"So basically, we're all stuck in here."

"Right."

"With no way out."

"That's what I just said, isn't it?"

"And Buffy's downstairs entertaining Mr. Banana Republic."

"What?"

"The guy Willow invited from her Humanities class."

"Oh. Yeah. Git." Spike flopped down on the corner of the master bed, folded his arms, and tipped his face up to Xander for inspection.

Xander let out a low whistle. "She really worked you over."

"Please." Spike snorted. "I let her."

"Uh huh." Xander didn't even pretend to disagree. "I've got your number, buddy. You're a secret masochist."

Spike fixed Xander with his most skeptical look, then arched an eyebrow.

"And that is much more effective when your eyes aren't swollen half shut."

Spike switched to a pout, split lip and all.

"Okay. That's more effective." Xander laughed, turning with intent to go to the bathroom and get a cool cloth for Spike's injuries when scraped fingers darted forward, hooking into his belt loops. "Uh. Spike? Can't get a wash cloth if you're hanging onto me."

"Yeah?"

"Uh huh. You do remember we told the girls we were coming up here to get the swelling down while you could still see?"

Spike's free fingers began a slow wander toward Xander's zipper. "Yeah. So?"

"So, we did not tell them we were coming up here for the nookie."

The tip of Spike's tongue poked against the cut in his lower lip, and he grinned wickedly around it. "So? Not like we've got anywhere else to be. Not like we could have anywhere else to be." So saying, he tugged sharply, tumbling both of them back to sprawl across the bed, making a frantic grab for Xander and missing as Xander scrambled desperately back to his feet.

"No, no, no!"

"No?! What are you, turning into a girl?"

"That's Willow's bed!"

"Was Joyce's bed once too." Spike stretched out, one knee drawn up, and stroked his hands over the coverlet, watching Xander with a predatory gleam. "So what's your problem?"

"You do realize you've killed any vague possibility of an erection I might have had, don't you?"

"That so?"

"Uh. Spike?"

"Yeah, luv?"

"Less with the looking at me like I'm a twelve course meal of virgins."

"Nothin' virginal about you at all, mate." Spike's tongue curled and he rested a hand on his thigh, palm down, starting up a slow sweep over the denim, shifting his hips into it on every up-swing. "'Sides. I like a challenge."

"I don't remember challenging you."

"No? Killed any chance of an erection you might've had?" Spike's eyes shifted down, watching himself with pursed lips. "Mine seems to be all right."

"Spike, get off Willow's bed before she comes up here and sees you!"

"Me? Don't you mean us, pet?"

"I'm not the one with my boots on the covers and a hand practically down my pants!"

"You want me to take 'em off?"

"Yes!"

Spike's hands went to his zipper, and Xander lunged at him, catching them before Spike could get his jeans open. "I meant," Xander said through gritted teeth, "off the bed."

Instead of answering, Spike smiled, and Xander realized his fatal mistake a moment too late as Spike grabbed him, rolling them over and pinning Xander to the mattress before he could get away. "Don't want to," he finally said.

"Dammit, Spike!" Xander twisted beneath Spike, who only clamped down with his knees, and rode out the struggles until he got bored, grabbed Xander's wrists, and pinned them over his head, leaving them nose-to-nose.

"Careful," Spike said, "I'm injured."

Xander stared at him incredulously.

Spike widened his eyes as much as bruising would allow, and let his lower lip stick out again in a pout.

It was too much for Xander, who burst out with a giggle, then a laugh, then lost it, muffling helpless laughter against the shoulder of Spike's duster.

"What?" Spike protested around a smile, waiting for Xander's laughter to ease before gingerly lowering himself onto his body, tangling their legs together, and resting his chin on Xander's sternum, letting Xander pet his hair.

"You. You're impossible to stop once you get something into your head."

Spike's eyes widened in genuine surprise. "What? You only just now realized that? You are slow."

They both looked up at a knock on the door, freezing when Tara stood in the doorway, blinking at them.

"Um," Xander said, giving up squirming immediately when Spike's hands tightened on his wrists. "Hi!"

"Hi."

"I'm just, uh. Showing the boy a new hold," Spike said, shifting in a way that made Xander's face flare red with the grind of Spike's erection into his hip.

"Uh huh," Tara said, pursing her lips in barely-concealed amusement.

"Really."

"Uh huh." A little laugh escaped Tara and she backed out of the doorway until only her head was in. "I'll leave you to it. And Xander? There's clean sheets and blankets in the closet. Change them before you come back downstairs?"

Xander dropped his head back to the mattress with a groan as the door clicked shut behind Tara.

"There."

"Where?" Xander asked, trying for humor.

"Got the witch's permission, didn't we?"

"The permission of the witch who doesn't live here."

"Please! Have you smelled the two of them in the same room with each other? You mark my words. She'll be moving back here within the week." Spike looked more closely at Xander and smirked. "And that's not all I've smelt."

"Well, you do have my arms up over my head, but I'm pretty sure I'm still reasonably shower-fresh and deodorized, so-"

"Not that." Spike gave his hips a little twist and shimmy. "Someone got all hard on us being discovered."

Xander dropped his head back to the mattress with a groan. "I refuse to answer that on the grounds that it would incriminate me."

Spike snickered into Xander's ear, licking a wet and wiggly trail around the rim. "Been watching too many detective shows, pet. Now c'mon." Spike closed his teeth over Xander's earlobe, nibbling on it as he slipped a hand between them to slide down Xander's zipper and fumble his cock free of boxers and khakis. "Reckon we've got a good fifteen minutes to shag before the slayer comes lookin' for us."

Xander hissed, feeling his cock pulse and twitch in Spike's grasp at the vivid picture painted in his mind's eye of Buffy walking in on them, and rocked involuntarily into Spike's hand.

Spike switched to Xander's other ear, and down his throat before murmuring, his hand working Xander nice and slow. "Fifteen minutes is just the right time to get you naked, get you hard, get you wet, split open on my dick, and moaning my name. What do you think, pet? Think you can come on cue?"

Xander almost did.