-stained and generally looking like they'd fought and then fucked in the graveyard.
Willow, though, was a Scooby to the bone, and didn't bother commenting on their appearance. Just said, "Did you win?" and then added, before anyone could answer, "What happened to vamp-you, Xander?"
"We absolutely won," Xander assured her. "And he got dusted."
"He's gone?" Willow demanded, aghast, and Xander shook his head with a little smile.
"Nah, he's back in the Xander Mix," he said. "Right in the nick of time, too."
"Drusilla? Ethan?"
"Chaos bloke's all tied up at the Watcher's," Spike answered. "Dru ran off- we were a bit busy, didn't see where she went."
"Don't care as long as she's not here," Xander put in. "We had to run Anya off, too. Anyanka, rather."
"Anya was here?" Willow said. "Seriously? Was she... causing trouble?"
"Locked up Spike with Angel of the none-too-steady soul," Xander said. "She learned the error of her ways."
His smile didn't invite any further questions, so Willow let it go. She leaned against the doorframe, looking tired and older, somehow. "What are you going to do now?"
"Right now? Go home and sleep. After that..." He stopped, shook his head. "I don't know. Leave, probably. The Slayer's been called- she'll be here soon. Hellmouth doesn't really need me anymore."
Spike said nothing- he'd known Xan would do this soon, though he hadn't realized it would be now. Angel made a low noise behind him, possibly protest, possibly just surprise, but said nothing more. Willow accepted the blow with composure that she wouldn't have had a few short months ago, paling almost unnoticeably. "Where are you going to go?" she asked, trying in vain to hide the little quaver in her voice. "Or do you know?"
"LA, first," Xander said, and shot a little teasing glance at Angel that Willow didn't miss, but didn't comment on. Spike thought that there were more things that weren't being said, than things that were. "Then... I dunno. Wherever we're needed, I guess? It's complicated. I might get sent somewhere by the Powers. We may just wander and help where we can. I like the sound of that, personally, but- don't have to decide right now. We've got time."
"You're not going right away, then?" Willow said eagerly, clearly grasping at straws. Xander shook his head, then touched her cheek gently, helping to heal some of the sting of that blow.
"Soon as we can pack, baby," he told her. "Sunset tomorrow, the day after that at the latest." A single tear spilled down Willow's cheek, catching on and pooling around his thick, calloused index finger. "We'll come by and say goodbye before we take off," he continued. "We're not just gonna leave without any trace. You'll still hear from me, I swear."
"Will you come back?" she whispered. Xander let his hand drop from her cheek, then gripped both her upper arms with his big hands, and leaned forward till his forehead rested against hers.
"I will always be back," he whispered hoarsely. "Just to see you. That promise you can take to the grave."
"I know," she said, and then they were hugging, tightly, completely lost to their surroundings. Spike and Angel stood silently, uncomfortably, side by side, and tried not to feel like they were watching something they shouldn't.
When he pulled away, kissed her on the forehead, and walked away, Willow watched him go. She watched him leave, with Spike and Angel following like two fools who loved him, and the tears rolled like acid down her cheeks.
That morning had been awkward, getting home just before sunset and Angel suddenly turning shy, not wanting to get in bed with them, even after what they'd done. Especially after what they'd done, and he'd tried to go sleep on the couch, but Spike had smacked him on the back of the head, called him a wanker, and yanked off his clothes before he could protest. Xander's sleepy smile had clinched it, and so here they were, at four in the afternoon, with weak reflected glow shining on the floor from behind the blinds that covered the windows.
Angel was wide awake. He never needed much sleep- well, he didn't need much in the regular run of things, when he didn't have his formerly-dead Sire keeping him in magical dreamland. He'd gotten a couple hours, but mostly he'd just lain awake and thought, and tried not to think too loud because he knew that Spike would wake up and smack him. Then Xander would wake up, and Xander would give him the Xander look, the one that managed to scold him and laugh at the same time.
Easier to just think quietly, all things considered.
And he had plenty to think about, though he knew he would get laughed at if he said as much to the other two. He'd had sex with them. With both of them. Cool vampire wrapped around his body and his cock, and hot, hot human inside him. He'd had sex with them, and now he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do about it.
Xander said that the two of them were going to LA with him. They weren't planning on staying forever, he'd picked up on that much, but they were planning on staying a while, so that meant something, didn't it? Something more than bringing an Angelus-crazy vampire they sort of liked back to something vaguely resembling sanity?
He was such a girl.
"Shut up and go back to sleep, ya ponce," Spike mumbled sleepily from somewhere near his stomach. Angel started, then relaxed back again and muttered sulkily, "I didn't say anything."
"Can hear you thinking," Spike complained, and see, he'd been right. Couldn't think too loud because Spike would hear him. Even if he didn't get smacked.
Even in his own head, that last sentence sounded wrong.
"Angel, I can hear you thinking," Xander said on a yawn. "And I'm not awake."
"You're talking, aren't you?" Spike said.
"I can talk in my sleep," Xander said firmly. "I can talk anytime, under any circumstances. I will be able to talk when I'm dead."
"Don't doubt it a bit," Spike muttered, and Angel heard the smack of Xander's calloused palm smacking Spike's bare shoulder. "Oi! What was that for?"
"For being an asshole, Blondie," Xander retorted. "It's something you're good at."
"Well, yeah. Evil, remember?"
"Don't I know it. You wanna come over here and prove it?"
"Rather prove it right here," Spike said, and bit gently into the skin around Angel's stomach with blunt human teeth in a way that he knew would tickle. Angel jumped and cursed, and Xander laughed out loud, and Spike smirked at them both.
"See? Still evil."
"Bastard," Angel grumbled, just as Xander demanded, "Hey, don't I get some?"
"Good idea," Spike said, but turned back to Angel after a second's consideration. "I'm thinkin', though, that I've got better fish to fry. What about you?"
Xander turned his own considering gaze to Angel. "Hmmm. You may be an asshole, chip dip, but you got good ideas."
"Damn straight."
"Sometimes," Xander amended. "You have good ideas sometimes. It just so happens that this is one of them."
"Are you going to continue to talk over me like I don't exist?" Angel enquired.
"Why, you got a problem with it?" Spike demanded, and got smacked again for his trouble.
"Shut up, Spike. Nah, I think it's time we paid him some attention. Don't you think so?"
And the question seemed to have been aimed at Spike, but his hot-eyed gaze was focused on Angel, and Angel knew exactly what he was thinking, and his dick rose in response. Xander laughed a little, grinned like a hyena, and then bent down to eat him up.
They were all packed- finally- and ready to go, it seemed. Spike couldn't believe the amount of sheer stuff that the two of them had managed to accumulate in the last couple months, and that wasn't even counting all the stuff Xan had had before he'd gotten involved with Spike. It was a good thing that all three of them had more than human strength and multiple cars, because they were going to need it to get all these boxes down the stairs and to LA.
"There's no way we're going to able to carry all this stuff with us if we do the traveling thing," Xander said as he stared at the pile of boxes. "Remind me again why you two talked me out of throwing most of this away?"
"Because you might need some of it, and you can store it in one of the empty rooms at the Hyperion," Angel said patiently. "We've got more room than we know what to do with. Won't kill you to pack the stuff away for a rainy day."
"Might kill my back," Xander grumbled. "And what about you, Spike? Why did you vote for the packing brigade?"
"Wanted to make sure Peaches didn't wiggle out of carrying duty," Spike said with a shrug. "Figured he wouldn't be able to if we packed enough stuff."
"Somehow," Xander said with a sigh, "I'm not surprised." He turned his unhappy gaze back to the pile of boxes, then sighed again. "Alright. Let's get started."
The knock on the door startled them all. Spike and Xander exchanged glances while Angel stared at the floor, and after a long second Xander sighed a third time and went to answer the door.
Dawns stood there, looking incredibly young, with Willow and Tara behind her. Xander just stood there for a minute, trying to get his brain off the "packing/arguing-with-Spike-and-Angel" track and onto the "visits from estranged friends" track.
"Little Bit!" Spike said cheerfully, breaking the spell that held Xander still. "And the witchy ones. Good to see ya. Come on in."
"Should know better than to say 'come in' in Sunnydale, Spike," Xander said, without turning around or taking his eyes off the three girls who filed through his front door. "You, especially, should know better."
"I'd know if they were vampires, Xan," Spike said slowly, and Xander didn't have to turn around, this time, to hear the ''duh" in his voice. "'Sides, even if they were, you saying we couldn't take them?"
Xander did turn around this time, to smirk at Spike. "To save my hide from either potentially offended party, I'm just gonna plead the fifth."
Willow sorta-smiled at him. "Spike's just trying to cause trouble again, isn't he?"
Dawn snorted before Spike had a chance to answer. "When isn't Spike trying to cause trouble?"
Spike looked offended. "Hey! I'll have you know that I can be quiet and peaceable and law-abiding sometimes."
"Yeah, like when?" Dawn demanded.
"Er..." He glanced around, obviously at a loss, and then brightened. "Xan can get me to behave if he pouts at me enough."
"Yes thank you Spike," Xander said dryly. "Any other parts of our personal relationship you'd like to share?"
Spike brightened again, but before he could answer a large hand descended from behind to cover his mouth, and Angel nodded at Xander. "He'll be quiet."
A muffled yell came from behind Angel's hand, and the older vampire looked down at Spike. "Well, relatively."
"Relatively is more than I usually get," Xander assured him, and turned back to the girls. "Sorry about the circus act. Something you three lovely ladies needed?"
"We, well, we actually came by so that we could say our goodbyes, officially, anyway," Willow half-stammered. "Giles would have come, but, well..."
"He's too busy drinking and cursing both Spike and Angel's name?" Xander offered, with just a tad bit of bitterness in his voice.
Well, just a tad was all he'd own up to.
Willow gave him a reproachful look. "He's busy watching over Ethan, and possibly torturing him with old Broadway tunes. I thought I recognized something from Annie Get Your Gun, but, well, I didn't ask."
"Didn't want to know," Tara put in, speaking up for the first time. Willow shrugged an agreement, and Dawn faked a shudder.
"Well, either way, he's not here, and you are. What was your official goodbye plan, anyway?"
"We wanted to give you, well, this," Willow said, and she turned to get the small houseplant that Tara had been holding behind her back. Xander looked at it in confusion, and discovered after a moment's examination that it was, indeed, a small cactus.
"You got us a cactus," he said, then repeated, "You got us a cactus?"
"Houseplants are a traditional home-warming gift, and we didn't want to drive all the way up to LA to give it to you, so we figured that we'd give it to you before we leave. And, um, it's a cactus because it's practically impossible to kill a cactus."
Xander laughed. "Wills, you know us too well." He leaned forward to give her a kiss on the cheek, then turned to do the same to Dawn and Tara, both of whom blushed. Spike, behind him, made a protesting noise and then got free of Angel's grip, and bounded forward to, somehow, wrap all three woman in a tight hug. All three of them emitted some sort of high-pitched noise of surprise, but Dawn was the one to recover first and hug Spike back.
Spike turned them loose after a minute, and Willow, looking unusually solemn, stepped past Xander to stand in front of Angel. Angel looked uncomfortable and hunched his shoulders, clearly expecting the worst, and so the expression on his face when she wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug was nothing short of comical.
"Watch out for them," she whispered into his ear, and both Spike and Xander pretended that they didn't have super-strength hearing and therefore hadn't heard what she'd said, and that it hadn't given them a little warm glow of pleasure, anyway. She smiled at them, and something in her smile told them that she knew it anyway, so it was all okay.
It was another hour till last goodbyes had been said and the three of them managed to get all the boxes loaded into their respective cars. Angel looked properly horrified at having to drive Xander's beaten-up car, but he manfully slid into the driver's seat when Spike started to openly laugh at him. Xander took a moment to glare at Spike, and pointed out that they were junking his car as soon as they got to LA, and Angel would never have to drive it again because he'd have his own car. This assuaged Angel's battered pride a little- though privately he wondered what was the point of trying to hang onto his pride at all, if Spike and Xander were going to be along- and so after a sneering comment from Spike about seeing him in several hours because that's how long it was gonna take him to drive the fairly short distance to LA, he slammed the driver's side door shut and drove off.
Spike flicked him off, the good, old-fashioned, American way to make sure that he understood, and followed, with Xander laughing beside him.
They were on their way.
End