Two in the morning.  Spike lay watching Xander sleep, listening to the smooth sounds of his breathing, oiled by a few more mouthfuls of blood.  Spike loved it: the feeding.  Once his initial panic over the act had worn off it had become something he looked forward to and revelled in.  It had kept him close to Xander at a time when the human’s condition forced rejection upon him.  And he had saved his life.  He’d saved Xander’s life.  Not bad for a worthless, pointless, pathetic waste of space.  My version of redemption?  It was also incredibly sensual and Spike got harder, a little closer to orgasm, every time it happened; when Xander was well enough there’d be no more voyeuristic pleasure gained from watching as Xander gave in to the basest physical sensations when he took Spike’s blood, he’d be there writhing and gasping with him.  They could come together now even if their only physical contact was Xander’s lips on Spike’s wrist.  Get well soon, Xan, and we can give it a go.  Play with it.  The thought of them being so sensitive to one another…

Spike shook off the thoughts, considered doing something with the erection they’d instigated, felt bad doing it without Xander.  Who, to Spike’s selfish delight, was waking up.

“What’s wrong?” came the drowsy murmur.

“Nothing, love, you go back to sleep.”  No, don’t, stay with me, be with me.

“You’re breathing.”

“And that woke you?” Spike grinned.

“Why’re you breathing?  You okay?”

“Course I’m okay.  Thinking about you and getting horny as hell, that’s all.”

“Yeah?” Xander smiled.  “Well…why don’t you have a nice wank?”  Xander wouldn’t even attempt the accent but he could take off Spike’s delivery perfectly.  Spike laughed and loved.  “I mean it,” Xander said, voice soft but intense.  “Do it.  And let me taste you.  Want to lick your fingers.”

Spike’s breathing grew heavier.  Oh, yes: Xander Harris and unmitigated lust.

“Xander, I don’t think…”

“Hey, I know I can’t do anything, but…you can.  I want you to.  Think about me.  You don’t even have to tell me what you’re thinking if you want to get off on blood and violence.  Just do it.  And let me lick your fingers.”

“Gimme your hand.”

Beneath the covers Spike reached across to Xander, taking his hand as he slid closer, angling himself so that Xander’s hand rested naturally on his cock.  Spike drew a sharp, needy breath as Xander lightly squeezed, rubbed his thumb over the head.

“You feel good,” Xander murmured appreciatively.  “But I don’t have the strength to…”

“I do.”  Spike wrapped his hand over Xander’s, tightening their grip and slowly gyrating his hips, fucking the joint fist.  “Your hand on me,” Spike whispered.  “Xander’s hand on me.  At last.  I’ve missed you.  Missed you.”

Spike’s voice was light yet full of pain and Xander felt the customary guilt, knowing he was a very bad person despite what he was always being told to the contrary.  Knowing that he didn’t deserve this much love and consideration but greedily wanting it and more.  Low whine in Spike’s throat as he picked up a little speed, still holding back because Xander was fragile, but Xander knew what he wanted for Spike, what he had to have for himself.

“No,” he told Spike; the vampire immediately let go of his hand and jerked back, completely breaking contact and taking a few deep breaths.  Xander’s hand followed him.  “I didn’t mean…  I want more.”

“You can’t do more, Xander.”

“But you can.”

“What?” Spike asked suspiciously.

“Want to taste you.”

“Yes, but—”  Excitement surged and was forced down.  “You mean…?”

“Find a way.”

“No.  You’re hurting and it’d be wrong and I shouldn’t…”

“But you want to.”

“Of course I bloody want to!  Course I do.”

“Then do it.  C’mon, Spike.  For me, it’s really just for me,” Xander cajoled.

“I’m not an idiot, Xander, I know I’d be doing it for me.”

“Then do it for you for me.”

“Xander…” Spike growled, unsure and lustful, possessive and wanting to stake his claim.

“If I move down the bed a bit…”

“Don’t move.  Don’t try to move.”

“Then move me.”

Spike prevaricated, trying to see past the mental picture of his cock sliding between Xander’s lips.  Nope, couldn’t do it.  Now the suggestion had been made it was all he wanted.  Xander was watching him closely in the half-light, face beautiful in its open expectancy, and Spike had no choice but to lean in and kiss him, keep kissing him until he groaned and broke away and demanded to have his mouth fucked.

Spike studied their set-up: he didn’t want to move Xander’s one big ache of a body at all if he could help it.  What the hell, he was a very flexible vampire.  Up the bed and straddling Xander at shoulder level, feeling the pleasantly mean burn of the muscles in his thighs as he found an optimum bj position that put no weight or strain on his human at all, dipping forward, one hand gripping the top bar of the headboard as the other grasped his erection and pressed it down until it barely touched Xander’s mouth, watching spellbound as a drip of pre-come glossed Xander’s bottom lip.  He let his cock go so he could see Xander lick it away.  Swallowed with him.  Shuddered.  An emotional, nonsensical noise from Xander before he rediscovered language.

“Please.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.  I’m good.  Just don’t take long.”

Spike snorted.

“No danger of that.”

He forced his erection down again until Xander was lapping at his glans; hot hands cupped his backside, weakly urging.  He understood and obliged.  Another slight adjustment and the head of Spike’s cock slid into Xander’s mouth; Xander’s hum of satisfaction buzzed through the vampire’s erection and Spike smiled as he gently rocked, transfixed by the erotic image below him, the sheer contentment on Xander’s face.  I could come from watching.  So lovely, so beautiful, so damned fucking sexy, so…mine.  If he so much as looks at me…

Xander looked.

…

“Want to tell me about it?”

“It?”

“Whatever made you so desperate to have me like that.”

“Just…wanted you.”  There was a long pause.  Spike wasn’t buying that particular answer and Xander knew it.  “I got kissed,” he finally admitted in a tiny voice.

“You got kissed,” Spike repeated flatly.

“I got kissed.”

Another long pause, during which nothing on Earth could persuade Xander to take a look in the vampire’s direction.

“And how exactly did that happen, Xander?”

Xander quailed at the cold tone, knew he should have kept the kiss to himself but still didn’t want to, regardless of whatever trouble it got him into.

“I was at a party.”

“I see.”

“And…umm…I guess I was drinking too much.”

“Drinking.”  Spike hadn’t forgotten Christmas and it was about time he had his suspicions confirmed.  “What else?”

“I may have been a bit…high.”

“Okay,” Spike said after another long spell of brittle silence.  “Did you…  He or she?”

“He.”

“Did you want him?”

“No!  No, I didn’t!  I was too drunk and doped up and too slow to get out of the way and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“He took advantage?”

“He didn’t know he was.  I was…I was oblivious, that’s what you say, oblivious, and you’re right, and I should’ve noticed he was interested and put him off but I didn’t and it was my fault.  It was my fault.”  Xander waited for the big reaction, because how could there not be a big reaction after he’d betrayed his partner in such a stupid way?  But Spike was silent, still, and for such a long time that Xander thought he’d fallen asleep.  “I’m sorry,” he tried again.  “It was my birthday and I was feeling sorry for myself.  I didn’t have you and I know that was my fault too and I was trying to get stoned enough not to care.  Didn’t work.”

“Did you come home alone?  I’m presuming you came home.”

“Yes, I came home, I came home with Jay.  Safe with Jay.”  Xander felt Spike stir and hoped he was turning toward him, but after a few seconds he risked a glance to confirm that Spike had turned away.  Xander’s heart sank.  “I was so unhappy, Spike…”

The covers were thrown back and Spike was up, dressing.

“I don’t want to hear this.”

“Please, Spike, I never meant it to happen and it was only…”

“Don’t give me ‘it was only’.  No kiss is ever ‘only’.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I just want…”

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

Spike stormed out of the room and was halfway to the stairs when he heard Xander’s voice again, so wretched that it halted him in his tracks.

“Please.  Please don’t leave me alone again.  Don’t let me be alone.”

‘Xander is more important than your pride.’

Spike knew that.  But he hurt.  He hurt.  He was petty and possessive enough to be mad that someone had touched Xander to cut his hair, so this…  The spitefulness it brought out in him made him want to hurt Xander in return, but walking away right now was more than hurtful.  It was cruel and destructive.  Xander had been through enough; he didn’t deserve more.  Spike accepted this but sometimes it was so fucking hard being a good person, a better person, when deep inside he knew he wasn’t good at all.  He leant against the wall for a few minutes, deliberately emptying his mind, letting William calm and soothe him and take away the urge to retaliate.  Now William forced him to listen to the sound of Xander’s breathing, the pain it reflected, the physical pain.  Spike suddenly figured out how long Xander had been without medication, pushed away from the wall and hurried back to the bedroom, straight to the supply of drugs on Xander’s cabinet.

“Why didn’t you say?” he muttered crossly.  “You only have to ask and I’ll…”

Spike injected a dose of Xander’s painkillers via the IV.

“You gonna forgive me or do I have to beg?  Because I will beg.”

“Quiet, love.  Give this a chance to work.  Won’t be long.”  Keeping a close eye/ear on Xander, Spike undressed and got back into bed.  It didn’t take long before the human’s breathing eased and the trembling stopped.  “Don’t let it get so bad again.  You tell me, all right?  Even if I’m not in the room, you call for me and I’ll hear.”

“Kinda crept up on me.”

“That type of pain?  I doubt it.  Were you…punishing yourself?”

“No.”

Spike threw Xander a look of high scepticism that Xander chose not to see.

“Anyway.  It was bad of me not to remember and I’ll try not to let it happen again.  I wasn’t thinking.  Well, not about your drugs.  The only thing I can think about when you’re sucking my cock is you sucking my cock.”

“Can I do it again?”

“What do you think?”

“Now?”

“No, Xander, not now!  When the doctor said plenty of fluids I hardly think that’s what she meant.”

Yet more silence.  Xander’s hand tentatively crept across to Spike, and he took a sharp breath as the vampire’s hand suddenly seized his.  The tight hold gradually loosened, Spike’s thumb stroking across Xander’s.

“There will be rules, Xander,” Spike told him firmly but not unkindly.

“Okay.”

“For both of us.”

“Okay.”

“Because I threw myself at Angel, offered him anything he wanted if he’d find the bastards who hurt you and kill them.”

Beat.

“Okay.”

“It’s not okay”

“Yes, it is.  Unless it was an excuse to…”

“It was not an excuse for anything, so don’t start.”

“I can understand it.  I asked him to get rid of the Initiative, didn’t I?”

“But you didn’t offer…  Did you?”

“No.  Maybe I would’ve if that’d been what he wanted, if that’d been what it took.”

“Not in a million years.”

“Well, fine, you got me there.  But I didn’t need to do anything: he’s a pushover where you’re concerned.”

“Where we’re concerned.  He’s been knocking himself out trying to find those shits.”

“But he hasn’t?  Found them.”

“No.”

“You going to tell me what happened to me?”

“Not yet.”

Xander used his hold on Spike to draw him a little closer, relieved when there was no resistance.

“I don’t remember anything, Spike.  You think that’s normal?”

“Doctor seemed to think so, didn’t she?  Memory might come back, might not.  Forgetting could be the best thing.”

“You wish you could forget?”

A short, humourless laugh.

“Oh, yeah.  I wish.”

“I want to hold you.”

Spike released Xander’s hand and carefully slid alongside him, settling onto his chest and releasing a contented sigh as Xander’s arms encircled him.

“My love.  My Xander.”

“Does this mean you’ve forgiven me?”

“Probably.”

Xander smiled.

“Thank you.”

“I said probably.”

“I know what you said.  I’ll never let it happen again, I promise.”

“Rules.”

“Rules are good,” Xander accepted, happy with the idea of parameters if Spike set them.  “Tell me.”

“No fucking around.”

Xander waited for more.

“That it?”

“For now.  No fucking around and no…”  Not now, not now, oh, you just have to, don’t you.  “No cutting yourself.”  Spike felt Xander’s shock at being caught out; the body beneath his tensed and it appeared to have forgotten that breathing was meant to be an involuntary reflex.  “We don’t have to talk about it, Xander, not unless you want to.  But it stops.”

Xander figured out the necessity-of-oxygen thing and took a hurried breath.

“You’re here now,” he said as if that encompassed, explained, answered, reassured, and Spike accepted that maybe it did.  But it wasn’t a promise not to do it again.

Xander’s mind drifted for a while and ended up exactly where Spike would have predicted.

“What did he say?  What did Angel say?”

There was a brief moment when Spike contemplated getting back at Xander for his indiscretion.  Very brief.  Warm and close and held was better.

“That he didn’t need to be bribed to take care of his family.”

“That’s…nice.”

“I thought so.  He’s an interesting one, this Angel.  Reinvented himself for the whatever-it-is time and I think he’s got it right.”  Pause for thought.  “Then again, maybe I find him easier to deal with because I’m easier to deal with.”

“You’re great,” Xander murmured.  “You’re great and I love you.”

“I know that.  The you love me bit.”

“And I’m sorry…”

“You made a mistake and that’s okay, I’ll deal with it.  You made a mistake but you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You still mad?”

“Like I said, I’ll deal with it.  It’s high time I learned to handle illogical mad and keep the spleen-venting for the logical variety.”

Spike spread himself a little further over Xander, listening for sounds of strain or pain, relaxing when none were forthcoming and committing himself to some intensive snuggling.

“I smell of the hospital,” Xander read Spike’s mind.

“If I’m allowed to, I’ll give you a bath in the morning after the doctor’s called.”

“That’d be good.  Or should I be objecting?  Like…I’m thirty, I can take a bath by myself?”

“You can try objecting.  If you feel the need to make a macho stand.  Won’t do you any good.”

“You going to share with me?”

“If you like.”

“I like.”

“Spike…  All that time away.  Why didn’t you get in touch?”

Spike chuckled.

“Xander, love, you are not going to believe this…”

…

The doctor came the next morning, checked Xander over, pronounced himself cautiously satisfied with his progress and removed catheter, drains, everything but the IV.  He forbad the bath for a few more days so Spike spent a good couple of hours gently cleaning and massaging Xander as he drifted in and out of sleep.

“Can you give me a shave?”

“You don’t need it, you’re superbly pruned.  Might try my hand at topiary next.”

“I want this off.”

“But I like it.”

“It’s Alex.  The goatee is Alex.  Not Xander.”

Beat.

“I’ll do it now.”

Mid-afternoon, Spike gave Xander the laptop and left him to read everything – all the letters from LA, and the journal he’d kept during Xander’s time in hospital.  In the kitchen, preparing a meal for the family and thin soup for the invalid, Spike listened carefully as his partner commented, laughed and cried his way through the laptop’s memory, cringing empathically with Xander’s pain as the reactions grew too enthusiastic for his delicate body.  Eventually there was a long silence as Xander took in everything he’d read.

“I’m such a fool,” Spike heard eventually, knowing that Xander was speaking to him despite the distance.  “You told me once that I was scarred by my own stupidity.  You were right.”  Another long silence.  “Please help me to stop being stupid.”

Spike dropped what he was doing and was up the stairs in seconds, on his knees beside Xander before the human was aware he was in the room.  Spike pressed his face into Xander’s neck.

“Love you, Xander.”

“Fuck knows why.”  Feeling the pull, Xander tilted his head so Spike had better access, happy to be marked by this extraordinary creature, disappointed by the lack of physical reaction but understanding that he was too drugged to respond.  He reached up and stroked his fingertips through Spike’s hair…  “Love you, sweetheart.”  …smiling at Spike’s low sensual growl at the use of the endearment.  “Can you help me?”

“Help you?”

“Stop being stupid.”

“If you stop being stupid you won’t love me anymore,” Spike said against his skin, making him shiver.

“Not true.  I still don’t honestly understand it, but that’s the smartest move I ever made.”

…

Xander’s family came, ate, fussed over Xander, fussed over Spike, fussed over Xander some more, and went; Xander spent an hour on the phone with Willow, a while longer with Buffy and Dawn.  Just before eleven, to Xander’s surprise, or possibly his shock, Spike’s family showed up on the doorstep.  Well, the relatively sane half of the family.  A tap on the bedroom door.

“Can I come in, Xander?”

“Umm…yeah.  Hi.”

Angel came into the room, looked around, focused on the picture of waiting-to-see-Spike-come Xander on the wall that Xander suddenly, desperately wished he’d remembered to get Spike to take down.

“Nice,” Angel said with that provocative, lop-sided smile.

Great.  I lived through that attack just to die of embarrassment.

“Didn’t expect to see you.”  Angel looked at Xander, visually assessed him, took a deep breath and scented him, listened to his body and basically freaked him out.  “Where’s Spike?”

“Sorry.  I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Spike?”

“I brought some blood with me, he’s putting it in the freezer.  Says his supply is better.”

“You drinking human blood now?”

“Does that bother you?”

“No.  That’s all Spike has here.”  Xander didn’t want to ask but had to.  “Yours always come in a bag?”

“More often than not.”

“What about the less often?”

“It’s not your concern, Xander.  You must know you’re perfectly safe?”

“Perfectly,” Xander accepted, despite feeling a) like prime demon food, and b) way too naked under the covers.  Hadn’t he read that?  Heard it in a film?  Never meet an enemy without your pants on.  He so got that now, not that Angel was an enemy, although he couldn’t exactly call him a…

“Xander?”

“Sorry?”

“Is it okay if I sit down?  Or would you like me to go?”

“No.  Yes.  One of those.  Sit down.”

Angel surprised/shocked Xander again by sitting on the edge of the bed, too, too close, compounding the reaction by taking Xander’s hand.  Xander managed not to eep outwardly but his inner eep was positively reverberating.

“Xander…  I want to know who did this to you.”

“I – I don’t remember.”

“Are you sure?  Because, as you rightly pointed out not so long ago, I don’t have the scruples I once had.  I want to…deal with these people.  You’re family, Xander.  Nobody fucks with my family and gets away with it.  Not anymore.”

Fucking hell, he’s scary up close.  Buffy sleeps with this?  Without nightmares?

“I really don’t remember.  I’d tell you if I knew anything.”

“Because if you’re waiting for Spike to get the chip neutralised, offer him the chance of retribution…”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”  Angel studied Xander’s hand, stroked it with incongruous tenderness.  It was more unsettling than any amount of growling and snarling.  “Can you not do that?” Xander quietly requested.

Angel carefully put the hand back where he’d got it from.

“Sorry.”  Then he was up and moving to the unshuttered window, staring out over the moonlit garden.  “How are you feeling?”

“I ache.  But I’m okay.”

“Alive.”

“Alive.  Has a nice ring to it.”  Xander studied Angel’s back for a while before asking: “Why are you here?”

“To check up on you and Spike.  I’ve been worried about you both.”

“We’re okay,” Xander assured, but Angel had started to prowl.

“I want the men who harmed you, Xander,” he muttered in a low voice.  “We were cheated before.”

“You mean…the Initiative?” Xander suggested cautiously.

“When we found out what had happened to Spike…  They were let off far too easily.”

“I know.  But it’s done.  I was – am glad.”  Angel stopped his pacing.  “You don’t think—”  Angel looked away with an awkward shrug.  Xander deliberated.  “You think you let me – us – down?”  Angel paced again, back and forth, reminding Xander of some great beast driven to the edge of insanity by enforced captivity.  “No, you didn’t.  Not then.  And you’re not letting me down now.  Angel…”

“I’m tired of people screwing me around.  Messing with my family.  They have to learn, Xander.  They will learn.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Xander was reminded by the deepening ache in his body how much he was tensing up and tried to relax, taking a couple of breaths but unable to fill his lungs without pain.  He released a noise that was more about frustration than discomfort, but Angel responded immediately.

“Xander?”

“Get Spike.”

Angel was gone and Spike arrived in less than a minute.

“What’s wrong, love?”

“I’m sore.”  Spike glanced at the clock; Xander saw the indecision settle on his features.  “Too soon?”

“A bit.  Can you hang on for another hour?”

“Yeah.  Guess I can.”

“You haven’t given him enough blood,” came Angel’s voice from the doorway.  “I told you at the hospital…”

“I’ve had to be careful,” Spike explained with the forced patience of someone who’d explained the same thing a hundred times.

“He shouldn’t still be in pain.”

Spike turned to his grand-sire with a snarl.

“How often have I sat with Xander, listening to his heart beating a tattoo and hoping that it wasn’t going to give up because of my blood?”

“He’s strong enough now…”

“No!  It’s easy enough for you to be bold with his life, you don’t treasure it.  Now, fuck off.  Fuck off before I make you.”

“Spike, Spike,” Xander called his vampire back to him before hostilities could truly break out.  Spike came to him and took the offered hand, let himself be pulled down to sit beside Xander.  “You got it right, Spike.  And you’re still right.  I’m getting better, I’m gonna be fine.  I trust you to look after me.  I do.”

Spike was calmed by Xander’s soft words, and he dipped to nuzzle his partner’s hair.

“Never take risks with you.”

“I know.”  Xander turned his attention to Angel.  “You here for long?  Because you’re welcome to stay but you don’t give Spike a hard time, understand?”

Xander waited, studying the inscrutable expression on Angel’s face.  Which broke into the wonky smile.

“I understand perfectly.”

And he wandered out of the bedroom and away.

“Man, he gives me the creeps sometimes.”

“He means well,” Spike admittedly grudgingly.  “He’s just a bit demented when it comes to the family front.  You know everyone’s gone?” Spike asked gingerly.  Xander nodded, tried not to think about what that meant.  “He gave up redemption for revenge.”

“I made it worse, didn’t I?  Asking him for help after you were hurt?”

“Maybe.  Didn’t take much persuading though, did he?  What’s left but us?”

“Oh, shit, this is terrible.  The last thing I want is to feel sorry for Angel.”

“Then don’t.  But, Xander, look, you’re good with deranged vampires, give him a break.”

“Coming from the guy who was just telling him to fuck off.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Not everyone’s gone.  Dru’s…somewhere.  Cordelia’s…  Giving up that address over my dead body.  …somewhere else.  He has Buffy,” Xander volunteered eagerly, hoping to make himself feel a little better.  “He still has Buffy.”

“You never learn, do you?  No-one ever has Buffy.”  Memories of the Spike/Buffy fiasco; pang of the green grimbles and Xander turned his head away.  Spike turned it back and traced his mouth with a fingertip before leaning in for a kiss.  “Don’t be jealous of the past.”

“You loved her.”

“It wasn’t real; hardly my finest hour so shut up about it.”

Spike carried on with the light kisses and nuzzling until Xander capitulated.

“I’ll try to be nice to Angel.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Xander groaned.

“Can you fetch me something?”

“Anything, love.”

“Something solid to bang my head against.  A wall will do.”

Repossession 54       Repossession Index       Repossession Notes

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