FDR

Author: Rubywisp

Pairing: Spike/Xander

Rating: NC-17

Spoilers: General spoilers for BtVS

Author's notes: The boys go dancing. Plans go awry. Somewhere in my head, there is an only-partly-AU where Spike and Xander lived together for a longer period of time in S7 and Spike was saner when they did. That is where this takes place.

Distribution: My site, list archives. You want it, email me.

Disclaimer: Still not mine. Damn shame, that.

A/N: Millions of thanks and kisses to Willa for encouragement when I needed it most, Christina Melani for squees and love, and EntreNous, for prompting me to tighten this up.

Dedication: For Anna S., who rocks beyond the telling of it.

~~~

"This is crazy," Xander muttered under the brain-blenderizing pulse pounding its way out of the entrance to the club, that threatened to pulverize Xander where he stood, frozen and blocking the door. Nervously, he adjusted the cuffs on the black thing he was wearing that he was never going to believe fit strictly in the category of 'menswear' no matter how loudly Spike called him a fashion-senseless idiot.

It was a blouse. He knew it was a blouse. Spike made him leave the house in a girl's shirt. One of these days Spike was going to pay. For a multitude of crimes, to be sure, but Xander knew this was going to be at the top of his own personal list.

But only if he lived through the embarrassment of this night. Xander didn't even have foot number two across the threshold, and he was ready to break and run for cover like the screaming girly-man he knew he was deep inside. The knowing was deep, anyway. He had more than a sneaking suspicion that the girly-man part spent a lot of time shaking its sheer, blousy booty for the whole world to see, just outside of his range of vision. Well, except for tonight. Tonight, even he could see it, hanging loose and swirly around his body.

He fiddled with the buttons on his right cuff again and wondered if it really was a cuff. Maybe blouses had their own language; especially ones with sleeves that were meant - again, according to Spike - to hang open around the knuckles instead of buttoning around the wrists like any sensible shirt would have done.

"It's working, isn't it?" Spike's voice was low, and amused, and much, much too close to Xander's ear, and he thought about jerking away with the first insult that sprang to mind. Possibly a pointed finger and a carefully-aimed glare. Maybe two insults. He had a few saved up for special occasions.

But that would have been business as usual, which was very much the opposite of the point of this little exercise in expanding Xander's boundaries and exposing him to the joys of 'acting like he had a pair that wasn't tucked away in one of the Slayer's little handbags'. Or so Spike claimed. Xander thought it had a lot to do with Spike being bored and Xander being a pushover. He'd even said so. Spike ignored him, of course, so Xander had pointed out that he'd never actually seen Buffy carrying a purse and in fact didn't think she owned one, but Spike ignored that too, and here they were.

And 'joys' really was too strong a word, but he seemed to have left his thesaurus in his other pants. The comfy ones, the ones made of denim, not leather. The ones that left him room to breathe, that came complete with back pockets that would have provided another whole layer of protection between his ass and Spike's crotch, which was pushing up against him and was right up there with Spike's voice and Spike's mouth in the 'way too close' department.

Then: "Hands! Hands! Hands in low places, bad places, places that don't belong to you places. Cut it out!" Xander turned his head, the better to be properly indignant right in Spike's face, and whoa, Spike's face was really, really close. Xander flinched. Spike smirked.

"Now, now. That's definitely a normal reaction. None of that, remember?"

"Listen, buddy - and I use the term loosely, in an 'I'm trying to keep from using the word 'asshole'' way here - the idea was for me to be open to new experiences. Try something different. There was nothing about being molested in the fine print of our insano deal."

"Not molesting you in the fine print, am I? Molesting you in these pretty new trousers of yours."

Xander felt something hard and cool, something that felt suspiciously like Spike's hand, slip partway into the front pocket of the pants he was sure were two sizes too small, and now he was just as sure that was a deliberate choice on Spike's part. "Besides, wouldn't objecting be something you'd usually do?"

Spike tutted, which was even wronger than the hand steadily digging its way deeper into Xander's pants, against all known laws of nature, physics, or sanity. "I think that's against the rules, Xander." His fingers hit rock bottom, so to speak, and began stroking the crease where Xander's thigh met his hip, with disturbing, rapidly-becoming-the-stuff-nightmares-are-made-of results.

"Since when do you care about rules?" Xander pulled out of Spike's arms with a roughness that was in direct inverse proportion to the lightness of his voice. The attempted lightness, anyway; Xander didn't miss the way his voice caught or the smug, victorious look that crossed Spike's face when he heard it and let Xander go. Bastard.

Finally inside, Xander headed straight for the bar. Not much chance of him finding his lost good sense in the bottom of a glass, and it wasn't exactly something he wouldn't normally do, but it was either decrease the level of untainted blood in his bloodstream or find the nearest corner and start gibbering, so he went with it.

"Two shots of Jack, thanks." The first one went down in one wincing gulp that Xander just knew left scorch marks on the inside of his esophagus. The second was half gone and just starting to settle into a nice burn in his stomach when Spike appeared, one eyebrow lifted.

"For me? You shouldn't have."

"I didn't." Xander took another sip of his drink and turned to face the rest of the club, his elbows propped up on the bar behind him. He stared without really seeing anything while Spike ordered a couple of shots of his own.

The music was thick and heavy. It jarred his heartbeat into a rhythm of its own making, set his bones twitching and his teeth on edge. Though that last could've been Spike too, who clearly had no respect for the concept of personal space and was pressed up against Xander from shoulder to floor, his head tilted just far enough that the crackly tips of his hair brushed the side of Xander's face every time Xander turned his head too far to the left.

He considered moving, shuffling a few inches to the right, but Spike would just shuffle along after him until Xander couldn't pretend he didn't notice, and all his energy was kind of sucked up by trying not to feel stupid in his big, girly blouse, so he stayed put and wondered how much vibration his teeth could take before his fillings started jarring loose.

His second drink was a memory by the time Spike broke the relative silence. "You ought to dance or something, instead of sitting here like a well-dressed lump on a log."

"I'm standing, not sitting, and my lumps and logs are fine right where they are." Spike opened his mouth to argue; by this point, he was standing so close that Xander could almost hear the click of his jaw as he opened his mouth. "Besides, dancing? Not exactly something I wouldn't normally do, my fine leathered friend."

He allowed himself a tiny, triumphant grin. Not often he got the best of the World's Most Annoying Vampire.

"True." Spike acknowledged the hit with a nod, and then flashed a triumphant grin of his own. Worry came out of nowhere and smacked Xander hard on the back of the head, but he ignored it like the foolhardy fool that he was. "But not with him, I'd wager."

Xander looked in the direction Spike's chin was poking. The words sank in half a dozen skittering heartbeats after Xander caught sight of the built-like-a-linebacker god with dark blond hair and a jaw that made Angel's look weak over in the corner. The one staring straight at him and Spike, pushing his glasses up on his nose as he inclined his head oh-so-barely at Xander with a smile that dropped Xander's stomach straight into the approximate vicinity of the toes of the set of borrowed boots Spike had insisted he wedge his feet into earlier.

"I realize now that the whole point of pouring me into this slutbomb outfit you picked out was attracting attention of the uncomfortable kind, but I think that might be taking it too far, don't you think?" Xander tried to keep his hand from shaking as he waved it at the rest of the club. "I don't imagine Dirty Dancing, homo-style, would play too well with the-"

He stopped short, for the first time noticing the makeup of the crowd. Not to mention the makeup of the guy just walking in the door. Or the adoring looks of the guy walking next to him, the one with the hand on his ass and the mouth attached to his throat in a disturbingly non-vampirey way.

"Sweet holy Moses." He should've paid more attention to where they were going. Giles had been emphasizing the importance of research for the last several years; some of it should've sunk into his thick skull by now. Hadn't there been some kind of study on educational osmosis while sleeping? And was it hot in here? It felt hot. Xander felt hot, anyway. Stupid floaty shirt and its stupid long sleeves.

He watched, wide-eyed, as a couple of guys at the end of the bar did their best to give each other tonsillectomies via mouth-to-mouth. It was definitely hot in here.

Spike, to his credit - not that Xander would give him any, not if he made a quarter-mil a year and had never missed a payment on anything in his considerably long life - didn't laugh. Just nudged him with an elbow. "You were saying?"

"No," he said, although 'croaked' might be a better term, what with the Mojave desert suddenly taking up residence in his throat. He ordered a beer. "I'm not dancing with him."

Spike's lips brushed his ear. Xander couldn't stop the flinch or the goose bumps this time around. "No, you wouldn't dance with him normally, or no, you're not going to tonight?"

The beer came; Xander paid for it gratefully, taking his time about taking a drink. "I will not dance with him in this club, I will not dance with him in the mud. I will not dance with him in a tree, I will not dance with him on my knee. I don't like dancing with a man, I do not like it, Sam-I... Spike-I... you."

Xander frowned and looked at the beer in his hand, wondering if maybe he'd drunk more than he thought, if he'd had a sip or two of Spike's booze by mistake. Maybe an entire glass. He wiggled his fingers experimentally. Nope. All still attached.

"Ah, fuck it. No, Spike. I'm not dancing with him. Or anybody else." He risked a look, wanting to know how much of an embarrassingly loud argument he'd just signed on for. Spike's eyes were as wide as he'd ever seen them, and his jaw was halfway to the floor. It almost made Xander want to smile.

"You feeling... spelled... or anything there, Xander?" Spike's eyes dropped warily to take the measure of the bottle in Xander's hand.

It was the second time Spike had used his first name in the last half-hour, only the third time he could dredge up out of conscious memory and something about that fact, that and the... what could only be called a lilt, unfortunately... in Spike's voice when he said it made dancing seem like a viable option after all. With a guy, with two guys, with the entire male (human, thank you) population of every town in a twenty-mile radius. Xander didn't care as long as it took him away from the crazy, gaping vampire.

Xander set what was left of his beer down and started backing away. "You know, I think I'm just going to go over here and-" Something large and warm and solid blocked his path. And grabbed his arms. Xander didn't know whether to kick or scream, but the sudden, evil smile on Spike's face told him it might be the latter.

Slowly, he turned his head.

"Hey there."

Brad Pitt the Larger was even better-looking up close. The realization did funny, twisty things to Xander's stomach, things he only wished he could blame on the alcohol. Xander licked his lips. "Um, hi."

The hands on his arms didn't loosen. Not a bit. In fact, Xander could've sworn they started... rubbing. His eye twitched.

"Am I interrupting something?" Clear, clear, clear green eyes flickered from Xander's face to Spike's, and yet he still didn't let go. Xander still didn't move. No sense choosing a course of action until you knew how you felt about the way things were going, after all.

"No." Xander's heart was in his throat. He was starting to feel kind of twitchy all over. "With Spike? There's nothing to... there's no... I mean-"

"Want to dance?" Spike made a strangled noise that Xander hadn't heard since the last time Buffy folded him in thirds with a couple of well-placed kicks, and yep, those hands were definitely rubbing his arms now. Suddenly, Xander wanted to see just what Spike's little experiment would produce. He could decide what he thought about it tomorrow.

"Yeah, I'd like that." A quick flash of grin, just as quickly returned, and Xander was being led out onto the dance floor by one hand and trying not to feel Spike's eyes boring great, gaping holes of incredulity into his back.

This definitely qualified as out of his normal range of human interaction, Xander thought as - hell, he didn't even know the guy's name - rested both giant paws on his hips. Paws? Shit. He skimmed a hopefully-not-alarmed look over the other man's face, wondering if he could tell if the guy was in any way, shape or fraction a demon, then realized that there would've been a lot more smirking and a lot less dropped jaw on Spike's face if he was.

Dancing with a guy turned out not to be as different as Xander would have thought, not that he'd ever thought about it. There were a lot of things he had thought about, things that made him shift his way uncomfortably through more than one episode of Hercules while he hoped fervently that Spike couldn't tell what was on his mind. Given the location of tonight's events, Xander figured he'd hoped in vain.

Those... impressively big hands pulled him close. Close enough that Xander couldn't justify not reciprocating. Or so he told himself as he slipped his arms around the satisfyingly-solid-yet-trim waist in front of him, only experiencing a momentary blip of blinding panic as he tried to judge just how low to let his own hands slide. It was one thing, getting in public touch with the side of himself that he usually only let out to play during quick, face-flaming masturbatory shower activities, but Xander wasn't quite ready for Grabbing of the Male Ass 101 just yet.

He thought he was being remarkably self-possessed about the whole thing, overall. Not that he had more than a passing acquaintance with self-possession, but he'd seen people do it. He could fake it.

Then came the "Are you all right?" followed by a slight lean backward and a carefully polite, searching look.

Scratch that; apparently his carefully-honed faking skills needed a little more time at the whetstone.

"What? No, I'm fine." Dancing with someone roughly your own height turned out to be slightly balance-skewing and not a little disconcerting. No place to hide when you couldn't look over the top of somebody's head and had to settle for looking them in the eye. Him. Looking him in the eye. Eyes. Those damnably damnable green eyes that were blinking at him slowly. Looking a little concerned. Right in his face. Damn.

"You sure? You seem a little... tense."

"No, really, I'm fine," Xander insisted, even while he fought the urge to tense up further, all too aware that they'd pretty much stopped moving and were just standing in the middle of the dance floor with their arms around each other. He could practically hear Spike writing the jokes from here. "I'm just... I don't - hell. I don't even know your name."

"Jeff." Xander could just hear the quiet chuckle under the thrumming of the music. Or maybe he just felt it, rumbling under his fingertips and up through his arms. It was a nice chuckle. Went with the smile.

Xander nodded. "Cool. I'm Xander." His hand twitched against Jeff's back; he squashed the awkward urge to step back and shake hands. Jeff nodded back at him with an even nicer smile, and in time with a heart-thudding dip of Xander's stomach, they were dancing again.

Not for long, however. Xander felt the tap on his shoulder at just about the same time that Jeff stopped moving.

"Fancy cutting in." Spike didn't even look at Jeff, all the intensity in that unwavering gaze saved for Xander and his suddenly-sweaty palms.

"What? No. No, you have your own little thing you're doing over somewhere not here, so get along and-"

"Wasn't asking you, pet. Was asking him." Spike nodded at Jeff, his tone making it perfectly clear that he wasn't asking anybody at all. More like serving notice: This is private property. You have 24 seconds to vacate the premises or face dismemberment and face-stomping.

Ignoring the rush of blood to his dick, Xander leapt in to fight the good fight of useless protest. "Spike, you can't just waltz over here and demand to-" He stopped when Jeff let go of him and stepped back. "What? You're just going to..." Wimp out? Give up? Hand me over to the vampire with the heart of coal and hands of enormous dexterity? Xander swallowed hard, unable to find a way to finish the sentence with words he actually wanted to say out loud.

Jeff held up both hands, shooting Spike, of all people, an apologetic look. "Sorry, man. I kind of thought I was getting in the middle of something over there."

Spike nodded graciously, generous in the face of the capitulation he'd no doubt considered inevitable. Xander crossed Jeff's name off the eligible bachelor list. Not that he had one. But if he did, Jeff would be so off of it. Pandering to the freaky, inappropriately possessive vampire was most definitely not the way to get into Xander's good graces.

"I understand." Spike put his hands in the warm spots left by Jeff's on Xander's waist. Xander shivered and told himself it was the sudden change in temperature he could feel through his all-too-thin shirt. "Now bugger off."

Obligingly, Jeff buggered off. Xander looked at Spike, the why's and what the fuck's shoving and pushing each other out of the way in the race to be first out of his mouth, all of them getting caught up in the traffic jam around the pileup of oh man oh man oh man at the second turn.

"Spike-"

"Before you finish that thought, Xander-" and oh, god, there was that lilt again. Xander was starting to get a little lightheaded from all the wig inherent in that sound. "Answer one question for me."

Spike tightened his grip and slithered two steps closer, close enough that Xander could smell the gel in his hair. Jesus.

Xander eyed Spike - and Spike's looking-right-at-him eyes, which were a surprisingly pale blue - warily. "What?"

"What's your natural reaction to this?" Spike nodded at the lack of space between their bodies.

"I left business as usual behind so long ago that I don't think I'd know it if it came up to me, wrapped its chubby little arms around my knees and called me 'Daddy'. Save your unneeded breath." Nonetheless, Xander took a step backwards. He hadn't decided, exactly, whether he was giving himself enough space to breathe or bolt, but Spike decided for him that the answer was neither and pulled him close again.

"Spike-"

"Xander." No lilt this time, but Xander hardly missed it when Spike's eyes darkened and his voice dipped low instead. He swallowed and tried not to notice the way Spike stared at his throat. "Can you think of a better way to give your old inhibitions the heave-ho?"

Xander raised one finger in the tiny, tiny, way too tiny gap between their faces. "I'm not heave-hoing anything. When the sun comes up tomorrow, I'm all the way back to the overdoing it side of being Repressed Boy, you got that? This is just..." A really bad idea. Temporary insanity. "One night only. Everything must go, but it's all being returned in the morning."

Spike's eyes glittered, and one corner of his mouth turned up. "Well, then," he said, sliding his hands around to the small of Xander's back, somehow finding enough space to tuck his thumbs into the waistband of the leather pants that were growing tighter by the second. "Let's get on with the overspending, shall we?" His fingers hung loosely, just brushing the top of the curve of Xander's ass.

Before Xander could decide whether to nod or run away, Spike had them twisted together like a couple of dancing pretzels. A couple of writhing, undulating pretzels, unlike any food Xander had ever seen boogie its way across the movie previews at the local multiplex.

Xander didn't think he'd ever undulated before in his life, but Spike made it seem natural. Almost. Close enough for horseshoes, anyway.

The music thrummed through him, wound its way up around his legs and threaded itself through his spine. Xander's arms were boneless and heavy; draping them over Spike's shoulders the only way he could keep the lead in them from toppling him over headfirst. Spike, on the other hand, was one hundred percent in control. Maybe one hundred and fifty: his hips and his hands and the hard, cool, hungry look in his eyes all conspired masterfully to strip Xander of rational, independent thought and motion.

They were woven together from bottom to top, and still Spike's body exerted a relentless pull that demanded Xander's best attempt at obedience. He bent his head, bringing his forehead to rest against Spike's, closed his eyes. "The morning, Spike," he murmured, too liquid to flinch when Spike slid his hands up and under Xander's shirt and started kneading his back. "It all goes back in the morning."

"Whatever you say, love." The back of his neck almost-twitched languidly at the endearment, and it occurred to him that maybe Spike had been consumed by something more than boredom when he suggested this little escapade.

Tomorrow. He could care tomorrow, he could freak out tomorrow, he could think about all the things he'd never admit to having already spent a great deal of time thinking about - tomorrow. Tonight, he broke out the surfboard and rode the foamy waves and pretended he wasn't heading straight for the rocks off to the left of the pier.

Spike's hands smoothed and circled and stroked almost imperceptibly. When the firm, solid brush against his right nipple came, Xander's whole body jerked like a wire had been pulled hard through the top of his head. Or his dick, as the case might have been. Quick, sharp intake of breath that he didn't have room for in his lungs, and Spike was right there to catch it on the way back out, his lips soft and pulling and rapidly warming against Xander's own.

It should've been gross. It wasn't. It shouldn't have made Xander feel like the top of his head might fly off at any minute, made his hands shake as he brought them up so he could stroke his thumbs along the long bones of Spike's jaw, but it did. He felt dizzy. High. Sick to his stomach. Really, really horny.

They spent several long moments overheating at the edges of the crowd, Spike's hands quick and light and hard over Xander's torso, making him hard. Harder. Making his hands fumble and sweat as he struggled to find his way under Spike's coat, his shirt, craving the feel of smooth, cool skin underneath his needy palms. Every so often, Xander was peripherally aware of activity beyond Spike's mouth: someone knocked into them, comments floated past, laughter happened by, near and loud, fading away as the crowd eddied and swirled.

When finally they broke apart, Spike's mouth was plump and lightly pink, his eyes wide and hot, hair sticking out at the base of his neck where Xander had scraped his fingers through it. The way Spike licked his lips as his gazed raked over Xander's face told him they were probably a matched set. It should've been the wrongest thing about the whole Dali-esque night. It wasn't even close.

"Xander-"

"Don't." Xander held up one hand. Shook his head without ever taking his eyes off Spike's. "Whatever you're going to say, I'm pretty sure I don't want to hear it." He ran his hands up Spike's arms and began thumbing circles in the hollows at the corners of Spike's shoulders. "I don't want to think about this, okay?" His voice threatened to choke him. It was thick and dry and unwieldy in bizarre, direct contrast to the still-slick fluidity of his lips. "I just... I want to go home."

Spike tilted his head slowly, studied Xander's face intently. Like it was one of those 3-D puzzle pictures you had to not blink at until your eyes burned and watered before you could see the school of fish behind the psychedelic patterns. Xander stared back; he was vaguely cross-eyed by the time Spike jerked a short, sharp nod of agreement, spun on his heel and walked away.

They made their way across town in silence. Xander wished he had pockets to curl his hands into while he tried not to think about what he'd done. What he was doing. What he was going to do.

Spike chain-smoked; out of the corner of his eye Xander watched Spike's hand curve around the flickering lighter protectively, watched his cheeks hollow out for that first deep drag. Watched Spike roll the cigarette between his fingers when it wasn't in his mouth, noted the way he flipped the butt end of it back and forth between his index finger and his thumb, counted the number of times Spike slapped the pack against his palm (seven) before he fished out a new one and started the whole process over again. Spike smoked eleven cigarettes, only stopping when the pack came up empty.

Home. Xander unlocked the door while Spike scraped dirt off the edges of his boots against the doorframe of the apartment across the hall. Once inside, Xander tossed his keys on the counter of the breakfast bar and rifled through his stack of old mail three times, waiting impatiently for Spike while trying to look like he wasn't. Wondered why he was waiting at all. Spike wasn't exactly the delayed gratification type.

The door slammed shut; Xander startled and dropped everything he'd been holding. Envelopes and grocery ads crinkled underfoot as Spike stepped too close, eyes fierce and lowering, pushing Xander into the counter without ever touching him. "You sure about this?"

Xander gripped the counter, shaking his head, breath already coming fast and hard. "No."

"But you want it." One of Spike's hands trailed lightly over his torso. Xander could feel the curves and dips of Spike's palm through his blessedly-thin shirt.

Xander nodded, head shaky and loose on his shoulders, his earlier dizziness coming back in a tilt-a-whirl rush when Spike leaned in, molding his body to Xander's and pushing his face into the crook of Xander's neck.

"God, yes," he groaned, the words pulled out of him by the tight, sucking pulse of Spike's mouth.

The admission gave the already-untied dinghy of his battered resistance the final push it needed to send it far out to sea. Xander pushed the duster from Spike's shoulders and twisted the fingers of one hand tightly in his hair. Spike's moan reverberated through his own throat and made him clumsy; he could hear the faint, prophetic snapping of thread as he struggled to pull Spike's t-shirt off.

Spike straightened up, pushed his hand away. "Haven't got enough shirts to let you ruin this one," he muttered, but even Xander in all his excessive naturally defensive glory could hear the false note in the gruffness.

Thankfully, Spike decided that Xander couldn't be trusted to undress himself, either. He would've been right, too; wondering what Spike's nipples would taste like left Xander uncoordinated enough that he couldn't even pull his arms out of the shirt Spike unbuttoned for him without banging not one but both elbows against the counter. "Ow. Fuck."

"Working on it."

Spike only laughed at him twice while trying to massage the pins and needles out of Xander's arms. It didn't work very well, mostly because he appeared to be as obsessed with Xander's chest as Xander was with his and forgot to keep rubbing once his tongue dipped below Xander's collarbone again.

Xander's brain glazed over - switching to life support systems only, Captain - as Spike sucked one nipple hard into his mouth and rolled the other one roughly between his fingers. His knees went double-jointed on him, and he tottered a bit.

Spike had to grab Xander's hips to keep both of them from falling over. "Feeling alright?"

Xander stared, fascinated, as Spike looked at him, worry written all over his face. Six years of knowing the guy, and there were still facial expressions he'd never seen. Imagine that. And then he did, imagining Spike making all kinds of faces Xander had only ever dreamed of seeing. Knowing they were literally within arm's reach - among other things - took his breath away, although it could've been the pants.

He was actually pretty sure it was the imaginary Spike sex-faces, but he fumbled for the button anyway. Uselessly, because Spike was pressed so tightly against him Xander couldn't even get the tips of his fingers in where he needed them to be. "Hey. Think we could work on getting me out of these things? I think I'm in danger of losing vital bits of my anatomy to lack of circulation here."

Spike grinned up at him, nipple tight between his teeth . "Sure, you think it's funny. Circulation is nothing more than a dinner requirement for you."

Xander was more than willing to bet that the next time the federal government released a list of known and suspected addictive agents, Spike's chuckle would be on top. He wondered which one of them would be on top, realized he didn't care, watched slack-jawed as Spike stepped back and... shimmied really was the only word suitable for that thing Spike did with his hips... till his jeans fell in a loose heap around his ankles, and what do you know: Spike really didn't wear underwear. He'd always wondered. Knowledge was a beautiful, beautiful thing, and a little bit bigger than he'd expected.

Crouching between Xander's legs, Spike worked the buckles on the boots with nimble fingers, nudging Xander with his shoulder, looking up to glare until Xander looked past the naked and got the hint and lifted his feet helpfully. None of which helped Xander's state of mind at all - he tried reciting capitals but couldn't remember anyplace except Baton Rouge. His cool waved from the window as it sped out of town.

Xander wasn't wearing any underwear either. Rule number one of leather trousers, Spike had said, and Xander had shivered and ducked into the bathroom and tried not to think about Angel.

He'd managed to work his fly open by the time Spike stepped back up to the plate, so to speak. Right back, right there, mouth on Xander's neck where it belonged, their hips pushed together like they'd been made for this. Hands on Xander's waist, inside Xander's pants, sliding down Xander's legs until the pants - hated pants, too-tight pants, pants that made Spike's eyes bug out - never mind, good pants - were gone, and Spike had a double handful of nothing but Xander.

Xander had been wondering how to move this show to the bedroom. If he had the nerve to, part of him still wondering if he really even wanted to, but Spike's hand - on his dick, on his balls, Spike's hands stroking and pulling and teasing obscenities he didn't even know he knew right out of him - settled the matter, sent him round the board, no jail, no two hundred bucks, right to 'Go'.

"Bed," he croaked, pushing ineffectually at the top of Spike's head, heat boiling over until he was frozen with it.

Long, spine-melting kiss. Spike tucked his chin back, regarded Xander carefully. "You sur-"

Xander clapped a hand over Spike's mouth. "It's still not morning. I'm contractually obligated not to think about this yet, so don't ask."

So many ways Spike could take that; Xander wouldn't blame him if he got offended. Hurt. Walked away. Threw things at Xander's head and yelled loud enough to wake the neighbors, things about convenience and denial and mind games.

Except the game had been Spike's idea, Xander wasn't denying anything, they each had a hard-on in dire need of attention, and if Spike was even half as desperate as Xander was, they were headed straight for bed. Where they'd exhaust each other in repeated fits of porny mutual indulgence until one of them called uncle or they both passed out. And if they hadn't had 'uncle' when Spike was a kid, then Xander wouldn't be the only person learning something new tonight. Hooray for adult education.

Spike didn't answer. Of course, there was the tiny obstacle of Xander's hand over his mouth, but he didn't even try, something so shoulder-slumpingly excellent that Xander couldn't help but wonder if the guys at FTD had a basket for it.

Not that he thought Spike would like flowers, or even appreciate the sentiment, but bizarre, out-of-wonderland thoughts were a staple of the Xander Harris oeuvre, and he didn't bother trying to assign them rhyme or reason, not anymore. No, Spike just tilted his head again and looked thoughtful. Xander was coming to hate that particular tilt; it said things like wait and thinking and I'll get back to you on that just when he wanted rash decision-making and impulsive nipple-licking the most. Maybe a little dick-licking thrown in for good measure. Dick-measuring, with licking on the side. The underside. His backside.

Christ on a Ritz cracker, he'd come a long way since his reluctance to explore the finer points of grabbing a guy's ass a couple of hours ago, hadn't he? But he was okay with that. In fact, he was fine with it. Better than fine. Or he would be, as soon as Spike got off his unexpectedly thoughtful ass and did something. Anything, as long as it involved someone who better be Xander having an orgasm. Soon.

"So. Apparently the frenzy of need is completely one-sided," he said jokingly, meaning every word. It was either that or Spike got off on fucking with Xander's head. Which Xander already knew, he realized belatedly, so he shut up again and took it like a man. A ridiculous man, standing naked in his kitchen with a boner and his hand over Spike's mouth, but one with the hope of at least a little something-something coming his way in the not-too-distant future.

Xander suspected sex with Spike might compensate for a lot of the little humiliations one suffered along the road to glory. He was willing to risk it.

Spike tilted his head the other way and brought one steady hand up to circle Xander's wrist. Pulled Xander's hand far enough away that he could feel air on his skin and licked his hand, a wide, sweet swath of wet on Xander's palm that jerked his cock back to full hardness, tore a ragged chuckle out of his mouth. This tilt, he liked. "Glad to see you get over that perpetual stillness thing you had going on there."

"Want to fuck me?" The four most beautiful words in the English language. The most unexpected thing ever to come out of Spike's mouth.

Xander gaped. Looked off to the side, the other side, back at Spike. "Is that a trick question?"

Spike's smile was brilliant, blinding. It was a good thing vampires couldn't see in the mirror, Xander thought dumbly as he was dragged to the bedroom by the hand with the wet palm. Spike could fry himself with the brightness of that smile. Xander's brain was already smoking.

In the bedroom, Xander reacquainted himself with Spike's mouth, with the wet, sliding thickness of Spike's tongue against his own. Studied the flavor of the hollow between the flat lines of Spike's collarbone, learned the texture of Spike's nipples pebbling hard between his lips, the way Spike arched and promised filthy things when Xander took them between his teeth and ran his tongue over the tips.

His hands memorized curves of muscle and bone, the flexing twist of Spike's hips while Spike yanked the drawer out of the end table in his search for something slick, the gaspy sounds he made when Xander eased two fingers into him. He fed on the wide, blank look on Spike's face as he pushed in, the slack drop of Spike's head against the pillow lending strength and steadiness to his arms as he caught his breath and his control with both hands and fucked Spike with a steady, jackhammer rhythm powered by years' worth of antagonistic want and ignored need, until he burst through to the other side of the wall in a shower of light and falling plaster.

~~~

It was well into afternoon by the time Xander scratched his way out of sleep, sometime later than that before he could bring himself to brave the wide open spaces of the living room, the presence of the vampire he could hear muttering imprecations at the television set. The smell of microwave popcorn was the final nail in Xander's coffin and he pulled on a pair of sweats before shuffling out to the kitchen, only somewhat zombie-like, to steal a handful of fake-buttery goodness from over Spike's shoulder.

"Hey." Without thinking, he turned and brushed a slightly greasy kiss on Spike's cheek.

They froze in unison, popcorn detritus falling from Xander's open hand, the bag crumpling and starting to split under Spike's.

"Morning now. Afternoon," Spike said, meaning the end of last night. "Deal's over, remember?"

Gutted, Xander nodded. Wiped his hand on his sweats.

Spike leaned like he was going to take a step back, move away from the counter, but Xander didn't make room and he stopped. Turned his head halfway over his shoulder, mostly just his chin. Xander could see him looking at the floor.

Taking a big breath and a bigger chance and ignoring the aching, hollowed-out feeling where his stomach used to be, Xander leaned in and wrapped his arms around Spike, resting his chin on Spike's shoulder, wallpapering Spike's back with yards of only-slightly-shaking him. "I was thinking." At least his voice didn't quaver.

"Were you." Spike's voice was flat and skeptical: disbelieving, not questioning, but his eyes flickered and his shoulders dropped like he was waiting for something.

Xander nodded. "Yeah."

He hadn't been, not really; this was more like abdicating the throne of reason to a sudden flash of absurdity, but he was willing to lie to get what he wanted. He dared greatly, ran his fingers along the laddering muscles over Spike's ribs. "Maybe we can make a new deal."

Spike didn't answer, but Xander could feel the side of his mouth curl up in a small smile, and he rolled his head back and rubbed his cheek slowly against the side of Xander's face. It was enough.

End.