Marked

Author: Rubywisp

Pairing: Angel/Xander

Rating: NC-17

Spoilers: Set post-Chosen, but no spoilers that I can see.

Summary: They're in a nightclub. There's a tattoo. There's licking. That's about all you need to know.

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

Disclaimer: Sadly, neither Angel nor Xander belong to me. It's a wrong, wrong thing, I tell you.

Dedication: For Glossing. Thanks to EntreNous for the title.

~~~

Xander slams the car door and spends a few minutes adjusting his clothes nervously, trying to work up the courage to go inside. Collar, cuff buttons, belt; everything's sharp and pretty, and he runs out of reasons to stay in the dark parking lot which, cold be damned, is more comfortable for him right now than the microburst of light and music that pounds him every time the door to the club opens.

Finally, he sucks it up, sucks in his breath and gets in line at the door. Flashes his I.D. to a guy who looks like he just stepped out of a menswear catalog and lets himself be swept along on the red, pulsing beat until he finds himself at the bar. He orders a double Jack and Coke; it's well beyond his usual bottle of whatever beer he happens to think of the name of first, but Xander knows he's going to need a little help from any friend he can find to get through his very first night at a gay bar.

Carlos was right, he thinks; the place is shiny and impressive, smelling like money even more than it smells like sex. Xander twitches his shoulders, hoping that he's the only one who can see that he's only an insurance check or two away from not belonging here. Judging from the enthusiasm of the short blond guy trying to hit on him, he thinks he might be.

He pushes away from the bar with a shake of his head, and goes to find a dark corner where he can hopefully get his feet underneath him, find a bit of breathing room and give himself some time to adjust to the idea that the guy he just walked past, the one in the dark red silk shirt, is really fucking hot. His partner - light blue, unbuttoned, and oh, Jesus, not one but two nipple rings - is even hotter. Okay, just adjust, period, which he has to before he can sit down in the farthest empty booth he can find.

Xander gives up on trying not to stare at them after a few minutes, and his breathing's a little pronounced by the time he realizes that somebody's standing way too close, just behind his shoulder. He sits up and then hunches over the table, licking his lips dryly, willing the guy to go away, not ready to do anything other than watch.

The guy doesn't move, and Xander drops his head, rubs the ever-deepening line between his eyebrows, and is trying to decide between more ignoring or more whisky when cool fingers brush along his neck, up under his hairline.

"What the fuck?" Xander says, jerking back only to have his neck grabbed painfully still by those same cool fingers.

His spluttering dies a rapid death when Angel slides in next to him, moving him over smoothly, murmuring in his ear. Because of course it's Angel. Of course Angel just happens to stumble across Xander at a tony gay club, drooling over a couple of the hottest half-naked guys Xander's ever seen. The guys he's still staring at, thanks to Angel's vise-grip on his neck, and man, he wishes Angel'd let him look away. Sitting next to Angel is bad enough; Angel touching him, worse. Sitting next to him with a hard on while Angel circles his thumb under Xander's ear pretty much constitutes 'unbearable' in any book Xander's ever read.

"Does Buffy know about this?"

"Are you fucking kiddi-" Xander tries to twist his head to gape at Angel face-to-face, but Angel pushes his thumb into the side of Xander's neck, and fine, he can be disbelieving just as well facing forward. Better than passed out. "I'm not even prepared to admit I'm here out loud to myself, okay? I'm sure as hell not telling Buffy."

Angel's sigh in Xander's ear lifts goose bumps all along one forearm. "Not being here." His fingernails scraping over the back of Xander's neck send a matching set racing down the other arm. "This."

Xander frowns, stupidly grateful for the distraction of having something concrete to think about that doesn't involve sweaty, writhing men while Angel huffs and puffs and blows his house down. "Um... my hair? I let it grow, yeah, but why... Oh. You mean the tattoo."

Angel nods Xander's head in response, alternating between scraping and rubbing the spot where Xander knows the tattoo must be. Not like he can see it, but that was kind of the point.

"That why you grew your hair, Xander? To hide it?" He lets Xander nod this time. Doesn't let Xander pull away when he leans in closer, lips brushing Xander's ear. Xander will deny the quick, deep breath to his dying day. "I'm touched."

"In the head? No shit," Xander says finally. Angel manages to make his silence sound like a question that Xander needs to answer. "Why do you care if I got a tattoo for Anya on the back of my neck? Not like you really knew her." Wrong, wrong, wrong, so fucking wrong to be talking about Anya with Angel, with anybody, at all. But especially with Angel breathing down his neck like an obscene phone call, and Xander doesn't even begin to know where to start thinking about everything that's wrong with that.

"Looks like an A."

In spite of himself, Xander's starting to unknot into the thumb that's moved from the side of his neck to the base of his skull. "Big A, little A, what begins with A," he quotes from the first book he can remember Willow reading to him. "Gee, let's see... could it be 'Anya'?"

Angel's fingers slip beneath the collar of Xander's shirt, and Xander lets his head fall forward a little. He tells himself he shouldn't, that what he should do is stop watching the dancers, stop letting Angel's fingers do the naughty talking. "I have a tattoo."

"Yeah, so?" Xander murmurs, stretching further into the touch. Angel's hand is warming up nicely; when he wakes up tomorrow, Xander promises he'll have a good long talk with his body about acting independently of his brain.

"It's an A, too." Angel says it like that explains everything - the touching and the breathing and the other hand that's now on Xander's thigh and holy shit, Xander thinks Angel just kissed the back of his neck.

"A for Angel, Angelus, asshole, or all of the above?" The insult's quiet, reply set to automatic. The groan Angel pushes out of Xander's lungs by virtue of what are most definitely kisses is new, however. He should probably move. Anytime now. Moving away from the dead guy with the mouth on his neck would definitely be the thing to do. Yep.

He doesn't; Angel doesn't answer. Xander's relieved, until Angel picks Xander up, moving and settling him on the seat between Angel's thighs. "What? What the- what do you thin-"

The thumb is back at the side of his neck, but Xander's seeing black and multicolored stars before he takes the hint and stops stammering. "Watch them," Angel says.

Xander really doesn't need the help of the fingers under his chin to help him know who Angel's talking about, but when they slide down his throat and slip a couple of buttons free, then start flicking across his nipple in time with the tongue behind his earlobe, in time with the way light-blue-shirt guy is riding his boyfriend's thigh, not even the part of Xander's brain that's curled into a fetal ball and chanting AngelAngelAngelAngelAngel relentlessly is able to force him to be sorry.

It's not till Angel moans that Xander realizes he's pushing back against Angel for all he's worth. By that time, though, Xander's dick is as hard as the edge of the table he's gripping, he's positive there's a big purple hickey sucked up right over Anya's tattoo, and the guy in the red shirt has slid his hands down the back of his boyfriend's jeans. Angel could probably strip him and fuck him right here and Xander wouldn't do more than make a note to freak out about it next week, soon as he recovered from the no doubt eye-melting orgasm.

Angel is either psychic or feels the shudder that almost peels Xander's skin away from his spine, because he unfastens Xander's belt and trousers and slides a blissfully still-mostly-cool hand inside just when Xander is set to not mind it the least, just when he needs it the most.

Still with one hand splayed over Xander's jaw and neck, Angel starts talking again. Directions - commands, really, more than actual talking, and it'd be funny if it wasn't so fucking hot.

Xander never figured Angel for much of a talker, but since half the hotness of this is the wrongwrongwrong of it being Angel fisting his cock, fondling his balls, rubbing off against his ass, Xander couldn't imagine being anything but grateful for the low rumble of Angel's voice slipping out to kiss the side of his face.

He's reeling out, strung tighter and tighter between Angel pulling his dick and pushing up against him so hard Xander's starting to think he's going to get fucked anyway, clothes and all. He doesn't snap, not even when red-shirt notices, whispers something to his partner, and the two of them turn around to watch, their clasped hands rubbing the crotch of the guy in blue while Angel jerks him harder. Xander's starting to despair of ever coming, ever letting go, ever finding something to spin him loose from the rack he's stretched out on, when Angel shudders once, hard, gasping Xander's name as warm and wetly as come against his ear.

Xander breaks.

End.