You know, in the grand scheme of 'ways to wake up on your birthday', waking up next to your lover in a big messy bed ranks pretty high.

God, that'd be great about now, but no, the bed's cold, and Wes is nowhere in sight.

Which means I know what I've gotta do, right?

Because true love means getting out of bed at three AM and walking across a cold floor to make sure your sweetheart didn't fall asleep at his desk again, because he's always grouchy when it takes hours for the keyboard key marks to fade from his cheek, and you can't stop giggling at him until they do.

Okay, so some of that might've been my fault.

Light's off in the office.

But his shoes are still by the door, and the kitchen's empty.

Then, I see him, out on the balcony in that ratty old quilt he keeps in his office cause he says it smells like me and damn me if he doesn't look like something out of a fairy tale, all moonlight, patch, and tatters.

"Wouldn't you rather have the real thing instead of the security blanket?"

"What makes you think I wasn't out here waiting for the real thing?"

"The fact that I was sound asleep."

He's still laughing, all quiet when he wraps me up in the blanket with him, and god, that's nice, all skin to skin, even if a seam in the blanket's open over my ass, and it's getting a little cold. "You always wake up soon after I've left the bed," he says, and you know? I can't deny it.

Cause it's true.

"Why're you out here?" Not that I'm complaining about the two naked men on the balcony in a big blanket, because that part's kind of nice, but: "It's freezing."

"Listen."

"Huh?"

Wesley worms a hand out of the blanket and over my lips, nice and warm and tingly compared to the December air. "Listen," he says again, and this time, I hear it, some kind of band going at it, fey and traditional in the park. Slow. Sweet.

"What is it?"

"There's a little Celtic band who perform in the coffee shop near William's office. They come out here once a month from midnight to dawn to play and dance in the park. I wondered if we could hear them from here."

"It's nice."

"Mm." Wes rubs against me, all smooth-soft, and sleepy-cat-slow, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see him smiling. "Dance with me."

I wanna open my mouth to tell him I don't dance. To feed him the line I've been feeding Spike for years, but it doesn't come.

Know why?

'Cause I'm all ready dancing with him, cheek to fuckin' cheek, my arms around his waist, and his around my shoulders, and the music's so quiet I can almost hear his heart beat. "This shouldn't be turning me on." My words buzz back at me from the skin of his neck, and he tips his head away, greedy bastard for a little neck action.

"Is it?"

I press up closer to him, yeah like he couldn't have felt it before, till it's pretty goddamned obvious I'm turned on. "What do you think?"

He turns his head until I can feel his lips against my ear, and Jesus, they're cold. How long's he been out here anyway? "I think that since I'm doing all the work of holding this blanket closed, you could put your hands to better use than holding me close." He bites me just hard enough to make my dick take notice. "I assure you, I won't be pulling away."

"Thought it was my birthday, so you're supposed to do the work."

"What makes you think this isn't part of your present?" His breath's so hot from between those cold lips, cold lips marking a trail of hot-cold-hot down my throat.

"I thought you were supposed to get spankings for your birthday."

He shakes against me with that almost-silent laughter, and holy hell, is he a man or an anaconda the way his leg's wrapping around mine? Think he's tryin' to climb me and I'm not complaining. "The spanking comes later."

And there is just something about the word "spanking" in an accent that proper that does dirty bad things to my headspace. "Am I the spank-ee or the spank-er?"

Little sparkles of heat prickle the edges of my ear with his breath. "You did complain that your arse was cold. I'm certain I can warm it up for you."

Uhh! And okay, that hits me where I live, and since when did I find being spanked a turn-on?

Oh yeah, when I hooked up with a guy with a public school accent and a wicked way with his hands? What? I'm a young and healthy American male who believes in experimentation.

Wes gives me another of those attention getting bites, and rocks up against me, hot, hard, and I can feel a little slick where his dick's head rubs across mine. "Somebody's thinking," he says, right into my ear in the way that tickles and makes me want him to say something more, something dirty.

"Somebody's thinking," he says again, "about more than the music." And we're still dancing to it, but with purpose now, a slow shuffle and slide together that's more gentle grind than ballroom, and call me slow, but it's only when my back hits the dividing wall to the next balcony, trapping the blanket around us, that I realize he's been steering me.

"Somebody's thinking," he's saying into my throat one more time, and sucking the blood to the surface straight from my dick, feels like, "that he'd like me to go down on my knees, right here, right now. In the open air." His hands are coming down from my shoulders now, over my chest, down to my belly, and shit, they're cold rubbing my thighs and that should so not be making me harder.

But it does.

"Is that what you're thinking, Xander? How hot my mouth will be around you? How there's just enough moonlight that anyone looking up here would only see a man listening to music, and never never know that I'm kneeling before you, taking you deep?" Wesley's hands curled around Xander's cock, pumping him in slow time with his words, bitten, kissed, and whispered into the flesh of his throat.

"Or would you like to bury yourself in my arse, take me slow and hard over the balcony, bare enough for anyone and everyone to see? I'm slick, you know, ready for you." Wesley let his eyes close, bringing Xander's hand down to the small of his back, then lower, trailing their joined fingers over his slicked and stretched hole, riding out the full body shudder of Xander against him. "Is that what you want, Xander? Is that how you want me?"

Xander's breath hitched, and Wesley moaned, spreading his legs and sliding the tips of their fingers in together, rubbing up against Xander. "Tell me it's what you want, love. Please."

"Gotta be in you, sweetheart," Xander breathed, the fingers of his free hand crushing Wesley against him, the tips of the others sliding against Wesley's, slick, hot against the twitching edges of his hole.

"Against the railing," Wesley whispered, pulling Xander with him with slow kisses, low moans, shuddering as their fingers slid free, painting a coolly slick stripe across his thigh and hip. He leaned close one last time, murmuring into Xander's ear. "Lose the blanket."

"Wes-?" Xander's throat closed over as Wesley slid free of the blanket, bracing his hands against the railing, back and head bowed, legs spread wide for him in the moonlight.

Wesley turned his head, his eyes glittering in the shadow of his hair. "Keep me warm?"

"God..."

By the time he's shivered his first shiver, I'm in him, and the cold only makes him feel hotter around me. Makes me wanna take it slow, and feel every inch of that long slick slide.

It's almost an experience, y'know? Him and me and the cool winter air, and that music playing like something out of a fucking fantasy book.

And god damn, I don't want it to end.