HALLOWEEN H2X: THE NIGHT HE CAME LOTS
BY: Wirrrn
PART: 1 of 1
ARCHIVE: All Signs Point To Yes
DISTRIBUTION: You Break It, You Bought It
RATING: R. Homosexuality, Comic Violence, Rampant
Cockney (no, I said cockNEY!) Gratuitous Gnudity.
PAIRING: Graham/Xander. Ahh, it's great to be back in
the horse... On! *On* the horse!
DISCLAIMER: All belong to Mutant Enemy. But I sneak
Graham out through the hole in Old Man Whedon's fence
and take him skinnydippin' down at the fishin' hole.
SPOILERS: Mel defeats the aliens, gets his faith back,
and fortunately keeps his arse in his pants for once.
SUMMARY: An early Halloween treat for your
delectation. Just eat around the razorblades, okay?
Apologies to John Carpenter for the title!!
FEEDBACK: Wirrrn@yahoo.com. Praise is my favourite
thing next to snogging Nicky Brendon. And without the
restraining orders from his wife.
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          HALLOWEEN H2X: THE NIGHT HE CAME LOTS
                        
                        by
                      Wirrrn


                
 "Oh Lisa, fun places to visit don't end in 'eum',
         -they end in 'arnival', 'teria' 
               or... 'en's  room'"
                 -HOMER SIMPSON 


                "Joe's Taxidermy;
           -You snuff 'em we stuff 'em"
                  -BART SIMPSON


         "Science can do anything now, man;
          It can Clone, It can orbit shit,
              Fuck, Science is cool."
                    -THE ONION


                  *   *   *   *  




"...Can I just go on record as saying I really don't
like this?"

"Duly noted. Though y'know, Graham, if you keep *on*
saying it, I'm gonna run out of metaphorical
notebooks."

"...Hey, Xan? Ever since you somehow managed to break
up with Anya whilst keeping your sweetbreads in your
abdomen instead of halfway up Sunnydale U's flagpole,
you've gotten kinda...flip."

"Oh. Sorry."

"...No don't be- I like it."

"I could start wearing my old wardrobe again if you
want."

"...You *do* remember how long it took my eyes to
recover after that light burn from your Hawaiian
shirt, right?"

"Hey, even blindfolded, I didn't hear you complain
about the sponge-baths."

"...That was you? I thought Spike had come by to
apologize for the whole
trying-to-eat-me-at-Thanksgiving thing."

"Ho-ho, very Cute, soldier; and you're dreaming if you
think he'll ever apologize. He still *totally* blames
you for that. I mean c'mon-letting Willow say grace?"

"...I was supposed to knock her back? She would've
turned me into... a turkey, or something involving
olive loaf! It could've been worse- what if she'd
gotten the Grace and her Re-Animation incantations
even *more* messed up and the turkey had come back to
life, hunh? That would've been even grosser, right?!"

"Says the Marine who *didn't* have to be rushed to
hospital for an emergency room enema to get all the
pumpkin filling out."

"...Hey, I held your hand throughout the whole thing,
and I still have the imprints of your fingernails on
my stealth-suit gloves to prove it. And hey, you got
your name into the Book of Medical Oddities, right? I
mean, think of it, Xan; you inspired a whole new
Surgical procedure... the "Pumpkinectomy."

"And to think Mom said I'd never amount to anything."

"...And Angel saved the day, right? I mean, I never
knew that vampires could tear the throat out of baked
goods, or that baked goods *had* throats to tear out,
but there you go. Hey, why didn't the things attack
him anyway?"

"Spike reckons it was because Sir Broodsalot is Irish.
 People from the UK labour under the same delusion as
all other Non-Americans, that pumpkins are a vegetable
side-dish, not a fruit dessert, right? The re-animated
Pumpkin Pies spared him because they saw him as
neutral territory. Like Switzerland."

"...Thankyou, Xander, for the mental image of Angel
naked and covered in melted chocolate."

"Whoops. My bad."

"...Nah, it's okay. There are worse things to imagine
than VampAngel Food Cake, anyway."

"You're kidding."

"...I'll spare you the horrors of a naked Riley drunk
out-of his cotton-pickin' mind on corn-nog and
discussing which of the Rice Crispy Elves is more
fuckable."

"Graham? You're going to hold me extra tight in bed
tonight, okay?"

"..Sure thing. I like it when you do the cute and
vulnerable schtick, babe. Reminds me of the loveable
doofus I met when I was first posted here."

"Really? You knew Percy?"

"...Xan..."

"Kidding; I know if anybody's born to fit the 'doofus'
label it's Alexander Harris. Just ask Buffy. Or Ainge.
Or Giles-"

"...Xander..."

"Yeah, you're right; 'doofus' is a bit too Gen-X for
the G-Man. He probably sees me as more of a
"miscreant" or a "ne'er-do-well" or a "lollygagger"-
nah, that's Spikespeak-"

"...*Xander*! You're forgetting I pre-empted it with
the "loveable" part."

"I'm loveable?"

"...Well, since I'm in love with you, I'd think that
was a given, yeah."

Xander's warm chocolate eyes bugged out like a
pretzel-pronged President. "You- love me?"

Graham's cheeks and brow began to judder and twitch
alarmingly. Xander worried that his lover's years of
stoic calm may have caught up with him in some sort of
cumulative feedback explosion. "Gray? are you
alright?"

"...I'm fine; I'm showing you my Duh-Face."

"Your 'Duh-Face?' let me guess. Is that what you get
when you're bitten by a *really*, *really* stupid
vampire?"

"...No, it's a sarcastic, non-verbal response to
highlight the totally inherent obviousness of my love
for you."

"Inherent obvi-okay, either you've been possessed by
Giles or military texts have dumped Tzu's ART OF WAR
in favour of ROGET'S THESAURUS, am I right?"

"...So, does my Duh face convince you I love you,
Xan?"

"If I say yes, will you stop making it?"

"...God, Xan; I am *so* far gone over you...I know
I've said it before, but we were, um..."

"-More horizontal?"

"...Right, and..."

"-Less clothed?"

"...Yeah and I was worried you might have..."

"-Thought it was just Come-Talk?"

"...Yeah."

-Xander pulled Graham into a hug and kissed him so
thoroughly and deeply that, had Graham been having a
prostate exam at that moment, the doctor would have
found Xander's tongue, albeit not been able to extract
it. 

Finally, the need for air broke the seal of their
mouths and they stood in the circle of each other's
arms, flushed and gasping like Sunnydale's swim-team
at Low Tide.

"Now *that* wasn't come talk..."

Graham looked a little woozy. "...No? Tell that to my
boxer shorts. And I just did my laundry."

Xander grinned. "In case it got lost in the
translation, that meant "I love you too, Gray."

The two men leaned against each other in blissful
silence for a moment, then Graham looked around their
surroundings again.

"...Xan?"

"Gray?"

"...I really don't like this."

"Auuuuuuuuuuuuugh!! Graham, *c'mon*, Giles sent us on
nasty-demony-reconnaissance duty together. Doesn't
that make you feel special and an integral part of the
Scoobies?"

"...No, it makes me feel that Giles was looking for a
couple of Gung-ho idiots who'd *volunteer* as
corpse-kibble so that he wouldn't have to risk
his well-beyond-life-expectancy-Slayer again."

"You're too cynical, Graham. He sent us here because
he knows we're the best men for the job. I mean, you
and me, he knows we're a team, right? Partners in Life
and in Crim..er, Work? You and me, Gray... we're
Construction Man and Commando Guy...What are you
doing?"

"...Looking for the Leatherboy, the Indian Chief and
the Cop."

"Ha ha. And anyway, he sent Spike with us as well.
Granted we haven't *seen* Blondie since he somehow
conned the Ticket Booth Guy out of a student discount,
but Giles trusting us to look after Spike is a sign of
trust."

"...Or that he's trying to get Sid WannabeVicious out
of what's left of his hair before Dawn has to do that
human shield thing again to stop Buff from putting him
out of our misery."

Xander managed to suppress a grin and pretended that
he hadn't seen Graham heating Spike's cow blood for
him and adding some of his own from a papercut to give
the blonde vamp "much needed calories". Though his
lover hid it well behind his cunning...er... behind
his everyday... mask of stoic calm, Mr
Big-and-Tough-Marine had a soft spot for Spike. He
never missed a sly opportunity to make up for Buffy
and Giles' terseness and curtness, respectively 

(though only Giles new what "terseness" and "curtness"
meant)

by being nice to the newly-souled British demon with
gruff but kind words and acts of Stealth Kindness.
Xander thought it was cute, and besides, even *he* was
feeling sorry for the Fangless Wonder lately, so he
took a leaf out of Graham's (black op) book and kept
quiet on the matter.

Spike more than made up for the two of them in volume,
anyway.

*   *   *

Since getting his soul back, Spike had been all but
literally flagellating himself with guilt. Loud Guilt.
3am-Impossible-To Sleep-Through Guilt.

Actually, self-flagellation may have been less painful

(and quieter)

as Spike's enthusiastic embrace of the 'I've got a
feckin' soul like me great berk of a Sire' Blues had
come to a head that morning. Spike had crashed the
Scooby Meeting in Xander's apartment, weeping and
moaning after yet another failed attempt to "fuck the
soddin' pious thing outta me", despite repeated
reminders from Giles, Dawn and Angel that the soul
restoration He-Who-Judges-Through-Torment had given
him didn't come with a happiness clause. The agitated
vampire hadn't said whom he'd tried to de-soul himself
with, but Xander had noticed Parker Abrams around
campus lately, walking around with a pronounced limp
which did nothing to wipe the enormous, dreamy grin
from his face.

Listening to their explanations for the umpteenth
time, the British demon had absently bit down on a
conciliatory snack- a Gingerbread man- off the plate
that was offered to him

(by Graham)

-and the second he bit off the Gingerbread Man's legs
below mid-thigh, Spike had yelped in pain and leaped
to his feet with his hands clutching his head.

"Oiiiiyaaaow! You've gotta be fuckin' kidding! I can't
even emasculate anthropomorphic cookies?! Faaaaark! "

-The vampire's angry, pained blue eyes had turned on
the Scoobies like a pair of cursed sapphires. As
always, Spike's angst had caused his accent to
thicken, and his vowels had started dripping with so
much Cockney it had seemed he might break into a song
about the merits and number of coconuts in his
possession at any moment.

"C'mon already! Ain't I already one of yer stinkin'
White-hats? Gawd! I Can't 'urt 'umans, I'm lendin' an
'and ter the bleedin' *Slayer* an now I'm stuck wiv a
soddin' great soul n'all!"

A horrible look had passed over the wanly handsome
face.

"...Oh faaark, I've turned inter Angel, 'aven't I? I'm
just like me great ruddy poufe of a Sire! I might as
well open me own Detective Agency or summat! All I
need is some thick-eared bint I've got no sexual
interest in, an airhead nympho wiv an 'eart of gold,
and a gormless twat who fancies 'imself a Demon
'unter..."

-Here Spike had waved a black-clawed hand in the
direction of the couch on which the Scoobies sat with
varying expressions of pity and dismay on their faces.

"...Wait a minute, I've already got them, ain't I?
Sorted! I'll just go look fer an 'otel we can all
fanny about in, and then find a coupla lawyers and
smack 'em in the gob, awright?!"

Spike had stalked from the room, muttering. Giles,
being English, had been able to process the vampire's
questionable syntax without the need for mental
subtitles and had understood the situation quicker. He
immediately sent Graham and Xander after him to take
him along on patrol so he'd feel less useless.

 Buffy had looked around the room.

"Harsh, hunh? But he didn't even specify which of us
he was talking abou-"

Dawn scowled. "Bint"

Graham blushed. "Nympho"

and Xander sighed. "Twat".

*   *   *

Which led to their current predicament. Spike, having
produced a student card so old the ID photograph
attached was actually in sepia, had stalked off to
look around by himself, feeling a bit happier now that
he'd pulled off his evil scheme to get out of paying a
$5 dollar entry fee. Xander was fighting a losing
battle to maintain his belief that Giles thought him a
magnificent fighting unit instead of just the "unit"
part, and Graham was covertly eyeing the various
exhibits for signs of evil, preternatural life and
considering just throwing Spike and Xander over his
shoulder and fleeing somewhere bland, boring and
sterile, like George Bush's bedroom.

(Okay... he was also covertly eyeing the exhibits for
a suitably dark corner he might drag Xander off to and
administer an evil, preternatural fuck. Hey, young
twenty-something male here, remember?)

"...C'mon Xan...Let's get outta here huh, guy?"

"We've faced worse things than this before, Gray;
remember that Gorzonian Destructor? the Cult of Fenris
the Wolf of the End Times? That time Buffy mistook The
Necronomicon for The Joy of Sex?"

"...I know that Xan, but there's tempting the Fates
and then there's pulling down your pants, mooning them
and saying "I dare you". We're in a creepy old
building. A creepy old building at Midnight. A creepy
old building at Midnight on Halloween in *Sunnydale*.
Why don't we just squeeze the juicy goodness out of
our own bile ducts and save the Hostiles the trouble?"

"Ewww... Okay,I hear you, Gray, and believe me, if
this was any other place in town I'd agree. If this
was the Sunnydale Cemetery, the A-K *or* the L-Z,
you're right, we'd be up to the holes where our ears
used to be in vamps; Sunnydale Zoo- I wouldn't turn my
back on so much as a Tree Kangaroo. Heck, even
Sunnydale Botanical Gardens is probably doing a salute
to John Wyndham about now. But Gray... this is the
Sunnydale Museum of Natural History. Everything here
has already *had* its guts ripped out- and replaced
with sawdust and cotton-wool. So long as you're not
allergic to Silverfish, I can't see anything going
wro-ooh, *shit*!"

"...Told you so." What may have been the barest
beginnings of a smug look started to take over from
the stoicnicity on Graham's handsome face, then his
status as Official Xander Boyfriend kicked in and he
moved to help his lover out of the mess he was in.

The iridescent, multi-coloured mess he was in.

Xander was almost lost from sight im the middle of a
swirling cloud of butterflies and moths, of all
colours and sizes, ranging from a tiny green Pearl
Butterfly to several head-sized Atlas Moths, the
insects

-which, Graham could see, were coming from a door
nearby marked "Insect/Arachnid Room"-

whorled around Xander like a painted tornado,
seemingly drawn to him as though the young man was six
foot one of honeyed nectar from flowers grown on Mount
Olympus.

Graham couldn't really blame them. He totally felt the
same way.

Stepping up beside the boyfriend-shaped cloud of
insects, Graham reached in a hand and extricated said
boyfriend from the fluttering, rainbow-hued throng. A
few of the larger moths and butterflies tried to
follow, but were foiled when Graham wafted his hands
towards them in the time-honoured "shoo, arthropod, my
species runs the planet" motion.

Xander gasped a thankyou to his boyfriend, and rubbed
several scales of moth-wing away from his eyes lest
anyone thought it was mascara. "Thanks, Gray.
Re-animated butterflies, huh? See, that wasn't so
ba--aaargh!"

Graham rolled his eyes, making himself look like a
seriously hunky shark as he did so.

"...Xander, you've been living on the Hellmouth how
long? *Never* say things like that... Why don't you
just go up to a demon after Buffy beats it, kick it
and say "it's okay, it's dead"?

"I...ow! I actually have...owyousonofa!... I actually
have done that a couple of times."

Graham sighed and batted at the re-animated
butterflies and moths which, clearly displeased at
having their chocolate-eyed prize taken from them,
were now darting at the two men-

-and stabbing them with the entomological pins that
were protruding through their tiny thoraxes.

"..Time to go, -ow! Xan. Take the -ow! stairs. I'll
cover y--ow!."

Xander shook his head. "No way; I don't abandon you,
Gray. Not to a Hocking Slavian Phlegm Elemental, not
to Dawn when she's got grammar homework, and not
now..."

Graham felt a strange, jumbled rush of emotions-
pride, irritation, love, exasperation, lust, pain

(the last caused by a particularly sneaky Atlas moth
that had worked its way up Graham's pant leg).

He took Xander's hand in his and the two young men
began backing away down the hall towards the emergency
exit, both occasionally flapping at the air before
them as the re-animated lepidoptera attempted to turn
them into living insect collections.

Finally feeling the door at their backs, Graham and
Xander opened it the barest minimum required for them
to slip through. Leaning against the door to catch
their breath, they felt dozens of muffled crashings
and thumpings through the wood as the undead
butterflies- having perhaps heard that 'High Hopes'
song a few too many times- attempted to break the door
down and get at them.

Graham and Xander basically did a controlled fall down
the stairs

(that later both of them would insist was on
deliberate)

in their haste to reach the ground floor. Three or
four flights from the bottom, there was a sudden
commotion.

["Faaark! Gedddoudofit! Just 'cause yer got opposable
thumbs don't mean yer can stick 'em there, yer
purple-arsed tosspot!"]

and the wall caved in, revealing an agitated Spike
covered in plaster dust and a fur coat, which on
closer inspection seemed to be a] not a coat and b]
trying to    either mate with and/or devour him

"Auugh! Geroff me yer little sods!"

Spike beat at his body, causing the "coat" to break up
and reveal what it really was- several dozen stuffed
rabbits, chimpanzees, chinchillas, mandrills and
squirrels, all leaking formaldehyde-soaked cotton and
sawdust where Spike had unsuccessfully tried to rip
them a new one, and all unleashing several cans of
Undead Whoop-ass on the struggling British Demon.

Thrashing around in an attempt to crush a grinning
Pygmy Marmoset between his body and the wall, Spike
saw the two men watching him from the landing.

"Lend us an 'and, will yer, loves?"

Xander and Graham exchanged a look and then went to
help the ferocious and legendary William the Bloody
from the relentless attack of the cute and fuzzy
little animals. 

A short and tragi-comic battle followed, the likes of
which cannot be described here without the voiding of
several lunches. Suffice to say the end result
resembled a cross between a pet store after a visit
from Richard Gere and an outbreak of the Flesh-Eating
Virus at 100 Acre Wood.

The three men stepped back to both survey and avoid
being dripped on by their handiwork.

Xander looked over at the blonde vampire. "Hall of
Mammals?'

"-However did you guess?"

"I have many hidden skills.Some of them I can even
perform vertically."

"-And here I was assuming that when you drink other
people's blood to keep your dead body from rotting,
you can no longer be nauseated by anything."

Graham reached into a hidden pocket and produced a
large silk handkerchief

(in camouflage colours)

and wiped Xander's face clean of blood, pus and
sawdust before doing the same to his own. He turned
and, with a mock-gruff look a grinning Xander saw
right through, handed the handkerchief to Spike as
well.

"-Ta, Luv"

"...That's okay. Don't eat it."

Xander smiled at the other men. "Okay, now that we've
established Cordy was *right* to duck out on School
field trips here in favour of getting blood thrown on
her at fur boutiques, can we go? It's just about prime

Trick or Treating time- folks're running out of fruit
and loose change and breaking out the chocolate."

Spike once again employed the muscle cluster above his
'cocking brow'. "-Yer not afraid of bein' set upon by
bands a rovin' demons that ain't 'eard of the
Halloween Armistice, then?"

Graham shook his head. "...Hostiles avoid Xan on
Halloween. He thinks it's something to do with having
been Sergeant Harris, but I think it's because he eats
so much candy his blood stops moving."

Spike leered. "-Tell me about it, Pet; I was tempted
ter give him a little love nip durin' that whole
Gentleman thing, but I was afraid I'd get Diabetes."

"Hey!" Xander flipped Spike off and gave Graham a
playful smack on the arm. The commando pulled  Xander
into a headlock that quickly turned into an embrace as
the two men kissed, deeply.

Losing themselves in their own pocket universe for
long pulsebeats, the lovers were brought back to
reality by the clearing of a Cockney throat.

The British vampire was leaning back against the wall
in a hipshot pose, watching them. "-Far be it fer me
ter interrupt, loves, but in these Post-Modern times, 
it ain't really fair ter put on a show wiv no audience
participation now, is it?"

Graham and Xander exchanged a look, then both reached
out with their non-occupied hands and pulled Spike
flush with them.

Soon the three men were panting and sticky for much
more pleasant reasons than those that saw them coming
to the Museum in the first place. 

-Suddenly, there was yet another commotion, and the
wall on the *other* side of the stairwell caved in.
Spike moved Graham's buns to one side until he could
see what was going on, and grunted in surprise.

(filled with Xander as it was, these were the most
articulate sounds his mouth could make at the moment)

Angel and his Consort, Lindsey MacDonald, stood framed
in the hole in the wall. They were both wearing the
same type of silk pyjamas. Actually, make that the
same *pair* of silk pyjamas- Angel wore the top,
Lindsey the bottom.

(any subliminal commentary this provided on the
dynamics of their sexual positions is all in your own
sick minds).

Xander let his lips return to their more standard
"talk" position

(much to Graham's chagrin)

"DeadBoy?"

"~~Xander. Spike. Graham. Hello. You all have to come
with me, right now, to the Sunnydale Museum of Science
and Technology. It's just over the street. Some
Halloween magic or other has gotten into the place-
all the inventions on display there have...come to
life."

Graham resettled his muscular frame, causing moans of
appreciation from the vampire and human above and
beneath him, respectively.

"...And you want us to help you stop them?"

Angel looked surprised. "~~Fuck no; Linds and I were
trying out Stephenson's Rocket-Powered Vibrating
Waterbed and we ran out of Silver Dollars. Also, it
takes five guys to run the Steam Engine Dildo."

"...Sir, Yessir!"

-And many more things went bump in the night (and
squelch, and grunt, and moan) deep into the long,
velvety hardness...er, darkness of All Hallow's Eve.



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