this is my big huge list of btvs fanfiction recommendations.
it was living on my desktop so i could remember which story was which, and why i liked them, but here it is, htmlified and accessible to all and sundry. and i only hope that someone with very similar tastes to mine will find it useful.
this list includes such bonus features as: the beauty of alphabetical order. little tasty excerpts. pairings/character focus notes. a very basic note about temporal setting. and POV, because that actually turns out to have a lot of bearing on things for me. that's about it.
25 Occasions People Have Celebrated in the Jossverse
Multiple settings, multiple characters, multiple pairings.
Robin Wood's mother's Watcher made sure to send Robin a card and a gift on every birthday, until he himself was killed by a vampire he'd gone hunting. Robin lost most of these things when Sunnydale is destroyed. He was ambivalent about this: his mother's Watcher was kind, but he also tended to say things like, "She was a credit to me," and "I was not sure what to expect from someone who wasn't British and was...well...but she acquitted herself honorably."
29 Linear Moves
In drabbles, post-Gift spander, Xander POV.
He came in with Dawn, on her way back from Janice's. They were laughing in that subdued way we laugh now. We don't shriek with it, we don't howl. We chuckle, sometimes a guffaw breaks through, but it always stops with a bitten lip or a hand over a mouth - and those things come with eyes that dart around apologetically and count faces and always come up with a number that equals one too few.
32 Short Fics About Xander Harris
Exactly what it claims to be, set throughout and post-series. Xander.
Hobbies:
- Watching dumbass action films, Hindi musicals (historical), Trek and Xena reruns.
- Drive-in movies (esp. sneaking in).
- Comic book geekdom.
- Graveyard lurking.
- Whistling in dark.
- Disaster, joking in face of.
- Killing evil undead. Esp. crossbow. [Definitely a two-eyed thing.]
- Demon dating.
- Vampire (chipped) baiting.
- Watcher annoying.
- Fixing broken stuff around house.
- Semi-public sex with ex-fiancée (bef. and aft. breakup).
- Missing dead ex-fiancée (bef. and aft. death).
- Remembering to breathe when sad.
- Pretending to be okay in groups.
49 Circular Moves
Drabbles, Post-Gift spander, sequel to 29 Linear Moves. Xander POV.
It hurts to blink. It hurts to think. It hurts to move and the world keeps on spinning. Too many drinks, too much honesty - they both make me feel kind of queasy. There's only a cool indentation under my hand. I wonder what I said last night.After the FallThat thought propels me to the bathroom on unsteady feet, and my knees crack on the tile as my stomach empties. All I can hear is the blood pounding in my ears and the sounds of my own sickness. When I finally open my eyes, there's a glass of water on the floor beside me.
And what do we have here? Eggs, butter, where's the skillet, and here's the pancake mix. And just what are you doing, Xander? Why, I'm making pancakes. And why are you making pancakes, Xander? Why, that's what a man does the morning after yelling and breaking stuff and weeping and throwing up. You make pancakes while your family sits at the table, watching you, hoping you won't snap but knowing that you will, and it's just a matter of time. And this is why we eat cereal. Because Capt'n Crunch is a man you can depend on.
All Human
They lean against the wall and kiss by the bathrooms as the band files back and forth, taking their equipment out to a van. It's like undercover, like they're spies. "I'm getting a beer," the singer says finally, and Oz nods and goes back outside with the van keys in his hand.
Xander and Willow peel away from the wall and follow him.
Wishverse, pre-the Wish. Wander, Xander POV. Sequel to Smile While She Sleeps.
The band clears their stuff off the stage quickly, making way for the real headliner of the night. Xander reads the sway of Willow's head and they saunter off toward the back door in unison, still wrapped around each other.
All Our Exploring
Post-Angel finale spander, Xander POV.
He remembered Willow in braids and knee socks passing notes beneath the table to help him get through Spanish. Jesse and his weird knack for picking up snatches of foreign languages, and how in fourth grade he'd solemnly told Mrs. Stevens that she had an ass the size of Minsk. Probably would've gotten away without that week's detention if he'd known she spoke fluent Russian.
Alone in Sunnydale on a Friday Night
Season 7. Xander, Spike. Xander POV.
He was so still that it was almost like sitting next to a statue. Did the soul use up all of the extra energy that Spike used to have? Was it like one of those appliances that needed a special power line run in to handle the extra current? If so, it seemed like the rest of Spike was experiencing little brown outs. Soft voice, careful movements, few expressions. Not like Spike at all.
The American Stranger
The look on Xander's face makes Oz grin. "Dr. Livingston, I presume?"
Post-Chosen. Oz, Xander. Oz POV. Prologue to Indelible.
Now kids are crowding toward him - in a village too small and poor to have a surplus white guy, now they've got two, and Oz is an instant sensation. Not only that, but he's still, considering all his travels, pretty uncommonly white.
Amoral Boundaries
Directly post-Angel finale. Dallyria.
She feels a warring impulse; her younger, selfish self knows that she can explode the darkness, explode the tension, that she is the Key, the One, that she's special and unique and the one girl in all the world. And an older, more thoughtful part of her knows that her individualism, her own life, aren't really important in the greater scheme of things, and what that means for the future of the world, she doesn't know, except that she'll need to figure it out soon.
Ars Moriendi
Rewrite of Modus Vivendi. Read that first - shares first 12 chapters with MV. Departs from canon early season 5? Spander. Xander POV.
The first night Spike came back covered in blood - drenched in it, like he'd opened someone up and rolled in the result - Xander was too shocked to say anything. He just gaped when Spike dropped the duster and stood there like some kind of hellish Keith Haring self-portrait, wearing a red T-shirt that had been white when he'd gone out. He was leaving blood footprints. His skin was copper. The whitest thing left about him was his grin, which was enormous. He was grinning with pure delight, like a dog that had just retrieved and wanted to be praised, wanted to do it again.
Ars Moriendi: Antivenin
Spike narrowed his eyes and thumbed his lip, leaving a grease mark. "In the Twilight Zone," he said.
"Yeah. Nowheresville, unincorporated. Population two. I mean, what the hell is the real world good for, anyway? It's a fucked-up place, Spike."
Spike glanced at the magazines, then down at the black fingerstreaks on his jeans. "Yeah," he said. "That it is."
AU-ish epilogue to Ars Moriendi, series of meandering spander ficlets. Xander POV.
"I've been thinking," Xander said slowly, his eyes fixed on Spike's, "that maybe we should just...chill. Hang out here."
The Assistant
Post-series spander. Wesley POV.
Spike doesn't say anything. He studies Xander's eye - white, off-angle, staring - then lets the lid go and pats him gently on the cheek. Xander's face is bloody and bruised, but not unrecognizable. It's what Wesley finds himself staring at, instead of the throat. The room smells strange, he realizes. Like an abbatoir.
At a Glance
Post-series spander. Xander POV.
The years are accumulating around them, clinging to Spike as well as Xander, even though by rights they should roll off him like they always have. Xander is making Spike old, which is horrible enough, but it's worse than that.
Aura
Post-Angel finale spander, Xander POV.
He calls the cheerleader's cell and leaves a message, tucks his wallet and phone in his pocket and heads out. Xander doesn't drive - likely never will again. It's just past sunset and the streetlights come on with a hazy glow. The grocer on the corner yields the basics of his life - soup and bread and peanut butter and Pop Tarts, plus two bottles of JD. He doesn't even bother to buy the Coke anymore. He pays with the Council's credit card, knowing he'll never see the bill.
Babylon
Post-Angel finale. Post-apocalyptic spander. Spike POV.
Cleveland had been a blight - an ugly sink of fire-twisted rubble that had seethed - that had boiled with a never-dying fire. Smut of poisoned smokes and the glassine creak of cinders underfoot as he'd gained the rim. Spike had stared down into that pit - watched something crawl and flounder to the edge and killed it before it had gone two feet. But other things had writhed in that interface of here and there and he'd left soon after, putting Cleveland and any hope of the world ever shifting toward normal behind him.
The Basement Bound Heart
Season 7, sometime post-Him. Spander. Spike POV.
Basements unhinged him. He tried to look around, but the room was as tall as a cathedral, one of the dizzying ones. Things spun and swam, only made sense when he looked down at Xander.
Basement of Debasement
Season 4, sometime post-Hush. Spander. Alternating POV.
Unfuckingbelievable. Unfuckingbelievable. Somehow his day had got even shittier. He was back in the bathroom, he was bleeding, he was out of Kleenex, he was trapped in the basement with a dead sociopath who wanted to empower him. Who'd spent the last week eavesdropping on the Harris family tradition of whack-a-Xander. Who was probably licking nose blood off his thumb right this minute. Who'd dragged his fucking mother into it.Okay, not literally, and thank God for small mercies. But still.
Beholder
Begins post-Dirty Girls, through post-Angel finale. Spander.
By late afternoon, they were watching Diff'rent Strokes dubbed in Italian, drinking shots whenever Gary Coleman said something that was presumably the Italian version of "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?" After a while, Xander could even repeat the nonsense syllables, and so he did an Italian Gary Coleman impression that cracked them both up.
Birthdays
Late and post-series spander. Xander POV.
Not for the first time, Xander wondered what the point was of leaving all that paper blank. Maybe if he'd gone to college he'd get it. Maybe if he'd gone to college there'd have been a class called "What To Get Your Undead Sparring Partner For His Birthday Which He Won't Admit To 101." They probably taught "don't get him poetry" on the first day.
Bogle Scat
There was a weird ring to that thought, and he realized after a second that he'd just put mental irony quotes around "life." Well, he was Irony Guy. Irony Chef. Old Ironysides. It was his forté. His signature devilish charm.
Late summer post season 4, or possibly late summer post an AU season 5. Spander, Xander POV.
From what he could hear, Spike was back on the couch watching soccer, or possibly making out a check to Apocalypse-of-the-Month. Whatever. It was quiet in the living room, and he was ambulatory now, he could take care of his own two o'clock sitting. After that... Well, if he kept getting better at the current rate, he'd be out of the apartment tomorrow. He and his baggie of pulverized fewmets could become the dim, fading memory they were meant to be. And Xander could get on with his life.
Breaking the Silence
It's taken many forms over the short years of her human life: aneurysm, apocalypse, stray bullet, vampire, demon, apocalypse again. Stupid fucking car accident. It's taken everyone she cares about away from her, and it's coming for her next, and she knows it.
Post-series. Dawn, Spike. Spike POV.
Something is coming for her.
Breaking the Skin
Set early in Angel season 5. Spander, Xander POV.
He still had nightmares. Still had to keep himself awake and drinking until the room was spinning and soft-edged, the floor rolling in waves under his feet, before he could collapse into bed every day in the thin, pale light of early morning. Distraction and irritation weren't enough then; only alcohol could keep the memories of things he never saw out of his dreams.
Brothers in Arms
"I'm king," Spike shot back.
"I'm emperor."
"I'm immortal."
"I have a soul...shit! I saved the world."
"I saved the world and shagged Buffy. Not in that order."
Xander opened his mouth, then closed it. "Wow. You really go for the throat."
Possibly post-Angel finale, definitely post-Chosen spander.
Xander perked right up. "So we both still hate Angel? Maybe we should start a club. I'm president."
Bulletproof
It's the first time he's ever thought that his death could be the thing to break them even more.
Wishverse. Andrew. Andrew POV.
He was never the favorite, he knows. Never his parents' golden boy, but now he's inherited the mantle by default. He thinks about his mom and dad's reaction if, some night, he didn't come home.
Bus Stop Boxer
"If you light 'em they burn pretty."
Harris stared at him a second, and then some of the hardness went out of his face, out of his neck and shoulders. He smiled slightly. "True."
Post-series. Departs from canon sometime in Angel season 4. Spander. Story continues in Larvaverse, which is a WIP. Spike POV.
Harris paused. "Vampires aren't exciting, Spike."
Bus Stop Boxer: addenda
Post-series. Departs from canon sometime Angel season 4. Comment drabbles, so scroll. Spander.
Spike wants to know what happened too, but he also doesn't. And just to complete the paradox, he sort of already does. Could be nothing, could be just stress fractures already in place, finally following their bliss. The whole lot of them crazed like bad cups, back in Sunnydale. Witch had her breakdown nice and efficient, timely, tried to kill everything on the planet and nobody had to ask why. Buffy went the other way, kept on killing herself. Fat lot of good it did her.
Choices
Xander grinned lazily. "Nah, I've just discovered that the babble thing works really well here - gives them more of a chance of picking out words they know. And I kinda hate to tell you that your "Ta-da! Undead!" news was preempted by a lengthy, gaspy - yeah, he actually typed *gasp* a couple of times - email from Andrew." Spike started and Xander rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, the last sentence was, 'Oh, yeah, don't tell Buffy.'" He frowned. "He misspelled 'Balrog,' though."
Post-Damage spander.
"Right," Spike said, lifting his cup of Assam tea and staring down into it. "Kind of forgotten how shock kicks in your babbling reflex. Comforting, that."
Cicatrix
Far away.
And he knew it wasn't just the alcohol-codeine blow to his system when he really *looked* at the book. Thick, old, charred at the edges. And there was a smell to it, too, like ozone and plants grown in dark, wet basements and he knew.
Ensemble, AU mid-Prophecy Girl. Varying POV.
Her eyes were different.
Close Encounters
"This may be a shot in the dark, but maybe because I'm a vampire?"
"You know what I mean."
"No, I don't know what you mean. I never know what you mean. You're a hard person to suss out, Harris."
"I hate you. What's so hard to understand about that?"
"The look in your eyes when you say it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I think you already know."
"Humor me."
"You have this look, see, almost like those people who swim with sharks."
Season 5 spander.
"Why can't you just act like a decent human being for once?"
Closure
"Not many left who need killing. Not on hand, anyway."
Xander tipped his head at Spike as if he were the stupidest thing in the world, sitting right in front of his marveling eyes.
"Me?" Spike said in disbelief, more than a little flattered. "I'm your great unfinished business?"
"Guess you missed that whole attempted homicide thing just now."
"Sorry. Thought you were having a leg-pull." Frowning and serious, Spike offered, "If you want another go..."
Post-series, gone AU at some point during late season 7 prior to Dirty Girls. Spander.
"Me, not so much. If revenge is a dish best served cold, mine is buried in the Arctic."
Coming Home
Indeterminate setting spander, probably post season 4. Xander POV.
Spike - he's everywhere these days. Always hanging around them, constantly on Xander's mind. It's not healthy; he's officially decided. And he wants something. He must want something. Spike never does anything out of the good of his heart. Because in order to do that Spike would have to have a) a heart and b) some good in it.
Compass Rose
Starts during season 4. Spander. Spike POV.
But that's neither here nor there, since right now Harris is doing the job-search thing again. And he's bummed about it, Spike can tell, 'cause the Slayer made a little joke about it today. Nothing nasty, just...the sort of thing a college-girl might say to a townie, aiming for flip but arriving at snarky. And Spike's been watching, and he knows Harris doesn't lose the jobs because he's not competent. He loses them because he's 19 and he needs more sleep and better food and a break from the perpetual on-call state that is scoobydom.
Considering
No particular setting. Spander. Spike POV.
"I'm going to cut you into pocket-sized bits and mail you to Tulsa." He stabbed it again. "And Nome." Again, wrenching the bar sideways with a grunt. "And...Halifax."
A Critique of Pure Reason
"Those are characters," Xander says. "So no dice. Oh! Except once?" Xander is suddenly animated. "I met Dracula. Seriously."
"You met Dracula," Dom says skeptically.
"Yeah, it was crazy. Except then he made me his bug-eating minion," Xander says, his face clouding over again. He digs his fork into his eggs irritably.
Dom looks at him in his old shirt, stubble dark on his cheeks, scars and eye patch and grim determination. "That's hard to imagine," he says after a second.
Xander looks up, surprised and pleased. "Thanks. But it's really not."
Post-Chosen. Xom. Dominic Monaghan POV.
Dom laughs. "Um... Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?"
Cuckoo in the Nest
Pre, during, and post-series. Xander, Tony Harris. Tony Harris POV.
The kid's smile is cheaply won. Tony knows this from experience. The smallest goddamn thing makes the kid happy and when his face lights up with that smile it means about as much as someone dropping a penny in a slot. Maybe the kid's so easily thrilled with life because he knows he's lucky to have even been born. When Tony needs to take the edge off with Wild Turkey, he sometimes slips and reminds the kid of that fact. The kid's smile vanishes and Tony gets angry because he can feel the loss in the pit of his stomach.
Dark Horse
"Yeah, all right." He took it, had a bite, and handed it back. Sweet, tart, juicy. Almost worth five hundred dollars. He missed apples.
The kid ate the core, the stem, everything. As if there were memories buried inside it, and he wanted to eat those too.
Post-apocalypse. Spander. Spike POV.
The kid took another bite of the apple, then looked at what was left - almost core - and swallowed. He turned it slightly in his fingers, then held it out to Spike. Spike looked at it.
Deep, Too
Early season 3. Spike, Xander. Xander POV.
He'd had a shitty day. Another in a long line of shitty days. A fight with his mom before school, he'd forgotten the homework for first, second and third periods, he'd managed to trip over his own feet twice and nearly get the crap beaten out of him by Larry, only to have Buffy save him. After that, he'd gone home to find his dad home early and also drunk, which meant that his ribs weren't going to be feeling better any time soon and that he'd gotten to hear the wonderful story of the condom breaking for the 8,458th time.
Doesn't
Indeterminate setting spander. Xander POV.
Spike doesn't do a lot of things, probably because he's dead and evil and possibly because he's punk and probably also because he's not a girl. Girls are better at the rose-on-the-pillow thing. And because he's a guy too, flowers and hearts always seemed sort of dumb to Xander...but now he sort of gets them. If nothing else, they're a good way to tell you're dating someone.
Dormant Magics
Giles sighed. "I know."
"I mean, it's not like anyone's ever cast a spell on me to make me irresistible to women - Oh wait, they did. And it sucked."
Post-Chosen. Fader. Xander POV. Part of the Snapshots series, the rest can be found under that title here. Postcards from a Kerouac Summer, This Little Light, and Xander's Slayers are set in the same 'verse.
The chills amped up another several notches. "Can we skip the oh dear and go straight to fucking hell? Because, not a particularly enjoyable history of spells and witchcraft here."
The Down Below
She grabs his chin in her hand, forces his gaze to hers. And a part of her protests that this is wrong, that she should not be manhandling him - because he could be dangerous; because he is clearly unwell; because he was once her friend.
Early season 7. Dawn, Spike. Spuffy. Dawn POV.
"I hope you go crazy down here, all alone. I hope you never leave, that you're trapped down here for the rest of your miserable unlife. Are you listening to me?"
Emerging
Post-Angel finale, and a year or two on. Spander. Xander POV.
They stood paused on the sidewalk. Xander took a breath, let strangers brush by them. "Just so you know, this is me seducing you." He paused, jingled some change in his right pocket. "And I thought...maybe I'd check in. See how that's going."
Expert Care
"Why do you do it? You know you don't have to, pet..."
Though not necessarily to him. Christ. They need another y chromosome in the Scooby Gang, stat. It could be, like, initiation. 'Sure, you're one of us. Here's your new roommate. Try not to let him wander into the sunlight.'
Season 7, sometime post-Him. Spike, Xander. Xander POV.
And once his heart is more or less back in his chest cavity, Xander can figure it out. Spike, for reasons known only to his sanity-deficient self, is lurking just inside the door. And talking.
Feed My Will to Feel This Moment
No wonder that insane demon woman wanted him so badly. He is absolutely nothing to lose; there was no bottom of the barrel to scrape after you fucked Xander Harris.
Season 4 spander. Spike POV.
He is becoming more reclusive, and he knows that Xander has noticed. He's never said anything about it - that damned kid is nothing if not avoidant, perfectly content to babble about the useless and inane, and terrified of anything with depth.
Fifty Bucks
"Oh, good fuckin' call! What the hell was in your pocket?"
"Straight razor, probably." Spike's eyes haven't left Xander's hand, and he's standing way too close, and Xander looks at him. And something ticks over in his brain, just a little click, but it's the first domino of a huge-ass wall of dominoes, and this one's been poised to fall for so long. Xander brings his hand up close to his chest, and watches as Spike's eyes follow the motion, like a snake or a cat will do.
Season 4? Spander. Xander POV.
"You're bleeding," he says, and Xander snarls at him.
Five Ways of Becoming Someone Else
Various settings. Willow. Willow POV.
There is no such thing as Lethe's Bramble, as far as her books are concerned, or Tara's, or Giles'. Pages neatly removed and burned, to prevent what she can't risk. To save them from themselves.
Four Degrees
Okay.
Rewind.
Statistical impossibility.
He settles for a hung over pirate on shore leave and opens the door.
Post-Angel finale spander. Xander POV.
The seas are calm and Xander staggers like a pirate on shore leave. A sober pirate on shore leave.
Gloryhole
Non-specifically post-apocalyptic. Spander, Spike POV.
He laced his hands behind his head, stared at the ceiling, and wondered if he was sorry. About Xander, about the lying or the sex. About anything else - those years in Sunnydale, the ones that seemed like a blip now, when he lost Dru and almost bagged a third Slayer. About wandering the world slitting throats. About Angelus. He decided he wasn't sorry about much, but he regretted laying money against Man o'War in '22. As an afterthought, he took his watch off and tossed it onto the bedside table in the darkness. It slid off and he heard the glass face break. He didn't bother getting up.
Hand Me Down
He stops with the realization that he's barbed-wired himself into a corner. No way in hell he's going to say it out loud, not even from the safe distance of almost half a decade from that rocky, dusty bluff.
But Willow does it for him: "Lost my mind." She doesn't bother with the pretense of putting a question mark at the end of her sentence.
Post-Chosen, plus a couple years. Wander. Xander POV.
"I lost an eye," he says carefully. "An eye. Which sucked the mighty suck, true, but it's just an eye. You..."
Heartbreak Even
Post-series spander. Xander POV.
But Xander found that he wasn't finished yet. "Not only that, but no one will ever love you, Spike. Not even your own kind. Because they can't either. It's just - it's just you. So maybe I don't even want to figure you out."
Here Comes a Candle
The first time he saw a head go by, half-stripped and gaping, sharp little eyes fixed on him, he started to have second thoughts. And there were feet, lots of feet. Once, an entirely intact mouse clambering desperately over the glistening cuts. One of the other guys yanked it out, and then there was a brutal little game of stomp with lots of Spanish shouting and money getting tossed around. He kept out of it.
Early season 5. Ensemble. Xander POV.
At the classified ads stage, the chicken factory had seemed like a good idea. Good pay, local business. No union yet, but they'd have one in the next six months or he was a Hottentot. And the machines did all the real work - all he had to do was watch the stuff go by, and pick out any obvious mistakes.
Hero
All human AU, sort of. Xander/William. Will POV.
"We - well, mostly me, but dad too - we just can't help it. The kid is so..." Will doesn't know how to finish that - doesn't really know how to put into words the feelings that Xander evoked in him. He was so scared, that kid - so lonely, and so wounded. And his world was so dark and scary; full of monsters and pain and evil that he can't stop or control - just battle, endlessly. Will felt like, if he didn't help him out - do what he could - it'd be like...like stepping on Superman's cape, or trying to de-mask Batman. Or taking a little, bedraggled kitten and putting it in a box by the highway. It just wouldn't be right.
The History of Humor In the 20th Century
Weird, how he looks at me.
Like he's got a fucking right to talk. He's all about The Addams Family. Yeah, you heard me right. The Addams Family. We're not talking the movies. Unh-unh. We're talking the original, accept-no-substitutes, black-and-white Gomez and Morticia.
And when Morticia goes into the fake French thing and Gomez starts doing those kisses up her arm, you can see Cyclops go all gooey. I mean, what the fuck? Yeah, it's silly. It's maybe pointlessly cute for, what? The first ten times? But it's kinda useless and it gets wicked old when it's in every single goddamn episode.
Post-series, Xander, Faith. Faith POV. Part of the whisperverse, which also includes Whisper, Living History, and Water Hold Me Down.
So he doesn't get it. Fine and good, right? 'Cept he more often than not plops on the couch and watches with me. He doesn't say too much. He doesn't really laugh. Sometimes you can hear a little laugh when life kicks Ralph in the ass, but when Gleason goes a-ranting Cyclops just shuts down and looks at me 'cause I'm practically pissing my pants.
Holy Water
Season 7, post-Him. Xander, Spike. Spike POV.
All showers start the same for Spike, these days. They start out cold, ice cold, and Spike wonders every time why people think that Hell would be hot. There's nothing more holy than warmth, not really, because sometimes it's the thing he misses more than ever.
How the Light Gets In
And then it hit him. Two months ago he'd been fighting a vampire apocalypse two miles under South Africa. Five months ago he'd been chasing a rogue slayer and her heavily armed entourage through an actual war zone. A year and a half ago, it was ten thousand uber-vamps in Sunnydale High. God, he hadn't been safe since he was fifteen years old - and even then, he'd only thought he was.
Post-Angel finale. Spander. Sequel to Late Night Porn Store Blues, and part of a larger series. Xander POV.
He's insane, Xander realized suddenly. We're going to die. We're going to be nothing but a red smear on the autobahn. There won't be enough left of us to send home in a bucket.
In the Bleak Midwinter
Post series. Xawn.
Alone outside on Christmas eve, a cigarette held precariously between his lips, Xander makes his first snow angel. The smoke looks like it stretches between him and the trees above him, between him and the moon, and snow is cold on the back of his head. He moves his arms and legs back and forth, clearing a space the way he's seen others do in movies and on TV, the rustling of his clothing and the crunching of the snow the only sounds.
In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro
Post-Chosen Xander. Xander POV. Prologue to See America.
Xander doesn't like guns, never has. He can use one, but the patch makes it trickier than before, when he had the soldier's memories and two eyes and a different level of depth perception. It seems colder than his usual weapons - stakes and swords and daggers and axes - things that are extensions of his body. He's used to weapons that feel more personal somehow, and he laughs at himself for caring if his murder weapon is impersonal.
Involuntary Bodies
"I like pistols," Xander said warmly.
A smile hooked up one side of Spike's mouth and he raised his brows. "You sure you didn't bang the jam about?"
"My jam remains intact."
AU post-Tough Love, season 5. Spander. Xander POV.
Spike came in and studied the mess. "You all right?" At Xander's nod, he said, "This lot's clearing out."
Junkie Blood
Post-apocalyptic, AU someplace post-Dirty Girls. Spander, Xander POV. Sequel in comments, scroll down.
And it's not bad, this life. The truth of it surprises Xander. He knows that apocalypse is supposed to be a bad thing, but somehow, losing everything, floating through his days and nights with nothing but Spike to connect him to his life before - it's as though he's permanently wrapped in cotton, now. Life's sort of muffled and fuzzy and unreal, and mostly just fine.
Keeper
Season 7, departs from canon starting with Sleeper. Spander, Xander POV.
Something twisty and slippery, sliding and shimmering around the edges of my consciousness and fucking me up. Making me think about things that I would really rather not. Like how is it possible that Spike, an unrepentant, murdering, soulless demon, could one day up and decide to get a soul? He wanted it, he fought and suffered for it. And he had to know having a soul would be a punishment to him after what he's done. How can I keep rationalizing Anya's willingness to give up her soul and become a demon and a murderer? Twice? And what about Willow? She's all soul-having, and look at what happened there. And let's not even think about me, about what I've done and what I failed to do and just everything. Everything that went wrong. All the things I fucked up.
Keeper of the Book
"Mishap," he repeats, as if there's something amusing about it. "Not a mishap. A slip. Not Africa. Sunny, sunny California."
"Sunnydale?"
"Garden spot of the state. You know what happens in gardens, don't you? Talking snakes and girls who don't know any better. Not a good combination."
Directly post-Angel episode Lineage. Wesley, Xander. Wesley POV.
Wesley takes a gamble. "You had quite a serious mishap with your eye. Did that happen in Africa?" Giles hadn't mentioned it - did he know?
Kiss
Directly post-Hell's Bells spander.
They're marooned here, in a sense. Caught under the awning of the cheap, awful bar, waiting for the rain to let off so they can go to their respective hells. This was just a chance encounter. Xander didn't come here to see Spike. He came here to see a lot of liquor and then nothing else for a very long time. He doesn't want to dream tonight.
Kisses
Post-Chosen spander. Xander POV.
Sometimes it was hard to look at those memories, time ruining the innocence. Sometimes handling them, letting metaphysical fingers run over hair that was free of dye and a face that was still free of anything resembling concern was all that kept him sane. He'd loved these girls, both of them, their natures so opposite that together they formed the whole of what he thought his perfect woman should be.
Kryptonite
"Yeah. Bea Arthur's kinda scary though."
"Mm."
"Tasty mm or I agree with you mm?"
"Latter."
"Good."
Season 4? Post-New Moon Rising. Dander. Xander POV.
Oz yawns and slides onto the floor. He blinks at the t.v. "Betty White is cool."
Late Night Porn Store Blues
The guy rolled over and sat up, clutching his head with his hands, and stared at Xander.
Xander stared back.
"Fuck me," whispered Spike.
Post-Angel finale. Xander, Spike. Part of a larger series. Xander POV.
"Hi, Billy?" Xander said quietly, "Fred sent me to take you home."
Lessons in Cool
"Pond scum?" Oz offers.
"Not really what I was going for there, but thanks."
"You know, people badmouth pond scum a lot, and that has a nice ring to it, but when you think about it? Not so bad. It's just leaves and mud and decaying things. Natural."
Xander blinks. "Um, is that your way of telling me you don't want to hear my apology? 'Cause I have notes." He fishes the crumpled up, scribbled-on cafeteria napkin he's been carrying around for the past two weeks out of his pocket.
Seasons 2 and 3. Dander, varying POV.
"So here's the thing," he tells a startled Oz as he sits next to him on the bench. "Sometimes a man has to be a man, and do what's... manly. And sometimes the manly thing to do is to just be a man and admit that you're..."
Let the World Spin
Still, he's surprised at the ache in his chest when he finds the witches dead. Red's curled up around Tara like she was trying to protect her, but there are holes through each of them. Magic's like that sometimes. Try to do too much, try to channel more than your body can handle, and you end up in tatters.
Post-Gift. Post-apocalyptic. Spawn.
As far as Spike was concerned, the world had stopped turning the night Buffy'd died. So when it stops for real, in a Hellmouth-sized explosion that blots out the sky with debris for days afterwards, it's just another step closer to how he's been feeling.
Lilac City
"A guy gouged it out with his thumb."
She sucks in her breath, looks a little green. That's the problem with using the electroshock. Sometimes you get a little hit of it yourself.
Post-Chosen, five years later. Xander/original female character, fader. Xander POV.
"What happened to your eye?" she asks abruptly. The conversational defibrillator paddles.
Little Shadow
Post-apocalyptic spander. Xander POV.
Spike dropped down on top of him, a knee on either side of his ribs, and handed over the cigarette. Then he licked the blood off Xander's face, while Xander stared at the sky and wondered if he was really, for real and true, the last person left alive in the whole world. He didn't wonder about it very often, because if it was true then he was about seventeen months and three weeks behind in putting a bullet through his brain.
Loserville
"Like what?" Spike said.
There was a long, pathetic silence while they both desperately struggled to think of something fun to do.
"We could go play in traffic?" Xander finally suggested.
Spike didn't answer right away. "Can I lick you if you get hit by a car and bleed all over the place?"
Xander was feeling magnanimous, so he said, "Sure. Mind you, the 'ick' is implied."
Generic season 4, post-Hush. Spander. Xander POV.
Xander wanted to say something pithy about having no pity for serial killers, but he was feeling too apathetic to make the effort. "God, I'm bored. We should do something."
The Loving Dead
Post-Chosen. Xander. Xander POV.
It's been over two years, and he thinks he's pretty much made it through the Kübler-Ross flowchart intact. Anya's gone. His folks are gone. There's stuff he still needs to figure out, stuff that still needs to be drunk through or cried through, with his remaining ducts. Crying with the glass eye in feels weird, as if there are muscles in the back of the socket, a little fist squeezing the marble. Crying with it out feels worse. Like he might just bust a gasket and, God, start to seep.
Lovingkindness
Post-Grave. Sequel to What She Deserves. Spike/original male character, Spuffy. Varying POV.
"You don't get it, though, do you, my Jack? You never met a vampire before me. If you had, you'd be dead." He pulled back a little, looked at him. There was a tiny pinpoint of dread in each of Jack's attentive eyes. Afraid of what he might be told. "I'm a monster. A stone killer. For over a hundred years, I killed whenever I was hungry, or bored, whenever I fancied a spot of violence... I only loved my mistress, who was like me, hell, fiercer than me. Everyone alive was fair game for our appetites. I was wicked, I delighted in wickedness. All vampires do. No - don't smile. Don't smile. That's real, that is, wickedness. It's real and it's terrible. Once you lose your soul -" His mouth worked, but the words had dried up.
Macramé
Oh, and - 317 slayers? Too fucking many.
Post-series, then oddly AU spander. Willow POV.
It was funny how things worked out. Ten months, three weeks and a day after the bottom dropped out of Sunnydale, Willow fought her last bearable fight with Kennedy. A week later she sat across from Xander in a diner in Cleveland and he smiled down at the table like a man twice his age. His fork wandered back and forth across his plate. He was too drunk to eat eggs or meet her eyes. Meanwhile Giles hid in England, Buffy traveled the world and never called, Andrew was dead, and Dawn and Faith slayed together intimately, synchronized fembots in plum lipstick and black leather.
The Magic Number
"And what are the international economic developments?" he asked quietly, turning around with the mug still in his hands. "Whither the yuan?"
Harris was staring at him, fingertips smoothing the edge of the newspaper with a light, absent touch. He didn't look terrified now - lost and wary, yes, but not scared out of his wits. What wits, Spike corrected himself.
Season 5, AU post-Forever, or thereabouts. Spander. Spike POV.
Harris was silent. Spike took a minute or two to rinse his mug, shake it dry, towel it off. All with careful, intentional, unthreatening movements. Felt like he was in a bloody pantomime.
McSweeney's
Drabbles. Spander, varying POV.
On the surface, you'd see him as a nobody, if you even saw him at all. Good-looking enough, but not stunning. He dresses atrociously, has a bad haircut, and talks too much. He's got this look on his face of constant panic, like the world's collapsing around him. He's neurotic, fussy, childish, and weird.
Mirror, Mirror
He wondered, if he could sink down through the floor, what it'd look like from there.
Post-Damage, Angel season 5. Spike, Dana. Spike POV.
Placing the handset onto its cradle, Spike spent a long time counting the long spider-web of cracks in the ceiling above his head, fascinated by each little length, twisting and turning and bleeding into other little lengths until they formed a pattern worthy of classic Italian mosaics.
Modus Vivendi
Departs from canon early season 5. Spander. Xander POV.
Xander laughed, then wondered if he was going insane. A second ago he'd been worrying about whether Spike and Liv had really kidnapped him, whether they might hurt him, maybe kill him. Now it struck him as funny that Spike didn't like the end of Casablanca.
Morituri te Salutamus
Wishverse, pre-The Wish. White hat ensemble. Nancy POV.
The other day I was in the library with Giles, cleaning some of the weapons after school. Thinking about dying, like I do most days. Don't know if I have a death wish exactly, but when you know it's coming, no matter what you do, there doesn't seem to be much point in thinking about, like, who you're going to the Winter Brunch with.
Motel
Post-Dirty Girls spander. Fic continues in comments, so scroll down. Spike POV.
The kid wasn't looking too good. Dark circles. Stubble. And getting more ragged-looking by the day. This little roadtrip was supposed to put some meat back on the kid's bones, get him a tan. So far, it wasn't exactly working. Or, more accurately, it wasn't working at all. "Come here," he said, feeling his expression soften and hating it. Knowing the kid would hate him even more for it.
Never-Ever Land
He was depressed and an idiot. And most likely about to get eaten. Buffy was going to kill him.
Season 3, post-Lover's Walk spander. Xander POV.
All in all, his life pretty much sucked right now, and he mostly had himself to blame for it. Which probably went a long way to explain why he was taking a short-cut through an alley. In Sunnydale. After dark.
A New Man
Post-series. Xander/Vi, sort of. Xander POV.
The first time the idea hits him he becomes violently ill. He woke up from a recurring nightmare - friend, vamp, stake, an ill-timed push, dust - and the seed had been planted. The one certainty he held dear, his one 'At least I'm not' was suddenly laughable. Because really? Why not? He didn't want to be over, but God he needed it, everything, to end.
Nice Shirt
Season 1 through 6 dander. Varying POV.
Talking in the dark like this is better. He gets odd angles of sight, can hear without looking if he wants, can think and doze and it's okay. Oz isn't linear, but neither is Xander. But they're nonlinear in different ways, and Xander's thinking about maps and lines. Which leads him to roads, and he thinks Oz is like some winding country road, up in wine country or on the poster for that Robert Frost poem in his English classroom. A neat, curvy dirt road through trees and terraced pastures. Xander himself is a traffic snarl, one of those spaghetti loops of freeway, jammed with angry people and honking horns and random acts of frustrated violence.
Not Fade Away
The covers on the bed shift again, and then a pale hand emerges from under the blankets. What the-
"Take that out," Spike says, pulling the pillow briefly off his face. "It stinks." The pillow drops again, and he's gone.
Nick just stands there, totally vacant, feeling the last string of the reality kite jerk itself out of his hands and sail up into the blue.
Post-cancellation meta, set May 2004. Spike/Nicholas Brendon. Nick POV.
"Uh-" That's all he can get out; if he says anything else, he's going to stutter. He knows it. His voice sounds thin and weedy, like a kid in fifth grade.
Notes for a Gay Pamphlet (Bogle Scat prologue)
Season 4, possibly season 5. Xander/original male character, Xander POV.
He unplugged the waffle iron and poured himself a bowl of cornflakes, carried the bowl and milk carton to the living room and sat on the couch. He'd forgotten a spoon, and for some reason that made him want to cry. He was tired. He put the milk and bowl on the coffee table and leaned back into the cushions, hit the remote. He flipped through the channels till he found a nature program. Wolf pups tussling. That was nice.
Notice
Set season 6, where season 5 departed from canon after Blood Ties. Spander, Spike POV.
The climb up the steps is harder than he thought and by the time they reach the top he's shaking all over, like when he was ten and had influenza and almost died. Xander pushes the basement door open and they stagger out and into the kitchen, where Joyce is standing over the stove. She stares at them both for a moment and then she's rushing over, pulling out a stool and helping Xander to ease him down onto it and Spike just hunches there, shaking all over and not realizing until Xander is prying at his hands that he's got a death-grip on the boy's work shirt.
Old Blood
Season 7, leaves canon after Showtime. Spuffy, but focus is Spike & Dawn friendship. Dawn POV, first in a series, all of which can be found here.
He breathed, when he thought about it. Or, weirdly, when he forgot about it, humming under his breath sometimes when the clever hands were busy with something, breath enough for humming. And he snored. Never would admit to it but he did, she'd heard him. Watched him do it. Specially when he was completely plastered, legless, AWOL nobody-home drunk. No breath, no motion for five minutes at a time by her watch, and then maybe one noisy intake of breath and settle his shoulder a different way and inert again, not even faking living chest action.
The One in the Cave
Spander. Generic season 4 or 5? Xander POV.
A few minutes became a few more and they were still just kissing but it didn't feel like they weren't making progress. Xander felt as if this was the first real conversation he'd had with Spike and every moment that passed he understood more and more. Spike was telling him things, his thoughts; secret thoughts, quiet thoughts, soft thoughts, thoughts that were broken and tangled and difficult to get across, and serious; and Xander talked back and could feel words spilling out the way they did when he was excited, jumbling and tripping back over themselves, and the conversation slipped into that groove where you're both talking over each other, finishing each other's sentences, nodding, yes, yes, because you're both on the same wavelength, and you need to get out this next thought, and another, and get to the end of it, because when you do, the other person will laugh, nodding in recognition, and you'll laugh in relief, being heard. Xander was being heard.
The One In the Library
Spander. Generic season 4 or 5? Xander POV.
"But not real ones, right?" Xander asked, conscious that his voice was a little on the high side. And that Spike was grinning that asshole grin of his. The one that said, Oh yeah, in an oily tone, and then took its comb out of its back pocket and smugly ducktailed its hair. "Metaphorical maces. Maces of bad language and dirty looks."
The One Where Xander Isn't Quite James Bond
"Whatever you do," Anya said, "avoid evisceration."
"No problem." He smiled at her, hiding his attack of nerves. "I've been doing that all my life."
Generic season 5? Spander, Xander POV.
The plan, as it finally shaped up, wasn't what he'd have chosen, but he'd been outvoted, outmaneuvered, and outpersuaded. Anya was the only one on his side, and that hadn't worked out too well, especially when she argued that he wasn't suave enough to pull it off. It was then that he'd felt the familiar sinking sensation of committing himself to an ill-advised course of action that could end in his death.
Pantomime
Spander. Generic season 4 or 5? Xander POV.
He had one more trick up his sleeve, an old standby. Something he used to do as a kid and which he was doing, now, automatically: retreating into himself, tucking and curling into the farthest corner of his mind, and waiting for the end. They would crow and bray and flash their teeth. They would kick him in the gut till he spit blood. They would haul him up by his shoulders and tear his heart out. But they would never ever have him. Because it was just his body, and he wasn't even there.
Pattern
Season 5ish? Spander, Xander POV.
She'd killed lots of men in lots of ways. No getting around that. And he'd lied when he said it had nothing to do with her. You didn't break up with an ex-demon without it having something to do with her. Some part of him huddling down in the basement of his thoughts was always like, "Whoa. Scary vengeance demon. What the hell am I doing?" A distant voice shouting up through the vent shafts of his mind, trying to get his attention. A call for help.
Perish
No clear particular setting, but later in series. Spander. Spike POV.
The problem with Harris was, he thought it was more. Didn't say it, wouldn't ever say it, but said it anyway, with happy eyes and rotten jokes and being there. Bloody being there all the time. Bouncing back. Didn't matter what bit him, bruised him, cut little bits out of his hide. And that was a slithey that wouldn't tove again. But here he came every time, bobbing back to the surface, unsinkable. Unbreakable. There was another word for that. Irre-- Irre-something. Couldn't remember. Bloody Darla.
Phrase and Fable
Spike is there, always, waiting by the movie theatre with a pool cue and a minion, and tapping his feet to the sound of his shoes. He's dead, as usual, and fangless, which is the way of dreams.
Really odd, presumably post-series dreamscape spander. Xander POV.
He runs the hot water and fills up the pool. He shaves in his parent's bathroom, showers in the locker room, and dresses in the basement. He drinks coffee in Joyce's kitchen and dunks his doughnut from the box on the library desk. He picks up his car keys from Giles's coffee table, and heads out of the crypt to the dorm.
Prawnverse
"You are dangerous people," she says after a while. "Does your Piaf know that?"
"Yeah."
"And do you know that?"
"Yeah. I know that."
Spander with very odd non-canon timelines - just go with it. Spike POV.
He just sits there while the bartender brings another shot down and sets it in front of Bitte. She picks it up in her pale fingers and sips it delicately, like tea.
Rain
Indeterminate setting, presumably post-series spander. Xander POV.
Spike twisted a little, head moving restlessly on the pillow as if waking nightmares were shifting inside. "Sometimes I think...they're going to come again, going to find me and make me pay for everything I did."
The Rapturous End
Post-Chosen Buffy, Xander. Buffy POV. Part of a loose, occasionally surreal crossover series, After the End of the World
She dreams of Xander, in these apocalyptic dreams, when the flashes of blurry image, of rivers of blood and piles of rubble and destruction, clear a space in the middle for him. She sees him walking down a hill - that's all - dirt on his clothing and under his fingernails. He is looking down, and somehow the sight of him, the slope of his shoulders and the way his feet trudge along the dusty road, is the saddest thing she has ever seen. And she knows, in the dream, that he is just returning from burying Naomi, that it is grave-dirt clinging to him.
Recompense
Finally Xander cracks. "What? You're worse than the girls."
"Nothing." Jesse stares out the window.
"Don't be like that. Just tell me. What?"
Jesse turns and gives him an incredulous look. "How can you ask me that, man? I trusted you, Xander. But you killed me."
Season 7, post-Conversations with Dead People. Xander, Spike. Spuffy. Xander POV.
The drive to the construction site is mostly silent, though Jesse appears to have something on his mind.
Red Apple Falls
Early season 5 spander. Xander POV.
"Take it you've heard the news?" Spike leaned against the arm of the sofa, arms crossed with Steve McQueen-cool. He ran a hand through his hair and left an inexplicable red streak. Then the tang of meat and copper hit Xander, shook him from his reverie like smelling salts. He turned and scrambled at the front door.
Rehearsal
Generic season 4 spander. Xander POV.
"Is that like some kind of vampire saying? Did the older, wiser - well in your case it'd be Angel so I guess not so much wiser - vampires go around patting you on the head and telling you 'Hey, this unlife of no soul, drinking blood and really bad puns as far as the eye can see may suck - and note what I did with the bad pun there - but as my grandpappy vampire once told me: better five years old than sitting in a chair and gosh darn it if he wasn't right.'?"
The Romance of Spike 'n' Xander. In Six Words at a Time.
Xander watches with amusement. Eating Fritos.
Paradigmatic basement spander.
In his sleep, Spike chases rabbits.
Roped
Spike held his eyes in a fixed and pointed way. "Some do." He was clearly talking about Buffy and not your average necrophiliac, a new twist of innuendo that made Xander want to punch him someplace soft. The comeback most certain to tick Spike off would be to sing Angel's praises, get in digs about Big Daddy Vamp's superiority, but Xander knew that if he did the bad taste would linger in his mouth for days.
Season four. Spander. Xander POV.
"I'm sensing some innuendo here, and can I just say - " Xander gave an elaborate shudder of disgust. "What makes you think I would *ever* turn to a cadaver for sex tips?"
Sculpture
Post-Angel finale spander, Spike POV.
It was what he waited for, that Spike worried over. This newly strange Xander had none of the black despair that led to suicide, but there was something there that made a hundred years of reading and learning people sit up. Spike swore he could see it, sometimes, when the sun glanced off burnt skin to reflect in shimmering waves. Something dark and heavy, draped around broad shoulders that refused to bow under the weight.
Season Noir
"Maybe they blew up the high school," Dawn said after a minute. Buffy recognized the futile attempt to find a silver lining where there was none; recognized also how she'd taught Dawn by example. Making ironic jokes in the face of evil was just a new spin on the copy-cat games of childhood, when Dawn used to steal into her room and use her make-up, admiration of her big sister disguised as petty annoyance.
"A grand Sunnydale tradition," said Buffy. But what she'd meant as lightness failed on delivery, her voice as darkly bereft as her sister's. Humor couldn't take this down to scale. It was too big, too wrong.
The first sixteen episodes of a season 8, where season 6 went AU after Gone. Ensemble, canonically spuffy, xanya, Willow/Tara. Includes a season finale for the AU season 7. Episode sixteen, incomplete, is here.
A blossom of fire appeared to the east, the dull boom of detonation reaching them a moment later. They watched in silence.
Second Hand
She bounces once when she hits the concrete, leaves her mark in broken wood and shattered glass.
Later, they will pull the splinters out of her chest. They will wash the blood off her face, and brush her hair. Willow will say that she was dead before she hit the ground. Spike will not correct her in front of Dawn.
Post-Gift, post Angel series finale. Sponnor. Spike POV.
Crunch of bone in his chest when he shifts, but he has to see, has to know - her fall seems faster, somehow. Halfway to him now, he can see that Buffy's eyes are closed; he can listen to her breathing as it quickens. He can hear exactly when it stops. Ten of her heartbeats, wet and glorious, suspended over all of them; he fell, but she flies. Then silence.
See America
Angel season 5, leaves canon post-Shells. Spander. Varying POV. In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro is the prologue. Lake House is the epilogue/sequel.
Spike felt the panic rising and let his mind skip to their escape from the firm, he and Gunn dragging Wes out of the ruins of the lobby, past walls of fire, panes of glass spiderwebbed from the heat, through the clouds of ash and soot. Spike thought about Harmony, about the way she had looked - her pink sweater on fire as she ran down the stairs, her body crumbling to dust on the landing.
Seeing Africa
Post-Chosen gen. Xander POV. Part of a loose, occasionally surreal crossover series, After the End of the World
It was in Namibia that he saw his first hyena. It was strangely anticlimactic - he'd been expecting more, without realizing it. Maybe the hyenas got more out of it than he did, because after that, he heard them at night whenever he was out past the cities, their barking laughs reaching his ears where he lay curled in his sleeping bag in the back of his Jeep. He always slept on his left side, with a cross hung in the back window, and both a stake and a revolver under his pillow.
Seeing Distant Things As If They Were Close
"Thought you weren't supposed to be drinking," Spike says mildly, coming in and shutting - and locking - the door behind him.
"Yeah, well, chalk another one up for the intellectually challenged." There's a belligerence in Xander's voice like an undertow, and Spike's not the one who's going to be swept out to sea.
Post-Dirty Girls, season 7. Spander, Spike POV.
Xander opens the door, and he's got the last bottle of beer in his hand, half-empty.
Seven Languages
Season 5 through post-Angel finale. Spander, in contracting drabbles.
The second time, it was about anger. It was one of those things that sometimes happened when you got so mad that you had to kill something or fuck something. Guy thing. And Xander couldn't take it out on Anya; he just wasn't wired that way.
Shower
Season 4 spander. Xander POV.
Spike merely stared at him, but there was no merely. He was an artist of staring, could match gazes like a mimic and slam your eyelids open like doors - you couldn't be stared at and fail to stare back and recognize that a real presence lived inside that miracle of taxidermy, something sharp and dark that had painted a thousand walls red with blood and licked you with its tongue.
Sidelines
Despite himself, Xander stirred and followed suit. 'Every blighter for himself', oh yeah. Spike had all the short-term memory of a pudding cup. "So, shouldn't it burn your mouth to take the name of the Lord in vain?"
"Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah," Spike uttered with toneless satisfaction, leading the way out the door.
Retelling of season 4, departs from canon post-Hush. Spander. Helps if you're very familiar with what's going on during the season. Xander POV. Sequels (the first two episodes of a very different season 5) are The Other Half Lives and House of Many Hearts. A couple of outtakes are here.
"C'mon," Spike said, rising and collecting his coat from a nearby crate. "You look like you could use a good kill. God knows I can."
Signatures of the Visible: Postmodernity and Pastiche in the Autofictional Encounter
"I-" Marsters stands there with his mouth open, at a loss. "Me. I guess. I mean, who else would I be?"
Spike snorts.
"I'm insane," Marsters says quietly, rubbing his neck again.
Meta, post-cancellation. James Marsters, Spike. Spike POV.
"Didn't know." Spike's knuckles are itching, his shoulders feel tight. "Who the hell did you think you were?"
Simplicity
Season 5? Spander. Spike POV.
Home was when he fell apart. Willow had worked and worked until she could give him that daylight window, but once it was dark her preventative measures failed. He'd have fits - true epileptic fits that rattled the teeth in his skull and bruised his skin from the inside out. His mind would wander, sometimes. Not often and not to the point of true insanity, but he definitely needed a caretaker. If Dawn hadn't decided to give him a call and heard the crackling in the background, he really could have burned the place down.
Skin Deep
"Shh," Spike hisses, waving him away without taking his eyes off the screen. "Making me miss my show."
Post-Him, season 7. Xander, Spike. Xander POV.
He pauses at the doorway, because he's said nothing about it for the last hour and he swore he wouldn't play whatever weird mind game this is, but he knows the curiosity's going to eat away at him all night. "Spike, you do know you're watching static, right?"
A Soft Place to Land
Post-series, directly post-Chosen, wander. Xander POV.
Xander gives into the joy they're determined to share, and finds himself a popular dance partner with females from four to don't-ask-don't-tell. It's the eyepatch, he suspects. Nobody mentions it but a six-year-old named LaDonna, who asks if he's a pirate. "I used to be," he tells her, "but I get seasick, so I had to find another job." LaDonna nods solemnly. He tells her he's an international spy. She doesn't ask what brings him to St. Louis.
A Sorta Fairytale
Dawn had nodded mutely.
She was eleven. She didn't really exist, wasn't even really there, but she didn't know that yet.
Season 7. Dawn, Spike. Dawn POV.
The first thing Spike ever said to her was, "Kid just wants to sit here. Be a part of things." He raised an eyebrow at her, the scarred one. "That right?"
Spander is Exploitive
They both looked at the television screen, dimmed and paused on grisly remains.
"Now I have to start the whole level again." Xander dropped the controller and leaned back harder. "Asshat."
Meta spander.
"Fuck -" Xander leaned forward and let Spike slide down his back, then leaned back hard and pinned him to the couch cushions. "God, you're a jerk. I was just about to get the dagger."
Spanderverse
It hurts, hearing that. Hurts because maybe, okay, some of it might be true. Maybe that's what he craves in his lovers. Someone to beat him down with too much honesty and constant insults. That's what his parents gave him, that's what Cordelia gave him, that's what Faith gave him, and that's what Anya promises to give him if he keeps letting her come around.
Maybe all this getting kicked in the face, all this bad luck, is his own sorry fault.
Xander hates Spike. He's always hated him for being so cool, for being so cocky and self-assured, and, well, because he had a thing about murdering innocent people. But now, he hates him more than ever, for the simple fact that Spike is proof of a terrible, vicious pattern Xander's probably doomed to follow for the remainder of his life.
Post-Hush to post-Goodbye Iowa. Spander, Xander POV.
"You need someone who'll take your bullshit and shove it right back in your face when you need it. 'Cause you're a self-destructive little shit, and that's all you've learned in your stupid, sad life."
Stop
Post-series, Twin Peaks crossover. Gen, Oz POV.
Oz had a hard time putting his finger on the smell when he rolled into town, but after he passed a gas station and the charred remains of a lumber mill, it hit him: scorched oil. Everything here had the faint smell of it, like some dude had washed his hands in it and then marked the entire town, here and there, by rubbing his palms all over windowsills and telephone poles.
Subtleties
Not in so many words, not at first. But then, when she won't back down and she's scaring the living shit out of him, he does say that. And they stare at each other for a long moment. And he's nearly shaking because, fuck, he can sometimes be scared of his best friend. She's powerful and too ready to jump on what she sees as wrong.
She doesn't talk to him for two weeks. He waits for a spell, and has nightmares wondering if she's already cast one and he doesn't even know it.
Ten years post-series. Spander. Xander POV.
He tells her to fuck off.
Summertime, And The Living's Easy
Post-series. Andrew, Xander. Andrew POV.
Andrew knew he hadn't mean it, when he'd said it was cool, that Katrina was dead and Buffy hadn't come to get them for it. He didn't mean it at all but the words just sort of came out and there wasn't a way to take them back - and when would he stop apologizing for things only he was left to remember?
Sunday Morning Coming Down
Dawn rolled her eyes. "When you were my age, a 'mall' meant getting gnawed on by bears."
Spike nodded slowly, his eyes on her as he exhaled. "Yeah, those vast hordes of bear gangs plaguing lower London. I can still taste the fear." Dawn glared at him and Spike's smirk softened into a bitter smile.
Post-Gift spander. Xander POV.
Spike snorted, chuckling despite himself. "We really need to broaden your horizons, 'Bit," he said. He jumped the steps and walked over to join her, lighting a cigarette as he came. "After all, when I was your age - "
Sweet You Rock
Post-series. Xandrew. Andrew POV.
There are times when it's easier. The five-hour in-car debate regarding whether the Joker would be happy if Batman died. Kennedy drugged herself into sleep after an hour of it. Andrew drove. Xander could have. These flat roads don't hold any surprises, even for a man with failing depth perception.
Sweeter Far than Flowing Honey
Season 5. Spander. Spike POV, epilogue is Xander POV.
Another two days and Spike didn't give a fuck about what he was going to get from Harris and Finn, because Rack had his lodestone finally. And they'd worked it all out. Spike wanted more than just the chip fixed. He wanted some mojo to work himself, and Rack had been intrigued and accommodating. Spike hated magic as a rule - didn't trust it anymore than he trusted Rack - but he wanted his own back.
Take This Waltz
Set sometime late season 4, probably. Xander, Spike, Oz, Willow. Xander POV.
There was a fraction of a split-second of a hair of a whatever where Oz blinked, and it was the easiest thing in the world to knock the cross away. Break his arm and get him in a neck hold. Felt right, too. Just a couple boys rasslin'. He watched Willow's face go dead. Almost dead. Not dead enough. Still and white, a gravestone among faces.
Thankful
"I'm actually pissed off here, Spike. You're wrecking all my stuff. You're wrecking my life."
Spike pauses, waits for the beat, and double-snaps. Still smiling, totally in love with himself. Just a foot or two away now. Jesus Christ. No, no, no. Not going to let this happen again.
Indeterminately post-season 5. Spander, Xander POV.
Spike does a dopey little two-step, smooth and fluid and straight outta 1978. Left, right, and forward. He's advancing. Xander takes a step back.
Thirst
"It's going around, this killing thing. All the cool kids are doing it."
Indeterminate season, probably 5. Spander. Xander POV.
"You're going to kill me." Spike's voice was thick with disbelief.
Three Fathers
Set nine years after Angel season 3. Xander, Faith, Angel, Wesley. Sequel to What Gets Left Behind. Xander POV.
"I remember you now," Wes says at last. "I knew you in Sunnydale. You were the rich girl's boyfriend."The movie star...and the rest. He's always known he was the most forgettable of the Scoobies, but it startles him that Cordy doesn't get any more notice than "the rich girl," after the three years she and Wes worked together at AI. She'll be beyond pissed to be demoted to Mary Ann status. But she'll never know. It's not like Xander's going to live long enough to deliver that news.
Throwing Shapes
Hard to tell, but Spike seemed to be smiling a crooked smile. "And you don't even know if this is a novelty."
"Shut up." But Xander smiled back. And then grinned, and finally began to laugh, whooping into the silence of the parking lot's empty, stretching lanes, bending over to keep from falling. It was a minute before he caught his breath again. "Oh man, oh man...what in the seven monkey hells are we doing? Who are we?"
Indeterminate setting. Spander. Xander POV.
"My ankle is an eggplant and I smell of sewage."
Tucker's Brother
"Wow," Andrew says appreciatively. "That's so cool. Hey, were you the one that attacked the school during Parent-Teacher night that one time? Jonathan thinks it was you but he's not sure."
"Yup," Spike says, swelling up with pride. "That was me. Were you there?"
"Yeah, dude. I had to hide in the boiler room all night." He picks up the drink in front of him and suddenly realizes that it's somehow become two or three drinks, very blurry drinks at that. Oh well. Might as well drink them all. "You killed my science teacher. The night before the test. It was *awesome.*"
Season 6, post-As You Were. Spandrew. Andrew POV.
Spike tosses back his drink and gestures for another. "Real good, you know, I've had a lot of fun, with the evil." He seems hesitant to broach the subject, but then adds enthusiastically, "I killed Slayers. Two of them."
Twenty-Eight Days
Set at the end of season 4. Willow/Tara. Tara POV.
Except that Buffy and Riley aren't - quite - strangers. They're Willow's, and what's Willow's is mine now. Well, Buffy is Willow's, anyway. Riley's like me, like whatever I am. I smile even deeper, thinking that Riley and Anya and I should start our own little club. We could play Monopoly and talk about boxing and magic and how weird it is to suddenly realize that your heart isn't yours anymore and you don't even know when it happened.
Umad Learns Sumerian
When she wakes up she wants to pummel something and is glad she lives in a house where there's a punching bag in the basement.
Set during the summer between seasons 6 & 7. Dawn. Dawn POV.
Dawn dreams that night that Buffy and Xander are married and it was always just the three of them, a little family. There never was a Watcher or a sex-toy pet vampire or favorite lesbian aunt types or an ex-ex-vengeance-demon-ex-fiancée. Or a deadbeat dad, or a mom with a brain tumor. She dreams that she was always a real girl, that she had existed for exactly 16 years, not for all of time or for a year and a half, whichever way you wanted to look at it. That she was born because a mommy and daddy loved each other very much.
Water Hold Me Down
Seven months post-Chosen. And also 12 years later in an alternate universe. Xanya, sort of, and fader, sort of. Varying POV. Part of the whisperverse, which also includes Whisper, Living History, and The History of Humor in the 20th Century.
He had to admit one thing: if someone were to ever construct a special hell dimension just for him, they couldn't do any better than this hallucination. Give him a glimpse of the could-have-been, tell him that it was built on top of the graves of his friends, and then show him that he'd blow it all anyway because he was just stupid like that.
Weapon
Post-Showtime. Dawn, Spike. Spike POV.
"You're a weapon." The word is stark."I'm sorry," he says again. A world of sorry. Oh, my darling girls.
"Something that could be used against us. Like me."
"What?" Spike sits ramrod straight, ignoring the agony of tortured flesh.
"I'm the Key, Spike. Or I was. What if I still am?"
He is silent in the face of this question. He has no answer for her.
The Weary World Rejoicing
He and Anya share it, and it tastes even better than he remembers.
Post-Gift, post-apocalypse. Xanya, Spike. Christmas story. Xander POV.
He holds it, looking at the miracle of it for a long minute before pulling the foil off the top. The scent of the chocolate is immediate and strong, and he is cast back to elementary school lunch period, sitting at the long tables in the cafeteria under fluorescent lights. The cheap red plastic trays and the lunch monitors yelling at everyone to shut up and sit down, and the taste of juice boxes and fruit rollups. Jesse next to him and his He-Man lunchbox.
A Week of Wrong
Early season 5 spander. Xander POV.
"Look at that," Spike told him, leaning forward and washing his palm back and forth across Xander's chest. "You're all flat and tasty like a crepe." Disconcerted, Xander could only gape up. "A blood-filled crepe." Spike's tone took on a note of wonderment as if this culinary possibility were occuring to him for the first time ever. "God, that'd be good right now. Wonder if Lucy's working the IHOP tonight."
What Gets Left Behind
"She didn't fall. I was careful."
This is the sort of self-justification he'd never accept from Matthew, and his son doesn't let it go unchallenged. "You said not to push people at all."
"I know." He thinks about the violence of his previous life, the casual acceptance of guns and blades and wooden stakes. His encyclopedic knowledge of how to kill a wide range of demons. How miraculous it is that he's managed to shield his son from the darkness of his past for this long, that someone like him has managed to shape this gentle boy. "This was an emergency."
Set nine years after Angel season 3. Wesley, Connor. Story continues in Three Fathers. Wesley POV.
After another long silence, Matthew turns from the window. "You pushed that lady down."
Winners
Tara laughs. "Six."
"Liar. I can't believe this," Xander says. "You just tried to out-man me. You - you took my number and added one. Cheaters."
Season 5ish? Buffy/Xander, Tara/Willow. Buffy POV.
"Five. I got five. A fistful."
The Winter to Pass
You can still tell that they were pretty. It's probably intentional. Faith looks at them for a long time. Turns away wordlessly and it's his turn to follow her back.
Wishverse. Oz/Giles, Oz POV. Sequel to What the Living Do.
They end up near the Bronze, Ground Zero. Oz crouches down in the street and draws constellations between flecks of mica in the pavement while she takes it in. Garbage-filled alleys, evil-smelling windowless building, the two bodies above.
Withdrawal
Season 4. Spander, Xander POV.
It's early November and with the sun always comes a curling, ocean-wet fog, and this neighborhood is out near the docks - near enough to hear the ship's horns, sometimes - and it feels good to layer and snuggle down. Spike doesn't generate any heat but his naked back is good and solid to push against and with the faint scents of Jesse's shirt just there, under his pillow, Xander feels the safest he's ever felt. Sometimes it's raining, and they both like that, and then Spike'll lay there for an hour or more, lazily smoking and talking about the places he's been with Dru - about places that are really cold - like Prague and Moscow and one ill-fated trip to Mongolia - and Xander drifts off with that low, purring voice in his head. With Spike's hand on his hip, or his wrist, just touching.
Without Ceremony
Post Gift. Willow POV.
The amazing thing is the clarity. It's like every sense is attuned; I'm hyperaware of my surroundings. The colours are so bright; the white of the bedspread pulled up to Buffy's chin somehow making her cheeks even paler, the placid blue of Tara's eyes, so full of life. I can see every detail - the soup stain on Tara's sleeve, the lankness of her hair, which I had not found the time to wash the previous day. There is salt caked on my skin from old tears, I can feel it pull with every movement of my face. I smell like stale fear and taste like blood and defeat. I can hear myself speak; the words are swift and tumble from my lips, but there is no connection. It's like I am observing things from a distance. From a bubble that holds me above everything. Light and floaty and removed.
Your Horoscope for Today
Season 5. Spander, Xander POV. Includes author commentary version, linked at end of fic.
He could stop cold if he wanted to, he wasn't that fuck-stupid, but just then Spike roused himself and said, "You all right, mate?" in a husky, hungry voice, and Xander looked at him and accepted the invitation to his teacher's house and asked Amy for a spell and sent Buffy to kill Angel and led the graduation charge to certain death and let the timer run out on the bomb and sucked him off.