Xander spent a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon making the frame for Cora’s birthday present.  Spike sat and watched, said little as Xander measured and constructed, smoothed and waxed the wood.  Xander hummed along to the radio, enjoying the task and exploiting the benefits of all the carpentry he’d been partaking in recently.  A fairly simple frame but lovingly crafted; Xander knew Cora would appreciate that along with the gift itself.  A Spike original, he smiled to himself.

“Looking forward to tonight?” he asked Spike.

“I said I’d go,” came the ambiguous response.

“But you don’t want to?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t do anything you don’t want to, okay?”

“You’ll go.”

“Well, yeah, I know I’ll never hear the last of it if I don’t, but that doesn’t mean…”

“I want to.”

“Say it like you mean it and…I still won’t be convinced.”

Spike gave Xander an almost smile and wandered off.  Xander gave it a few minutes before following, finding Spike in the hallway, having quite the internal debate if the expressions on his face were anything to go by.  Not for the first time Xander wondered if he was arguing with himself or William.  The thought of William, and Xander’s heart rate jumped; Spike turned to look at him.

“Having a Smeagol moment?” Xander enquired lightly.

“Something like that,” Spike agreed, giving a whole smile now.

“Want to tell me about it?”

“No.”

“Is it about tonight?”

“Not directly.”

“Is it about me going tonight and putting someone other than you first?”

“Certainly not.”

“You sound just like…”  Before Xander could finish the sentence, Spike was miming taking off spectacles and polishing them with the hem of his t-shirt.  Xander laughed and strolled closer.  “Is it…”

“No.”

“Is it…”

“No.”

“So, could it be…”

“No.”

“Possibly…”

“No.”

Nose-to-nose.

“This is kind of a wild guess, but you’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“No.”

“Nobody likes you,” Xander quoted in his best Gollum voice, and Spike sniggered before turning to wander off again.  “You’re still welcome,” Xander said sincerely to his departing back.  “However you think you treated me, whatever judgement you think the family made.  They love you, they’ve missed you too.  They want to see you and know you’re okay.”  Spike stopped, listened; Xander saw his shoulders slump just a little.  “You’re still welcome,” Xander reiterated.  Spike gave a shallow nod and walked away.

…

It was such a simple question.  What are you wearing?  Spike asked and Xander held up an index finger in a one moment gesture before dashing off to get changed.

Spike proved the cartoon blink had not been lost in time when Xander returned.  A single big blink.  Followed by more.  And a single sharp inhalation.  Followed by more.

“Kind of a theme,” Xander explained as he twirled becomingly on the spot.

Deep green sleeveless t-shirt, the kilt that Patrick had now gifted to Xander, socks, boots, and the battered leather jacket.  Dark hair, now grown out of any style, was glossy and tousled.  In one ear was a chunky gold ring, recently liberated from the vampire’s body.

“I want sex,” Spike said, inwardly impressed he’d managed a string of three words, nodding briskly to emphasise the sentiment.

“Good look?  As in ‘Is this a’, rather than ‘Having a’.”

“Are you naked under there?” Spike enquired, staring pointedly at the kilt.

“I am usually naked under my clothes.”  Xander grinned.  “If anyone knows that, it’s you.”

“Oh…fuck, Xan.”

“Later.  Spike fuck Xan.  Xan fuck Spike.  Sound like a plan?”  Another brisk nod from the fixated vampire, another grin from the one-track-minded human.  “You know you’re going to have to get a kilt.”  Xander strolled to Spike and pressed close, arms sliding around his neck and tightening, bringing his ear into whispering range.  “Does something for me: the thought of you wearing one, available when I want to pull it up and fuck you on the spot.”

Spike’s hands slid over the tartan-clad backside, gradually hitching up the kilt until he could feel beneath.

“Bloody liar!”

“No.  Naked under my clothes, not under my kilt.  We’re talking about Cora, so we’re talking traditional dancing and swinging your partner and the potential for indecent exposure.”

“Hence the trolleys.  Course, she’d get more of a thrill…”

“Don’t you even think it, and more to the point, don’t make me think it!”

Spike sniggered into Xander’s neck and squeezed his buttocks hard.

“Bet she’s thought it.”

“I don’t think so.  Cora’s, like, a hundred-and-ten, Spike.”

“Hardly.  And you don’t know much about women, do you, pet?  They get worse as they get older.”

Xander pulled back far enough to shut Spike up with a kiss.  And afterwards…

“Okay, go get ready.”

“Fuck me, love, eh?” Spike coaxed, nuzzling Xander’s cheek.  “Nice quickie before we leave.”

Xander grabbed the wandering hands that were making a concerted effort to get into his nice new, extremely snug, CK trunks.

“Later.  Meantime you can just…”

“Don’t want to get ready, want to fuck.”

“Why don’t we…”

“Think about it?  Git.”

…

It was traditional that Cora’s parties were held at Patrick and Beth’s, something that made Spike feel grateful yet apprehensive.  Beth had been her usual charming self when he’d seen her in the week, but knowing how fiercely protective Patrick was of Xander, Spike wouldn’t be surprised to get a hard time from the man.  He knew he deserved less than a warm welcome after the way he’d treated his partner recently, but the family had always been…  Too good to be true.  …kind to him in the past.

Xander had brushed Spike’s unspoken but predictable concerns aside, not unkindly, but with the conviction that Spike would be greeted and accepted with the usual affection.  Something he felt obliged to point out to his partner a dozen times in the short car ride between their home and the MacDonald’s.

And now they climbed out of the car – the Jag rather than the Merc, Xander having called heads instead of tails – and strolled to the front door, Spike tensing as it was thrown open and they were given an enthusiastic reception by Patrick.  Spike hung back, feeling intensely awkward until an arm was slung around his shoulders and he was led toward the living room.

“Have to find you a kilt before next year,” Patrick was telling him.  “Cora.  Has a thing for a guy in a kilt.”

“Well, she’s got Xander.  And you.  And…just about everyone else,” Spike completed as he took in the sea of tartan and understood Xander’s earlier reference to a theme.

“She’ll be thrilled that you’re here.”  Patrick squeezed his shoulder.  “We all are.”

“Why?”

Patrick looked a little surprised but quickly recovered.

“The family should be together.”

That made everything so simple, and Spike didn’t want to question the sentiment tonight, he just wanted to feel he belonged.  Belonging mattered for some inexplicable reason, even the purest streak of demon in him seemed to recognise that, and there was the fear – always the fear – that if he screwed up with the family, he lost Xander.  Xander wouldn’t agree with that, Spike was certain, but…the fear.

Cora came and fussed over Spike, thanked him for the picture with carefully gauged affection, and spent a good half-hour discussing his work with him and arranging a formal sitting for herself before he could begin to disagree.  Spike watched over her shoulder as Rafe and Moira finally arrived and the four partners predictably gravitated together.  More than a slight twinge of jealousy and Spike wanted to be with them, beside Xander, always beside Xander.  He forced his attention back to Cora just in time to discover that he had made appointments for her and several of her friends.  As she bustled away to greet newcomers Spike looked around, quite lost.  Beth was at his side in an instant.

“I eavesdropped.”

“You did?  What have I got myself into?”

“I’ll visit and fill in the diary,” she smiled.  “Or you could be artistically temperamental and refuse the commissions.”

“I think—”

“Let me guess.  You think that Alex would like you to accept?”

“Yes.  And call him Xander.”

There was a brief, stilted pause before Beth nodded.

“Xander.”

That name from Beth’s mouth and Spike was struck with a sudden chill; he gave a shiver, and across the room Xander turned.  No way he could have heard or felt, but he knew and was immediately on his way over, taking Spike’s hands and drawing him close without a second’s concern for the people around them who would see.

“Okay?” Xander queried in a low voice.

Their experiences over the past year dictated that Spike’s immediate reaction was concern, that this small show of affection would somehow endanger Xander, but he refused to reveal that to his partner.

“Okay.”

“’Cause if you’re not you say…”

“And then you overreact.”

“I don’t…”

“If you’re going to quarrel, boys, do it outside,” Beth told them cheerfully, patting their arms and walking briskly off before choosing a side was demanded of her.

Xander watched her go then turned back to Spike.

“Not going to quarrel.”

“Good.  Because we both know I’m right.”

“But you’re not going to argue if I stay and keep you company?  In a non-overreacting, just want to be with the best-looking guy in the room kinda way?”

Spike nodded past Xander to where a couple were dithering, waiting to say hello, and Xander turned and greeted them warmly.  He introduced Spike enthusiastically as his boyfriend, all past reticence gone, and kept a hold on one hand throughout the amiable conversation that followed.  Alone again, twenty minutes later:

“Who are you, my agent?” Spike asked coolly.

“Could be.  And stop trying to be pissed with me, you love it that they want your pictures.”

“I don’t do men.”  Xander sniggered.  “I don’t draw men.”

“Family portrait, Spike.  I’ll make sure I’m around if you’re worried.  And it’s pretty cool: the big bucks.”

“Yes.  It’s…”  Too good to be true.  “…surprising.”

“You’re good.”

“Not that good.”

Xander’s expression went from pout to smirk.

“You gonna dance with me later?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Highland dancing, not so hands-on, we might not frighten the horses.”

A slow smile crossed Spike’s face as he recalled the party at New Year, Beth, Cora, Moira each taking a turn at teaching him rudimentary steps of various dances.  He was faster on the uptake than he’d let on, taking his time simply to enjoy the attention.

“If I can remember the steps I’ll dance.”

“It’ll spoil the fun if you remember the steps.”

“What if I remember them…but do them badly?”

“Nice compromise.”

A cleared throat prompted Xander to turn, and there were more people to meet, greet, and introduce.  This couple were obviously Xander’s long-standing friends and were met with noisy affection and hugs.  And then, there it was again: Spike being proudly presented as the boyfriend and accepted with warmth rather than curiosity, becoming a part of the interaction, no longer a mere observer.  The husband, Phil, confirmed it was Spike’s car outside parked in Xander’s customary spot, and launched into Jaguar worship as his wife, Karen, sided with Xander in the Mercedes camp.  Spike was forced to see the normality of this good-humoured exchange and it was with a certain amount of surprise that he saw what Xander had tried to convince him of time and again: most people were good, non-threatening, accommodating, friendly.  Not every human he met was looking at him with disgust and loathing, planning unspeakable acts of cruelty that he may or may not deserve.

Karen moved on to talk about the drawings of Patrick and Beth, explaining that she painted in watercolours before linking her arm through Spike’s and leading him away to where the portraits hung, picking his brain about the qualities of the handmade paper he’d used.  The automatic tension at her touch quickly dispersed, and Spike let himself enjoy the discussion.  Xander followed them with his eyes, constantly on alert in case he was needed.  He wasn’t.  And that delighted him.

…

Two hours later, escaping Xander’s attention for the first time that night, Spike wandered into the hall and found himself staring up the staircase, wondering.  Wondering if he’d snooped around this house before; wondering if he would be pushing his luck by doing it again.

His good humour evaporated.  It was infuriating: suspecting that he’d learnt what he needed to know but had forgotten.  It wasn’t only his memory that suffered in these surroundings.  His preternatural senses – once the sharpest in his exceedingly sharp family – were still dull, exacerbating his impression of vulnerability, stoking his frustration.  Resentment rushed through the vampire, toward Patrick, the entire family, the hold they had over Xander, his Xander, and, by association, him.  Just for a moment he wanted nothing more than to take Xander and get away, far away, to somewhere that would be solely about the two of them; the past, the now, all the pain and nonsense would be things he’d happily forget.

But he couldn’t do that.  And he wasn’t sure why he couldn’t.  No escape, even though he knew that Xander would go along with it – not happily, saying goodbye to all this – but he’d do it because there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Spike.  Spike shifted uncomfortably as he recognised fear and gave up trying to suppress it.  Big fear, this one, unsuppressible.  The notion that Xander would say no.  Despite what Spike believed, Xander might say no.  And that would strip him of every scrap of security he clung to, the thought that he didn’t come first.

Spike felt a flare of unbridled anger at such a preposterous thought, and quickly fell into the demon-whispering routine that Angel had taught him, and wasn’t that just as scary as the rest in its own perverse way?  The rage began to disperse.  Until Spike’s mind suddenly jumped to why this measure was needed in the first place.  Three living, breathing fuckers who would already be rotting in the earth if Spike was a fraction of the—  He dug his nails into the palms of his hands until he smelt blood; the threatened loss of control came and went.

Re-focus.  A step toward the stairs.  A step back.  No.  Fuck!

Turning his back on what he perceived to be his cowardice, Spike crossed the hallway and opened the front door, gazing out into the night, despising and adoring the darkness.  Fear.  Seemed impossible to remember an existence without it.  Then again it was hard to believe he could ever be so…damaged.  He tensed as he heard a soft approach, relaxed as a catcher’s mitt of a hand rested on his shoulder.  Spike let himself be drawn to Rafe’s side, accepted the kiss on the head without question.

“I didn’t phone you back,” Spike remembered.

“You weren’t expected to.  I just needed you to know we were thinking of you.”

“Patrick said I was family.  Family.  When you should all hate me.”  Quietly admitted with bare shame.

“For what?”

“Hurting Xander.”

“Lexy bounces back.”

“I hurt him.  I keep hurting him.”

“Then stop.”  Spike looked at Rafe curiously, as if he’d suggested something unimaginably profound.  “Time to take responsibility, Will.  Two choices: you control life, or life controls you.  Isn’t it about time you dug your heels in?  Stopped getting swept along?”

“Can I do that?”

“Up to you.”

“I—”  Spike started, stopped, shook his head.  Automatically started to look for Xander.

“What are you scared of?”

An involuntary chuckle broke out of Spike; he eased himself away from Rafe and stepped outside the front door.  A few more paces and Spike felt the first sparks of distress, rapidly extinguished by the sound of Rafe following.

“What aren’t I scared of?” Spike said ruefully.  “Bloody short list.”

“Why are you scared here?  Now?”  Spike shrugged, not about to reveal the tortuous thoughts that brought him to this point.  “Think anyone, anything could get past us?”

“Come off it,” Spike attempted to joke.  “If anything was after me, Jake’d bring it in and fix it a drink.”

“You think…”

“Know.   Know I’ve fucked it up with him.  He didn’t tell you about…anything?”

“Me then,” Rafe responded ambiguously.  “Think anything could get past me?”

Spike stared at the floor, hands on hips, trying to keep a steady thought and a steady voice.

“Why wouldn’t you stand aside if it came to it?”

“That doesn’t warrant an answer.”

“You don’t know me.  Maybe I…  Maybe I deserve it all.”

Rafe came close to Spike’s back, placed a hand on the nape of his neck; Spike took a sharp breath as he felt the internal lurch that was William abruptly rising to the touch.

“I know you enough.  You don’t deserve it,” Rafe insisted before adding quietly, “Makes me so mad.”  Williamy Spike leant back into the hand, and Spikey Spike wasn’t about to put up a fight.  “Tell me about the dark, Will.”

“The dark?”  Spike fought to keep the destructive memories from taking over, concentrating on the touch to his neck.  “The darkness…  It’s like…it’s like being blind.  I still live it, I know it.  One minute there’s light, the next agony and it’s dark.  Blinded, and I don’t know what’s there in the dark with me until…”  Spike brought a hand up to squeeze Rafe’s to him.  “Everything else is more, every other sense is more.  Alone in the dark and not alone, and you don’t know what next until someone’s…  Fuck.  Oh, fuck.  What they did to me.”

“It’s over.”

Spike dragged in a huge breath, forcing control upon himself.

“It’ll never be over,” he told Rafe in a rough voice.  “The world is full of evil and…  I can’t protect Xander.”

“Time.  In time.”

For once the sentiment comforted Spike, and he leant back harder, smiling weakly at the constant rolling sensation in his body and mind that was his William.

An unmeasured amount of time later, Spike felt William withdraw as Beth called them into the house.  He put the rejuvenation of his good humour down to the brief but reassuring presence of his inner self.  And why should he think any differently?

Back to where the dancing was in full swing – literally – and he looked around for Xander until he saw his partner in the midst of a badly choreographed throng.  With a surge of want, Big Bad decided to take command, and Spike strode into the melee, intent on claiming his lover.  He arrived as Xander swung around to face him, leaving them nose-to-nose as Spike caught Xander in his arms, ensuring a swift halt to his impetus.

It was…a moment.  Their eyes met and they were instantly lost in one another, oblivious to the world beyond.  A regular occurrence in private, when they mislaid hours, occasionally days in this intense, fixated state, but not something either of them would want to deliberately share with an audience.  But here, now…

They were unaware that every body in the room had fallen still with them.  Unaware of the charged atmosphere, the sense of expectation that saturated the air.  Unaware of the thick roll of energy as Patrick approached them and placed hands on their shoulders.

The moment…

Broke.

Everything rewound to normality; the music changed, and Xander turned hazily to Patrick.

“Huh?”

“Put him down, Alex.  Cora wants her dance partner and I’m authorised to break your fingers if you’re difficult about it.”

“I bow to the supremacy of the Cora,” Xander proclaimed before turning back to Spike.  “Go dance, waltz-boy.  Waltz-boy: least effective of the superheroes.”  Spike regarded him with a subtle smile and a cocked brow.  “Along with trapped-in-zipper-man, and third-degree-sunburn-woman.”

“And this is before Jake gets you hammered.”

A barrage of throat-clearing behind Spike successfully attracted his attention.

“My dance, young man,” Cora reminded him with a beaming smile.

“Right with you, love.  Wearing your steel toe-caps?”

Spike was herded away; Xander and Patrick strolled to the kitchen and a level of music more conducive to conversation.

“How is Spike?”

“Pretty good, but…  Pat, I need to talk to you about this gallery…”

“We agreed that I would handle it.”

“He’s never gonna go for it.”

“That’s for him to say.  He’s a big boy, he doesn’t need you to speak, translate or interpret for him.  When he says no I’ll take it.”

“You’ll take what?” Jake asked as he wandered in to join them.

“Alex thinks Spike will turn down the gallery,” Patrick explained before Xander could draw breath to speak.

“He’d be a fool to pass it up,” Jake commented distractedly as he took a foil from his pocket and began to unwind.

“My baby is no fool, but that doesn’t mean he can cope with a gallery,” Xander told them, taking a pill from Jake’s offered selection and swallowing it down with a gulp of beer and no thought whatsoever.

“Beth will go ahead with or without him.  Even if he says no at the outset she’ll draw him in.”

“It’d be good.  Good for him,” Jake sided with Patrick.

“Neither of you know him that well, how can you judge?”

Xander stood and listened as logic and reasonableness poured forth, all the time sighing inwardly at these poor naïve men who had no idea about dealing with an illogical, unreasonable vampire.  Eventually he held up his hands and called the conversation to a halt.

“I.  Am going to dance,” he formally announced, caught in the gradually escalating buzz from whatever he’d taken.  “Wise men stand aside when Xander dances.”

Patrick and Jake wisely stood aside and waved him through.  Jake watched Patrick watch Xander go, troubled by the less than happy face, and sensing that he was about to hear something he didn’t want to know.

“What?” Jake asked when the anticipation began to rankle.  Patrick looked at him, studied his face as if he hadn’t seen it for a long time, reached up to affectionately brush fingertips over his cheek.  “What, Paddy?”

“I have…  Fears,” Patrick confessed with an apologetic smile.

“Alex?”  When no reply was forthcoming, Jake flatly concluded, “Spike.”

“Spike,” Patrick repeated softly.

“You think…?”

“I think…  He’s going to break.”

“That really doesn’t surprise me,” Jake admitted with a sigh.  “Okay.  What do we do?”

Patrick considered.  For a full minute.  And then another.

“We let him.”

…

Early hours of the morning.  Xander danced Spike around the Jag and pressed him flat to the hood for some serious kissing before letting him up and returning to say his goodbyes to the family.   There was, Spike conceded, something rather nice about a Xander who was stoked, toked and tanked, but it didn’t make getting the wayward human into the car an easy thing; eventually Spike tackled him and manhandled him into the passenger seat, letting hot hands roam over a cool body if it kept Xander preoccupied long enough for Spike to fasten his seatbelt.

“You’ll regret that when you sober up,” Spike said as he drove the empty road home.

“Regret what?”

“Describing what you want to do with me quite so loudly and graphically in front of your friends.”

“What?  You think they think we sit and hold hands at night?”

“I think they know what we do, but don’t need to be told how much you love to stick your cock up my arse.”

“I said that?”

“That’s the toned down version.”

Xander let out a snort of laughter, caught himself, then let it go, giggling uncontrollably as his hands massaged their groins.

“I do love to stick my cock up your ass.”  Xander felt Spike’s cock jump at his words and gave it an encouraging squeeze.  “Can we go to the copse?  Can we, Spike?  Fuck in the moonlight.”

“It’s not safe.”

“I want to fuck in the moonlight.”

“You can have me in the garden.”

“Or the pool, that’s kinda moonlighty, and I love to fuck you in the pool but you already know that and I love to fuck you anywhere, everywhere and there must be places we haven’t done it yet and I want to fuck you everywhere, well, anywhere you’re happy because that matters most but I do love to fuck you anywhere, and I want to do it everywhere, can we do that?”

“Are you breathing through your ears?”

“If I could breathe through my ears can you imagine how good my blowjobs would be?”

“Your blowjobs are the best.”

“But if I could breathe through my ears, you think there’s surgery for that?”

“No.”

“That’s…that’s…that’s…homophobic.”

“I’m sure it’s unintentional, love.”

“That’s it!  I’m going into politics.  I’m going to campaign for gay men to be able to breathe through their ears.  Will you vote for me?”

“The minute they include vampires on the electoral register.”  Xander bounced excitedly until Spike’s attitude changed.  “Bloody hell, mother’s meeting.”

Xander sat still and peered through the windshield at the vampires gathered around Cedar House’s gates, waving at Bradley when the young demon stepped in front of the car.

“Stupid bugger,” Spike muttered.

“He’s better than that piece of shit, I so, so do not like him,” Xander insisted as he pointed out one of Death Wish Club who was shoving his way toward them.  “Look at that head.  He’s not a vamp, he’s a frigging Klingon.”

“They’re a menace.  I’ll get Angel to help me clean them out.”

“Even Brad?”

“Especially him.  He started this.”

“He’s chairman of the fan club and you’re going to dust him?”  At that moment the Klingon punched Bradley aside and dared to lean on the Jag’s hood.  “Spike, Spike!  Does that make him the shit that hit the fan?” Xander giggled drunkenly.

“Hold on, love,” Spike directed, and as Xander hands found the edge of his seat and gripped, Spike revved the car, reversed sharply, muttered the protection spell before putting his foot down and ploughing through the vampires, sending them scattering or plunging under the wheels.  The moment the gates opened wide enough Spike raced through, tyres squealing on the drive as he hit the brakes.  “I’m going to have a word or three with those tossers.  You stay here or you go into the house, you don’t follow me.  All right?”

“Hey!  High, not stupid,” Xander protested.

“Yeah.  Sorry.”

Spike leant over for a quick kiss then went to confront the small crowd at the gate.  As he approached, the Klingon made a show of leaping at him, underestimating the power of the ward until he was disintegrating in a shower of sparks.

“Wow!  Go Willow, go Willow, go Willow…” Xander chanted as he danced in his seat and drummed a beat on the roof of the car.

He wound down the window and strained to hear what was being said.  Something from one of the vamps about needing Spike.  The ‘Be our Master’ thread, Xander presumed.  And now…  Spike was getting into the usual, telling them that he wasn’t likely to give up this life - give up his Consort - for a slice of their paltry existence, and using the incredibly patient voice that usually indicated he was incredibly irritated.

There was sudden flurry of activity that Xander scrambled from the car to view, watching his lover methodically batter and dust a couple of the more aggressive hecklers, becoming decidedly horny at the sight of Spike in action and wishing that it was possible for him to come and fuck Xander on the hood of the car, right under the noses of the unfortunate wannabes.  A last dusty explosion and Spike was on his way back at a casual pace; still game-faced, and Xander’s knees almost buckled as the golden eyes fixed on him.

“Inside,” Spike said firmly as Xander began to reach for him, knowing his partner well enough to predict his wholly predictable plan.

“Not yet.”

“I refuse to give them a show.”  When I can’t fuck you and they’ll know it.

“But me.  On my knees.  Showing due deference to my master,” Xander coaxed.

“You making a statement of ownership and the answer’s no.  Get inside now.”

Xander tried the puppy-eyes and the finely-honed pout, but to no avail.  He was herded indoors and into the kitchen, sat down at the table while Spike set about making a bucket of coffee to sober him up.

Repossession 77       Repossession Index       Repossession Notes

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