Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and am making no profit through the writing of this.

A/N: Not set in any particular season of this series. It's kind of a standalone, and outside of the series. Xander is not a human, never has been in this AU. Spike is lonely. He needs a dog, and it turns out that a dog just so happens to need him. Originally written for fan_flashworks. I forget the prompt. It has been awhile, and I've been nervous about posting this.

The dog was fearful, like it'd been kicked one too many times, and it looked like it hadn't had a decent meal in weeks, maybe months. If Spike had it in him, he'd pity the dog. As it was, he felt a little 'tug' where his heart used to be when the dog gave him a wary look out of the corner of its eyes.

"You know the score, don't you pooch?" Spike said, voice soft, and hand out, coaxing the fearful dog nearer.

It inched forward, scooting on its belly, getting twigs and fallen leaves stuck in its matted and flea infested fur, sniffing hopefully at the air. Spike smiled when the dog's warm, dry nose touched the back of his empty hand.

The dog flinched, and cowered even lower to the earth when Spike turned his hand over, intending to run his fingers through the dirty fur of the long-haired German shepherd. Frowning, Spike let his hand hover in the air above the dog's head, turning it palm up for the dog to sniff, and then carefully, slowly lowering it to where the dog's nose rested on the ground.

The dog's eyes flicked from Spike's face to his hand, and back again before it took an experimental sniff of the proffered hand. Spike stayed crouched before the dog, holding breath that he did not need, waiting for it to accept or reject him, smiling when the dog stuck out its tongue and licked the palm of Spike's hand, before lowering its head back down to the earth.

"That's a good boy," Spike praised, and slowly moved his hand to rest it on the dog's head, scratching behind its ears and earning a happy sigh from the woolly beast. "See this isn't so bad, is it?"

The dog seemed to agree with Spike's assessment and made another contented little sigh, tongue lolling out onto the ground, making Spike grimace as the tongue collected dirt. He kept scratching behind the dog's ears, though, enjoying the warmth, and the silky feel of the fur.

"Can't keep you, can I?" he muttered, thinking of the warehouse, and the minions who might see the dog as a treat rather than a friend, and potential protector. No amount of wishing would make either of their circumstances better.

It wouldn't be fair to the dog for him to keep it, he reasoned as he stopped petting it, and straightened to his full height. The dog snapped its head up and whined, but Spike shook his head and turned away. He made it a few steps before the dog's whining got to him, and he returned to study it.

He couldn't keep a dog. He was the Big Bad. A vampire. One of the undead. The undead and living creatures did not make for good companions.

Vampires, in spite of what was written in popular novels, did not keep dogs as protectors or pets. Not that he'd ever read of a vampire keeping a dog as a pet, but there were plenty of stories about vampires using dogs, or werewolves, to guard their homes. In Spike's experience, that simply wasn't the case.

He was alone now. Dru had left him. Angel was off pursuing whatever his misguided soul, and the PTB told him to pursue, and a life with Spike by his side was not it. Darla was gone. Not that Spike would have followed after her like a...dog on a leash.

This dog had no leash, but it did have a collar, and speaking comforting, nonsense words, Spike knelt down and reached for the collar, stilling when the dog's whine turned into a snarl.

"Easy there, not gonna hurt you," Spike reassured, and though the dog backed up another step, it stopped snarling, and simply watched Spike's hand warily.

Spike kept his movements steady and was careful to telegraph each of them, talking as he moved his hands to the dog's neck and then touched the collar. It was tight, and Spike cursed, but he made no move to loosen the collar just yet.

He looked for an identification tag, and, with a soft, "Bingo," and a reassuring smile to the dog who held completely still under his hands, he turned the bone shaped ID tag over and read the dog's name aloud, "Xander. What kind of name is that for a dog?" He quirked an eyebrow and the dog tilted its head to the side.

"Xander, belonging to an Anthony Harris." Spike read the address, but, with the way that the dog reacted to hearing the name of its owner - a low growl followed by a whimper - he knew that he wouldn't be returning it to its home. It was obvious that the dog had been abused, and that it hadn't been getting regular meals.

"Don't worry, not taking you home," Spike said, and the dog seemed to calm at his words. "Let's just get this bloody thing off you."

The collar was tight all right. It took several seconds for Spike to figure out where the buckle was, and when he did, he cursed. Anthony was either a sadist, or a fucking moron, Spike thought. Instead of using the holes that had been made on the collar, the man had made a hole of his own, several inches down from the last hole, which, by Spike's estimation would have been ideal for Xander's neck size. It was a miracle that the dog could still breathe with how tight the collar had been made by the idiot.

"Easy, there," Spike soothed when Xander started to growl low in his throat as he began to work the metal hook out of the hole.

It was slow going, and Spike had to stop often to reassure the dog that he wasn't going to tighten it even more, that he was trying to help it. Judging by the other crude, homemade holes that Spike discovered as he went, this was not the first time that Xander's collar had been monkeyed with. Harris was a fucking sadist, Spike amended his earlier assessment of the man.

"Just trying to help, pet," Spike said when he had to tighten the collar to loosen it.

He hesitated briefly when the dog let out a pain and terror filled whimper, wishing that he could do this in some other way. When the collar finally gave way, he had to untangle it from the dog's long fur. He winced at each whimper and full-body flinch that Xander made as he deftly disentangled the matted fur from around the collar, and finally flung it free of the dog's neck, rubbing the place where it had been.

Spike chuckled as Xander shuddered, and then sighed in pure joy, leaning against his rescuer, and wagging his tail so hard that his whole body was quaking with it. Not content to simply wag his thanks, Xander planted both forefeet on Spike. He was so tall on his hind legs that he could almost reach Spike's shoulders. He accidentally knocked Spike over in his enthusiasm to bathe his savior with kisses that covered Spike's face, and neck.

Laughing in a way that Spike hadn't laughed since before he'd been turned; since he'd been a young boy, really, Spike attempted, and failed, to block Xander's tongue with his arms. He only succeeded in getting his hands, and arms, and the rest of him, licked.

Just when Spike thought he was going to have to bring out the big guns (so to speak) to stop the loving attack, Xander, delivering one last kiss to the tip of Spike's nose, sat back on his haunches, square on Spike's belly, a happy look on his face, and subsided with the licking. The dog's brown eyes were sparkling with happiness.

Okay, so maybe he could do this - keep a dog. It was clear that he couldn't take the dog back to Anthony Harris, unless he wanted the dog to die, and oddly enough, Spike didn't. It was equally clear, given how the dog was now sprawled out on top of him, that Xander wasn't about to let him go.

"I suppose there could be stranger pairs," Spike mused aloud. "A vampire and a dog's not 's bad as a slayer and a vampire." He shuddered at the thought, cringing on the inside, and laughed when Xander made a huffing sound, as though in complete agreement with him.

They'd get along just fine if the way the dog had been slobbering all over him moments ago was anything to go by.

'And besides,' Spike reasoned, 'not every dog's man's best friend.'

Some dogs, it appeared, were vampire's best friends.