This is me, trying very hard to smash through the intense case of writer's block I've had over the past week.

Summary: All human AU. Spike is an addict in every sense of the word, lead singer of Three Quid Whore, an up and coming rock band. Xander is his tax paying, ex courier lover who has been dragged into a world he isn't sure he wants to be a part of.

I know. Rockstar!Spander has been written before by people who are far better writer's than I ... but it's my kink, dammit!

Three Quid Whore

by
Nasty Shrew

Part One

"Once more with feeling lads," Spike said into the microphone, flash of a smile and quiet laughter, an old joke between the band members that Xander didn't understand. He shifted in his seat, tried to look like less of an outsider, less of a loser sitting on the fringe of something bigger than him. Failed.

Decided to play up the loser thing and flashed a dorky grin at one of the girlfriends sitting on the trendy couches scattered around him. Her lips, ruby red and shining, pulled back into a tight smile with distain in her eyes as she turned her attention back to her man standing on the other side of the glass - finger's sliding across the guitar like it was an extension of his arm.

"Hi," the girl to his left said, perky Californian accent, candy floss bottle blonde hair, leopard print skirt and frosted pink nails. Xander wondered if she was even aware she was a walking stereotype, "My name is Buffy," she added, holding out her hand. Even her name fit the mental profile.

"Xander," he said, shaking it. He wondered if he should add his second name, because that was polite, but she didn't offer her name and maybe it was in the Groupie Code to leave last names at home and he'd offend her ... but nobody had told him about the Groupie Code so it wasn't fair to expect anything of him - he was a courier! Not a groupie. Well - he was an ex-courier as of yesterday, so he was technically unemployed which meant groupie wouldn't be an unfair qualification considering he was sleeping with a lead singer. Which lead to the question, could you put 'groupie' on your reseme?

Xander considered he may be overthinking things.

"How long have you known our lead singer?" she asked, jerking him out of his momentary lapse into 'Am I Inadequate?' Panic Mode.

"Three days," he replied, realising that is sounded so very stupid when he said the time they'd known each other aloud. Three days. Three days ago he'd met the man who had declared his undying love and asked Xander to come with him on tour on the condition that he never wore clothes for more than six hours at a time. And Xander had said yes.

"What am I to you?" he gasped, lips on his throat, on his chest, moving up and down, hot wet heat and glorious friction but the words still came.

"You're sunshine and earth," whispered words against his skin, low rasp of warm leather on his skin.

"Earth - I'm dirt to you?" he laughed, choked, screamed - he wasn't sure, he just knew words were there that he couldn't breathe.

"Not dirt," Spike said, inhaling deeply, looking up with eyes like the ocean in a thunder storm - powerful, cruel and magnificent all at once and Xander wanted it all at once. "Not listening to me - you're like earth. Life. Best fuck I've had in years," Spike continues, grinning now, teeth like a cat and skin like carved wax. "What am I to you?" he asked, mocking, teasing as his fingers traced lazy circles at the nape of Xander's neck, hot breath by his ear now.

"You're ..." Xander's breath hitched when Spike's hands moved lower, "You're magnesium," he said finally, "Blinding, beautiful ..." no more words, only moans and clenching in his stomachheartcock who fucking knew because everywhere was heat.

"Magnesium, eh?" Spike contemplated, infuriatingly calm, "Good, pet - always did want to die young," and Xander's had enough of all this talking and pulls Spike's mouth to his.

"He's known you for three days and he asked you to come on tour with him?" she said incredulously, laughing - though not unkindly. "That is so Spike,"

"How can you ask me that? You barely know me!" Xander said, voice rising to unmanly levels of squeakage that he would be embarrassed about later.

"Feel like I do," Spike replied cheerfully.

"But ... I have a job and friends and ..."

"Fuck 'em. You said you hate your job, said your friends wouldn't even notice if you left," Spike interrupted, eyebrow lifting when Xander tried to splutter an argument. He let his legs fall open and rested his head on his arm. He looked perfect, inhuman. But Xander knew better. He'd seen the yellow stains of nicotine on Spike's fingers, on his teeth. Had touched the scar on his eyebrow. Had tasted the salty tang of Spike's sweat and heard him scream obscenities at the ceiling, sullying satin sheets.

Wanted more.

"Think about it, tell me yes later. We have more fun things to do at the moment,"

"Spike seems kind of impulsive," Xander shrugged, running a hand through his hair, trying to squash the wave of doubt in his chest. The worry, the questions, the knowledge that he was running towards the edge of a cliff with no intention of slowing down.

"He is," the girl confirmed, fond roll of her eyes and Xander suddenly saw the girl she must have been once, with honey brown hair and soft brushes of pink across her cheeks. "But it's usually with drink, drugs - he's terrible like that, you know? Already wired enough without the help of illegal substances. But I haven't seen him have a drink since he came in - you must be a really good fuck," she said, cracking his image, snapped into the woman before him - kind but mistrustful. Warmth in her eyes, but a cold way about her.

"Yeah - I must be," Xander sighed, wanting to laugh when he glanced down at his horribly mismatched jeans and ugly orange shirt, the scuffed sneakers that he should have thrown out years ago. He wondered if there was a shop nearby where he could buy something else - something a little less heinous. He'd never cared before but it was impossible not to. Sitting behind glass, watching a man who wanted him, pouring his soul into a microphone with eyes shut, body thrumming with energy.

Least Xander could do was look presentable.

Part Two

"Fuck you!" two simple words, thrown at him more times than he could count. Two words spat, hissed, screamed, yelled - and Xander had taken it every time, gritting his teeth, riding it out. His father's anger was always brief flashes, followed by drink and a merry round of 'throw up on the ugly couch and pass out'.

His dad had never lived up to the drunks in the movies - never beat Xander within an inch of his life with a vodka bottle, never backed him into corners and stared at him with a dirtywrongbloodsweat leer, the patented look of the 'sick fuck'. Nope, his dad was a coward who would start fights he couldn't finish. A loser who would stumble into Xander's room with blood on his chin and a black eye, screaming filth at his child because his wife had threatened to leave him and he'd lost his fourth job that month.

For Xander the phrase 'fuck you', said with a noticeable slur, had never had good connotations.

"What the hell are you doing?" he laughed, odd mix of fear and amusement in his chest as he watched Spike standing on the roof of the tour bus, a bottle of Jack clutched in his hand, screaming 'fuck you' to a sky that didn't remotely care.

"I'm talking to God! Bit of a rude bastard - hasn't answered me yet!" Spike called down, grinning like demon, like a fallen angel. A real fallen angel; angry, raw, dangerous - a flame dancing in a world of darkness. Xander wondered what deity he'd pissed off to end up with the role as the moth.

"Spike, you'll hurt yourself! Come back inside the hotel - the guys will be wondering where you are!" he warned, because he was being practical and people were staring, which, with Spike was sort of unavoidable but Xander was a goddamn square, uninteresting bystander - he wasn't used to attention. He didn't like it.

"I'm communing with God!" Spike yelled, throwing his head back, letting a roar shudder through his body.

"You're drunk!" he snapped, eyes flicking nervously towards the security guard who was walking towards them. He was overweight and approaching 50, grey hair and red face. It was unreasonable that Xander should be scared of him - he could outrun the guy without breaking a sweat. He could get a taxi, drive home to LA and never look back ... wait until he got old and crumbly and tell people about those six crazy days he spent with an even crazier rock singer. He could let this stupid whirlwind fuck whirlwind, this was a tornado romance die this second and save himself from inevitable heartbreak, like any intelligent person would.

"Up here, luv! Climb up here and snog me - then we can go back to hotel and fuck like well behaved bunnies," Spike said, spreading his arms and tilting his head so his white hair caught the light of the moon.

"No," Xander said, new plan set in his brain, the plan of the intelligent individual. To turn on his heel, blow a kiss and live the rest of his life remembering those mad few days when Xander Harris was able to pretend he was more important than he actually was.

"Come on! Live! Tell God we don't care if he thinks we're freaks! Tell 'im we don't give a damn!" he shouted, flashing the birdie at the sky and grabbing his crotch, laughing all the while.

Xander had never claimed to be intelligent.

"Christ, Spike," he hissed, already clambering onto the roof of the bus, furtive glances at the security guard, huffing and puffing as he tried to quicken his jog towards them from across the grounds.

"No. M'not Christ - Adam, maybe, 'cause I've had my share of silly cows who fucked things up for me by taking a bite of the bleeding apple," Spike chuckled, setting the bottle down and unsteadily walking towards Xander to pull him up. In the process, they stumbled backwards; causing Spike to sit on the roof with a thud and take Xander with him, so that he ended up lying between Spike's legs, lips inches apart.

Xander suspected the secutiry guard was probably only about a minute away, red face flushed with disgust, plump hands tightening on the radio control, righteous downhome fury at the fags kissing on the roof of a bus like they had a right to be there. He didn't give a damn.

"Tell me lies," Spike gasped, lips red and swollen as he pulled back from Xander's mouth, grey eyes pleading for something Xander didn't know how to give.

"Huh?" he asked, instantly wincing because he knew he should know what was going on here, someone cooler probably would, but he'd never been cool, always been the dorky idiot who wasn't even funny enough to get the class clown label.

Spike frowned, jaw clenched as he pulled back further, the soft lining of his coat rubbing against Xander's stomach, reminding him of the leather and smoke filling his senses as he was fucked slowly, deliberate mouth crushing against his, world around them a blur as they moved with the heartbeat of a creature Xander couldn't identify.

Xander considered that this was a really cruel time to start asking anything of him that involved coherent thought.

"You hated it didn't you? It was shite. I know it was shite - I was off on the third verse and Faith's drumming sounded like she was bludgeoning a sheep ..."

"Are you talking about that song you just recorded?" he asked, the click in his brain almost audible, echoing in the small closet that Spike had tugged him. There into bleach in his hair and bleach on the shelves, blue rubber floor squeaking with Xander's sneakers and clunking with Spike's boots as they necked like teenagers. But now they were talking and Xander was trying, unsucessfully, to concentrate. "Are you shitting me? That song was amazing - anthem for our lost generation or something," he said, words rushed, slightly desperate as Spike's hands pushed against his trousers, worry dissolving, replaced by something more carnal and familiar.

"Keeping you," he muttered. It felt like they were in a vacuum - no sound, no air, only touch and the palpable heat that thrummed and caressed until their clothes were on the floor. Xander was fucked in a supply closet and the track was named 'Anthem for our Lost Generation'.

Part Three

Everything ached and the light hurt his eyes as he slid open the glass door, stepped outside. Spike had his back turned, cigarette in his hand, staring at the cars below. He told Xander he liked watching the people in cars because they forgot people could see them - like moving art exhibits. Only they were on the fourth floor, and you couldn't see people anymore. Xander wondered what he was watching, what he saw when he looked out into the world. Remembered he'd had the exact same thought the night before and shuddered in the cold.

"Plum velvet laughs within her stare,
Curls 'round her neck, farce of care.
She let's it push me far away,
Beneath her skin,
It's crawling.

My dark darling,
My true love,
Lost to the lure,
Plum velvet," he screams lyrics with carnal eloquence. The people on the floor writhe in response, all moving in unholy worship of the man before them, hungry for something new to follow. Xander watches from the side of the stage, hidden by a moth eaten curtain.

"Amazing, isn't he?" a girl to his left shouts in his ear, her breath thick with cheap drinks, bought with money earned from an enticing look followed by a dirty fuck in the alley. She looks like she's having the time of her life and Xander can't help but feel sorry for her. She's a child, a little girl with something to prove and lipstick smeared across her mouth.

"Buffy will kill you if she finds out you've been doing this again," he says, faint smell of strawberry shampoo when she steps closer, though it's quickly stamped out when the heavy stink of alcohol washes over him again.

"I don't care," Dawn replies, practiced indifference ruined when she nearly falls over. Xander catches her in his arms, pulls her to him and lets her put her head on his shoulder. "Buffy thinks she can tell me what to do now mom's gone and acts like this princess who's never done anything wrong before. Just because she's the band's roadie, she thinks she's so special," she says, sounding every bit the teenage girl. Xander wants to find the man who took her into the alley. Wants to kill him. "Lemme go," she mumbles, trying to move away, back to the floor. Xander doesn't let her. He knows he wouldn't feel right if he lets her wander back into the pack of wolves. Dawn stops struggling after a moment, remains quiet. "He's something else," she says after a beat. It takes Xander a moment to realise where she is in her head and casts his eyes to the stage, to Spike - eyes shut, hips rolling in obscenely tight trousers, head thrown back as he sings as though in religious ecstasy. Hypnotizing. Beautiful. Fucking dangerous.

"I wonder where he goes," he mutters, pulling Dawn up when she starts to slide to the floor.

"To Drusilla, probably," Dawn says, easy smile that's just a little too wide, "this song is about her, you know. She was Spike's muse or something. He loved her, even though she was insane. She ... she got him, you know?" she says, unaware of Xander's muscles tensing against her, eyes too unfocused to see Xander's face move into a frown. Because he doesn't. Get Spike, that is. He doesn't understand half the things Spike does, doesn't think he ever will.

"Hey, Xander! You sure you don't want in on some of this? It's good shit! Come on, man, drop the skank and try it," Doyle calls from the couch behind them, holding up a small plastic bag. Doyle is the driver and mechanic for the band - one who always happens to have some drug in his pocket, a bottle of whiskey in his bag and at least two people chasing him due to gambling debts. Spike says they hired him because it made life more interesting. Xander wants to be interesting.

Xander casts his eyes back to the stage, to Spike, looking more exposed and comfortable than Xander's ever seen him as he sings the song he wrote for his lost girlfriend.

"My dark darling,
My true love,
Lost to the lure,
Plum velvet," he sings, voice raw and powerful, probably picturing her - Drusilla kissing him, touching him, knowing him.

"Sure, I'll try," he says to Doyle, setting Dawn on a chair. "I want to see what he sees," he added, sitting on the couch, watching white powder on a mirror. "I want to see."

"I'm sorry about last night," Xander said to Spike's back, arms wrapped around himself as he shivered in the cold snap of the wind around him.

"Yeah," came the reply. Spike didn't turn around. Just stood looking out to the sun hidden behind low grey clouds, leaning against the balcony railing as grey smoke curled above his head as though the clouds were falling.

"I didn't mean what I said," he continued, scuffing his feet, looking everywhere else, anywhere else. "I guess I'll be going," and with that he turned away, sliding the glass door open as he stepped back inside. Cheap blue carpet, one window, mundane scenic paintings that you could buy in bulk hanging on beige walls. Reality. The dream was over.

The world glittered, sounds coursed through his veins, Spike's shirt was changing colour and Xander couldn't remember what Willow looked like. "What does Willow look like?" he asked Spike, who's shirt was now ... pink? No, that was skin. Oh. Naked Spike. That was nice. "That's nice," words seemed to leak from his mouth and was kind of funny, so Xander laughed.

"Willow looks like ... a tree. And m'not nice," Spike replied, easy smile and shiny white teeth like a wolf in moonlight. Or maybe a fox.

"You're foxy," Xander said, grin now as he rolled over and pressed his lips to Spike's chest, smooth and cool like marble floor against Xander's head - too hot, feverish, he needed to get his clothes off.

"That I am. You're high," came the mumbled reply, slight hitch of his breath as Xander's hands slipped lower.

"So are you," he reasoned. Colours swirled beneath Spike's skin, like a rivers of worlds hidden just under the surface. Moving, churning, white life and promise, eternal flame that was blue and roaring so loud Xander could hear it.

"Not really. Got a higher tolerance than you," words echoing in Xander's head, voice like the scrape of a match against leather, deeper, richer as Xander's ventured further still.

"You have worlds here. In your skin. Want to be inside them. Wanna be inside you," he whispered, worried his voice wouldn't be heard over the roar of the rivers and the pounding of his body, every cell dancing to it's own tune as the world whistled in crystal. Spike was turning to crystal too, stiffening, moving back, moving away.

"No," a word Xander didn't want to hear, hadn't heard from Spike's lips in the past week and a half because Spike never said no. He said yes, give me, harder, faster, more. So this wasn't Spike. Couldn't be. So he moved forward, felt the air brush against him like a third party, teasing, kissing so softly it nearly hurt.

"You always get to be part of me, Spike. I want to feel your worlds, the ones you inside of you, the ones you let nobody see," Xander said, laughing when Spike moved back again, reaching out to catch his wrist.

"I don't bottom," Spike said, shoving Xander backwards, pulling on his clothes. Xander watched him leave, felt anger, frustration, slick heat and no one to sate the pressure in his stomach, in his mind.

"Fine! Fucking coward! Go then, run to faceless groupies who'll let you fuck them, lie to them like you lie to me," screamed words to Spike, to his face that was tight his narrowed eyes.

"Why should I run anywhere? I have a tweaked out groupie right here," words and sharp, intended to slice. Silence was thick and Xander couldn't speak.

"Get the fuck out," he said, more words ready because this was ground Xander was familiar with - flinging hateful black shots of words until the sting of tears hit his eyes and no more could be said. But Spike didn't reply. Xander didn't even have to time to move before the door slammed shut.

Xander flopped down onto the sheets of the hotel bed, smoke in the air, powder on the table, listening to the crystal shatter.

"I didn't mean what I said either," hand on his shoulder pulling him around to face the man who seemed to live more every second than Xander did in years. "You were high. I'm a bastard. Never a good combination," Spike said, flash of a grin, all forgiven. Xander didn't have time to reply because he was being assaulted with lips crushed against his, hands sliding up his shirt, roaring thunder in the air and drops of the sky making his shirt wet, making Spike's hair curl in his fingers.

"It's raining, we should go back inside," he said, ever the voice of reason, the ex-courier, the tax payer who got high once and never would again.

"So?" Spike rasped. They were leaning on the railing of the balcony now, black gravel shifting beneath their feet. One wrong move would mean falling, tumbling, hurtling towards the ground faster than the blink of an eye, momentary flash of weightlessness, of freedom, then the End.

Xander's feet were on the ground, fingers in Spike's hair, tongue in his mouth. He felt like he was falling.

Continued here
The lyrics Spike was singing were written by me, and the song is called "Plum Velvet".

"Let's throw a parade. Or blow something up. Or throw a parade wherein we blow something up," Spike said, eyes bright, hair still wet from his shower, curling about his head.

"How are we going to throw a parade?" Xander asked, raised eyebrow, swallowing down some aspirin with a swig of icy water. He was exhausted - they'd just got back from a gig and though Spike was still riding his adrenaline rush, a certain tax-paying, responsible ex-courier required more than an hour of sleep.

"You can drive the bus, I'll dance around on top of it. We'll drive through the city. Play your cards right and I'll dance naked while I chuck petrol bombs at the walls," he said, shoving Xander so he flopped off the couch and landed on the wooden floor with a thunk.

"Sounds like a hoot, but we'll do that in the morning," Xander yawned, settling for a nap on the floor. It wouldn't be the first time. He could hear Spike's impatient sigh, hear the creak of the floorboards as he bounced on his heels.

"Wanna fuck instead?" he asked, mouth suddenly hot and by Xander's ear. Desperate for a release, for excitement, for something to do. Everything for Spike had to happen now, bolder, brighter, more.

Sometimes, he'd flash Xander this smile, this unbelievably wide fucking grin as he laughed or danced to the sound of traffic. He'd exude more energy in a moment than Xander had had in a lifetime. Those days were amazing. When Spike could give him a sidelong glance and grab him into a kiss, pull him out of his thoughts, worries, logic and make him just be. Tonight was not going to be one of those nights.

"Sleep. Need. Me," he muttered into his arm, another yawn so deep it felt as though air was being dragged from him. Spike sighed again and shifted, sounds of rustling and papers. Xander opened his eyes blearily for a moment when he felt fingers turning him so that he lay on his back, heavy solid warmth clambering onto him, straddling his waist. "Okay, if you're really that horny, go ahead. Just try to keep quiet alright?" he asked wearily, shutting his eyes again, smile pulling at his lips when he heard the soft snort.

"Sorry love, necrophilia has never been one of my kinks," Spike muttered, calloused fingers picking at Xander's shirt, losing patience, ripping it open. Xander was too sleepy to be annoyed. Next went the sweatpants, pulled off him with one sharp tug.

"What are you doing?" Xander laughed, forcing himself to look up just in time to see Spike click the cap of a bottle of black liquid with his teeth.

"I'm going to write. On you," he said, brow furrowed as he concentrated on dipping his fingers in the black body ink and moving them across Xander's chest, careful precision, tip of his tongue poking from his mouth.

"Alright," Xander sighed, shutting his eyes again, feeling Spike's warm lips sweep across his brow just before he sank completely into sleep.

Xander had learned a lot about Spike's moods in the three weeks they had been together. He'd learnt that certain twitches in his fingers meant he was deciding something, that a tilt of his head meant intense curiosity or deep thought, that bared teeth meant he was horny, angry or both. The others, the band members and girlfriends, when they saw Spike in one of his Manic Moods, one of the days when he was so energetic it hurt, destructive and laughing - they thought it was funny. They tolerated him with a fond roll ot their eyes and ignored him when he ranted about everything from German impressionist paintings to the poetry of Poe. They never noticed the dark spectre in Xander's face - the uneasy anticipation. Because there was a serious downside to these hours of soaring pleasure, of fucking like live wires crossing in a darkened room. The downside was the subsequent low.

"Once told me you'd like to be up there forever,
Spend eternity in unnatural light.
Platform of divinity, immortal,
‘till the Devil swallowed the sun,"

Part Six

“Knife, strife, life.
All fucking rhymes,
Grab my crotch,
Laugh it off,
Stains like vintage wine.

Perfect pattern of words,
Economy of prose,
See I’m quite clever,
Only nobody knows,” Spike sang, strumming a few chords that didn’t fit, stopping to get angry at the guitar and to pretend to be angry with Xander when he laughed.

“It’s funny. I can believe your name is William,” Xander said after a while, thoughtful look as he narrowed his eyes and peeled away the layers, gave Spike darker, softer curls and a pair of glasses.

“Well I can’t believe your middle name is Lavelle,” Spike replied, grinning when Xander threw a pillow at his head.

“Call me that again and I’ll call you Willy,” Xander threatened.

“Could make a lewd comment there, but it’s too easy,” Spike laughed, setting down the guitar.

“You’re too easy,” Xander shot back, laughter of his own, not noticing when Spike’s expression moved and shifted into something else.

“Love you. Keeping you,” he muttered, moving up the bed and running his finger’s through Xander’s hair.

*

“If you start singing Come fly with me, I’ll kill you and say the voices told me to,” Xander said, jokes and misdirection because he really didn’t want to hear this again.

“Why aren’t you saying yes? We could be fucking now if you had,” Spike replied, tight smile that was just this side of snapping. Xander looked out the window, watched the traffic, wondered if when Spike watched the traffic he contemplated playing in it.

“I’m not saying yes because I don’t have a passport …”

“We’ll smuggle you in,”

“Because I have to get back before someone files a missing person’s report …”

“You’d be famous – your face on every poster and milk carton. Better publicity than we’ve ever had,”

“And because you’re only asking me now because you’re high and bored,” Xander finished, list of convincing points that were logical and well thought out. He knew this, because he’d practiced them at least four times in the cracked mirror in the bus’s tiny bathroom, lipstick smeared across the walls and a cockroach named Pete.

“I’m not high, I’m wired. Big difference, that. And anyway, I planned on asking you the very moment I lay eyes on you in that club back in LA,” Spike said, grin a little easier now, hot wet heat against Xander’s mouth as he traced patterns of languages he couldn’t speak with his tongue, twisted his hips sharply so that it almost hurt. Xander pulled back, swallowed, too a breath.

“You were high in that club in LA, too,” he said. Spike’s grip tightened, his gaze intense.

“Not the point, Xan,” impatient now, petulant child gone, replaced with someone Else with chilled eyes and bruising touches.

“Ask me tomorrow,” Xander said eventually, words quiet and pleading, though he wasn’t entirely sure what he was pleading for. The bus made a sharp turn and Spike was thrown against his chest, Doyle’s ‘fuck you, too’ and groans of fellow band members grabbing them out of the odd quiet. Spike didn’t move from his place in Xander’s arms, chin tilted up, odd streak of innocence framed in bleach and sheathed in leather.

“Will you say yes tomorrow?” he asked. Xander didn’t answer. Spike pulled back, face changing as he turned away, ice cold betrayal. Xander realised then that earnest, almost childlike anger scared him far more than that of a man’s.

*

“Argument with blondie?” Gunn asked when Xander heaved an amp out of the bus and pushed it onto the van with a little more force than necessary.

“Yeah,” Xander replied, no attempt to elaborate. Gunn didn’t ask, either.

“He’s an ass most of the time,” he said eventually, plucking on his bass, dark brown fingers moving like heavy liquid over the strings.

“Yeah. I kind of picked up on that,”

”What do you want from me? All or nothing, remember? All or fucking nothing,” his voice was too loud and his hands making sluggish circles in the air, ash from his cigarette trailing across the bed. “You act more like a woman that Dru ever did,” he added, nasty smile when Xander swallowed and slammed the door behind him. Didn’t tell Spike to put his cigarette in case he fell asleep and set the bed on fire. Put his fist through a bathroom stall because he knew he’d feel bad about that later.

“He asked me to come with you guys to Germany,” Xander muttered, tasting the words, seeing how they sounded in air heavy with rain. Gunn glanced up, eyebrows raised. Clearly, he hadn’t expected that. Well, fair enough, neither had Xander.

“Man, seriously?” he asked. Xander shrugged, kicked a bottle cap across the gravel. “You should. It’d be cool to have a guy to have drinks who can’t kick my ass at pool,” he said finally. Xander snorted, shifted his weight, didn’t look up. “And …” Gunn looked slightly uncomfortable and he started fiddling with cables, “You’re good for him. He’s better since you’ve been here,” he said. Xander laughed. It was ugly and fit in perfectly with the tarmac slick with grease, and the yellowish smog that hung in the air.

“You mean he drank, got high and messed around with groupies more before I arrived?” and wow, he sounded more bitter there than even his mother could have aspired to.

“Hey,” he whispered, wet words soaked in booze, lipstick on his collar, “You’ll always love me, eh?” hot huffs of breath on Xander’s face. Xander pretended to be asleep.

“No,” Gunn admitted haltingly. “But he comes home to you. He used to drift around in his head, look for a fight or and throw himself into danger like he had to impress himself – like he had to prove who he was over and over to convince himself he was real or something. But he comes home, now. To you.”

Xander didn’t reply and they played pool. He coughed up the ten bucks he owed Gunn and asked him what he had to do to get a passport.

The lyrics are written by me, and the song is called 'Cunning'.

Part Seven

White lines of moonlight reflected on a strip of mirror, more white lines across it’s smoother surface – though those lines were tangible. Rough and real, scratching up his nose and grinding down his throat, raw with screams and laughter.

This was his distraction, his habit between habits. His longest addiction had been glorious. Dru, with her dark swirls of eyes and sickly sweet giggles, leather and lace, little girl in lust. Wrong, glittered with imperfections. In those flaws, Spike found his salvation. But like all things easily amused, his darling was easily displeased. She was as fickle as Spike was devoted and there was an irresistible draw to the woman who was destined to destroy him. Some called it masochism but he preferred to think of it as a sort of optimism. However, optimism didn’t fare well against reality.

Snap of her whimsy, one barked and of course he obeyed like her - her little sniveling bitch, William, rescued from his tears to find a new fixation. She killed herself on a Tuesday; wandered off the edge of a 13 story building, calling for an angel. His wicked plum came to a … well, to say ‘sticky end’ would be tacky, wouldn’t it? He’d blamed himself for a while, taken an impromptu holiday to Prague, one that he fondly referred to as his ‘guilt trip’.

And now he was searching - crawling through bars and clubs, face to the sky or the dirt, no middle ground with Spike, always the extreme. And it wasn’t long. Not long at all before he saw the face, clean and fresh in a room of grime.

Clothes a whirlpool of gaudy colours he looked like he was drowning beneath. Awkward movements, stiff arms and a sort of disconnected discomfort that stood out amongst the bodies of elegance and rhythm. With their skintight scraps of cloth and jaded smiles, inviting gazes and tongues darting to lips, they spoke in silent communication without a need for pesky things like words.

The boy notices Spike’s intent stare and his shoulders stiffen, a defense preceding the attack. Spike grins, understanding. They were comrades in paranoia. He slides to his feet, ignores the calls of the girls around him as he crashes through the crowd – a mockery of Moses parting the oceans. They meet at the center of the dance floor and he easily slips his tongue into the boy’s mouth, crushes their lips together and drags his hand through dark curls. He felt the boy start, surprised, because this boy doesn’t speak the primal language of the dancers. He is isolated, dismissed. Spike smiles into the hiss and pulls away to whisper in his ear, serpent of temptation, bible references of his youth spinning in his head as he sported a hard on. William knew he was fucked up, Spike reveled in it.

“You’re new. But I can translate for you.” He licks down the boy’s neck and laughs softly at the shudder. “That means I like you.” And now his hands drifted across the boy’s nipples, hard through the shirt. “That means I want you.” The hands moved lower, fingers pressing against the rough scratch of jeans. “That means I want you … now.”

The boy pulls away, plump lip caught in his teeth, flash of indecision. “You don’t even know my name,” unjustified anger, perhaps embarrassment. He looked ready for the punch line, for Spike to be cruel and hateful.

“Your name is …” Spike trails off, pulls the boy off the floor and into a dark corner that smells of sweat and spilled drinks. He takes the boy’s hand and licks up his palm, eyes promising. His reaction came in the form of a hiss, a sharp twist of hips, brown eyes shivering black. The boy grinned. His own revolution found in an instant, solace in anonymity.

“I think I’m learning the language,” he said, bold move forward so their faces with inches apart.

Spike lead him outside and he knew he’d chosen this new habit well.

“Do you remember how we met?” Spike asked left Schönefeld Airport. Xander stared at him incredulously.

“Do you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” And Spike could pull off innocent if he widened his eyes just so and tilted his head at a 48 degree angle. He was well practiced. Xander was unimpressed and he snorted with laughter.

“It means that I recall somebody had been getting crazy with crack that night,” he said with his voice lowered, eyes flitting across the face of those around them – caution and responsibility, his Xan. Well, if there was one thing Spike had learnt, it was that all good things needed balance. So if Xander was going to be responsible then it was his cosmic duty to …

“What the … Spike!”

“I love you more than marmite,” Spike announced as he walked into the hotel room. Xander stuffed something into a drawer.

“I love syphilis more than marmite,” he replied, busying himself with the bed sheets.

“Heathen,” Spike said good naturedly. He dove without warning. Xander didn’t have a chance in hell at grabbing whatever he’d been hiding before Spike did. “What …”

How disappointing. It was a book. And the cover didn’t imply any kinky sexual instructions. Spike’s eyes flicked over the title and he paused. Read it again. Once more before he raised an eyebrow and looked up at a squirming Xander.

“Trainspotting. ‘The dislocated tales that lay bare the hearts of darkness of the junkies, wide-boys and psychos’,” he read from the blurb. Xander had flushed and was an interesting shade of burgundy. If Spike was feeling facetious he might have said ‘cherry’.

“I just … I want to understand, but you won’t …” he gave up and shut his eyes for a moment. A fuck or a fight, that was the question, because this was going to end one way or the other. Spike dropped the book and crawled over the covers.

“Wrong sort of book, love. This is about the Scots, innit? I’m from England. Whole different kettle of fish,” he said seriously. Xander sighed with something like relief but didn’t get the chance to pull air back in because Spike was already on top of him. That was good. He’d just have to breathe in Spike.

“Spike is … listen, if you want to get out? You need to get out soon,” Angel had said as they sat in the van, waiting for the others. Xander had nodded wordlessly. He didn’t like the guy, he’d always seemed to be one of those holier than thou types – Spike had told him Angel used to be into some of the heavy stuff, had hurt a lot of people under the influence and had spent every waking moment since then feeling guilty about it. However – he did have a point. Time seemed to be slipping past at an ever increasing rate, music and promises, cigarettes and drama.

Try as he might there was no denying it - Spike was getting erratic, more than usual, and Xander knew it was one of those ‘now or never’ things. He could stay, he should go. He didn’t know if he wanted to do either. He stared out the window, watched as Spike burst out of the shop in noiseless chaos – the window muting the world outside. He spun with his arms flung out, mouth moving around words that were flung into the night. Xander recognized the muffled tune, could recall the words.

“We shared that sentiment,
Though we didn’t share many.
I thought we shared that,
But we didn’t share any.”

He watched as the sidewalk cleared, people pulling away from the crazy man singing words nobody understood. Poor Berlin. They had no idea what had been released onto their shores.

Part Eight

“Give it back,” Spike laughed; slight irritation as he swiped his hands in the air and tried to grab the bottle.

“You’ve had enough of this,” Xander shook the bottle, sloshing warm liquid over his palms as he walked towards the yellowed tile of the bathroom.

“Fuck it, you only live once,” words crisp with desperation as he stumbled to his feet, grabbed the back of Xander’s shirt. They fucked on the floor and there was whiskey in Xander’s hair.

He always packs his bag on a Monday because Monday seems to be the most sensible day in the week. On the first day of every week, traces of the night before smeared across his skin, Xander decides to leave Spike. Every. Fucking. Monday.

He packs his bag when Spike is asleep; his ash white curls an unruly crown, black mascara clashing with deep red smudges across his lips, lipstick. Xander doesn’t wear lipstick, and neither does Spike.

He folds his pants and boxers first, puts them in the very bottom of the case with meticulous care. Then he gets bored and throws in his shirts, squashes in a pair of shoes and the trinkets he’s picked up along the way. A black plastic guitar pick, the word ‘Spike’s’ scratched into the surface.

Spike sat behind Xander, weight on his knees and his arms wrapped around Xander’s waist, eyes trained on long fingers tugging clumsily at the strings.

“Told you I couldn’t play guitar. I suck at all things musical,” Xander muttered, wincing at the strangled chords. Spike grinned, pressed his face into Xander’s hair - a blonde leathered limpet.

“Practice makes perfect,” he said, scrape of a laugh over a polished BBC accent, traces of William, brandy and books. “You can keep the pick and when you learn the song,” he nipped Xander’s ear and dragged his tongue down his neck, “I’ll give you the guitar and reward you for being such a good student.”

“Huh, says you. Mrs. Campbell in sixth grade made me solve math problems in detention every day for a month, and I still have to carry a calculator to the supermarket.”

“Stick with me, pet, we don’t have maths in my world.”

“This will take me forever to learn,” Xander groaned, messing up on the third chord again. Spike tightened his hold.

“Suits me.”

Xander always snorts as he wraps the gift in a sock and thinks about how pathetic it is that he can’t throw it away. A plastic rose, the petals painted black with nail polish.

“Super romantic. And not creepy at all,” Xander deadpanned, staring at the atrocity, still damp and tacky. Tacky on many levels. The flower could probably compete with Aunt Margie’s collection of porcelain bulldogs.

“Regular Shakespeare, me,” Spike crowed, holding out the plastic flower proudly, “Bloody well took me hours and I used up three bottles of ‘midnight velvet 26’.”

Xander, who had been doing a very good job of looking unimpressed until now, laughed. “Three? Woah – I’m honored.”

“As you should be, ungrateful sod,” Spike snapped indignantly, pulling Xander into a kiss. The rose fell to the floor forgotten, and was crushed beneath heavy boots and groans.

The pocket knife, small and scratched, was slipped into the back of his shoe. He liked the feeling of it, dulled metal his reassurance. Because when he had the knife, Spike didn’t.

“Found it when I was ten, in Blackpool,” Spike murmured, flicking the blade.

“Don’t do that here!” Xander hissed, pushing the knife between them, eyes moving frantically to see if anyone had spotted it.

“Why the fuck shouldn’t I?” his voice had risen, his slur more pronounced. The blood at the corner of his lip bubbled.

“Because you’ll get arrested, that’s why,” Xander couldn’t contain his own venom, resentment. Because he didn’t have to be here. Sitting at what, three in the morning? Sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair in the hospital’s emergency section, blood that isn’t his spilling over his shirt, Spike sitting to his left, cocky and uncaring of the slice in his forehead. He’d been here twice before, both times because Spike had one too many and decided that a fun and productive way to spend the evening was to kick the shit out of anyone in his way. He was a good fighter, seemed to revel in the violence and draw energy from it.

He recalled Spike’s words, that fighting was the closest he’d ever been to dancing. Xander didn’t understand, supposed he never would. On some level, he hated that. He should have been relieved really – because who would want to understand that primal urge, skirting as close to ‘inhuman’ as anyone can. But he does want it. He wants all of it. He wants to look in Spike’s eyes and get it. Understand it. “Sometimes I think you want to get arrested,” he muttered. Spike bristled.

“You’d like to be arrested too, yeah? Be my official bitch,” vicious precision, he smiled as Xander flinched. “Here, take it if you’re so worried,” he shoved the knife into Xander’s arm. Xander choked and threw a punch before he knew what was happening.

The next morning Spike kisses the cut, laughs that they’ll have matching stitches and tells Xander about Angel, Darla and Drusilla. The gang of four drawn together by an inherent need for something none of them could name. To create their own world of freedom, maybe. Xander suspected it may have just been their excuse to have sex and drink without being told not to.

Spike begs Xander not to leave him, he knows he was a wanker, couldn’t help it. In three minutes he had told Xander he loved him more times than Xander had been told that in the past 19 years.

Xander shouldn’t have accepted the apology, he knew that – but he did. He always did.

He walks to the door and contemplates leaving a note, tells himself that Spike would worry if he didn’t. Tells himself that if he left like this, sudden and no goodbyes, Spike would blame himself. And fall.

facedown in the bathtub, blood wisps through clear water dissolves into undignified orange – pale skin wrinkled and hair dull in flickering florescent light, a stillness in death he never had in life

Then it comes. The moment when Xander stands in the open doorway, a battered suitcase and a twist in his gut. He sets his bag down, kicks off his shoes and lies beside Spike.

He’ll resolve to give it some time. Maybe after the next gig. He could always leave next Monday.

Part Nine

There had to be something coming. Something big and scary and real, some grand plot point to jerk him out of this perpetual whirl, tastes of a life that wasn’t his. Xander sometimes wondered what it would be – the Sign.

Maybe someone would have an OD; nose to the floor, chest heaving, Dawn’s pretty eyes flutter and flatten with her sister screaming her name all the while. Maybe he would walk in on Spike with someone else, tangible proof of what he’d always known; “Never stop,” he gasps, fingers clutching bedsheets Xander had washed that morning, hips thrusting up into her – lips slick red and a designer smile. Or maybe Spike would find him backstage, laughing as he bled out onto the couch cushions, a final fuck you; “Xan, what did you do!?”
“Made sure you’d remember me,” he laughs through spiced wine blood and a flash of spite.

It had been weeks since he’d first been pulled into Spike’s head, a scary place where you hurtled and crashed through everything, no time for silly things like breathing. No sign had come, no Passions moment where Spike would cock his head, dark rings around his eyes, and ask for one of those AA pamphlets Xander had surreptitiously left on the top of the suitcase. Nothing like that. There were just minutes, hours, days that bled into one another until time became this abstract idea that didn’t apply to them anymore.

“You’ve torn your dress, your face is a mess,
You can’t get enough, but enough ain’t the test,
You’ve got your transmission and your live wire ...”

They’d probably been holed up in their room of hours, but the curtains were drawn so he couldn’t really tell. Records and weed, cross dressing and laughter, echoes of an era neither of them had lived. “I can’t believe you went out dressed like that. I mean a dare’s a dare but …” Xander winced, fingers brushing across lace. Spike threw his head back, arched his neck as though the material was an extension of his body, a new erogenous zone he hadn’t been aware of. Xander gulped.

“I love it when you stroke my frock,” Spike told him with absolute sincerity. He managed to keep it up a whole three seconds before he burst out laughing and pulled Xander’s mouth to his, teeth clicking, lips tongue fuck.

“That had to be the lamest play on words ever,” Xander managed, pulling his hands down the black corset, leather and friction, what more could a man want?

“Your cruelty only serves to turn me on,” Spike said against his jaw, pushing his shirt from his shoulders.

“Compost would turn you on,” Xander replied wryly, slight hitch in his breath as Spike’s tongue dragged down his chest, fingers clenched almost painfully in his hair. He pulled back for a second, wicked blue eyes staring up, swollen lips twisted into a tolerant smile.

“Only you would mention compost preceding a blow job.”

And Xander laughed harder than he had in years.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Spike said, cigarette in his mouth, clutching a cup of coffee. He hadn’t drunk any – just warming his hands on the flimsy cardboard till it cooled or fell apart, whichever happened first.

“I think I’m your coffee,” he said suddenly. Spike snorted.

“Gunn’s my coffee. You’re my …” he ran his fingers over Xander’s skin, pleased with the resulting shudder, “Cream.”

“Sorry man, I’m not your coffee,” Gunn threw in as he walked past, sharing a grin with the tiny woman tucked under his arm, Fred, all sweetness and laughter that defied her stark blue hair and PVC skirt. If there was one thing Xander had learnt in the past few weeks, it was that appearances were deceiving.

“Wish mum could’ve met you,” Spike mumbled into the toilet bowl, Xander’s arms slung loosely about his hips.

“Why, so we could compare notes on how to deal with you after you’ve thrown up your guts?” Xander asked, appearance of calm though his heart was pounding. Spike never spoke of his mother so he’d assumed she was the cause for some of his less attractive personality quirks. That she must have been one of those mom’s who forget their kids at supermarkets and never tried to hold back their husband when he lunged for their son. Like his mom.

“She would’ve loved you. Tell you off for letting me get so skinny, then tell me off for letting you get so skinny. Make us eat biscuits and pound cake ‘till we couldn’t shift from the sofa,” he continued, wistful and so very young.

“What happened to her?” he asked quietly, so afraid that if he spoke too much or too long, the moment would dissolve.

“Died. Forgot who she was in the end. Who I was. Scared shitless, she couldn’t even recognise my face. Said some awful things in the end, she did,” he said eventually, shivering as his breath hitched. Xander shut his eyes and held on.

“You ready?” Spike asked, tossing the coffee into the snow and nodding to the swinging doorway. The others were already inside.

“I think I might just go back to the hotel,” Xander shrugged, something he couldn’t put his finger on itching beneath his skin.

“No, come with me! I heard they have karaoke,” Spike said, grabbing his arm, petulant glare and a masterful pout.

“And karaoke is supposed to tempt me to come with you?” mock disgust and just a hint of distain, Xander was good at making like he was jaded. A new skill he’d acquired, one he found himself using more and more these days. Sometimes he wondered if he’d stopped having to pretend he was jaded a while ago.

“Karaoke with tequila,” Spike said in a sing song voice, tugging harder, “makes the worst Whitney song sound like classic AC/DC. Promise. Scout’s honour,” he said, holding up two fingers in what was most certainly not the boy scout’s salute. “I could sing something for you … I wanna fuck you like an animal,” rasping voice and a slide of his hips, Spike became Spike, the singer, the seducer, Xander his chosen prey.

“I guess,” he said reluctantly, smiling when Spike cheered and hauled him into the smoky little bar.

Later, when the world was tinged green with lights and Spike was leaning heavily on his side, unnaturally loud laugh and movements sluggish, the man serving drinks had turned to Xander with a look that could only be described as sympathetic. He’d bent so his lips were by Xander’s ear, yellow suit and startling red tie pulling Xander’s gaze to his face.

“Listen sweetcheeks, I’ll tell you this for nothing. That guy’ll only get you in trouble. You’d better be sure you’re prepared to deal with the fact that this ain’t going to be pretty when it ends,” he said. Xander frowned, opened his mouth to say something (though he didn’t know what), but the man had already disappeared into the shifting crowd of business suits and denim jackets.

Part Ten

Berlin. Berlin as in the capital of Germany, city once divided by that big wall his history teacher would draw on the white board at the front of the class - uneven bricks scrawled in red. Xander had stared at the diagram with his mind elsewhere - stripping a cheerleader maybe, flash of panic when she turned into a stripping football player. Xander blamed his sexuality crisis for his abysmal history grade – though it may not have been a legitimate excuse for his abysmal grades in math, geography, bio, chemistry ... well hey, points for the correct use of the word ‘abysmal’.

“First time to Germany?” she asked from the seat next to him, heavy brown curls, mauve eyeshadow and violently pink nails.

“First time on a plane,” his words tripping out of his mouth, a sharp wince following them. He might as well have acquired a mullet and bought a trailer because this admission had prompted Cordelia to give him a look even more unimpressed than the last.

“You’re lucky Spike invited you to come with us then – he usually leaves his strays where he found them and then you’d die never having had flown … anywhere,” she said sweetly, toss of her head and a sip of bubbling champagne. Xander looked away, realised he had nothing to do with his hands – he’d spilled his drink in the turbulence.

“Hate the Krauts like any self respecting Brit – but fuck, they know how to decorate,” said with a laugh as he cranes his neck around, gaze sliding down the velvet panels with nightmarish figures scratched into the material. Xander snapped out of his thoughts, pulled his lips into a smile.

“I guess,” he offered haltingly, dragging a palm across the surface of the bar – black rubber, dips in the surface the shape of nails (and teeth?) and wow Berlin was weird, among other things. Berlin is also recycled plastic and warm beer, guttural scrapes of a language Xander can’t fathom and rock clubs with shrines to Tim Burton. Berlin is infuriating efficiency and culture quirks. Berlin is … not America.

“Stumble in, pretty grin,
Tell her I don’t drink no more.
Lick her skin, slip right in,
Swear devotion, forevermore,” the words muffled around the cigarette, Spike’s hands moving up and down the guitar as ash was flicked from his lips, swept into the snap of wind.

“You need to get some sleep before the rehearsal – Buffy’ll rip you a new one if you’re late again,” Xander observed.

“All the better to fuck you with, my dear,” Spike mumbled, falling silent when he found a chord he liked.

Xander shrugged, lay back. He wouldn’t push the point – he was just grateful Spike had agreed to a night in … because when Xander was in a little hotel room with the door locked and Spike smoking by the window, he could pretend he was home.

They’re walking outside, and this catches Xander off guard. He hadn’t even realised they were moving. He’s thinking too much. It can’t be healthy. Probably frying something in his cerebral cortex (only part of the brain he could name because it was so often featured in comics). Spike suddenly stopped walking – pulled him under the shelter of a green bamboo roof, courtesy of a Chinese restaurant perched on the edge of the street.

“Hey,” Spike pushing his forehead against Xander’s, insistent, familiar. They could be anyone in that moment – men with love for one another, undefined, uncontested.

“Hey,” Xander replied, snort of laughter when Spike went cross-eyed trying to focus on his mouth. The eyes flicked back up, pupils like ink sloshing just under the surface of his flesh.

“Coming to the gig tonight?” he whispers, unblinking. It’s a question that he needn’t ask. He knows the answer. He asks anyway because Xander’ll be pissed if he assumes. He was touchy about that lately.

“I’m not your possession, Spike! Look I don’t – I’m sorry. Just … ask me next time, okay?”

“Okay okay okay …” mantra of agreement, gently mocking but there’s an apology there too. Spike distracts Xander with something hot, something that glimmers. It’s beautifully easy and he never has time to feel things like remorse.

“For the first set. I have to get some sleep so I’ll need to leave for the hotel early – but yeah, I’ll come,” Xander sighed, smiling when Spike’s hands ran up his back, fingers pushing through his hair.

“Try not to come right now – I’m sure the locals couldn’t appreciate your spunk all over the window of their panda express,” crass and cheeky, releasing Xander so suddenly the cold felt like a third party to their conversation, pushing it’s spindly little fingers down his throat and solidifying his lungs. The snatch of calm lost, Spike standing three feet away staring at a line of recycling bins. “Bin for plastics, bin for glass, bin for paper, bin for whatever the fuck else you could possibly have. It’s cruel to label the rubbish like that. What if a glass bottle fancies a cardboard box? Or a plastic carton wants to try his chances with a paper bag? They’re them denying that right!” he muttered, gleam in his eye that was all too familiar.

“Spike,” exasperated isn’t a strong enough word, “you can’t have sex with an inanimate object,” and Spike was now looking as though he wanted to prove that indeed they could … “I mean, they can’t have sex with each other,” clarified.

“I’m talking in a metaphorical sense, Xan, not a literal one,” Spike said slowly, laughter creeping up his words and staining his serious expression. “I don’t believe in putting people in boxes and labeling them. So I think I should stand up for my beliefs and …”

“No. Just no,” Xander said firmly. Very firmly. With a steely glare.

Spike grinned and kicked over the recycling bins.

They fell one by one, rapid movement that was so fluid it looked like Spike was dancing with the concrete wall behind them. As they ran, Spike called out something along the lines of “Be free! Frolic with the paper bags and fuck the plastic cartons!”

Xander knew he’d never look at a recycling bin the same way again.

____

He supposed that if when if it ended, he would realise how Spike had seeped into his subconscious. How he couldn’t look at a bus without thinking of them kissing on top of one. How he couldn’t look at a bottle of Jack without thinking of how it smelled when it was thrown back up. How he couldn’t look at a guitar without feeling the frets against his fingers, the warmth of Spike’s body against his back.

Xander had known for a while that Spike was crazy and some days hoursminutesseconds, everything was so damn unpredictable recently it was really bad. Sometimes there was sobbing and puke and Spike’s unreasonable fury slicing through the world.

But other times … Xander thought it was cool to have a free pass into a world that only Spike could let him in to, one that nobody else could see. Spike would give him tastes of how it could be, though maybe not how it should be.

Life; feasted on, ravaged, ripped apart and pulled back together until your heart stops and your eyes flatten.

____

“Stop thinking,” voice by his ear, soft and insistent. Not Spike’s.

“I can’t do this,” Xander shuddered pulling back, pushing the warmth off him. She looked wounded, though only for a second.

“Whatever. Your choice if you want to be made to look like his pathetic bitch,” she spat, pulling her skirt up and stuffing a roll of money into her bra.

“What?” and there it is, that odd sense of dread pawing at his stomach.

“You don’t want to fool around with me because what? You two are ‘exclusive’? Xan, baby, everybody knows!” and she knew where to plunge the knife, knew how to twist it in deep.

“Knows what?” he wondered why he was asking, why he was asking this question when he already knew the answer.

“That he’ll fuck anything that moves. That while you’re here playing Stepford wife, he’s got Greta or Lea or Buffy to suck …”

“Stop it,” shit he doesn’t want to know, he doesn’t want to hear this – this was all a mistake. Leaving early, accepting the ride back to the hotel, going up to her room, all wrong wrong …

“… what, the truth hurts too much? Is he killing you softly?” sarcasm to thick it stung, burned at his skin and behind his eyes. He didn’t even remember what he’d said by the time he’d stumbled out the room, though he hadn’t forgotten a word she’d said. Not a word. Anya had a talent for picking the ones that hurt the most.

Part Eleven

It comes down to this. Sitting in an airport, a blue biro with the cap chewed off scribbling the decisions that will change his life. Words spread out across the pages of a notepad that came free with a pizza order describing the balance of Xander’s life (or lack thereof).

Three lists (pros and cons). Spike. Whether to stay with him. Whether to go to England with him. Xander’s life revolved around one person these days – but to be fair he can’t remember a time when his life didn’t revolve around one person.

There was Jesse, hot huff of breath by his ear, Jesse pressing close against him as they hid from the mall security guard – a moment there, an opportunity. But they’re thirteen years old so they spring apart and talk about Ms Peterman’s boobs.

Then Willow, “I love it!” she squeals, fingers running over the God awful attempt of a card – Chanukah spelt wrong, the corner dog eared and an accidental thumbprint over the letter X, she held it as though it were the most beautiful thing anyone had ever given her.

So, after days of thinking, deciding, reasoning and analysing Xander had still only come to one conclusion: Dr. Phil’s ‘life lists’ were the biggest waste of time since his two week fixation with Dawson’s Creek. He kept reading over them though, reaffirming what he already knew.

List One:

Going to England with Spike
Cons
Feeling totally left out.
Touring again (exhaustion is setting in).
Meeting ‘the birds’ Spike talks about so much.
Spending another few months in a bus with Buffy (I feel sick whenever I look at her).

Pros
London. With Spike.
Having sex underground (the subway makes him horny).
Meeting ‘the lads’ Spike talks about so much.
Seeing Spike’s home.

“What’s England like?” words slipping off his tongue as they basked in lazy Sunday warmth, morning light slipping through the blinds neither could be bothered to open. Spike hummed as he considered, eyes shut, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“In general, or places I’ve been?” he asked finally, voice low with scratches of sleep over his words.

“Places you’ve been. Where did you live, anyway?” a little thrill coupled with his curiosity because Spike almost never talked about the past.

“London when I turned 12. Harrogate before then.”

“Where’s that?” eyes narrowed, Xander tried to picture a map of Britain in his head. Wasn’t much use – he barely had a grasp of where everything was in America let alone the rest of the world.

“Near Yorkshire,” a sudden grin, “I’m a ‘northan basstad’ at heart,” his accent shifted to something startlingly different and he laughed the moment the words came out of his mouth, shifting languidly so he sat with his back to the headboard, the sheets pooled around his hips. “Every summer before we moved to London, we’d visit this little seaside town near Newcastle – Whitley bay. The beach on the north sea, so the water was freezing all year round and I’d be blue and my teeth’d be chattering but I’d refuse to get dry and go back in. And they had a fairground, the Spanish City – bloody ancient place, a mucky, glittery invitation for a law suit. Fucking fantastic. Loved the place. Got my first snog on the roller coaster. Threw up on her afterwards, though,” he lit a cigarette as he spoke, rolled the smoke over his tongue.

“Sounds … cool,” pathetic attempt at snatching the right word out of the ones that spun through his head, but Spike didn’t seem to mind. He passed Xander his cigarette, kissed his throat and slid back down onto his pillow.

List Two:

Staying with Spike
Cons
Wet towels on the floor
Feeling worried every time he’s out of my sight.
Feeling like The Bitter Wife, a fixture of the Harris clan.
Dealing with his mood swings snaps (more of them every week).
Learning to accept that I’m not enough.

Pros
Mind blowing sex.
Living with a beautiful hot guy who loves me.
Having someone who gets me and doesn’t mind if I don’t always understand him.
Experiences I’ll never forget.
Did I mention the sex?

“I can’t believe I let you do this,” Xander groaned, catching his lip between his teeth. Spike grinned, eyes wild and God, it felt like all the air was being pressed out of Xander’s chest and the pleasure so was so exquisite it felt like slices in his skin, needles up his spine.

“Knew you were a kinky bugger at heart,” Spike whispered, nipping his ear as his hands dragged down Xander’s sides.

“Don’t stop,” Xander gasped, thrashing his head back, his body arching under Spike’s wicked fingers, his careful tongue. His arms tied to the fixture above his head, a slip of silk across his eyes (figured that the only tie Spike owned was bought solely for encounters like this).

“I won’t stop, trust me,” Spike rasped, teeth at Xander’s nipple, cool expanse of flesh and weight suddenly laying across his legs and a mouth soveryhotslickwet.

It could go on for hours or seconds, delicate torture that was driving Xander insane. He was sure he’d come out of the bedroom certifiable, eye twitch, muttering to himself, the whole shebang. Until then, he’d just lie still and pray Spike wasn’t feeling particularly sadistic.

List Three

Spike
Pros
He’s fun
He’s insane
He loves me
He needs me
He won’t ever leave me

Cons
He cheats on me
He lies about it
He never knows when he’s had one too many
He’s unpredictable
He doesn’t get the concept of ‘no’
He’s insane
He needs me
He won’t ever leave me

“You’re still angry with me,” Spike observed, a laugh pulling at his features.

“Well somebody has to be!” Xander yelled.

“What?” genuinely puzzled as he pulled off his boots and walked to the bathroom.

“You. Got me. Arrested.” His words pushed through his teeth, dropping with almost an almost audible clunk onto deaf ears.

“So? Got a warning, is all. Overnight stay in the slammer does a man good. Bit of a detox – a breather,” and he had the cheek to say it with sincerity as he stared at his reflection, pulling a tissue over the smudges of makeup across his face, lips, neck. Not all of it was his. None of it was Xander’s.

“What the hell is wrong with you!? It was a prison, not a day spa!” said with such exasperation, hands fluttering about his head. He was one step away from the edge and all Spike could do was laugh as he shed his coat.

“Things could have been worse, Xan. That fat bloke with the shaved head was making eyes at you and who knows what sorts of depravity might have gone on if I weren’t there – you’re lucky Buffy told me you were …”

“Will you stop! For once in your life, just fucking stop!” yelling again, a tear at the edges of his words, a slight hitch to his breath. His fist pushed down into Spike’s face and within a snap of a second, Spike was staring up at him from the floor with a thick stroke of red running down his cheek.

“This what you want? Fine,” he muttered. Xander couldn’t speak.

Found he didn’t need to.

Fist in his stomach, nails down his neck.
A handful of hair, crisp and brittle blonde.
Dull thud of his heart, dull thunk of flesh, dull click of bones shifting.
The world had been smothered in red and bathroom tile.
…

“I’ll go in the morning,” Xander said, watching Spike pick absently at the cut on his lip. Spike’s gaze snapped up, his brow furrowed.

“Why?”

Xander blinked. Stared. Nodded to the smudges of bluepurple and slashes of red across their bodies. Naked, of course – every encounter with Spike ended like this. Naked, utterly drained in every way a man can be.

“I hit … I …” swallowed down his own disgust when he thought of it, shut his eyes and let his head rest on the cool of the bathtub. He started at the warm slick skin that cupped his face, the calloused fingertips dragging across his lips.

“Not like I didn’t throw a few of my own. You needed it. I needed it. ‘S what we are,” he makes it sound like it’s normal, like people always beat each other up while they kiss in hotel rooms. Xander shuts his eyes again. Being with Spike meant redefining normal.
___

“What’s that?” Gunn asked, nodding to the slips of paper Xander was reading.

“Nothing,” he said, not looking up.

“Right. Nothing. Well, you’re staring pretty damn hard at ‘nothing’,” he observed, eyebrow raised. Xander snorted, shoved the scraps of paper into his pocket, didn’t reply. Gunn shrugged, shifted his hold on Fred. She was fast asleep in his arms, delicate features smooth and expressionless – stillness found in sleep. She was exhausted and had fallen asleep the moment they sat down at the gate (another four to go before they could board the plane). Touring pulled the life out of you, left you wobbling on your feet – and there was still a way to go. They were scheduled to tour England next, another three months.

He glanced back to Xander whose head was dipping occasionally, shoulders sinking. Boy was dog-tired, that much was obvious. Spike must keep him awake (the man hardly ever sits still long enough to sleep). “Where’s Spike?” he asked suddenly, only just noticing that he was nowhere to be seen. Xander started, jerked out of the beginnings of sleep. He rubbed his hands over his eyes, looked around blearily.

“I … he gets bored waiting. Probably at a Starbucks harassing the customers or something,” words flippant, though his tone was anything but. Gunn felt bad – he hadn’t wanted to start something. Xander had enough to think about after the whole ‘Buffy vs. Spike’ disaster.

“He said something about going to the bathroom,” he offered. He wasn’t lying. He just didn’t mention the fact that Spike had announced he ‘needed to take a slash’ about an hour ago.

“If I keep hanging out with Spike I’ll have a heart attack by the time I’m thirty,” Xander muttered, slight smile when Gunn caught his gaze. “’S okay. I always thought it’d be cool to die young. And odds are I’d be having sex at the time,” a joke, good natured laugh when Gunn rolled his eyes. A beat. Silence between them, like a vacuum in the flurry of activity around them. Gunn glanced down when Fred mumbled something in her sleep. When he looked up again, Xander was gone.

Part Twelve

Their First Saturday

Xander blinked sleepily and rolled over. Blinked again. Felt warm skin behind his (naked!) ass.

What happened?
I need to pee.
Who’s in my bed?
Did we use protection?
What if I flew to Canada and married a fat trucker called Chuck?
I really need to pee.

“Uhh …”

And it turned out that speech was detrimental to his brain. He shut his eyes, breathed. Images started to flit behind his eyes – hazy sketches of pale skin slicing down black sheets, a face made of edges, tongue dragging across feverish skin …

“Name’s Spike. Yours?” Hot breath huffed at his ear, arms sliding around his waist with an ease that usually grew out of familiarity. It was like … deja vou. Sort of. But not really. No, more like – getting a glimpse of what’s to come and knowing for sure that things were going to be okay. For a while at least. Jesus, he sounded insane. He knew should pull himself out of there, find his trousers and hail a cab. He didn’t know this guy and didn’t want to (liar). What kind of guy picked up strangers at clubs? … uh. Well, he did. But this was the first time he’d ever done it, first time he’d dragged himself out of his nine to five, pay per view, tv dinner existence and thrown himself into something so very foreign. Though not uncomfortably so.

Oh, fuck it.

“Xander.”

Their Last Saturday

“Great gig, wasn’t it? Blew that place apart!”

Xander was tugged down the stairs so quickly he felt like his legs would fly over his head and he’d slump to the floor, neck cracking and snapping. Jesus, what a way to go. He’d hate to die down here in the subway, with the dark grime and skitter of rats. Oh. Sorry, that’s a ‘Yank’ expression. It’s The Tube in England, or The Underground. The subway is ‘the tube’, gas is petrol, Walmart is Asda and baseball is rounders. Before London Xander had thought he spoke English. How very wrong he’d been.

“You’re going love it, promise. You’ll want to fuck this city when I’ve showed it to you – you’ll want to run your lips down the buildings, lick the bloody rooftops and hug the trees,” mid rant, Spike paused, slash of a smile across his face, “But if you do hug trees I’ll smack you one. Can’t stand those stupid Greenpeace ‘save the sticks’ buggers.”

Xander grinned on cue. Spike was really … on today. It heaved the energy out of you, dealing with him on a day like today. Wouldn’t be long before Xander felt the need to collapse - he felt dead on his feet as it was.

“Which stop is it, again?” he asked, squinting at the colour coded map just above the hissing automatic doors. The colours rocked into one another as the train did, startlingly bright against the backdrop of black. Spike pushed a little closer to him than necessary, wrapped an arm around his hips to steady him as the train rocked back and forth, clattering incessantly.

“Leister square, dearest,” humour swirling through his voice, eyes crisp blue with a focus that was increasingly rare.

“What’ll we do there?” dubious now, because Spike looked positively gleeful and that was never a good indication.

“Sit on one of the benches in the park at the center,” lips pressed at his neck, shameless, putting on a show for whomever happened to be watching and fuck ‘em if they didn’t like it. Xander felt exposed – he hated when Spike did this, but he didn’t get a vote. “Make the pigeons fear for their lives. If there’s a premier going on there’ll be cameras and celebrities, so we could take a stand and protest for something. The legalization of public indecency, maybe.”

Xander smiled, pulled away as the train jerked to a halt. Spike grabbed his arm and twisted sharply (he didn’t mean for it to hurt – he never meant for it to hurt).

“Not yet – three more stops ‘till Leister square.”

Xander wrenched his arm back at the exact moment the train started to move again and crashed onto a vacant seat.

Their First Sunday

“I’m going to die,” Xander mumbled, arm slung over his eyes, lips twisting around his smile.

“Little deaths,” Spike muttered, insistently tugging at the sheets, “bloody invigorating lovely little deaths. Fancy another one?”

Xander didn’t move. Couldn’t, though he wanted to. “More little deaths will lead to one big Xander death.”

A laugh, his arm was pulled to his side and he discovered Spike’s face inches away from his own, staring at him as though there was a book scribbled across his face. It was … unnerving. But kind of cool. Nobody looked at Xander with that amount of scrutiny, of interest. Nobody had any reason to.

Xander was sure he was going cross eyed by the time Spike pulled away, sat on bed-sheets curling around him like burning paper. “I’m going to write a song about this,” he said as he lit a cigarette.

“Xander’s Lack of Stamina? Catchy,” Xander said wryly. He didn’t say anything when ash was flicked onto the carpet – after all, the carpet was already stained with everything from nail varnish Willow to stale beer Jesse.

“Thinking more along the lines of Death Bed,” he said, grinning.

“Yours works too,” Xander conceded as he heaved himself up – he’d pulled muscles he hadn’t even known he’d had. Which was a Good Thing. Spike cocked his head to one side, gaze flickering up and down his body as he stood.

“Going to write a lot of songs about you,” he said.

Their Last Sunday

“Strip, thin, grey,
Black gunk, white spunk,
Licks across the surface.
He’ll rub it clean,
Silver gleam,
Light the tail and watch it burn.”

He fell asleep for the first time in days with his head under a pillow, balanced on the edge of Spike’s bunk. It was easy enough – he was exhausted and he could ignore the muffled strikes of music around him. He’d grown used to the dull roar of the road beneath them, to the haphazard jerks the bus was prone to. The impromptu rehearsals weren’t too noisy – tapping on plastic, the moan of Spike’s voice and the twang of wooden guitars wasn’t enough to shove Xander out of his doze.

“Let’s go over the chorus again.”

“Spike, we’ve been through …”

“Dirty magnesium,
Crushed under rock.
Dirty magnesium,
Earth’ll cleanse you, we’ll outlast the clock. There’s something wrong with that line.”

“Too many syllables?”

Xander was dreaming, his face twitching as he slept.

Burning burning - he’s screaming for Xander to come help him, put it out put it out make it stop, and so Xander wanders closer and closer and it hurts, smoldering flesh but he keeps walking and his face is melting but…

“Earth’ll cleanse you, outlast the clock –that sounds a bit better. Jesus wept, Faith, keep in time!”

“Go fuck yourself, Spike.”

“I have plenty of volunteers to fuck me, thanks. As do you. Liam was certainly up for it last night, wasn’t he?”

… he keeps walking because that’s what he has to do but FUCK it hurts his skin and the ground is falling away, crumbling to dust beneath his sneakers and suddenly he’s cold and …

“That’s such bullshit!”

“Guys stop it, there’s something wrong with …”

“Angel? What does he mean?”

“Nothing. He doesn’t mean anything. Spike’s just causing trouble because he knows we hate his piece of shit song.”

… sweating and shivering, falling and flailing and drowning in boiling water that pushed up his nose and behind his eyes, falling falling …

“You shut your mouth, Faith, you don’t know …”

… until he crashed.

“Xander!”

“What happened to …”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s not waking up!”

“Oh sweet Jesus, he’s fucking boiling!”

“Xander! Xand!”

Their First Monday

He didn’t know where his pants were. He should know. It’s his apartment, after all. He should have some idea of which drawer he kept his own pants in. Only, it turned out that lots and lots of sex (with intervals for showering and eating) lead to losing lots and lots of brain cells. That was his theory and it was proving to be true.

Okay Harris, take a moment. He took a deep breath, shut his eyes and tried to collect his thoughts. So, to recap.

Saturday: he’d succumbed to temptation and visited Hole, the new club three blocks over. By some freak of nature, the bouncer let him in. After an hour of drinking and feeling utterly out of place, he was hit on by a really … direct sort of guy. He took aforementioned guy to his place and fornication ensued.

Sunday: turned out the guy’s name was Spike and he was a gorgeous bisexual rock singer. Score. After about ten minutes of small talk and a few more hours of fornication, they started talking and kind of hit it off. Ordered some pizza, didn’t get time to eat much of it. Spike slept over again.

Monday: Spike still at Xander’s apartment and the Moment of Awkwardness still hadn’t arrived. Odd. Incredibly cool, too. Xander wanted to keep going with the whole ‘Love Shack’ thing but unfortunately, he had a job he didn’t want to get fired from. So. Here he was. Trying to remember where his pants were.

“Second drawer,” he said triumphantly.

“I don’t see why you have to go,” said a voice from within the bathroom.

And as Xander’s eyes were drawn to the open doorway and traveled up the length of the (very naked) man in his shower’s body, he wasn’t quite sure why he had to go either.

Their Last Monday

“Flu, exhaustion and dehydration. When it rains it bloody pours, doesn’t it?” Spike murmured, soft scratches of fear just under his tongue, not looking up from Xander’s hand.

“Yeah. Turns out a diet of cigarettes, coffee and beer isn’t as nutritious as we’d thought,” Xander replied, watching Spike smear black across his nails and fingers. He was usually good at applying nail polish but his hands were shaking – if Xander was feeling romantic he’d say it was because Spike was still terrified at the prospect of Xander being ill. If he was feeling realistic he’d say it was because Spike hadn’t had his fix yet. Addiction did funny things to your body.

Spike stood and, having given up on Xander’s nails, started pacing back and forth, watching Xander’s face when he shut his eyes. He wasn’t the boy Spike had met – all colour and noise, strong hands and a broad smile. This man looked … spent. God.

The Low pulled – it was close. He needed an upper. Something to keep him going.

“I’ll fix you – I will. I just need to … I need to be better,” he said.

He kissed Xander’s cheek, left him asleep in the hospital. Xander’s eyes fluttered open just as the door swung shut.

Their First Tuesday

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Xander marveled as he threw his suitcase into the belly of the bus.

“Why not? The handsome, shy young carpenter …”

“Courier.”

“… the jaded rock star …”

“Rock star, huh?”

“Git. Fine, rock singer but soon to be rock star, alright? So, their eyes meet in a crowded club and they drift towards one another and the rock singer whispers sweet nothings …”

“Since when did ‘want to fuck you now’ qualify as a sweet nothing?”

“… and they fall madly in love. Then they run off for a madcap adventure wherein they drink, have mind blowing sex, listen to amazing music, fuck with the clergy and perform various acts of deviance.”

“With the clergy? What the hell do you have planned?”

“You. Have. No. Idea.”

Xander didn’t know what they’d actually be doing over the next month or so. But making out against a bus with people snapping up and down the sidewalk in heels and business suits was one hell of a way to start off the trip.

Part Thirteen

Their Last Tuesday

Disinfectant lay heavy on his tongue, seeped through cotton into his pale skin – not tanned anymore, he’d lost that in Europe’s weather. Walking up the stairs to his hotel room their hotel room was eerily reminiscent of the hospital he’d just escaped from. White walls, colour scratched onto a canvas now and then to break up the monotony. When he was with Spike he never noticed the sterile hush of hotels – Spike painted his personality across the walls, laughed over the silence. But he wasn’t here, so the walls remained blotchy white.

Spike should be with him. He should have come to the hospital two hours ago and helped Xander stagger home. Hell, Xander had done it for him more times than he’d care to count. Spike hadn’t so much as called since he left Xander sleeping on white bed sheets in a fetching green, assless, gown.

Xander stopped at room 203, rested his weight against the door as he struggled to pull the card out of his pocket. His hands were clammy and the key card was plastic so it kept slipping from his fingers. “For fuck’s sake,” harsh scrape of words along his throat – sometimes he was surprised at the sound of his own voice. The key card slid through his fingers, clattered to the tile along with everything else that’d been in his pocket. “Not today,” pleading to a distant deity – God (maybe), Jesus (possibly), Cher (he was gay now, so it only seemed right). He stooped to pick up his things, ended up sitting on the floor due to the head rush.

With his worldly possessions spilled out onto tile that smelled like dying lemons, Xander sat and tried to think. His next move would have to be decided now, before he saw Spike. Spike had a nasty habit of banishing Xander’s ideas, of pulling sucking them out of him before he had time to speak. But not today. No, not today.

“Are you alright?” a man’s voice, clean and British.

No, no he’s not alright because he knows he’s going to leave Spike. Because he knows Spike will never understand. Because there’s a weight in his chest that tastes like guilt.

“Yeah. Lost my key card.”

“Do you need to use a phone?” the man asked, awkwardly concerned.

“I don’t have anyone to call,” he found himself saying. He didn’t know why he said it – it was a black lie. He had plenty of people he could call, more than he ever had before. He had all their numbers encased in plastic in his pocket, their names in black electronic squiggles. He could get up right now and call any of them, ask them to come over and help him pack, go with him to the airport and see him off.

He could call any one of them. But he didn’t know if any would come.

“Oh. Right. Well … weather’s terrible this time of year and this corridor is particularly drafty – I was just stepping out for lunch and … you look a bit peaky, so you could probably do with a hot drink and, uh ...”

Xander had been released from hospital two hours ago and was deciding whether he should leave the guy who could be the love of his life. He was dealing with the realisation that he had totally lost who he was in the course of a year. He was trying to cling to a semblance of sanity as he watched his world Spike split at the seams. The British solution?

Have a cup of tea.

“Thanks. I think I’ll take you up on that,” Xander interrupted (and since when had he been the one interrupting other people’s babble?). He pulled himself to his feet, met the eyes of a man a little older than him in years, though not in other respects – glasses, dark messy hair, a sweater that was a little tight across the shoulders.

“Wesley Wyndam Pryce,” he said with a grin, shaking Xander’s hand.

“Xander Harris. Does it have to be tea?”

“Sorry?”

“Is it only tea that solves crises or do all hot beverages work? ‘Cause I’m more of a coffee guy.”

Wesley laughed haltingly. “I’m sure coffee will be a worthy substitute.”

Their First Wednesday

“You’re crazy. And trust me, I’ve dealt with crazy. I know it when I see it.” A statement that was true on both counts.

1. Spike was so, totally crazy. He twitched, talked to himself, never stayed still for more than five minutes, drew disturbingly accurate diagrams of his sex life using stick men, had arguments with his guitar and thought Xander was sexy. Proof of a mad man.

2. Xander had limited experience with Crazy, but had dealt with it on occasion i.e. Louise on the fourth floor, who was convinced Xander was Elvis and tried to make him ‘confess’ every time she saw him at the Laundromat.

“But you think it’s endearing, don’t you dear?” said with a flutter of his lashes, a nasty little grin on his face. His gaze flicks to Xander’s jeans and he pretends to be horrified, his mouth drawn out into a perfect O of disgust. “You think it’s hot! You find my insanity a turn on! Depraved little wretch! Pervert!” Rolling his tongue over the words, a mocking falsetto that slices through the bus. Xander turned every shade of red as everyone laughed (though not unkindly).

“Perverts are my specialty,” Faith muttered from the left bunk, eyes sliding down Xander’s skin.

“Mitts off, the boy’s mine,”

“Never stopped me before,” Faith grinned, a twist of her hips shifting her legs apart. Xander swallowed.

“That’s because you’re a slag,” Spike said cheerfully.

“Bitch.”

“Touch what’s mine and I’ll feed you your spleen,” Spike growled, a hand tugging through Xander’s hair and an arm coiled around his chest.

“Ah, young love – it’s all fun and games now but just you wait …” she sighed, turning back to her conversation with Angel.

“Love is always young with me, pet. Stick around and see,” Spike murmured before he pressed his lips against Xander’s – it felt as though the world had fallen still, quiet. Xander had never been a fan of silence (always felt the urge to fill it) but for the first time in his life, the silence didn’t feel as though it would crush him.

Their Last Wednesday

Waking up with warm skin pressed against his back, weak yellow sunshine filtered through cracks between the curtains, hot breath tickling the back of his neck. It was safe, familiar. And at the same time?

Not.

The man’s limbs were too long, his breathing to easy, his hands too smooth across Xander’s stomach. This wasn’t Spike this was … oh. Oh, God.

Xander slid across the bed gingerly, afraid he’d wake Wesley. He didn’t. He stood. Walked to the bathroom door. He knew where it was, of course. All the hotel rooms are pretty much the same, though Wesley’s looked more lived in.

It wasn’t until he was standing in the bathroom that he realised he felt sick. Throwing up in a stranger’s toilet, naked. Didn’t get much better than that. Not to mention the fact that the only drink that had passed his lips since meeting Wesley had been coffee.

No booze to blame, Harris.

He dry heaved into the toilet bowl and prayed Wesley wouldn’t wake, wouldn’t find Xander here. Stripped. Vulnerable. Feeling like seven kinds of hell. He reached out on impulse, sighed with relief when the lock on the bathroom door clicked. The bathroom lock in his and Spike’s room was broken. It wasn’t the only fucking thing broken between him and ... okay, bad metaphors never helped so Xander stopped that thought there and concentrated on what had happened yesterday.

He’d had lunch with Wesley. They’d talked. Talked about normal things. There was no mention of Dali, blowing things up, karaoke or fucking. They talked about London, about LA, about the weather and soccer. Xander made jokes. Wesley laughed nervously and stumbled over his words. He cut his food up into equally sized pieces with a knife and fork. He was uptight, awkward and had absolutely no idea that his face, his body, could tempt almost anyone to leave the restaurant with him.

Then they’d walked through the city and Wesley had regurgitated a ridiculously detailed history of practically every building they’d passed and Xander had listened to some of it, but mostly just watched Wesley’s cheeks flush as he grew more and more enthusiastic.

Back to the hotel, then. Up the stairs. Following Wesley into his apartment. He thought about how Spike would think Wesley was boring, how he’d sneer and laugh at what he didn’t understand – and Xander knew he wouldn’t understand Wesley. That was when Xander started kissing him.

He’d had a moment of doubt when Wesley’s fingers slid down the front of his jeans but that had been easy to ignore. And then …

“Xander?” His voice muffled behind cheap wood, Wesley was standing only a couple of feet away from the door. Xander thumped his head onto the tiled wall and shut his eyes.

Their First Thursday

Fingers dipping into his trousers, calloused fingers dragging across his chest, edges for hips digging into him. Every space on him in him filled. Enveloped in feverish urgency, smothered in flesh and breath and heat. He lay bare in every way it’s possible to be naked, stretched in every direction and his whole being shivering because he’s cold under the heat, shit scared that Spike is going to see what a total loser he is and then it’ll all go back to the Way it Was.

With every day that passes, the fear grows. It seems exquisitely cruel that Xander will have to leave this place of no consequence or responsibility. That soon he’ll have to trudge back to an apartment he has never been home and to friends who barely know him. He wants to stay here in this specific moment, with Spike saying Xander’s name over and over, with his soul exposed in a cheap motel room for all the world to see.

This is painful. This is exhilarating. This is the best fucking Thursday night he’s ever had, that he ever will have.

This is freedom.

Their Last Thursday

“Where the fuck have you been?”

“Could ask you the same question,” Xander snapped, walking past Spike into the bedroom.

“I looked for you at the gig in the Oblong last night but you didn’t turn up, and I called the hospital but they said you’d left. Christ, Xand! You could have …”

“Been passed out in a ditch? Wow, you must have been worried. That was so inconsiderate of me, leaving suddenly without calling you or telling you where I was. I couldn’t imagine what that would feel like,” a snap of venom, shot with bitterness he’d never thought he’d feel. Not until he was at least 30.

“So this was revenge because I left you at the hospital? Nice. Very fucking nice,” Spike hissed, shoving Xander from behind. Xander stumbled but didn’t fall – he managed to steady himself on the edge of the bed.

“I can deal with you leaving me there. I don’t like that you never came back,” Xander said as he turned to face Spike, dangerously close to losing control.

“Don’t be such a bloody drama queen! I’ve been thinking about you non-stop for the past two days.”

“Thinking about me? Bullshit!”

“Bullshit, huh? What’s this then?” Spike shoved scraps of paper at him and folded his arms across his chest when Xander took them.

“What are these?” he asked, not even attempting to translate the smudged ink scrawl – the paper smelled like JD.

“Poems. Drawings. Songs. For you. About you. I thought about nothing else! I just couldn’t get my act together, s’all. Been having a rough couple of days – scary days. You know how I get,” desperation now as his shoulders slumped and his voice cracked. God, please don’t let him do that. Not that.

Xander had been prepared to leave, had thought about what he was putting in the suitcase and what he was leaving behind. He didn’t like the person he’d become, he hated what Spike was making him – what Spike’s world was making him. And now his resolve, his decisions … it was all crumbling before his eyes and if Spike said It then he knew he couldn’t leave. “I was going out of my mind without you … well, more than usual,” a wry smile, though he was crying. Xander knew that if Spike said those three words then, just those three, he’d stay for as long as Spike wanted him to. He’d stay forever. “Xander … I need you.”

‘I need you’.

But those were the wrong three words.

Their First Friday

“I can’t believe it’s only been a week since I met you – I feel like you’ve always been here,” Spike sighed, a grin that could only be classified as ‘goofy’ pulling at his features. Xander was pretty sure his expression mirrored that, though he was far more practiced at the whole ‘goofy’ thing. He tried to stifle his smile – he wanted to be the cool one for once.

Spike glanced at him, raised an eyebrow.

“What’s the matter with you? Did you pull a muscle?”

Apparently Xander’s ‘cool face’ made him look as though he were in pain. Fair enough. He was in pain … but it was good pain. Fun, post coital pain.

“No … just happy,” he laughed, shifting closer so Spike’s head rested beneath his chin and their legs were completely entangled. They were breathing in unison and before long they’d be snoring in unison.

“Me too. Even though you wouldn’t help me nick that Harley today. Love you, you know,” Spike said as he yawned. Xander felt a thrill shoot through him when he heard those words – Jesus, he was such a girl.

“I didn’t help you steal the bike because stealing is wrong and because if you own a Harley Davidson you have to grow facial and marry a woman called Cobra Lynette. Which would suck,” Xander explained.

“I think I’d suit a ‘tache. And I think you’d suit Cobra Lavelle,” Spike mumbled. Xander snorted.

“I don’t love you that much.”

He tensed when he realised what he’d said.

“But you do love me, yeah?” Spike asked, his voice still sleepy, his movements languid, as though Xander saying this, saying this after a week was no big deal. Hell, it probably wasn’t that big of a deal to him. He seemed to know what Xander felt before he did.

“Yeah,” Xander muttered. He shut his eyes, well aware he was leaping off a cliff … and even if what lay at the bottom were sharp rocks and pain, it was worth the joy of the fall. “I love you.”

The End

Feed the Author