Author: WesleysGirl
Spoilers: Through and including "Dirty Girls," goes sort of AU after that.
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. I am only doing this for fun and no money is being made. All belongs to Joss.
Notes: Title from a quote by Miyamoto Musashi - "Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things."
Summary: There are different kinds of healing, and different kinds of moving on.
~~~
Xander wants to go home.
He repeats it while they wait for him to be seen in the emergency room. They wait ten minutes, then ten more, and then Buffy
is yelling at some poor bint behind the desk whose only job is to write down
names, photocopy insurance cards, and call people when they're lucky enough to be
seen. Which considering Sunnydale's doctors, Spike supposes, is
debatable.
The woman cowers and stammers that she'll try to find someone to
take a look at Xander, who's more than a little shocky at this point, leaning up
against Spike like he doesn't even realize he's doing it.
Buffy comes back.
"She's going to get us a room," she says, her eyes glinting with determination.
"Xander? You hanging in there?"
"Yeah," Xander says roughly. It's about all
he can manage, Spike thinks.
Less than two minutes later the three of them
are in a little cubicle, and everything is white and sterile. It reminds Spike
just a tad too much of the Initiative, right down to the smell of blood. It's
bright in a way that's probably meant to be reassuring, but instead it only makes
him feel small, empty, and alone. The fact that he's none of these things doesn't
help.
Spike wants a smoke like he's never wanted one in his life, but he
can't have one here. Oh, he could go outside, but Xander's using him and Buffy
like a pair of the world's most fucked-up bookends, holding himself upright
between them. Spike isn't about to let him fall, or to let Buffy do the holding by
herself.
"Want to go home," Xander mutters again, words that are spoken
aloud unknowingly.
"We will," Buffy tells him, her arm around his back,
hand rubbing his shoulder comfortingly. Her fingers brush over Spike's shoulder,
and he's not sure if it's on purpose or by accident. He's not sure he
cares.
The curtain pulls back as some people in white coats enter, and then
everything's crazy for the next hour or so. Buffy and Spike are asked to leave the
room and they do, reluctantly.
"I want to check on Rona," Buffy says, her
arms wrapped around herself now that Xander's being taken care of. "Will you stay
here? Make sure he's okay? I don't want him to be alone, if..."
But Spike
doesn't need her to finish that sentence. "Yeah. You go on. I'll
stay."
"Thank you." Buffy touches his arm, definitely on purpose this time.
She walks off down the hallway, her stride capturing both defeat and stubbornness
at the same time, and still managing to look graceful despite the
juxtaposition.
The doctors do... whatever it is they do to Xander. Pack him
up full of gauze, maybe. By the time they're done with him, his head's all wrapped
up and he's out of it. Spike follows as they wheel Xander on a gurney up to a room
on another floor of the hospital. He tries to be unobtrusive, but he knows on some
instinctive level that people are always watching him. Doesn't matter if he's
trying to be openly threatening, stealthy, or even friendly -- people always watch
him.
The room's quiet, and the temptation to crack a window and have a
quick smoke is strong. Before Spike can make a move to do so, Xander stirs on the
bed. When his eye opens, it holds the warm, circled expression of the
well-drugged.
Spike goes over and stands next to the bed, and Xander's
fingers twitch. They twitch like they need something to hold onto, and Spike
thinks he can understand that, so he reaches out and takes Xander's hand. Xander
holds on.
"Where's Buffy?" he asks, his voice hoarse.
"Went to check
on one of the girls. If you want, I could go look for her? Or Willow?" Spike can't
help but think that someone else ought to be here, someone who knows how to
comfort better than he does.
Xander's already slipped into that
awake-but-gone place, staring at nothingness like it might eat him alive if he's
not careful. Spike doesn't think he heard him. But then, "I can still see," he
says.
"Well, yeah," Spike says. "Nothing wrong with the other
one."
Xander doesn't shake his head, but something about the way his lips
reshape themselves tells Spike that he wants to. "No. With both."
And
Spike's never heard of phantom sight, but he shrugs amiably enough. "Could be the
drugs."
"Yeah," Xander says finally, and his eye closes. His breathing
evens out and his grip on Spike's hand loosens, but he doesn't let go.
~~~
Two days later, Xander goes home.
Spike goes with him, not because he
particularly wants to -- although it's not that he doesn't want to -- but because
Buffy asks him to.
"I don't want him to be alone," she says, which is
pretty much the same as the hospital all over again, making Spike want to tell her
to make a recording and get it over with, since that way she wouldn't have to
actually talk to him. "Someone should be there. What if something happens? He
might need... help."
Spike thinks about saying that Xander's going to need
a hell of a lot more help than Spike can give him, but that will just make Buffy
think about the fact that none of them may survive what's coming, anyway. So
instead he says, "All right," and when Giles drives Xander home from the hospital,
Spike goes along. He sits in the back seat while Xander rides shotgun and tries
not to hiss when they hit bumps in the road, and listens to Giles offer quiet
apologies that aren't even about his damned driving.
"Call if you need
anything," Giles tells Spike at the front door of the apartment, once Xander is
settled back in. "Buffy and Willow will come round in the morning to see how he's
doing."
"Right." Spike closes the door and goes to sit in front of the
television, since Xander's bedroom door is closed and he's sure as fuck not going
to go knocking, asking how he is.
One hour later, Spike has had a beer and
four cigarettes.
Two hours later, he's gone through the fridge and noted
with approval that Willow and Dawn have stocked the apartment with food, but
nothing appeals to him, so he smokes some more and has another beer.
Three
hours later, Spike knocks on Xander's door.
"What?" Xander's annoyed, and
Spike doesn't blame him.
"Just... you all right in there?"
"Spike.
I'm only going to say this once, so listen very carefully. Go. Away."
Spike
smiles because he thinks it's the longest thing Xander's said since he was hurt,
and that's got to be a good thing. Right? But Spike's never been one to listen
when people tell him to go away, so instead he opens the door and leans on the
door frame, all casual-like. "Thought you might be getting bored in here. We could
watch a movie."
"No, you could watch a movie." Xander's sitting with
his back up against the headboard of his bed, with his arms crossed over his
middle and his feet crossed at the ankles. His socks are black, and he looks
irritated and depressed.
"C'mon," Spike says encouragingly, with a jerk of
his head. "I'll give you a beer."
"Can't," Xander tells him morosely.
"Alcohol and prescription painkillers don't mix real well when you have a
pulse."
Oh, right. "You could watch me drink a beer."
"You know,
Spike, fun as that sounds, I think I'm going to take a pass."
"All right
then."
Spike tilts his head to look at Xander one last time before he shuts
the door, and that's when Xander says, "Buffy asked you to stay, didn't
she."
It's not really a question, but Spike answers anyway.
"Yeah."
Xander snorts, and the sound is more pitiful than derisive.
"Figures."
"Well, not like she could stay, herself, what with the house
full of mini-Slayers," Spike says, reasonably enough. He wonders if Harris is mad
that none of the girls stayed, or just that Spike's the one that did.
He
turns to go again, and again Xander says something.
"Spike?"
"Yeah?"
"You don't think he'd... go to the house, do
you?"
And Spike hears what he's asking and not-quite-asking, and says, "No.
S'not his style, is it? Wait for her to come to him again, that's what he'll do.
Don't worry about it."
Xander's good eye -- only eye -- is closed again,
and Spike slides out and shuts the door.
~~~
The girls come the next morning -- Buffy, Willow and Dawn, the littlest Summers
looking nervous -- but Xander hasn't come out of his room, and they don't want to
wake him if he's still sleeping. The box of donuts they bring sits untouched on
the table for nearly an hour, and then Dawn takes one, almost defiantly, and eats
it.
"What? I'm hungry," she says to Buffy, who just nods and doesn't say
whatever it is she's thinking. Spike thinks it might be some passionate little
speech about the world being a hard place and people needing to fight for what
they believe in, and he can't say he's sorry that she skips it. He's heard enough.
He thinks they all have.
After nearly two hours, the girls go home, leaving
a note for Xander along with the rest of the donuts and an order to have Xander
call when he gets up.
Spike spends the day watching television and smoking,
and he realizes that at this rate he's going to be out of cigarettes sooner than
he'd like.
Just as the sun is setting and he's contemplating making a quick
run to the nearest convenience store, Xander's bedroom door opens and he comes
out, one hand underneath his t-shirt, scratching at his belly. The bandage on his
head looks stark and out of place.
He disappears into the bathroom for a
long time, and then comes out into the living room, looking groggy and half-asleep
despite the more than twenty hours of sleep he seemingly got.
"Donuts,"
Xander says, seeing them on the table.
"Seem to be, yeah," Spike tells him,
with a casual glance from his spot on the couch.
Xander picks the box up,
shuffles over to the other side of the couch, and sinks down in a move that owes a
lot of its carefulness to not wanting to jostle his head. "Want one?" he asks
through a mouthful, offering the box.
Spike just shakes his
head.
They watch some court television show, and then Xander changes the
channel to MTV and they watch a bunch of college kids on spring break, down in
Florida or somewhere, dancing on the beach in the warm yellow sunshine. And Spike
realizes that the Scoobies are all so jaded that they don't even know
that's where they ought to be, burning the soles of their feet on scorching hot
sand and dancing to music that they think is 'alternative.' Instead of on the
Hellmouth, getting their eyes gouged out by an evil that wears religious robes
like its got a right to them.
Halfway through a video that makes Spike want
to gouge his own eyes out, he glances over and finds that Xander is asleep,
snoring softly with a partially-eaten donut hanging from his grasp.
Spike
takes the donut carefully from Xander's fingers and the box from his lap, and sets
them on the table. Now, he thinks, would be a good time to slip out for a pack of
smokes. Or maybe a carton, if this is going to be his unlife for the next couple
of days.
He helps himself to some cash from Harris' wallet, which is tucked
neatly into his coat pocket, and heads out.
In the alley next to the
convenience store, Spike runs into a guy he hasn't seen for a long time -- since
before he left for Africa, truth be told. A guy who owes him some dosh. One
not-quite-casual reminder, a couple of subtle threats, and Spike has a cool two
hundred bucks in his pocket. This somehow makes a carton of cigarettes a
less-than-sufficient purchase, so he stops by the liquor store and gets a bottle
of whisky to go along with his smokes.
When he gets back to Xander's place,
having been gone half an hour longer than he'd intended, he finds the chain locked
across the door. He can't get in.
"Harris," he says, frustrated and guilty
in one. "It's me. Open the bloody door."
"Spike?" he hears Xander say. "How
do I know that's really you?"
"Because I reek of cigarette smoke and if you
don't let me in, I'm going to break the lock," Spike says, with more patience than
he feels.
Xander opens the door, and he's got the last bottle of beer in
his hand, half-empty.
"Thought you weren't supposed to be drinking," Spike
says mildly, coming in and shutting -- and locking -- the door behind
him.
"Yeah, well, chalk another one up for the intellectually challenged."
There's a belligerence in Xander's voice like an undertow, and Spike's not the one
who's going to be swept out to sea.
He puts the cigarettes and the bottle
down on the table, and sits down to unlace his boots. Time for a new pair has come
and gone, and now they're part of a past he's not sure he'll ever be ready to give
up.
Xander's got his back up against the wall, his head resting there, beer
in hand, but he's not drinking it. Spike can smell him from where he is -- pain
and hops and the faint tang of strong medicine. It doesn't smell like sorrow,
exactly. More like defeat.
"Should I be gettin' ready to call someone?"
Spike asks.
Xander looks at him blankly. "What?"
"Since you're going
off the deep end and all," Spike says, as he gestures at the bottle in Xander's
hand.
"Like you care," Xander says, taking what looks to Spike like
a very small sip of his beer.
"I'm here, aren't I?" Spike asks. He's not
sure whether to be offended or to feel sorry for the poor bloke, and the fact that
he's leaning towards sorry just depresses him. Yeah, definitely time for some
whisky.
"And I'm supposed to think that means you give a shit?" Xander
moves stiffly over to the couch and sits down, watching as Spike takes a long
drink from his own bottle.
Spike shrugs. "Think what you like."
He
props himself up at the other end of the sofa and proceeds to get drunk -- not
crazy-drunk, just mellow-drunk. Nice, slow, fuck-against-the-wall drunk. On the
opposite side of the couch, Xander takes tiny sips of his beer, nursing it like he
might be able to make it last for a week.
"You ever think of leaving?"
Spike asks him.
"What?"
"Sunnydale." Spike dismisses the whole town
-- what there is of it -- with a wave of his hand. "Just... gettin' out? Going
somewhere with a little less Hellmouth?"
"Which would be pretty much
anywhere," Xander points out. His head is leaning back on the cushioned part of
the couch and he rolls it toward Spike, ball-bearing smooth. "And...
no."
"Not even now?" Spike doesn't gesture at Xander's head, and gives
himself a little mental pat on the back for his restraint.
"No." Xander
sounds far away. Not from Spike, but from everything.
Spike guesses that
the beer and drug combination is good for that. He's a bit surprised that Harris
denies thinking about leaving, but suspects he's telling the truth. It's Buffy's
doing, of course. Give her a flute and the breath to play it, and they'll all
follow her, rats to her bloody Pied Piper. They'll all stay here 'til they're dust
and gone, for love of the Slayer.
'Course, at this point, it may not be a
lot longer for any of them.
~~~
Next morning, Xander gets up in time for breakfast. He stands in front of the
refrigerator for a long time, and then seems to give up. He has three bowls of
cold cereal with milk, sitting in front of the tv. There's nothing on at this time
of day but cartoons and news and talk shows, and Xander watches them all, remote
clicking from one channel to the next until Spike snatches it out of his
hand.
"Do you mind?" Xander says, grabbing it back.
"That's bloody
annoying, is what that is," Spike tells him. Of course, it's not annoying when
he's the one with the remote in his hand, but it's too early, and all he really
wants is to go back to bed.
"Whereas you're a pleasant person to be
around?" Xander gets up and takes his bowl into the kitchen. "If this is why you
never got up in the mornings before, I urge you to return to that time-honored
tradition."
Insulted, or at the very least cranky and pretending to be,
Spike swings back into his room and closes the door with a dramatic
slam.
Fifteen minutes later, there's a knock at the front door as the
visiting nurse comes to change Xander's bandages, and Spike comes out in time to
see the bathroom door shut. He can hear their murmurs through the closed door,
obviously. He tries not to listen in, and tells himself that it's because it's
only proper to respect a man's privacy, and not because he doesn't want to
hear.
Bloody soul's made him soft.
The nurse leaves Xander looking
pale and shaken, and he retreats to his room again just before the girls
arrive.
"Don't even tell me he's still asleep," Buffy says.
"We
might start to suspect a conspiracy," Willow agrees. Dawn has stayed back at the
house with the potential Slayers.
"Nurse was here," Spike tells them.
"Changed the bandages and all. Don't think he's in the mood to see
anyone."
Buffy looks uncertain, but Willow tosses her head. "He's always in
the mood to see me." She knocks on the door, all false bravado and good posture,
and goes in when Xander answers.
He can hear them talking -- hear Harris
doing his best impression of someone who's lookin' on the bright side of life --
but Buffy just stands where she is.
"How is he?"
Spike shrugs. He
figures he can get at least ten words' worth of conversation into a shrug if it's
eloquent enough. "How am I supposed to know? Not like he wants to tell me all his
deep dark secrets."
"That's why you're here," Buffy
says.
"I'm here," he correct her, "because you wanted someone to look after
him. Didn't realize that meant I was supposed to play amateur
therapist."
Buffy looks irritated in that dismissive way she has, the one
that tells him she knows she shouldn't expect any more from him. It's the look
that he used to want to smack off her face, and he's not sure the urge is
completely gone because his palm itches with the wanting. "I need you to come
train the newer girls tonight," she says, changing tacks. "Giles will be here
while you're gone."
"You really think he's gonna appreciate being babysat?"
Spike asks, with a jerk of his head toward the open bedroom door. "He's not
stupid, you know."
"I know." Buffy frowns. "Still... it can't be good for
him to be alone. I'd feel better if Giles was here."
"You're the boss,"
Spike says.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Just what I
said."
She blinks. "Oh. Well... good."
There's nothing else to say
to her. Spike's trying to convince himself that she may be the boss, but that
doesn't have to mean he's her lap dog, so he goes back into his room and shuts the
door. His palm is still flat against the wood when he realizes what a joke he
is.
He smokes four cigarettes in the time it takes the girls to finish
their little Florence Nightingale mission of mercy. Sunshine's bright outside. It
calls to him, like it has every bleedin' day since he got the soul. He guesses all
those years with Dru taught him a thing or two about being insane, and being the
First's bitch for a time sealed the deal.
It isn't until he hears raised
voices that he sighs and goes to investigate.
Harris is protesting, and not
quietly, Buffy's plan to have the old man come and watch him. "And is there some
reason you think I want a babysitter?"
Spike smirks.
"Spike's here,"
Buffy says, gesturing at him.
"Spike doesn't count," Xander says, and
Spike's not sure whether he should be pleased or offended. "He's not even
breathing."
"Hey!" The word slips out.
"Sorry, Spike," Xander
says. "I'm just saying."
Buffy nods tersely. "Fine. It's up to
you."
"Darned right it is." Xander says. "Just because the world might be
ending, that's no reason to throw common courtesy out the window." He pauses, then
adds, "Especially since I'm the one who fixes the window."
"Okay. You're
right." Buffy nods, her face softening, making her look even younger than she is.
She exchanges a glance with Willow. "I'm just... we're all just worried
about you."
"Well, don't be," Xander says. "I'm fine."
She turns to
Spike then. "So, we'll see you tonight?"
"With bells on."
The flat's
quiet once they go. Xander disappears into his bedroom again, and Spike settles
himself back in front of the telly. Rather predictably, at just past noon, Xander
reemerges and stands in front of the open refrigerator.
"Trying to cool the
whole place down, are we?" Spike asks after another minute, without turning his
head.
"Shut up," Xander says. "It's my apartment. I can stand here with the
refrigerator open all day if I want to."
Spike keeps staring at the
television.
Another minute.
Xander sighs very softly.
"Could
make you something, if you like," Spike offers, surprising himself as much as
Xander.
"If you made it, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole," Xander
says.
"Fine." Spike still hasn't turned his head from the screen in front
of him, although he couldn't have said what it was he was pretending to
watch.
Xander closes the fridge, finally. "So... what can you make? Not
that I'm asking you to make something - I'm just curious."
Spike goes into
the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. He takes a package of cheese slices out,
along with a stick of butter, and then opens cabinets near the stove until he
finds a frying pan. Flicks the control for the burner to medium.
"Go sit
down," he tells Xander, waving a spatula in his general direction. "You're all...
hurt. You shouldn't be standing around."
For once, Harris is speechless --
either at Spike's suggestion that he sit, or at the fact that Spike's actual
preparing to cook. It's a good look on him, Spike thinks. Slightly
open-mouthed.
It's been a while since Spike's cooked anything this normal,
but it turns out that grilling a cheese sandwich's something you don't forget how
to do. He sets it in front of Xander, along with a glass of milk, and slouches
down into one of the other chairs.
Xander gives him a quick look, eye dark
and questioning. He seems to consider and discard a dozen comments before settling
on, "Thanks."
"Yeah. Well." Spike doesn't have a good response
either.
Xander eats his sandwich, and later on Spike washes the pan, but he
does a half-arsed job and turns it upside down in the dish drainer to hide the
fact. Hey, he'd cooked, right? Good thing the soul doesn't make him feel guilty
about every little thing.
They watch more television as the afternoon
creeps on, and at dusk when Spike leaves to go to Buffy's house, they exchange
what might almost be smiles.
~~~
Spike comes back four hours later, bruised and thinking that if the world ends,
at least that'll mean he won't have to teach little girls how to fight anymore.
God, they're so bloody annoying. They ask too many questions, and they don't
learn as quick as they should, and Buffy doesn't seem to see anything wrong with
any of it.
He thinks maybe she's trying to let everything slide off -- not
feel it. Still afraid to feel.
After all, Spike knows it's not being dead
that she's afraid of.
Harris is cursing in the bathroom as Spike closes the
door and shrugs off his coat. He goes and knocks, feeling more tentative than he'd
like.
"Y'all right in there?"
A pause. "Yeah."
Spike wouldn't
mind a shower. He's about to ask Xander how long he's going to be when the door
opens abruptly.
Xander's got a towel wrapped around his waist, droplets of
water still clinging to his chest and shoulders like little magnifying glasses.
His skin's not as white as it used to be -- plenty of time spent out in the sun,
carpentry and whatnot -- but it looks smooth and... Spike raises his eyes. "Some
nice four-letter words you got going for you, there."
Nodding just a bit,
Xander says, "Thanks. I learned from the best."
Must be talking about his
dad. Now that Spike thinks about it, he can remember some pretty spectacular rows
in the Harris household. At the time he'd hardly given them a second thought, and
now he wouldn't be able to recall what the arguments had been about even if you
ran him through with hot pokers. "So. Nothing exciting happened while I was off
helping Buffy train the little ducklings to walk in line?"
Xander blinks.
"Not unless you count my rediscovering the trials and tribulations of bathing." He
blinks again as he realizes the possible implications behind his words. "In the
bathtub. Because normally, I shower."
A slow smile spreads Spike's lips
thin. "Yeah, guess it'd be hard to take a shower without getting the bandage wet,"
is all he says.
"Which would be the reason for my excessive swearing,"
Xander admits.
"Looks dry enough to me."
"What? Oh. No. I meant --
the bandage having to stay dry pretty much kills any opportunity to wash my hair."
Self-consciously, Xander runs a hand over it. Spike isn't sure if the look he's
going for is 'more messed up than it already was,' but if so, he's
succeeding.
"I could - " he hears himself start to offer, and pulls it back
before he can finish. But the fact that he was starting to make an offer, any
offer, hangs in the air between them.
Xander finally stops standing there
like a dolt and moves past him. "Don't do me any favors," he says, and it's
Spike's turn to blink. Seems Buffy's not the only one who forgets, sometimes, that
Harris isn't dumb.
"I won't," Spike says, as Xander goes into his room and
starts to shut the door.
"Good," Xander says, and slams the
door.
"Fine!" Spike shouts.
He goes into the kitchen and slams some
pots that are sitting around back into the cabinets, not knowing if it's where
they belong, and not caring. Tells himself he should have known better than to do
this, even if Buffy'd batted her eyelashes and said 'please' in that little voice
that made her seem all soft, like something needing protecting. God, he hates
her. He hates her and this town and the Hellmouth and even
Xander-bloody-Harris.
Almost immediately feels terrible. Poor bloke's had
his eye out, and Spike can't even manage to treat him decently for more than a
minute at a time.
Well, maybe five.
Stupid soul. He has no idea why
he ever thought it was worth getting in the first place.
He goes and knocks
on Xander's door. All he's done the past few days is stand on the other side of a
door and knock, it seems, but it's something he has to do. He could no more walk
away from this than he could have walked away from Dawn after Buffy died. A sense
of duty's something that comes natural, he guesses.
"This is my apartment,
you know," Xander says from inside the room.
"Yeah."
"I can kick you
out of here any time I want to. I was doing Buffy a favor by letting you
stay."
"Yeah. I know. Listen, Xander..." And Spike runs out of things to
say.
Silence. Then, "What?"
"Listen..." He tries again, and doesn't
get any further.
"Wouldn't that require you actually saying something?"
Xander asks.
"Look," Spike says, and then winces because that's not any
better. "Is there, you know... anything I can do for you?"
He steps
backward as the door flies open. Xander looks furious and, it has to be admitted,
more full of life than he has in the past few days. Xander's voice is scathing,
bitter as pith. "You tell me, Spike. Is there something you can do for
me?"
"Well, I - "
Xander takes a step out of the room, the first two
fingers of his hand leveled at Spike's chest. "Because I'm thinking," he
continues, poking Spike in the sternum for emphasis, "that unless you can turn
back time and give me back my eye, then there's nothing you can
do."
And Spike figures that he has a point there, and he's impressed.
Impressed that Harris has still got so much anger in him, that it hasn't all been
driven out by the years of being pushed down and walked on. "Right," he says. "So
that's that, then. You're just gonna wallow in it."
"Okay, first? I hardly
think that a couple of days counts as wallowing. Trust me, if I decide to wallow,
you'll know. And second?" Xander throws his hands up in the air, a gesture of
disgust and frustration. "Okay, maybe there is no second."
Spike has to try
not to grin. "Look, you've been through a lot, I'm not denying it. S'no shame in
lettin' people help you."
"You're not people."
"No. But I'm here,
aren't I?"
Xander nods, slowly and carefully. "Yeah." He looks at Spike
like he never really saw him before, like Spike's turning out to be someone else
from what he thought.
Spike shrugs and gives Xander a crooked little
half-smile, his head tipped to one side. "So." And then moves in for the kill.
"Fancy a bite to eat?"
~~~
Couple of
hours later -- Spike's not sure of the time, just knows that it's late -- Xander's
lying across the couch, feet up, head propped on a pillow. They've talked about
the potentials, and about Dawn, and somehow managed to do it all without saying
Buffy's name. She's the sore spot between them.
Spike's sitting on the
floor near Xander's feet, with his back up against the couch. It hasn't escaped
his notice that if Xander wanted to he could kick Spike in the head, but he's not
particularly worried.
Which might mean he's stupid.
Or
drunk.
Possibly both.
He's smoking his third cigarette in half an
hour, and his bottle of whisky's nearly empty.
"You do realize that's
disgusting," Xander says.
"Which?" Spike asks. "Smoking? Drinking? Being
this close to your feet?"
Xander does reach out and nudge him with a socked
foot, but it's a gentle reprimand, not a kick. Might as well be a caress, as far
as Spike's concerned. "My feet," he says, "do not smell."
"'Course not.
Fresh as daisies."
Foot slides over against his head again, and this time
it is a caress, something anyone would consider a caress. Cotton-socked big toe
tracing the edge of Spike's ear. "And don't you forget it," Xander says, his voice
rough and slow. It's like sandpaper across an open wound.
The silence is
comfortable.
"Maybe I should shave my head," Xander says, out of
nowhere.
Spike turns, mildly astonished. "Yeah, you, bald. That'd be a good
look."
"Better than this one," Xander says, pointing at his hair. "If it's
like this now, how do you think it'll look in another week?"
"And your
solution's to shave it all off?" Spike's always thought the boy had nice hair --
bit long and floppy, of course, but at least it had a bit of body to
it.
"You have any other suggestions?"
Tentative, unsure how it'll be
received, Spike makes the offer he'd stopped himself from making before. "I could
wash it for you."
Big toe in the back of his neck, hard.
"Ow!" Spike
says, even though the pain is fleeting, a flare briefer than a kiss.
"Don't
be an asshole," Xander says.
"Fine," Spike says, offended. "Geez, try to be
a decent bloke and help a guy out, and what do you get for your troubles? Kicked
in the head."
"That wasn't a kick," Xander tells him. "Besides, you
deserved it."
"What for?" Spike reaches back and shoves Xander's foot away
from him.
"For being an jerk."
"And how does offering to wash your
hair make me a jerk? Other than by showing how stupid I am for trying to be nice
to you?" Spike can hear the hurt in his own voice now, and it makes him so bloody
furious to know that he's still the same, that he'll never change. He's always
been soft. Blaming it on the soul's a fool's game.
Xander sits up and pulls
his feet back toward himself, away from Spike. He looks uncertain now, like he can
see the truth behind Spike's eyes, but doesn't understand how it got
there.
Spike can tell it's driving him crazy.
If there's anything
Spike knows, it's crazy.
"I didn't..." Xander starts, and then the silence
gets so long that Spike's about ready to get up and... well, go somewhere.
Finally, Xander says, "Sorry. I didn't think you were being serious."
"You
think I go around asking people I don't like if they want me to wash their hair?"
Spike is incredulous.
Xander's incredulous right back at him. "Well, yeah,
apparently."
Spike blinks. Christ, life with Harris is like a slide show.
Or like doing drugs. The latter of which isn't a completely unpleasant thought.
"You - oh."
"What? Am I supposed to think something other than that you
don't like me?"
There's a puzzler. Between a rock and a hard place, which
granted is a spot Spike's excruciatingly familiar with. "You're all right," he
says, grudgingly.
"Oh, thanks a lot." It's possible that might be a smile
that Xander's trying to hold off.
"So what d'ya say?"
Xander does
smile, just slightly. "I say I'm probably nuts, but what the hell. Tomorrow I
could be dead. Might as well have clean hair for the
funeral."
~~~
They find a chair that's close enough to the right height, and use the kitchen sink because it's got one of
those nozzle things attached to it. Xander brings his shampoo from the bathroom
and a pile of towels, and Spike pads the edge of the sink with one, rolled up.
It's not even close to a good job, but it'll do.
Xander's nervous; he can
smell it on him.
"Sure you want to do this?" Spike asks, telling himself
that he won't be hurt if Xander changes his mind.
"Yeah," Xander says,
sitting down and leaning back. Gingerly, like he's afraid it might break, he rests
his head down on the rolled-up towel.
"Right, then," Spike says. He starts
the water running, one hand underneath it to test the temperature as it goes
slowly from cold to warm to hot. He realizes it might feel hotter to him than it
will to Harris. "Don't know if the temperature's all right," he says, a request
for verification.
Xander reaches his hand up and back blindly, bumping it
into Spike's, and manages to get it under the stream of water. "Yeah, it's
fine."
"Right, then," Spike says again. His hands don't move -- one on the
nozzle, one under the running water.
"You said that already," Xander tells
him. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"What? Yeah." Spike flicks the
water from his fingers and uses that hand as a barrier on Xander's forehead, then
moves the spout so that the flow of water starts running over Xander's hair.
"S'not too hot?"
"No. It's good." Xander's eye is closed, his face an odd
mix of peace and tension that talks to Spike in ways he couldn't quite
explain.
Xander's hair is long -- well, longer than Spike's, at any rate.
It feels different than Spike's used to. His own's a bit brittle from the bleach,
dry under his fingers when he cleans it. Xander's is thick and soft. The water
moves through it in rivulets and Spike watches for a long moment, spellbound, as
the dark brown hair goes to black, before setting the nozzle down into the basin
and picking up the shampoo.
The smell's not unfamiliar, though Spike
doesn't often use shampoo himself and never would have thought to touch Xander's
in a million years. It's neither masculine nor feminine; nearly a sharp scent,
like crushed herbs, but also flowers. Manly flowers, though. If there is such a
thing. With an abruptness like a slap Spike realizes that he's trying not to be
in this moment, trying to detach himself.
He doesn't need to fear death,
any more than Buffy does.
Shaking himself off, he goes back to work. He
lathers up Xander's hair, and then just works his fingers through, again and
again, the strands sliding across his palms.
Xander's eye's still closed,
and he's quieter than Spike's used to him being, but the smell of his nervousness
is mostly gone, and not just 'cause it's covered up with the scent of the shampoo.
His breathing's slow, relaxed. In and out, through his nose, like he might just
fall asleep. It's the first time in days Spike's seen the tension completely
gone.
So Spike takes his time. Lathers each strand of hair separately,
curling them around his fingers and then releasing. Working the suds in close to
the scalp and then massaging with the pads of his fingers, letting Xander's
breathing and heart rate guide him. "Don't fall asleep, now," he says warningly,
voice low and dark. "Don't fancy the idea of having to carry you off to
bed."
And Xander must be relaxed, because there's no response, no quick
retort, to the subtext of Spike's message. He just says, "Nope. Not falling
asleep."
There's enough soap through his hair now to wash an entire corpse
clean, and the bandage is still dry. Spike figures he's done a good enough job,
and yet he can't quite bring himself to stop. The little hitch of Xander's
breathing when he rubs just a little harder, in behind his ears, makes Spike grin.
He shifts his weight and his knee brushes Xander's thigh, and he can feel the heat
from Xander's body through both layers of fabric.
"Gonna rinse now," Spike
says, as he picks up the nozzle again.
He keeps his hand cupped over
Xander's hairline again, a protective barrier for the bandage. Suds wash away in
layers -- a soapy sluice of water followed by a clean one, followed by more soap.
Spike doesn't think he used that much shampoo. But every time he runs the water
over another spot, there's a new stream of filmy white bubbles. More water, more
soap.
Like it's coming from nowhere.
Spike's transfixed by it, and
he can feel Xander's leg against his own, even though he'd have to look to see if
they were actually still touching.
When the water up near Xander's hairline
finally seems to be running clear, Spike moves the stream further down and uses
his other hand to comb through the tangles. Hair's softer when it's wet. The hush
of the water's soothing twice - once as it comes out of the nozzle and a second
time as it runs down into the basin.
The water's been clear for nearly a
minute, but Spike's reluctant to shut it off. Peace is in short supply these days,
and he's tempted to hang on to this moment as long as he can. His fingers squeak
through Xander's hair one last time and, with a quiet sigh, he shuts the water
off.
Xander blinks, and starts to lift his head up.
"No, stay there.
Otherwise you'll drip all over the floor, not to mention that bandage I just
worked so hard to keep dry." Spike grabs a towel, unfurls it with a quick snap,
and gently uses it to smooth back Xander's hair, away from his face.
When
Xander brings his hands up to hold the towel they close over Spike's. Xander
twitches, almost pulls his hands back, and then instead slips them under Spike's.
Their fingers brush together. Reminds Spike of how Dru liked to hold hands, all
entwined so it almost felt like you didn't know where one person ended and the
other began.
He steps back, gives Xander room. "Better?"
Xander
looks at him thoughtfully, and then nods. "Thanks."
"No problem. Hey, least
I could do, since - " Spike breaks off, horrified that he's nearly just revealed
something he won't even allow himself to think. If he thinks it, he'll have to
hurt over it, and there's too much of that already. His facade may be a strong
one, but he's not that man anymore.
He stumbles to recover lost ground.
"So. Yeah. Looks good." Which is clearly totally insane, since the towel's wrapped
around Xander's head.
There's nothing to see.
Spike can feel the
crazy slip a little bit closer, and all he knows to do is hide.
He nods at
Xander; acknowledgement, dismissal, apology. "Y'should get some sleep." Without
waiting for a reply, he retreats to his room and closes the door, softly, the
little snick another nail in his coffin.
It doesn't matter, really. He's been dead all this time.
~~~
The first rays of light start to creep over the horizon. Spike's smoked damned near a whole
pack of cigarettes in the past few hours, sitting on the couch, like maybe he can
draw some life into himself along with the carbons and nicotine. He's weary in
ways that have nothing to do with not enough sleep, and as the sunshine brightens
the world into day, a part of him'd like nothing better than to step out into
it.
He just wants to rest.
No rest for the wicked, though, even if
he's not, and never will be again. He has one last cigarette, slowly, his eyes
never leaving the small part in the curtains through which the daylight grows
brighter and brighter.
The click of Xander's door opening, and he comes out
wearing pajamas and a smile that looks about as weary as Spike feels.
Spike
stubs his cigarette out and stands up. "Sorry - I'll get out of your
way."
Xander looks confused. "Okay, did something just happen here that I
missed? Because I didn't think I had a way for you to be in."
Spike looks
at him steadily. Dark hair tousled from sleep -- unbandaged eye looking back at
Spike like there's something different between them, something new that Xander's
acknowledging. "You don't give yourself enough credit," he says
finally.
"Uh-huh." Xander's voice is not-quite-flat; there's a tiny lilt to
it like an upwind, encouraging Spike to go on.
But, "Sorry. Nothing," Spike
mutters, and goes to move past him.
Unexpected, Xander's hand shoots out
and grabs onto Spike's arm. Not hard, but firm. A rebuke that Spike knows he must
deserve.
"Why don't you sit back down and tell me what the hell you're
talking about? Because it's way too early for this."
Spike straightens,
but can't quite make himself look Xander in the eye. Christ, apt phrasing, that.
"I just meant... it's your place, not mine. Shouldn't be making myself at
home."
"You're living in a closet," Xander points out. "You're also here
because of this," and he gestures at his bandaged eye socket, "so I'm thinking
you're entitled to sit on the couch and smoke if you want to."
Spike does
meet Xander's gaze then, startled and pleased. "S'a big closet," he murmurs,
unable to express his feelings in any other words.
"Well, yeah, but still.
Closet."
What follows is another day of cooking and eating and watching
television. Spike burns toast, and Xander just laughs at him and throws it away.
They watch an action flick on pay-per-view and make fun of the special effects.
They order pizza, and argue good-naturedly about what toppings to get -- Xander
likes green peppers, but Spike complains that they get caught in his teeth. Xander
seems to find this endlessly amusing.
Spike feels entertaining. It's not a
bad feeling.
It's not until that night, when he's ducking a slow awkward
swing by one of the potentials, that Spike realizes something. That when he went
to walk past Xander, and the boy reached out to grab onto him, he was on Xander's
left side.
Xander shouldn't have been able to see him, not on that
side.
The realization surprises Spike so much that he stops in mid-block,
and the Slayer-in-waiting he's training hits him upside the head with a force that
knocks his feet out from under him.
"Nice," Buffy says, standing over him
as his head rings with the blow. "What's up?"
"Dunno what you mean," Spike
answers faintly, still lying on the ground. The grass beneath him's cool and a bit
damp.
"You just let someone half your size take you out," Buffy explains,
offering her hand to pull him to his feet.
Part of Spike wants to ignore
her offer and get upright on his own steam, but he's tired. Her fingers wrapped
around his wrist are strong, and there's some affection there, but not love. Never
love.
"Yeah, well... everyone has an off moment or two." He can hear the
sullenness in his own voice, rough and unappealing.
Buffy looks concerned.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," he lies. "M'fine." He turns back to the girl who
knocked him down -- he doesn't remember her name. They're all alike, a sea of
meaningless faces who know they're drowning and are trying to learn to swim out of
sheer desperation. "Come on then. Back to work."
Spike's tense, and the
fighting isn't enough to relieve it anymore.
He finds himself wanting to go home.
~~~
Xander's still up when Spike gets back. He's got the telly on and is stretched out on the couch. Glass of Coke
or something in his hand, the bottom of the glass resting on his thigh. He looks
up as Spike comes in, and he must see something on Spike's face because he sits
up, swinging his legs to the floor. "What's wrong? Did something
happen?"
Spike just shakes his head. "Nothing's wrong."
Xander
relaxes noticably. "Then what's with the face?"
Spike shrugs, then
continues the movement and lets his duster slip from his shoulders. He drops it
onto a chair and walks over closer to the couch. "Long day," he says. It's a
pitifully inexact explanation, but the best he can come up with. He hesitates,
then drops down onto the sofa next to Xander.
"No, I meant..." Xander sets
his glass on the table, then reaches out and brushes his fingers lightly over
Spike's cheekbone and temple.
Huh. Spike hadn't even realized there was a
mark, but then, he had been knocked right off his feet. "One of the girls," he
says tersely. "Take your eyes off 'em for a second, they're on you like wild
cats."
"I'm sure," Xander says. His fingers are still touching the side of
Spike's face, very gently, and Spike finds himself leaning into the touch, even
though he should know better. Inside he's cringing, a dog waiting to be
kicked.
"You want some ice or something?" Xander asks.
"Nah. It'll
heal up quick enough." His eyes are on Xander's one. Still
waiting.
Xander's fingers slide sideways into Spike's hair, and his thumb
traces the cheekbone he's just been touching. Spike can feel the bruise now, but
it's not a bad hurt.
"You sure? Because I could get you some..." Xander
says. His face is closer to Spike's and Spike fights his instinct to pull back,
because he doesn't want to, even though a part of him is
screaming.
"M'fine," Spike says, quiet-like. Still. Waiting.
"I
don't..." Xander starts to say something, and then stops himself. "You're okay? I
mean, you aren't hurt anywhere else?"
"I'm a vampire," Spike reminds him,
without moving. "I get hurt, s'not such a big deal."
"It might be to some
people," Xander says.
"You think?"
"Yeah." There's a little smile on
Xander's lips, and his mouth is so fucking expressive, all grin and
self-deprecation, that Spike lets himself be weak, just in that moment.
And
leans forward and kisses him.
It's careful, and gentle. Words that should
apply to a guy kissing a girl, maybe, but in the end it's just about giving a shit
about someone besides yourself, Spike knows. Besides, kissing Xander's not a thing
like kissing a girl, even if Spike's hand is cupping his face. Even if it's soft
and rather sweet. Even if there's an edge that's hot underneath it, like a coil of
fire.
Spike realizes what he's just done, and pulls back. Waits for it, the
rejection that he knows has to be coming.
Xander looks stunned. "What --
what the hell was that?"
Spike doesn't think Xander wants an actual
answer, so he doesn't say anything, just gives a little shrug and a half-smile. He
straightens up a bit, further away. Waits. All he does is wait, it seems. At this
point, the axe falling would almost be a relief. "Sorry?" he offers
finally.
Xander's leaning back against the arm of the couch, like he just
got hit instead of kissed. "Are you?" he asks, kind of faintly.
"Am I
sorry?" Spike considers this for a minute. "Well, no, not really." The look on
Xander's face confuses him, and he backpeddles rapidly. "I mean yeah. Don't know
what got into me."
Xander reaches over to the table and picks up the remote
control. He changes the channel once, twice, and then a third time. "So how's it
going over at Casa Summers? Other than you getting brained, I mean. And hey, does
that phrase still work if the person in question doesn't actually have a brain?"
He's trying too hard, Spike can hear it in his voice.
Still, it's probably
for the best. At least he hasn't told Spike to leave or started a big row. "I've
got plenty of brains," Spike says, mock-offended, before slumping down into the
couch cushions. "S'okay over there. They're keeping busy."
"Is there a
plan?"
"Not so much, I don't think. Not yet." Spike stares unseeingly at
the telly for a few moments, and then says, "You could come over there, tomorrow
night."
Tiny intake of breath, then, "Why? Is there some apocalyptic
problem over there that requires my specific attention? A stopped-up toilet,
maybe?"
Without taking his eyes off the television, Spike says, mildly,
"You shouldn't do that."
Xander changes the channel again. "What,
that?"
But Spike's not going to let him get away with it, not that easy.
"No, the other."
"Ah," Xander says. "Belittling my super powers, you mean.
Carpentry Man deserves more respect than that?" He sighs. "Yeah. I know. Isn't
there some law or bylaw or something that says I'm allowed a little
self-pity?"
Spike snorts.
Xander changes the channel a few more
times.
Spike's still thinking about the eye thing. He's never been one to
beat around the bush -- any attempts he's ever made to play subtle have fallen
flat -- but in this case he really wants to do it right. Too bad he has no idea
how to. "You remember at the hospital?" he starts, tentatively.
Xander
nods, and then glances over at him. "What is it that I'm trying to remember,
exactly? I was there for three days. That's kind of a lot of source
material."
"When... right after they fixed you up. Before Buffy came
back."
Xander's mouth turns into a small frown, the curve of his upper lip
smoothing out. "I was pretty out of it," he says. "Was I actually making any
sense?"
"Depends on what you mean by making sense," Spike tells him. "You
may have said some stuff that sounded a bit loopy, yeah."
Xander's looking
at him now. "Like what?"
"Said you could still see," Spike mutters, once
he's sure Xander's not going to stop looking at him until he talks.
"Well
yeah. I still have one eye," Xander says. "It's not like they bandaged up both
just for the hell of it. Um, unless they did and I forget that part."
"Nah.
Just... you said you could still see out of both." Spike doesn't know what he's
hoping to hear -- if he wants Harris to say that sure, it was a mystical injury
and of course he can still see out of his missing eye, or if he wants him to say
that he was dead gone on drugs and must have been hallucinating.
Xander
changes the channel again. "Don't remember that," he says, casual, like it's
nothing, not even the tiniest blip on his radar screen.
"This morning, you
reached out to stop me and grabbed onto my arm, first try. I was on your
left."
Xander takes a minute to process this information. Then another
minute. "You're right. I mean, you were on the right, and that was my left, and is
it just me or does that seem strange?"
"Wouldn't have brought it up if I
thought it seemed normal," Spike says quietly. "You noticed it happening any other
times?"
Setting the remote control -- thank fuck -- down on the table,
Xander leans further back into the couch cushions, like maybe they can swallow him
up and save him from this whole mess. Spike's not unaware of the sick humor in
Xander seeming more worried about the fact that something not-terrible is
happening than he seems about having lost his eye. "No," he says, after a
bit.
"So just those two then?" Spike leans back further himself, slumping
down slightly to convey that the world's a casual place and they're just two
normal guys sitting on a sofa. Except as he relaxes his knee ends up leaning
against Xander's, and neither of them moves away.
"Yeah. You don't think -
?"
"What?"
"Nothing."
Spike presses his knee into Xander's,
just a slight bump like a punctuation mark. "What?" he asks again.
"Just...
you don't think he could have... done something? You know, in addition to the
unrequested make-over?" Xander tries to smile, but it's strained.
"Can't
say I wasn't wondering."
Xander gets up and paces over toward the window,
looks out, comes back. "You don't think -- I mean, he couldn't have put something
in my head, could he? Like a homing beacon, or a, a..."
Spike moves over to
him immediately, puts one hand on his shoulder while the other cups his chin. He
gently forces Xander to look at him, brown eye wide and slightly panicked. "If
there was something in there the doctors would have found it, yeah?"
Even
with Spike's hand on his face, Xander gives a quick shake of his head. "Not if it
was something mystical."
"Stop. Calm down." Spike speaks soothingly, like
he used to to Dru when she was all freaked out about some nonsense. "Can you see
anything now?"
"Well yeah, you're standing right in front of me." Xander
sounds exasperated, and that might be good. Better than panicked, at any
rate.
"No, you stupid pillock." Spike puts his hand over Xander's good eye,
blocking his vision. "What about now. Can you see?"
Xander swallows
heavily. "No."
"Guess that answers the question, then." Spike removes his
hand and shrugs. "Maybe it's just a fluke."
"Yeah. Maybe." Xander doesn't
sound convinced. He looks worn out and shaky now, like the day's been too much for
him, which it probably has.
"S'late," Spike says. "You should get some
sleep if I'm gonna drag you over to Potential Central tomorrow."
Xander's
will to argue's obviously gone. He lets himself be led to his bedroom door, where
he hesitates long enough that finally Spike keeps going, taking him over to the
side of the bed and gently pushing him down to sit on the edge.
"Lie down,"
Spike says, as if to a child, and Xander obeys unquestioningly.
Just as
Spike reaches the doorway, Xander says, "Spike?"
He pauses.
"Yeah?"
"What the hell was that?" Xander's voice is slightly slurred,
like he's already half-asleep.
"You mean the kiss?" Spike
asks.
"Uh-huh."
"Bloody good, that's what it was. G'night, Xander."
And Spike swings the door closed before he can hear whatever it is Xander thinks
about his reply.
He still hears: "Night, Spike."
~~~
Spike jolts awake from a sound sleep with the awareness that something's wrong. He blinks and sits up in bed -- Xander's in his doorway, and the room's bathed in a faint light from the lamp that must be on in Xander's room. Plenty for Spike to see by, though he doesn't think Harris can see him. "What?" he asks, his voice hoarse with sleep.
"I heard something," Xander says simply, with a touch of nervousness. He's leaning against the door frame like he needs it to prop him up. Spike's unexpectedly reminded of the feel of Xander leaning against him at the hospital, even as he's throwing off the sheets.
He grabs
his jeans and starts to pull them on. "Heard what?"
"I don't know. That
would be where the 'something' comes in." Xander's uneasy, shifting his weight
from one foot to the other.
Hands still fastening the button at his
waistband, Spike brushes past Xander, and their bare arms touch briefly. He's
listening for something, anything, that might be wrong. For a moment he's
distracted by the scent of Harris standing next to him. Then, "You think someone's
here, is that it?" he asks quietly.
"I don't know," Xander repeats, and
shivers.
"Well, there's no one in my room," Spike tells him. "Get in there
and shut the door. I'll check it out."
"But - "
"Go," Spike says,
with a gentle shove. "S'probably nothing. I'll be right back."
Xander moves
reluctantly into the room and closes the door, leaving Spike to prowl in peace.
He'd welcome the chance to hit something, but the flat's quiet as death. Hum of
the refrigerator a calming constant, everything else silent and still. Spike
checks Xander's room thoroughly, but the window's locked. Front door's locked too,
all the other windows secure. No one there.
He goes back to his own room
and says, "It's me," before opening the door. No point in scaring Harris any more
than he already is.
Xander's sitting on the end of Spike's bed, one arm
wrapped around his own waist. In the dim light Spike can see the dark pink scar on
Xander's abdomen from his little encounter with the seal.
"Nothing there,"
he says. "Maybe you were dreaming?"
"Maybe." Xander doesn't sound
convinced, and his eye's got that wild, edgy look that speaks of someone closing
in on panic.
Spike goes over closer to him, slow, not wanting to spook him.
"I checked real careful," he says soothingly. "Place is empty -- s'just you and
me. Nothing to worry about, yeah?"
Xander shakes his head. "I just -- it
seemed so real."
Sinking down on the bed next to him, not close enough that
they're touching, Spike says, "Dreams, they can seem real sometimes."
"This
was different." He looks so... well, scared, but like he's trying not to be. The
smell of him wafts over Spike again, and it's then that he identifies it -- it's
the drugs.
Spike reaches out and sets his hand on Xander's knee. "I swear
to you there's no one here but us." Poor bloke's all drugged up and half out of
his mind with it, probably.
Xander blinks and swallows and nods, glancing
over at Spike. "Sorry," he says.
"S'okay. Everybody has a nightmare now and
then." Xander's knee is warm under his hand, even through the fabric of his pants.
His breathing's starting to slow a bit now; his heartbeat's not racing like it had
been. Spike's fingers move slightly on his knee in little pat-strokes meant to
comfort.
Spike thinks about kissing; about what it had felt like to kiss
Xander.
"Sorry," Xander says again. He's watching Spike look at
him.
"Those drugs, they do stuff t'your brain," Spike tells him, with a
little grin. "S'why you're supposed to just say no."
Xander's still
watching him. "You know that thing?" he says, after a long silence.
Spike's
thumb on Xander's leg moves back and forth, back and forth. "Er... no. What thing
would that be?"
"That thing that we did before." Xander's gaze flickers to
Spike's mouth.
Aha. "Yeah. What about it?"
"You think... you think
we could try it again?" Xander's eye's dilated, pupil huge in the dim room. His
breathing's still not quite normal.
Spike slides his hand a little bit
further up Xander's leg and feel his own cock harden in response. Good trick,
that. "You sure that's something you want to do?" He'd like to, himself. Real bad
actually, but taking advantage of Harris when he's doped up... that's not
something he's going to do.
Xander's voice is hoarse. "Yeah."
And
since they've already kissed once when Xander wasn't doped up, and it didn't
result in total hysteria or a fistfight, and because the thought of human warmth
touching him's so appealing, Spike leans closer and kisses him. One hand still on
Xander's thigh, draped over it gently. The position's a bit awkward, but it
doesn't matter.
Warm lips on his own, moving into the kiss with a hesitant
eagerness that makes Spike that much harder. Xander's hand, rough and calloused,
on his jaw; not holding him still, just holding him. There's a surge of gratitude
and relief at the contact, and Spike finds himself leaning into the kiss even
more, at the same time he's calling himself a wanker and all other sorts of names
that are both appropriate and derogatory.
Xander moves back first, but it
seems it's only to check and see that things are all right, because he says,
"That's - " and then nothing else before they're kissing again.
When
Spike's hand tightens involuntarily on his thigh, Xander groans. The sound goes
straight to Spike's cock, making him want to pull Harris closer and rub against
him. When Xander's lips part slightly, Spike pushes his tongue inside, and Xander
groans again. It's all Spike can do not to shove him back onto the mattress and
crawl on top of him.
Instead, he slides his hand a little bit further up
Xander's leg, the tips of his fingers brushing against Xander's straining,
flannel-covered cock. Subtle-like, so lightly that if Xander wants to pretend it
hasn't happened, he can.
Apparently that's not on the agenda though, 'cause
Xander moans into Spike's open mouth and tightens his arse, pushing his cock more
firmly against Spike's hand. "Come on," Xander says, his voice rough and full of
impatient need.
Spike thinks maybe this isn't such a good idea after all,
but damned if he doesn't want to touch Xander. All on their own, his fingers
close around Harris' erection, gripping it through the soft cotton cloth, stroking
gently. Xander bucks up into his touch.
"Here we go again," Xander says,
eye closed, warm breath on Spike's lips.
It's Spike's turn to pull back,
because he's not going to let that kind of thing slip by without comment. "What
are you on about then?"
Xander looks at him like he's grown horns or
something, so convincingly that Spike lets go of him and raises his hand to his
own face to make sure he hasn't. "This," Xander says, gesturing between them.
"This kind of thing happens to me all the time. Insect women, mummies,
ex-vengeance demons... vampires. Another ride on the Xander Harris lust
rollercoaster of doom."
Annoyed, Spike says, "So whatever this is, it's
automatically guaranteed to come to a bad end, is that it?"
"Yeah," Xander
says. He's looking at Spike's mouth again, in a way that Spike thinks would make
him just a bit weak in the knees if he was standing up. It makes him want to fuck
Xander into the mattress. Or up against the wall -- he's not fussy. "Have you not
been paying attention to my life?"
"Well, not before," Spike says, honestly
enough. "Wasn't much point to it, was there?"
Xander meets his gaze then.
"No. Not unless you were looking for somebody to laugh at. I'm great for providing
comic relief."
"Don't sell yourself short," Spike tells him. Boy's come a
long way in a few years.
Xander kisses him again, and this time it's hot
and wet and slippery, tongues tasting each other. The slide of lips on lips,
awakening nerve endings that flare and send up little fireworks. Before Spike
realizes it his hand's in Xander's lap again, gripping him through his pajama
pants, stroking purposefully as Xander groans and pushes into his touch. In that
moment Spike thinks that Xander's somehow giving Spike some of his own
life.
He thinks that feeling alive's what he's been missing.
"Yeah,"
Xander says, into Spike's mouth. "God."
Spike's hand grips a bit tighter,
and he can feel Xander's cock leaking through the flannel, leaving a damp spot
just under his palm.
Xander gasps and moans, hips doing a frantic dance. He
opens his mouth wide for Spike, letting Spike's tongue in to press against the
roof of his mouth. His hands, big and rough, grip onto Spike -- one on his face,
the other on his upper arm.
There's a warning throb between Spike's
fingers, and Xander pants, "God... Spike, I can't - "
"Sure you can," Spike
tells him, increasing the speed of his hand's movements. "It's all right. Come on,
Xander."
And that seems to be enough -- Xander's back arches, and his mouth
is wrenched away from Spike's as he makes a choked sound something between a laugh
and a groan. His thigh muscle under Spike's forearm's tight as a drum, and then he
spasms. Spike can feel Xander's cock twitching under the soft, worn fabric as he
shoots, and Xander's hand on his upper arm clenches in a grip that'd bruise a
human.
He can't hurt Spike, though.
Spike pulls him closer, and
Xander's forehead comes to rest in the curve of Spike's shoulder, warm and solid
and undeniably real.
For long moments, Xander just recovers; his hand's
stroking over Spike's bicep now, gentle. It feels good -- better than such a
simple touch ought to, actually. Without lifting his head, he asks, "Do you want
me to, you know...?"
Spike's hard, his cock an ache in his jeans, pressing
up against the inside of the zipper. It's not the first time he's thought that
there's a down side to going commando, and it won't be the last, either. But he
says, "Nah. Some other time, maybe."
It's not that he doesn't want to --
more that it's really not the right time. Morning ought to be interesting
enough, considering, without adding a whole 'nother brick to the
wall.
"Y'should go get some sleep," Spike suggests. "All those drugs, not
enough shut-eye... you'll be a right mess in the morning."
Xander yawns and
nods before shuffling off to the doorway. He pauses, then shakes his head like
he's got nothing to say. Goes out and closes the door behind him.
Once he's
gone, Spike shucks off his jeans and crawls back into bed. He jerks himself to a
sharp, joyless climax and then curls up on his side and tries to
sleep.
Morning's a long time coming.
~~~
Some time just around dawn, Spike falls into a heavy sleep. He wakes to the sound of running water in the shower, but can't bring himself to get
out of bed. Some time later, he hears pans clinking faintly in the kitchen. He
drags himself upright, pulls clothes on wearily, and makes his way out into the
main room of the apartment.
"Hey," Xander says, from behind the open
refrigerator door. He gestures over to the counter. "Coffee?"
Spike doesn't
drink it often, but he feels like this is one of the mornings he might need it. He
gets a mug and pours, spoons sugar in but doesn't stir. "You're disgustingly
chipper this morning," he says.
"Yeah, I got a great night's sleep." Xander
moves over to the steaming waffle iron, opens it, and pries the waffle out with a
fork. He adds it to the stack of others waiting on a plate in the oven. Pours more
batter into the iron and shuts it. He's wearing jeans and a dark t-shirt, and his
hair's all curly 'round the edges. "Don't remember anything from the time you put
me to bed after our talk about the seeing thing. Head hit the pillow and I was out
like a light."
Stopping where he is, Spike stares at the surface of his
coffee, all dark oily swirls. "Uh-huh," he says finally. Xander's moving around
off to his left.
"Spike?"
He lifts his head and looks at Xander,
wondering what's coming. "Yeah."
"I'm kidding." Xander grins
apologetically.
Spike can feel a smile pulling the corners of his mouth
outward as he realizes what Xander's talking about. "Pillock."
"Takes one
to know one," Xander says. "Least I'm not the walking undead.
Asshole."
"Wanker." Spike's unable to contain his delight at the fact that
the boy's just pulled one over on him.
Xander laughs and pokes Spike in the
ribs as he goes past. "No, pretty sure that'd be you again."
They eat the
waffles with thawed frozen strawberries on top, and liberal amounts of whipped
cream from a can. Not as good as fresh, but it'll do.
Because there's no
more mention of the night before, Spike doesn't say anything about it either. To
be honest, he's just grateful that there's no big confrontation, no loud denial or
accusations. Of course, the fact that they're not talking about it might mean that
there's a world of quiet denial going on, but for now Spike's content to let it
lie.
They watch telly all morning and afternoon, other than the twenty
minutes Xander spends on the phone with his work, giving instructions and assuring
whoever's on the other end of the line that he'll be back soon.
In the late
afternoon, they watch something with John Cusack that Harris seems to know most of
the words to. Spike can feel his eyelids getting heavy -- too many late nights,
not enough sleep, that's what it is. He leans his head back on the cushions, and
closes his eyes just for a minute.
Spike doesn't wake up until the end
credits start rolling. He's slid down and his head's resting on Harris' shoulder.
Not too comfortable, but it feels nice all the same. He wonders how long he can
get away with pretending to be asleep, if that'll mean he doesn't have to
move.
A good ten minutes, it turns out. During that time, he just lies
there, feeling the subtle rise and fall as Xander breathes, feeling the warmth of
Xander against his cheek. Then he feels a gentle touch; fingers brushing over his
hair, patting him carefully.
"Spike? Come on, wake up."
Just another
minute, Spike thinks. He doesn't move.
"Hey, Spike." Still gentle, but the
voice a bit louder now. "Spike, time to wake up."
Spike pretends to stir,
yawns, and sits upright slowly, rubbing his face.
"Sorry," Xander says, his
fingers a whisper-soft kiss across Spike's cheekbone. "It's just we humans have to
do this little thing called 'emptying our bladders.'"
"Didn't mean to fall
asleep on you," Spike says. It's not an apology though, more like
appreciation.
Xander gets up stiffly. "No problem." He shuffles off toward
the bathroom, and Spike hitches himself sideways into the warm spot on the couch
that Xander has left behind.
~~~
"Come
on, Harris."
Xander's sitting stubbornly at the dining room table. They
were supposed to have been at Buffy's ten minutes ago. "You can stand there all
night, Spike. I'm not going."
"You bloody well are. I'll carry you if I
have to."
Eye flashing with a spark of anger, Xander says, "I'd like to see
you try."
"Right," Spike says, and walks over towards him. He gets his
hands on Xander's shirt and hauls him to his feet, ready to throw him over one
shoulder if that's what it takes, before Xander protests.
"Okay, okay."
Xander steps away from Spike with a glare.
They walk, because Harris isn't
supposed to drive yet and he refuses to let Spike even touch his car keys. "No
way, no how."
"Y'let me touch other stuff of yours," Spike says pointedly,
looking at the pavement.
"Well, I was kind of figuring you weren't going to
crash that into oncoming traffic."
Spike's aware that he's being childish
when Xander's use of the word 'coming' makes him smirk, but he can't help himself.
"Managed to do all right, didn't I?"
No response from Xander for a few very
long seconds, and then quietly, "Yeah."
The girls are waiting for them, on
the porch and in the living room. Dawn comes up to Xander immediately and throws
her arms around him, holding tight like she doesn't want to let go. Spike can see
how touched Xander is by the show of affection.
Dawn and Xander sit
together on the porch and watch as Spike and Buffy train the girls. Dawn trained
with them for a while, but now she's all into this translating business. Says her
time's better spent helping Giles and Willow than learning how to fight when
she'll never have the power that the other girls might. Spike's not sure she's
right, but she and Xander seem to have some sort of understanding about the
matter, so he's let it drop.
Buffy waits until the potentials are paired
off before she comes over to Spike and asks, all quiet-like, "How is
he?"
Spike can't help but glance at Xander on the porch -- oh yeah, he's
real subtle -- but Xander and Dawn are all absorbed in some book and aren't paying
them any mind. "All right. Making plans to go back to work."
"Oh." Buffy
seems taken aback. "Well, that's... good. Right?"
"Right." Since they seem
to be taking a break and all, Spike digs his lighter and battered pack of smokes
out of his pocket and lights up. "He's fine. He's tough."
"I know, but
this..." Buffy seems to have lost her power over the spoken word, and what with
all the speeches that've been going on of late, Spike's not sure that's such a bad
thing. "This is... big, you know? It's not like just getting knocked unconscious
or, or kidnapped by crazy bug ladies."
"More like getting stabbed in the
gut by a demon woman masquerading as a beautiful girl, wouldn't you say?" Spike
draws the smoke into his lungs.
Buffy looks shocked, and then her
expression pales into something closer to sad. "I didn't want this to happen,
Spike. I didn't... I didn't ask for any of this." She gestures at the SiTs and
then in Xander's direction. "I don't want them to die. Any of them."
"I
know," Spike says gently. He doesn't particularly want them to die either, but in
the end they will. Now, saving the world. In their twenties, in a car wreck.
Thirtysomething and drinking their livers away with too much rum in their diet
cokes. Even in their eighties, of old age.
They're all going to die. Some
of the deaths might have more meaning that others, but in the end it's all the
same.
"Look," he starts to tell Buffy, "S'my fault just as much as it is
yours. Don't blame yourself. What you need to do is concentrate on these girls and
do what you can for them."
"But I can't -- "
"Stop it," Spike says
sharply, and his voice is raised now. He can feel the attention of some of the
girls being drawn towards the two of them. "For once, would you stop worrying
about what you can't do and focus on what you bloody can? Because otherwise,
you might as well give up right now."
"I'm doing the best I can," Buffy
says plaintively, with a little quiver to her lower lip that makes her look about
8 years old.
"And so are the rest of us," Spike tells her. "And we're doing
just fine."
When he turns his head, not only are Dawn and Xander watching
them, but so is Giles, standing in the doorway. He makes a little gesture at
Spike, a 'come here, I need to speak with you' gesture that's clear as
day.
"Watcher calls, pet," Spike says to Buffy, and goes off, leaving her
standing there wearing that expression that says she's never quite going to
forgive the world for what it's done to her. And he realizes that he's given up on
being the one to take that look off her face.
Spike steps into the
kitchen.
"Put that out," Giles says impatiently.
Spike can't quite
keep his eyes from rolling, but he moves over to the sink and crushes the
cigarette out beside a pile of dirty plates. "World's about to end and you're
worried about secondhand smoke?"
"It's the principle of the thing." Giles
is standing with his arms at his sides.
"So, what. Gonna try to kill me
again?"
Giles sighs, but predictably ignores the question. "How's
Xander?"
Spike gives him a look of astonishment. "He's right outside,
Rupert. Why don't you ask him?"
"Because I actually have an interest in
knowing the answer. If I ask him, I'll probably get... jokes about how he'll need
to learn a new trade now that his depth perception's distorted." Giles looks
uncomfortable, and Spike thinks that he bloody well should be.
"Right. And
that's why you're in here talkin' to me, instead of to him. Because all of a
sudden you don't know how to deal with the fact that he's got a sense of humor."
Spike says it flatly.
"Yes. Well, I..." Giles takes off his glasses and
holds them, looks at them and then at the floor. When he speaks again his voice is
lower. "It's awkward," he admits. "I feel responsible. I should never have let
Buffy take him in there."
"He's a grown man," Spike says, realizing as he
says it that it's true, even though he himself often thinks of Xander as a boy.
"You're not responsible for what happened, any more than Buffy is. You think I
don't think about it? About how things might've been different if I'd moved
faster?"
Giles looks startled. "No," he admits slowly. "Actually, I can't
say I'd given it much thought."
"Yeah, well..." Spike deliberately takes
out another cigarette and lights it, then moves to the doorway. "S'posed to be
helping Buffy. You come up with an actual reason you need to talk to me, you let
me know."
He spends another two hours training with the girls. At one point
he looks up and Dawn's alone on the porch -- book in her lap, notebook beside her,
pencil clenched between her teeth -- but she doesn't seem concerned so he figures
Xander's gone in for a drink or something.
It doesn't occur to him to
wonder where Giles is until Buffy says, "Okay, good. That's enough for tonight.
Everybody... try to get some sleep." The girls are milling around, adjusting
sleeves and picking up sweaters that they've left on the edge of the lawn. They
chat amongst themselves quietly.
At about that same time Xander comes
storming out of the house, more fire in him than Spike's seen in recent days.
"Come on," he says to Spike. "We're out of here."
Spike just nods a goodbye
to Buffy and follows. He has to run a few steps to catch up with Harris. "What's
this about then?"
"Nothing."
"Uh-huh. 'Nothing' makes you this
pissed off?"
Xander turns to glance at him. "When it includes a lecture
that I didn't ask for, yeah."
"Giles."
"Where does he get off
telling me what to do?" Xander's furious. "Telling me that you're..."
Spike
waits for him to finish, and when he doesn't, prods, "That I'm what?"
"A
killer," Xander says, his voice rough. "Also not safe, unpredictable, and 'no
doubt waiting to exploit me at the first opportunity.'" He says this last in a
remarkably bad imitation of Giles' accent, and it makes Spike grin despite
himself.
"What'd you tell him?"
"I told him he was wrong." Xander
stops and looks at Spike, then reaches out and adjusts the collar of his duster
slightly.
"He is wrong," Spike agrees, meeting Xander's gaze unflinchingly.
"S'also right. I've been a killer, Xander. Never claimed I was safe or
predictable." Xander's eye drops to the pavement, and Spike extends a hand and
lifts Xander's chin again. "But I'm not going to exploit you. Not gonna hurt you.
Got my word on that."
Xander nods, and after a few seconds they start
walking again.
~~~
Spike showers first because Xander claims he needs it worse, and then pulls on a pair of jeans and
lounges on the couch while Xander takes his turn, in the tub of course. Spike's
sipping at the last beer when he hears muffled cursing under the sound of the
water running and goes to investigate.
He knocks on the bathroom door.
"Problem in there?"
"Yeah," Harris says. "You want to... maybe you can do
this."
Sounds like an invitation, so Spike opens the door. Tub's mostly
full, mirror's all steamed over -- which doesn't bother Spike a whit, but might be
part of Xander's trouble -- and there's gauze and tape and scissors on the
counter.
"It's coming off," Xander says tightly, gesturing at the bandage
over his eye. "I was trying to stick it back on, but I can't see to do
it."
There's a piece of tape on the counter with what looks like some
strands of hair on it, and another piece beside it that looks inexpertly cut.
Spike wonders how Xander can be so good with his hands and not be able to cut a
piece of tape. Still, not like he can't help. "I can do it."
Xander's just
wearing a thin pair of cotton pants, but he turns toward Spike and waits
patiently.
Spike cuts a new piece of tape and applies it to the edge of the
bandage that's come loose, trying not to press down too hard because he's not sure
how painful it is. Xander's lips are set in a line that says it's not a walk in
the park.
"You all right?" Spike asks, with Xander's chin cupped in his
hand.
"Yeah." Xander says gruffly. "Thanks."
"No
problem."
They're still standing there, facing each other, less than a foot
of empty space separating them.
Xander's the one who makes the first
move.
His warm lips meet Spike's eagerly, and his arm snakes around Spike's
waist, pulling him close. And just like that Spike's hard, moving himself in
against Xander, moving his tongue into Xander's mouth. Xander's other hand is on
the back of Spike's neck, cradling Spike's skull in the curve between thumb and
forefinger.
"Jesus, Spike," Xander gasps.
Spike grins against
Xander's mouth. "Might want to turn that off," he says, of the still-running
water. He grabs onto Xander's arse and rubs their cocks together, just a gentle
press through cotton and denim. "Gonna flood the place."
"I'm going to do
that anyway if you don't stop." Xander says, with an answering grin, and shoves
his cock harder against Spike's in illustration. "But yeah, you're right." He
steps away and shuts off the hot water with a quick twist of his wrist. He turns
back toward Spike and kisses him again, harder. Then both his hands are on Spike's
backside, and he's grinding them together like there's no tomorrow.
Spike
trembles in his arms, lets Xander's tongue fuck his mouth, lets Xander lead
because if he doesn't he's afraid he might snap and take what he wants. "God...
Xan, please." It's almost a whisper.
Xander hears the plea and seems to
understand -- backs off a bit, slides his hand down across Spike's chest and
abdomen and then cups Spike through his jeans. "You want me to touch you?" he
asks, and he sounds like someone else entirely in that moment. Confident, sure of
himself.
Spike pushes himself forward against Xander's warm palm. "Please,"
he whispers again. It's been too long.
Xander only needs the one hand to
undo the front of Spike's jeans -- the other one stays on Spike's arse -- and when
Spike's cock springs out eagerly he doesn't hesitate, just wraps his fingers
around and starts a slow wank.
"S'good," Spike says, and it's a huge
understatement, but also about all he feels capable of saying. He reaches out for
Xander's cock, rubs it through the fabric, and then shoves the pants down out of
his way so that he can touch him properly. Spike closes his eyes as his hand
closes around the hot hard flesh -- with Xander's hand moving on his own cock, he
can almost imagine that Xander's cock is his.
"God, Spike," Xander
groans, roughly, and his hand squeezes Spike tightly for a brief second as his
hips buck forward. "This is... I can't believe we're..."
He doesn't sound
like he's changing his mind, but Spike wants to be sure. "You want to
stop?"
"Is there something I'm doing that makes you think I want to stop?"
Xander's fingers aren't hesitating; they keep moving and stroking, and it's
obvious that if he's never touched another bloke's cock before, he's at least had
plenty of experience with his own.
Spike doesn't answer; just shakes his
head and goes in for another kiss, tasting the little whimpers that escape Xander
every now and then. His hand's getting slick with Xander's fluid. "Hang on a sec,"
Spike says, and releases Xander long enough to strip them both of their slacks. He
can see a faint blush on Xander's skin, like being completely nude's a bit more
than he'd anticipated, but Spike figures he's got a distraction for
that.
"Turn around and hold onto the edge of the sink," he directs,
quietly. "And don't look in the mirror."
Xander looks uncertain for just
one second -- if it had lasted any longer Spike would have changed tacks -- but
then he nods and turns around, fingers closing tight on the
porcelain.
Spike steps close and reaches around to hold Xander's cock in
his hand. Not stroking, not jerking him off, just holding onto him. He kisses
Xander's back and shoulders for a long time, wetly, adding little flicks of his
tongue. His fingers trace Xander's erection until Xander is breathing more heavily
and his lower body's rocking -- back against Spike, then forward into the hand
holding his cock. His whole length's damp and slick with precome.
"Got any
lube?" Spike asks, casually, as if any answer's okay. Which is true.
"Are
you kidding?" Xander says, his voice taut with need, but interlaced with humor.
"Have you forgotten that Anya used to live here? For that matter, I find it hard
to believe you've never looked through the cabinets."
Spike has, more than
once, but those times he was only looking for money, or possibly stuff he could
hock. He doesn't figure that's a good thing to mention now. Instead, he swings the
vanity cupboard over the sink open six inches and looks inside. He spots a bottle
of lube, and kisses the back of Xander's neck while he's there. "Won't do anything
you don't want me to do," he promises, just in case there's any
question.
Xander shudders and pushes back against Spike's cock again. "Just
do something."
Spike wets his fingers with the lube and reaches between
Xander's legs from behind this time, playing with his balls, cupping each one
separately, pulling on them. He can feel Xander's thigh start a fine trembling
against his own.
"Spike. I --"
"Shh," Spike croons, continuing with
what he's doing. "S'all right. Feel good?"
He can hear Xander swallow
heavily. "Yeah." Tremor in his voice.
He lets his fingers stroke across
Xander's perineum, then just the tip of one finger circles Xander's tight opening,
pressing wetly, sliding, slick. He doesn't make any attempt to enter, just moves
over that sensitive flesh repeatedly, rubbing.
In his other hand, Xander's
erection is hard as stone, but Spike waits until Xander starts pushing back to
meet his probing finger before he slips it inside. At the same time, Spike begins
to pull on Xander's cock, fast and agile. It's less than a minute before Xander
comes with a long, low moan, warm seed pulsing out over Spike's
hand.
Xander's still moving in the aftermath, fucking himself on Spike's
finger, bonelessly relaxed in the way only the young can be. When Spike pushes a
second finger in to join the first, Xander makes a little sound like he's not sure
whether he's feeling pain or pleasure, but then almost immediately it turns into a
soft moan. "You want to?" Xander asks.
Spike doesn't let go of Xander's
cock. "Want to what?" He's pretty sure he knows what Xander's asking, but he wants
to hear him say it. Out loud.
Xander does. "Fuck me." He sounds turned on.
A little apprehensive maybe, but not scared.
"'Course I do. You want me
to?" Spike pushes his fingers in further, the ample amounts of lube making
everything simple, and finds the spot inside Xander that makes the cock in his
grip twitch with renewed interest.
Xander gasps. "Yeah," he admits.
"Just... take it easy, okay?"
Spike traces Xander's spine with his tongue.
"Don't worry. You're gonna like this, promise." He stretches Xander a bit more,
concentrating on stroking that little bundle of nerves that he knows from personal
experience feels amazing, and then slides his fingers out.
He coats his
cock with lube, quickly but thoroughly, and then guides himself with one hand. He
just presses against Xander's entrance, not trying to get inside, teasing both of
them with the moisture.
Seemingly instinctively, Xander spreads his legs a
bit wider. His cock is hard in Spike's hand again, and he pushes back to meet
Spike with a strangled sound that might mean 'Will you get on with it already?'
Spike flexes forward at the same time, and the head of his cock slides into
Xander, easy as that.
So tight. Spike's leg muscles are taut down to his
calves with the effort not to shove himself home and fuck Xander with abandon, and
Xander's grip on the edge of the sink is so hard that his knuckles are white with
it. "You all right?" Spike asks, with enormous self-control.
Xander nods,
and the fingers of his right hand flex slightly.
Spike moves back a bit,
then forward again, slow, careful. "Tell me if I hurt you," he urges. "Don't want
to..."
"No," Xander gasps, rocking his hips. "I mean you're not. It
doesn't. Hurt."
Lube's all spread around now, everything slick and tight
and hot, and when Spike pushes forward Xander constricts around him. It's still
hard not to take him the way he wants to, but the way Xander's wriggling and
moving just about makes up for it.
"Spike," Xander says, in a raspy
whisper. "Don't... don't stop." His cock in Spike's hand twitches.
"More."
For the first time, Spike really starts to fuck Xander. Hard and
fast, angling his cock to glance off of Xander's prostate with each thrust.
Xander's hands on the edge of the sink are tightening and releasing with Spike's
movements, and his cock in Spike's fist is damp with precome and sweat. Spike's
shoving himself deep, squeezing the head of Xander's cock encouragingly.
"Good?"
Xander groans. "Yeah. Jesus, Spike..."
"You're so warm,"
Spike tells him, pressing still deeper, feeling his balls creeping up closer to
his body. "So fucking warm, God, how can you stand it?"
"Kinda used to it,"
Xander manages to get out. "Comes with the whole 'being human'
thing."
Feels like the heat is crawling into Spike, through his skin and
into him deep, as deep as he is in Xander. They're fucking furiously now, both of
them moving together, and Spike can feel it all -- the heat, the sweat, the
breath. He can feel the life, and he can smell it. Wants to taste it. He lowers
his mouth to Xander's shoulder and licks a bead of sweat, sweet-salty, and then
sucks hard. Blood vessels just beneath the skin collapse under the assault, and
the blood rushes toward him, and Xander gasps again and clenches around Spike's
cock.
Spike comes with a roar that might just resound in his head louder
than it does in the tiled bathroom, where the mirror's not steamed up anymore and
as Xander comes in his hand for the second time in less than half an hour. Babble
falls from Xander's mouth like water from the faucet, meaningless words with more
intent behind them than Spike thinks he's ready to admit, except that he doesn't
have enough brain power left to admit to anything.
Spike's cock gives a
final twitch and then goes quiet, sedated, nothing to do nowhere to go. Xander's
trembling, but holding himself upright, so Spike eases out without letting go of
him.
"Bath," Xander says.
The water's not hot anymore. They let some
out the drain and run new, then get in. Doesn't seem to be any need to discuss
it.
"Think I'm gonna get that shovel talk from Willow?" Spike asks some
time later. His back's up against Xander's chest, his arms draped over Xander's
thighs.
"Probably." Xander's hand rubs a little circle across Spike's
abdomen.
"M'tired." His eyelids are drooping closed.
"Yeah. It's
okay."
Spike rolls his head side to side slightly. "Should get up." But
he's drifting off.
"We will. In a little while." Xander's voice soothes
him.
God, he's so tired. His eyes are closed, and Xander's chest rising and
falling is taking Spike along for the ride.
Xander's breathing for the both of them.
~~~
Spike wakes to warm breath
on the back of his neck, and an arm draped over his waist.
"Morning,"
Xander says, a low rumble like thunder.
"Morning," Spike answers, without
moving, his own voice just as rough. He feels well-rested for the first time in
recent memory.
Xander's hand moves across Spike's lower belly and he feels
himself harden instantly. It's like drugs, and he's addicted, his body's response
automatic at the mere thought of the craving being met. When Xander's fingers move
further south and grab onto his cock, Spike moans softly.
"You like that?"
Xander asks into Spike's ear. "You like me touching you?"
Spike's hips push
insistently forward, shoving his cock into Xander's grip. "Yeah," he
says.
Xander uses his forearm to roll Spike over onto his back, and throws
his own leg over Spike's, partially pinning him down. His mouth comes down on
Spike's, firm and demanding, and his hand squeezes expertly. Spike groans again,
and Xander takes advantage of this and thrusts his tongue inside of Spike's
mouth.
When Xander's lips leave his own, Spike's not sure what the plan is.
Xander traces his way down over Spike with his tongue -- throat, collarbone,
chest. He settles at one nipple for a minute or so, using his teeth until Spike
arches beneath him, and then moves lower.
He glances up at Spike as his
tongue leaves a damp trail just beside Spike's cock.
"Xander," Spike
says, and his voice's strangled. "You don't have to -- "
"I want to,"
Xander says, and licks Spike's cock from head to base to balls, one long slow
swipe that leaves Spike shuddering, fists clenched. All innocence, he looks up
again. "Unless you don't want me to?"
"Shut up and do it again," Spike
growls, but even to his own ears it sounds more like begging, and when Xander
repeats the action he has to close his eyes.
Xander's mouth closes around
him, hesitant but so fucking sweet that Spike thinks he might come in about twelve
seconds, if he's extraordinarily unlucky. It's hot, and it's so slick and wet.
Spike's thigh muscles ache already with the tension of staying still, of not
wanting to do anything to jeopardize this moment of total perfection. His heels
are digging into the mattress, and he can feel Xander's erection sliding into the
hollow just below his knee so he flattens his leg a bit more, trapping it
there.
And it's Xander's turn to groan then. The vibration travels through
him and up Spike's cock to lodge in his gut. Part of him's wondering if this is
some sort of payback, if Xander feels obligated. That's so far from what Spike
wants... but then Xander's tongue circles the head of his cock and whatever it was
he'd been thinking is forgotten.
"Christ," Spike says. "Yeah, like that.
Jesus, Xander..."
He can feel Xander respond to this, his tongue and lips
working more avidly, and Spike's pushed over the edge into the place where his
brain disconnects from the rest of him. It's like listening to someone
else.
"Xan..." He's writhing on the sheets, one hand twisted in Xander's
hair and the other clenched at his side. "Christ, so fucking good, god, please
don't stop..."
Xander's hips are moving, shoving his cock between the
mattress and the underside of Spike's knee, and his mouth's moving on Spike's
cock. Unexpectedly, he shifts position and takes Spike deeper, and his teeth
scrape over Spike's sensitive skin.
Spike hears himself cry out and feels
his body arch away from the bed toward that warm wet place, and then everything
goes away as he comes with a force that feels like his insides are being torn out
through his cock. He's dimly aware of the hot splash of Xander's come against his
thigh, and of Xander groaning and shuddering beside him.
Then everything's
quiet.
Some time later -- a minute, or maybe two -- Xander moves, letting
Spike's cock slip from his mouth. He kisses Spike, and runs his hand over Spike's
chest gently in soft, stroking movements.
Spike can taste himself in
Xander's mouth, and it's bloody amazing.
"I think maybe Willow did gay me
up and didn't tell me," Xander says softly, his eye glowing with humor, expression
sated. He kisses Spike again, rougher this time, and reaches up to smooth his
fingers through Spike's hair. "Gonna go start some breakfast."
When he's
left the room, Spike sits up in the bed, leaning against the headboard. The sheets
are tangled 'round his feet -- they feel smooth and soft. The curtains are drawn
shut. He vaguely remembers Xander closing them the night before, saying something
about how he didn't want to wake up next to a pile of dust in the bed. A tiny
shaft of light's all that escapes through them, one slash of brightness across the
carpet. Dust motes float in the beam, and Spike's caught in it like a cat, even
from across the room.
Sunshine's bright outside. Today, Spike feels just a
little less like he wants to step out into it.
End.
~~~
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