Chocolatey Goodness

Part 17: Pillow Fighting

rated NC-17 (PG-13 for this section, but the whole chapter.. oh wait, you figured that out?)

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"Tara? Please?" Willow was doing the 'I'm a good girl, I am,' act, which would normally have her girlfriend fetching whatever it was for her before she even named it, but this time Tara saw through her evil plan. The blonde shook her head resolutely as they walked past the Main Ops table in the lobby.

"No more coffee. You made me promise not to let you." Not that Tara could actually stop her, or would, if she really wanted some. But it was a game they'd been playing all day-- keep Willow away from the caffeine, don't let her get kidnapped by the strange, gnome-like men who run the computer gaming room, don't let her spend next semester's tuition money on X-rated fan fiction and battery-operated Star Wars toys... Tara had only been moderately successful at the last one, as evidenced by the bags they were both holding, but she was determined to do her best on the coffee issue. "You said I should drag you away by force, if you even looked at anything that smelled that good, ever again."

"But that was yesterday. Today they have kahlua hazelnut cream..."

"And given that it's already tonight, you'll be bouncing off the walls until...tomorrow. Nope. Sorry. Can't do it." She looked sternly at her girlfriend. Well, tried to. "Wouldn't be prudent. Not at this juncture."

"You're mean," Willow pouted. Tara shook her head again, smiling, then stopped as she heard the words echoed-- in a lower voice. She looked around, wondering if she'd imagined it.

"What?" Willow asked. When the phrase was repeated again, she looked around as well.

It was coming from the open door to the sports bar. They walked over, recognizing the familiar tones if not the half-slurred pout. Tara, at least, had never heard Spike sound like this before. "You're mean. I don't like you. And, if you don't mind my commentin' on your sartorial standards or lack thereof, your mum dresses you funny."

"I don't care how mean you think I am, buddy. Twelve of anything is the limit, around here. Even that stuff." The bartender sounded adamant, and Spike was making growling noises. Which, if he wasn't already in vamp face...could be an interesting experience for the locals. Tara looked at Willow, who was giving her the same look back: "Ulp." They hurried in.

"Well, hey, if it ain't Goldilocks and Lil' Red Riding Hood. Come to rescue the Big Bad from a life of drunken debauchery?" Spike looked up at them human-faced from where he sat at the bar. There were a slew of empty brown bottles lined up in front of him, and one clutched firmly in his hand. "Hate to break it to you, but I'm not drunk. Can't get drunk on Woodpecker; s'not possible."

"Oh, God," Willow groaned under her breath. Tara shot her a questioning glance. "You remember that whole Drusilla thing, at lunch?" she whispered. Tara nodded. "Last time he got all mopey over her, he tried to stake himself. The time before that, he kidnapped me and Xander and wanted me to do a love spell to get her back. He got all drunk and weepy and slobbery. It was honestly hard to remember that--"

"He has excellent hearing?" Spike said. Willow tried the innocent-me look on him , but he didn't seem to care one way or the other. He really didn't look drunk, Tara thought. Not if drunk was her brother Donny after a bottle and a half of White Lightning, passed out in the back of his truck. Even Spike's pouting seemed to be intended more to give the bartender a hard time; there was a hard, sharp glint in his eye, as if he were laughing inwardly at a particularly ironic joke. He threw a bill down on the bar, but made no move to get up. "There-- I've paid up; not like I'm trying to get you to run a tab, or something. Give me another."

"I told you, sir. You've reached our limit; it doesn't have anything to do with your ability to pay." The bartender, dressed not at all funnily in a standard vest-and-bow-tie uniform, looked beseechingly at Willow and Tara. "He belong to you two? You might think about getting him back to your room, assuming you're staying here. If not, for God's sake don't let him drive."

Willow stepped forward, just as Spike was letting out another almost-not-human growl. "I guess he belongs to us. In the sense that we're responsible for turning him loose on the world, as opposed to killing him. Don't worry, he's not driving anywhere, not tonight. Come on, Spike."

Spike gave her a disbelieving look, but stood up. Probably more because the bartender had his arms crossed and was obviously not about to hand over another bottle, than because of anything Willow had said. He still addressed her, though, as he grabbed his coat from the stool next to him and slipped it on. "I told you, mummy dearest-- I'm not drunk. Took about a case of Jack to get me to the point where I'd actually stoop to...er... asking you for help, last year. And I managed to drive into town quite well on that, thank you."

Willow rolled her eyes and yanked on his arm. "That's really encouraging, Spike. And they wonder why I don't have a car, when there's people like you on the road."

He accompanied them out of the bar, shooting a final nasty gesture at the bartender-- at least, Tara assumed it wasn't meant to be a peace sign-- with his free hand. "You can let go my arm, Red. I'm fully capable, you know," he said as they approached the main elevator bank.

"Of making a scene and getting us all kicked out of here? I don't doubt it. Come on, let's go back to the room. You can have some blood, and try to get less not-drunk, and cry on our shoulders about Dru. We'll feed you chocolate chip pudding, if you're good."

Spike stopped in front of the elevators and shook his arm free of Willow's. Gently, Tara noticed, though whether he had any concern for Willow's feelings, or was just avoiding a brain-zap, she couldn't be sure. "I'm not good. And I'm not drunk, for the third and probably not final time. And I'm sure as hell not goin' back up there, not for chocolate pudding -- not even for a fucking Klondike bar. "

Tara pressed the 'Up' button, then turned back to look at him. "Why not?"

Spike shrugged and looked off into the distance, where they were taking down most of the large convention displays in preparation for closing ceremonies in the morning. "His Royal Highness mightn't be through with his afternoon nap, and god forbid he should wake up and see me. Might chew my head the rest of the way off."

Tara had wondered, of course, when Xander had taken off after snapping at Spike. Whether there was something more than a bad hair day happening. But she couldn't exactly have asked either of them, even if it were any of her business, since she wasn't supposed to know there was anything to ask about. They were grown-ups; they didn't need a nosy witch interfering in their private affairs. So she'd gone about the business that was hers -- following Willow around the convention and watching her face light up when something took her back to a time when all the bad things in the world were safely locked behind a glass tv screen, and there was always Xander standing in front of the sofa to protect her if life got too scary.

"Not that his teeth are any sharper than his wits, of course." Spike's last-minute comment startled Tara out of her Willow-thoughts. He sounded jokey enough, but the expression on his face when he looked back at them was anything but. Just for a second. Then Tara watched as it melted away, just the way his vamp face did when he turned human, to be replaced by something smug and familiar. And fake.

Willow didn't seem to notice the quicksilver change, but she'd heard the words, at least. "All right, I've had just about enough of this. I don't know what's with either of you two, but you're going to talk like civilized grown-ups if I have to levitate you both upside down off the balcony." When one of the elevators chimed, she grabbed Spike's arm again, and practically dragged him through the open door. Tara followed, trying not to giggle at the sight of her hundred pound girlfriend manhandling a supernaturally strong male vampire into the elevator.

"We talked already, thanks," Spike snapped. The acid in his tone made Tara flinch, and dissolved any thought of laughing at him. "Your mate made it pretty clear that he doesn't want to see hide nor hair of my hide nor hair. Which is just fine with me. I'd rather call Angel and grovel for a ride, than set foot back in Harris' room, or Harris' car, or Harris' grotty little basement. I get my car back, in fact, and I'm out of here. I've no doubt the rejoicing will last long into the night, when the Slayer finds out I'm not coming back to Sunnydale."

"Excuse me? You're not coming back with us?"

Tara could see the unspoken 'And why am I actually upset about that?' flit across Willow's face and disappear without a trace. Come on, Willow, you've gotta figure this out soon...

"What part of it was too difficult for your college-educated brains to process?" The bitterness was almost tangible, and Tara took an involuntary step back as she watched the vampire clench his jaw and snort in response to Willow's question. His accent was different, too -- not as rough around the edges; it made 'college-educated' sound less like a jealous snipe, and more like a part of that sharp-edged inside joke to which only he knew the punchline.

"Just because Xander threatened to stick a stake in you?" Willow asked him. "I admit the placement suggestion was kind of...um...unusual, but he says stuff like that to you all the time. You're bailing over Xander having a bad day? I thought you guys were... friends, kind of."

Spike laughed, a single painful bark. Tara found that it actually hurt something in her stomach to hear it, and to watch his mouth twist up. "Friends? You've got to be kidding. What does it take to get through to you people that I'm evil? Bad? A person of some taste and refinement? I don't have friends, and if I did, they sure as hell wouldn't include an unemployed mouth-breather who lives in his parents' basement, collects comic books, thinks he's doing the world a favor by helping a bitchy little blonde twit save it every so often, and has the gall to consider me more pathetic than him." He snorted again, then looked down at the ground to avoid Willow's startled stare, and Tara's disturbed one.

This wasn't the cocky braggart they'd gone bowling with, or the calm, concerned guy she'd heard softly talking Xander back to sleep last night. It was a Spike whom Tara didn't recognize, distant and hurting and awkward with his lover's supposedly clueless friends. And there was nothing Tara could say to comfort him, if she could even figure out what was wrong, without giving their secret away to Willow.

What was bothering her so much about this? Why did she care if whatever relationship the demon had with the human crumbled under its own weight? What business was it of hers? A nasty little voice was laughing at her, somewhere down in her soul. It sounded just a little like Donny, the summer before she'd run to California, when she'd tried to tell him why she couldn't stay, without actually saying outright that she was running away.

Things like that just ain't meant to work out. There's that kind of people, and our kind of people, and you know damn well which kind you are. But you don't believe that. You never believed that. So why would you care about some demon, Tara-girl? None of your concern. Nothing to do with you. Just keep believing that, and maybe it'll be true. Just keep yourself to yourself, and no one will ever know what you are.

To drown out the words, some of them imagined, some of them with the weight of memory behind them, she said to Spike, "You went after him, didn't you. And you got in an argument."

"Oh, ten out of ten for the quiet one." He shrugged, just one shoulder. It somehow made his body look as twisted up as his voice sounded. "You lot spend so much time forgetting I'm not your friend, I just about got sucked into the glorious fantasy m'self. S'pose I ought to thank 'im for the reminder." The bell dinged, and the doors opened. "But I don't think I will, somehow. Your stop, ladies."

"Oh no, you don't." Willow, who hadn't let go of Spike's arm since she'd yanked him into the elevator, pulled on it again. This time he stood still and looked at her with a crooked little smile. Willow frowned and stuck her foot in the door. They stood there that way, Tara trapped in the corner with two stubborn faces between her and the exit, until...

BUZZZZZZZZ...

The elevator's alarm continued to scream at them as Willow stood with her shoe against the doorguard, smiling, and Spike clapped one hand to his ear, grimacing. With a muttered obscenity, he finally stumbled forward into the hallway. Willow followed, triumphant, and Tara shook her head. Spike should have known by now-- no one out-stubborned Willow Rosenberg. At least no one besides Miss Kitty, who didn't really count, since she had that unfair supernatural cuteness power going for her.

"Come on," Willow was saying as she led him down the hall towards their room. "You two are going to actually talk. None of this crap about 'Oh, we're men, we don't do that kind of thing, grunt, grunt, let's either watch football and bond by leering at the cheerleaders, or never speak to each other again'. Xander doesn't have enough guy friends as it is, and I'm not gonna watch him lose one-- even an evil, annoying one-- over something this stupid. He's got stuff on his mind, you know. Not everything is about you..."

Tara resisted the impulse to bang her own head against the wall as Willow continued. No, they're exchanging death threats over whether Commander Riker was cuter pre-beard, or post. Come on, hon! Figure this out so I can talk to you about it without feeling guilty.

"Fine, leave off, witch. I'll go in." Spike was still trying to shake himself free of Willow's mom-grip. "Just to get my gear, then I'm out of here. Sun's down, not that it ever came out, that I could tell..." Willow wasn't letting go, so Tara hung back, fishing her card key out of her purse. "In fact, you could just go in and fetch it for me..." Spike wheedled.

Tara was careful to look at the floor while she rolled her eyes. Then she nudged Willow and Spike out of the way. As she began to swipe her key in the lock, something pushed at her mind. At her senses. Gently wiggled her memory like a loose tooth. Tara backed away from the door and stared at it.

Spike stopped his attempts to squirm out of Willow's grasp, and stared at her. "What? Space-age code-key on the fritz? Happy to break the door down for you, considering Angel would have to pay for it."

Tara shook her head, still looking at the door. Something was wrong. More wrong, that is, than Spike's and Xander's personal problems. She just couldn't pin down what it was. Except it was something in that room. Weird. Familiar, and yet not. Itching at her to do something she didn't want to do, not blind, not like this, but... She also didn't want to open that door-- and she wanted to know why.

Carefully, Tara put her hand on the wood and felt-- not with her fingers, but with her mind.

'Easy, easy...' Tara could hear her mother's memory-voice telling her, as she held a closed wooden box in her hands. Something had moved inside it, and she'd almost dropped it. 'Relax. Just close your eyes and feel-- you know what's in there. You've touched it, you've smelled it, you've seen it in the sunlight. Now just reach past the wood, and tell me what it is.' So she had reached with her eyes closed and her small ten-year-old fingers on the old cigar box, and felt scale and smelled dust and heard the hiss, and seen the electric-green smudge that was the garter snake's aura. Her mother had listened to her excited laughter, then proudly opened the box, to let the little snake slide into Tara's hands.

Tara reached again, in the white hallway of a hotel ten years later, and what was inside the room bit at her like a coiled rattler. She yanked her hand away. "Something's in there," she whispered, before her tongue seemed to stop working altogether.

"Well, that was ominous," Spike sneered. "Cue cheesy incidental music..." Willow smacked him on the arm.

"What do you mean, honey?" Willow looked at Tara, her motherly irritation with Spike immediately replaced by a questioning expression. "Something's in there, like, big mucous-shooting demon that tried to kill Angel, something? Or something, like, Xander changing clothes, don't walk in on him, something? And don't you say a word, Spike."

The vampire said nothing, though Tara wasn't sure why he would -- not that she could get her brain to work right enough to think her own thoughts, much less try to understand Willow's. Tara shook her head, turning back to face them while still trying to frame a sentence properly again. The jolt she had experienced was almost electrical, and it felt like it had scrambled her brains. Yes, Xander was in there; she'd felt his now-familiar aura in the room as well, but it was dampened. Muffled.

Spike was already frowning, and now his face rippled into its bumpy, toothy demon-form. He sniffed the air carefully, then shook his own head, his vampire-face not showing the misplaced relief that Tara heard in his voice. "Nothing in there but the kid. Maybe he's not the only one who needs a nap, eh, witch?"

Finally, Tara was able to speak. "Your friend from last night," she said, looking into bright yellow eyes. "The ghost. She's in there with Xander."

Willow looked back at Tara. "Are you sure?"

She nodded. Behind the biting zap that had knocked her back into her own head, there had been the same creepy feeling that she'd felt in the hallway last night. Impossible to describe properly: curiosity and not-quite-human-amusement, and something else. Something that had made her just grab Willow's hand and chant, "I am not an Extra-Value Meal," over and over in her head.

What she'd felt just now had the same signature, came from the same creature, but that was the only similarity. The amusement was gone, replaced with irritation at her interference, slapping at her as if she were some kind of annoying bug. The 'something else' was no longer hidden behind a mask of politeness-- it was hunger. Pure, open, greedy hunger. And it wasn't directed at Tara.

Spike gave her a disgusted look. "If Rei's in there, why didn't you just say so? She probably dropped by to gas on about old times. Worry us over nothing, why don't you. Not that I was worried."

Tara grabbed his arm. "You d...don't unders...s...stand..." She bit her lip. Why did the damned stutter have to come out now, of all times? "Xander... She's doing something to him." There. She'd got it out. If that was all she could say, so be it -- Spike would do something now. He had to. He wouldn't let some stupid fight -- And the fact that, as Spike's pointed out himself on more than one occasion, he's a selfish, evil demon? -- stop him from going to help the one person in the world who was making him almost human. Would he?

Spike stared at her for a moment, and what passed between their eyes was a mystery, even to Tara. All she knew was that after that moment, Spike blinked, then shook her off, grabbing her door key from her hand. He jammed it into the slot, and yanked it out without waiting for the beep, which came a second later.

Spike pushed the door open quickly. The room was in partial darkness, the spill of light from the hallway only reaching a few feet into the little alcove inside the doorway-- and it was cold. The curtains and glass door were open at the other end of the room, letting in very little city light, but plenty of chilling rain. Spike strode past the mirrored closet and into the room. "Reikoku?"

Willow said, "Xander?" at the same time. There was no response from anyone, though Tara heard a muted crunching sound. She flipped the light on and walked in, then stood blinking at the scene before her, trying to take it in.

Spike stood in the middle of the room, his booted foot crushing Xander's black fedora, which had been lying on the carpet. Xander lay curled up under the covers of one double bed. Around him-- or maybe, over him, was a pulsing gray cloud of smoke. Thick enough to move and almost shine in the overhead light, but still translucent enough that Tara could make out Xander's face, pale on the pillow, hair drenched in sweat.

"Rei, get off him," Spike said, low and dangerously reasonable. "You want a snack, there's a nice little pub on the ground floor, serves spicy barbecue wings and beernuts. Can't say much for the barkeep, but the menu's not bad. Better than undercooked human, anyway, especially that one. What say you and me, we head down there and..." His stream of babble, a near match for Willow on a good day, ran on as he neared the bed, Willow and Tara behind him.

"Xan," he said quietly when he got there. There was no movement from Xander. Then, "Shit." Spike bent down, reaching out to touch the cloud, or maybe Xander's shoulder. "Fuck. Fuck, stupid...this is all my fault. Xan?"

Things happened far too quickly to make any sense. Spike's hand made contact with the Gaki. Tara heard a sizzling sound, then a loud crack.

There was a flash of light -- white fire in the air -- and the vampire flew backwards onto the opposite bed. The scent of ozone filled Tara's lungs for a second, then disappeared.

Willow ran towards Xander, and Tara grabbed her around the waist before she got too near the bed. "No, don't. "

"Let go of me, Tara. That thing is hurting Xander." Willow struggled in her arms. The gray blanket of mist shimmered, then was still, as was Xander. On the other bed, Spike lay just as motionless.

"I don't know what she's doing, exactly. But if you try to touch her, she might hurt you -- we can at least learn from Spike's mistakes."

Willow stopped fighting, and was stiff against Tara's body. She stared at the fog-shrouded form on the bed for what seemed like hours, before Tara felt safe enough to relax her tight hold, finally sure that the other woman wouldn't blindly bolt towards her best friend no matter the danger. "Spike's mistakes." Willow finally broke her gaze away from Xander to glare briefly at the vampire. "Like the one where he says 'Oh, she's harmless, she can't do anything bad to you unless you're already sick?"

Tara sighed. "Willow, I don't think he would have said that if he hadn't thought it was true."

"Right, because Spike never lies, especially when he's trying to make himself look better by making Xander feel like an idiot. Big undead jerk." Willow pulled free. Walked across and stood over Spike. She reached down and felt his forehead, then shook her head. "Oh, ignore me. I know it's not Spike's fault, not really. I'm just ... What on earth am I feeling for here-- a pulse? A fever? If he were dead-dead, he'd be dust in the wind." She shook him for a moment, with no discernible result. "Why on earth did he do that? I mean, I know why I would have, but why Spike?"

Tara bit her lip, unsure whether to answer that or not. Our kind of people, she heard her brother say again. Heard her father say it, first, which was where Donny got it from. But their mother had said something else, the one time she'd caught her son talking like that. Something that he'd seemed to listen to, at the time, though he'd forgotten it soon enough, after she died.

Then Willow turned around to look at Xander, without waiting for Tara to answer, if she'd ever really expected one. Her eyes were as gray and cloudy as the fog for a moment; then they cleared. Something sparked in them. "Wind...maybe..." Willow's brow furrowed in concentration. She cleared her throat. "Maestro, Greco, Africus, Syroco..." she whispered. Tara felt power building between Willow's outstretched hands, like the air in a lightning storm, before the thunder cracks. "Winds of the cross corners, blow..."

Nothing, then a small sound of ruffling paper. A breeze tugged at Tara's skirt, playing lightly with the fabric. Then something strong pushed past her, whipping her hair into her face and blowing the curtains open. A stack of brightly colored flyers lived up to their name, as they escaped out the open sliding door and into the rain, disappearing off the balcony. Tara watched the strange mist that covered Xander, and lent Willow what power she could, just by reaching over and taking her hand. It seemed for a second that the fog got lighter, that she could see Xander's sleeping frown more clearly. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the air died down and the room was still.

"Well, that was a rousing success." Willow laughed nervously, then stopped, as if she was afraid she wouldn't be able to if she didn't cut herself off now. Tara knew how she felt.

"Spike said she couldn't be directly hurt by magic," she reminded Willow, who was staring dumbly at the writhing gray mass that surrounded Xander. It was back to its original thickness, as if nothing had happened at all, as if it was laughing at their display of arcane ability. Tara put her arms around Willow once again, holding tightly to the slim body as Willow leaned her head back on Tara's shoulder.

"Spike said she couldn't hurt anybody else, too. And look at him." The vampire was utterly still, pale skin almost shining against the navy-blue comforter. "Spike, wake up!" Nothing. Xander tossed slightly in the other bed, looking just as unnaturally white as his lover, behind the shifting gray covering. Tara blinked, as she saw Spike move, finally-- to make exactly the same motion. Willow noticed it too, and squeezed her arm. "Tara...can I be scared? Just for a minute?"

How many times had Willow been in this situation, a friend in trouble and no idea what was happening, just that she had to do something? How often had there been no one there whom Willow would dare to ask that question of, since she always had to be the smart one? The one who always had a plan, even when her mouth babbled nonsense while her mind came to its own conclusions? Tara stroked Willow's arm with one hand and nodded against her skull, the fine red hair brushing her nose.

"Uh-huh. You can be scared. It's okay." They stood there for a while just holding each other, before Willow shook herself, and picked up the phone.

A few minutes later, they were sitting on the bed next to Spike. Waiting. "He's not like us," Willow said, as she looked at the motionless vampire. "He's not supposed to do stupid things like that. So why did he?"

Tara didn't answer -- she just took Willow's hand in her own, and repeated her mother's words, in her head. 'Listen to me, child. Your daddy's right, there's two kinds of people. But you can't tell by looking at them -- it doesn't matter if they're white or black or live on the wrong side of town or got horns and a tail. None of that's worth a tinker's damn. The only kinds of people who make any difference in this world are the people who are too afraid to love each other, and the other kind. Our kind of people.'

Tara breathed, and Willow breathed, and Xander breathed, and Spike didn't. And they waited.