Title: Outside Pride
Author: cordelianne
Chapter: 3/10
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,303
Feedback: Comments will be very encouraging. Concrit is very welcome by email.
Disclaimer: Sadly not mine, Joss own them.
Summary: AU set at a summer camp.
“What kind of answer is that?” Buffy frowns over her friendship bracelet and pauses mid-knot. “Who gets away with just smirking and shrugging?”
A/N: Thanks to the completely awesome and wonderful savoytruffle and spookymonkey for their invaluable pre-reading, betaing and support. Any mistakes are mine.

Previous chapters here.



Outside Pride
by Cordelianne

CHAPTER THREE


“What kind of answer is that?” Buffy frowns over her friendship bracelet and pauses mid-knot. “Who gets away with just smirking and shrugging?”

“Someone named Spike, I guess.” Xander’s shrug is so much less cool than Spike’s that it’s on a different planet. An uncool, unsuave planet. “But I think the bigger question is ‘how does someone with the name Spike get hired at our sweet and gentle Christian camp?’”

“It does seem sacrilegious, or something.” Jesse’s eyes track Cordelia and Harmony as they sidle by, all swaying hips and hair flips. “Wasn’t that what they nailed Jesus to the cross with?”

Xander and Buffy exchange an ‘I don’t know’ look. Yep, this girl’s someone he can hang with. “I guess it’s up to you, Willow,” Xander holds up an invisible microphone. “Please shed light on this Spike mystery.”

“Why would Willow be knowledge girl on our gang member wannabe?” Buffy looks up from the pink string she’s been untangling.

“Her parents are tight with the Wilkins. Well, it’s really just Mr. Wilkins now.” Jesse’s still focused on the swaying and flipping, his eyes glazed.

“Who?” Buffy asks, struggling with the pink string.

Willow tightens the last knot on her perfect friendship bracelet and sets it down on the table. “Richard – Mr. Wilkins – is the head of the camp. He founded it in the memory of his wife, Edna May.” Buffy nods. Willow takes a deep breath. “So, as Jesse said, my parents and Richard are best friends and neighbors since, like, forever. The Wilkins never had any kids before Edna May died, so he tends to spoil me. Feeds me milk and cookies, takes me to movies – we’ve seen Little Women at least ten times now. So that’s why Ira Rosenberg's only daughter is a Jew at a Christian camp.”

“You’re Jewish?” Buffy looks dumb-founded, or exactly the way Xander always imagined dumb-founded looks.

“It’s true.” Xander nods. “She’s one of the chosen people.”

“Wow. I never thought – wait.” Buffy holds up her hand. “Does this mean you don’t have to attend Bible Study?”

“Yep.” Willow grins.

“But she’s supposed to be reading the Koran or something.” Jesse waves a hand as if dismissing all non-Christian texts, or maybe he’s actually batting away a mosquito.

“The Torah,” Willow admonishes, then her tone softens. “Although my family isn’t very religious, cause, hello, me amongst gentiles. But, yeah, I’m the token Jew.”

“She helps us differentiate ourselves from the anti-Semitic Mel Gibson Christians,” Xander says. He scans the grounds for Spike but only sees other counselors. “Now, can we get back to you spilling your top secret insider knowledge?”

Willow leans forward and drops her voice, “It turns out that Spike and that other maintenance guy, Angel, were –”

“Wait – is Angel the dark, gorgeous hunk of a guy?” Buffy’s bracelet is an abandoned tangle of string.

“Um, I think so. Anyway, they grew up together in foster care and are like brothers, except not actually literally. You all know what I mean, right?”

They all nod and Xander refrains from giving Willow the ‘get on with it’ hand signal – it would only fluster her. “So basically they’re brothers who look out for each other. But they also have this whole sibling rivalry thing. And get this –” Xander finds himself leaning forward. “–they have the same name!”

Xander says, “Huh,” at the same time Buffy reacts with, “Really?” Jesse’s clearly not engaged.

“I know! Okay, technically one’s Liam, the other’s William but that’s just an Irish-British thing cause it’s the same name, but when they figured this out they were not happy. I'm pretty sure there's a reason Richard didn't tell me all the details – I think there was violence involved. Anyway, I’m out of the loop on how they came up with their new names, which are kinda weird choices if you ask me. But, I do know that Liam’s Angel and William’s Spike.” Willow bounces in her seat. “Oh! And that Spike was super picky about his. Like he went around and beat up or threatened every single kid who tried to call him anything else.”

Xander props his hand on his chin. “Hmm. So, he's thorough, goal-oriented.”

Willow gives him her stern, ‘I’m telling a story’ look and continues, “I’m sure you’re asking yourselves how two foster kids named Angel and Spike came to work here, at Outside Pride Summer Camp.”

“I asked that about a decade ago,” Xander mutters. He glances at Jesse who gives a shrug and tilts his head at Willow as if to say ‘What did you expect, it’s Willow.’

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Buffy urges.

“The camp has a number of sponsored kids each year – Richard believes in charity. They attended the camp and he wants to support them so he hired them. Isn’t that generous?!”

Generous? More like patronizing, but what does Xander know? Besides, he isn’t complaining that Spike’s here. “You do realize that was the least linear story you’ve ever told?”

“Linear’s overrated. You only find it in novels. No one tells stories that way in real life.” Willow’s tone is half-earnest, half-joking.

Jesse turns to Xander. “We just talked about boys for the last half hour. You’re supposed to help stop that from happening, man.”

“Oh come on, like you weren’t a little interested,” Xander says, arms in the ‘don’t shoot’ position.

“Not that interested. Not like we’re talking about new, hot available girls.”

Xander rubs his neck and looks down.

“Oh!” Willow jumps up. “There’s Tara. We should invite her over.” She beckons to the blonde girl walking by with a book tucked under her arm. “Tara!”

Buffy leans over to Xander. “I’m not sure about this Spike. I mean, he’s no Danny Zuko.”

A beefy John Travolta with big hair flashes through Xander’s head and he breathes an internal sigh of relief. “No, he’s really not.”

***

He’s dreaming.

He’s sure he’s dreaming even though he hasn’t pinched himself and he isn’t naked in front of Algebra class. Okay, he is naked, just not in the heart-pounding, sweat-drenching nightmare kind of way.

There is, however, heart-pounding of a very different variety.

But it isn’t that or the nakedness that tips him off to the dreaming. It’s the walking from his cabin into his bedroom at home with one smooth open of a door.

His bed has expanded to fill the room and stretched out on the very white bedspread is Spike, wearing all black. He stares at Spike’s boots, resting on the bed and thinks, Mom will kill me for making this mess, but then he looks up into Spike’s eyes and all he can see is blue. He’s falling forward toward the blue, falling forward onto Spike, and he closes his eyes because he’s naked.

He feels hands – hands he knows are Spike’s – touching him, sliding over his skin. He presses into Spike to ease the overwhelming …

He wakes up. With soaking wet boxers. He feels thirteen all over again except he wasn’t dreaming about being naked with hot guys then.

His brain catches up with the words tumbling over each other in his head, sorts them out and highlights hot guys. His brain posts a neon sign that blinks ‘hot guys’... ‘hot guys’.... ‘hot guys.’

Clanging pots cause Xander to sit up and hit his head on the window ledge. Rubbing the bump on his head he catches part of the hymn. “And I’ll lead you all wherever you maybe be. And I’ll lead you all in the dance said He.”

Great. He’ll have that tune in his head for the rest of the day, but that’s the least of his worries. This is not a scenario when any dream will do.

But he can’t lie in bed forever. Time for him to dance.



Continues here.