Childe of my Heart ~ Chapter Twenty-four
by Shanyah
 

Dawn plodded into the courtyard at sunrise, not pleased about the wood chopping ahead. Spike was already up and smoking on the butcher’s block, the outdoor broom across the worktop beside him.

“You sleep alright, Bit?” He asked.

“Were you serious about this?” She wagged a finger at Xander’s axe embedded in the chopping block.

He chuckled, sailing the cigarette end into the mound of leaves in the fire-pit. “Was at the time.”

“And now?”

“You clearly don’t think much about lumberjacking and I just want a quiet life.”

“So we’re going with the slightly changed routine where I clean and wash up?” She asked, hopeful.

“Yes we are,” Spike said.

But Dawn didn’t recognize this part of their routine where they sat in a window booth in the dining hall eating proper breakfast instead of round the fire-pit eating Xander’s crappy pancakes. A waiter came over and asked if everything was alright.

“Reserve this table for me, will you?” Spike said.

“Very good, Mi Amo. Will that be for lunch or dinner?”

“Both, and for tomorrow as well,” Spike smiled across the table at Xander.

Dawn put her fork down, disregarded Fred’s glance and assessed the men. Spike’s smile had turned into a smirk and he ragged on Xander, as usual. Xander came back at Spike, on target with the sarcasm as usual. They didn’t sound like guys playing footsie under the table.

Shrugging Fred’s insane suggestion off, Dawn poured syrup over her pancake and asked, “What time’s training, Mi Amo?”

“We’re taking a break from that, and from research,” Spike said.

Hooray, Dawn thought.

“Oh and how long are these slight routine changes going to last, Mi Amo?” Fred asked.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Dawn pushed her plate towards Spike. “Would you like to try some of this awesome pancake?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Spike picked up Fred’s idle fork and zoomed it towards Dawn’s plate. “Food tastes better from someone else’s plate,” he said.

“It’s a known fact,” Xander agreed around a mouthful of scrambled egg.

Another fact was that training, researching, cooking, cleaning and staking out the gaming pit were neglected for days. Xander and Spike spent the time having sex, sparring with words, and having sex while sparring with words. Dawn and Fred spent long days in The Baths, using the bathing pool, sauna, steam room and terrace eatery and making the acquaintance of a man called Bob.

*    *    *    *

It became apparent to Spike, Dawn, Fred and Xander that they were recycling thrice worn clothes and were perilously close to recycling underwear. That domestic duties should get in the way of fun was greeted by four down-turned mouths, but the hill of washing had to be tackled and that was that.

Instead of breakfast in the dinning hall one morning, Xander slap-dashed a stack of over crisp pancakes, a pan of warm blood and a pot of piping hot coffee. They ate around the fire-pit, wishing for the upholstered seats in ‘their’ dining booth. After breakfast, Xander mounted each of the huge tubs on two stools in the courtyard. He and Fred filled the tubs with water, going back and forth to the bathroom with pails. Fred brought out the washboards and Xander dissolved washing powder in one of the tubs.

“Rinse water,” he pointed at the tub of clear water, “scrub water,” he whisked a hand in the other tub, working up the suds. “Gather your whites.”

Spike and Dawn stood from the hammock and went to gather their whites, feet dragging. By evening, a good deal of the collectively owned whites had been washed, some bleached and the last wash of the day left on the line to drip overnight. Dawn and Fred turned in early, griping about taxed finger joints. Spike suggested a soak in the tubs to their departing backs, which suggestion was met by the door’s woody silence.

“How ‘bout you?” He asked Xander.

“Slipped spine disc,” Xander held his hands out to the fire, “you’re on the couch tonight, pal.”

Spike snorted his laugh. “Meant a soak in the tub,” he said.

They placed the tubs a few feet apart by the fire and filled them with warm water to the three quarter mark. Xander fetched towels and other necessities for a soak. Spike popped his head round Dawn and Fred’s door and warned them to knock before exiting, and the tubs were soon filled to the full mark with water and a blissfully sighing man.

*    *    *    *

Xander fantasized about chilidogs and beer, Spike said he’d murder a shot of Tennessee whiskey.

Spike delivered a fond monologue on Drucilla, a scathing one on Angelus and pithy one on Harmony. He didn’t mention Buffy.

Xander delivered a fond monologue on Willow, a comical one on Giles and an extremely concise one on Anya. He didn’t mention Buffy.

“Who was your first?” Spike asked after a lull in conversational.

“Faith,” Xander said, not wanting to get into it.

“Slayer Faith? You did a Slayer?” Enthusiastic surprise.

“Or a Slayer did me,” Xander trickled water through his fingers. “Whipped it out, sat on me and galloped.”

“Must be a Slayer thing,” quietly shared as though against Spike’s will. “Not that I’m complaining,” brash.

“No, no complaints here. Faith sex had it’s rough charms,” Xander said as quickly, uncomfortable with the cock usage similarities between Buffy, Faith and himself.

“Lasting charms?” Spike asked.

Xander shrugged and wrung his sponge.

Drumming his fingers on the edge of the bath, Spike watched him in silence for a while. “Was asking about your first bloke. What’s his name?”

Xander wandered the sponge across his chest. “Uhm,” he said.

Spike stepped out of his tub and strode to Xander’s, water and firelight dripping down his body. “What’s he look like?” He crouched by the tub.

The flint in Spike’s voice and eyes sent a rush of heat through Xander and his thoughts scattered as Spike leaned in and dove his hand into the water. Seared him with kisses while jerking him off, fist hard and fast just how Xander liked it. He came with appalling haste, stifling his yell on Spike’s lips.

“Slade was it, or Jed? Some other tall, dark and romance-trash name like that?” Spike asked.

“I don’t remember his name.”

It couldn’t have been more than half a minute, but Xander felt like half an hour passed with Spike swirling his hand in the water, probing him with narrowed eyes.

“I honestly don’t, Spike,” he said, not sure why it was important that Spike believe him.

Spike kissed him again, closed lipped and unkind, possessive. He went back to his own tub, tossing a log onto the fire on the way there. Xander passed his tongue over his smarting lips and frowned at Spike.

“You are such a dick sometimes, you know?”

Spike draped his arms along the tub’s edges, “it’s why you like me.”

Filing that statement for later, Xander got out of his tub, splashed to Spike’s and climbed in despite Spike’s mild protests. He wedged between the pale hard thighs and pillowed his head on the relaxed shoulder.

“Hold me.”

Spike obeyed, looping his arms and legs around Xander.

*    *    *    *

Fred hogged the tubs the next day, saying the morning was set aside for the girls’ dark wash. Dawn brought a load to the wash-station, an armful of cotton, denim and silk darks all rolled together and headed for a tangled destiny in the washtub.

“Not the silk!” Fred rescued a pair of pants, a dressing gown, Chinese dresses, a blouse, two pairs of sheets.

“Tut-tut Nibblet, always read the label,” Spike said, torso flattened on the butcher’s block, arms reaching for its opposite corners and his backside turned up for the sunrays.

Xander scolded his eyes away from Spike’s ass. “It ain’t going to happen so put it right out of you mind,” Spike had said that one time Xander’s finger had dipped along Spike’s crack and too close to the sacred place.

“I’m taking our silks to the steam washers on Main Floor, Fred. I’ll take those too if you want,” Xander said.

Fred gratefully surrendered the bundle, Xander packed it into his rucksack and walked round to speak to Spike’s face. “All set, Sun Seeker?”

Spike looked all set to stay pinned like a butterfly. “Bring me my satchel.”

“Bring it yourself,” Xander said.

Spike took his time, stretching upright vertebra by vertebra.

*    *    *    *

Xander noticed the respect right away, the shallow bows in Spike’s direction, the quick feet stepping out of his path; Earners jockeying to chat with Spike as their Earned stopped beside Xander. Backs straight, hands folded in front of them and eyes downcast, calling attention to what good little Earned they were next to him. Despite not wanting to play that game, Xander straightened his shoulders and watched Main Floor from under lowered lashes.

“Good morning, Master Spike,” a First Ranking Earner said as he and Spike were leaving the laundry caves.

“Yeah,” Spike said.

“May I compliment you on so successfully smoothing the boy’s coarse manner? I recall him being far less agreeable.”

“Smooth or coarse, my boy is my business, not yours,” Spike swept past the First Ranker.

Xander followed, knowing the compliment undeserved. If only he could turn back time…but he couldn’t. The most he could do was cram the thoughts of his wrongdoing into the deep-freeze of his mind because he hadn’t done it if he couldn’t remember doing it.

Deep freeze thus crammed with short-term recollections, Xander entered another cave with Spike and stood attentive at his side while Spike spoke to a man profusely sweating in a sleeveless tunic on the other side of the counter. Through an open door behind the man came bursts of sweltering air and the clanging of hammers.

“Fred’s Libra, Nibblet’s Leo, when’s your birthday, Harris?”

“I’m Taurus, Mi Amo” he said.

“Hello Taurus,” Spike smiled, spreading a sheet of paper on the counter, “but it’s not what I asked.”

“May 20th,” Xander said, “you?”

Spike tapped his finger on a diagram on the A4 sheet and glanced at the man behind the counter. “This sword’s gotta be shorter than average. Take a quarter off its length and make the handle sturdy, something a man can get a good hold of.”

“Would not Amo prefer a dagger?” The man looked at Spike’s sketch, “The sword will be little more than that.”

“Whole point. It’s a dagger what extends his reach. Want emeralds making the shape of Taurus glyph on its handle – nothing showy, mind. Think studs not rocks. Got that?”

“Yes Mi Amo.”

“Good man. Broadsword and sword the standard length, but with extra thin cutting edges, yeah?”

“I presume Amo desires steel for the blades?”

“The lightest you can forge. Libra glyph in sapphires on the sword handle, Leo and rubies for the broadsword.”

The Weapon Manufacturer nodded.

“Iron for the quarterstaff and steel again for the knife.” Spike turned the paper over, “Can you carve this seal on the knife handle?”

The man looked up sharply from Spike’s pencil drawing, “Aurelius?”

“Want a Scorpio glyph in opals on the knife’s casing,” Spike said.

“Amo of course understands that custom made weapons must be paid for?”

Spike placed his winnings from the satchel onto the countertop, retrieved the thumb rings and slid the rest across to the Weapon Maker. “How long if you start today?”

The Weapon Maker mopped his face with a rag and looked the winnings over. “My apprentices are able to produce the weapons in five weeks, but I fear Amo’s payment is inadequate,” he said. 

Spike stared at the man. “Apprentices?” He asked, jaw stiff.

“I myself will forge them naturally,” the Maker amended, “given ten weeks.”

“You have eight weeks to finish the lot,” Spike buckled the satchel and slung it across his chest. “I’ll check your progress in four weeks and settle the bill then,” and he strode out of the cave.

Xander kept three steps behind Spike, looking for something to explain the jewels and star signs on custom made weapons. He thought the whole thing overly sentimental, which made him look harder because there had to be a catch to it, the whole Spike being overly sentimental.

“Want to grab a drink?” Spike asked over his shoulder.

Xander’s jaw hit the floor. He and Spike didn’t grab drinks, they grabbed posteriors and such-like. “Drink with you?” He asked ten steps later.

“With me, yes,” Spike was the very tone of patience. “I know a shack that does okay coffee.”

Spike’s coffee shack was a ways away from central Town Square. Tucked between two columns, it was one of three derelict stalls on a derelict stretch of road. Wicker tables were placed outside the shack and the chair Spike directed him to wobbled when he sat. The table creaked when he placed his elbows on it. Spike’s chair didn’t wobble regardless of how much he shifted and the table didn’t creak when he folded his arms on it.

Xander scratched the bridge of his nose, didn’t feel an itch but scratched anyway. “So…this is drab.”

Spike inclined his head.

Xander looked around and nodded ahead at a gate opening onto an unlit path that led to a black tunnel mouth. “Dark and drab.”

“Nothing ever comes out of that tunnel, and we’re twelve feet away. Big head start.” Spike glanced at a man bringing a tray out of the shack. “Two coffees, hold the blood,” he ordered.

The man went away, came back with a different tray.

“We need a big head start?” Xander asked after the coffee tray had been placed on the table.

Spike poured and creamed both mugs. “How many sugars again?” He asked.

“You’re freaking me out, Spike.”

“By asking how many sugars?”

“First you bankrupt yourself for the swords and now…this, this…” Xander’s chair wobbled as he gestured between him and Spike, “this sociable situation.”

“Sit back Harris. Take in the scenery. Drink your fucking coffee,” Spike sat back, slouched low and raised his mug to his lips.

Xander drank his coffee and took in the scenery of busy market people in the well lit, far off, better part of Town Square. He could be sociable, heck, he was the life and soul, had conversational skills. Okay, he didn’t know vampire history like Giles, or demon rituals like Anya, and he couldn’t compare body counts with Spike like Buffy could and…crap. He was one of those people who hang on the periphery of the cool gang at parties and drank too much, laughed too loud and still went unnoticed because they were uninteresting. He peeked at Spike, who was sizing up the unlit tunnel.

Xander got it and he smiled inwardly, back in his element where Spike was concerned. “You want us to go get frisky in yonder dark tunnel,” he said.

Spike threw him a sheepish glance. “It’s that obvious?”

“You must lose at poker all the time,” Xander rolled his shoulders on his chair’s rickety backrest and frowned at his empty coffee mug. “That’s good coffee. Can we get some more before we go tunneling?”

“Yeah and biscuits. They do these crunchy ginger biscuits here. Great for dunking. They go soft on the outside – soggy, but inside they still got crunch.”

Xander laughed. “Can you taste ginger – sure you smell it, but do your taste buds actually work?”

Spike’s gaze scrolled up his chest, neck and stuck on his mouth, “They work, trust me.”

Xander heard a giggle. It was in soprano and it was coming from him. “Where’s that coffee?” he said, warm cheeked.

“It’s coming,” Spike looked like he was trying not to smile from where Xander was seated. “Tell you what doesn’t work for me though,” he said, tapping a cigarette into his palm, “Tresten’s rules. They’re doing my head in. Fifth Ranker can go to Fifth Ranking market, walk away with unlimited silk, cross-bows and swords; no charge. Same Fifth Ranker comes down here, has to pay an arm and a leg to have a few modifications made to half a dozen weapons. Now where’s the sense in that?”

“You’re not gonna walk away with limitless merchandise, that’s what Tresten counts on. But when you come down here and ask for modifications, you’re using up man hours that could go on five regular swords for your one personalized sword and for that, you gotta pay.”

“What of the Earner who has all his Earned wearing personalized tunics up on Fourth Ranking, he doesn’t pay for special tailoring – I asked,” Spike said. 

On they discussed Tresten’s fiscal policies and it was only as they were leaving the steam cave with their laundered silks that Xander spotted Spike’s evasive tactic. He found himself peeved at being duped, but more than that, flattered by Spike’s non-sexual interest in him.

“Tunneling wasn’t the plan,” he said.

“No,” Spike admitted.

“I take it you don’t plan on publicizing your birthday either.”

“It’s somewhen in the Scorpio spectrum.”

“You do realize that I’ll pester until you give in?” Xander warned.

“Do your worst.”

Xander did, resorting to randomly mentioning a date in the Scorpio spectrum when he thought Spike was least guarded. “October 25?” He asked when Spike emerged from their room, groggy after his siesta.

“Cold,” Spike mock shivered.

“October 14?” He asked at the clothesline as Spike rearranged the damp washing, trying to find space for three pairs of black jeans.

“Freezing, Harris. Froze right into Libra.”

And later in bed, “November 9?” Xander groaned as he sank onto Spike, taking Spike’s held out hands.

“Ssshh,” Spike thrust and Xander flowed with him, rode out the pleasure of stroke after stroke.

“Tell me?” He panted.

Spike tugged on his hands, pulling him down, “What’s it to you?” Cool palms mapped Xander’s back, trailed up his sides and got lost in his hair.

He rhythmically squeezed his muscles around Spike, kissed him with single-minded passion. “I might want to know more of you, Mi Amo,” he said, dragging his lips along Spike’s cheekbone. “Might want to know more than your master cock.”

Gold ringed the blue in Spike’s eyes and his cock gave a violent jump inside Xander. “Don’t tease, pet.”

“So not teasing. November 1?” Xander smiled, that smile sizzling away as Spike flipped them over and did this thing with the slowly rotating hips.

*    *    *    *

Thunderstorm out of nowhere as Xander pegged a pair of faded blue jeans onto the wash line. He ran inside, arms flailing overhead and tunic drenched.

“Couldn’t you have grabbed the dry stuff?” Spike asked a good few meters from the open door.

“It’s polar sleeting out there,” Xander erected the rice paper screen, changing into dry clothes behind it. “Fuel the fire up, Dawn. Put Spike’s coat on it when we run out of logs.”

“She doesn’t have the bottle,” Spike said.

Dawn got up off her floor cushion and darted for duster hanging from a hook on the back of the door. Spike got to it before her, rolled it up and threw it over her head to Fred. Pretty soon two teams evolved: Fred and Spike against Dawn and Xander. They shoved, tackled and broke all possible rules for domination of the duster. The game ended with the room in shambles and Spike face down on the bed, the duster and Fred held close to his chest.

Bosom buddies, Xander thought.  “I’m guessing we’re surplus to this scene, Dawn,” he said, masking in airy tones his need to separate the bosom buddies.

“Surplus people get to watch. Do we have any potato chips?” Dawn asked, sitting on the table.

Spike rolled off of Fred. “Another time, eh pet? Performance anxiety.”

She chuckled, Dawn chuckled, Spike grinned. The whole world saw the funny side except Xander. He put the room to rights, wishing the storm would let up. Its flashes of lightening sent static into the atmosphere, energizing Spike and Dawn into waspish teasing. They were like that almost all the time lately, bitchy when in a small space together for longer than an hour.

“Spike doesn’t go for ordinary girls, Fred. He won’t look at you twice if you don’t have Slayer or air-head vampire on your résumé.”

“That’s not true,” Spike opened a shutter and looked up at the sky. “I tried going human once. Ate the poor lamb,” he showed Dawn a fangy smile.

“Did you fang at me? Xander, Spike fanged at me.”

“Spike, don’t fang at her,” Xander sat on the bed, temples pounding.

“Let’s go Dawn,” Fred sighed.

“Go where? It’s raining.”

Fred glanced at Spike’s turned back, pinched her nose and jumped on the spot.

“Oh,” Dawn clambered off the table.

Xander stretched out on the bed, feet on the pillows, head at the foot, looking out the door at the premature night falling over the courtyard. Fred and Dawn left their room and dashed to the gate, swimming bags swinging in their hands.

Spike would go into labor over this conspiracy, Xander thought, turning his mind’s eye away from his own scandalous exploits. The headache settled firmly on his temples.

*    *    *    *

“You’re sulking,” the mattress dipped as Spike sat by his feet.

“The door’s open,” he said, and amazingly, I’m not in the mood, he thought.

“Close it,” Spike rubbed his calves.

“I have a headache,” Xander groaned from his bona fide headache.

“It’s every man’s duty to cook up a less pathetic excuse for turning down shag,” Spike said.

“I’m recovering from a brain transplant, the doctor ordered nil by mouth – or butt – and prescribed anti-stimulants.”

Making sympathetic noises, Spike straddled his back, hands curling on his biceps, semi hard-on pressing his spine, smooth brow on his shoulder-blade and shifting to inflexible ridges.

“Acupuncture does wonders for headache,” Spike said. “You prescribe how much you want. Say ‘stop’ and I’ll stop.”

Excited blood filled Xander’s cock. Much as he didn’t like to own up, he’d been waiting for Spike to bite him again, to cut his veins, sting his soul. He tensed his arms, felt his biceps bunch under Spike’s fingers.

“Is that a yes?” Spike asked.

Xander exhaled for answer. He waited, senses tuned to Spike’s lack of breathing, thunder battering his temples…icy-hot penetration on junction of neck and shoulder, slick suck, deep joy. 

“Oh god Spike,” he writhed his hips into the mattress, “…Spike…”

Whispers as Spike got rid of their clothes, rumbling thunder or rumbling Spike, he didn’t know which beat in his chest. Blunt teeth on his earlobe, promises in his ear, sharp drag of fangs as Spike made a criss-cross of slashes on the small of his back. Xander pushed towards those fangs – deeper, go deeper – and whimpered at the cool salve of Spike’s tongue licking the edges of his pain.

Calming hands on him, a kiss where thigh met ass, brush of ridges on the back of his thigh. Slice of fangs just above the back of his knee and it hurt him into crying out. Spike sucked on the hurt, forcing Xander’s knees further apart. Tickle of hair on the insides of his thighs and lick of tongue along his perineum.

“Ung,” Xander breathed.

“You like that?”

“It’s…nice,” he understated.

“Nice?” Menacing.

Snick of the tube’s cap and a bite on the swell of his ass, blunt teeth, dull ache. Slight burn at the intrusion of a lubed finger, groaning into the rumpled blanket as Spike worked his prostate. One continuous moan as fingers fucked him, his balls pulled into Spike’s mouth and softly sucked on. Harder, harder bites, on his shoulder, his calf…serious hurting and he should tell Spike to stop, didn’t want him to stop. Razor-sharp cut on his inner thigh and that stubborn, solid something inside him ruptured.

“Spike I’m sorry, fuck me fuck me Spike…” Tumbling in pleasure-pain as Spike turned him over, throbbing emptiness, pucker grasping to be filled, “Need you inside me. Please. Please.”

He crossed his ankles in the well of Spike’s back, laced his fingers on the back of Spike’s head. Arced up in a breathless scream as the tip of Spike’s fang pierced his nipple and the entire of Spike’s cock powered into him. Harsh and fast pace, not designed to last pace. Designed to wreck him and it did, sliding wreck with his head lolling over the edge of the mattress, fingers white-knuckling Spike’s shoulders to keep from falling over the edge.

Full of Spike, tingling all over from Spike’s marks, pulse sky-rocketing with the vibrations in Spike’s voice, “going to Claim you, make you mine for real. Mine one day for real, luv.”

Xander fell into the hardest of coming; glad laughter in his gasps…sated groaning when Spike’s cock shuddered, spurting inside him.

*    *    *    *

Eyes closed and head still tipped backwards over the edge of the mattress, Xander agreed with the hackneyed phrase: size doesn’t matter. He wasn’t implying that Spike’s dangly bits were more bit than dangle. It was just that he’d stand next to Spike sometimes and he’d realize again that he was taller than Spike, bigger; but most times, like right now, it didn’t feel that way because Spike’s smaller body was attached to an attitude as huge as the sky. Spike covered him and he basked under the smaller-huge frame, smiling when Spike’s hand crept to his side and stroked his third rib.

“Is the headache gone?”

“All my aches are gone,” slurred words overwhelmed by a clap of thunder. He lifted heavy eyelids and saw silver raindrops streaking onto a white scarecrow in the doorway.

“Spike!” Petrified, he pushed at Spike, sitting up as Spike scrambled onto his knees.

Spike clasped Xander’s wrists, brought him close again. “What is it?”

“I saw…” he twisted round and looked out the door, saw a white tunic flapping on the wash line. “God,” he gave a shaky laugh and turned back to Spike, wending his arms around the taut waist. “Thought I saw a, a scarecrow. Can we ignore my scream at the not scarecrow.”

Spike hugged him back, arms across his upper back. “Scarecrow?”

“Is a white tunic,” he winced as Spike’s arms boa constricted him. “You have something against white tunics?”

Spike rose from the bed, picked up his discarded T-Shirt and mopped the twin pools of water just inside the threshold, “no,” he said.

Xander lay down, resting his chin on his crossed arms. “I guess I made those when I came in,” he said, struggling to say awake.

Spike closed the door, came to sit at his shoulder and frisked his hair, thumb caressing the back of his head, round and round in small circles on the same spot. “You must’ve done ‘cause white tunics don’t make wet footsteps, do they?”

No reply.

“I’m not being rhetorical, Xander. Have you ever seen a tunic unpeg itself from a clothesline and toddle across a courtyard, stand less than a foot away watching the peep-show?”

“Yes,” bleary chuckle, “no…I dunno,” more bleariness. “It’s sleep time. Sleep on me, you’re not heavy…you can be the sky and I can be the, the…” deep yawn followed by silence.

“Wasn’t a tunic,” Spike said, soft and devoid of strength.

*    *    *    *

Flagstones washed a crisp gray-white, the air mountain fresh and the sun a friendly thing smiling down onto the courtyard; ingredients for a perfect day. Xander, Fred and Dawn stood around the fire-pit in their pajamas, debating whether to declare it a resting day. Most of the laundry hill had been cleared and it wasn’t like there was anything urgent to do, Dawn said.

Xander and Fred agreed and the motion was passed.

Spike emerged from the room, squashed the motion and whacked their forgotten routine back onto them. Twenty minutes each for a shower, half an hour to make and eat breakfast, three hours of research in the library, “and no arsing. Want your concentration on them books. Got to find a way out of this shithole.”

Later on, two hours of sparring with the unaccountably vicious vampire.

The day was a bust and the evening looked set to go the same way with Spike pacing the courtyard’s perimeter and demanding blood on the hour every hour.

“What’s up with him?” Xander asked, hefting the cooler onto the butcher’s block and digging into the ice for yet another bag of blood.

Dawn peeled and sliced an apple. “The fairies stole his happiness,” she said.

“I wish they’d give it back,” Fred was attempting apple pie baked in a Dutch oven and she kneaded the pastry, pounded it. Dawn started to giggle, but Fred nudged her arm with an elbow, “he’s coming.”

Spike tore down Dawn and Fred’s towels from the line because they were, “in my bloody way,” and snatched the blood of bag from Xander. “How much bleach do you two get through?” He glared at Fred and Dawn, encompassed Xander in his scowl. “None of you go out into the Trail while I’m out.”

Fangs ripping into the corner of the bag, he strode off and slammed the courtyard gate behind him. It rebounded on hitting the gate frame, crashed into the wall, loosened a couple of bricks and quaked on its hinges.

*    *    *    *

Spike barged in on Xander’s self-examination in front of the bathroom mirror, wanderer returning home well after sunrise, stinking of death, bloody sawdust bonded to his arms and torn clothes. Set face discouraging any fussing that might go like, ‘Out all night, no word – I was worried. Am I allowed to worry about you? No? Fine.’

Xander looked back into the mirror at the net of red lines on the base of his spine. “Are you okay?” He sounded worried.

“That won’t scar, none of them will,” Spike carried on to the shower stall.

Xander smoothed his tunic over shower-damp skin and left to light the fire-pit. Piled the logs and kindling on, struck a match, lit the kindling and watched the swelling flames. Within the half hour, Spike was out of the bathroom, striding towards him. Towel around his hips, movements liquid and eyes so intense blue that Xander looked over his shoulder expecting to see a vision of worshipful hotness. There was no-one but him standing in Spike’s line of vision and Xander bit on his lip, muteness his familiar.

“Yeah I’m okay. All the better for seeing you,” Spike edged the match book from Xander’s still fingers, tossed it onto the hammock, eased an arm around his waist and took him back to bed.

With parted lips, Spike soothed the net of red lines, laved all the places his fangs had cut; slid into him, filled him up completely and was so careful Xander felt priceless, genuinely desired. He clung to Spike, breathing torn, throat clogged with tears, hands shaking.

CHILDE OF MY HEART ~ CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

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