Bored, Yet Resourceful

"Oh Jesus, Spike! What is that?" Xander gagged, pushing his sleeve against his nose and blinking blearily at the boiling pot on the stove.

"Kava tea," Spike said absently, giving the contents a poke.

"It reeks!"

"Not so bad. You spend a week in a basement in Prague with a family of decomposing leftovers, and then come back to tell me what reeks."

Xander coughed, rubbing at his eye to clear the tearing for a better look. "Okay, and why?"

For an answer, Spike handed over the newspaper, folded neatly to a small blurb at the top.

"And why am I not surprised? I am so canceling the subscription if it's why you're brewing that crap."

"What would we do for fun then? Might get bored shaggin' each other brainless."

"You've gotta be kidding me. Vamp constitution there. Healthy young American male hormones here. And you think we need a newspaper to get it on?"

"No. But it makes it more interesting." He dipped a ladle into the seething mass within the pot and dumped it into a teacup, tossing it back in one go with a grimace.

"That is disgusting." Xander watched Spike's face travel through permutations of "yuck."

Spike snorted. "Read the article, you daft git. I'm not brewin' this sludge for its aromatic qualities."

"California prosecuters cracking down on motorists driving under the intoxicating influence of kava kava tea?"

"Yep."

"You're trying to get blasted on a nutritional supplement?!"

"Yep."

"Spike. I don't think the article was intended as a how-to."

"Well then, they shouldn't have printed it then, should they? 'Scuse me," he said, ladling another portion into the teacup, muttering, "Stuff tastes even worse when it's cold."

Xander blinked.

Spike blinked back. Smiled. Widely.

Xander's brain finally registered the overflowing waste basket. "Spike?"

"Yeah, luv?"

"How much of this have you had?"

"Only one or two," Spike said, and thought, "batches."

"Oh my god."

Spike's smile stretched to unnatural dimensions, and he slid his hands into Xander's back pockets, comfortably feeling him up. "Yes?"

Xander sighed, dropping his forehead onto Spike's shoulder and rocking it back and forth. "You finished all the beer before sunset and couldn't go out for more again, didn't you?"

Spike's lower lip came out, pouting. "Might've done."

"And so your solution was to brew potentially narcotic tea?" Xander's voice was muffled by Spike's tee shirt.

"Nice and calming. Good for you. Says right on the box." Spike gave Xander's ass a pat, then dove his hand back into the pocket for a squeeze, draping himself over Xander like a heavy but affectionate poncho.

Xander lifted his head and stared at him in disbelief.

Spike's lower lip came out in a pout. "It's all the fault of the grocer, pet."

"Uh. How?"

"Won't deliver alcohol. Will deliver nutritional supplements."

Xander remained silent so long, staring into the middle distance that Spike gave him a gentle worried shake. "Pet? Don't have to finish the stuff if you don't want. Few bags of blood down me and a few windows open, and in an hour, it'll be as if the stuff never was."

"No. It's not that. That's fine. You're a big vamp, I just, I- I don't know whether to be afraid or impressed that you thought of it at all," Xander admitted finally.

Spike shrugged and leaned forward to kiss Xander's nose in a way Xander was fairly certain he wouldn't be if he weren't blasted on nutritional supplements. "Don't live to be a hundred an' (mumblemumble) without being resourceful."