Imposters In This Country is finally up and archived so I can safely go back to the Special Hell making.

Oh, shit. And I need to work on the HCL/AtS that SA and I are doing. Kerfuckity.

Poor Mr. The Bloody. There are so many *decent* rhymes of effulgent.

And one would think, on edit, that when one spends all day making sure XML files are well-formed, one could START a tag properly.

Yes, there are. Though I suspect Spike would try to make them *in*decent as quickly as possible.

Even Online Rhymer [link] came up with: accent, advent, ascent, assent, augment, bent, cement, cent, comment, consent, content, convent, dent, descent, event, extent, ferment, foment, forwent, fragment, gent, hellbent, indent, intent, invent, lament, leant, lent, meant, misspent, pent, percent, portent, present, prevent, relent, rent, repent, resent, scent, sent, spent, tent, torment, trident, unbent, unmeant, unsent, unspent, vent, went

How long a poem do you think you could make from that lot, eh? Not that they're all very good. And I'm talking too much about nothing, and should shut up now.

Well done on posting Imposters, BTW.

I had half a bottle of wine last night with dinner, as there are only the two of us, and it doesn't keep well.

I'm shocked I didn't totally f-up my posting.

Here is my still untitled Xander/Spike angst fest. SPOILERS for HIM.

This is the missing scene between grabbing the jacket and getting back to Buffy's.

Xander and Spike dashed around a corner and ducked into a side street, not the safest place to be after dark in Sunnydale. They probably should have taken Xander's car, but the girls really needed to go back to Buffy's and it wasn't like Xander hadn't spent all of high school patrolling on foot. RJ didn't seem to be following them, which kind of seemed odd but maybe he was still stunned by the sudden raid. They slowed to a walk and then stopped. He'd taken the jacket from Spike as they ran and now he twisted it in his hands. He regretted not bringing the car, it was taking time to get back and he was stuck with Spike and he couldn't stop thinking.

"We should get this back to Willow and Buffy right away."

The jacket felt heavy and warm, coarse material and so much like high school; a letterman jacket. The Holy Grail of high school. If you had one it meant you were an athlete, you belonged; you wore your jacket like a shield of honor. Although lots of guys didn't wear their jackets, their girlfriends wore them. Xander held the jacket in front of him; he tried to remember if he'd ever seen Cordelia date Lance, RJ's brother, but he couldn't recall. Cordelia had worn a jacket like this, a symbol of her boyfriend wrapped around her like a prize. Xander wanted to try on the jacket, to see if he felt different. He wondered if it changed the wearer as much as the girls. And how exactly were the girls affected?

"How do you think it works? Do you think it works off the attraction of the wearer or the attraction of some random girl?"

Spike only shrugged.

"It can't affect every girl," Xander continued, "otherwise RJ would be mobbed and while it sounds like fun to have every woman after you, in reality, not so much. So you think only works for the family? It could be something with the way RJ felt about the girls? " Xander looked back up at Spike. "Probably just RJ, because of Willow, I mean she's not into boys anymore."

Spike snorted.

"Wha?" Xander shot Spike a glance but Spike was silent again. "I would be field testing the jacket, before taking it back to Buffy where it might not be safe."

Spike snorted again.

"Look if you have something to say, just spit it out. Unless you're about to start talking to your InvsoFriends and then spare me and don't."

"It's magic. It just works." Startled by Spike's voice, Xander looked up. He waited to see if Spike would say anything else, but he just stood there, back in his creepy silent mode.

"So it's just magic, and it just works. There should be some kind of test. We should know how it works, just in case. I'd suggest you try on the jacket but we both know women just fall all over themselves for you." Xander couldn't keep the bitterness out of his last words. Why was he even here, talking to Spike? Spike, who was living with him---again. Spike who hurt Buffy and fucked Anya and fought to protect Dawn; and first he had a chip and he was evil, now he had a soul and he was insane; and what had happened to the days of Giles warning about the evilness of vampires and their lack of humanity and why couldn't it be as easy as "vampires are evil, so stake them." Xander wondered if it had ever really been that simple, or if it had been a kind of delusion. Like the jacket; that made Lance bigger and more powerful but how could you hate someone that was living your loser life, fast-tracking the Pizza Barn management program?

"Or maybe I shouldn't because there really aren't any women around. Do you see any women?"

The street was almost deserted, only a few people in the distance and Xander couldn't tell their gender.

"Okay, I put on the jacket, find a pretty girl and see what happens. Just for the sake of science. Right?"

Xander wasn't sure if he was trying to talk himself into this or out of this. The only person around was Spike. Okay, well he'd put on the jacket; they'd walk a while, and run across some women.

Xander looked at the jacket; he wasn't even sure it would fit. Briefly he wondered if it could adjust sizes like the clothes in Back to the Future II.

"It's our lives that are magic." He found himself saying. "Lance's and mine. He has my life and I guess I have his. Lance had everything in school, I thought when we went to his place he'd be successful, or rich or anything but living in Pizza Barn Loser Land. And me, I'm a foreman, I've got an apartment...sure it comes complete with insane souled vampire but that's a Sunnydale perk right?" Xander stopped walking, his voice softened. "It's just, our lives switched after high school. And I am the man with the plan." He looked at Spike "When did that happen?"

Xander looked at the jacket and thought of Cordelia. He'd seen her wearing a jacket like this, seen her from far away: smiling and swinging her hair, flirting in that special Cordelia way. In his mind's eye she turned and looked at him, and it was like all the times before they'd kissed. They would be standing close, bickering and arguing and the air would change, it would become denser, thicker, and the world would tilt. Xander had felt like he was on his tiptoes and off balance about to fall into a kiss. Then the air would clear and the world would right itself and reality would pull him back, mostly. After that first kiss, it was never like that again, but it wasn't scary, dancing on the edge of a kiss.

He hadn't felt like that with Willow. With Willow it had been like a car crash, where everything seems to be in slow motion, but in reality it's going so fast there's no time to stop. Except maybe with Willow it was the opposite, they went so slow that it felt like superspeed.

"So, I put on the jacket and..."

Xander knew what would happen, here and now; this wasn't some random girl, it was Spike. Xander couldn't deny it to himself anymore. Because with Spike he didn't have to stand close to feel the air get heavy or the world go askew; he could stand on the other side of the room, or he could look and---

Who here hasn't had sex? Nancy had asked and he'd caught Spike's gaze and the look was meant to be "god! not us." but it was more like "god, not us" and it wasn't like dancing on the edge of a kiss, it was better and it was one more time--of how many times?---that Xander looked at Spike. That was what this was about: his attraction, their attraction. Which was so wrong it could never be right.

Because Spike was a killer and Spike tried to rape Buffy and it didn't matter that he had a soul, or that he was insane. And Xander believed in karma, because all of his bad karma was being repaid with Spike in his apartment and the way they worked so well together tonight and none of that mattered. Because Xander didn't care, he didn't. If Buffy had let him, Xander would have gone after Spike, he would have tied him down and waited for sunrise to burn him. And how can he feel anything but hate? It wasn't love, it couldn't be. It was lust and Xander knew lust, it burned through him with Cordelia and nearly destroyed everything and Anya...that wasn't lust it was love but love can't always be enough. And this, now, was lust. And if he put on the jacket and something happened, if Xander let it, then he was a hypocrite and a liar. He could say "I don't remember" or he could say "I didn't know" but inside he'd know, just like he still had all the memories from the hyena inside him.

The night he'd found Buffy, scared and bruised in her bathroom, he'd dreamed. He was hunting, running in the night, following the scents and sounds, and then Buffy found him. She smelled of power and fear, and it made Xander's blood rush and his mouth water. He'd wanted Buffy; he wanted her power. They were in the classroom, fighting for dominance, just like it had been. Then Buffy was wearing her thin green robe and she was struggling against Xander, clawing at him, begging him to stop, reeking of fear. It was a rush and a pleasure. And then they were in Buffy's bathroom. Xander looked up, laughing, and caught his face in the mirror and he'd seen Spike.

He could put on the jacket and have his moment with Spike, just once, to get Spike out of his system. No one would know, and Spike wouldn't tell. Even if Spike told who would believe him? Spike was insane and everyone knows Xander hates vampires, especially Spike. It would be so easy to lie. Except he would know. Every time he looked at them, Xander would know: we kissed, we fucked, I lied. Xander knew better, he was one of the good guys. So if Xander fucked Spike then he was worse than Spike, because he had a choice between good and evil.

"There's no one around and we know what will happen: put on the jacket and there will be attraction. We just need to destroy it." Xander stared at the street sign, not looking at Spike; they were closer to Buffy's than he'd realized, almost to her street.

"Don't come with me." He told Spike, "Go...somewhere. Buffy has Dawn to worry about, she doesn't need you around as well."

After a moment he heard "Yeah, right".

Xander stood there and listened to Spike walk away. He turned the corner and walked down Revello Drive.

you wore your jacket like shield of honor

Quick beta, like 'a' shield.

He regretted not bringing the car, it was taking time to get back and he was stuck with Spike and he couldn't stop thinking. "We should get this back to Willow and Buffy right away."

Should the stuff in quotes be another paragraph?

Also, YAY!

I fucking love this fic!

Okay fixed.