Spike didn't go out that night - stuck around, watched the telly, let Will fuss over him.

It actually wasn't so bad, the three of them on the couch, watching a mindless action flick, eating microwave popcorn and drinking cheap beer from the convenience store down the street that didn't give enough of a shit to card paying customers.

It felt comfortable.

Except for the part where William wouldn't keep his hands to himself. And yeah, okay, so that should have been the icing on Xander's couch-TV-popcorn-beer cake, but - call him old-fashioned - Xander liked a little privacy when getting his groove on.

But Will hadn't been kidding when he'd said he knew what he wanted. And in spite of his insistence that morning that it didn't have to be that day - and in spite of the fact that the morning's frottage had had very satisfying results - Will seemed to need to remind Xander of that want. At every. possible. moment.

As if Xander was going to forget. As if Xander could sit, hour upon hour, in a small room with two of the hottest guys he'd ever laid eyes on and not think about... well, about all the other things he'd like to lay on them.

He was honorable... and a little bit modest. Not superhuman.

No, Xander was only human. And as the days crept on without any sign of any intention on Spike's part to leave the apartment for longer than a fifteen-minute cigarette or beer run, Xander's distinctly human limits were sorely tested.

And rapidly failing.

Another evening on the couch built for three. Yep, just William, Xander, and Spike. Oh, and William's perpetually wandering hands, Xander's perpetually aching dick, and Spike's perpetually knowing smirk. The regular crew.

Spike got up to use the toilet.

"Mind if I throw your brother out the window?" Xander asked casually.

William gave it some thought. "Spike, yes. His cigarettes and my inhaler, however..."

"You have that look on your face."

"What look is that?"

"The thinky look."

"I'm always thinking, Xander."

"Nuh." Xander held up a hand, smiled when William took it and began to play with his fingers. "This is planning something. If you were a cartoon character, you'd be wringing your hands while lightning flashed behind you."

"What could I possibly be planning? If Spike's cigarettes and my inhaler disappeared, Spike would have to go out to replace them. And if it somehow happened during a busy time of day at the pharmacy, it might be over an hour before he made it back." William glanced at Xander, a blue-eyed innocent.

"Except I'm at work when the pharmacy's busy and on my days off, he'd complain until I had go instead." No matter how many errands Xander ran, Spike always claimed it was Xander's turn to go out.

"Except that you told Faith you'd cover half of Crazy Larry's shift tomorrow morning. So, if you came home for lunch in between and Spike happened to be out..."

A slow smile spread across Xander's face. "Mmm, smart boys are sexy."

Will just curled closer to Xander as the toilet flushed and Spike emerged from the bathroom.

Xander left for work the next day with the ironic combination of an inhaler and a pack of cigarettes stuffed in his coat pocket.

For the first two hours of the shift, a supernaturally charged Xander grilled up sausage patties, circular eggs, and minipancakes like he was the one boy in all the world chosen to stand against low cholesterol, weight loss, and the forces of health. Faith was impressed. And a little scared.

Then it hit Xander that in just two hours he'd be alone - truly alone - with Will. That he'd be having sex with Will for the first time. Will's first time. Ever.

That's when Faith really got scared.

Because when half a dozen sausage patties explode into a wall of flame, that's damn scary. And after a couple batches of minipancakes that could have doubled as NHL regulation hockey pucks, Xander was taken off grill duty and banished to the register.

And when Xander tried to give a customer Fun Bucks in change for a fifty-dollar bill, Faith moved him to wiping tables.

*Wax on.*

He'd take it slow. Love every inch of William's skin.

No.

No.

They'd take a shower first. Start fresh and clean. Make it easier for William. Relax him. Warm up the muscles.

Warm ups were good before athletic activity, right?

*Wax off.*

Not that they were going to be getting too athletic on William's first time...

"Xan!"

Xander let out a very girly scream that he would not be admitting to in this lifetime and hoped like hell the wet rag that flew out of his hand didn't land in anyone's lunch. "Faith! Heart attack here!"

"Go home."

"What? Why?"

"Because you're a danger to yourself and others. And if you go home now, you might actually be worth paying when you come in to work this afternoon."

Xander retrieved the rag from a planter and started to retreat to the back room, then panicked. "No, wait. I can't go home early."

Faith grabbed Xander by the arm and marched him back to the time clock to punch out, hauled on him hard when Xander dug in his heels.

"Faith! I can't go home before noon!"

She shoved his coat into his arms and Xander out the back door. "Then walk real slow."

Xander ended up huddling behind the fast food place instead, crouched down with his coat wrapped around him under the 'No Trespassing' sign and heat duct where he'd first kissed William. Two feet away from the spot where he'd first kissed Spike and wasn't it convenient to have so many of his firsts in the same place and he was so not going there because there was about to be another first for the bed where he had that first with Spike and hello brain? Not going there?

So no working, no thinking, no walking home. Which left what exactly? The gathering of supplies?

But the lube and the condoms were there. At home. Had been there. He'd been ready for weeks, hadn't he? Wasn't he? But was Will? Will acted like he was. Ready. Willing. Eager. But what did Will know? Wasn't Xander supposed to teach him? But what if he messed it up? And scarred Will for life? How could he possibly get it right? Right enough? Perfect enough? 'Cause when you got right down to it, when was the last time Xander had done anything perfectly?

Shouldn't there be candles and scattered rose petals and aromatherapy? And soft music and wine? And Xander could barely afford a 40 of Pink Champale at this point, with three people living off one minimum wage. Fuck.

Not to mention that Spike was the granddaddy of overprotective male figures in his brother's life and there was something wrong with that sentence but Xander wasn't in any kind of shape to examine it.

Spike was gonna kill him.

Worse - Spike was gonna get pissed, scream at him and take William away. And William would go because Xander had been such a complete disappointment and he'd meet them again in twenty years, blind and selling pencils by the side of the road.

Rewind.

Okay. Realistic version: he'd fuck it up and William would laugh at him, then they'd try it again until they got it right and hey - the practice might be kinda fun.

Xander managed to hang on to the realistic view right up until the moment when he was standing outside his own door. And suddenly, he couldn't go in.

Planned sex was just... weird. Downright unnatural, really. You didn't plan sex. You just had it. You were with a hot guy - or girl, if you could stand that sort of thing - and the hormones kicked in and you wanted and, if that person was willing to give you what you wanted, you took it and they took it and everyone was a little happier and messier afterward. And it was good.

But the planning, the expectation, these were bad things. Unnatural things. One-way tickets to disappointment and side-of-the-road pencil-selling and -

The door was opened and Xander was yanked through it and all thoughts flew out of his head beyond how to stay upright and how not to drop his sudden armful of William.

Armful, mouthful, cock getting fuller by the second. And why was this supposed to be a bad thing again?

Then Xander caught a whiff of himself and pulled away with a groan. "I need to get out of this uniform."

"Yes. And quickly." And who knew William could speak with his tongue in Xander's mouth? Or at least that's what it felt like and William had a grip on his belt and was pulling him fully into the apartment, kicking the door shut - locking every single lock while he unlocked every single one of Xander's inhibitions.

Which left Xander's very real concern naked and alone in the stark light of - um - nudity. "I stink."

Xander expected protests or eager insistence that William join him in the shower.

He didn't get them.

Instead, he got one last sweet kiss on lips he was pretty sure were swollen after William's attack and why was he thinking of William as virginal again - aside from the obvious technicality? "Don't make me wait long."

The time in the shower posed a dilemma. Thoughts of Will, waiting for Xander just beyond the bathroom door in a blessedly empty apartment were making Xander very hard. And when he got back out there, it was going to be very hard to last. But with a bit of shower gel and his trusty right hand, Xander could take the edge off, make sure he was prepared to go nice and slow.

But what if he couldn't get the edge back? That would be humiliating. Xander pictured Will again. Who was he kidding? It was Will. Of course he'd be able to get the edge back.

Xander took care of it, then washed up. It took three vigorous shampoo attacks before the fry grease finally relinquished its grip on his hair and slunk down the drain in shame.

As Xander stepped from the shower, he faced another dilemma. He was naked. Of course, nakedness and sex seemed like a dynamic duo, but he wasn't quite ready to be naked. It was the kind of thing you were supposed to work up to. What kind of person just walked into a room, dropped his towel and said "Alright, let's interlock parts"?

In the end, the pair of pajama pants Xander had left on the bathroom floor that morning passed the sniff test and he pulled them on. So they were thin enough not to conceal much of anything - too thin to hide that Mr. Happy was already getting interested in the proceedings that were soon to... proceed.

Which was the point.

Xander glared at the door and sucked in a deep and manly breath before throwing it open and walking into the bedroom where William was -

William was...

The breath whooshed out of Xander hard enough to make him dizzy.

William was naked, hard and sprawled out in the center of Xander's bed, lip caught tight enough between his teeth to turn white where they bit as his fingertips trailed up and down a cock so hard it looked painful. "Please."

Please what? Xander didn't know but if William asked in that tone of voice, he could please anything.

And Xander suddenly felt very out of place in his sleep pants. Because clearly the time for nakedness had arrived. Was past, even. With hands that Xander knew couldn't be trembling - because damn it, it wasn't like this was his first time - Xander pushed the elastic waistband over his hips and down his thighs. Stepping free of them, he approached the bed, approached William.

"Will, I..."

"Want me?" Will asked with a smile.

Xander smiled back. "Well... yes, but I..."

"Plan to take me right now?"

"Well... yes, but I..."

"Don't know when to shut up?"

Xander smiled again, standing over William, reaching down to touch his cheek. "Well obviously, but Will I... I really don't want to do this wrong."

"There's a wrong way?"

Xander shook his head. "Will, I don't want to hurt you."

Will held Xander's eyes steadily, licked his lips in a way that was maybe nervous, maybe not. "Don't you think you have to? A little? And then you can make it up to me."

Xander swallowed and all the blood in his body drained from his face to his dick in a tidal rush to the pull of Satellite William. "R-right."