it's like a buddy movie (only without the buddy part)
Chapter Sixteen: Debating the Merits of a Peace Treaty
Quickly, the demon raised his left arm, palm outstretched at Xander and Spike as they rushed toward him. “Velare!” he shouted.
A zot of blazing blue electricity shot from his fingertips and flew across the room, striking Spike in the abdomen. The force lifted him several feet into the air, and Spike fell with a loud thud on the hard tile floor. Pain splintered through his entire body, the room spinning crazily.
“Spike!” Xander shouted. He started toward the vampire, but Spike struggled to sit up and shook his head at him firmly.
“No, get it done yourself, mate,” he croaked. “Hurry, he’s right behind --”
The demon drew back his hand and hit Xander squarely across the back.
“… you,” Spike finished as Xander crumpled to his knees.
He wasn’t down for the count, though. Xander gripped his axe more firmly and rose to his feet, swinging the business end through the air inches from the demon’s cloak.
“Guys, look, I’m sorry,” the demon said almost apologetically. “This isn’t personal.” As Xander’s axe sliced through the air again with a singing whoosh, the demon caught hold of the handle and ripped it from his hands.
“Not personal?” Spike growled. He pushed himself up on his elbows, grimacing with the effort. “I’d bloody well say this is all MANNER of personal.”
“Spike,” Xander warned tensely. “This isn’t a time to go all Inigo Montoya on him.”
Spike laughed through the mind-splintering pain coursing through him, standing on wobbly legs that threatened to buckle beneath him. “No, I’d say this is the perfect time.” His face morphed into his demon visage, and in a whirl of leather and denim, he sprang through the air, willing his bones not to shatter on impact.
“You shagged my girlfriend,” Spike announced, a touch over-dramatically. “Prepare to die.”
A flicker of fear crossed the demon’s face. As Spike balled his hands into tight fists, gearing up to strike, abruptly the demon’s head was simply gone, sliced from his neck with a nauseatingly wet sound. His body collapsed to the floor, the head coming to rest upside down on its antlers.
Spike’s eyes widened, and he looked up to see Xander grinning ear to ear. He hefted a modified war hammer, the spiked nail end tricked out with the sharpened half-moon crafted from a hubcap, the metal of which was now glistening with the Chaos demon’s blood.
“Where did you…”
Xander’s grin broadened. “Pretty cool, huh? Giles made this a few months ago. I got it out of my bag when our guy was looking the other way.”
Spike looked back down at the remains of the demon and frowned. “Sod it. I wanted to do ‘im in,” he complained.
“Let the record show you were very helpful in the creating a diversion department.” Xander stooped and collected his axe, adding it and the war hammer to his weapons bag. He winced a little as he balanced the strap on his shoulder.
“All right there, Harris?”
“Yeah, mostly. That kinda hurt, though, getting clobbered like that.”
“May I point out that I was the one what got tossed about?” Spike drew an imaginary arc in the air. “Went sizzle and kaboom, you know.” He spied a nearby folding chair and leaned heavily on it, trying to get his bearings.
“Just tell me you don’t need me to carry you.”
“As if you could.”
Xander looked thoughtful. “I probably could. You being so much SHORTER and SMALLER and all.”
Spike glowered. “Beggin’ your pardon, but isn’t it true we both just saved the world from having its whole time-space continuum royally screwed?”
Xander surveyed the carnage. “I’d hope so.”
“Well, then, shouldn’t we put a lid on the aspersion-casting?” Spike moved from the chair and collected the sleeping bag. Halfway to the door, he realized Xander hadn’t followed.
“What’s wrong, lad?”
“You still want the truce to be in effect?” Xander’s tone was aghast. “But we’re done! We did it! We don’t HAVE to make nice anymore.” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Is this a trick?”
“A what? Why’d it be a trick, just ‘cause I don’t feel like gettin’ insulted by you at every turn?”
Xander joined him at the door, staring at Spike warily. “Then why? What’s in it for you if we lay off the whole scathing banter thing we got going?” he asked quietly.
Bit of peace at times, Spike thought to himself sadly. Make Wednesdays a touch more tolerable. And God knows the Slayer wouldn’t have liked to see us like this.
But of course, it didn’t matter, really. Xander was right. The job was done, after all, and they’d got through it all right, quarrelling or not as the moment demanded. Maybe she wouldn’t have minded so very much after all. In fact, she might even be a bit proud of them.
And so Spike forced a laugh. “Had you goin’ there for a moment, didn’t I?”
Xander relaxed. “Whew, yeah, I was gonna say… us actually try to get along for longer than, say, thirty seconds?”
“Not bloody likely.”
They walked slowly down the hallway together, Spike pulling on the gloves as they drew nearer to the front door.
“Still,” Xander mused. “I mean, we did the impossible. Managed not to get ourselves or each other or anybody else killed.”
“Well, ‘cept for the berk what needed the killing.”
“And we did that, too,” Xander said.
“Rather well,” Spike added, draping the sleeping bag over his shoulders.
They regarded each other for a moment.
“Tell anyone we worked so well together, and I’ll beat you senseless, Harris.”
“Ditto, peroxide boy.”
Spike pulled the sleeping bag over his head, and he and Xander hurried out to the waiting car.
The End