22: Trust

 

 

Xander was silent for the best part of an hour, lost to his thoughts, to whatever the serial killer’s victim had put in his head.  Spike ushered him inside and watched the turmoil on his friend’s face, pointlessly angry because, in his view, Xander was being exploited; he didn’t care if he blamed a dead girl or a live cop, and he would certainly have had no qualms about bundling Xander into the car and driving him out of this situation if there’d been a cat’s chance in hell that could happen.

Refusing to meet Spike’s eyes, Xander asked for Randall’s card, and Spike’s phone.  There was a predictably frigid moment while he quietly waited, apparently never doubting for a moment that Spike would comply, and he was right: Spike eventually handed the goods over and proceeded to blatantly eavesdrop on Xander’s side of the conversation with the undersheriff.

“He’s on his way over,” a very subdued Xander told Spike as he handed back the phone.

“You think that’s wise?”

“I don’t know.”  Xander paused uncomfortably.  “Are you going to be…difficult…when he gets here?”

“What do you think?”

“Okay.  Can’t blame you.  I’ll go talk to him in his car.”

“No, you bloody-well won’t, I want to hear what you’re getting us into.”

“Me.  Getting me into.”

“Very nice.  Heaping ignorance upon stupidity.”  Xander didn’t have the energy or the will to fight, he simply shrugged and went to look out of the window, waiting for Randall.  “What did she say to you?”  Xander’s tension level visibly stepped up and he gave a stiff shake of the head.  “Horrible, was it?”

Spike heard the swallow from across the room.

“Yes,” Xander admittedly weakly.

“No passing out though?”

“I’m fine.”

“She likely to come back when Randall’s here?”

“No.”

“Xander…”

Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

Xander crossed and picked up the local paper, holding it out to Spike with a shaking hand; Tania Varley smiled at him from the front page.

“Right now—”  Xander’s voice cracked and he took a sharp breath before trying again.  “Right now she’s being tortured.  Physically and mentally.  She’s being raped.  Physically and mentally.  He will take her to the brink of death again and again to enjoy her continued terror.  When he has broken her mind as thoroughly as he has broken her body he’ll kill her and…and just…dump her.  He’ll—”  Xander carefully folded the paper so Tania’s picture was obscured.  “He’ll rape her with a broken branch, keep kicking it into her until…”  Tears welled in Xander’s eye, and he turned his back on Spike.  Despite being curious about the vampire’s continued silence, he couldn’t bear to look and see something that would destroy his faith in Spike.  But he had to know.  “You getting off on this?”

“Remembering what you said about Dawn, actually.  Thinking that, under other circumstances, I’d like to get my hands on this…person.”  Xander jumped as Spike’s fingers rested on his biceps, thumbs caressing, just for a few seconds before he enveloped Xander in a hug, leaning his chin on his shoulder.  “I don’t object to you asking that.  Just so’s you know.”

Xander appreciated the strength at his back and gave himself over to Spike, creaking in satisfaction as the embrace grew a little firmer.

“I must try to help her.  If I don’t I won’t be able to live with myself.”

“I know.”

“I wish you felt it too.  That need.”

“I do, and if I were here by myself I wouldn’t hesitate to get stuck in.  But I’m not by myself, and you matter more.”  Xander tilted his head and kissed Spike.  “What’s that for?”

“You want to shout at me for being stupid and instead you’re having to be reasonable.  And…nice.”

“Oi, less of the nice.  That’s a rotten thing to call a demon.”

Xander squirmed around and returned the hug, holding Spike so tightly – desperately tightly – that Spike couldn’t prevent the low rumbling growl that accompanied the surge of protectiveness.

“Can you not make sex noises while I’m having a breakdown?” Xander requested politely, causing Spike to chuckle as he buried his face in Xander’s neck.  “In twenty years time,” Xander continued, “when I finally get another date, it’s going to last as long as it takes for me to say, ‘And when we fuck, can you go…grr?’”

Spike forced aside the obvious reaction to Xander’s potential unfaithfulness two decades hence and leaned back to meet his eye, running his fingers through the man’s dark hair and linking his fingers at the rear of his head, easing him into an affectionate rather than passionate kiss.

“Do I do that then?  Much?”

“Some.  When you forget not to.  Goes with the flash of yellow in your eyes before you remember not to show more of that face.”

“Do you mind?” Spike asked, certainly more nonchalantly than he felt.

“I’m getting used to it.”

“Do you mind having to?”

Xander shook his head and pressed himself back into a tight hug.

“It’s what gives me peace.  Keeps me safe.  And it’s…you.  The real you.  I’m always aware that this mask isn’t the real you, and I don’t like that you think you have to hide from me.  I know how that feels.”

Xander was reluctantly eased a few inches away, to be confronted by Spike in full game face.  It was the first time that Xander had been this close to the demon’s true appearance and given time to study the distorted features; he did so with undisguised interest, smiling at how scared of this he’d been, once upon a time.

“Tell me.  Am I hot, or have your balls crawled back into your body?”

Xander chuckled.

“Hey, whatever, you’re still prettier than me.”

Not.  Going.  There.

“State the obvious, why don’t you?  I was always prettier than you.  With my head in a bucket of pig shit I’d be prettier than you.  If I wiped my face down with the contents of a diseased chicken’s gizzards I’d be…”

“I get it, yes, stop,” Xander insisted with a suitable grimace.

“But am I hot?”

Xander considered that.

“I guess.”  He closed the narrow gap between them and tried a light, experimental kiss.  “I guess…you’re always hot.”

Xander started at the rap on their door; Spike kept hold of him and the once again human face gave him a reassuring peck.

“And just when you were being nicely distracted by my magnificent phizog.”

All of Xander’s good humour had evaporated, and he nervously found and squeezed Spike’s hands.

“Wait till he’s gone to give me a hard time.  Please?”

“That’s not an easy ask, Love.”

“This meeting will be five minutes at most, you can wait five minutes.”

Xander’s eye pleaded, and Spike caved as far as he was going to in the circumstances.

“I’ll do my best.”

 

Xander settled for that and, taking a deep breath, crossed and opened the door for John Randall, shaking his hand and drawing him inside.  The undersheriff gave Spike a grim smile as he entered the room, following Xander’s anxious gestures and sitting in the room’s single armchair, refusing an offer of coffee and staring expectantly at the medium.

“Paige Covington Willis,” Xander said as he sat on the edge of the nearest bed.  “No-one ever uses the Covington, do they?  It hasn’t been in the newspapers or on the TV.  I think she gave me that as evidentiary material.”

Regardless of what Randall may or may not have been expecting, he looked quite stunned.

“You’ve spoken to her?”

“She’s spoken to me.”

“Did she say who…”

“It was a short contact, short but…explicit.  Her greatest need was to relay her passing conditions.”

“You didn’t ask her about the man?”

“It doesn’t really work that way.”

“Did she say…”

“If you’ll shut up and listen,” Spike couldn’t help snapping, “Xander will tell you what happened.”

“I need answers.”

“You might get some if you let Xander get a word in edgeways.”

“Guys!”  Spike and Randall fell quiet, and they exchanged a tense look before Spike dropped onto the bed, lounging behind Xander and belying his relaxed body language with the steely glare he fixed on the cop.  “Finished?” Xander asked, dividing the question between the two, not inclined to be disrespectful to Randall, but too uptight to be pressurised or squabbled over.  “Okay.”  Xander’s attention switched exclusively to Randall.  “I appreciate the urgency, why else would I have I called you tonight?  But I get what I’m given and right now there isn’t anything that appears to be any use in catching the killer.”

“Why am I here then?”

“I’m fairly sure I’ll get more, and want to know how you’d prefer me to proceed if I do.  Do you need me to talk to the sheriff?  You implied he’d be less than sympathetic to this approach.”

“There are certain…issues…with the sheriff.”

“He doesn’t like psychics,” Xander accepted.

“Beyond that…”  Randall looked appraisingly from Xander to Spike and back.  “Would I be right in thinking that the two of you are in a relationship?”

“What makes you think that?” Xander asked, trying to be ambiguous but knowing exactly how obvious it was, especially here in this room: one bed for sleeping, the other effectively a storage facility.

“What are you about to tell us?” Spike asked.  “That you still lynch homosexuals in these parts?”

“The sheriff, although he’s a fine man in many respects and good at his job, is not what you could call open-minded.”

“So…” Xander extrapolated, “it’d be bad enough having a medium on the case, but having a gay medium…”

“We’re on the same page,” Randall finally smiled.  “Now, no-one can blame two people who are completely comfortable with one another…”

“We’re not about to out ourselves, accidentally or otherwise,” Xander assured, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“How about we simply avoid him?” suggested Spike.  “Neither of us wants to get publicly involved so, as far as possible, we’ll stay away from the main enquiry, only deal with you.”

Randall looked positively relieved that Spike had offered up the solution he himself was getting around to, and he rifled through his pockets to find a different card to the one he’d previously handed over.  This had his cell number, plus his home phone and address.

“You may think I’m pandering to his prejudices, and…yes, I am.  But if you discover anything that will crack this case I want it taken seriously.  I’m the man who’ll do that, not the sheriff.”

“Want me to move?” Spike asked Xander quietly.  “So you can check if she’s around now?”

“No, it’s pointless.  What Paige showed me…  It’s left me upset and unfocused, I’m not going to be any use until I’ve had time to meditate, clear my head, sleep, find some energy, you name it, I probably need it.”  Xander’s attention went back to Randall.  “Did you mind me asking you to come here?  I didn’t want this conversation on the phone.”

“No objections at all.  In fact…I’m daring to feel a little hopeful.”

“I’ll try not to let you down.”

 

Spike saw Randall out, walking him to his car, lingering to discuss various points of the case.  Xander got into the shower and distractedly washed himself, feeling so much better now he’d spoken to the undersheriff and allowing himself to be preoccupied with being ‘in a relationship’ with Spike, and fairly obviously if Randall’s observation was anything to go by.  Although he was a cop, and paid to be observant.  Still.  ‘In a relationship.’  Xander loved that, hated it, was truthfully quite afraid as all the attachment fears resurfaced and doubled and trebled because there didn’t seem any easy way back from the point he’d got to.  Loved it some more as he thought of Christmas, with his friends, with Spike, going home at the end of the evening and not alone for the first time in years.  Hated it some more when he thought of the first bleak and lonely days of January, with Simone’s knowing looks, and Henry fussing over him and asking where Spike was and Xander having to explain the painful obvious.

In a relationship.  Nonsense, of course.  Friends who fuck was closer to the mark.  Then why did it give him such a thrill when he imagined being in his own bed with Spike, and fu…  And making love with him?

“Because it’s a fantasy,” he whispered to himself.  “And fantasies thrill.  Real life…”

“What about it?”  Spike stepped in behind Xander and resisted pressing his near-freezing body against Xander’s, deciding that shocking the man to death would rather ruin his night.  Xander finally stopped swearing under his breath.  “Sorry.  Make you jump, did I?” Spike grinned.  “Least I kept the cold to myself.”

“I used to say to the girls, the way Angel crept around, he needed a collar with a bell.  I may have to put that into practise with you.”

“Very kinky.”

Spike risked Xander’s reaction and closed in.

“Fuck!  You’re a popsicle, get off me!”

“How about some fancy scrap of leather tied round my balls?” Spike purred as Xander’s resistance crumbled.  “To match my collar?  Or maybe match those fantasies you were thinking of.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that kind of fantasy,” Xander admitted, braving the chill factor and leading Spike’s hand to his stiffening cock.  “It was stupid smushy stuff.”

“I can be smushy.  What do you want?”

“Oh, y’know…  The house with the white picket fence, roses around the door, beautiful wife who adores me, lots of cute babies…”

“I know where we can buy some babies,” Spike helpfully offered.

Xander ignored what he suspected was a genuine proposition and concentrated on the sensation of Spike’s slippery fist slowly and fastidiously working his erection, trying not to be sidetracked by words, or the fresh rash of goosebumps that rippled over his skin when Spike gently bit on his nape, or the stiff cock that was rubbing itself in the crease of his buttocks.  But the stiff cock won the day.

“Are you going to fuck me, Spike?” Xander asked breathily, perversely enjoying being both scared and excited as he felt Spike’s rigid flesh twitch against him at the proposal.

“No simple answer to that.”

“You want to?”

“Only to the extent that I could come right now, just at the thought.  Unless this is your way of deferring the row we’re supposed to be having.”

“Row?”

“I say don’t help Randall, you say bugger off, I pace and shout, you whinge and glare, I accuse you of acting like a stroppy bint, you call me a Neanderthal, I go on about the mission, you go on about mankind, I shut up and sulk, you say it’s so typical: my way or no way, I protest that I’ve been a pushover at every turn, you say you’ll be glad when this is over so you don’t have to put up with me any more, I say you don’t mean that, and you pin me to the wall and insist that you really…really…really  Don’t.”

“Wow.  I’m just glad I finally made up my mind.”

“Although there’s always a chance you could be trying to fuck your way back into my good books.”

“You think?”

“And I’d have to be very cross about it.”

“You’d turn down the sex?”

“Steady on, I said cross not insane.”

“So you are going to fuck me?”

“No simple answer to that,” Spike reiterated, arriving back where he started.

“You sure you’re not insane?  We’re not insane?  I think I must be.”

“Do you like sex with me?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Then no, you’re not crazy, you’re a man of impeccable taste.”  Spike gave Xander’s cock a last squeeze before letting go, ignoring the moan of displeasure and sliding his hands onto Xander’s buttocks, hearing the moan become a gasp as he tightened his grasp and prised the muscular cheeks apart.  Dipping his body, Spike lined up the tip of his cock with Xander’s opening, resting it there and admiring the view.  “Think about it, Love.  Soon I’ll be licking you, opening you up so my tongue and more can have you; playing with you…”  His fingers flexed.  “…until you’re far beyond simply being ready to take me, you’ll be desperate to feel my prick inside you.”

“I know.  I know you’re right.”

Xander’s hand had already taken up where Spike’s had left off and he was caught between waiting and sharing, and the pressing desire to climax, fighting the need to stroke just a little harder because, right now, just a little was all he’d need.  He snatched his hand away as he felt Spike begin to rub against him, glans sliding in a slicker liquid than water.  And, talking of water, where did it go, when did Spike—  Ah, who gave a damn?

“I can feel your excitement.  Tiny shudders, spasms in your muscles when I…”  Spike added a slight pressure and Xander fought the automatic reaction of his body that insisted on repelling this invader.  “Touch yourself.”

“Too close.”

“That’s all right.  I’m going to come all over you any second.”

The touches resumed, Xander’s body angle and attitude changing as he leant his free arm against the wall for balance, unintentionally offering Spike a little more access.

“Any second?” he whispered hoarsely.

“Seeing this, my prick ready to own your arse.  Oh, Love, want to be inside you.  Want to feel you come on my cock.”

“Oh, yeah, any second,” Xander half-laughed, half-choked as he battled to retain the last of his self-control.

“Xander.  Xander.  Going to fuck you so well.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck, yes.”

Spike couldn’t resist the nudge that allowed the head of his cock to make a very minor breach, and as the tip penetrated wrinkled flesh his left hand urgently shifted from Xander’s cheek onto his own cock; in three furious jerks the semen was pulsing out of him, the cool, creamy jets trying their best to pummel a way into Xander’s body and, as Xander felt that, he couldn’t stop himself squirming against Spike as he urgently pumped himself, succumbing to the extraordinarily erotic sensation and spattering his own release over the tiles.

Clenched muscles loosening in a hormonal rush, Xander collapsed against the wall, barely holding himself up as his head fell heavily forward onto his forearm, and certainly unable to find the energy to pour scorn upon the pathetic noises that emerged from his throat as Spike exploited his lassitude and gently probed his body with a delicate touch, finger slippery with spent semen.

“You feel that?”  Spike spoke quietly as he moved his finger; Xander moaned.  “That’s me, inside you.  Not so scary, eh?”

“Nuh.”

“Doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“Nuh.  Weird.”

“Bit weird, yes, to start with.  Then you get used to it.  Then you get to like it.  Get to love it even, when you’re done as nicely as you do me.”

“When first?  For you?”

Spike’s finger was withdrawn and his hands encircled Xander’s chest, prising him off the wall and holding him close.

“Little while after I was turned.  Dru liked to watch, and she always got what she wanted.”

“Not—”

“Not him, no.  She couldn’t order Angelus about, could she?  No pecking order working in her favour there.”

“Never with him?”

“Well…one time, when he lost a bet to Darla, but it was just a fumble, nothing more.”

“You mean—  Tell me you weren’t the actual stake.”

“Don’t take umbrage on my account, it was all a laugh back then.”

“What did you have to do for him?” Xander asked charily.

“Nah, Love.”  Spike grinned wickedly to himself.  “He lost the bet, remember.”

“Oh.  Ohh.  Okay.  Okay.  No, still not okay.  Not okay but better.  I guess.  And these men that Dru wanted to watch you with?”

“Just blokes she’d pick up.  If her William had been a good boy he got to top, if he’d been a bad boy he’d get fucked.”

“That’s…horrible.”

“So horrible that I enjoyed every minute.  Don’t underestimate how flexible I am.”

“No, I mean that she’d pick up complete strangers and…and…make you do stuff.”

Spike turned Xander around and tried to stroke the concern from his face.

“Listen, it wasn’t a problem.”

“But…”

“No.  No but.”  Spike gave Xander a sympathetic kiss.  “Bloody venereal diseases.  You never got the chance to put it about like a cat on heat, did you?  There’s something very liberating about mindless sex with a string of people whose names you never discover.  Even if you don’t use their blood supply to satisfy the post-shag munchies.”

“Doesn’t appeal to me.”

“But when you were…seventeen?”

Xander thought and sighed.

“Thank God I’ll never be seventeen again.”

Spike inched them aside and turned on the water, guiding Xander back under the stream when it was warm and pouring a handful of soap to wash him with.

“I think we can safely say that I am going to fuck you,” he told Xander in a considered tone, and Xander simply nodded.  “Not going to make a fuss?”

“Probably.  At the time.”

“Thanks for the notice.”

Xander pulled Spike into a kiss, hands rising to set about what they’d been itching to do for days: demolish the gel that kept Spike’s hair in place.  Even damp it proved to be a fruitless endeavour as this appeared to be industrial grade, and Spike resisted the attempts to bring him further under the spray.

“Let me wash your hair,” Xander requested the moment their lips parted.

“Sod off.”

“Why not?”

“I look like a sheep.”

“You look like an angel, you ass.”

“An angel?” Spike repeated with surprise.

“Obviously not the Angel, seeing as you’re missing the brow that small children shelter from storms under.”  Spike laughed and Xander almost did, his broad smile fading to something far more sentimental as he continued.  “That morning after the Marcie business.  I woke up and just…stared at you.  No gel you.  It’s the greatest irony, it’s a…a…mockery of all that’s sacred, but you, Spike, hair gel surgically removed, have the face of an angel.”

“Like it, do you?  The face?”

Xander brought his hands forward to delicately trace the vampire’s eyebrows and cheekbones.  Jaw.  Mouth.  Following the path of his fingers with an appreciative gaze.

“It’s wonderful.  It’s a wonderful face.”  Spike may have been teasing when he pressed for compliments, but he was genuinely moved by Xander’s sincere response, and he hugged the man to him in a bid to disguise his emotions.  The tense hug soon softened into a cuddle, and Xander grinned to himself as the vampire snuggled and rocked.  “Can I wash your hair before we’re out of hot water?”

“If you won’t think I look a fool.”

“I can honestly say that’s not what I’ll be thinking.”

Xander wet Spike’s hair and poured a fifth of a bottle of shampoo directly onto the white-blond cap, working up an overabundant lather and massaging with his fingertips, concentrating on liberating every strand.  Spike stood patiently, head bowed forward and hands on Xander’s waist, anxiously analysing why this felt more intimate than most of their sexual encounters.

“What will you be thinking?” he eventually asked, just to get past the moment.

“I’ll be thinking…  How good it is to touch your hair without breaking any nails or grazing my knuckles.  Or…   How much you trust me ‘cause this is a big deal for some reason I probably don’t want to know.  I’ll be thinking…”

“Baaaaaaa,” Spike bleated, and Xander laughed.

“Or maybe I won’t be thinking at all, I’ll just be drooling over the pretty guy about to fuck me.”

One of Spike’s hands left Xander’s waist to pay a little attention to his cock and balls, a stroke here, light scrape of nails there, and Xander was practically dancing a rumba to avoid the persistent fingers.

“Don’t you like me doing this?”

“I’m trying to concentrate.”

“And I’m trying to train your prick.”

“You’re what?

“Gradually cutting down your recovery time, haven’t you noticed?”

“I, er…”  Xander thought about it as he brought Spike back under the water and thoroughly rinsed his hair.  “Yeah,” he agreed, not having much choice as he was already hardening again in Spike’s hand.

“Any objections?”

“When I’m trying not to blind you with shampoo?  Kinda.”

Xander sucked in a sharp breath as Spike rubbed the particularly sensitive bundle of nerves below the head of his cock.

“Sure?”

“Oh, fuck…  Who am I fooling?  Welcome to Blind Club.”

“Am I done?”

“Huh?”

“Hair.”

“Uh…  Uh-huh.”  Xander’s hands accompanied Spike’s hair downwards, and this was as good as he’d imagined, being able to bury his fingers in the loose waves as Spike sucked him.  Trained him?  “You really think you can train a penis?” he asked, somewhat breathlessly.  “You figure out that equation and there are a few million teenage boys who’ll pay for it.”

Spike released Xander's cock with a wet slurp.

“Course it’s trainable.  It’s got a head…”  His tongue tickled Xander’s glans.  “…so it must have a brain.  If it’s got a brain I can teach it.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.  How many times have you heard a guy say their dick has a mind of its own?”

Spike stood and turned off the cooling water.

“Give me a week or two and I could train you to last six hours.  Last six hours and be ready for more in half-an-hour.”

“I don’t want to last six hours.  And I really don’t want you to last six hours.  I’m actually enjoying not having to worry about stuff like that.”

“Like what?” Spike asked, knowing full well.

Xander wrapped his hand around Spike’s erection and relished the feel of this unequivocal statement.

“Like…  Knowing you’re horny.  Not having to hope or guess or work at it for an hour before you decide you’re not, just…knowing.  Knowing, too, that you’re going to come, simply because it’s so damn easy to make a guy come.”

“Shall we get out of here so you can prove it?”

Xander began to slowly pump Spike’s cock.

“You think we need to go anywhere?”

“I like you on the bed, that’s all.”

“Nice and safe,” Xander grinned.  “Not about to pass out with lust and bust my world-saving head on the tiles.”

“Something like that.”

They dried off, Spike deliberately taking his time so he could watch Xander’s naked form wander over to the bed, appreciating the play of muscles as Xander rotated his shoulder, loosening up the healing joint before stretching up to test his sore side.  A slight wince and groan before he relaxed and climbed onto the bed, falling onto his front and…surely that beautifully available backside was an open invitation?

Spike left his hair dripping, not wanting to encourage the curls by towelling it dry, and followed Xander, lying alongside him and stroking his back, shoulders to the enticing dip above the swell of his buttocks.  He couldn’t fail to miss the huge waves of apprehension Xander was exuding.

“Xander?”

“Mmm?”

Spike tugged on Xander’s hair.

“Turn your head.”

Xander did as he was asked, but his eye remained tightly closed.

“Open your eyes.  Eye.  Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I still think eyes.”

“Open your eye.”

“No.  I’m pretending you’re Johnny Depp.”

“Warning you now, you’re on very thin ice.”  Only a playful threat; Xander opened his eye and matched Spike, grin for grin.  “Have you changed your mind?” Spike asked as his smile softened.

Xander immediately turned his head away again.

“No,” he replied without conviction.  “I mean…you won’t hurt me.”

“No.”

“And you’ll stop if I ask.”

“Yes.”

“And…and…”

“We don’t have to do this.”

Xander shuffled around to face Spike, slipping an arm around him and hugging him tightly.

“I want to do this for you.”

“Not for me.  It has to be for us, Love, or what’s the point?”

“Us.  I meant us.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.  Or make you feel you have to have me.”  Spike stroked Xander’s side, keeping his caresses affectionate but non-sexual.  “Haven’t you noticed?  You mean the world to me, Xander.”

“Don’t say that.”

“But it’s true.”

“It’s what iffable, and I can’t have that.”

“Xander…”

“Over when it’s over.  Say it, remind me.”  Spike vehemently shook his head.  “Over when it’s over.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t care about you while we’re…”

“No!” Xander snapped, pulling away to the far edge of the bed and successfully fending off Spike’s attempts to reconnect.  “Stop that, I can’t think that there’s the possibility of anything more to this.  No what iffing, I promised myself.”

“What if I want to be what iffed?”

“How does that work out?  You fool around with my emotions and have me what iffing like crazy, then it’s over and we’re over and you’re done with me ‘cause, faced with the real me and my real life, you’re bored, and you take off and I’m left feeling more fucked over than fucked.  My way is better.”

“I’m not going to…”

“Any more of this and we’re not even in the same bed tonight.”

“Xander…”

“Say it.”

“For fuck’s sake…”

Say it.”

No.”

“Say it, or…or…I get my own room.”  Spike glared at Xander, sullen and sexy and missing the fact that the pout alone could guarantee him Xander’s cooperation if it were exploited.  “Say it,” Xander insisted with demonstrably less surety.

“Over when it’s over,” Spike muttered, unhappily tense now.  “Over when it’s over, and if you believe that you’re a bigger idiot than I ever thought you were before I didn’t think you were.”

“Er…okay.  I think.”  Xander replayed Spike’s last sentence.  “Yeah, okay.”  He closed the gap that he’d created between them, and his fingers toyed with the light treasure trail of hair that descended from Spike’s navel.  “So…  We having some of that no longer just sex?  Or are we…”

“If you’re being that inflexible with me, then I’m going to fuck you.  Because you said so, and what you say apparently goes.  Want to argue over that now?”

Shock flickered over Xander’s face, but only momentarily.

“No.  And…yeah.  Yeah, you’re right.”

“Of course I’m bloody right.”

Pressing Xander onto his back, Spike leaned in to kiss him, hard, distracting kisses as he started to play with Xander’s cock, rapidly renewing the man’s interest.  An equally businesslike fondling of Xander’s balls was followed by the first touch to his perineum, careful pressure stimulating the root of his cock and his prostate.  Xander jerked out of the kiss to let himself gasp in a few very necessary breaths, forcing himself to calm down so he didn’t miss a second of the vampire’s progress.  He felt Spike hesitate and that alone ousted the potential panic attack.

“I trust you, Spike.  You promised you wouldn’t hurt me, and I trust you.”

A very minor trust perhaps, when compared to the huge trust that was Xander trusting Spike to keep him alive and safe, but at that moment, equally as crucial.  It was Xander that reached for the lube, shakily opening it and spreading it on Spike’s hand; it was Xander who opened his legs and, however difficult it was, dodgy shoulder shouting out, insistently pushed Spike’s fingers into the crease of his buttocks.

“This’d be a lot more erotic if it felt like lust rather than desperation.”

“It is lust.”

“No.  I’ll show you lust.”

Spike pushed Xander’s hands away and settled between his thighs, wiping the lubricant off them both with a handful of sheet.

“You won’t—”

“What?  You think I’m going to fuck you dry?”

“I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“This.”

Xander’s legs were pushed up to his chest and he firstly sucked in a breath at the feeling of being so exposed, secondly because of the truly erotic sensation of Spike’s tongue lapping at the entrance to his body.

“Fuck, yes, more.”

“Where are your manners?” Spike teased.

“Please.  Please.  Pleeeeea—  The word was swallowed by a moan as Spike’s tongue penetrated the outer ring of muscles; gripping a buttock in each hand, Spike spread Xander as far as possible and began to very deliberately fuck him with his tongue.  “Oh…fuck.  Spike.  Yes.  Lust, get it.”  Spike’s fingers slid across and, once again, massaged his prostate through his perineum.  Xander tried not to squirm at the sensory overload, wanting more of Spike, either to touch him or kiss him or…  Fuck.”  The thought of having Spike’s cock in his mouth was almost too much.  “Stop, stop, stop.”

“Problem, Love?” Spike asked innocently as his face popped into view.

“Jesus, fucking hell, yes!

“Two minutes and you’re a quivering wreck.  How’re you going to be when I’ve done this for an hour?”

“Dead.  I’ll be dead.”

“Is this your overly melodramatic way of asking for a breather?”

“I want more of you.  I – I want to suck you.”

“Well…okay.  But bear in mind that the next time you suck me I intend to come in your mouth so I can taste myself there.”

Fuuuuck.”

“Make up your mind.”  Spike’s tongue flicked at Xander’s opening once again, and Xander manfully whimpered.  “Make up your mind or I’ll make it up for you.”

“Do.”

“My decision and I’m going to have this wonderful arse of yours, you know that.”

Xander gave a frantic nod.

“Yeah.”

Spike’s finger probed the loosened muscles, gently fucking for a moment before rubbing over Xander’s prostate.

“Still weird?”

“Uh…  Good…weird.”

Spike’s thumb pressed on Xander’s perineum, and he gently squeezed the swollen gland from inside and out.

Fuck!

“Nice that, innit?”  Xander gave up on restraint, letting his legs drop and reaching for his cock, only to have his hand smacked away.  “That’s a lovely hard prick you’ve got there.  And it’s all mine, so…”

“Spike, please.”

“Now you’re getting the idea.”

“I am?  Ohh  Right,” Xander panted, lust-addled brain finally having figured it out.  Consent.  “Please, Spike, fuck me.”

“Want me?”

Yes.”

Spike found the tube and dripped lubricant on his finger as it slid in and out, and when there was enough he added a second finger, and finally a third, listening to Xander’s vast array of huffs and puffs and indescribable little noises that denoted sexual pleasure, feeling each and every one in his heart and his groin.  Xander had struggled to watch the process but had soon given up, eye clenched shut as he laid back and wallowed in the new sensations, and Spike knew that it would be a mean thing to turn the man over to fuck him, even if it would be easier for him that way.  Besides, he was as bad as Xander on this, he wanted to look into the face of the man he was fucking and see—  Anything other than what he’d seen the last time he’d been inside him.

He eased his fingers out and knelt between Xander’s thighs, generously preparing Xander’s body with yet more lubricant before dousing his own cock.  Xander was leaning up and watching again, chest heaving, eye black with desire and shining in anticipation.  Spike gave Xander a tight, horny smile, and received a charged look in return: it was all he could do not to come on the spot.  A couple of shuffled steps on his knees and he was touching the tip of his cock to Xander’s body; Xander immediately reached for him, wanting to be closer than this, and Spike obliged him by falling forward onto one elbow, reassuring him with a kiss before gradually pressing his hips forward, experiencing Xander’s tremor as he was finally breached.  Spike paused as he felt the man’s muscles spasm around his cock.

“Relax, Love.”

“I am.  I am.”

“Hurt?”

Xander shook his head.

“Gimme more.”

Spike did, taking his time to slide into the searing heat, and he was breathing as hard as Xander by the time their bodies touched.

“Hurt?”

Xander shook his head again, more emphatically.

“I could come from just…knowing,” Xander tried to explain what he was feeling, and Spike, experiencing a whole lot of empathy, understood perfectly.

“How’s this?”

The first tentative movements and Xander was clinging to Spike, kissing him feverishly, fingers knotting in the sensually damp hair, not fully comprehending his physical and emotional reaction to this intrusion but knowing he wanted more and hating it as Spike’s cock started to withdraw.  Not for long though: he tilted his hips up to meet Spike’s slow, slow inward stroke and that was…  Fuck! …pretty good, and he laughed into the kiss.

“Nice?” Spike smiled as he pulled back a little to witness Xander’s pleasure.

“Nice,” Xander confirmed, gasping, giggling, stroking his fingers through and through the loose waves that framed this wonderful face, and deep inside, far deeper than Spike’s cock, adoring this man, vampire, demon, whatever, adoring him for this moment alone.

“Good.  I think…” Spike said, giving a thoughtful nod, “I think I’ll make you come now.”  Xander laughed and Spike grinned.  “Bear that, could you?”

“Oh, Baby,” Xander sighed, and Spike laughed too.

Keenly watching Xander’s reactions for any sign of discomfort, Spike began to move again, gradually building up speed but never force, and it was only when Xander instinctively bucked up to meet him that he took his own advice and began to relax, lowering his body onto Xander’s and experiencing an enjoyable twinge when he felt the wetness on his belly from Xander’s leaking cock.  Several kisses were missed before he realised that Xander had very deliberately turned his face aside.

“Hey.”

“Don’t stop.”

“Xander…”

Xander mindlessly rubbed himself on Spike until a hand on his hip prevented him.

“What?”

Even now Xander’s head didn’t turn back.

“Yeah, precisely.”

“Huh?”

The hand left Xander’s hip to cup Xander’s chin and bring his face around; the resistance was impossible to miss.

“Look at me.”  Xander did, warily.  “Love…  You may be refusing to notice it, but I am mad about your body.  Every hair on your head to every toenail, all the bits in between, every inch, every fraction of every inch.  There’s nothing you need to hide.”

Xander was already turning away again.

“It’s so ugly close up.”

No.”  Spike brought Xander’s face back, and he gently covered the damaged socket with his palm to make this easier for Xander.  “Want a little of that honesty you used to like so much?”

“I—  I don’t know.”

“Handsome as you are, it isn’t physical beauty that draws me to you.”

“See, now you’re saying I’m ugly,” Xander weakly joked.

“I’m saying…the way you look is a bonus.  Big bonus.”  Spike removed his hand, taking his time to stroke Xander’s brow with his thumb, leaning in to place a kiss at the outer corner of the withered lids.  “You have no reason to doubt me.”

Perfectly true, but not something Xander could accept in an instant.  He shook off Spike’s attentions and reached down to grab his backside, squeezing encouragingly.

“Make me forget about it,” he demanded.  “Fuck me.”

Spike rolled and thrust his hips and Xander was soon transported to a much happier place, back to his gruff, horny noises as Spike pushed a few boundaries and found Xander as resilient and obliging as he’d suspected, matching every action with an energetic and enthusiastic response.  It seemed barely any time at all before Xander was yanking on his own cock, arching his back and freezing as his orgasm ripped through him, all the encouragement Spike needed to ditch the self-control and let himself come too, and he joyfully fucked the essence of his ownership deep into Xander’s quivering body.

Spike woke an hour later because he knew he was alone.  Out of the bed and ready to kill, he found Xander wandering outside and was immediately ushered back to their room.

“Clothes, Spike, clothes.  Indoors: naked; outdoors: clothes,” Xander spelt out.

“What were you doing out there?”

“Listening for Paige.”

“You should be sleeping.”

“She didn’t come back, thanks for asking, and I’m only totally concerned that she may not manage it at all.”

Spike debated bed versus clothes, and grumpily pulled on his jeans.

“She’ll be back.”

“You think?”

“Yep.  It’s the last thing I want so of course she’ll be back.”  Xander took off his coat and hung it up, wandering restlessly around the room as Spike scrutinised the body language that announced Xander’s tightly wound state.  “Want to go out somewhere?  There’s a few hours before sun-up.”

“No.”

“Want me to keep out of your way?”

Xander smiled.

“No.”

“Want me…”  Spike shrugged and Xander smiled again.  “Want me?”

The restless wandering brought Xander to Spike, and he took the vampire’s chilly fingers and briskly rubbed them.  Then, having been paying close attention to the lessons Spike unknowingly taught, brought them to his mouth and kissed them.  The last question still lingered in the air between them, was held in Spike’s eyes; Xander couldn’t avoid answering.

“I, um…  I can’t imagine not,” he said stiltedly, immediately wondering if that sentence made sense.

Spike casually moved a little closer, seductively dropping his voice.

“Did you enjoy me?”

The turn of phrase made Xander tingle, and he had to concentrate hard on answering.

“You.  It.  It was…”  Xander stopped to think, groping for the right word.  “Powerful,” he settled for.  “It was so…powerful.”

One hand freed itself to stroke Xander’s jaw.

“You feel all right?  Physically?”

“I’m a little sore, which is okay.  And inside I kinda…ache.”  Xander saw Spike’s concern.  “And that’s…that’s…great.”

“Great?”

“I wanted to have sex with you, and I wanted to know it.  I kinda…ache, and that’s fine for me, and…and…letting the subconscious know who’s the boss here, that’s good too.”

“Yes, the sooner it knows it’s me, the better.”

“Funny guy.  I hope.  How do you feel?”

“How possessive, you mean?”  Xander gave a shallow nod.  “I feel…”  The glib reply that was meant to reassure Xander refused to make its entrance.  “I feel…”  Oh, fuck, honesty.  This is not the time for honesty.  “Instinctively it was there: the knowledge I was staking my claim, making you mine.”

“Okay,” Xander said quietly.  “You told me that would…”

“Wait.  I…”  Spike gently kissed Xander and gave him a hug, kept hugging him until some of the tension dissipated.  “Your acceptance of me,” Spike whispered, “willing acceptance, your affection—  You don’t mind if I say that?”

“Say the truth?  No.  My affection…?”

“Beyond my instincts, the urge to possess, the need is…is….nothing, it’s dwindled to nothing.”

“Does that mean…”  Spike could hear the confused frown in Xander’s voice.  “That you, demony you, doesn’t wa—  No, you do want me, I know you do.  Umm…  You do, don’t you?  You want to fuck me again?”

“Do I…?  Is this a trick question?”

Xander eased himself far enough away to see Spike’s face, searching it for clues.

“What does it mean?”

“Bugger,” Spike sighed.  “Brace yourself for smushy.”

“Smushy I can deal with right now, I’m just not looking forward to you telling me that you instinctively own me but, in a remarkably badly timed show of demonic fickleness, are dumping me.”

“What I’m trying to say…  You accepting me, giving yourself willingly, it’s…it’s…  Fuck!  I can’t do this.”

Spike began to pull away but Xander jerked him back.

“Tell me.  I want to hear this, I promise no what iffing, I simply…”

“I’ve never had anything quite like this before,” Spike admitted crossly, “and I appreciate the fact that you don’t have to own me, or have an ulterior motive, or be a possession to be with me, all right?”

“And you’re mad about that?”

No!

“Then stop sounding mad about it.  I want my smushy to sound smushy!

Spike scowled and Xander glared, but it wasn’t long before the corners of Xander’s mouth began to twitch, and the effect was highly infectious.  Spike shook his head and laughed at himself.

“Right, I’m taking requests.”

“Tell me the sex was good.”

“The sex was great.”

“Yeah?” Xander grinned.  Spike eloquently twitched his eyebrows; Xander inched in, gradually bringing him and Spike back together.  “Be better still with a little more practise.”

“And it would be churlish of me to stand in the way of your quest for perfection,” Spike agreed with perfectly delivered benevolence.

The last of the gap between them disappeared instantly, and they contentedly teased each other with fleeting kisses and touches, giggling as they made their way to the bed.

“Wanna play with the camera?” Xander asked, and his face was such a picture of sheer naughtiness that Spike barely resisted throwing him down and having him on the spot.

“Get it.”

Spike jumped onto the bed and turned back to bombard Xander’s senses with his photogenic gorgeousness.  But Xander’s senses were already on full alert, his expression was completely focused – and not on Spike – fingers flicking as he invited a spirit to come forward.

“Come on, Sweetheart, you can do this, you can do it.    Help her.   C’mon, Paige, be strong for me, come on…    That’s right, you can, I’m here for you, I…    Paige?    Saul, please…”  Spike briefly witnessed the despair on Xander’s face before it morphed into determination and the man was rushing from the room.  “I’ve seen that, I’ve seen it, somewhere along the route we took to get here, I’ve seen it.”

“Wait.”  Spike caught up and grabbed Xander’s sleeve, pulling him to a halt as he headed for the road.  “What have you seen?”

“She showed me.  There’s a…a…formation, a formation, rocks, trees, quite distinctive, I saw it on the way here, I’ll figure out where it was, it has to be our starting point.”

“Xander, the idea was for you to advise, not go wandering off…”

Xander tugged his arm free.

“I’m going to help Tania and I don’t care what it takes.”

 

A long, tense pause followed, neither of them able to look at the other, until Xander took an audible breath to speak and Spike simply snapped,

“No.”

“Spike…”

“No!”

“Paige trusts me.”

“For fuck’s sake, Xander!”

Annoyed, yes, but Spike’s voice was tinged with a fatal hint of weakness.  Xander pounced.

“Hey,” he started, overly brightly, some might say desperately, “you know you get those moments in a movie when one character says to another something like, ‘I will never, never, never let you do that in a million years’, and in the very next scene…”

 

 

Manifestation 23       Manifestation Index       Manifestation Notes

 

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