Fanfic - BtVS - Elegie, 1/1
Ahem: Sorry about the formatting, I can't figure out why LJ is doing this to me, and it does worse if I try to correct the wandering text size.
Summary: Episode tag to The Gift.
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: NC-17
Author's Notes: Elegy for Cello and Orchestra, opus 24, by Gabriel Fauré, is commonly described as sad and haunting, broken by an intensely passionate passage before it returns to its grieving normality. In musical terms, it is written in ABA format. The classification of elegy is from the greek, and invokes both lyricism and grief, closely associating it with the dirge and the lament.
Disclaimer: Don't own either the music, or the characters.
Élégie
A
"She should have something."
"She should have her life."
"Wasn't what I meant."
۷
"It's stupid, isn't it? She isn't... She isn't going to rise, she isn't going to care."
"Dawn, just -- It's just what you do, okay?"
"But she'd have hated this. She'd have hated us sitting here trying to pick goddamned shoes. She'd have hated Spike and Xander hiding her grave in the park because we don't want anyone to know that she's--"
"Shut up! Damnit, she's gone! She doesn't get a call on this one, she doesn't -- she..."
"Willow--"
"What about... Oh. Oh, sweetie. C-Come here. You too, Dawnie. Just... Come here. We're going to g-get through this. W-We are."
۷
"Why is it six feet, anyway?"
"Tradition, nit. Why are you bloody askin'?"
"We're digging Buf-- We're digging a grave. We've dug too many of these."
"Yeah."
"It was just a thought, Spike. Just the 'ol Xander-brain, spinning round and..."
"I get it, Harris."
"Giles always said not to bother, unless it was a really apocalypty demon."
"Yeah, well, Wanker's off at the hospital. Just us two out here."
"So we're going to put her under six feet of dirt."
"Just the bones. Not what made her... her."
۷
"Tara, are you -- are you okay?"
"What? Sweetie..."
"We didn't ask. We just..."
"I... It's better if I do this. She w-wouldn't want you t-t-to have to."
"Then she shouldn't have died. We can wait. Spike can help."
"Spike's d-doing enough. He's st-still healing."
"So are you."
B
"Spike?"
"Down 'ere, 'arris," he called, and the mortal climbed down the ladder into his bedroom. He saw the slight wrinkle of his nose at the scent of whiskey, saw the boy mentally shove it away and approach. "What's wrong?"
"What? Oh, not a crisis visit. I just..."
He studied the lost expression. He could take another drink, or he could help the boy out of his verbal quandary.
"Couldn't face 'em?"
"Yeah. Anya's all... she says she wants to go. Leave Sunnydale, now that it doesn't have a slayer guarding it. I told her I wasn't sure, and she kicked me out of her hospital room."
He snorted.
"Never wonder where you stand with 'er."
"Yeah." Xander sighed and slouched over to sit next to him on the bed. He offered the whiskey companionably, and the whelp took a healthy slug. "Tara says Willow's been shocky and crying all night. Dawn pulled it together enough to help her with... with Buffy's body."
He nodded.
"Nibblet's got steel in 'er. She's bound to break soon, though. I'll be keepin' an eye on 'er." Xander shot him a confused look, and he explained defensively, "Promised Buffy. Not like I'd be leaving town, anyway."
"I kinda figured you would."
He shook his head, but didn't try to explain. Xander'd work it through if he wanted to, and he didn't need lectures just yet. The mortal looked dejected enough already, sitting beside him on a scavenged mattress, drinking Jack Daniels in honour of a girl they both knew couldn't hold her liquor.
۷
"I knew I'd see 'er dead, someday," he said, and shook his head as his companion glowered at him. "Not like that. Was inevitable."
"Oh, right, cause you never get your ass kicked, and she's such a teensy little girl."
He glared back.
"She wasn't the first slayer who tried to kill me, Whelp. Once she stopped wanting the fight to end... Wasn't going to be anyone else, not this generation. I didn't survive this long by being easy to kill."
"Okay, that I'll give you," Harris grumbled, and took another slug. Spike studied him carefully. At this rate, the human would be smashed fast enough to sleep most of it off before sundown,so nobody was going to get mad that they were drunk at the funeral. He couldn't seem to get drunk, anyway -- maybe someone'd watered the damn stuff down and he hadn't noticed? Whatever the reason, it wasn't taking the edge off, and he needed something that dulled the hurt. So he shrugged off the bottle when it was offered, and smirked darkly.
"Swear, sometimes I think you're the brains of the bunch."
"Now there's a scary thought," Xander muttered, hunching in on himself. He huffed.
"'M serious. You decide to stick around, I'll make you a deal. You handle Red and Glinda, an' I'll keep the Nibblet from going off all half cocked and getting 'erself killed. You've got my word on it, as William the Bloody."
"And what's that worth?"
He cuffed the boy gently for that, then grasped the back of his neck and shook him.
"Pay attention, Xander. Buffy... She was something special, and I'm not gonna let her little sister get hurt anymore. You figure you can hang around, take on Willow, help Tara keep her steady, I can do that here as easy as anywhere. The lot of you start making trouble, though, an' we'll be gone."
The man tensed, glaring at him. They held each other's gaze until both were twitching. Then, grudgingly, Xander nodded, and he let go. They eyed each other for long minutes more, until Xander discovered the whiskey bottle was empty, dropped it with a clink, and flopped dramatically back onto the bed.
"It feels like the world should have ended. Does it feel like that to you? All creepy and shit? I mean, normally post-apocalypse is all, pass the vodka, let's party, time for ice cream and rainbows. This time..."
"Lost more than usual," he acknowledged, easing back to keep the strain off his neck. They lay in silence for a long while.
"I don't want to hold it together," came the eventual conclusion. "I want it all to stop. Just... stop for a minute. I don't think I can handle this."
He was silent. His fingers itched for a smoke, but Buffy would've disapproved of him smoking around her friend, and he didn't feel like shouldering that guilt just yet.
"I want to feel alive," Xander finally decided, and he blinked.
That, he might be able to help with. Or maybe he was drunker than he thought.
"Should have sex," he suggested, to test that theory.
"What, with the girlfriend who kicked me out?"
"Ex-girlfriend, then," he pointed out, and the mortal laughed painfully.
"God, Spike, you're like the bad news bear tonight." He squinted, but the ceiling didn't explain that one. "As much as I hate to admit it, you're right. Sex would feel really, really good right now. But there would be strings. Muchos in the strings department. And I so do not need strings right now."
He nodded.
"Right then. Get your kit off."
Xander peered at him, looking like he'd gone insane.
"You want me to have sex here?"
"We both want sex," he pointed out patiently. "Both want to feel all living an' shit. Literally, in your case. We're... Not really friends. But we're not strangers."
"No, really not strangers." The boy sounded a little faint, or maybe like he was strangling hysteria in the bottom of his throat.
"So no strings."
۷
Their hands were clumsy as they undid their clothing, neither willing to bear the intimacy of undressing each other. Xander wasn't willing to look at him, but he didn't mind closed eyelids, and the press of a warm body was close enough to comfort. The carpenter's body was thick with oddly balanced muscles and hair and scars, workingman's flesh on soldier's bones. His skin was almost as pale as Spike's, and he shivered hard, until the vampire pressed him into the mattress and drew a ridiculous velvet throw over them.
He mouthed the mortal neck, but didn't try to bite it, and Xander arched beneath him for more. His fingers found pebbling nipples and a half-hard cock attached to the body beneath him, urging his partner onto his knees to be petted and stroked. The boy shied away when he rubbed against his ass in question, so he turned him over, settling their cocks together in one fist.
That went better, and soon they were grunting and humping. Human strength and vampire fierceness, wanting to lose themselves in the blood-rhythm and willing to work together if they could achieve that. Hot press of mouths to shoulders, necks. The tender skin on the back of an earlobe, and the roughness of a half day's beard. Calloused hands dug into his ass, trying to force him faster, but his instincts said slow. He sped up anyway, and lost himself again in the pounding of flesh against flesh. One heart racing between them, and he tried to match it, closing his own eyes on flashes of red and gold and arcing light.
After they had come, he held himself there, hovering over the human body he'd smeared with his seed. He could feel the mixture of their fluids dripping off him. The person beneath him expanding and contracting as he panted for breath, grip slowly loosening, until Spike could feel the ache where fingernails had deepened bruises and spread the blood around. He could feel Xander open his eyes, but he wasn't ready to open his own.
Solemnly, he pressed his mouth to the mortal's for a breath. Tongues touching, meeting, sliding past in a quick greeting. Then they parted.
Then they laid down to rest.
A1
"Have you done this before? The funeral thing, I mean. I always kinda figured vamps didn't."
"Most don't. Dru went through a wacky bit back after one of the Dracula films came out, insisted on puttin' half her victims through a full visitation an all. Wasn't really like this, though."
"Yeah, I can see where there would be a total lack of similarities. We're doing okay though, right? I mean, it's a nice place for a grave. Peaceful. Private."
"Lonely."
"You were the one saying it was just her bones, Spike."
"Meant for the people visiting."
۷
"Are you ready to go, sweetie?"
"I'll be out in a minute. I'm just..."
"Just staring at your closet?"
"Oh, jeez, Tara, I didn't hear you come in. I wanted to wear something Buffy would like, you know? Just -- Just in case she's looking down. I always ask Buffy what I should wear to stuff. I guess I can't do that anymore."
"None of us can."
"Oh, Dawnie, I didn't mean--"
"It's okay, Willow. We'll have to get used to it eventually. Wear the floaty one -- she always liked it."
۷
"D'you think it's okay? It's probably not really six feet."
"And she didn't die of plague, what of it? Deep enough nothing'll get at 'er by accident."
"Yeah, but this is the Hellmouth. It's not really accidental uncovering by coyotes I'm worrying about."
"Point. Probably best to seed the ground with crosses later on. Throw some holy water about, too."
"But then..."
"Nobody bothered by that rot'll be needing to come here to mourn, Harris. We've got the rest of Sunnydale for that."
۷
"She looks good, I guess. The hair was a nice touch."
"Th-thanks. Are you feeling up to this?"
"No. But I'll do it."
"I-I think th-that's what feeling up to this means."
"Then yeah."
"It'll be okay, Dawnie."
"Maybe."
Coda
"It's a good tombstone, Giles," Xander said softly, maybe hoping to soothe the older man.
"Quick delivery, too." He tossed Spike a reproving glance, and the vampire gave him the slightest of nods.
"It's true, though. She always did."
Tara nodded, her arm around the pale-faced witch.
"She'd like it," Dawn decreed, and they silently read over the carved stone that marked her grave.
"She saved the world a lot."