TITLE: Excuse Me!
SERIES: Nine Months
SEQUEL: Paybacks are a Bitch [1]; A Few Confessions, Some Confusion & A Conniption Fit [2]; Paranoid Blonde Psychotic [3]; Little Blue Plus Sign [4]; Willow Said [5]; Hormonal Overload #1 [6]; Spell of Seeking [7]; Grossing-Out the Undead [8].
AUTHOR: Scorpio
EMAIL: scorpiofic@aol.com
ARCHIVE: The Nesting Place, NummyTreats, CKoS, X&S's World of Fun, Mpreg, BtVS Slash, The Den, The Sci-Fi Morgue, WWOMB, XandMan Archive, anyone else...just tell me where.

FANDOM: Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel the Series
PAIRING: Spike/Xander [main], Willow/Tara, Wesley/Gunn, Angel/Buffy[ust], Angel/Delia[ust]
RATING: The gamut... from G to NC-17
CATEGORY: Mpreg, comedy, minor angst, sappiness and moodswings. WARNING: Mpreg, magic & spells, violence, food cravings, sexual content and silliness.

DISCLAIMER: Josh owns these darlings...however, he might not want them back once I get through playing with 'em... I tend to break toys. ::grins::

SUMMARY: Part 9 of Nine Months. Xander's "pregger" hormones shift from "moody mode" to "morning sickness mode" and this causes Spike's paranoia to return full fledge. The Scoobies endure.

Excuse Me!
Nine Months
by Scorpio

~
When we last left our Intrepid Duo; Xander was trying to follow Giles' advice on proper nutrition for the baby - by ingesting blood. After several ::shudders:: experiments, Xander discovered that his husband not only tastes *good*, but drinking from a pale undead neck gives him a happy. Let's all pause to envision the boys naked, writhing and bleeding from bite marks. Ahhhh.... that's better. Now... on with the show...
~

"...so then I had to stand up in front of the entire lecture hall and give my speech. I'd worked real hard on it, *you* know that. You watched me do the research. Heck! You even let me practice reading it out loud for you. But then when I got up there in front of all those staring eyes and looked up at..."

A fledge suddenly jumped out from behind a tree in full gameface, snarling and clawing at the air. Xander didn't even let go of Spike's hand, nor did his husband even glance towards the young undead idiot. Instead, they took the opportunity of Buffy's minor distraction, and subsequent quiet, to share a quick kiss.

Out of the corner of his eye, Xander could see the slim blonde slayer spin and leap. Kick, kick, punch. Then he saw the flash of a stake. Breaking off the sweet kiss, Xander turned his head slightly and watched as Buffy slammed the pointed piece of wood into the vampire's chest. An expression of overwhelming shock flashed across it's face before it suddenly exploded into a billowing cloud of dust.

Brushing off her hands, a wide smile slowly melting into a slight frown, Buffy turned back to face him and his lover, one hand on her hip, the other waving the stake for emphasis.

"Where was I? Oh, yeah! The speech. So, anyway, I looked up to find Willow. She said to pretend that I was just reading it to *her* and ignore everyone else. That would've worked great, but this *guy* behind her keep *bothering* her! And then..."

Buffy trailed off and looked over at Xander, her face a mixture of confusion and concern.

"Xan are you okay? You look a little..."

Xander interrupted her question with a squeaked "Excuse me!" and then slammed one hand over his mouth and dashed off to the tree the fledge had been hiding behind. Once there, he leaned on it with one hand and puked up his guts all over its roots.

*

"Xander?"

A slim tiny hand slowly rubbed soothing circles on his back. He was going to answer her, but then another shudder racked his body and his stomach clamped up tight. He gagged and choked, but there was literally nothing left in him to come back up.

"Shhh... It's almost over. Honest."

He heard water running and he glanced up to see Tara standing behind Willow. She was doing something in the bathroom sink. Suddenly, she turned and reached down and handed it, whatever it was, to Willow.

"Here. Th... this should help."

Willow tipped her head back and smiled up at her girlfriend and Tara grinned back sweetly. Xander was just absurdly glad that they were here and not Spike. When the bouts of nausea hit, the girls were both helpful, sympathetic and comforting. Spike tended to freak out and shift into super-duper overprotective mode.

Then Willow placed a cool wet washcloth against the back of his neck and all thought fled from his mind in favor of a major wave of relief. That felt *so* good. Willow then slowly used the cloth to wipe the sweat from his forehead and neck. All the while, her other hand kept up the soft gentle circles on his back.

Finally, he was feeling good enough to sit all the way up and flush the soiled water in the toilet away. He flashed the girls a shaky grin and then Tara leaned down and forward again. She handed him a glass of cool water.

"Here Xander. Do... do you want us to give you a... a few minutes? To clean up, I mean."

He nodded at her and slowly began to push himself up off of the tile floor.

"Yeah. That would be great. Oh... and thanks guys. I appreciate you, you know, being here for me and all."

Willow flashed him her biggest smile and gave him a gentle hug.

"Oh Xander, we *enjoy* being here for you. Even the un-fun parts. That's what friends are for!"

Tara stood quietly and nodded her agreement with what Willow said and Xander felt a bit better just by knowing that they were there for him. Then he had another thought.

"Um... could you guys, uh... sorta *not* mention this to Spike when he gets back? You know he'll just freak and then make me go to bed. Not that I'm tired, that's not the point. It's just *his* solution to any human illness, I guess."

Twin sly smiles greeted his statement and he wondered how long he would have before Spike realized they were hiding something and then badgered it out of them.

*

Xander could hardly believe it. No, that's not true. He *could* believe it. Easily. He just never wanted to actually see it. Spike was turning into a true "fuss-budget".

This recent habit of his to get nauseous at the drop of a hat had the bleached vampire extremely upset. He knew that, but there wasn't much he could do about it. He couldn't even hide it. Spike could hear him gagging even when there was nothing to come up, so he couldn't pass it off as a belch.

Once it became obvious that Xander's "stomach thing" wasn't going away and wasn't just a spot of the flu, Spike had bugged Willow about it and she had mentioned the term "Morning Sickness". So, Spike had delved into research about the phenomenum. Xander had come to the conclusion that it must have been an idiot that coined that phrase... he was sick *all* day, not just in the morning.

The vampire on the other hand, was totally enthralled with the concept. He had bought books at the bookstore, subscribed to a weekly magazine on pregnancy and had set the witches and the ex-watcher to looking up all references to W'amphrii in the Watcher's Journals.

So far, Xander had been subjected to Spike's experimentation with foods and drinks. The bleached blonde vampire wanted to find out just *what* he could eat without getting sick, so at first, he had been willing. But now? He didn't think he'd *ever* be able to look another cracker in the face again.

Now here was his husband, fresh from the store with three loaves of bread and a dozen different jellies and preservatives. But no crackers. So this was a good thing... at least he *hoped* it was.

"Um... Spike?"

"Hello pet! I've been thinking."

Xander groaned inwardly. It was rarely a good thing when Spike was thinking. Even his good intentions tended towards evil end results. Xander figured it was an undead thing.

"Toast!"

Confusion washed over him and he realized that he must have missed something somewhere. And Spike was grinning at him like the cat that ate the canary... and liked it.

"What? Toast what?"

Bright blue eyes rolled up to the ceiling in fond exasperation.

"Toast for you to *eat* luv. Since crackers didn't work, I figured that we could see how the toast stays down. I got different toppings because I wasn't sure which ones you liked."

Xander had been able to surpress the shudder at the word "crackers" but it didn't take him very long to realize that Spike was planning on forever ruining toast for him as well. He had horrifying visions of toast and jam for every meal for a week. Toast lightly browned with strawberry preserves for breakfast, followed by dark toast with orange marmalade for lunch. And only the Hellmouth knows how Spike could turn toast into a dinner.

The beginnings of panic began to well up in him and he glanced desperately around the apartment looking for an avenue of escape.

*

Xander sat down for lunch break with his coworkers. A whole long line of big sweaty sawdust coated men sitting on the edge of what would eventually be the living room floor of a new residential house, their legs all hanging out through the framing. They had half an hour to eat, rest and use the restrooms before they had to go back on the clock. It was the most popular part of the day.

Barry had a thermos full of chicken noodle soup. Tom had half a turkey grinder. Steve had two slices of cold pizza. Ralph had what looked like last night's roastbeef dinner sliced onto a sourdough roll like a sandwich. Tony had a bologna and cheese sandwich and a banana. Martin, the lucky shit, had take out from the local Chinese restaurant that his girlfriend had dropped off only minutes ago.

With a sigh, Xander took out his bottle of chilled water and his two slices of cold toast.

Life was soon unfair.