Spike believed in the power of wishes.

He believed in it like he believed in the power of frisky and poisonous snakes to twist around and sink indiscriminate nasty fangs into him.

Recent events had only strengthened his belief.

So what in fifteen bloody buggering sodding fucking hells had he been thinking wishing Harris was well enough to get his own bleeding fags?

"You're an idiot, Spike."

Spike turned on his heel and stalked toward the refrigerator. Empty except for a carton of stale white rice.

Worse, he couldn't argue with himself. He was an idiot. And soon he'd have to call Rupert and admit it if that was what it took to get Harris back under his roof, safe and sound.

"I'd sooner feed my bollocks to a dog."

"They'd grow back. And it's not worse than what the witches'll do if they come home to find he's scarpered."

"Sod off."

"I can't sod off. Git. I'm you."

Soon, they'd reach the 'your mother!' part of the argument. Spike hated going there with himself - too much bloody ammunition.

"Call Rupert. Xander's well-being is more important than your bloody pride," said the voice in the back of Spike's head. The one with the Oxford education and soft heart. The one who was his personal Jiminy Cricket. Sod it.

"Your mother," he grumbled at it. Somewhere in the scatter of takeaway and delivery menus was Rupert's number. Scrawled on a menu for Mitzi's Blintzes.

Spike snatched up the offensively pink page and stalked to the phone.

Then Harris opened the door and stepped in as if he'd only been out for a Sunday stroll 'round the neighborhood.

Was it Sunday?

Spike stared at him, scrunched menu in one hand, phone in the other.

"Cherry blintz for me. Here." Harris tossed a packet of Marlboros onto the kitchen counter and slouched onto the sofa, a foot propped up while he rummaged in his bag. "The shop down the road was out of reds and what good are lights if you're trying to kill yourself?"

"I'm already dead," Spike's auto-pilot replied.

"And I'm trying to kill myself." Xander pulled another packet from the bag, unwrapped the cellophane and lit up. He stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and went back to rummaging and pulled out doughnuts. "Doughnut?"

Spike ordered blintzes.

They fell into a lazy pattern which was fine with Spike. As patterns went, lazy wasn't bad. It was like stripes - subtle, classic and went with everything.

Every conversation was one of an infinite number of variations on the theme.

"Pass the fags."

"Where's the lighter?"

"You lost the bloody lighter?"

"Hey! At least I didn't lose the remote. In the bathroom."

"Thought you were drowning again, didn't I?"

"Wanted to see me naked again."

"You're always naked. Were you adopted by sodding chimpanzees in Africa?"

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Whatever. Get up and help me find the bleeding lighter. Tarzan."

Beat.

"And don't do the fucking yell again."

Bottom line, it was becoming easy living with Harris. Sure there was the whole gloom, doom and death pall hanging over their heads, but strip away all that silly hate the vampires will to live Harris had before and he was a decent bloke.

Good company.

Filled out nicely about the shoulders and buttocks once he'd had some decent meals.

Rupert hadn't stopped by again and Harris hadn't mentioned what they'd talked about. Paychecks in Xander's name had started arriving immediately after and were all deposited into the vice fund and Spike and Xander lived in a luxurious squalor of takeaway, booze, cigarettes, rolled joints with sweetly heavy scent, video games and DVDs.

They were running out of the sort of lazy vices that wouldn't send a good Scooby running away.

So when Spike had come home with a laptop computer and turned it on to discover their next door neighbor had an unencrypted wireless connection, there had been porn. No questions asked.

The first package arrived a day later by courier and Spike tossed it into Xander's lap, fiddling with the television and game console, tossing the game onto the floor when he couldn't find its case.

"You know, I expected your taste in porn to be..." Xander gestured, a vague up and down, staring at the DVDs in his lap.

"What? Low-brow?"

"No. More..." Xander gestured again, a sideways motion across the chest.

"French?"

"What does French have to do with - okay. So not wanting to know."

Spike shrugged and took the movie. "What? DreamBoy's a classic, it is. Two British lads go on a grand adventure in search of fun, frolic and good rogerings. There's a scene with the German border police where - "

"More straight!"

There was a kick in the boy's heartbeat, a spicy scent on the air that didn't smell anything like fear. "Got a problem with the selection?"

Xander flipped through Hot Rodz, Rear Admiral and Bombardier. Then the look filtered over his face - the look that meant Harris was doing his 'gonna die' speech in his head. Spike waited for the part that always followed, the part where Xander threw caution to the winds. He didn't have to wait long. "Nah."

"Right. Now be a mate and pass along Dream Boy."

There wasn't an agenda to his choices, Spike told himself.

He'd made the pick because a bloke could only watch plastic bints fake their way through orgasms with great sodding bears of men for so long before it all got depressing.

And anyway, he had a bloke in his flat. Spike didn't believe in senselessly torturing himself with what he didn't have around.

Right.

He pressed play and settled back on the couch. "Cheer up, mate. In a week, you could be dead."

And when Harris was watching the screen with glazed eyes and kneading his fingers into the couch cushions - and Spike reached over to rub the heel of his palm over the straining human prick - Xander shuddered all over, squeezed his eye shut and hissed in air through his teeth.

But he didn't pull away. Didn't ask Spike to stop.

Hell - didn't look at Spike and that'd have to change.

For now, they'd watch the movie together. Spike's left hand wrapped around Xander Harris' cock, jacking him slow, jacking him fast - jacking him until he stiffened and came all over his belly.

Spike passed the napkins and flipped open his jeans then settled in for a slow wank in Xander's come, human musk and warmth rising from his crotch.

"Thanks," Xander said, breathless enough to make Spike's cock twitch.

"Pass the beer, mate."

It took Xander several minutes to find his legs - and another several to find the beer.

He came back to the couch with his eyes a little more alive, his blood pumping harder in his veins. Spike wanked to the sound of his heartbeat and two British lads being buggered within an inch of their lives on the telly by a man dressed as a Customs official.

After that, porn was the vice of choice and everything else filled the in-between times.

"We should put a television in the bathroom, cut down our clean-up time."

"What is it with you and baths, Harris?"

"Well you see Spike, traditionally one takes them to get clean."

"Not five sodding times a day one doesn't."

"Call me Lady Macbeth."

Xander slouched into the couch, flipping through Boyz Town, Glamfucker and Orgy At The End Of The World which they'd ordered out of twisted nostalgic humor.

Good times.

"Lady M, eh? Whose blood is on your hands, pet?"

Xander got up and put Back Room into the player then came back and wriggled onto his knees between Spike's thighs, peeling open Spike's zip. "Who says it's blood?"

"Fucking Christ," Spike gritted then clenched his hands in Xander's hair and took the offered ticket to a better place.

Wasn't the first time Harris had sucked his way out of a difficult question and Spike hoped to the god of bad little vampires it wouldn't be the last.

Harris was a man of talent.

And indefatigable oral muscles.

When the room stopped spinning and Spike could feel his toes again, he loosened his grip in Xander's hair to something approximating an affectionate pet and asked, "What about all those baths then?"

He'd get an answer or another blow job. Either way he came out ahead.

This time Harris chose to answer. "I still feel the bugs." He scratched with one hand at the neat short beard - all that was left of his bristling bug farm.

"Could shave the rest," Spike said and tried not to be disappointed. He'd grown to like the prickling on his balls and thighs when Xander went down on him.

"Nah." Xander stood up and scratched at his throat, looked between the telly and the bath like a man making up his mind. "We should put a TV in the bathroom," he said on his way to the bath. "The oil's in there."

Spike turned off the telly and followed him.

The boy made a persuasive case.

"Yeah."