Xander dropped the keys into Faith's hand. "Thanks. I don't know what I - "

Faith didn't need to hear it. "You got him?" she asked.

"I got him."

"Good."

Xander nodded. It was good. "Look, just give me a second and I can finish the rest of - "

"Go home. I'll see you tomorrow. Try to get at least a little sleep, okay?"

"I'll try." Xander smiled as he went out the back, thinking about all the non-sleeping things he could be doing tonight - with Spike. But at the sight of Spike - leaning against the back wall of the building, smoking and trying but not quite succeeding to look tough - Xander knew he needed to do better than club Spike over the head and drag him home by the hair.

"Look," he began. "I'm done being Cave-Xander now. I'm going home. If you come with me, it's for good. I won't let you put Will - no, you know what? I won't let you put me through this again. We need you there."

Spike looked down at his boots. "Didn't think you'd notice I was gone."

Xander sighed, took a deep breath. "I noticed. Maybe even more than I thought I would, you know?"

Spike shoved away from the wall, dropped his cigarette and toed it out against the concrete. He glanced up. "I know."

Side by side, they began the walk home.

"I have a job," Spike said.

"What?"

"A job," Spike said again with a glare that dared Xander to - well, to do anything but stare back at Spike in slack-jawed amazement, which was what he was actually doing. Spike jammed his hands into his coat pockets and walked on.

"You - huh?"

"You know, where you show up, grunt and groan a few hours, take home pay." Spike caught the change of Xander's expression out of the corner of his eye - crestfallen. "It's a real job, mate. I work loading and unloading at the docks."

"You," Xander repeated, pointing at Spike for emphasis, "have a job."

"Right." They walked along in silence for a bit, Spike lighting a cigarette and Xander a million miles away.

"You have a job?"

"God. William has shagged your brains out. Bloody little minx."

"It's just... I thought - I mean, Will thought - I mean, we thought, you know...all that money... Why didn't you say anything?"

Spike shrugged, took a drag. "Wasn't sure it was gonna work out, was I?"

And Xander suspected that was the answer to more than the one question.

The living room was empty when Spike and Xander walked in.

"Hey, honey, I'm home," Xander called. "And I picked up a little something at work that I think you're gonna like."

"Xander," William said as he padded out of the bedroom in bare feet. "I daresay there is nothing at your workplace - besides you and Faith - that I like. If I never eat…" William trailed off as he looked up and saw Spike.

Neither twin said a word, but their eyes were speaking volumes. Xander felt like an eavesdropper.

"I'm just gonna..." Xander pointed toward the bathroom and went to have his own conversation with the shower.

In the shower, Xander tried not to also have William and Spike's conversation.

Was there a tear-filled and trembling reunion?

Had William burst with horniness and tackled Spike to the couch in a scene straight from Xander's fantasies?

Was William calling Spike an idiot?

*No, no - and yes.*

Because Spike had been visiting William every day.

And because William and Spike weren't like that – no matter how much Xander's subconscious and hormones really liked that idea.

And last of all, because Spike was an idiot. An idiot who'd been visiting William, which meant by default avoiding Xander - and okay, that was gonna stop.

The look in Spike's eyes when he saw Xander at the police station wasn't indifference.

It wasn't a fuck buddy.

Or a pal.

It was - it was the look in William's eyes that matched the feeling in Xander's gut. (Okay, maybe not. Because the feeling in Xander's gut was a little like nausea right then.) Only it wasn't William's look - it was Spike's look. At Xander.

And Spike was an idiot.

Who might have left again while Xander was in the shower.

*Okay. Way too freaking young for a heart attack.*

Xander snapped off the water and wrapped the first towel he found around his waist, not even bothering to dry off. He came to an abrupt stop outside the bathroom, dripping on the carpetas he stared at the twins, curled up on one side of the couch, Spike's back to William's front.

Spike held Xander's eyes with that unguarded look for all of a second before looking toward the door with a vague gesture. "Gonna - go get some smokes, yeah? Just need my boots and - "

"No," Xander said.

"Not gonna run away or nothin', all right?" Spike watched Xander cross the room to them, guiltily flickering eyes straying away from Xander even when he knelt before the two of them on the couch.

"You got that right," Xander said, leaned forward, and slid his lips over Spike's - both chapped from too much nervous licking, nervous biting, nervous habits that Xander was just about fed up with except he'd missed the way rough on rough made his lips tingle.

There was a soft brush of warm hands against Xander's ribs. Xander and Spike looked down to see William's arms looped strongly around Spike's waist. "Stay," William said.

"Stay," Xander echoed.

Taking a deep breath, he slid his thumbs under Will's arms to catch the hem of Spike's tee shirt. He felt the heat rising off Spike's skin and fought the urge for fast and frantic, quick and dirty, the way it always went between him and Spike. The urge was strong but Xander resisted. The Xand-man was a plan man.

He tugged the shirt free and worked it up and off, fingers and thumbs brushing over Spike's skin on the way, feeling the rapid rise and fall of shallow breaths, the banging of heart against ribs that echoed in Xander's chest.

He kissed Spike's lips once more - savoring the hints of tobacco and the flavor underneath - before taking a teasing, torturous trip of tongue and teeth down, down, down Spike's taut torso. More smoke and salt and smooth smooth skin over hard muscle William didn't have. Spike taste. Spike feel.

When his lips reached William's hands - interlaced just above Spike's waistband - Xander kissed, licked and bit at those fingers while his own fingers worked, fumbled at the buttons of Spike's fly.

With Spike's cock uncovered at last, Xander turned his full attention to it, ran his fingers lightly up and down its length, flicked his tongue over the moisture at its tip, curled his fingers around the base - soft over hard - and felt the jump beneath Spike's skin, heard a muffled groan as Spike remembered breathing. Xander pumped - once, twice - then opened wide and took it as deep as he could.

Spike's hips bucked against William's hold and William wrapped his legs over Spike's to hold Spike more firmly in place – arched and open, shaking and swearing - at the mercy of Xander's mouth, lips, tongue.

"Bloody hell."

Xander grinned - as much as one can grin around a mouthful of cock - cock he finally had time to explore without worrying about being picked up by the cops. He wanted to hear Spike curse again - raw and honest - so he tried the humming thing he and Will had been working on.

"Bloody hell."

Xander grinned again. If Spike liked that, he was gonna love it when Xander...

"Bloody hell!"

Xander would have grinned, but it was actually impossible while swallowing around Spike's cock. The deep throating? Definitely a crowd pleaser.

Spike was close, Xander knew, but he pulled away, earning himself the most vehement "bloody hell" thus far and a "Xan, luv, please..."

Xander looked up and met Spike's dark, desperate eyes. "I want to be inside you."

Spike's gaze shifted. "I - I've never..."

Ache in his heart, ache in his cock, Xander reached out and gently turned Spike's head back to face him - breathless voice. "Do you trust me?"

A long moment, gazes holding. Spike nodded.

A small smile and Xander ducked in to plant a light kiss on Spike's lips, then looked over Spike's shoulder to Will, whose eyes were nearly as dark and desperate as Spike's. Xander shivered and swallowed. "Don't we have some lube and a condom around here?"

Will took one hand from around Spike's waist, slipped it into the couch cushions and withdrew a tube and a foil packet. Xander rewarded Will with a lingering kiss - oranges, not tobacco. "Thanks, sweetheart."

A last smile for Will, who grinned back, and Xander turned his full focus on Spike - Spike who didn't taste of oranges. Spike who was watching him with wide eyes, hungry eyes. Spike with the hot, hot skin and muscles nearly vibrating off the bone.

Slowly, Xander stripped away Spike's jeans and surveyed the beautiful body before him, held out his right hand and received a generous dose of lube. "Ready?"

Spike snorted. "That's got to be the most fucking ridiculous thing you could a - a - ask."

And who knew Spike could lose his voice?

Who knew Spike would like having Xander slide on in with a slick fingertip? It was a world of discovery. A hot, tight, slick world of clutching and panting discovery.

"Hurt?" Less ridiculous thing to ask, the way Spike was biting down on his lip, bearing down on Xander's finger and breathing fast and shallow - then stopping all together when Xander had to kiss him again, teasing his lip out from between his teeth, then whispering in his ear. "It's okay if it hurts."

And apparently that was the right thing to say to Spike, who arched against William, breathing hard. "Gonna - gonna need another finger for that, mate."

"Okay."

"Bloody hell." A whisper between breaths.

"Okay?"

"Less talk, luv, more - bloody buggering fuck!" Spike arched against William's hold as Xander's knuckles rubbed over his prostate.

"More of that?" Xander asked.

"'F it's not too much trouble," Spike croaked.

It wasn't. Xander troubled himself to repeat the action. Several more times.

"One more finger, okay?"

Spike seemed to be having trouble forming words. "I... said... less talk, more - ahhh."

And christ, Spike looked incredible like this - panting, twisting, clenching around Xander's three fingers, stripped bare in every possible way, his head thrown back against Will's shoulder and his legs spread wide by his twin's.

Xander felt the towel drop away, felt familiar fingers rolling latex over his cock, then covering that latex with slick. But he wasn't done there - oh no. No quick coating of slick for William, instead a leasurely stroke-and-tease that had Xander biting his lip and putting a hand down to stop him. "You wait your turn." He huffed, grinned and kissed at William's pout over Spike's shoulder.

"I wasn't doing anything." And that would have been a lot more convincing if Will's index finger hadn't been tracing shivery circles around the tip of Xander's cock.

"N-uh?" Xander looked pointedly down.

"Oh. Well, there is that." William curled his tongue behind his teeth in an expression that made him look more like Spike than Spike did.

Spike with the flushed skin and dazed eyes and a low lusty groan that went straight to Xander's belly. And this time, Xander didn't waste time talking or teasing, just freed one of Spike's legs from William's hold and lifted it, wrapping it around his back as he withdrew his fingers and began to inch his way into Spike. He opened his mouth for one more 'Okay?' but Spike spoke first.

"If you ask me one more sodding time if I'm okay, I'm gonna go wank in the shower instead. Got it?" Spike panted through clenched teeth. "Wanker?"

William put his lips against Spike's ear, whispered, "Bear down on him." And Xander wasn't sure which of them shuddered harder.

Because Spike followed directions. And Xander slid home with a groaned "god, Spike!" and watched Spike's mouth open, eyes squeeze tight shut.

"Bloody... hell."

"Open your eyes." Xander's voice was unsteady - Xander was unsteady with the effort of holding still with Spike clutching and clenching - trembling around him. And when those eyes opened, hardly any blue at all showed around wide, wide pupils. "Look."

All three looked down, watched the first slow in-out slide of Xander into Spike's body. And Xander felt Spike start breathing again, shakily. "Bugger me." Barely more than a whisper but it set Will off, laughing.

"Was - was that an order?"

And that set Xander off and that made the whisper turn into a throaty groan and Spike clutch at Xander's shoulders. "God - fucking hell - yes!"

"Like this?" Xander asked, unable to resist teasing Spike with a few shallow thrusts while William collaborated by tightening his hold around Spike's hips, preventing Spike from doing any thrusting of his own.

"Payback's a bitch, you tossers," Spike growled, and William laughed some more while Xander cut off any further threats by covering Spike's mouth with his own.

As the kiss continued, Spike continued to wriggle his hips, desperate for the deeper, harder, faster that Xander wouldn't give him.

"Ow!" Xander pulled back and frowned at Spike, licking his bottom lip. "You bit me."

"You deserved it."

"Want me to kiss it better?" Will asked.

"In a second." And then Xander started thrusting, really thrusting - long, smooth, deep strokes - and Spike wasn't complaining anymore, wasn't talking at all anymore, just gasping, groaning and grunting. And Will was gasping too, in time with Xander's thrusts. And then Xander was taking that promised kiss, but without breaking rhythm, his tongue doing to Will's mouth what his cock was doing to Spike's ass and it was so, so good.

So good.

So good, it earned Xander a jab in the ribs and a wiggle from Spike. "Pay attention, tosser. 'M trying to get properly buggered!"

William seemed to find that hilarious, sliding a hand to Spike's jaw and tilting his head back until their lips could brush. "Then help me control the impulse to distract him."

"So distracted," Xander panted but his hips - his hips, wonderful hips and cock knew what to do about kissing twins and that involved the proper buggering Spike demanded, and swearing, and sweating, and kissing, and biting until William and Spike were both writhing under him. Or he was writhing on top of them? Anyway, writhing was happening and then coming was happening, Spike with a curse and a shudder and a clamp of muscles around Xander - and an expression so lost, so open that Xander came kissing Spike hard, kissing Spike deep, kissing Spike afterglow sweet n' slow with a moan that didn't come from either one of them.

"Not letting you leave again," Xander mumbled, when his brain found its way home.

"Just as well. Can't - can't feel m' legs."

Xander shook his head, waited until hazy blue eyes - two pairs - opened to meet his. "Ever."