Christmas morning.  Xander woke and stretched, slumped, then snuggled up to his lover, whispering the words to break the hex that they were still employing to keep Spike well-rested and stable.  As Spike gradually came to his arms folded around Xander, hands lovingly stroking, before he suddenly stiffened and sat bolt upright, throwing Xander aside.

“What?” Xander asked in alarm.

“I can go in that bloody room!  It’s been driving me spare.”

Xander rolled away and sat up, laughing softly to himself.  Spike was already up and half-dressed.

“Slow down.  You have to wait for me anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

Spike released an unnameable noise that encompassed all of his frustration.

“Shift yourself, Xan.”  He pulled on a t-shirt and left the room, returning immediately and heaving Xander to his feet, becoming slightly distracted by the expanse of naked flesh but soon covering temptation with the blue robe.  “I cannot believe I made that promise.  And I bleedin’-well kept to it!  Never again, I’m telling you.  What’s the matter with me?  Call myself a vampire?  I’m turning into something feeble and fluffy that the average fledge wouldn’t bother draining.”

“You did it for me,” Xander pointed out as he took the vampire’s hand and brought it to his mouth for a kiss. “Feeble and fluffy, nothing.  Takes more strength to wait.”

“Sod off,” Spike grinned, already beginning to wonder if the robe was a good idea and remembering how luscious was the bounty beneath.  He pinned Xander to the nearest wall and wormed his way inside the thick towelling as he enthusiastically kissed his lover.

“Don’t you want your present?” Xander finally managed to say when Spike’s attention moved to his neck.  The vampire let out a frustrated whine.

“Room, sex, room, sex, room, sex…”

“Let me show you,” Xander chuckled, taking pity on Spike and making up his mind for him.

Before entering the room, Xander snaked a hand inside the doorway and flicked a switch.

“Let me guess.  That’s the power supply for the chainsaw.”

“God, are you going to be disappointed.  Maybe we should leave this…”

“Xander!”

Xander relented and stood aside.

“Go in.”  Spike threw the door open, was met by a wall of daylight, jumped back with a furious hiss.  “No, no, it’s okay.  It’s not real daylight.  Fucking hell, I’m sorry, I can be so dense sometimes, I should have warned you.”  Despite Xander’s assurances Spike’s return was wary.  Until he saw the contents of the room and forgot the light, wandering in wide-eyed and struck unusually dumb.  “The guy in the shop said the light box was essential to re-create the quality of daylight.  All great artists need that apparently.”  It was a studio.  Spike moved about, still silent, touching the hand-made racks full of materials and equipment before moving on to pore over the shelf full of art books, turning and studying the set-up of posing stool, chaise longue, lights, backdrops.  He moved to the draughtsman’s desk and sat at it.  “There’s a whole load of different stuff in the storage units.  I didn’t know what to get, so I got a bit of just about everything,” Xander was starting to sound worried.  “I didn’t get frames, I thought I could make them when you want them.  If you want them.”  No response.  Fuck.  Blown it.  Xander sadly went to the door and clicked on the standard light, clicked off the light box.  “I’m…I’m gonna go make some coffee.”

“Xander…”  Xander turned back in time to take Spike into his arms.  “No-one ever…ever put this much thought…”  Xander got the message in the shaky voice and shushed the vampire.

“I didn’t get it wrong?”  Shake.  Spike’s grip tightened.  “Still, the chainsaw oversight can be remedied easily enough,” Xander joked, hoping to loosen the emotion that had closed the vampire down.  “I can picture your first exhibition: ‘This is entitled Xander with chainsaw.  And this is Beth with chainsaw.  And, painted from memory, dismembered family of four, with chainsaw’.”

Spike pulled back and drew his fingertips over Xander’s face.

“You.  I’ll paint you.”

“Yeah.  I saw me draped on the chaise, something a little bacchanalian, maybe?”

Finally, a smile.

“Whatever you want.”

“It is okay?”  Xander needed a pure, surfacy yes, and he got it without hesitation.  “That’s great.  Damn, this is stressful.  Next year you get a cheque.”

“We still have to do downstairs.”

“I need coffee.  Lots of it.”

Spike took Xander’s hand and led him to the room immediately below the studio.

“You’re going to like this, and if you don’t you can give it back to me as a New Year present.”

Xander looked horrified.

“We’re doing New Year presents?  I’m going to need diazepam.”

“We’re only doing New Year presents if you hate this and want to offload it.”  Outside the door.  “Go on.”

“You first.”

Spike affected a sigh and swung the door open, keeping hold of Xander’s hand as he walked into the room.

“Wow,” was the expected and timely delivered response from Xander.  “Oh, wow.”  Music room, at the centre of which was a baby grand piano.  Xander crossed to it and ran his hands over the polished ebony.  “You do know I can’t play?”

“You can learn, all the books are in the seat of the stool.  I’ll help.”

“What if I can’t learn?” Xander asked anxiously.

“Then we’ll cut the legs down and use it as a coffee table.”

Xander turned and protectively spread his arms along the piano.

“Mine!  No coffee table!”

Now Xander looked around the room: every wall was hung with block-mounted posters, from album covers to promotional fliers to advertising for notorious gigs.  White leather lounger in the corner next to a new hi-fi system and storage for Xander’s hundreds of CDs.

“I haven’t brought your music in here yet, thought you’d like to do that.  And the speakers aren’t up.  I made enough mess of the walls with the posters, so…”

Xander wasn’t listening.  He was shuffling around the periphery of the room like an art gallery patron, carefully studying each poster.

“This is signed!”

“Yup.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Internet.  I bought everything in this room on the internet: bloody wonderful invention.  And I’d forgotten how good it feels to spend money like it’s going out of fashion.  I liked you poor, but I like you better rich, Xander.”

“Enjoy it.  Plenty more where that came from,” Xander casually threw over his shoulder.

“I married a corporate whore.  Love it, love it, love it.  Daddy would be so proud.”

Xander turned to Spike with a smile.

“Did I somehow miss that?  The getting married?”

“You claimed me.  Can’t help being an old-fashioned romantic.”

“Are you serious?”

Spike arched an eyebrow, the very picture of ambiguity.  Before Xander could pursue the subject further, Spike was changing it.

“C’mon.  It won’t bite.”  Spike crossed to Xander, took him by the shoulders and led him over to the piano, sitting him on the stool and opening the lid.  “One note.”

Plink, the piano said as Xander hit a key.  He suddenly turned to Spike.

“You’ll help?  You said you’ll help.”  The implication sank in.  “You can play?”

“Long time ago, but I haven’t forgotten the basics.”

“This is great: you can play the piano.”

“I had an arty-farty upbringing, remember.  Just as well seeing as we’re turning into a right arty-farty pair of poofs.”

“So…music, art, poetry…?”

“You’ll have me teaching you to dance next.  It was all fairly regular in those days.”

“For the average guttersnipe, sure.  Drop the accent, you damn fraud.  You forgetting I’ve met William?”

“I’m a creation, not a fraud.”

“Well, my blood-sucking work of art, get your ass down here and play something.”

“I said I’d help, not play.  And I didn’t say I was good.”

“Aw, come on, just something simple.  Humour me?  I’ll make it worth your while in a…think-we’ll-both-fit-into- the-white-chair-for-a-fuck kinda way.”

Spike dithered for a few seconds before joining Xander on the stool.  He took a brief look at his partner’s expectant face and shook his head with a deep sigh.

“No grinding your teeth when I hit bum notes: it’s not like you weren’t warned.”  Spike laid his fingers lightly over the keys and, dragging William’s memories closer to the surface of his mind, played a sweet little tune from his childhood, not brilliantly but certainly not as badly as he’d suggested.  When he finished he turned to Xander, smiling at the man’s obvious admiration.  “You’ll be better than that in a few months.  You and music…y’know.”

“Think I can do this?”

“You can do anything,” Spike assured.

He took Xander’s fingers and placed them on the keyboard, proceeding to show him the first simple exercises he remembered from the long distant past.  An hour passed in minutes, and Spike eventually left Xander playing scales to go and start preparing the day’s food.

“Can I help?” Xander offered as he entered the kitchen some time later.

“All ready to go.  Just a case of throwing some heat at it and hoping for the best now.”

“Time for a shower?”

“Yeah, off you go.”

Heat flooded Spike’s back as the human pressed against him and nuzzled.

“I wasn’t thinking of going alone.”

“Good.”  Xander could hear the smile in Spike’s voice.

“I have this urge.”

“You have my full attention.  What kind of urge?”

Xander’s hands ran over Spike’s body, sliding beneath clothing to stroke and tease.

“I want to taste you,” he explained huskily.  “I need to have you come in my mouth so I can taste you.”

“That’s easily doable.”

“I was watching you sleep earlier, wondering if you’d respond to me despite the hex.  I wanted to suck your cock and make you come without waking you.  I wanted complete power over you.”

Spike took a sharp breath, pulling Xander’s hand down and inside his sweatpants, wrapping it around his rapidly growing erection.

“Why didn’t you do it?”

“I was scared you wouldn’t respond to me at all.  I love it when you do, I love it every time.  Like this.”  Xander squeezed the now rigid cock.  “I was scared of what it would do to me if nothing happened.”

Turning in Xander’s embrace, Spike pushed Xander to his knees, letting the human draw the sweatpants down as he went.  Xander rubbed his cheek over the vampire’s hardness, stubble scratching the delicate flesh and making Spike shiver with pleasure.

“Responsive enough for you?”

“Beautiful.”

“Make it fast, Xan.  Fast.  I love it when you’re fast.”

Xander was fast, mouth like a Hoover, hands everywhere and fingers more so, holding Spike’s semen in his mouth when he came, swirling it around the vampire’s softening cock and refreshing his memory of the flavour and texture.  Arms around Spike’s hips, Xander kept him close until he’d experienced all he needed to and swallowed; by then Spike was almost completely hard again.  Running his hands over Spike’s thighs, Xander sat back on his heels and smiled up at his lover.

“Needed that.”

“Need any more?”

“I’m saving the rest for the shower.”

Xander relished the depth of feeling in the piercing blue eyes, knowing at a glance that he was loved and treasured.  Spike offered his hands, Xander took them and was pulled to his feet.

“Shower then?”

Xander leant forward for a kiss, hesitating a fraction of an inch from Spike’s lips. This often happened.  Thinking about it, Spike appreciated.  Seconds passed and the kiss happened, unbelievably sweeter for the delay.  Creating a little space between them, Spike opened Xander’s robe and wrapped his hands around their erections, crushing them together to a soundtrack of happy murmurings.  Getting to the shower was going to take time.

…

Squeaky clean and glowing with satisfaction, they tumbled from the bathroom to the bedroom and threw themselves onto the bed, laying sprawled and contented.  Fifteen minute doze before Spike turned to Xander with a frown.

“Xander…  Where’s Jake?”

“Jake?”

“Where is he today?”

“I, umm…  Not sure.  Probably with Pat and Beth.”

“Check.”

“Now?”

“No, travel back in time and ask him last Thursday.  Now, Xander.”

Xander reached for the phone and started to dial.

“Why?”

“Because he dumped that slapper and he might be all on his lonesome.  We know about that, don’t we?” Spike asked pointedly.

“Oh, yeah,” Xander agreed grimly, “we know all about that.”

Xander finished dialling and held the phone to his ear, face automatically breaking into a smile when he heard Jake’s voice.  Spike listened to Xander’s waffling end of the conversation, catching that Jake was alone but, no, it wasn’t a problem.  Really.  No, really.

“Let me talk to him.”  Xander handed the phone over.  “Jake, mate, expecting you by three, all right?  …  Bollocks.  By three.  See you later.”  And he cut the connection.

“If you ever need a job you should try telemarketing.”

“Well, I’m not going to put up with him arsing about even if you are.  He doesn’t want to be alone, he’s just worried about being a spare prick at a wedding.”

“Can I not think about my friend in those terms?”

“You want him here?” Spike enquired belatedly.

“I’m more than happy for him to be here.  I wouldn’t have thought you wanted him here.”  Spike gave a non-committal shrug.  “And it’s a thoroughly decent gesture from the evil undead,” Xander teased.

“Shouldn’t be alone,” Spike muttered uncomfortably, shoving the phone back at Xander, who lay studying it for a few minutes before turning hopeful eyes on his partner.

“I could get Pat and Beth over later.  Rafe and Moira, too,” Xander said, attempting casual but unable to smother barely restrained enthusiasm.  “Make a night of it.  Always thought I’d like to have them round for something special.  I never did that at the apartment because I felt the odd one out then and I was never happy enough to manage it all and…”

“Xander.  Make the calls, love.  Tell ‘em late afternoon, early evening.”

“Mean it?”

“As long as it’s after dinner.  I can’t feed the five thousand but I’ll certainly have a go at getting ‘em pie-eyed.”

“You’re sure?”

Anything to make you happy.  Anything.

“Get on with it, you soppy sod.”

Back downstairs, more presents, accompanied by a mutual, ‘I know we said we wouldn’t, but…’.  Clothes, that was a given.  Xander received a vivid scarlet shirt that he wouldn’t have picked for himself in a month of Sundays.

“You bought this?  You hated me in bright colours.”

“It wasn’t so much the colours as the bloody awful designs.  Anyway Lydia…”

“Lydia?” Xander grinned.

“Y’know, herself at the store, she said this was the very height, blah, blah, and that you’d look a treat in it.”

“It’s great.  I miss the colours.”

Spike smirked and handed over two more parcels.

“Just as well.”

Turquoise sleeveless shirt, an orange sweater twice as hairy as Spike’s beloved monster feet.  Xander laughed delightedly and pulled the sweater on.  Short interlude while Spike felt obligated to experience just how good his lover felt under a layer of fluff.  Xander handed over his next gifts.

“Herself at the store gave me a hand, too.  I think she must’ve kept us away from what we were buying each other.”

“She’s a canny old biddy.  I hope she’s on commission.”

“C’mon, open this one.  Gimme the cartoon blink and faint.”

Spike started and stopped opening the first parcel.

“That bad?”

“Different for you.”

“Ah.”

“Just do it.  Trust in the power of the Lydia.”

Spike finished tearing away the paper, unfolding and shaking out the sweater inside.  It was a faded Wedgwood blue, incredibly soft cotton, designer-tatty neckline, intended to hang as opposed to fit.  Spike smirked.

“Didn’t they do it in black?”

Xander picked up another parcel and threw it at Spike, who caught it and ripped it open, finding the same sweater but in black.

“As you would say, tou-fucking-ché.”

With a laugh Spike opened the other presents: stonewashed blue jeans, the dreaded button-fly but cut to give a little room to manoeuvre, a purple satin bathrobe… ‘I’ll look like a tart in this.’  ‘You’ll look fabulous.  And feel it against your skin.’  ‘Oh.  Right.  Right.  Now I get it.’  …a coat.  A coat?

“Oi, what’s wrong with the duster?”

“Nothing.  I just loved this.  I tried one on and it was so warm, and I like to think of you being warm, so I got you one.  I know it doesn’t work that way, I mean I know you can’t produce your own heat, but this…  Stop me babbling, try it on.”

Spike stood and let Xander slide the coat on for him.  It was cashmere, an extremely dark grey, fell just short of Spike’s ankles, and had a wide shawl collar.  No buttons; Xander overlapped the front and tied the belt.

“It is warm,” Spike said with surprise.

“It’s like it has its own warmth, isn’t that weird?  Then again it has been sitting in the warm.  But it wasn’t so warm in the shop and it still felt as warm.  Lydia explained about the material and…who am I, Dawnie?  Do I look like I’d get that stuff?”

“Not really me though, is it?”

“Well…” Xander picked his way through the minefield.  “Maybe the duster is more what you used to be, but this is more what you are now.”

“And that would be?”

“Spoilt rich kid?” Xander ventured with a grin.

Spike pulled open the coat, offering, and Xander slid inside, quickly moving in to claim a few kisses as his hands roamed the vampire’s body.

“Mmm, room for two in here.  I like it.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Xander said in a quiet growl as he pressed himself harder against the vampire.

“What d’you mean, wrong?”

“I want to fuck you.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“This much, this often?”

Xander took Spike’s hand and placed it on the bulge in his jeans; Spike obliged him with a teasingly gentle massage.

“Well, you will keep drawing when you bite me.”

“Is that what it is?  The influence of your blood?”

“You never used to draw, just bite.  A lick won’t have much affect, but a mouthful…”

“You’re full of the stuff.  No wonder you’re always horny.”

“No, you’re the reason I’m always horny.”

“I think I have to fuck you now,” Xander’s voice was rough with want and Spike loved it.  “Can I fuck you, Spike?”

“Course you can, love.  Any chance I can get out of my new coat first?”

“Everything.  Out of everything.”

“Rug burns or comfort?”

“Fuck.  Have to have you.”

Xander pushed the coat from Spike’s shoulders and left it heaped on the floor as he virtually carried Spike to the sofa, tipping him back onto it and ripping the jeans from his body.  Dropping to his knees, Xander grasped Spike’s calves and tugged until he was perched on the edge of the cushion; hot hands immediately fondled balls and pulled at the vampire’s already rigid cock.  Spike felt and watched and breathed.

“Think you’re still slick from earlier?” Xander asked as his fingers swiftly trailed along Spike’s perineum and between muscular cheeks, probing into the enticing body before Spike could string enough words together to form a sentence.  “Oh, yeah,” Xander gasped as one, then two fingers slid home, pumping and wriggling around and making Spike squirm.  “Oh, yeah, you’re gonna get fucked so hard.”  Then Spike was hissing in disappointment as the hands left him.  “You’re so beautiful, got to see you, get rid of…”  And Spike’s t-shirt was tugged off and casually hurled away.

Xander groaned at the sight before him, reaching to tease nipples into hardness, noticing moisture on his fingers from Spike’s body and pushing them into the vampire’s mouth and feeling instant suction.

“What’s that?” he grinned wickedly, stealing his hand away; Spike tried to rise after it and was shoved back into his seat.

“You.  Bit of lube but mostly you.”

Back to the fondling and pulling; Spike tried to fuck Xander’s hand, tormented when the sheath of palm and fingers went with his movements.

“Does that excite you?  Knowing you’re full of my come?”  Nod.  “And later, when we’ve got people here, you going to be thinking of me inside you and filling you up?  ‘Cause you’ll know that the minute they leave I’ll be in you again.”

“Fuck me, Xander.  Come on, now.  Now, Xander.”

Xander ran his fingers over Spike’s glans, wiping up pre-come and unhurriedly licking it off his hand before succumbing to the litany of increasingly threatening pleas.  He opened his fly, pushed his jeans and boxers down just enough to free his erection and balls.

“Want this?” he asked as he stroked himself.  Spike’s eyes shone with violent desire and his breathing was as ragged as Xander’s.  No words were necessary; Xander lined his cock up and pressed until the head disappeared into Spike’s body.  A shiver of delight travelled through Spike, along the rigid flesh joining them, and into Xander’s body.  “Gonna fuck you so hard,” Xander reiterated as the shiver waned.

Xander ran his arms under Spike’s legs and, elbows locking with knees, pulled Spike to him as he roughly thrust forward.  Spike’s arms flew over his head to grab the back of the sofa, giving himself leverage as he arched into the contact, meeting Xander as he began to pump furiously in and out of Spike’s tight opening.  All too short a time before Xander was fighting off his orgasm, fired by vampire blood and faced with the horny sight of Spike’s undulating body, wishing he was bendy enough to keep on fucking and also be able to lick up the thick strand of pre-come that hung between Spike’s glans and belly.  The thought was too much: Xander slammed into Spike, biting back a cry as he came, still fucking, transfixed as Spike’s cock spurted copiously over the pale, perfect chest and stomach, still fucking, knowing that the vampire found the sensation of Xander shooting inside him to be so erotic it would force a climax every time, knowing that and having to fuck more.

Xander finally wound down and fell still, buried inside his lover, almost sobbing with the thrill and the exertion.

“I have to draw this,” Spike told him breathily, and Xander opened his eyes to see Spike, head tilted, studying them.  “You dressed, me naked, it’s…”  Spike sighed at his lack of descriptive ability but Xander understood completely and nodded in agreement.

Xander carefully withdrew, ducking to lap up the trickle of come that emerged with him, before moving on to clean Spike’s body of every last speck of the vampire’s semen.  His lips and tongue progressed to playing with Spike’s cock, and eventually Xander let Spike tug him onto the sofa and arrange them top to tail before they set about languidly fucking one another’s mouths.

Half-an-hour later they were face-to-face with barely the energy to kiss.

“Thank you for being here,” Xander murmured sleepily.  “I’m so happy.”

“Me too.”  Perfectly true, Spike accepted, thoroughly content for the first time in…more years than he could remember.  “I love you, Xander.”

Xander simply nodded; Spike smiled, and watched him as he slept.

…

Another attempt to finish unwrapping gifts.  Spike handed Xander a small package that proved to be a jewellery box.

“You were joking about the diamond-studded dog collar, weren’t you?”

“This is more subtle.  Slightly.”

Xander gave Spike a look of faux panic then opened the box, tossing the packing foam aside.  He drew out a flat-link white gold identity bracelet: yes, subtle, and as sophisticated as an ID bracelet was ever going to get.  Xander ran his finger over the narrow name plate and gave his partner a gently sympathetic smile.

“You don’t like them calling me Alex, do you?”

“You’re Xander.  You’re my Xander.”

“Why the dots?  Why Xander dot, dot, dot?”

“Turn it over.”

Xander did, reading the back and bursting into laughter.

“Xander…belongs to Spike,” he read.  “I love it.  I do belong to you, and I love it.”

Sliding it around his wrist, he held out his arm to allow Spike to fasten the bracelet’s catch.

Two gifts left.  Xander looked at Spike anxiously before handing them over.

“These are…  They’re kinda for William.  I hope you don’t mind.”

Spike felt a peculiar stirring inside him and closed his eyes to concentrate on it, but it stopped as quickly as it had started.  He opened his eyes to see Xander’s worried face studying him.  He smiled and unwrapped the gifts.  Two hefty books: a poetry omnibus, and Victorian ghost stories.  Spike looked genuinely pleased and Xander released the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.

“Going to read them to me?”

“Umm…sure, if you like.  But I can’t do it as well as Willow.”  Xander shook off his surprise at Spike’s calm acceptance.  “Are you sure you don’t mind me thinking of William?”

“That’s me, Xan.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t mind,” Spike said firmly as he flicked through the volume of poetry.  He could feel Xander waiting and, glasses on, he flicked to the index to find the splendidly named Chidiock Tichborne, grinning as he found exactly what he was looking for and turning to the page.  He rearranged his features into something appropriately solemn, cleared his throat and read:

“My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
  My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
  And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
     The day is past and yet I saw no sun,
     And now I live, and now my life is done.

My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
  My fruit is fallen and yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
  I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
     My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun,
     And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought my death and found it in my womb,
  I looked for life and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
  And now I die, and now I was but made;
     My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
     And now I live, and now my life is done.”

“Fucking hell,” Xander muttered unhappily, “I’m taking it back.”

“You fancied more of a…  There was a young man from Nantucket, if anything moved he would…”

“Something like that.”

“Yeah, well, this kind of stuff always appealed: William was a miserable, angst-ridden bleeder.  Not as miserable and angst-ridden as this poor sod, obviously.”  Xander cautiously looked the question.  “He was executed the day after he wrote this.  Particularly nasty if I remember rightly…”

“Enough!”

“They didn’t fool around in the sixteenth century, ripped his guts out before he’d even thought of snuffing it.”

“Spike!  If this is getting you horny you’re not coming back into the bedroom for a month.”

“That’s all right, I’ll have you out here.  It’s not like you’re going to put up much of a fight in super-slut mode.”

“True,” Xander conceded with a transparently fake sigh, watching as Spike flicked through the book, following his elegant, talented fingers as they trailed over the pages.  Wasted.  They should be on me.  Shifting uncomfortably in his seat he wondered just how long the effects of vampire blood lasted.

…

Jake arrived just before two, bearing gifts and wearing a smile that could light a stadium.

“This is so good of you guys.  I didn’t mind being on my own but, y’know…”

“We know,” Spike and Xander said together.

“You didn’t do a tree.  Why no tree, Lexy?”

“Didn’t seem important.”

“Didn’t seem…!  Look, I’m going back home, get mine, bring it over…”

“You’re kidding.”

“We can get it set up by the time the others get here.”

Xander accepted that, then questioned it as quickly.

“How do you know they’re coming?”  Jake gave a knowing smile which Xander couldn’t help returning.  “Yeah, right, flocking instinct.”

“Going to give me a hand?”

“Sure.  Spike?”

“Fine, go.”

Xander went off to the bedroom to finish dressing while Spike headed for the kitchen; in the living room, Jake placed the parcels he’d brought where he guessed the tree would go before picking one up and following Spike to the kitchen.

“This is for you,” he offered when Spike turned to him.

Spike experienced a moment of complete shock.

“For me?  You got something for me?”

“It’s not a big deal, it’s nothing special.  No, I’m lying, it is special, that’s why I liked it.  I thought of you and…  Well, it’s not a big deal.”

“You thought of me,” Spike said softly, attempting to take that extraordinary fact on board.  “Why?”

“You’re family,” Jake stated simply.  Spike stared at the package in Jake’s hand, showing no signs of accepting it.  “Maybe you can open it later.”

Xander bowled in, shrugging on a battered leather jacket and straightening the collar.

“Okay, let’s…”  His attitude changed when he saw the confusion on Spike’s face and he hurried to him.  “What’s wrong?”

Spike gestured to the gift and looked to Xander with a frown.

“Jake…thought of me.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Xander asked with a smile, placing a hand on the back of Spike’s neck and pulling him close.  “You’re eminently think of-able.”  A gentle kiss and Spike’s hands clenched in the front of Xander’s shirt.  “Want me to stay?”  Shake of the head.  “We shouldn’t be too long unless we get in a real mess.  I’ve got my phone with me.”  Nod.  “Want me to stay?” he repeated in a more confidential tone.

“No,” Spike finally answered.  “I can stand here and be in shock just as easily by myself.”

“You better get used to people making a fuss.  Beth and Moira will have been making up for lost time.”

“Seriously?”

“Like I said, you better get used to it.”

…

Alone, sitting at the table, Spike turned Jake’s gift over and over in his hands before unwrapping it with a curious mix of dread and anticipation.  Within the paper was a plain, flat rectangular box.  Spike laid it down, stood and walked away in the pretence of seeing to the food, glancing continually over his shoulder at the apparently benign object.

“Bloody ridiculous,” Spike muttered to himself at the twentieth look.  “Pull yourself together and open the damn thing.  Sit, at least.  Just sit.”  Spike checked the clock to see how long Xander had been gone, hand reaching for the phone.  “Leave him alone.  Leave.  Him.  Alone.”

Spike returned to the table and sat, body language screaming as he tried to stoke up a little courage.

It took another ten minutes until Spike was ready to open the box, and for the unlife of him, he couldn’t understand why it was so difficult.  But it was with shaking hands that he prised the lid open.  Gift, harmless gift, beautiful gift, but why is he thinking of me?  As Spike picked up the antique gold and tortoiseshell fountain pen he began to breathe erratically, consciously forcing down the tumult of jumbled emotions that threatened to erupt in a chaos of laughter and tears.  The pen settled in his hand, well-balanced and comfortable.  Familiar.  He ran his fingers over the cap, knowing, but wanting proof.  Putting on his glasses and holding the pen to the light he read the engraved initials: WJE.  Letting out one brittle burst of laughter that was hastily swallowed, he placed the pen back in its box.  Then he sat and stared.  For what felt like a very long time.  He sat and stared.

At the gift William’s parents had given their son for his eighteenth birthday.

Repossession 42       Repossession Index       Repossession Notes

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