Chapter One

Title: Runaway Guide
Author: Temari Grace
Fandom: Sentinel/BtVS cross over
Genre: Slash
Pairings/Characters: Spike/Xander, Jim/Blair
Rating: FR21
Disclaimer: None of the TV characters belong to me. I am only keeping the fandoms alive in our hearts.
Acknowledgments: Thank you to my beta Kerensa and a special thanks to Neichan whose discussions about character interaction helped me to polish this story.
This warning applies to the fic as a whole:
Explicit M/M sex, first time, oral, anal, foursome.
Possible character death, murder, attempted murder

Prolog to Runaway Guide
(This prolog may also pertain to other Spike as Sentinel fictions.)

The Cosmic Intervention caseworker raced to where she needed to be.

In an alternate universe of the multi-verse Spike laughed as holy flames consumed his vampire body. Then white walls seemed to form around him and he saw a glowing woman standing before him.

“So,” Spike asked, “are you here to inflict eternal torment on me?”

“No,” she said, “I don’t do eternal torment, it’s boring.”

“Then who are you?”

“I am tired of answering the same question every time I visit. I’m going to fix it so you’ll remember me when you see me.” She lifted up her hand and poked Spike in the middle of the forehead; he felt something inside his head click.

“Oh its you,” Spike said, “What do you want this time.”

“I’ve come to arrange for your reward.”

“How about rest in peace?”

“You are an immortal soul, there is no such thing as rest in peace.”

“Buffy went to heaven.”

“She was in a waiting area; do you think The Powers didn’t know what Willow was planning?”

“So there is hell but no heaven?” Spike asked.

“I didn’t say that. Even in heaven there is work to do; hence, no rest in peace. Can we get back to your reward?”

“Can I be human and be with Buffy?”

“I wouldn’t advise that. Angel asked The Powers to turn back the clock when he became human. He was afraid he would end up getting Buffy killed.”

“Angel was human?”

“For twenty-four hours.”

“The Ponce.”

“Lack of imagination is what he has," the caseworker said with a scoff. "There were all kinds of options open to him, but nooo, he has to go back to being a vampire with a cursed soul.”

“What kinds of options?” Spike asked.

“I’m not here to talk about what Angel didn’t do, I need to make arrangements for what you want to do.”

“Right, Luv, What are my options?”

“You do not have a lack of imagination, Poet, use it!”

Spike thought for a moment. “I want to be human, with the same mystical powers I had as a vampire.”

“So, you want to be a sentinel.”

“What’s a sentinel?” Spike asked.

“I don’t have time for redundancies,” she said with a glaring look. When Spike didn’t answer she continued with a sigh, “A sentinel is a male human with enhanced senses very similar to a vampire. It is a common choice for champions from other realities to choose it for their reward. Sentinels bond with a guide, who is usually a soul mate. They work protecting the helpless.”

“Then I can keep working on redemption.”

“You’re already redeemed, it’s the amends you need to keep working on.”

“And my soul mate, who is that?” Spike asked.

“You can choose which ever one you like.”

Everything shook.

“Was that an earth quake?” Spike asked.

“No the amulet has been called back; I need to get you out of here. I’m sending you to a sentinel universe. Now!”



Chapter 1

Spike said good-by to his friends and left the retirement party. He could hear the band playing at the reception down the hall and the guests singing The Bride Feeds the Groom. He tried to dial down his hearing, but only succeeded in turning up his scent dial. He cursed his lack of control and his lack of a guide, as he went to the coatroom and handed the clerk his tag. It was when she handed him his coat that he smelled it. Guide!

“Let me see the coat that was next to mine,” he told the clerk.

“I can’t give it to you without the tag,” she said.

Spike pulled out his badge, identifying him as Sentinel Detective William Spikeman, and the clerk handed him the coat. He inhaled a large whiff. “Guide,” he murmured and turned to walk down the hall toward the wedding reception.

“Hey,” the coatroom clerk yelled. “You can’t take the coat away from here.”

“It belongs to my guide,” Spike said. “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

As he approached the room Spike’s eyes changed from their usual lapis blue to the dark sapphire of a sentinel on a mission. Standing just inside the doorway, Spike tried to pick up his guide’s scent. He was in the room, but the scent was too diluted by the number of guests and their movement around the room for him to get a precise location. He walked over to the nearest table and began sniffing the men.

One of the men at the table took offense, “Hey buddy! What do you think you’re doing?”

Spike pulled out his police badge again. “Do any of you know who this coat belongs to?”

No one knew and the sentinel continued on to the next table. By the time he questioned the fifth table the feel of the room had changed. The laughter and loud conversations had turned to whispers as the information spread that a sentinel was in the room and he was searching for someone.

Alexander Harris looked up and saw that the blonde man with a sentinel’s square jaw, carrying his coat and sniffing men, was only two tables away. He got up quietly. Making sure to stay out of the sentinel’s line of vision, he left the room and walked swiftly to his car. He dug through his pocket for his keys and droped them before he finally got the door opened but he forgot to turn off the alarm. The blaring noise startled him and by the time he got into the car he was shaking so much he had trouble getting the key into the ignition.

Spike was at the empty chair,still strong with his guides scent. He touched it; it was still warm. Hearing the car alarm he knew; his guide was on the run. He ran out the fire exit arriving at the parking lot as Xander pulled away. Spike dialed up his vision and got his plate number.

Xander glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the sentinel looking after him. He knew then that he could not chance going home. He was desperate; He didn’t want to bond with a sentinel. Every adult male he had known in his life, with the exception of the male guides he had met at guide school, had been abusive. He had no intention of becoming the property of a sentinel. “Three days,” he told himself. “Just hold out for three days; by then he’ll know it’s no good and he’ll give up.” He went to an ATM across town and took out the limit of his money and then got on the highway and traveled until midnight. He found a Residence Inn and payed cash for a one night stay.

Spike ran the plates to get his guide’s name and address. He requested Xander’s files from guide school, and then called his apartment complex to make sure someone was there to let him in.

There had to be a reason Xander was running. Guides knew better; a sentinel who had found his ‘one true guide’ didn’t give up just because the guide ran. “One true guide,” he whispered to himself. Yesterday he hadn’t believed in ‘one true guide’; he thought it was just a bunch of hocum made up by mundanes to romanticize the sentinel/guide relationship. Spike pulled up in front of Xanders’s apartment. A maintenance man waited with keys to let him in.

Xander lived in a basement apartment next to the laundry room. Spike could sense something strange about it when he walked in but it took him a moment to put his finger on it. There were no pictures on the wall and no pictures of people anywhere. There was a bookcase full video games, a TV, a VCR, a DVD player, an X-box, a Nintento a computer and a stereo. He looked through the CD collection first. Xander had eclectic taste in music; Spike smiled, so did he. Then he turned on the computer and waited for it to boot up. Spike found that the computer stored Xander’s password so he had no trouble getting into his e-mail. There was nothing personal. Spike signed into the police network and brought up Xander’s Guide School records.

Alexander Harris
Identified as a potential guide at age 11.
Enrolled in guide school upon graduation from highschool at age 17.

Test results:
I.Q.: 129
Empathic level: 9.3
Guide has demonstrated healing capabilites.

Spike whistled. The empathic scale went from 0 to 10, anything over an 8.0 was quite rare.

Telepathic level: 8.9/2.7

Guide has demonstrated a high ability, 8.9, for Hazard Perception; however, his telepathic level drops to 2.7 when faced with mundane tasks such as card reading. It is believed this dichotomy developed as a result of his history of abuse.

Spike re-read the last sentence and then looked around the room. It all fell into place. Someone had hurt his guide. Hurt him so badly he no longer had the ability to trust. That’s why no pictures of family and friends were in his apartment; that’s why he ran.

Spike put out an APB on Xander stressing his guide, rather than criminal, status.”
*Do not approach. Monitor and notify Sentinel Detective William Spikeman of guide’s whereabouts.*
He knew no police officer would risk incuring a sentinel’s wrath because of an injured guide.

Next he logged onto the Sentinel/Guide Alliance site and filed an Intention to Bond Certificate and now he was legal. He didn’t have to worry about getting a search warrant for Xander’s financial records; or relying on assumptions that there was already one on file.

When Spike had done everything a detective could do to track a fugitive on the run he went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. The scent of Xander was strong and he moaned. He wanted him and needed him. He reached out and pulled one of Xander’s pillows to him. He brought his knees up and curled around it in a fetal position. He forced the sentinel within to wait.