NOTHING
IS FOREVER 5
by
flaming
muse
Xander's cell phone rang somewhere in the midst of the disaster area that was
his new apartment, and he dug through the piles of boxes and bags to find it.
Finally he located it under a rolled-up area rug, and he flipped it
open.
"Alexander Harris."
"I'm so sorry to bother you, Mr.
Harris," came the voice of Cassie, his new assistant, from the tiny speaker. "I
know you're moving in today, but the main office just called and said that
there's some paperwork you need to sign ASAP."
"First of all and not for
the first time, please call me Xander." He checked his watch and then brushed
his sweaty hair back from his forehead. "Secondly, I've got some furniture being
delivered within the next hour, if they can be trusted *this* time with their
estimate, and I can't get over there anytime soon. Can you send someone over
with them?"
"Right away. I'm really sorry to bother you."
"I'm
moving into a new apartment on a horrible rainy day with no phone hookup, an
elevator that has stopped working twice today for no reason, a superintendent
who doesn't seem to want to fix it, and a furniture delivery that is four hours
late. A couple of signatures is no problem at all. You have my new
address?"
"Yes, sir."
"Great. Thanks, Cassie."
Xander hung
up his phone and shoved it in the pocket of his ratty jeans. There was no sense
in losing it all over again.
He was back in the bedroom trying to shove
his garment bags full of clothes into the cramped closet when there was a knock
on the apartment door.
"Come in!" he yelled, struggling to get the
tangled hangers to hook onto the already sagging wooden bar. Since he had gone
into management, he had had to purchase dozens of suits, shirts, and slacks, and
it looked frighteningly likely that they would be too much for the cheaply-built
closet.
"Another thing I'll have to fix," Xander muttered, stuffing the
bags inside and pulling the hinged door shut. The knob came off in his hand, and
he questioned for not the first time the wisdom of taking an apartment because
of its proximity to his work and not because of its amenities. He tossed the
knob onto the ground next to the closet. "Tomorrow."
"I would have
thought that years of life in Sunnydale would have taught you never to invite
just anyone into your home," a voice drawled from the doorway.
There
stood Spike, calm and collected in a button-up black shirt and jeans. His
duster, the one that he had worn for so many years, was somewhat damp but in its
proper place on his lean frame. He looked as perfectly composed as Xander felt
sweaty and rumpled.
"I thought you were the furniture delivery people,"
Xander said stupidly. He wiped the sweat from his eyes with the sleeve of his
faded Sunnydale High t-shirt.
"As you see, I am not," said Spike.
*Spike*, who was in his apartment, in the doorway to his bedroom, talking to
him.
"What are you doing here? Isn't it day? Not that the whole sunlight
thing ever seemed to stop you from going wherever you wanted,
but..."
"Have you looked outside? It's raining so hard I thought about
taking an ark. And I came over because I have things for you to sign." Spike
reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled out a roll of
papers.
"Shit, Cassie asked *you* to be her courier?"
"Well, the
paperwork is for me, so this way I can take them back to the restaurant with me
and fax over the copies to your boss for his records."
"Right. Let me
find a pen." Xander managed to tear his eyes away from the remarkably
aesthetically-pleasing sight of Spike in his doorway and looked around at the
chaos. "Uh... it might take a minute."
"Here." Spike pulled a slender
silver-colored pen from an inner pocket of his duster.
"Wow, that's
nice," Xander said as he accepted it. He unrolled the papers against the wall
and scrawled his signature in the marked spaces.
Spike shrugged and
leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb.
"I nicked it from some bloke I
ate back in the 80s. Hasn't given me any trouble. Not like him; he screamed
bloody murder... well, until the actual bloody murder."
Wrinkling his
nose, Xander flipped to the next page that needed his signature. He guessed from
the overly bland tone of Spike's voice that he was just trying to get a rise out
of him. The thought that Spike was willing to put even that much effort into the
conversation made a warm little ball of something form in his
stomach.
"Are all of your possessions trophies?" Xander asked. "Coat,
pen..."
"Nah. If I like something then I stick to it. See no need to
change."
"Hence the bleach and leather look decades past the
seventies."
"As I said, if it works..."
Xander handed the papers
and pen back to Spike.
"Sorry to drag you over here for that," he said.
"Especially since it's kind of your sleep time, right?"
Spike shrugged
again.
"I was up."
"Still keeping weird hours?"
"I don't
need much sleep."
"Yeah, you never did," said Xander. "Hey, I got a
letter from..."
"So, new place?" Spike asked quickly. "I like the
decoration. Very chaotic-minimalist. I hear it's a big trend in New
York."
Xander laughed and allowed the conversation to be turned away from
things past. Anything to keep Spike there. Xander's fingers itched to touch him,
to confirm that this vision in black leather was really in his apartment, but he
forced himself to be calm.
"Thanks. I'm calling it
tornado-chic."
Spike smirked and nodded back toward the living room. "It
does have that cows-and-trailers-hurtling-through-the-air look. Need more
manure, maybe."
"I'll keep that in mind. God, I'll be glad for the couch
and the bed when today is over; I'm already exhausted, and I really don't want
to sleep on the floor."
"Besides that, it's easier to seduce the ladies
when there's a bed to fall into. You've got to have priorities,
mate."
Xander laughed again, this time more nervously.
"I'm not
big on seducing the ladies," he said.
"What? Don't tell me you can't find
any more demons to show an interest in you. You're employed, not entirely
repulsive to look at, and you don't smell nearly so bad as you used
to..."
Xander flipped Spike the finger and returned his
grin.
"Actually," he said, using the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat
from his face, "it's kind of funny, but it turns out that I'm not so big on the
ladies at all, demon or otherwise."
As he released the shirt to fall back
over his stomach, he met Spike's gaze, and his mouth went completely dry. For
just a moment, there was a flash of *something* in Spike's eyes, something dark
and primitive and very, very compelling, and then the smirking veneer fell back
into place.
"Is that right?" Spike asked, examining his nails. Xander
noticed that they were unpolished but were bitten to the quick.
"Yeah.
And how I figured it out is a funny story that I *so* won't be sharing right
now."
"Well, I imagine blokes like a nice bed, too."
"Actually,
I've found that we're not nearly so picky," said Xander with a weak grin. He
desperately wanted to get off of this topic of conversation, but he didn't want
to say the wrong thing and end the uneasy conversation entirely.
Spike
just raised an eyebrow.
"Uh... I mean, we seem to be less bothered by
icky substances and unromantic settings. We're more... uh... practical, I
guess."
Xander wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed when his
cell phone rang and interrupted his ramble.
"Just a sec," he said to
Spike as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. "This had better be the delivery
guys."
It was indeed the delivery guys, and they were extremely annoyed
to find that the elevator in Xander's building was out of order.
"If
you'd gotten here a couple of hours earlier it would have been working," Xander
snapped after a few minutes of whining. "Just take the stairs. It's only three
flights."
He ended the call and shoved the phone into his
pocket.
"Was it really working earlier?" Spike asked.
"The
elevator? Off and on. So it might've been."
"And you're going to make
them carry a sofa up to the fourth floor?"
"Yep. And my bed. They're
nearly five hours late, with no explanation or apology. Want to have a beer and
watch?"
Spike looked around the room and then back at him. His surprise
was evident.
"You've got beer?"
"I may like to fuck guys, Spike,
but I am still a man. I have no dishes, no furniture, and no phone, but I do
have beer."
Spike blinked and nodded.
"Right, then. On to the
entertainment."
The deliverers, knowing full well that they were at fault
and perhaps a bit cowed by the tone of Xander's voice, began the slow process of
lugging the furniture up to Xander's apartment.
Spike and Xander leaned
against the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room and watched
for the first few trips, but Xander's inherent kindness soon overcame his
annoyance and he pitched in to help get the bulky king mattress up the
stairs.
Even Spike shrugged off his coat and helped when the movers had
trouble getting the couch around the corner of the hallway and into the
apartment. He took the weight of the sofa with ease and lifted up his end high
enough that they could make the turn.
"Thanks for that," Xander said
somewhat breathlessly after the delivery guys finally left. "I don't think we
would have gotten the couch in here without you."
"I was worried that I'd
never be able to leave if you lot got it stuck in the doorway."
"Yeah,
and I don't even have cable yet." Xander wandered into the kitchen and opened
the refrigerator. "Want another beer?"
"Wouldn't say no. At least there's
a place to sit now."
"I'm afraid to try it. I might not get back up
again." He twisted the caps off of the bottles and handed one to Spike over the
counter.
"It looks..."
Xander's phone rang again, and he set down
his beer.
"Sorry," he said. "It's probably Cassie. I'll just be a sec.
Why don't you try out the couch?"
Spike wandered over to the sofa, which
currently sat kitty-cornered by the front door in the only clear bit of floor,
and lowered himself down onto the deep, molasses-colored cushions. He sat at the
edge for a moment and then leaned back comfortably and spread his arms along the
rear cushions.
It took a second for Xander to remember what he was doing
as he took in the graceful, black-clad figure reclining on his couch. Spike
looked totally relaxed and absolutely, unquestionably
fuckable.
*Fuckable? No, no, not fuckable. He's *Spike*. Okay, yes, he's
drop-dead gorgeous, but he's also actually dead. And, you know, doesn't want
anything to do with me. And he's probably still in love with Buffy. And
he's...*
The phone rang again in his hand, and Xander turned away
slightly before he flipped it open.
"Alexander Harris."
"Hey,
Xander! Is your apartment all homey yet or are you still in the disaster
phase?"
The sound of Willow's voice made Xander grin, but he lost the
expression nearly before it could reach his lips as he saw Spike stiffen out of
the corner of his eye. The vampire's lips lost their slight smile, and he rose
swiftly to his feet.
Without a word, Spike placed his bottle on the
counter and grabbed his coat.
"Wait, you don't have to...," Xander said,
but Spike was already over the couch in a fluid leap and out the
door.
"I'm sorry, Xander, am I interrupting? Do you have someone there?"
Willow asked.
"No, I..."
"Do you have friends helping? Or maybe
someone special? It is someone special? I can call back tomorrow. Or next week?
Do you want me to call back next week?"
"It's okay. He left. There's no
one here now."
"But there *was* someone there?" Willow asked. He could
hear her smiling and knew that she'd be poking him in the arm if she were
there.
"Yeah, but..."
"I knew that Boston would be a good place
for you to meet people. Is he cute?"
"Willow! It was..." *Spike? A
friend?* He couldn't say either. Xander let out a disappointed sigh. "No one. It
was no one."
PART
6
