it's like a buddy movie (only without the buddy part)
Chapter Ten: Road Movie to Nicaragua
The Zippo abruptly flickered out, and Xander let out a small shout of pain as he dropped the lighter to the tunnel floor.
“Oh, right, yeah. Should’ve warned you. Careful there. Thing gets a bit hot. Makes it hard to get a grip on,” Spike advised.
Xander fumbled around the ground searching for the lighter. “Little help here?”
Spike crouched down and latched onto his Zippo, snapping the cover back and igniting the small flame again. “Come on, then, monkey boy. S’pose it’s back home we go now, eh?”
He picked his way carefully over broken pipes and sloshed through small puddles of dank water, Xander jogging to catch up with him.
“You’re not dodging the question, Spike,” Xander huffed. “You know that thing back there, and I wanna know how. And why.”
Spike stayed silent.
“I’m TALKING to you!”
“And I’m not so much talking to you,” Spike bit back. They reached the ladder, and Spike handed the Zippo back to Xander. “Try not to singe yourself this time, Harris.”
“SPIKE!”
Xander’s voice was filled with more anger than Spike had heard in a long time. He stopped walking and spun around slowly.
“Do you really want to have this conversation in all the dank and musty?” Spike asked calmly. “’Cause I sure as hell don’t.”
Without waiting for Xander’s reply, Spike eschewed the ladder, leaping down to the lower level. As he landed, a brief but agonizing bolt of pain shot up from Spike’s right ankle, and he wobbled slightly before regaining his balance.
“Still drunk, huh?” Xander asked from behind him.
“There’s no ‘still’ about it. Never made it past tipsy. I’m fine.”
“Whatever,” Xander said tiredly. “Let’s just get back to the shop.”
“Rupert leave any tea there?” Spike asked offhandedly as they proceeded. “Puttin’ the kettle on sounds rather good at the moment.”
“God, what is it with you guys and tea?” Xander asked. “It’s like drinking water that’s had a brown crayon dipped in it.”
“Yet another thing the Americans haven’t got a handle on yet.”
Spike kicked the back door of the shop open a little more eagerly than he’d intended, and his ankle flared with pain again as he staggered inside. “Oh, bollocks.” The ache intensified, and before he could stop himself, Spike sank to the floor.
Xander hovered over him. “Uh, you all right?”
Spike nodded. “Just landed wrong back there,” he said. “Think I broke it, actually. No worries, lad. I’ll mend here in a few.”
“So, until then…”
Spike waved a hand through the air. “Just need to have a sit down, wait for the swelling to subside.”
Xander smirked at him. “And what with dawn approaching, that means you’re stuck here until it does.”
Panic surged through Spike, and he whipped his head around. “Bloody hell, what time is it?!”
Xander looked at his watch. “Sunrise is in full bloom in about forty-five minutes. Plenty of time for you to summarize The Wacky Adventures of Spike and Chaos Boy.”
Spike squeezed his eyes shut and let his head fall back against the wall with a thud. “Bugger me.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know what that means, but I’m hoping it’s something along the lines of ‘Yes, I have every intention of telling you the whole story.’”
Sod it, why does Harris have to bear witness to every single lovelorn, humiliating experience in my whole sorry unlife? Spike wondered bitterly. Not fair, that.
Still, they were stuck in this mess together, after all, and Xander was trying to be helpful. It wasn’t necessarily his fault that he was also terribly trying in general.
“You win, mate,” Spike said defeatedly. “I give. Field’s yours. You wanna hear the whole bloody mess? Brilliant. Story time it is then.”
Xander sat down on the floor and leaned forward.
Spike regarded him oddly. “Havin’ you on a bit,” he said. “Please let’s not look like I’m about to recite a plethora of fairy tales here. God, all you need’s a plateful of cookies, and you’re all set."
Xander looked over his shoulder, peering through the front window at the gradually lightening sky. “Tick tock, dead boy,” he said, turning back to Spike. “Out with it.”
Spike pulled out a cigarette but didn’t light it, just twirled it along his knuckles absentmindedly. “Well, it’s like this,” he began. “Once upon a time, there was this dashing bloke what took his ladylove down South America way.”
“Like one of those movies. Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. ‘Road Movie to Nicaragua’ or whatever,” Xander cut in.
“First off, no. There was just ONE bloke, that being me. Secondly, I very much doubt that Hope and Crosby ever went to Nicaragua.” Spike shook his head in annoyance. “Now, you want me to finish, or d’you plan on interrupting at every turn?”
“That depends. Is this a big epic thing full of exaggerated battles that you never actually fought where you’re gonna make yourself out to be the big cool guy when you really weren’t, or --”
“Dru left me for that piece of sludge and venison, okay?!” Spike barked out abruptly. “There. That bloody well make me look pitiful enough to you, lad?! True love all dashed to smithereens ‘cause of a git all manner of ugly, stupid, and evil as hell goes about whisking my princess out from under my nose. And she chose HIM over ME!”
Xander cast his eyes to the floor, looking infinitely uncomfortable.
“So YEAH,” Spike railed on, his anger rising, “you could say I got it in for the bastard. You could also say I don’t fancy talking about it. That’s the whole sorry tale, that in a nutshell. Drusilla quit me for that creature, and that’s when I turned up back in your neck o’ the woods drunk off my cuckolded arse and looking to Red of all people for help. Happy now?” Spike stopped, shook his head again, and turned his face up to stare at the ceiling, blinking hard.
“Sorry,” Xander muttered under his breath. “I didn’t mean to piss you off.”
“Yeah, well…”
He heard Xander swallow, and for once the sound didn’t make Spike want to tear the other man’s throat out in one swift motion. Instead, he merely sighed.
“Um, well, hey, on the bright side, you know the guy’s a jerk, so that’ll make wanting to kill him sorta fun, right?” Xander put forward somewhat lamely.
Spike chuckled. “True enough.” He twisted his ankle in an experimental half-circle before slowly clambering to his feet. “One thing’s still a bit of a puzzle,” he mused. “Got no rudding clue why this fellow’d even be interested in doin’ so grand a ritual.”
“Well, like Giles said, Chaos demons are all with the… chaos,” Xander said with a shrug.
“Yeah, but still. The berk I knew back when wasn't interested in endin' the world. Just wanted to shag Dru.” Spike paused, a cynical half-smile playing across his lips. “Rather impressed if he's got himself a bit of gumption."
Xander rose and followed Spike as he limped to the front door of the shop. “Maybe he took a motivational seminar."
Suddenly, the door rattled, the small bell hanging above it jingling to life. Spike stopped in his tracks so unexpectedly that Xander slammed into him from behind.
“Expecting somebody?” Spike asked, his voice pitched to a low whisper.
“Not this early.”
Spike shot across the room to stand behind the door. Xander swept a stake off a nearby counter and gripped it tightly.
The lock twitched back and forth. Spike’s eyes widened as the knob slowly turned.
His face shifted, human features melting into ridges, teeth elongating to sharp points.
When the door swung open, Spike flew from behind it, rushing at the intruders, and Xander ran forward, brandishing his stake.
Anya and Dawn screamed in unison.