Childe of my Heart ~ Chapter Nineteen
by Shanyah
 

So here they were, him and Spike in a huggle – sort of hug, sort of snuggle. The sun scattered thin bars of light through the shutter slats and onto his chest. Spike was also scattered on his chest, cheek resting over his heart, arm thrown around his ribcage and a fingertip tap-tapping on his rib. Third rib he thought it was, tap-tap, hover, tap; a faint, cool heartbeat.

Xander mused on the novelty of huggles the morning after the sensational night before. Generally, he made use of a well placed shove to create room between himself and the man who dared cuddle because he had rules and the cardinal two were: never intermingle man-sex with intimacy, and always use protection. Maybe later, when was sobered up, he’d have the apt freak out over breaking his survival rules. For now he brushed his palm up and down Spike’s arm, watching the tiny blond hairs arch in protest to the against the grain sweep of his palm.

Spike shifted, balancing his chin where his cheek had rested. “D’you feel it beating?”

“Not usually.”

“Odd, that.”

Smiling, he slotted his hand into Spike’s tousled hair and tousled it a little more. “Odd how?”

“You don’t feel it. But me, I feel it. In my head and in my soles,” Spike slid a leg over his, sculpting pelvis and cock to his hip. “Pumping around me last night, your heart.” Spike whispered his lips over Xander’s navel, pulled the sheet off him, fashioned a sarong out of it and went to the duster on the table, rifling through the pockets.

Some things deserved non-denial and Xander didn’t even try to pretend that the goose pimples on his arms were due to sudden exposure. Spike planted them there, called them up with intimate words and timbre. He sat up, reached for the indigo blanket bundled at the foot of the bed and draped it over his drawn up, watching the ivory sheet drag on the floor behind Spike. The sheet could’ve lead what with the strain in Spike’s stride. Folding his arms on his knees, he tried to recall the last time he’d seen Spike neglect a cigarette like he was doing now, twirling the white stick in his fingers and staring at the filter as though he didn’t know where to put it.

“It goes in your mouth,” he said.

Spike sighed and slouched his back on the doorframe.

“There’s major wrongness afoot,” Xander stated now certain of it.

Spike lit the cigarette, inhaled on it and aiming the Zippo away from Xander, threw it onto the bed. “What makes you say that?”

“You’re catching sunrays when you should be catching Z’s.”

“A bloke can’t sunbathe without getting the Scooby inquisition?”  Spike asked.

“He can, except when he’s a vampire who never leaves bed before four p.m.”

“Two thirty – at the latest.”

He winged Spike a level glance.

“Alright, just try not to go into a wordy tizzy,” Spike blew a smoke ring above his head and spoke to the ring. “Scenting’s a complex thing. We have to keep at it to get it right.”

Scenting? Right - scenting, Xander belatedly remembered Tresten’s command. Silly lie, anyone who’d dated Anya the walking Demon Encyclopaedia knew scenting was a once a year deal. This wrongness wasn’t about scenting, it was about Spike being too pig-headed to admit that he was so in want with the Xandman.

Scarcely able to hold back the grin, Xander teased, “Complex?”

“Terribly complex.”

“How many times does the trick?” He asked with a hint of gullible.

Spike flicked the cigarette butt into the courtyard, “Whole time we’re here, I expect.”

Xander sauntered his gaze to where the sheet hugged Spike’s tapered waist, lower to the overflowing folds made semi-transparent by the sun and showing the silhouette of firm ass and legs.

“Woe is me,” he said.

A corner of Spike’s lips quivered. “Likewise.”

Letting his grin surface, Xander fished his pants off the floor, wriggled into them and stripped the pillowcases off the pillows. “Guess I’ll need to go shopping for sheets if we’re going to be scenting regularly,” he said, tossing the condom and empty tube of KY into the trashcan.

“Yeah, put many, many more sheets on your shopping list. And lube.”

Bedding under his arm, Xander went to the laundry corner and dithered near the bloated basket. “So much dirty laundry,” he whispered, unaccountably nervy.

“What was that, pet?”

“The sink won’t hold all this crap,” he cast the sheets onto the hamper and backed away. “You think they’ll have laundry tubs in the market, I don’t think there’s any clean clothes left, I…” he scraped a hand through his hair, tugging at the ends. “I hate that it’s girly long, you think they’ll have scissors?” he asked, needing to sit down and doing so on the window ledge.

Spike shot upright from his slouch on the doorpost, voicing a growl and escalating Xander’s anxiety. “Told you not to sit on that window didn’t I? Get down Xander, now.”

Xander sprung off the window ledge, mind whirling with sorry’s even though he didn’t know what he was supposed to be sorry for. He crossed the room and making himself as unimposing as possible against the doorpost opposite Spike, searched for the right apology to make. Since he was coming up with blanks, he assumed either his search engine was down or his brain had moved out.

“Sorry, it’s, I…it’s a daft to place to sit,” Spike said with a small smile and an even smaller shrug.

Much against his will, he’d known Spike many years now and had never heard anything remotely apologetic from him. Calamity was racing this way, why else would Spike apologise to him unless they were about to be eaten by a gang of marauding Tomb Robbers and what Spike was really saying was, sorry, but you’re the special ingredient in today’s breakfast, Harris.

“Am I missing something here?” He asked, careful to not sound challenging.

“No.” Spike inclined his head at the laundry basket, “Am I?”

Yes, the basket is out to get me. Let’s sprinkle it with holy water, burn it and bury its ashes in hallowed ground. He couldn’t say that, had no way of putting it so he didn’t sound absolutely Girl Interrupted.

“No,” he said. 

“Then smile. Company in about now,” Spike leaned back onto the doorpost

Mere seconds, and Dawn bounced out of the room across the courtyard, Fred yawning behind her.

“Hi!” Dawn glanced at the tarpaulin covered Dutch pots beside the fireless fire-pit. “No pancakes?” The sound of shocked dismay.

“Any news on the doors?” Fred called.

“They’re metaphorical,” said Spike.

“Xander, no pancakes?” Dawn repeated, “Is the fire broken?”

Fred detoured from her trudge to the bathroom and stopped to one side of Dawn, looking down at the fire pit. “Does this mean no hot water? No shower and no breakfast, Xander?”

He finger-combed his hair, hassled.

“Cold shower builds character, try one. You’re shopping later Bit, can get pancakes at one of those cafes in the market. I’m going back to bed,” Spike trailed his sheet into the room, “anyone with a death wish come wake me.”

“Who kicked him out of the wrong side of bed?” Dawn asked in a faux whisper.

“That would be me,” Xander swung the door closed, “I think.”

They opted for the dinning hall and over a long brunch, Xander told Dawn and Fred about the hangar. A further two hours were spent speculating on the splendid horror of living life out in a demon dimension and on the fact that they had no clue how to get out of the Trail despite weeks of research.

“How long have we been shipwrecked now?” Dawn asked, almost inaudible over the tinkling of Fred’s teaspoon in her coffee mug.

“Twenty one weeks,” Fred lay the teaspoon on the table. “That’s Thanks Giving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Wesley’s birthday all missed.”

“And Willow’s birthday,” Xander and Dawn said in unison, smiled and lapsed into silence.

“We’re gonna grow old in this dump,” Dawn said after a while. “We’ll be fossils when we finally get back home, Buffy and Willow won’t recognize us.”

“That’s okay. Spike will look the same,” Fred said. “They’ll recognize him and he’ll explain that it really is us under the fossil suits.”

“Damn him and his good genes,” Xander gulped down his coffee. “We should make a move if we’re going to avoid demon shopping hour.”

Early evening was the unofficial watershed between safe and risky shopping. Humans stocked up on supplies during the day, the very brave staying in the market until dusk and the senseless hanging around after dark when hardcore demons hit the shops. It took Xander, Dawn and Fred two trips to transport the groceries they needed to the unit, two trips for the two aluminium tubs, two washboards, wash line and bag of cleaning products and one more to pick out sheets and new clothes. The large portholes in the market roof were covered by a deep purple sky and the street torches lit by the time trio started on their final round of shopping. Xander followed Fred and Dawn to a stall with swimsuits on it, impatient as he read the banner pinned across the top of the stall.

Obtain your Bathing requirements here: robes, strigils, costumes, sandals, special oils, sisal brushes, copper bowls. The Finest supplies here.

“Why are we at the stall of finest bath supplies?” He asked.

“To buy swimsuits for The Baths,” Dawn made d’uh eyes at him.

“You can’t go into The Baths,” Xander quit wondering which way for the lube and put his hands over the sparse bikini nearest to Dawn.

“I kinda already did.” She moved along the stall and held up against her front a red, low back, high-leg one piece swimsuit. “Does this say fun but not slutty?”

“You know about her diving with the demons?” He asked Fred, just managing rein in his rising voice.

“We didn’t swim. We took a peek. The Baths were quiet, the water looked fine and no Dawn, that swimsuit doesn’t say not slutty. It says a whole lot of easy,” Fred bagged a purple set of lycra vest and shorts and a similar pair in black.

Xander watched Dawn stretch the waistband of a pair of Speedos, listened to Fred question the trader about chlorine resistance and considered whether he was being wussy or whether Dawn and Fred were asking for trouble. The jury came back with, ‘Xander’s a wuss.’

“I guess if Spike knows,” he went to shrug and held his shoulders in mid-shrug when Dawn and Fred glanced at each other. “Oh no, no, no, you guys cannot do this without cluing him in.”

“God Xander, what is your problem? It’s not like we’ve never been in one of those places. We used The Baths on Third Ranking all the time remember,” Dawn said, Speedo scrunched up and flung onto the stall.

“Yes and Spike stood outside the bathroom door every time you had a shower or went to the little girl’s room. Oh and let’s remember how he said to use the pool if you want to meet the shadowy side of his dark side.”

“He was talking to you,” Dawn shot back. “You were the one driving him growly by chatting to Earners at poolside and in the dining hall and on the ledge outside our room. You Xander, not Fred or me because we don’t talk to Earners who are not Spike.”

Xander had no comeback. He had a portfolio of past behaviour that backed Dawn’s argument.

“I’ll check in with Spike,” Fred said in gentle tone, pacifying the sting of Dawn’s smug expression. “But the sun sets in an hour, we oughtta head home unless there’s something urgent we haven’t bought yet.”

“I’m in urgent need of bed sheets.”

“You got six pairs,” Dawn the Truth Sayer once again spoke truth, Xander noted.

“Well I need another pair,” he said.

“Why do you need seven pairs of sheets?”

“Because, Dawn, there’s seven nights in a week,” he shouldered his shopping bags. “I’ll catch you up,” he hurried down the narrow lane, left the Clothes Hall and made for the intersection of the four main market streets.

He kept close to the stalls, out of the way of the thickening crowd and didn’t see the cat until he’d stood on it. The cat howled and scrammed ahead of him, its back right leg tucked up to its flanks. Guilty about the leg, Xander followed the cat as it took right and left turns, going farther into the market than he’d previously explored.

“Hey wait up little fella, I’m not going to hurt you. Just want to certify you break-free,” he said.

The cat stopped and blinked watery blue eyes at him.

“See now if you were my cat, I’d call you Al, for albino. Second thoughts, I’d call you Skinny Al. When did you last eat?”

The thin, white cat flitted under a stall’s display top and meowed out of sight.

Xander left his shopping bags on the street side of the stall, went down on all fours and crawled after Skinny Al, pausing in thought when a moan sighed from behind the drape hanging in the doorway at the back of the stall. The scent of leather hit him and the moan came again. He could not inhale leather-scents without thinking of Spike. Throw in the moan and naturally he got hard, imagining a spread out duster with Spike and him on it in Karma Sutra clinches all involving Spike on the bottom. Each new wish brought him closer to the drape, each groan sounded the way his name would fall from Spike’s lips. Pretty soon, he was peering in at the gap between drape and doorframe.

Beyond the drape stood a naked man. Wrists manacled to the chains hanging from the ceiling, this man with sable hair, sharply defined abs and lean muscle in the outstretched arms was the kind he handed cash to for a few hours’ fun time. Wind chimes sounded then a swish and the guy whimpered low in his throat as a leather tail struck his upper back.

“Shit,” Xander whispered, disturbed and intrigued.

The guy rolled his head to the side, green, lust-glazed eyes looking right at him. “I deserve it Mi Amo, punish me, I desire it,” pain seeking groans pouring out at the whip’s command. 

Xander’s pulse accelerated, his erection a warm weight in his boxers.

CHILDE OF MY HEART ~ CHAPTER TWENTY

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