Xander's legs still tingled and shook as he slid onto his stool in the science lab for the first time that week, and he knew that a day of sitting was going to be sweet torture with the ache in his ass that sometimes felt like Spike was still lodged in there. Xander clenched his muscles and dropped his head back against the window, muffling the moan that wanted to come out.

"Xander?"

His eyes popped open at the exclamation, and it took him a moment to focus on Willow where she stood fidgeting before him. "Uh. Hi." He twisted on the stool, resting his elbows on the counter and hunching over them. He hoped that thoughts of Spike weren't showing because he so didn't want to have that conversation in the science classroom. "Uh. Hi, Will. Buff." *And thank god Oz takes Physics instead of chem.* "Something wrong?"

"You showing up to class is wrong." Buffy set her purse on the lab table and hopped up onto a stool. Willow sat next to her and Xander wished they'd both stop looking at him.

Especially Willow. He was beginning to recognize her puppy eyed look.

"I show up to class." Xander hunched in on himself, fiddling with his pencil and wishing class would start. "Bad things happen when you don't show up to class. Calling of the parents, for one."

"But Xander, the school did call your parents."

Xander's pencil shot out of his grip and flew across the room. "What?"

"Where have you been? And don't tell me you've been home, Mister, because I've heard your dad when the school calls him."

"The whole town hears Mr. Harris when the school calls him." Cordelia breezed into the classroom and the conversation with equal grace, taking the seat next to Xander. "And where have you been?"

"That does seem to be the question of the day," Buffy said, pulling out her notes.

"Are things - okay at home?" Willow leaned forward, frowning when Xander leaned back. "Xand?"

*After eighteen years, you ask me that now?* Xander shrugged. "They're fine, Will. I moved out."

Cordelia gasped and hit Xander in the arm hard enough to rock his lab stool. "You've got an apartment?"

Xander winced, rubbing. "Ow!"

"Big baby! You have an apartment, and you didn't tell us? Do you have a job too?"

"No!" Xander wondered if they'd even notice that he hadn't confirmed he had an apartment.

"Good. Because the only jobs you can get without a high school diploma are for total losers. Unless you get a job acting, of course." Cordelia flipped her hair back behind her shoulder in a cloud of spicy oriental perfume and pulled out her notes, sliding them half way across the table to Xander. "This is Monday through Wednesday. Copy fast and don't get in my way."

Xander stared at Cordelia, and part of him desperately wished that the warm glow in his chest for her was still normal lusty teenaged love. But the rest was content just loving her for being so normal and Cordy as she turned away from him to discuss a piece at Joyce's art gallery that her parents wanted to buy.

Class passed in a blur of whispered comments about clothes (to die for!), slaying (suspiciously quiet in Sunnydale lately), and Angel (set up shop in LA which was a relief to Xander who really didn't want to come home to the mansion to find Angel back). The girls didn't make any effort to include him in the conversation, but that was kind of nice too, especially since Xander was busy copying all of Cordelia's notes before the bell rang. Missing a few days of school didn't feel like much until you tried to copy the work in forty-five minutes.

He was just leaning over to copy the first of that day's notes when Cordelia flipped her notebook shut.

"Hey!"

"Class is over and so's your free ride. But if you carry my books to my locker for me, I might let you copy the rest of today's notes at lunch." Cordelia stacked all of her books neatly and slid them to Xander.

"But Xander, we've barely seen you in months."

Xander looked from Willow to Cordelia and did the quick mental calculation of lunch listening to Queen C's latest acquisitions versus lunch answering pointed questions from Willow.

Xander swept up Cordelia's books. "Sorry, Wills. It may be kinda cool for Oz to repeat a grade, but if I did it, I'd just be a loser."

Cordelia coughed lightly.

"More of a loser," Xander amended, silently vowing to buy Cordelia a quality name brand diet soda from the vending machine even if she didn't know she was rescuing him from questions he didn't want to answer. "I'll see you in English."

He hurried after Cordelia because Cordy - like Time - waited for no man. Even for a man wincing with every step because while sitting on those stools in class made his ass numb, it didn't make it that numb.

Preoccupied with numbness, Xander didn't hear Willow call after him. "But I switched to AP English!"

"Willow's in AP English," Cordy informed him as soon as they were in the hall. "Where have you been, Xander? Not that you have to worry. I told everyone that I broke up with you and that you've been laying low mending your broken heart until we can be friends again."

"Um," Xander felt the words wash over him, not entirely sure how he was supposed to respond to that. "Thank you?"

"You're welcome." Cordy stopped before her locker, spinning the dial expertly. "you should thank me, too."

"I should?"

"Yes! You survived me breaking up with you with dignity! Marvel at the concept of Xander Harris with dignity." She took her books from Xander's arms, trading them out for even heavier books, and shut her locker. Taking up his arm, she began to walk again. "I dumped you for a college boy, by the way."

"Okay?"

"And you were broken hearted over it."

Xander nodded slowly. "I was."

"Awfully." Cordelia patted his arm. "But you accepted my decision with a grace beyond your station, because you realized that you couldn't stand in my way and hold me back. I was so impressed that I told you we could be friends."

"We're friends?"

"Yes, now that you've mended your broken heart."

"Oh. Uh, thanks."

"Now all that's left to do to seal your place as one of the cool kids is to come out of the closet and admit you're gay."

Xander tripped over his feet, bounced off of a drinking fountain and staggered to a stop, staring at Cordelia. He was pretty sure his mouth was moving but no sound was coming out and that was a good thing because he was also pretty sure that the sounds coming out would be in a very unmanly soprano.

"Did you brush your teeth this morning?"

Xander snapped his mouth shut, because he hadn't.

"Ew! Gross, Xander." Cordelia rummaged through her purse, bringing up a plastic wrapped tooth brush and tooth paste bearing the insignia of a swanky hotel. "Here." She traded the tooth brush and paste for the text books and pointed at the boys' room. "I'll wait."

The bathroom door shut behind Xander before his head cleared. He stared at the toothbrush in his hand, ran his tongue around his mouth, and tasted Spike. With a shudder, he decided that maybe Spike breath wasn't the best statement to make around the Slayer and brushed his teeth. It was funny, he thought. He should be humiliated by being sent to brush his teeth by Cordelia of all people, but she acted as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Maybe Cordy did make her own reality.

He spat into the sink, and rinsed the toothbrush, wrapping it up in the plastic and tucking it into his backpack, because he didn't have a toothbrush at the mansion, and he probably should.

*Not for Spike,* he quickly added, because the vampire so did not deserve minty fresh Xander breath after winding him up and leaving him to his own highly embarrassing and personal monthly problems, except -

Except that in the light of day, with that itch very well scratched, thoughts of Spike chained up in the mansion only made Xander feel guilty. Okay, and kinda squirmy sexy too, because hello, hormones and captive vampire sex slave! *Who's probably going to get free any time now and kill you.*

But hey, at least he'd die well-fucked. Every teenaged boy's dream.

Jonathan entered the bathroom and tapped Xander on the shoulder. "Cordelia says to hurry up because the cafeteria is serving fish, and she wants to eat off campus instead."

"Um. Thanks."

"And she wants you to put some of this in your hair. This much." Jonathan held up his fingers, indicating the amount.

Xander looked down to find a tube of Hi-Shine Hair Serum in a brand he didn't recognize and couldn't pronounce. "Uh. Right." He scrubbed the dollop into his hair and stared at himself in the mirror. He'd lost some of the hollow look around his eyes, and there was actual color in his cheeks and lips again even if he badly needed a shave.

At least he didn't look homeless anymore.

"Xander!"

"Gotta go!" Xander snatched up his backpack and hurried back out into the hall to find Cordelia waiting for him.

"Much better." She handed the books back to Xander, then reached up and mussed Xander's hair until it fell in his face, and combed her fingers through it. "A little long, but the wild look is popular if you can carry it off."

"Can I?" Xander asked before he thought about the possible socially embarrassing consequences to asking Cordelia that question in public.

She looked him over. "You'll do."

There was something so not manly in hiding behind Cordelia all day at school, Xander realized as he got into her car again later for a ride home. He also realized that he couldn't throw stones about manliness when the highlight of his life for the past year had been taking it up the ass from Spike.

Xander dropped his head back against the seat rest and sucked in a deep breath, closing his eyes. Spike.

Who was chained up in the mansion waiting for him.

If Xander was lucky.

Because if Spike had gotten out of the chains, Xander was pretty sure he wouldn't be meeting Cordelia for that breakfast date at the Espresso Pump before school tomorrow. At least, he hoped not, and tried to remember if their date time was safely after dawn. It'd be pretty crummy of him as a friend to have Cordelia for breakfast, even if he did get turned into a blood sucking fiend.

Nah.

On second thought, he was pretty sure Spike would just kill him.

Or chain him up.

And Xander wasn't sure that'd be a bad thing - and it was so time to start the conversation going again.

Cordelia finished talking to whatever Cordette had been hanging around outside her car and slipped in next to Xander, setting her purse on the floor and checking her lipstick in the mirror. "So where's your apartment?"

"Huh?"

"Your apartment? El apartmento? Hello? Where do you live?"

"It's um - on Crawford."

"The complex a few blocks from Angel's creepy old place? How did a loser like you afford a place like that?"

"I kind of -"

"You have a roommate, don't you?"

"Sort of -"

"I suppose that's acceptable since you are still in high school. Is your roommate at least in college or is your roommate - Xander Harris!" Cordy hit the brakes hard enough to make Xander glad he'd learned the value of buckling up.

"What?"

"You moved in with your boyfriend, didn't you?" She gave him another shove, then laughed when he only stared back. "And I'll bet he doesn't work at the Doublemeat Palace. It costs good money to live in Ocean Pointe."

"Um, Cordelia? Don't take this the wrong way. In fact, don't take this as any kind of admission at all. What makes you think I'm gay?"

"Oh, that. Hello! Do you really think I don't have any contacts in the one porn shop in town? A straight man so does not buy Rocko. Much less the Tulip Plug or the Deep Blue Yonder," Cordy added, oblivious to the blush that Xander thought was going to burst a blood vessel and mercifully kill him.

*Any time now. Ready to die!*

The car slowed, and came to a stop, and Xander looked up to find himself at the Ocean Pointe Apartments. "You haven't -"

"Told?" To Xander's surprise, Cordelia leaned across the gear shift and kissed his cheek. "That would just be tacky." She popped open the passenger side door. "Don't forget. Tomorrow morning, Seven O'Clock, at the Espresso Pump."

Xander staggered out of the car, agreed, shut the door, and watched Cordy peel away from the curb in a daze.

He looked down and pinched his arm. "Ow."

*And why aren't there any ways of convincing yourself something is real that don't involve pain?*

Xander hitched his backpack higher, and with one last check to make sure Cordelia hadn't doubled back, he started off in the direction of the mansion.

The closer he came to the steps leading down into the atrium, the slower he walked. The ache in his ass which had been a quiet companion during the day throbbed now in time with his heartbeat, in time with his steps, until he realized he was one big walking heartbeat and what a bad idea that was when coming home to a (hopefully) chained up and (probably) pissed off vampire.

His legs shook as he came down the stone steps into the atrium, and he leaned against the wall in the late afternoon sunlight for long moments, closing his eyes and soaking in the heat while he still could.

"Xan-derrrrrr."

Xander's stomach rolled and dropped at the smooth call, a flood of adrenaline making him dizzy and light headed.

"I can smell you out there, pet. I can hear you out there, heart pounding away. It's impolite not to feed your guests. Why don't you come in and offer me a drink?"

The word 'drink' shivered through Xander's veins, and he shook himself, pushed away from the wall, and reminded himself that if Spike wasn't still chained up, he'd probably be out here in the courtyard shade, not inside the mansion.

He pushed through the devastated doorway, ready to tell Spike that he'd just have to wait for his jollies the way Xander had been waiting all summer, then stopped.

The mansion reeked of musk and sex - and blood which made the hairs on the back of Xander's neck shiver upright. And now, he could hear the soft rhythmic clanking of Spike's heavy chains as Spike stroked his hand lazily up and down his cock, hard and slick. The scent of aroused Spike dove straight into Xander's dick, hardening him against his zipper and bringing the hyena out with a growl. And Xander needed, dropping his backpack and taking a half step toward Spike before his brain had registered it.

Spike licked his lips, then raised his right wrist to his mouth, lapping at the blood there - dried and fresh where he'd fought the cuffs. "Got bored waiting for you, pet. It's not nice leaving your guest all alone while you go out and have your fun."