Xander braced his palms on
the edge of the bathroom sink. He just needed a little time, a little space to
calm down and not think about what Michel's phone call
meant. But The Voice made not thinking impossible.
Are
you completely insane? It demanded as Xander splashed
cold water onto his face.
"What now?" Xander
sighed.
Look,
I like adventure as much as the next guy. You know, a little white water
rafting, maybe take the
"Oh please! Like Spike
would drain me," Xander scoffed.
If
I didn't live in it, I'd swear you had no brain. Listen to me; what you're
planning is unbelievably stupid…
"Well then let me be stupid, done it all my life. I want this, need it."
Why?
"Because
I love him, alright? I don't know when it happened,
whether it's old feelings I suppressed or whether making it happen is Life's
idea of comic Karma. But I know I've got it bad for that man in there. I want
to have memories of my stupidity for the next rest of my life. So fuck off and
find someone else to annoy!"
Well,
there's no need to be rude…
Xander ignored The Voice and
went to find Spike.
* * * *
Xander had found Spike
alright, found him in the mood for slow and infuriating.
Murmuring heartfelt
endearments, Spike scraped delicately with his canines, teasing Xander's
nipples with the very tip of a fang. He made shallow grooves on Xander's wrist,
smiling when Xander bucked with the hard suction. Spike shoved a pillow under
Xander's hips, travelled the length of Xander's body from collar bone to hip
bone with lapping tongue and warning canines. He finger fucked Xander,
preparing him with such slow teasing that Xander was soon swearing.
"Fucking hell Spike,
what the fuck are you trying to do to me here? I'm freaking ready…don't you do
that, I can't…Oh!"
Spike took no notice of the
ranting. He jacked Xander's erect cock, sucking on the smooth head as he rocked
slicked fingers deep inside him. Suck, bob, rock and Xander was pushing up on
his elbows and looking down at Spike with mute pleading.
Spike quit teasing. He
released Xander, slicked himself, draped one of Xander's legs over his shoulder
and looked askance at the man panting under him. Spike remembered only too well
how Xander had freaked out the one time they'd tried this.
"Okay?"
"Won't
break, Spike, fuck me already!" Xander
wriggled impatiently.
Spike did. With a smooth
lunge, he sheathed his cock completely in Xander and held still. The heat,
Spike groaned, the gripping, mind-blowing, bone
melting heat of this boy. Spike had lost count of the number of times he'd just
wanted to bend Xander over the couch and demand his way in. He was glad he'd
waited, because Alexander Harris was worth waiting for.
“Yeah…oh…yeah, kinda snug,
no?” Xander gulped.
Spike grinned down at him.
He leaned over Xander, bringing his lips right up to the panting ones, “yeah
baby, snug. You feel so good, Xan. So hot, so fucking right…I could stay here
forever.”
“Really…” Xander smiled
slowly.
“Yeah, Xan,
really, truly. I could stand, more than stand, to
fuck you slowly, like this,” Spike drew back an inch and sunk back down, “see?
So, so good,” Spike did it again and again, nibbling at Xander’s plaint lips,
“see love? You think you could let me? Love you slowly?”
“Yeah, yeah, yes Spike,”
Xander said, faint from the things Spike’s words and cock
were doing to him. The burning gradually gave way to pleasurable tingling
and Xander was avidly kissing Spike back, “yeah…yeah…maybe you could love me
quicker?” He levered his heel against the bed, bucking into Spike.
Spike sped up, drawing out
further and slamming in deeper, gloriying as Xander met his every thrust; his
man, giving as good as he got. Slick, plunging, harder,
faster, pushing Xander. He pushed back, arched so that his cock was
rubbed between their bellies. Xander held still, his eyes wide open with wonder
when Spike nudged his prostrate. No finesse, just instinctive synchronicity;
Xander clutched and clawed, humped and yelled,
“fuck
Spike! Again…oh…OH!” Sob, “don’t,
don’t stop, Spike, never stop.”
He turned his face away
again and Spike accepted. He hit Xander’s prostrate with a few quick thrusts
and before Xander could draw a breath to scream, slid his fangs in and siphoned
a mouthful of hot, singeing blood: scarlet bliss, pure ecstasy, all Xander.
Xander felt a humming,
leaping, conduit of raw, elemental sensation linking his neck, ass and cock.
The muscles stood out on his arched neck, his golden skin glistened with
perspiration and his mouth snapped open to scream. That particular roar came
out as a high-pitched, sorta 'fainting maiden' whimper.
Well that was that. One of
them heard the melodic strumming of distant harps and the other glimpsed a
comet with blazing tail. Both were wailing with the impossible voltage of
electricity, both were arching into their climaxes, both were seeking lips and
smashing mouths together.
A little later, when a smattering
of sanity had been restored and the minimum amount of cum wiped and licked
away, they lay facing each other, fingers tightly interlocked. Dazed blue eyes
blinked into hazy brown eyes and they shared a sweet, toe-curling kiss.
“Angel,” Xander sighed.
“Don’t be daft,” Spike
mumbled, too sated to take real offence, “William.”
“Angel,” Xander stubbornly
insisted, “my angel.”
Spike smiled, “you’ll feel
different in the morning; you’ll be calling me the devil’s own right hand man.”
“No,” Xander looked straight
into the blue eyes, “I'll still love you in the morning and the morning after
that Spike, I'll still love you.”
"Xander-" Spike's
lips quivered.
"Ssshh," Xander's
finger on his lip trembled, "this is about sharing, right? So I'm sharing,
not asking for anything. I love you."
Spike didn't want to ssshh.
He wanted clarity. Did I love you mean stay? Or did it mean you've had your
fun, now bugger off and here's a little something to make you feel better.
Spike frowned his uncertainty.
"Hey, didn't you hear
what I said?" Xander squeezed his fingers, "I'm not asking for
anything."
Well, Spike squeezed back, that was him told. Only thing was he knew he would not
be able to bear trite goodbyes. Spike listened for Xander's rhythmic breathing,
watched him relax into deep sleep and took the coward's way out.
* *
* *
Five weeks on, Xander stood
slump shouldered, sniffling in Zach's backyard. He miserably watched the sun
glint off his mentor's bald pate as Zach effortlessly shot a ball through a hoop.
Xander just could not deal.
He had the picture of waking up next to an empty space pinned to his retinas. Waking up hard for Spike, still feeling Spike inside him and
reaching for Spike. No Spike. Just a fucking pillow
with the dent of Spike in it.
Xander was the kind of hurt
that didn't shift and that left him feeling like a generous slice of nothing.
Yeah, Xander Harris was bottom of the food chain, right there below amoeba.
Zach had heard the A-Z of Xander's misery about a hundred times and was becoming
a little impatient.
"So, what you're saying
is that you noticed that this Spear person…"
"Spike," Xander
glared.
"Alright, alright, Spike. You noticed he had a pattern of
just up and leaving and it didn't occur to you that he might do it again?"
Xander kicked at a heap of
russet leaves.
"Also, also," Zach held up a finger,
"the guy tells it to you straight, says he ain't aiming to get his name
onto no title deeds and you say?"
"Said I didn't
care," Xander disturbed more leaves.
Zach shrugged, bounced the
ball and shot it through. "Then enlighten me on why you're so mad at him?
You offered sex, Nail took it; you didn't say anything about commitment and
shit. Don't go crying coz the guy treated you like the person you said you were
- someone who didn't give a damn."
"The name is Spike! He
could have been there in the morning! And whose fucking side are you on,
anyway?"
Zach smiled gently, "on
your side, Alexander, always on your side. But you asked for nothing,"
Zach tossed the ball to him. "When you ask for nothing, you get nothing.
Call him. Ask Spike for what you actually want."
"No," Xander
bounced the ball once, hard and let it roll away, "see, I know another of
Spike's patterns. He doesn't
disappear on the ones he loves."
* *
* *
If you have a fast car and
drive like a speed demon, you could drive from Xander's apartment and get to a
place called Parson's Junction in two and a half hours. The enclave is so
called because it stands at the crossroads between the sounds of city living
and those of the crashing waves of the
Somewhere in Parson's
Junction, is a breath taking miniature Victorian Manor House. It looks like
it's lost it's way from the gently undulating,
heather-purple, English countryside. It's the house that Xander built.
In that house lived a
tearful, demented vampire of shoddy appearance. Spike had gone from selling
Ravages to being a phone operator. He would sit on the hall table for hours at
a time, minding the phone. When it rang, and it wasn't Xander at the other end,
he'd gruffly say,
"Can't talk, expecting
a call," and unceremoniously end the conversation, no matter who had
called. Xander would have felt avenged to witness Spike's self-imposed turmoil.
He was now moaning to
Lillith and Raven in his kitchen.
"Say again,"
Lillith's copper ringlets bounced as she shook her head, "you did
what?"
"He only did a runner
after the best shag of his life," Raven explained, shaking his head too.
"Don't talk about him
like that," Spike growled, "he's not just a shag."
Lillith was grappling with
this information, "did you have a row, or something?"
Spike merely stared at her.
"Oh Spike! You spend a
hundred years with the Disturbed Dru' and let that smashing lad go?" She
slapped at his hands, again and again. "Cretin!
What were you thinking?"
"He wasn't," Raven
added his own slaps to Lillith's.
"Ow?" Spike slid
his hands off the scrubbed oak table and folded them in his lap, out of range.
Raven frowned at Spike's
meek response. "Well, what are you doing about it, apart from getting us
all onto the vodka?"
Spike merely stared at him.
"Oh Spike!"
Lillith's pale blue eyes shot arrows at him. "Look, sort it out before it
drives you mad."
"But…" Spike
started to whine.
Raven's features hardened,
became tense with a cold, formidable beauty. "But what?
If you're wanting to live an eternity of what ifs and
wasted regrets, you're going about it the right way. I've endured unlife
centuries longer than you and know that some things come to us once in an immortality…when they're gone, they're gone. You have a
chance here, Spike, grab it, hold on to it and desist from your god-awful
bleating."
* *
* *
It took Spike two weeks to
harness bravery and head on out of his Parson's Junction bolt hole.
Xander was faking sleep when
the door bell went. He burrowed into his pillow, and faked harder. The banging
started. Xander jumped out of bed, pledging a dose of
"Alright,
alright…!"
He wasn't expecting anyone
in a black duster; certainly wasn't expecting Spike to be standing in the
doorway with a half smile on his face and an arm hidden behind his back. Xander
wanted to slam the door on that smirk. He wanted to haul Spike through the door
and jump him. He wanted to burst into tears. Xander gave in to all three
impulses.
He slammed the door shut,
slipped the chain and swung it open again. Xander dragged Spike into the
apartment by his duster collars and propelled him backwards, using the momentum
to shut the door and pin Spike against it. He fused himself to Spike, from knee
to torso to lips, kissing him with forceful, fervent urgency.
Spike knew better than to
encourage Xander, acknowledged that this kind of carry on was what had
prevented them from talking in the first place. But he went ahead and
encouraged Xander. Spike clung to him, twining his free arm around his bare
waist and returning Xander's tear flavoured kisses with equal voracity.
The sexual tension climbed,
spiralled and the pair were thrusting, grinding erections, stroking tongues in
and out of gasping mouths in a horny mimicry of fucking. Spike, bless him,
groaned mightily and just about stamped his foot when Xander pulled away to
breath.
Each gulp of air Xander took
brought him a little closer to sanity. He stepped back from Spike and surveyed
him in injured silence. Had Xander yelled at him, Spike would have known what
to do and say. Xander looking at him with rigid reproach he didn't know how to
handle. Spike estimated three strides between them; he reckoned they were the
longest strides he'd ever take.
"The house is
beautiful, lo…Xan." He took a stride.
"It's what you
wanted?"
"Yeah."
Another step.
"Good. I aim to
satisfy," Xander watched Spike's unsubtle approach, "bastard,"
he added softly.
Spike took a rain check on
the third step.
"Uhm, I got you
these?" He brought his arm from behind his back. "They were alright
before…before."
Xander reached for the bunch
of crushed, limp red roses with a brief glance and let
it fall to the carpet. "Clichéd." He crossed
his arms.
"And this," Spike
produced a jeweller's box from a duster pocket.
Xander turned the small,
black box over, peered at it and dropped it onto the flowers, unopened.
"Not even Cartier's."
"I, er…" Spike
fished in a jeans pocket, dragged out a sorry looking scrap of tattered paper.
He sidled a half step closer and cleared his throat. "I wrote you a, uh,
you want to hear it?"
"Whatever."
"Xander, Xander,
My precious…" mumble,
Spike began.
"What? Your precious what?"
"
Xander raised his eyebrows:
Goose - he was the goose here?
"Go on," he said.
"My precious
I really, really like you,
Your eyes glisten like
mountain dew…"
Xander clamped his lips
together, nodding when Spike glanced up.
"Mountain dew…go on," he struggled to say.
Xander decided he was weak.
He had to be, the way he just could not hold onto the anger. He had to be, the
way the sight, sound and taste of Spike was starting to shift a hurt
that no amount of 'heal thyself' speeches from Zach had so much as touched.
Spike cleared his throat,
run a hand through his hair.
"…mountain dew,
Sweet and clear,
Whether spied from far or
near,
Oh, to bite you felt so
good,
I'd live off you if I
could."
Xander was in silent
hysterics. Now he got why William was
a bloody awful poet. He gnawed on a knuckle, averting his eyes when Spike shot
him an enquiring glance. Spike took a deep, calming breath and soldiered on.
"If truth be told,
"I'd kill,
I'd maim to with you grow old,
"This wretch is saying
he's sorry,
feels
like he's been hit by a ten ton lorry."
Xander blinked at the
expectant looking Spike.
"Well love?" Spike
asked, sounding hopeful and looking nervous.
"Spike…Spike, that was terrible!" Xander laughed.
Spike's face fell.
"No! I mean,"
Xander floundered, "I meant…" snuffle, "aw it was pretty damn
bad, Spike."
Spike ducked his head,
"I take it you didn't like it, then?"
"You wrote it for me. For your precious Ga…Xander?" He asked.
"Yeah," Spike's
step swallowed the distance between them.
"And you meant
it?" Brown eyes searched blue.
"Every word,"
Spike plucked at the edges of the paper.
"Then I loved it. Love
you." Xander rescued the poem, smoothed the paper over and folded it with
gentle care. "So, so what happens now, Spike?" He tucked the scrap
into his sweats pocket.
Spike blinked at the
smarting in his eyes. It didn't go away. "I'll give whatever you
want," he whispered.
"One
question?" A snag in
Xander's voice.
Spike nodded.
"Why'd you take off
like that?" So low someone without keen hearing would
have missed it. "You really hurt me."
"I'm sorry, sorry…was
scared, am
scared. Water and oil, Xander; I'm scared you could be the death of me,"
he looked at Xander from beneath dark, glistening lashes.
Xander gripped Spike's
shoulders, shaking him to emphasise his words, "I'm scared too, Spike, all
this is new to me too. Be scared, but stay and be scared with me?"
Spike was dizzy with crazy
hope. "Yeah, wanna stay with you, yeah. I'm not right fussed about the
house. Fucking mausoleum."
Xander chose to overlook
Spike's description of his handiwork. "I want official, I'm not hanging
out in the closet. Either you're with me or you're not," he pushed,
breathless with the implication of his own words.
Spike bobbed his head up and
down, "of course, it's why I'm here."
"And no more games,
Spike, except sex games, that is," Xander pulled at Spike's T-shirt,
untucking it from the waistband of his jeans.
"Oh, absolutely,"
Spike agreed enthusiastically.
Xander edged back as Spike
zoomed in, but crept a hand under Spike's T-shirt, "and Spike?" His
tone was serious, his thumb playful as it rolled a pebbled nipple.
Spike watched Xander's mouth
warily, "uh, yeah?"
"This is the part where
you tell me you love me."
"Oh," Spike looked
sheepish and patted at his pockets. "I do. I love you, Xander, wrote it
down somewhere…where's that sodding…"
Stop
him right there! The Voice yelled. Xander grinned, his smile
threatening to split his face into two and his heart threatening to beat right
out of his chest. He stopped Spike, thoroughly kissing him.
Xander leaned his brow
against Spike’s, panting, “Spike, you wanna fuck?”
"Wamf," Spike
laughed into Xander's mouth.
It wasn't a 'Sleepless in