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The More Things Change	By : slashtheboyz Category: AtS/BtVS Crossovers > Slash - Male/Male > Spike(William)/Xander > Spike(William)/Xander Views: 12377 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own BtVS or AtS. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Author: slashtheboyz
Title: The More Things Change
Chapter: 28/?
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: FRAO, please
Feedback: Email, Comments, Journal. YM: slashtheboyz
Concrit: Email, Comments, Journal. YM: slashtheboyz
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Joss and a bunch of lawyers. I only wish they belonged to me cause I'd make em do naughty things together forever. I'm just playing with them. No disrespect intended. No reflection on real persons or places intended. I'm not making any profit from this little fantasy. This story is strictly for entertainment. I freely acknowledge the rightful owners of the original characters and creation. This fiction and plot are mine.
Warnings/Squicks: Some bloody descriptions and language
Summary: Expositions, and explanations
Previous chapters: Here
Notes: Nothing much to note here,
Beta: The wonderful mistress_tien , Any mistakes left in the story are the result of my own weirdness:)

Spike coolly dug in his coat pocket for his fags, took one out of the pack, and tossed the half-full pack on the desk beside the bottle sitting there. Digging for his lighter he brought it out and opened it with the other hand and thumbed the striker, putting the flame to the tip of the fag and inhaling deeply when was lit. He blew out a cloud of smoke and his eyes narrowed as he tilted his head considering Ma’at through the haze.

*****************************************

Ma’at made a sound in his throat, dug through his drawers, and retrieved a glass ashtray, which he slid across the desk in Spike’s direction.
“Ta mate. Make it one hundred and twenty five billion, throw in a contract, erase the boy’s human history from birth on, arrange several good identities for the both of us with all the paperwork, and you’ve got a deal,” Spike finally replied.
Xander made a strangled noise, grabbed his glass again, and chugged down the JD left in his glass.
Ma’at considered a moment and scanned the data on the screen. “Agreed and Done.” He boomed out. He reached into the drawer again for small sharp knife, nicked the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb, and held it out to Spike. Spike leaned over the desk and touched his tongue to the crimson drops standing on the smooth skin. He nodded satisfied with whatever he detected in the blood. “Agreed and Done.” Ma’at handed the knife to Spike and they repeated the process with Ma’at tasting Spike’s blood.
Xander felt a small frisson of electricity that caused the hair to stand up on his arms and he shivered reflexively. Whatever Spike and Ma’at had done involved some kind of magic. But the satisfaction Spike felt with the results was enough for Xander.
“I’ll arrange the new identities first thing tomorrow but you’ll need to return here for pictures. I’ll set up numbered bank accounts for both of you some here and in some different countries, in each of your names separately and jointly. You can change those later if you wish. I’ll also erase the boy’s history tonight. Spike nodded and returned to his indolent sprawl in the chair. Ma’at turned his gaze on Xander, then shuffled around in a drawer until he found a pad of paper and snatched up a pen handing them across to Xander who looked at them blankly for a second. “I’ll need your full human name boy, and your social security number.
Xander blinked and silently accepted pen and paper, sitting forward to scribble quickly on the pad and then hand it back to Ma’at.
Spike drained his glass at one go, and stood to recap the bottle on the desk. He slipped the bottle into a coat pocket, swiped up his fags, grasped Xander by a hand, pulled him from his chair and urged him toward the door. “It’s been good ta see ya again Ma’at, but we’ve other business ta see to t’night. We’ve got ta be on our way. There’ll be another time for gabbin’.”
Ma’at’s attention was already consumed by the laptop and he was grinning that toothy grin again. He flapped a distracted hand at Spike without looking up from the screen, “Yes, another time Spike.” Spike chuckled wickedly and they sailed through the door past the guard. And double timed it down the stairs. Waving casually at Sssshersssa as they passed, they quickly descended the last set of stairs to the exit door and found themselves behind the bar again. Charlie looked up as the closed the door behind them and nodded, and they walked quickly to the gate, lifted it and stalked through, continuing on to retrace their steps back to the entrance foyer. The big blue demon looked up as they entered his domain and stood to let them out without comment.
They paused on the top step and looked out on the deserted street. Fog was just starting to settle, wafting in from the water just a few streets over. The fog made everything seem like a dreamscape.
“Well that was interesting. You are going to explain all that. Aren’t you?”
Spike smirked at him. “By sunset tomorrow Wolfram & Hart won’t have two quid ta rub together. And they won’t be able to find out where it went.”
“I meant about Ma’at and Wolfram & Hart, but oh gods are we really billionaires?” Xander asked faintly.
“Yep, I’d bet m’ last quid that there was four times what Ma’at is givin’ us for it, but we can’t begin ta spend what we’re getting’ in three lifetimes. ‘N we don’t have the resources ta pull a job like that. Ma’at’s got fingers in a lot of pies, his closest competitor is Wolfram & Hart but they’ve done a lot of damage to demons over the years. I’d reckon he’d give up his share if he had to just ta have the pleasure of bein’ the one to take down Wolfram & Hart. That’ll get his name written in the history books, it will. They’re the heavies for the dark powers.”
Spike stepped off the top step and Xander followed still somewhat boggled just by the idea of that much money, and the fact they now had that much money. They ambled back down the sidewalk in comfortable silence. When they got close to the manhole they’d used earlier, a breath of moving air is all that warned Xander before someone stepped out in front of them from the deepest shadows of a side alley.
Spike snarled and struck out with a fist that connected solidly and the figure doubled over with a grunt. Spike bounced back and, pulled his long knife from its’ sheath and started to bounce forward on his toes, but a familiar voice gasped out. “Spike, where have you been? We’ve been looking all over this part of town for you two.” By the time the voice stopped talking, another shadow slid out of the alley and joined the first. And another familiar voice. “I advised you against just appearing out of an alley Angel, and you insisted on doing things your way. You brought this on your own head.”
“Okay, I hear you. Can you just be quiet about it now, Wesley?” Angel complained.
Xander was giggling like a loon, and giggling, graduated to guffaws as he listened to the conversation. He couldn’t get enough air in his lungs to speak for laughing, so he was stuttering out in a wheezy way between guffaws. “Count Duckula to the rescue!”
Spike snarked “What the bloody dickens do you think you’re about jumpin’ out at us outta alleys like that, what with all the bad guys runnin’ around attackin’ people, ya bleedin’ dimwit?”
“Never mind Spike,” Angel muttered. He finally straightened and Xander’s laughter wound down to snorffles.
“Right. If yer finished bein’ barmy, we still have things ta get done t’night.” Spike commented sarcastically.
“You’re the ones who took off and disappeared into thin air Spike. We were afraid that Caleb got you somehow. I tracked you to this part of town by scent, but the trail died out a few blocks from here and we’ve been sneaking in and out of abandoned buildings between here and there looking for you. We had already decided to go back to the house and tell the others we couldn’t find you anywhere, when we heard your voices. So I decided to wait until you were close to come out of the alley just in case you were in trouble.” Angel answered defensively.
“Yer conveniently forgettin’ you’re the reason we took off on our own in the first place,” Spike retorted.
Xander sobered at the memory and cut across the argument. “As fun as this is, we’re not accomplishing anything standing around on the street. Let’s get to somewhere with some light so we can look at the map. We’ll find their hidey hole and take a long look.”
Xander broke into a jog raising his true face to the night, scenting the fog laden air; he looked back at his sire with a fangy grin. With an eerie high-pitched cackling howl, he surged forward down the street at a run kicking trash out of his path as he went.
With a gleeful snarl, Spike broke away from Angel and Wesley, and sprinted after his childe/mate. Spike caught up with Xander as he rounded a corner and they ran together down the cleaner looking street. Xander stopped at a familiar intersection. “The Magic Box is that way,” he indicated with a nod of his head. “I think we should check it out.”
Angel and Wesley came around the corner at a run and stopped when they reached them. Wesley wasn’t breathing hard yet, but a thin film of sweat covered his face. Xander broke into a jog heading toward the Magic Box.
Spike followed, Angel and Wesley a little way behind him.
Xander ran scenting the air like a hound, when they neared the magic shop; he caught a strong rotten-sour scent invaded his mind and nose; he waited for Spike and the others to come up beside him. “Smell that?” he murmured. Spike and Angel shook their heads. “It’s evil and it stinks in my head and my nose,” he muttered to them. “We’ll get the other end of the alley, if you plug this end,” he told Angel and Wesley.
Without waiting for a reply and before Spike knew what he was up to, Xander turned to the wall and started climbing the building, finding hand holds between the bricks with claws and toes. Spike climbed up after him. When they reached the top, they rolled onto the roof and Xander grinned down over the edge at a gaping Angel and Wesley. Xander waved at them with a laugh, and jogged over to the side that overlooked the alley and crouched down. Spike crouched beside him. “If you take the far corner it’ll put you right at the alley mouth, I’m going down to meet our stinky lil’ fren.” Spike jogged over to the corner and Xander caught his eye when he was settled and they leaped over the edge into the alley at the same time, Xander with a ringing, “Geronivamp!”
He landed lightly on his toes, and sprang immediately toward the short robed figure that froze in confusion at his sudden appearance in the alley. “You’re a bad, bad boy; all good little boys should be tucked safely in their beds at this time of the night. That means I get to spank you,” Xander commented as he slammed a closed fist into the side of its head with all his strength. It made a gargling sound and slid to the alley floor unconscious. Xander looked down at it. “You just aren’t any fun, no stamina at all for an evil servant. I’m very disappointed; I expected more of you.”
Spike walked up from the end of the alley and toed the figure laying in the muck of the alley. “This the only one then? He stinks enough for a troop. Guess The First don’t rate cleanliness as one o’ its’ employment requirements.” He wrinkled his nose with distaste.
Angel and Wesley came from the other end of the alley and looked down at the bringer. Angel’s nose wrinkled in disgust as well. “He’s really short. The way he stinks he should be twelve feet tall.”
“He didn’t have any witty repartee, so I guess intelligence isn’t a requirement either, his conversation must have been boring and that’s why his tongue is cut out. They’re just grunts. I’m reduced to bashing midgets with minds to match,” Xander said mournfully. Then he snickered. “Mental midgets. Grunts.”
Wesley commented thoughtfully. “This one may be small physically and intellectually. However, a large group of them acting in concert could drag even the best fighter down, like ants, or wasps. And I do not smell any particular odor.”
“Let’s check out the Magic Box.” Xander turned and jogged away his words floated behind him echoing slightly off the alley walls.
Spike jogged after Xander leaving Angel with the unenviable task of heaving the bringer up by his robe and tossing it over his shoulder. Xander chuckled at the thought of Angel dealing with the noxious odor. Spike laughed with him when he picked up the reason for Xander’s amusement in the link.
They stopped just short of the sidewalk and peered around the corner scenting the moist night air. “This is right strange, enough ta raise m’ hackles good n’ proper, it is,” Spike murmured. “Why only one bringer ta watch the Magic Box? The barmy little buggers usually travel in packs n’ where ya see one, there’s sure to more about.”
Xander considered everything they knew about the bringers and the visions he’d had and answered just as quietly. “I don’t know. Even with the visions. When we do or don’t do things it spreads out like ripples and changes things. The pictures branch out for each action. And other people do or don’t do things and the pictures branch out again from there. It’s confusing because for every point there’s a different picture of the way things can happen. I get hundreds of pictures for some things and only one or two for others. Sometimes things change just a little bit and sometimes a big whopping lot. The pictures change from any point anyone does or doesn’t do stuff. In some pictures, it’s like what we do has squeezed the pictures down to one or two. Some things stay kinda the same no matter what, but the day, or time changes, or maybe the person.” Spike cocked his head and listened carefully as Xander struggled for the first time to describe the visions that had been plaguing him since his return from LA.
“It sounds very much like destiny or fate when particular events cannot be changed no matter our actions or lack of them,” Wesley mused softly. “Intellectuals of all the ages have debated about destiny, or fate if you will, since mankind evolved.”
Angel and Wesley had caught up with them just in time to hear Xander’s attempt at explaining the way his visions worked. Wesley looked at Xander curiously. “Is that the reason we are residing in that huge house at this time? You had a vision?”
Xander nodded distractedly his eyes still roving over the street. “Yeah, the first one, that’s how I knew the girl at Buffy’s was The First. I saw the bringers attacking the Magic Shop and Buffy’s house too. In a lot of pictures, they got Spike when they attacked Buffy’s house, and carried him off somewhere. They got different people in different pictures, but it was Spike in most of ‘em. Then Buffy got the snot kicked out of her by some nasty looking vamp in a lot of the pictures, and he killed her in some others. His true face was strange; it was uglier than the Master was, and that’s saying real ugly.” Xander shuddered with disgust and Spike chuckled. “And his teeth were different; he really needed to see a good dentist.”
He paused for a moment considering. “He was a hella lot stronger than the vamps Buffy has fought before. But she hasn’t met him. I threw a monkey wrench in the works. I added a new factor that wasn’t there before, and really screwed with all the pictures. I didn’t see our house in any of the pictures anywhere, in either vision, and that was the new thing that threw everything off. Fate can kiss my pale shiny vampire ass. Anyway, we’re all safe for now.” Then he laughed. “Sunnyhell is safe too…, well safer anyway. I got out of destroying over half the town to get Spike back.”
Xander flicked a glance at Angel who was staring at him intently around the rump of the bringer draped over his shoulder. Then he turned back to the street.
“Well, there’s nothing for it I suppose, we’ll have to take a gander inside the bloody place,” Spike muttered breaking the emotion of the moment, his voice carrying no further than the three listening. “Don’t sense anything stirring about, might as well get on with it.” He eased out of the alley and sprinted across the street, duster flaring out behind him, to the shadows under the awning of the Magic Shop. Xander glanced around, scenting the air once more, before he too sprinted across the street to fetch up against Spike under the awning. He managed a quick nasty kiss and grope that surprised Spike into a laugh, which he had to strangle before it got out, so it was more of a muffled snorfle, and groped back. Xander’s repressed giggles bubbled in the link. After they quit groping, they crouched low, crawled cautiously to the big front window, and peeped over the windowsill. The place was a shambles: shelves knocked down and books scattered everywhere, the glass display case was shattered and the frame splintered. The table was overturned and the chairs were broken in pieces. “Right then, there’s our answer,” Spike muttered.
“I’m just as happy we weren’t here,” Xander said quietly. “I don’t think they know about my visions, despite what she said about me seeing more than is good for me. Caleb and The First can’t find us anywhere. So they’re just stirring the ant hill to see what pops out.”
They crawled back to the shadows of the doorway and looked around again; Xander ran across the street first, back into the sheltering darkness of the alley, and turned to watch the street and Spike. A minute or so later Spike ran across to join him.
“Magic Shop is bloody trashed,” Spike muttered to Angel and Wesley. “They tore it up to see if they could get a reaction out of us, we’re thinkin’. N’ I’d bet m’ last quid the Slayer’s house is a bleedin’ jumble too.”
It was quiet for a moment while they turned the idea over in their heads.
Then the bringer moaned and shifted restlessly on Angel’s shoulder. He smiled spitefully, dumped the bringer on the ground with a thud. He let his true face emerge, grinned gleefully at the huddled thing, and drew back a fist to punch it viciously two or three times, with a satisfied growl; it subsided back into unconsciousness without a sound. Angel looked up to find them all staring; fascinated by his antics. “What? It deserves more than that just because I had to put up with the smell.” He shook himself and kicked the bundle of cloth with a vindictive foot.
Xander buried his face in Spike’s shoulder to stifle his laughter but suspicious snorts escaped anyway. Wesley raised a hand to his mouth and covered his laughter with quiet coughing, while he looked up at the night sky. Spike didn’t bother to hide his amusement. He grinned at Angel, fangs flashing whitely in the dark alley.
When Xander finally got over his laughing fit, he looked up to see Angel as close to a pout as he’d ever seen him. “We really don’t need him now. But we don’t want to leave him here to tell tales, and we don’t want to leave a corpse behind to raise suspicions.” He thought a second, and then grinned at Angel. “Let’s take him with us for now, and then we can dump him somewhere out of the way later.” Xander chuckled at the horrified look on Angel’s face and turned away before he had another laughing fit. Angel growled with frustration and Wesley was coughing quietly again. Xander could feel Spike’s unholy glee at Angel’s predicament and it wasn’t helping him control his own laughter. His lips quirked uncontrollably and it almost got way from him again. To distract himself he voiced an idea that percolated to the front of his brain while Angel was doing his comedy routine.
Behind them Wesley was quietly questioning Angel about the bringer’s scent.
“Spike,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, luv.”
“You reckon the Ecsalade’s been found yet?”
“Dunno, maybe not, we hid it well enough. Why?”
“I’m thinking we need it. Your DeSoto is recognizable about town. The Escalade is hard to see in the dark, and it’s never been seen at Buffy’s or the Magic Box.”
Spike thought about the idea for a second. “That’s a good idea. We can get around faster in it than we can legging it everywhere. We shoulda gone after it ta begin with. I forgot all about it too with all the shite that’s been happening. Drag out the map and see if it’s been moved about,” Spike suggested.
Angel and Wesley, their conversation about smells and the lack of them over, stepped closer to where they were huddled. Xander dug in his pocket for the map. He brought it out, unfolded it, and thought hard about the Escalade. According to Wesley, it should read his intent. The previous lines shimmered and changed showing a route to the woods where they’d abandoned it the night they’d hunted a human monster. So much had happened since then; Xander felt like it had been years since they left the Escalade in those woods but he realized with surprise, it had been less than a week ago.
Spike looked at the map. “Right then, it’s still where we left it, let’s go.”
Angel grunted and gingerly picked up the unconscious bringer again slinging it over his shoulder with more force that was really required for the task. The rest of them grinned again at the disgusted face he made. Wesley turned quickly away from him toward the street and Xander could see he was working hard to choke down another bout of laughter. So he explained what they were doing. “Last time we were out hunting we came across a child killer and we paid him a visit. We had a very good time.” Xander’s eyes sparked golden green as he remembered that night. “He probably didn’t think so though. He was wearing a necklace of his intestines when we left. I wonder how long he lasted after we vamoosed,” he mused curiously. “Anyway, we were very considerate. We took his Escalade into the forest on the other side of Sunnyhell, and left it there, just to make sure no one would know he was at home you understand.”
Wesley swallowed hard and there was no amusement left in him when he cautiously asked. “A child killer? You are speaking about a demon, aren’t you?”
Xander’s control slipped when he thought about the absolute evil of the human they’d slaughtered with such enjoyment and his true face emerged. He turned a primal predatory gaze on Wesley, and the watcher unconsciously backed up a step from the cold stare Xander gave him. “He was human, and pure evil,” he said flatly. “He stank of evil more than that bringer.” He pointed with his chin. “In fact the physical scent of that bringer is much better than the evil that monster clogged my brain and nose with.”
“The bastard had a shack in the woods where he took his child victims. I reckon there must have been the remains of fifteen or twenty kids in that stinking hole; it was hard to tell, some were bones and there were more than a few fresher corpses at different levels of rottenness. And one still living, a little girl about seven years old. When we found his computer and his little trophy room there were a lot more trophies and pictures of dead kids, than there were bodies in that shack. He’d been a busy boy for a loooong time.”
Wesley shrank back another step and protested horrified. “But he was a human.”
Xander laughed coldly. “You’re blinded by your own prejudices Wesley, and by the brainwashing of that propaganda machine named The Watcher’s Council. Evil doesn’t have a species no matter what the council said, or what ‘The Powers That Fuck Us’ tell you.”
“Too bloody right demons don’t have a monopoly on evil,” Spike burst out. “Just look at those Initiative blokes. The human system breaks down when it comes to evil, they don’t have any way to deal with such as that, human or demon. Leastways, not fast enough to keep the real innocents safe.” Spike shrugged. “That’s why we do what we do isn’t it? ‘Sides, we caught the feckin’ wanker, in the act, with the bleedin’ proof.”
“But, but, but, wait,” Wesley stammered. “You played the Judge and the jury. Humans have a right to a trial. They’re thinking living beings with, feelings and souls.”
Xander prowled closer to Wesley. “All the demons I have seen are sentient beings with feelings, Wesley, even the most evil. Even of it’s nothing simpler than hunger or hate. I think and feel and I have a soul, I’m also not a human. Are you saying I don’t count, Wesley? That it’s alright to kill me if you catch me up to no good, but not you, without a trial?”
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The More Things Change