An Accidental Meeting

by
Tisienne Blue

Part One

Four years out of Africa, four years home. His new home. Los Angeles. City of Angels… but apparently not the City of Angel because he hadn’t seen the overbearing Neanderthal-browed guy since he’d gotten here and that was more than fine.

Besides, if he was going to see a vampire again, Angel wasn’t the one he’d pick.

Not that I want to see any vampires. Nope, not me. No siree. Living vamp-free these days, right here in the land of perpetual sunshine and happiness.

He’d been lucky in Africa, he figured. And even luckier that Giles had paid him so well for his time. Well, okay, the Watcher’s Council had actually paid him, but that basically meant Giles.

His expenses had been pretty low during his travels and by the time he’d had enough of wandering at the whim of the Watchers, he’d managed to save enough money to rent the small house he’d recently bought. The biggest appeal to it had been the two car garage that had been easily transformed into a workshop and he’d been lucky again that his handmade furniture had caught on with some of the Hollywood glitterati.

So here he was, out of the Council’s employ and well on his way to becoming independently wealthy.

It was good, he told himself with a smile as he strolled down Sunset. Good not to worry for a change about where his next month’s rent—or mortgage, now—was going to come from. Good to be able to shrug off the looks he got when strangers, customers… realized that the one-eyed man was responsible for the things of beauty they wanted so desperately to park their overly tanned, too skinny asses in, on, around.

Yeah, life was good. Lonely, but good.

* * * * *
Almost three years since the so-called ‘final battle’ and here he still was, banging around L.A. looking for… something.

Something to do, something to amuse himself with, something to… help him forget.

Of course, the great brooding wanker would never let him forget. Wouldn’t even bother getting out of bed, most days. ~‘I’ve done enough, Spike… I deserve to rest now.’~

The vampire snorted. Soddin’ git. Like th’ rest of us didn’t do a bloody thing ta win th’ fight an’ keep th’ bloody world just as dark an’ dirty an’ seamy as it was before. Pissant bitch, my Sire is…

It had been losing Wes and Gunn that had done the old blighter in, he figured. Them and Illyria. Losing her had meant losing the last link the overwrought pillock had had to Fred.

But Hell, I lost them too, didn’t I? Don’t see me curlin’ up an’ findin’ a hole ta crawl inta… bloody Angel’s a fuckin’ prat.

Unfortunately for Spike’s inner ire, his soul understood the older vampire’s angst. Hell, the soul was almost desperately searching for something-- anything-- to pull the annoying crybaby out of his pit of despair.

But that was a thought for another time, Spike realized. Right now… well, right now, he had five minutes before he was due to be on stage at Lorne’s new club. It was the weekly poetry night and Spike always opened and closed the evening.

* * * * *

And this is what I get for not paying attention to where I’m going… God, you’d think after growing up on a Hellmouth, I’d be better at noticing the world around me!

Xander’s eye traveled quickly up and down the unfamiliar but busy street, seeing nothing even remotely familiar. He’d thought he knew where he was, where he was going… the address of his newest client’s business had sounded familiar but he’d somehow managed to get himself lost.

He walked quickly to the next corner, looking up at the street sign and frowning. “Okay… right street. Strange street, but the right one anyway. Guess I didn’t know it after all.”

It wasn’t until he started back down the block, looking for the street number he’d memorized that he noticed the tall, dark, trench coat-clad guy ducking into a doorway. He’d seen that person before… a few times, he realized, and all that same day. He just hadn’t realized it until now.

Demon? Hell God? Shit… Bounty Hunter? He paused, looking in a shop window as though interested in whatever the hell was on display. Not a vampire, because… hello. Daylight when I saw him earlier. But whoever or whatever he is, he’s following me and that can’t be good.

Still, maybe the business he was heading for would have a back door he could leave through. That might help him elude his pursuer, and if not, well… at least he’d be able to take a few minutes to figure out some sort of a plan.

Yeah… that’ll work, Xan. Good. No confrontations if you can help it. You’re out of practice these days. And how sad was it that he was talking to himself in third person? Pretty damn sad, man… pretty damn sad, and I’m doing it again, damn it!

So he moved on, watching the guy’s reflection in various windows as he headed for 4936 Verity Street and ducked inside.

“Okay… it’s a bar.”

“I prefer the term ‘club’, sweet cheeks,” a slightly... no, make that boldly swish voice said over the applause greeting someone taking the stage against the far wall behind him. “And since it’s my club, I think I get to call it what I want, hmmm…?”

The brunette’s eye widened as it took in the… being… in front of him. Green skin, lightly scaled. Red eyes… equally red horns, and “God, could you possibly dress in something a little more Hugh Heffner?” Xander couldn’t help asking.

Lorne laughed, waving at the bartender for a drink. “I’m having a martini, my sexy pirate-man. Care for a drink before we get down to business?”

Okay, and why am I not freaking out, here? This guy is obviously a demon unless Halloween was moved to April and no one told me… and ‘business’? What business could I possibly have with… That’s when he remembered that the demon had said it was his club. Apparently, this was the customer he was meeting, and why didn’t that surprise him, all of a sudden? Take the boy out of Sunnyhell…

“Uh, yeah… I think a drink is a really good idea. Uh, I’m Alexander Harris, by the way, although I’m guessing you already knew that seeing as you mentioned business and how did you know it was me? Oh, right. The eye. Got it.”

Red eyes glowed merrily as Lorne pulled the young human to the bar. “Call me Lorne, puddin’ pop. What’ll you have?”

* * * * *

The tall, dark man in the trench coat smirked as the human disappeared into the Pylean’s new club ‘Veritas’ then stalked down the street to the first alleyway.

He stretched, straightening to his full seven and a half feet as he looked up into the night sky.

“He’s there. I watched. I would have herded him if necessary, but it wasn’t. We’re square now. My will is my own again.”

His wide mouth split into a truly gleeful smile as the Powers That Be agreed and he felt himself released.

“Good. And goodbye.”

And with that, Selamanudas flexed his newly returned powers and opened a rift in space and time for just long enough to step through to his home.

* * * * *

He loved doing these readings. Loved that his human ambitions had eventually been realized, even if his work wasn’t published or known by anyone but the demons who frequented Lorne’s place.

Hell, he was lucky the great swishy green bloke had decided to listen to him when he’d found him again. If Lorne hadn’t, he figured he’d have been stuck with writing in his little book and never being heard.

This was better.

He almost smiled at the applause as he took the stage, but even though his ‘reciting voice’ was closer to William than Spike, he was still the Big Bad. Soul or not, he was still… yeah.

He looked out, trying to see the crowd through the painfully bright spotlight as he perched on the edge of the barstool centered in the white splash but failed, as usual. Sometimes his enhanced vision was a bloody nuisance.

He cleared his throat slightly and closed his eyes. Then he began.

A dying rose
Adorns your face
Your eyes the final
Jealousy…

A sacred dance
To seal your fate
Another way
To burn…

He could feel his lips curving at the edges as the club quieted more and more, the only sounds being those of ice against glasses and soft, snuffling, wheezing breaths.

Burn like a star
Burn like a saviour
Blazing in between the rose and you…

His words went on, pulled from deep within him, just as they’d been when he’d written them, and perhaps this… perhaps this was why they listened. Maybe it was because he didn’t hide beneath the words but used them to expose himself almost completely.

He didn’t know. Didn’t care, either.

All that mattered, Spike knew, was that he was here and he was speaking his heart… and in this venue, in these moments, he could do just that and not worry that the same heart would be torn or trod upon or tossed aside like so much rubbish… as had happened so many times before.

What I wouldn’t give for… He stopped the thought. It wasn’t the first time he’d had it, and it wouldn’t be the last, but… why torment himself? He knew his own history better than anyone else ever would, after all. And no one would ever love him for more than a moment.

It was his curse.

* * * * *

He’d had barely a sip of the vodka martini, extra dirty, that he’d asked for when he heard the voice… the other voice, not Lorne’s.

He’d tried to listen to the green guy’s words about the custom bar he wanted built to replace the functional but unappealing one that was already there, but…

There was something familiar about that voice. Not the accent, although that was really good. It made him shiver just a little all by itself. And it wasn’t really the tone.

No, it was the… cadence. The way the words were shaped and put together. The careful arrangement of them and the sense that… whoever was speaking was letting him in on some sort of a secret.

Of course, that made no sense because the words were right out there for everyone to hear, but Xander still felt like those words were telling him something that he and he alone would understand, and...

He had no idea of what that something was.

“Huh?” he said, eye closing for a moment when the green-skinned man touched his arm, “Oh, right. Sorry. It’s just… that guy’s voice…”

“Oh, yes… our little plum blossom has a voice on him, alright. Shoot, Captain, why do you think everyone’s here tonight? It’s not for the other poets, I can tell you that much.” Lorne sighed and sipped his drink slowly. “It’s a shame he’s a vampire. If he could stand the daylight, he’d have himself an agent by now… but then we wouldn’t have him here at Veritas, so… I suppose it’s that old silver lining, right?”

And the human had stopped listening after the first sentence, his ears trained on the rich, lush and somehow lost timbre made clear to him by the PA system.

Lorne rolled his eyes and gestured for another drink. “Tell you what, cutie. You just listen to our Will and we’ll talk later, hmmm…?”

He somehow managed to make himself nod, even as his feet moved slowly away from the bar and towards the stage. His eye teared slightly as one of the stage lights flared brightly into it and he blinked away the spots for a few minutes, the voice still rolling up and down his spine, pulling tiny shake after minuscule shiver from him. And when his vision cleared, he wondered if he’d gone suddenly and irrevocably insane because the man… vampire on the stage looked just like…

“Spike…?” he whispered, unable to look away.

He was even more frozen in place a scant second later when wide blue eyes found him and blinked, the mellifluous voice stuttering for just one syllable before going on as though the speaker wasn’t staring deep into his soul, Xander felt.

Part Two

Xander Harris. Xander bloody Harris! Here! What th’ fuck is he doin’… looks good, though. All grown up an’ confident, judgin’ by th’ way he’s holdin’ himself.~

His mind raced as he finished his piece, eyes still locked on the older version of the young man he’d known at the end… the first end.

One hand rose slightly, making a small motion to the nearest bouncer-type as he stood, nodded to the crowd, and made his way behind the curtains beside the stage, finally managing to drag his gaze away from the look in that wide brown eye.

He wasn’t entirely sure of what that look meant, but the human didn’t seem upset to see him; in fact, he’d looked rather stunned… but happily so. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.

Either way, he’d find out in just a few minutes because the signal he’d used was known to all the staff.

That bouncer would politely inform the young man that ‘Will-- yes, the poet Will’ wanted to see him privately then guide him to the dressing room he appropriated for reading nights.

Of course, the bouncer would assume that he wanted the human for a shag, but so what? It wasn’t every day that he ran into one of the former Scoobies. It would have taken far too long to explain and besides, who cared what one bloody bouncer thought?

Xander might. Might care that th’ rest of th’ demons here will assume th’ same bloody thing. Then again, how’s he ta know? Not like he hangs about here or I’d have seen him before now, right? Right.

That decided, Spike smirked to himself and made his way to ‘his’ dressing room, settling down on the couch to wait for his… past.

* * * * *

He honestly didn’t know what to think; mostly because the last he’d heard, Spike had gone up in flames back in good old Sunnydale.

Then again, Hellmouth. God knew there had been many, many other bizarre things that had happened on, near or because of it. Maybe Spike being alive again was one of them.

However the guy was back, Xander was glad. He owed the blond, after all. Owed him more than he could ever make up for, and that just for the way he’d treated him.

Maybe he’ll let me try… or maybe he’ll just rip my throat out. No way of telling. Then again, he wants to see me, so maybe he’s not too pissed off… or I’m a self-delivering happy meal.

He had to laugh at the thought, his eye crinkling slightly. The laughter lasted right up until he found himself standing in front of the dressing room door, staring at the small, handwritten sign that had been taped below the glittery star. ‘Will,’ it said, and beneath that name, ‘Poet’.

And why Will? Oh, right. William the Bloody. Will. Got it.

He sighed softly, suddenly truly worried about his reception, then raised one hand to knock, fingers curled lightly into an announcing fist.

One long, hard swallow later, the sudden lump in his throat almost choking him, and he rapped knuckles sharply against wood, trying not to lose himself in the queasy anticipation of what could happen next.

* * * * *

“Well, come on! Haul your soddin’ ass in here, whelp!” he called out, chuckling at the rabbit-fast heartbeat he heard outside the door, “An’ close it behind ya. Don’t rightly want an audience, do we?”

His head cocked and one brow raised as the human stepped inside and stopped, just staring at him. “Well? Ya havin’ trouble with English, mate? Close th’ bloody door.”

It was the smug smirk on the vampire’s full, pale lips that had Xander relaxing suddenly. If Spike was mad, he wouldn’t have been smiling like that. Unless he was mad in the other sense of the word but his eyes were clear and lucid-looking, and… and there was that smile again.

And how sad is it that I can still tell the difference between his thirty-seven smiles?

“Sorry,” he said insincerely, his own grin matching the blond’s, “Guess I was born in a barn.”

Spike snorted. “Least you’re not claimin’ it was a manger, mate.”

And as he stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him, it was almost like the last four and a bit years had never happened. Except for the part where he knew now just how badly he’d mistreated the voluntarily souled vampire, back in the day.

* * * * *

Hours later, the bar… club… was closed and he and Spike were sitting near the darkened stage, tossing back beers like water as they caught up on what had happened to each of them in the years since Sunnydale while Lorne puttered about having a conversation with himself, apparently.

It was strange, Xander thought, that neither he nor the vampire were dwelling on their very real lack of friendship in the old days. It was as though the years had softened the memories or something… but whatever it was, he was glad. He honestly hadn’t realized before just how much he’d missed the blond, snarkiness and smirking included. Besides, Spike could for damned sure spin an interesting yarn.

“So there he stood, old Poofy himself, lookin’ up at this huge soddin’ dragon he insisted was his ta kill!” Spike smirked and rolled his eyes. “Didn’t have anythin’ but a bleedin’ sword an’ he was all sure he could take out th’ bloody enormous lizard. Thing was th’ size of a bleedin’ buildin’ but that didn’t matter ta Mr. ‘Dark Avenger’ himself.”

“So what happened?” Xander demanded in the small pause the blond took to sip his beer, “Did Deadboy kill it or what?”

“Oh, he killed it, a’right,” the vampire chuckled. “ ‘Course, it took a while, what with dragons’ digestive systems bein’ so soddin’ huge an’ all… poor thing looked like it was tryin’ ta pass a soddin’ boulder by th’ time Broody done for it.”

His eye widened and he stared at Spike for almost a full minute. “You’re fucking with me, right, Fang? Because it sounds like you’re trying to say… Angel… the dragon…” The idea alone had him laughing, even as the blond nodded.

“Yah, mate… swallowed th’ prat down, then did th’ dragon version of groanin’ an’ moanin’ ‘til bloody Angel crawled out of his ass—in th’ literal sense—still wavin’ that soddin’ sword!” He laughed with the brunette for a few minutes, then sobered a good bit.

“Of course, that was when he realized most of his pet humans an’ non-humans were really dead, an’…” Spike sighed and shrugged. “Hasn’t been th’ same since, has he? But that’s not somethin’ for ya ta worry yourself about, is it? Never were my Sire’s biggest fan, right?”

The human sighed and shrugged sheepishly. “I had… issues with him, Spike. I mean, he just showed up one day and suddenly I wasn’t good enough, y’know? I blamed him for that, I guess. And then he went all psycho-killer and things went from bad to worse.”

Spike was frowning even as he nodded at the young man. “Yah… Angelus was a good bit off his soddin’ rocker when he came back that time. Still, you lot managed ta shove him back inta his cage.” He thought for a moment then cocked his head at the brunette. “Ya said ya had issues with th’ git. Not anymore?”

“Well, I’m not aching to be his bestest bud or anything, but… hell, Spike. That was… a lifetime ago, y’know? And sure, I wish he’d never lost his soul, but… shit happens. You move on, right? And he…” Xander shrugged again, staring moodily into the depths of his empty glass. “He did the right thing, leaving Sunnydale when he did. He made a sacrifice for the greater good, and I think… I understand him. Hell. I guess I kinda like him now… or don’t hate him, at least.”

Well, well… and wouldn’t Sir Broods-a-lot be excited to hear that. Assuming he could be bothered to sit up for long enough to listen, of course, which Spike found himself hoping wouldn’t happen. The last thing he wanted or needed was his Sire poncing about after young Harris. And besides, the bloke had flat out said that he wasn’t trying to be Angel’s friend, and why the Hell was that a relief to him? It wasn’t as though he really gave a rat’s ass about who or what Peaches took up with as long as something got the old geezer out of the bloody house one of these nights.

And as for Xander bloody Harris, the bloke could do whatever the bleeding fuck he wanted and with whomever he so chose. It didn’t matter a sodding bit to Spike. Not even when the man was sitting there with him, but talking about bloody Angel.

“Right, then,” the blond allowed after draining his glass, “I’ll let him know ya don’t hate him anymore, yah? Was good ta see ya, Harris. Safe home an’ all that.”

“Okay, and what the Hell was that all about?” Xander demanded after finally managing to close his gaping mouth. “One minute, we’re sitting here talking about… everything, and the next? He’s Bleachy the Vanishing Vamp!”

Lorne chuckled silently and dimmed the lights over the bar, letting the room slip into shadows. If the man didn’t know, he for damned sure wasn’t going to tell him. Besides, the Powers wouldn’t like it if he did. They had plans for the one-eyed human… and the souled vampire. The younger souled vampire. The one who obviously had just as little of a clue as the human.

“That’s Spike for you, Captain Ron… changes like the wind. So, can I call you a cab? I noticed you didn’t drive…”

Xander sighed and stood, suddenly realizing his incredible need to pee. “Yeah… they don’t like to let me drive after dark. Some crap about depth perception. Uh, I’m gonna hit the little carpenter’s room, Lorne.”

* * * * *

“So,” the green skinned demon said with a smile as they stood just inside the front door, waiting for Xander’s cab, “We never did get to talk about the job, cutie-pie… what do you think?”

His eye turned back to the bar and full lips quirked at the edges. “Well, I don’t blame you for wanting something a little more, uh…”

“Not ugly enough to make my eyes bleed?” Lorne offered with wry grin, “That would be why I called you, Alexander Harris. I saw the dining room set you did for Ashton and Demi. I was thinking something like that might…”

Xander shook his head. “Not like that, no… but I think I can help you. I’ll need to come back during the day, though. Do some sketches, take some pictures. Without eighteen thousand demons staring at me while they compare notes on the best way to cook humans.”

It was Lorne’s sudden and uncontrolled laughter that had Xander frowning suddenly as he replayed the conversation he’d overheard when he and Spike had come out of the dressing room earlier. “Okay… I guess my Rachitath is kinda rusty. Or you actually think it’s funny that they wanted to eat me.”

One green hand waved unsteadily in the air as the Pylean tried to catch his breath. “Oh… oh, Captain… they, um… well, they definitely wanted to eat you, but not in the ‘kill you and cook you’ kind of way.” He waited a minute while the human puzzled through that, laughing again as the light dawned in the wide brown eye. Whatever he was expecting the human to say, however, was definitely not what came from the brunette’s mouth.

“Damn it! You mean even being away from Sunnydale for years now, I’m still a demon magnet? That is so not fair! And… and tentacles!” he shuddered.

And that certainly explained a few things to Lorne, although he had no idea of what to say.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to say anything at all, as that was the moment the awaited taxi arrived and honked its horn.

“Your carriage awaits,” he announced, trying not to sound too relieved. “And just give me a call when you’re ready to do… whatever it is you’re gonna do about the bar.”