< > indicates thoughts.

Teaser includes some solo petting. Not very hot. But it does say bad words for male anatomy. Fyi.

*****

Teaser - Jetsam

Ocean lapped on the limbs of the vampire. Suspended in the darkness of water and sky, the stars overhead interrupted by dark clouds and occasional rain, the vampire waited. The sea churned deep below him but he could not feel it; the surface rolled slow and tired pretended there was no angry swell that rose to meet flesh.

The stillness of the ocean's surface paled next to the stillness of the vampire. He felt small fish brush against the back of his body, against his arms and legs and neck. He heard the distant cry of the large sea mammals and imagined the hungry growl of the darker, hungrier predators of the deep. Amidst all of this, the vampire waited.

In daylight the vampire expelled all air from his lungs, sank down below the photosphere, where the light was only a memory and the darkness surrounded him. In gameface, somewhere between the sea-bed and the surface, he could see the predators swim past him. Some of them bared their teeth but never struck. The growl of the shark may have been imagined, but the growl of the vampire was real and traveled miles on the deep dark currents of the ocean.

When he rose again, in dark of night, he expected, always expected that the currents he drifted in beneath the surface would have moved him closer to anywhere, but he always rose to float on the surface beneath the same sky, the stars. He always surfaced with Casseopaeia at his nose and Orion's belt at his feet.

He knew he wasn't terribly far from the world; he heard engines sometimes or saw smoke stacks creep over the horizon and back down again. But somehow he has in hell and could move nowhere, immune to current, immune to predators, somehow immune to everything except hunger, which scorched his belly and his veins and made him slow and desperate.

No stitch of clothing hung on him. His body, unlike his mind, floated exposed to everything. In the night, he'd think of the past, even the recent past, and his cock would harden, tighten, expel under his touch. He tried to mark himself somehow, leave a trace scent for anyone who might look for him. But every day he drifted down; and every night he rose and smelled of nothing except the jetsam deep in the dark of the ocean.

His hair grew long and wild, sandy colored with white-blond tips. How many days had he spent on the ocean? Suspended by more than water; but also by love and fate. Everyday he floated, up, down, he knew that the world had not ended. Knew that disaster had been averted. But he did not know how. He did not know how he'd come to be where he was. How long he'd been there. The vampire did not know the answer to the one thought that hung in his head longer than the darkness and the wetness and the loneliness.

The vampire did not know the one thing that truly mattered, could not answer that one, overriding, desperate question:

< Where is Xander? >

*****
Part 1: Spike Ocean, Me Desert

"Do you want the theoretical beginning or the actual beginning? Do you want the beginning of this story or the beginning of the story? These are distinctions you'll have to make. Also, chocolate. Not that I have the appetite for chocolate with Spike somewhere out in the middle of the open sea, hidden by a spell which is so old and powerful there is no record of it in any of your books. And yet I say chocolate. Since there's not a handy supply of criminal blood lying around."

"You eat actual people?" Dawn said.

"I eat people. You do too. You do eat people too," Willow said. "Uhm, not really the same as doodling, is it?"

"Also, like, fourteen years ago Will, but snaps for trying," Buffy said. "Now, let's be clear here. Where is Spike?"

Xander frowned. His clothes hung off his body in tatters and he sat slumped on the sofa.

"I say nothing more without chocolate."

"Buff, it's serious. He means it. Look at that face. He stole that face from me."

"This would be a resolve thing, wouldn't it?" Buffy said. "Fine, chocolate. But I'm calling Giles too."

"Chocolate. With brandy. Brandychocolicious."

"Hurry Buffy, he's got it bad." Willow tried not to giggle.

* * *

"There was a struggle. And as a result of the struggle. The apocalypse was averted. But not before the dark goddess decided to banish Spike to an oceanic point of indeterminant indefiniteness."

"Hey, you averted the apocalypse." Willow said.

Xander jostled the mug of brandy-spiced hot chocolate back and forth between his hands, game face held beneath the surface by the palpable love in the room.

Dawn said, "Well, did he avert the apocalypse or an apocalypse? It's really hard to tell these days what with every two bit floozy demon in the world, or in other worlds, trying to all, y'know, return chaos to earth. Or whatever."

"An apocalypse. Spike is stuck in the ocean, in a way that very closely resembles forever, for the sake of averting not the apocalypse, but an apocalypse. Just your ordinary, run of the mill, goddess gone amok, apocalypse." Xander said.

"Was she like way worse than Glory?" Dawn said.

"Not so much."

"A teeny bit worse than Glory?"

"No."

"Uhm, prettier than Glory? Because you know, prettier would be pretty challenging," Dawn stammered.

"Dawnie, I know you're like, on the beat and all, but. Oh, hey, is your cell ringing? Upstairs?" Buffy said.

"No, my phone is right." She looked at the phone clipped to her belt. "Oh, yes, my phone is right upstairs, listen to it ring. See ya Xan." She kissed him on the cheek and hurtled up the Summers' house stairs.

"Xander, we're going to find Spike," Buffy said. "Right Giles?"

"Certainly, we'll do everything we can. Do you remember what she said when she cast Spike into the ocean?"

"Yeah, I don't think I could forget."

"Well, that's a wonderful starting place. Why don't you tell Willow everything you remember, and I'll try to reference that with whatever we know about this dark goddess. What was her name?"

"Uhm."

"You don't remember the dark goddess' name?" Willow said.

"Well, the thing about that is that it was kinda. Well, an actual ancient dark goddess, not your run of the mill, 'who-ever-heard-of-glorificus,' kind of dark goddess."

"So? She's dead right?" Buffy said.

"She's sorta. kinda. I don't know."

"So which actual dark goddess was she?"

"Medusa?" Xander said.

"Oh, well clearly you're confused. Medusa wasn't a dark goddess at all she was a Gorgon. And Greek. And sort of Libyan, but not South American at all." Giles said.

"All I know is snakes for hair and concrete men all around her lair who had clearly tried to defeat her and lost." Xander said, shrugged, and sipped alcoholic chocolate that was not blood and really, deeply should have been.

"And you didn't behead the snakeheaded woman?"

"Uhm, I don't know, exactly. I know we fucked up her ceremony. Then, uhm, it was kinda, Spike ocean, me desert. Fortunately the California desert not far from civilization. I don't think she of the needing Pantene really paid much attention in sixth-grade social studies. If she wanted me to die she really should have sent me someplace much more middle-of-nowhere-y."

Willow spoke up again.

"Not to like, be the 'oh, poop on your apocalypse' wicca, but I'm curious in a totally not serious, but please, let me lighten the mood somehow, sense of the word. What happened to your car?"

*****
Part 2: Blood of Antiquity

The car sat hillside somewhere. Near the bottom of the hill. Spike and Xander had climbed high into the Andes without much fear of the night weather in their search for an ancient Incan city.

Boldness. Spike and Xander together, both vampires, both inhumanly strong, consisted of love for each other, and stupid, immortal boldness.

When they found Medusa, struggling to cut off some of the living snakes from her head, they didn't believe what they had found.

"Looks like Medusa, love. Isn't she on the wrong bloody continent?"

"Maybe she migrated."

"Gorgons don't migrate. They turn men into stone."

"What about vampires?"

"I don't think so, love. Think we're miraculously immune." Spike smirked.

"Oh, okay."

"And I think the bird needs a new haircut."

And they leapt and she didn't see them coming and she screamed and they screamed and the ceremony she'd been ceremony-ing got fucked up somehow, but she cursed and heaved and Spike felt himself torn away from Xander and Xander felt himself torn away from Spike and they both seemed to plummet somehow through the cosmic soup toward points unknown.

Histories and eons and space and life and death whistled by their ears but for only a second and finally they came to rest. Xander away from Spike, surrounded by hard dark night and a familiar sky with cars rumbling in the distance, confused. Spike away from Xander, surrounded by water, confused.

* * *

"And now I'm back on a boat."

"Relax, Xan, you're with me now, what can go wrong?" Buffy said.

"Well, we left behind everyone we usually have for back-up, we left behind all reference material, and. Hey, you should know better than to say, 'what can go wrong.' Now something totally will. And why does all of this dialogue seem familiar to me?"

"Two words. High. School."

Xander smacked his forehead. "Of course, why didn't I think of that."

"Probably because you were. looking over your shoulder right about now."

"I was?" Xander turned his head as a giant tentacled thingie jumped at him from behind a bulkhead. Xander leapt out of the way. "Oh I was," he said, slammed onto the deck as Buffy swung at the creature.

"Die beastie, die."

"You're getting cleverer Buffy. Every minute there's a new shiny example of clevererness."

Buffy laughed, kicked the monster between the tentacles, "Oh, go stake yourself Xan. But not really."

The thing huddled in on itself and Xander climbed over to help restrain it.

"What is this thing?"

"Sea-slug?"

"Sea-anenome?"

"Sea-urchin? I don't really know where I was going with that. It's kind of a Ghandi thing."

"A Ghandi thing?"

"Yeah, you know. Uhm, waste-not, want-not." Buffy said.

"That's a 'my grandpa' thing, I think Buff. Not so much a Ghandi thing."

"So you're saying my Ghandi impersonation is a little rough?"

"Maybe just around the edges."

"I love you, Xander."

"We've been over this, Buffy. I'm not going to bite you."

They laughed for a moment. The ocean air swirled around them.

The melodrama seemed suddenly endless and they turned and looked, both in the same spot, just a few feet away from them on the deck of the ship, cocked their heads, shrugged, and looked away.

"Did you feel like we were being watched?"

"Just for a second."

"A really short second?"

"Yeah."

"Xander, don't tell anyone about this."

"Only if you don't."

"Brownies honor."

"Good."

They clasped hands and disappeared below the deck, left the monster chained to a vent shaft to be discovered in the morning, neutered and probably dead.

Xander led Buffy to her tiny cabin. She opened the door, stepped into the room and then turned, leaned on the doorframe.

"Where do you think he is?" Buffy said.

"Probably disturbingly close to civilization, if Medusa was as stupid with her placement of him as she was with me. The thing is though, I don't know exactly how her spell worked. And Will said it probably worked differently on both of us anyway or we would have ended up in the same place. I was in a totally obvious place, but I don't think anyone would have ever found me, and there was no force holding me there. Spike's gotta be stuck wherever he is, or he'd have come looking for me by now."

"I think you're right. Well, we get to Peru in a couple of days. Stay below deck during day-time, okay? I don't want you getting sunburn before I can reunite you with Spikey dearest."

"I'll sleep," Xander said, "if you'll lay off the wire hangers."

"Promise. Stake my heart and hope to. Or, not so funny actually. Good night, Xander."

"Good night."

* * *

< Night good. >

Ocean air traced its way over every part of Spike as he slowly rolled, over and over in the dark.

< If the sun comes up, will I still burn? I'm in water, right? Not holy water, just big salty water. Would that save me? Well, I'm not going to bloody find out. You're thinking about it, you stupid prat. Oi, am not. Yes you are. No, I'm bloody not. Yes, you bloody are. No, I'm not. Are too. Am not. Are too. Not. Too. Not. Too. Not. Stop bleedin' arguing with yourself will you. Shut up. Oi, I'm just trying to get some peace and quiet; you're a couple of right bastards you are. >

Spike sighed. A deep sigh of incoming insanity.

He felt something brush against his leg. He knew, from the pain that it was something larger and hungrier than him. Something with rough skin and he knew his blood was seeping to the surface and out and he imagined the hungry growl he'd been dreaming of for weeks.

Spike himself growled and the night water shifted, first away quickly and then he felt the weight barrel toward him. For the first time, Spike moved for more than sinking or rising. Moved for more than floating and rolling. Spike dove down, looked up in the dark and saw the huge Hunger that swam around him. Thirty feet from snout to tip of tail.

< Fuck bloody Steven Spielberg, for Chrissake's that's a big bloody fish. >

He turned again, his senses, deprived though they were underwater, focused on the mammoth shark that again charged for him.

A moment. A perfect strange photograph. A shark, large and long, teeth bared, jaw extended for the kill. A vampire, weak and hungry, slow in the water by comparison. Jaw clamped, bite dodged, vampire locked onto dorsal fin with all his strength.

The shark swam forward faster, down as far as it itself could go and then back up. Spike's face was a gleeful menace of vampiric rage and lunacy. < You want to see hunger, do you ugly? I'll show you sodding hunger. >

And Spike bared his fangs, gnawed through the shark's tough skin to a softer layer, and then, when the blood flowed hot and strong, the blood of antiquity, old, wise, ageless blood, Spike drank until the shark slowed it's relentless velocity. He drank until he was sure he heard the beast moan in total agony, and then when he could drink no more, and the shark began to sink from lack of strength to swim, he reached into it's mouth, pulled out two large, cerated teeth, and gouged out the shark's eyes.

He kicked off the shark's back, pushed the carcass deeper toward the ocean floor than it could have ever gone alive, and swam for the surface a trophy in each hand, and more strength than he had known for a hundred years.

*****
Part 3: The White Reminder ----

The bed was cold.

The boat rocked slightly and Buffy imagined the ocean holding the boat the way no one held her anymore.

The door knocked itself. < No, that's not right. > Someone knocked on the door. Buffy got up, slipped on a long jacket to cover herself because robes were in short supply on freighters. She opened the door.

Xander stood in the door with a flask and a pack of cigarettes.

"Wanna pretend?"

"Pretend what?"

Xander decided not to falter.

"That we found him. That we could possibly find him. That he's here?"

Buffy looked away, stepped away from the door. Xander didn't need the invitation to come in, but he waited for it. She picked at her nails and sighed.

"I don't ever get to be a normal girl."

"Second verse, same as the first," Xander said.

Buffy turned back, laughed inwardly, stuck out her bottom lip in a mock pout. She batted her eyes.

"Poor me."

"Poor me," Xander echoed.

"So, how do we play?"

Xander stepped into the cramped room. More a large closet than an actual cabin; those were reserved for the actual crew members on this voyage. Xander's "room" was actually an empty meat locker, convenient for keeping out the daylight.

He put the flask and cigarettes down on the small table in the corner, opened the door to the adjoining room, went in, shuffled around. Wood knocked on wood. He emerged short moments later with two folding chairs. He arranged them around the table. Sat down in one, pulled a cigarette out of the pack. He lifted the white reminder to his lips and pulled a match from the pocket of his jacket. Struck the match. Released the hated first breath smoke; then inhaled deeply. He unscrewed the cap of the flask and lifted it to his lips, slammed back an unnatural amount of the whiskey.

Buffy stared.

He put the flask back on the table, uncapped. Turned to where Buffy stood, agape.

"Ask again," he said.

She swallowed. He ran his fingers through his hair, pushed it back, and held it in place, cigarette dangling from his lips. His eyes locked on Buffy. He vamped out. All ridges and yellow eyes and dangerous barely restrained power.

"How do we play?" Buffy said. Her eyes were moist.

"We are playing, luv."

* * *

Spike didn't look up.

Just followed his senses toward civilization. The smell of smog and faint traces of oil on the water led the way. He knew he was going north because of all the sea beasts busy heading he opposite direction for winter. He didn't know which ocean he was in.

He would have laid odds on the Pacific. Off the coast of South America, most likely, if his guessing matched up. Either that or he was someplace completely random, if he was being honest with himself.

But if he was looking, and Xander was looking they'd find each other. That was their way.

So Spike didn't look up. He swam forward, fueled by shark blood and driven forward by love.

* * *

Buffy hovered by the door to the room. She looked away from Xander, pushed the door shut and sighed to herself. The sight of Xander, vamped out no less, doing his best impersonation of Spike threw her.

"I'm thrown, Xander."

He was at her side. One strong hand on either side of her hips pulled her back to his front.

"I'm drunk, Buffy."

"And here I thought that you only came onto me when you were sober."

He lifted one hand from her hip, she stood still, smooth and pliant as he brushed the hair from her neck and lowered his head to kiss her. She turned her head, sighed again. < I'm not here, this isn't happening. >

Then she turned fast, face to face with hungry lips, ridged brows and sharp teeth.

"You're not him, Xander"

"And you think you are, bint?" He snarled.

< So this is where we are. > "You don't think we're going to find him, do you?"

"Not here, no. Not tonight. You need him. I need him. Let's need something together, right?"

He broke away from her. She held her pose, one arm raised on an invisible chest, one arm low on an invisible hip. He sat back down, lifted the cigarette back to his lips and breathed it in. Her arms hung in the air a moment then fell.

Xander leaned in the chair, felt the rock of the water under them. "Spike once said that all we were was boats on the sea."

"Isn't that like, a Chicago song?"

He chucked. He was hungry and wondered if there were any bad men on the boat he could finish off. He looked over his shoulder at Buffy, raised the flask back to his lips.

"This is getting tedious, Xan."

"Let's un-tedious it."

And he was in front of her again, covering her small mouth with his, their hunger equal.

* * *

< Well, this is something. > The side of something. A boat. Not a large freighter. Signs of life.

Spike looked up at the lights illuminating the tiny portholes on the sides of the ship. He wondered what time it was. If anyone was patrolling the deck. He clung to the side, swum around to the front, climbed up the chain of the anchor. He pulled himself up on the deck.

He smiled to himself. < This is definitely something. >

Spike walked naked over the deck of the ship. The thought of real, live human blood pumping through him, fueled an erection.

Slime caught Spike's sight. The slime ran away from what looked like yep, tentacles tentacles attached to a rather sizeable sea-monster demon thing of some kind chained to a vent shaft. The smell was putrid, but somewhere near that smell was another smell, a much more familiar one. A pair of familiar smells.

Spike chuckled lightly, and followed the scent trail around a corner, to a door that led to stairs that led below the deck.

He went down the stairs.

* * *

Cool flesh.

Warm flesh.

Tongues, bodies, fuck.

Low light. Romantic like.

Pheramones. Temperatures. Bodies, fuck.

Girl hand pulled boy back down into her, onto her. Harder.

Boy body slammed down slow. Slow slam down into girl body, moaned. Harder.

Legs wrapped around an ass squeezed tight, the human life would be gone. Ass glistening, girl sweat rubbed off. Warm flesh. Hot flesh. Kisses, cunts, cocks, fuck.

< Fuck. >

Spike stood in the door, they never noticed it open. He stood naked without any scent of his own. His smell washed away by days and nights and weeks in ocean. They never noticed the door open.

He held himself in his hand. Hard.

They never noticed the door open.

< Bloody. Fuck. >

He squeezed himself, silent. Their bodies slammed into each other harder. Tiny scream. Passion. Desperation. Pheramones, temperatures, bodies. They fucked.

They never noticed the door open.

They both screamed out. No names, just sounds. Guttural sounds.

They never noticed the door close.

*****
Part 4: Unsinkable Heap

Spike stood naked on the bridge of the ship. The bodies of the captain and the navigator barely alive slumped on top of each other in the corner. < They�ll soddin� live. > He examined the maps and compass until he made some sense of where they were, near the Baja peninsula, only miles from shore, and took the boat toward land.

He was full. He was angry and he knew they were down there, somewhere deep in the bowls of the ship, sleeping blissful, post-coital sleep.

He steered the wheel in his hand with ease. He was aware of all that he had not been aware of in his time in the sea. The changeability of life on land now seemed like the worst nightmare he could imagine. All he could think of was the strength he�d gotten from his deep sea meal and how he wished he could feel that way forever, even as that strength lessened with each hour since he fed off the beast.

< I wish me skin was rough and sharp. Rub against me and bleed. Nah, too much trouble. Teeth�s good enough I suppose. Need to cut my hair though, and shave. I look a bit like Ahab. Only naked. Well, at least I know I can kill my big white whale. Buffy. Slutty. Don�t matter much what she�s callin� herself, what anyone else is callin� her. She�s fucked me and mine. Especially the �mine� part. She�s had her goddamned way with mine. That fuckin� whale. I�ll spear her right. If Xan ever gets his spear out of her bloody blowhole. That�s right. I said her blowhole. Bloody. I am still evil after all these years. It�s kinda novel really. What rhymes with evil? Dead bitch. Yeah, like the sound of that. And then I�ll kill that Medusa looking mother inferior just for good measure. >

The boat trudged through the mid-Pacific waters toward shore. The captain stirred with a moan and moved to try to stand. Spike pounced on him, bit him, sucked a little more of his blood, just enough so the captain passed back out, and returned to the wheel. When he could see lights on land, he turned the engine off, steered the wheel to the southern current, and dove overboard, headfirst, swimming for shore.

* * *

�We�ll find him,� Buffy said.

�Yeah we will.�

�This was a mistake, Xan.�

Buffy and Xander lay side by side. Both propped up slightly against the wall. Both clutched the sheets to their chests, to their necks. Covered every embarrassing part of themselves.

Xander squeezed his eyes shut. < One time, just once. It was all I ever wanted. Once upon a time. Before time stopped being, what, something that could go away. Before all I ever had was time, and Spike. Just once. Had it. It�s been had. Have I been had? What was that? >

Buffy tried not to cry more in bed beside Xander. His non-breath hitched and he started crying. Her tiny tremors increased and soon they were holding each other again. Bracing themselves against what they had done. They braced each other against their greatest fear.

�We will find him, Xander. We have to.�

�You shouldn�t have come, Buffy.�

�We�ll never know what that would have been like. This happened.�

�That�s like, everyone�s new motto isn�t it?� Xander said.

�Whatsamotto with that?� Buffy said. Xander laughed.

�Nothing.� He sighed. �I�m going back to the meat locker.�

�You don�t want to stay. We could��

�Play pretend some more?�

�Or, you know� gossip,� Buffy said.

Xander laughed again. �Gossip would be good. If I wasn�t afraid we�d just done something, you know, bad.� Xander rose from the bed, naked.

Buffy blinked twice. Looked away from Xander walking away. Looked at the sheet she clung to instead. Knew that below it, below her, was a dry spot that should have been wetter, stickier. Things were not going well.

�Anyway,� Xander pulled his pants up, buttoned, zipped, turned back to Buffy. �I�ll go. When we get to land again. I�ll look for Spike. You should go home.�

Something low beneath the boat heaved, groaned. Then the boat pitched hard to port and Xander and Buffy were both tossed to the side of the ship, the porthole that had before been high above the water, then submerged.

�Fuck,� Xander said.

Buffy scrambled for clothes. She grabbed a shirt < Xander�s? > and her jeans. And pulled them both on before the boat rolled further and they were standing on the outer wall of the ship, the porthole, cracked and leaking, against the ocean floor.

�This is fucking bad, Buff.�

�And I thought this ship was unsinkable.�

�We�ve got to get off of this heap,� Xander said. If you drown, I can�t�

They made their way through the maze of the ship. Water poured in at the top of the stairs.

They made their way to open water, realized they werenear shore, on a reef. They swam around to the front of the ship and Xander looked back, noticed, through the front window the bridge, two bodies, floating limply.

�Shit. Buffy, go to shore. Get help, or something.�

�Where do you think we are?�

�I don�t know. Just start screaming �cuidado.� There�s two more people on the boat.�

�I�m coming with you,� Buffy said.

�You�re really not.�

And he swam back to the ship.

* * *

< Bloody Mexico. How I despise thee, let me count the sodding ways. Uno, dos, tres� Bugger this. Where�s a cab? Or just a cabbie. Could use some quid and some clothes. Pesos. Is toy money, that�s what. Gimme a Queen�s note any day. The pound. It�s all about the pound. >

Spike was alone on the beach. Very naked. If he turned around, he could see that the boat had washed ashore not terribly far away. Far enough. He couldn�t hear what was happening at the wreckage, over the surf. He couldn�t really see anything either, but he knew that it had washed ashore anyway.

< I bet they�re so effulgently asleep they haven�t even noticed. Maybe Slutty will drown and Xan won�t be able to do a sodding thing about it. That�d be lovely. >

Spike moved past the closed open air restaurants and into the proper of Cabo San Lucas, where he looked for breakfast and a place to disappear.

< Live long enough as a bloody loon, you don�t easily forget how to play the part. Dammit. I should be more guilty. >

Spike laughed, frowned.

Spike laughed.

* * *

Buffy held the head of the dead navigator in her lap and cried.

The captain leaned on one arm beside Xander. He breathed heavily, but his thick frame seemed hardly worse for the near-drowning.

�Was there anyone else�� Xander asked.

The captain shook his head. Then thought for a moment.

Xander and Buffy both looked closely at the man.

He coughed, then spoke. �Me, him� you two� we were all I knew about. Then there�s this naked man�� Buffy and Xander glanced at each other. �On the bridge� And I think, he bit me��

Buffy looked down at the man in her lap. She hadn�t looked too closely until then. She turned his head and gasped.

Xander looked over at Buffy, panic large in her eyes.

�And he looked like?�

�Cheekbones, I think. And roots.�

Buffy stared at the still chest below her. Her tears came back in full force.

Xander clenched his jaw. �Buffy, that man you�re holding. He drowned.�

Buffy looked up at Xander. �But, his neck.�

�I know.� Xander�s eyes were dark, even in the nighttime, on the beach, there was a depth to them that Buffy had never seen before. �Both of these guys would be� If that�s what he wanted.�

�How do you know..?�

�C�mon, Buff. Cheekbones. He described the naked man by cheekbones. Who else is it gonna be?�

�Joan Jett?� Buffy said.

�You�re funny. Really. Oh my god. Round of applause.� Xander rose and made his way up the beach. �Go home, Buffy. I�ll deal with this�� He paused. Frowned.

Buffy stared at him over her shoulder, agape. The dead man still in her lap, the tears still flowed.

�I�ll deal with this � whatever this is � however I have to.�

*****
Part 5: Denial Boy Xander hung up the phone. One month. One month exactly since he left Buffy on the beach. One month exactly since Spike beached their ship for god knows why. One month since Xander started hunting Spike down, first through Mexico, then north to Sunnydale, through San Diego, detouring to Vegas, back through L.A. and finally to Revello Drive. One month exactly, and no Spike. One month.

Xander stalked away from the payphone. He made his way back to the car he'd 'inherited' from a dead 'relative' in Barstow and climbed in. Streetlights reflected off the hood of the car as Xander drove out of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge toward mainland California. Next was Sacramento, and then north to Seattle. Exactly one month in the car. One month since.

< And you don't want to say it. Just pretend it didn't happen. Be denial boy. That's what's called for now. Denial boy. Spike will kill us both if he knows. He'll kill Buffy extra dead. That is, if there were anything for Spike to know, which there's not. Hence none of the killing, none of the hiding. See how easy it is? How easy what is? Exactly. >

No one in Sunnydale had heard from Spike. The phone call was just like every other phone call, a waste of time. He could be looking. But he was on the phone. Xander frowned as he pushed the pedal down hard to the floor of the car and gunned across the bridge full speed at 3 a.m. He fumbled in the seat beside him, searched for a tape to play. The previous owner didn't have much taste, but Xander found something. Something with a twang, to listen to.

< So why do you feel so bad, huh? What did you do that was so wrong anyway? It's not like Spike never went there, it's not like he didn't know I used to want to. Used to. Used. To. That's difference. We both used to. Not we both me and her. We both me and him. Get with the program. Me and him both used to want to. He got to, I didn't. End of story. Except I just wrote the after word. Crikey. That's gonna be one mad vamp-o-dile. But it's not. He's not psychic. And I'm not talking. Not. Talking. >

Xander's foot lifted off the pedal inch by inch as he rambled to himself, until he found himself at a complete standstill in the middle of the Golden Gate bridge. He looked around, caught a phrase of the song.

".everything we got, we got the hard way."

And he knew then. The thing he had to do. What he had to give up to get it back. How to find what was lost to him. Make the lost, look for him.

He shifted the gears into first, held the brake, pumped the gas, released the break and roared into motion, shifted into second, pushed the gas harder. Let go of the wheel. Closed his eyes. Bounced from bridge wall to bridge wall, never took his foot of the gas, spun out, axel snapped, fender flew off, wheel caught, car spun into the air, flew over the side of the bridge.

The stunt lasted forever. The car hung in the air, wheels spun slow-mo with no ground under them. The bridge got smaller above, behind Xander as the car fell. The fog was rolling in.

Xander laughed.

Water rushed up. Crashed. Glass shattered. Splinters. < Spike. > Cold. Dark.

* * *

"I feel pretty, oh so pretty. Oh so pretty, and witty. And gay."

Spike drank.

The liquor soaked into Spike and became him. The liquor became him. He became the liquor.

"Chaos demon, schmaos demon. Buck Fuffy bucking Hummers."

It began with anger. Then denial. Then stupor. Spike prowled his way up the Pacific coast of Mexico. Brooded his way up the Pacific coast of California. Drank his way into the middle of he wasn't sure where.

"I've got a vague notion that Xanbot the Orgasmonator is somewhere fucking Slutty Hummers to death. If they didn't already die I mean. Drown, precisely. Oi. What are you looking past?"

The bar was dark, the patrons quiet and almost still. Spike checked the clock over the bar. 1:45. Last call.

A tall man in black clothes strode up to Spike's table. Placed both hands down, wide across the remains of Spike's drinks. The man huffed, the sound was almost a chuckle in the near silence. Spike realized the silence wasn't the normal demeanor. He looked up at the man leaning on his table and frowned. Even though he was the liquor he could still see the brutish, yet somehow irresistible, corn-fed face that stared down at him. Spike bit his lip and winced. He realized he didn't have his best face on.

"So? You gonna stand there all night, or ya gonna take it? Everything's free in America," Spike said.

"And what's got you all hung up on West Side Story this evening, Spike?"

"Bugger. You are a bloody bugger. I always knew it. Poufter. Queer bent bastard, is what you are, an' I always knew it. Slutty slutted a fine line when she slutted you. Right oh, Riley Finn, right oh."

Spike frowned harder when the name emerged from his mouth.

"Finn. Where am I? I was going to Sunnydale from Mexico. I was angry. Now I'm. I'm sad. This goddamned shit." Spike threw the glass in his hand at the wall.

Before he could pull his hand back, Riley grabbed it and pulled Spike out of the booth and further, away from the bar, into the night streets.

"Spike. You're in. Well, trouble, actually, and I'm tempted not to tell you anything further until."

"Until wot, Soldier Boy? You think you can keep me? You don't know much, do you, Finn."

And with that Spike punched Riley hard in the chest, knocked the human back yards onto his ass. Riley glared up at spike from his position on the ground, rubbed the knot he felt forming on his chest.

"Damn it, Spike. I was playing. Wittle joke, on the wascawy wampire."

"Joke's over, Swastika breath. Where am I? How'd I get here? And why are you dressed like an undertaker?"

"I don't own any Swastika's. I don't know how you got here. I'm not dressed like an undertaker. And where you are, is, well. Iowa."

"Sodding Iowa! Of all the cocked up, bugger-all, tripe I've ever heard. I'm. In. That's so funny, Krupke. Really, really fun. Is that a cornfield?" Spike faced out, away from the bar, across a small country highway. The moon cast short, dark shadows.

"Yeah. Corn." Riley agreed. "You're really, really in Iowa."

Spike frowned, sure he had missed something, somewhere, that he should have noticed.

"Well, I know I didn't sodding walk here."

*****
Part 6: Attention

Riley Finn stood at ease in the shower. The hot jets of water eased out the tension in his back and arms. Rumor'd been Hostile 17 - < From that fiasco on the Hellmouth. Finn, weren't you there, didn't you help H-17? > - was on a rampage across America. Rumor'd been.

Riley lathered under his arms with the harsh bar soap. Crumpled in the trash can between the toilet and the sink the label said ".99 Cent Soap" in white across a red wrapper. He ran the soap from under his arms down their lengths, built up a thick foam in his hands moved the bar down to his groin which hung flaccid despite the opportunity sitting confused in the living room. The hostile opportunity. Opportunity Hostle 17.

He replaced the soap in its home and sealed his eyes shut, turned into the jets so they pounded into his face and neck and chest. She should have called. Said he'd gone violent again. Said anything. It would have been right. Riley shook that thought from his head, < Because you're so familiar with the right. Not counting church. >

And somehow Spike had ended up in Riley's hometown, in Riley's hangout, in Riley's house.

He turned off the water. Opened the door to the tiny shower stall, and stepped out. Towelling himself off. His groin and all it's packaging were still flaccid and he was glad of it. His want was minimal, opportunistic but not desirous. < I'll fuck Spike if he needs to be fucked. > He laughed to himself lightly. < Same if he needs to be staked. >

He pulled his robe from the hook on the inside of the bathroom door, and the pajama bottoms that hung under the robe. Wrapped the robe around himself and pulled the pajamas up, left that string untied; tied the robe shut.

Spike lay curled on the sofa somewhere between asleep and dead. < Deader. > His back faced out, his face squeezed into the nook between the sofa back and arm. His own arms folded tightly between him, his knees and the sofa. He took up barely more than one cushion on the three-cushion chair. Riley sighed and checked the clock. < Almost 5:30. Time for work, time for sleepy vamps to lay down to rest. >

Riley traipsed into his room, pulled the comforter off of his bed, folded it over, and bunched it around the sleeping vampire, including his head.

"You are such a pussy, Agent Finn," he said to himself.

His drive into work was long. He kept one eye on the rearview, checked for a tail. Habit.

His connections were limited; the rumors that reached him through what was left of his old buddies were always the small ones, the barely classified kind, the we've-officially-disavowed-all-knowledge-of-you-and- the-fiasco-we-assosciate-with-you kind. Spike was just that kind of rumor. He knew things had gone sour when he'd left Sunnydale. He'd been back a time or two to see it for himself. He'd been back, but that was before he became the government's Pariah.

He kept his apartment well outside of work in Des Moines. He didn't want to be an easy target for the demons that had gotten away through years of poorly executed ops.

Riley Finn was in great shape, always would be, because of what they had done to him in the Initiative and beyond. But as a civilian, as a person, he worked harder for the body he had and his face showed his age, and the faint gray in his temples and beard. Whatever the government said or denied about Riley Finn, they could not deny that he was by far the most popular Psych professor at the University of Iowa. Of course, like most good professors, his teachings failed to seep into his own life and he was frequently at a loss to describe his own mental state which ranged from tired to angry to blissful to hungry and all stops in between.

He checked his rearview again. The same car from five miles ago was on him again. He didn't know what to do. It had been years since his paranoia panned out into full fledged reality. He slowed down slightly, two, three miles an hour. The car behind him slowed five, six miles an hour. < A tail. Yay. Espionage. > He frowned, wondered about the rumor he'd left curled and bundled up on his sofa.

All this excitement made his arm itch at the big vein on the inside of his elbow. < And how long since you fed that particular habit? > Work was only twelve minutes away. He could make it. And he could take whatever might be riding in that car behind him.

Ahead of him the sun peeked over the horizon.

* * *

Spike woke to a start. Knew he should still be sleeping. Felt the warmish dark around him. < Riley fucking Finn. I'm in a sodding cell somewhere, soon to be prodded by mindless hordes of mad scientists. >

He cautioned the comforter down and looked out over the arm of the sofa without moving. He turned his head up and peeked over the comforter itself into the room around him. It was dark, night dark, in the small apartment. He could feel the sun around the edges of the door and the windows. He wouldn't be leaving until dark, but would Riley be back by then? He didn't know.

He stood, tossed the comforter aside, and prowled around the small apartment and found a few things: a work out bench, four hundred pounds of assorted weights, the sofa he'd woken on, a t.v. on a fruit crate, a kitchen with no table, no chairs, just a fridge and a sink, two cabinets, all cans, five plates. In the fridge he found a case of Budweiser, condiments, cold cuts, a crisper drawer full of apples, all ripe; in the freezer a loaf of bread, HagenDaz strawberry ice cream, frozen corn, frozen green beans, a demon hand < Demon hand? >, and lots of freezer flakes. Elsewhere, the house was equally spare. The bedroom was a bed, or a mattress and box springs, on the floor, an alarm clock and phone with answering machine on the floor beside the bed, a closet of khaki pants, white shirts and plain blue ties. There was a single unit, stacked laundry machine (washer on bottom, drier on top) in another closet. And there was the bathroom. Painkiller prescriptions, toothpaste, toothbrush, floss, a wet towel on the door, a wet foot towel beside shower stall. A trash can. A toilet.

< So much for swank government funding, ay? Sorry for you, Finn, really am, but why am I here? What, exactly, am I in trouble for? >

"Oi. And where's my car?"

* * *

The car parked and Riley fumbled with his briefcase for a moment. He'd lost the tail somewhere in the suburbs. He wasn't sure if he'd lost the tail or if the tail had lost him.

The reappearance of Spike in his ordered, simple life led the old wounds, paranoias, and confusions to tumble out of him. Riley wasn't sure how he was supposed to teach class today.

He climbed out of the car, buttoned his coat in the bracing morning air and noted the sparse parking lot. Two cars closer to his building; one farther away. He checked his watch. He was on time.

Inside the building the lights were off. He fished out the key to the little plastic box around the light switches, opened it, flipped them on, and relocked it.

When he topped the stairs and made it into his office, tossed his coat and briefcase into the chair in front of the desk, he finally felt like his routine hadn't been completely wiped by Spike. He checked his watch again 8:55, office hours until 10:00, then class. He pulled a stack of papers out of his drawer and started marking.

Riley Finn checked his watch 9:37 and wondered that no one had come into see him. It wasn't unusual, even at nine in the morning to have some over ambitious freshman kissing his ass. He looked closer at his watch, checked the date, then the calendar that lay flat on his desk.

"Fuck."

Riley stuffed the papers back into the desk, stood, grabbed his briefcase and coat, and left the office. He left the building, the lights still on, and climbed into his truck.

"Fucking Saturday."

< I'm gonna kill Spike. I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill him with apples. No, not apples stones. I'm going to stone him. Why is he here? Dammit. I'm calling her. >

Riley Finn drove home.

* * *

Riley opened the door to his apartment slowly. He squeezed through, cautious of midday sun sneaking through the southward facing door.

The sofa was empty. Nothing looked disturbed. He went to the fridge for an apple, pulled it out of the drawer, took a large, crisp bite. < The sound they use in movies when vampires bite people. > Riley winced. Tossed the apple, minus one sizeable chunk, into the trash can under the sink. He turned back to the apartment to look for Spike.

The living room, as marked by the empty sofa, contained no Spike, or sign of. Then he spotted the vampire. Spread across Riley's bed, legs crossed, arms behind his head, Spike actually slept with a smug expression on his face.

Riley went back into the kitchen, got a beer from the fridge, and returned to the bedroom door. He leaned on the door frame, slugged back the first cold swallow of the beer and waited. Waited for Spike to wake up and make with the explaining, waited for Spike to wake up and say something.

< I should call her. But I'm not one to question hiding out from her either, so. That leaves me where? I should call her, honor dictates, but honor and Spike don't have much to do with the other. I should call her. It's the courteous Christian thing to do. I say that like I care. I do care. I should call her. >

One of Spike's hands drifted from behind his head. He rubbed his crotch for a moment before he rolled onto his side, curled into the kind of ball he'd been in on the sofa, both hands down between his knees, which were pulled up close to his chest. Riley looked closer. The smug look was gone. Replaced by something. sadder.

< No way am I calling her. >

*****