Boglescatverse

by
Witling

Part Twenty

"'Accept the next propositions you shall recieve.'" He stared at the slip a second longer, then let it fall onto the coffee table. "Man, their copyediting's gone downhill in the last few years."

"What're the lucky numbers?" Spike was sucking up the last of the broccoli chow mein, putting it God knew where because he'd already finished the egg rolls, the lo mein, the hot hot ginger beef, and two orders of dry garlic spare ribs. The coffee table was a takeout graveyard.

"Not a clue," Xander said, letting his head fall back onto the couch and raising his beer. "Wait, no—what's the date?"

Pause. "Nineteenth?"

"So, not nineteen. Nineteen is definitely not my lucky number."

"Might be the twentieth, though." Pause. "Or the twenty-eighth."

Xander took a long drink of his beer.

"Twenty-three's a good lucky number," Spike went on. There was the sound of chop sticks scraping the bottom of a takeout container. "Shows up all over, ever notice that?"

Xander lifted his head and looked at Spike. He was ditching the empty container and reaching for his own beer. Wiping a hand on his shirt. He looked…better. Less thin and tired, and his eyes seemed livelier. And he'd been talking. Making conversation. It was sort of unsettling, actually—or it would probably be unsettling to someone who wasn't too tired and depressed to think about it.

"No," Xander said, blinking. "No, I never did notice that, Spike."

"Shakespeare's birthday," Spike said significantly, tipping the neck of his beer toward Xander. "And his death day."

"Really." Xander let his head fall back again.

"Chromosomes." Sound of beer being slugged. "Ever think about that?"

"Spike." Xander brought a hand up and rubbed his eyes. He'd showered, he'd spent half an hour in the shower, scrubbing and soaping and finally just sitting quietly under the cool water, but he still felt dirty. "What does your fortune say?"

There was a pause, then the crinkle of the wrapper. "In bed," Spike muttered to himself. "Supposed to add—"

"I know what you're supposed to add," Xander said to the inside of his eyelids. "I'm not in the mood." As soon as it was out, he cringed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Please, no. He didn't mean to say anything that could be taken like that. He really didn't want to have to deal with it, please thank you okay now.

There was a crisp, dry cookie snap, and then silence. When he opened his eyes, Spike was smiling slightly at the slip in his hand.

"What does it say?"

"Says—" Spike read it again, shrugged, and handed it over. Xander squinted.

—I AM TRAPPED IN A CHINESE BAKERY—

"In bed," he added after a second, and handed it back. Spike crumpled it and let it fall, then turned his attention back to the television screen. Horse racing, no sound. Jockeys were teeny, gritty little men.

"Work tomorrow?" Spike asked offhandedly.

"Saturday."

"Ah."

Xander stared at the takeout wreckage, the greasy buckets and the bled-out sauce packets. That was the other weird thing. He'd come out of the shower and got dressed in the bedroom, and when he'd limped back out to the living room Spike had been paying the delivery girl. Paying her from Xander's wallet, sure, but paying her for dry garlic ribs and lo mein, which were high on the Xander Harris list of All-TimeGood Chinese Things. He'd stood there looking stupid while the girl frowned at her tip, while Spike took the bags and carried them wordlessly to the couch and started to eat more than his fair share. Bizarroland. He'd crossed over at last.

"Get that insulation?" Spike asked.

Xander opened his eyes and sat up. He did it carefully; he was on his third beer, and it had been a long day. The room was sort of…light.

"Spike," he said. "What did you do?"

Spike turned his head and gave him a long, heavy look. "What?"

"Just tell me. You've been calling 976 numbers? You sell some of my stuff on the Internet? What? I won't be mad, I promise."

Spike's expression cleared slightly, and he looked back at the television. "Why're you so twitchy?"

"You're asking me about insulation, Spike. You're asking me about my day. Since when do you give a fuck about my day?"

Spike lifted a hand to his mouth and gnawed silently at his thumbnail. After a second he flicked the television volume on, just to a murmur.

"Spike."

"Care about your day," Spike muttered, and spat a shred of thumbnail onto the floor. Xander stared at him a second longer, then closed his eyes and put away another third of his beer.

"No," he said, when he'd finished swallowing. "No, the insulation did not arrive today. Which would be baffling if, say, Willow were doing my job. But which is not so hard to understand when you remember who actually is. Doing it."

Pause. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's supposed to mean that you are not net-hocking the bath towels of the Slayer's best and brightest sidekick." He held up his beer, peered through it at the light, and tried to remember how many more were in the fridge. Tomorrow was Saturday. He could get drunk tonight, if he wanted to. Yeah, because getting drunk was the best way to forget that you'd just walked away from the hottest—well, okay, only—guy you'd ever kissed.

"Let me get this straight," Spike said. "Some punter in Akron doesn't do his job, and therefore you're a loss? That's rich."

"How did you know it was Akron?"

Spike looked a little defensive. "Well, you're always bloody yelling down the telephone, aren't you?"

"No."

"What I don't get is how you think it's all your fault."

"Spike, I really don't want to—"

"I mean, all right, you can't bloody fight a cold, let alone a vamp—"

"I'm serious—"

"Seen you take a beating from things I'd keep for pets—"

"Spike, come on—"

"And you never seemed to really get the techie stuff, like Red—"

"Fuck, Spike—"

"And Rupert's right to keep you away from the hocus-pocus, that stuff's serious—"

"Wait, Giles keeps me—?"

"But you're worth ten of that tosser, and if you haven't figured that out yet, maybe you are the dim one."

Xander swallowed and raised a now, look finger into the silence that followed. Then he realized he didn't know what he wanted to say. Spike was staring at the television set, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. What tosser?

"You mean Seth?" Xander asked guardedly.

"Twit with the corduroy blazer? That him?" Spike snorted. "Arcadian indoor plumbing in the 1860s, Christ almighty. Makes him a Master, apparently."

Xander paused again. "How much did you talk to him, exactly?"

Spike picked up the remote and started to flick through the channels. "All I'm saying is—" He broke off, and Xander waited, but he didn't pick it up.

"He's a nice guy," Xander said automatically, to fill in the space. Was he discussing his sex life with Spike? He couldn't be. They must be talking about something else. Akron. Insulation. Wasn't that where this had started out? "He's smart."

"Smelled like bloody Salvador Dali. And how smart could he be, really?"

"I don't know. How smart do you have to be to get into Yale?"

Spike's head turned sharply, and he let the remote fall against his side. He looked…angry. Affronted. Despite himself, Xander pulled back a little into the couch.

"Was he any good in bed?" Spike asked. All the little hairs on Xander's arm and neck sprang up, and his fingers tightened around his beer. Surely he wasn't having the conversation. Surely not. Not even he would be having this conversation with Spike, thus crowning his long and crappy day with a thorny, inexplicable ring of total suck.

"Whoah, sorry," he said. "That was so weird. I thought you just asked me whether he was any good in—"

"Thought so," Spike said, and went back to the television. He looked satisfied.

"Hey, whoah, hang on. I'm not having this conversation, under pain of siphoning I am not having it, but just for the record, he was extremely good. He was fucking amazing. He was—"

Spike waved a hand, enough already. He looked bored now. How could he look bored? How was that allowed?

'You asked," Xander said. Now he felt sort of gross and pervy, as if he'd just offered all the slick, nasty details up to someone who'd just wondered if he knew the guy. "I mean, it was fine."

"Fine." There was a sneer in there, a little private sneer while he flipped through channels.

"Jesus, Spike. Could you please stop being such an unprecedented asshole on the night I just got dumped?"

"You're better off," Spike said grimly, to the screen.

"Yeah, thanks. I'll send him a postcard letting him know you said so."

"If he was so great," Spike said, letting the channel lottery spin out on Discovery, "why wasn't he around all this time?"

Xander stared at Spike's profile; when Spike turned to look at him, he looked away. "Because," he said at last. "I don't know. Because it wasn't like that."

"Why hasn't he been around, asking who the hell I am?"

"Because it's none of his business."

"Right. Why isn't it his business?"

"Because…" He couldn't think of anything to say, and finally just said, "Because he never called."

Spike was staring at him with a strange expression. His eyes were wide and bright and sort of flooded, and his cheeks were hard. Tight, taut. Like he was bracing for something.

"He's an idiot," he said.

Then he put the remote carefully down on the coffee table, leaned sideways, and kissed Xander on the mouth.

He smelled of spare ribs and beer, and for a few seconds that was it—just dry lips brushing dry lips, and Xander was too surprised, shocked even, to register anything more than the oddness of it. Spike's lips were soft. He smelled good. He was kissing Xander. It had to be a joke.

Then Spike's tongue touched his lips, gentle and wet and soft, and it wasn't a joke at all. He tipped his chin up and opened his mouth, and Spike's tongue tasted good. A bit weird, a bit cool, but he was pushing harder at Xander's lips, and his fingertips were touching Xander's jaw, and he was making a low, long sound in the back of his throat. Not a joke, no. Just a surprise.

He was kissing Spike, he thought again, and he expected to feel weird and revolted, but instead he had the strangest, quickest glimpse of blue fragments cohering, and he felt happy and suddenly rock-hard. Embarrassingly hard. Jesus. He put a hand on Spike's shoulder and pulled back.

"Uh—" His whole face felt hot, pavement-in-summer hot, hot-tin-roof hot. His hands were shaking. Jesus. "Whoah."

Spike said nothing, and after a second or two, Xander glanced over at him. He was grinning. He looked totally happy, totally delighted. Like he'd just tried something daring and brilliant, and it had worked.

"Whoah," Xander said again, and looked away quickly. "You drink scat with that mouth?"

Spike grabbed his chin and pulled his face back around, and he hardly got half a gasp in before there was more kissing, more grinning, a forehead against his jaw and light fingertips on his lips. On television, wolf pups tussled. Pure delight.

Part Twenty-One

The thing about kissing Spike was, once you got by the batshit insanity of it, you didn't want to stop. Ever. You wanted to kiss him until your lips were puffy and sore, until you had his taste deep in your sinuses, until you could close your eyes and not be sure whether you'd stopped for a breather or not. It was the strangest thing. And it kind of cut into whatever other plans you had for your evening.

"You're straight," Xander pointed out when his mouth was momentarily free for speaking. Spike raised an eyebrow and bit his jaw lightly. They were lying down by then, Xander on the bottom with the remote jabbing his lower back and Spike's dick jabbing his inner thigh. "For the last two weeks you've mocked my gayness." Spike rolled his eyes and bit Xander's earlobe. "You do realize I'm a guy, right?" Spike grinned and turned his hips so their cocks rubbed. "Jesus fuck."

More kissing.

Spike tasted like Chinese food, like beer, like something a little funky that probably didn't bear a whole lot of contemplation. He also tasted like himself. It was weird to realize that, weird to realize that after two weeks of sleeping beside him, sharing sheets and towels and spoons with him, propping him up and holding him down, the taste was familiar. He knew how Spike tasted, without ever having kissed him. He knew Spike.

His hands were under Spike's shirt, on his back, coasting the smooth skin in slow mindless circles. His feet were propped under Spike's; when he pushed up with his toes, Spike pushed back with his heels. Morse. —This is great. —Yeah, it is. —I can't believe I'm doing this. —Shut up, git. Feet could say a lot.

Spike's hands were on his neck, his throat. Spike liked his throat. A lot. It ought to be disturbing, and he was pretty sure that if he thought about it at all he'd be disturbed up the wazoo, so he wasn't thinking about it. He was just feeling the tips of Spike's fingers in the muscles of his neck, feeling the light touches over his skin, tracing his larynx, turning his chin to let Spike lean down and kiss the skin over his artery. Kiss it, and gnaw very slightly, wetly, with a little sound that might have been a purr or a growl.

"I don't do turtlenecks," Xander said finally, and shoved Spike's head away. Spike let him do it, but he came right back, grinning. Hovered a second with amusement lighting him up, then kissed Xander hard and deep, his hips thrusting with his tongue. Xander's head blew a fuse and he bit without thinking, and for a quick, totally breathless moment he was pinned by both shoulders, Spike's mouth at his neck and their hips snapping in unison. He could hear himself making a senseless, pre-verbal aahhhh sound. His fingers were drilled into Spike's back.

Then Spike pulled away, lifted up on his elbows so their bodies didn't touch, and turned his head to the side. Taking a personal moment. Xander lay still, trying not to think about a mouth on his dick, the lube in the bedside drawer, that feeling. He was not going to have sex with Spike. He wasn't. This wasn't sex. This was—well, he just wasn't.

"So, okay," he said, and dragged his hands over his face. "Okay." He paused, tried not to think about how naked and wet his throat felt. "Positives. Um. The way is now clear for me to make jokes about your sexuality."

Spike turned his head and gave him a heavy-lidded look.

"I think I just managed to suck a little of my rightful share of lo mein from between your teeth."

Spike breathed a single, token snuh of laughter.

"And according to my fortune cookie, I'm only doing what I should."

Spike lowered his head and pushed Xander's chin up with his nose, then kissed the side of his neck. "In bed," he muttered.

"On the couch. But whatever."

Spike mouthed his neck again, a little harder. "Bed's comfortable," he said quietly. "Could take this in there."

Xander said nothing. After a moment Spike stopped working his neck and looked up. They lay staring at each other.

"Please don't tell me," Xander said, and then stopped. There was a weird, heavy feeling in his belly. Unbalanced, like a cement bag loaded wrong. "Spike, this isn't some kind of… This isn't a thing, is it?"

Spike's face was solemn, and his eyes were steady. "A thing," he repeated.

"Yeah. And don't pretend you don't know what I mean, because you know you do. If you're fucking with me, please…just don't." His heart was beating too hard all of a sudden, and his palms were damp. If Spike lied right now, would he be able to tell? Probably not. So why bother asking? Because…two weeks. Of propping up and holding down. That had to mean something, didn't it? Even to Spike, that had to mean something.

"I'm not fucking with you," Spike said slowly. He didn't blink, didn't look away. His body was against Xander's again, lighter now, most of his weight somewhere else. His dick couldn't lie, could it? "This isn't a thing." He paused, and studied Xander's face. "It's not a thing. Promise."

Xander lay still a second. His mouth was dry, and suddenly he didn't know what to do with his hands. He lifted one and touched Spike's hair, at his temple. If he looked at Spike's hair, he didn't have to look at his face, and that gave him a little space to…get his act together. Be less of a freak. Spike had curls. What the hell had he looked like in the sixties?

"Okay," he said to a curl. "Not a thing, okay. Because—" He paused, swallowed, appraised the curl. "Because if it's a thing, have mercy for once in your life, okay? I mean, Faith really already— I mean, I just don't really need that right now." He must have had a hella afro back in the day. Maybe Giles could dig up photographic evidence.

"Xander." Spike tipped his head so Xander couldn't help looking him straight on. His eyes were so blue, and he looked almost pained. "Xander. Not a thing. I promise. Not fucking with you. Just—" He dipped down, kissed Xander's chin, and smiled. "Just want to fuck you."

Xander's breath and brain left together, the way they did when he got kicked in the solar plexus. Dimly, he thought, Not fair—this isn't fair, and at the same time his dick stood up and begged. Spike was smiling again, pressing a thigh down against him, then abruptly sitting back on his heels. Straddling Xander's waist, the pair of them with ridiculous trouser tents, and there was never ever going to be any dignity in his life. Not ever.

Spike looked him up and down, smiled wider, and ran a palm down his shirt from his chest to his belly. "That a yes?"

Xander reached down and caught Spike's hand just before it hit his belt. "It's a—" he gasped, and then paused. Was it a yes? Fuck, it shouldn't be. But maybe should didn't matter right now. Maybe there was enough should in his life already.

He was still holding Spike's wrist, and now Spike's smile was turning quizzical. Faltering a little. Maybe that meant it was safe, he wasn't lying. Maybe it really wasn't a thing.

"You're straight," Xander said, his fingers locked around Spike's wrist. "You're straight and you've spent two weeks making fag jokes at my expense, you've co-opted my television, you don’t wash your own dishes, you're untrustworthy, you've tried to kill me, you're a vampire, you ate the last waffle, you stole my laundry change, you may be contagious, you turn the volume up too loud, you're lazy, you get blood on the sheets, and you're straight."

Spike turned his hand in Xander's and took light hold of his wrist. "Come to bed," he said.

"Just let me put this stuff away."

Spike's smile turned satisfied, and he leaned back, peeled himself off Xander's legs, and stood up. He was a little shaky, and Xander put a hand out automatically. "You want some help?"

Spike laughed and shook his head, then turned and started for the bedroom. And if there was no dignity in Xander's life, there was maybe a little comfort in watching Spike crip his way across the room with an iron hard-on, like the world's oldest Viagra customer. Or if not comfort, at least humor.

He lay for a few seconds on his back on the couch, staring at the ceiling, trying to weigh pros and cons. This was stupid. It could only end badly. His dick didn't care. His dick wanted to know what he was still doing on the couch.

He stood up, clicked the light off, and waited a second for his eyes to adjust. In the darkness, he had a brief flash of Seth's face. His hands, turning the bottle against the wall. His fingers on Xander's cock, firm and warm and practiced. His mouth. God. Yale.

He heard the bedside drawer scrape open. "That's interesting." Low, speculative tone.

He closed his eyes briefly, pinched the bridge of his nose. What all was in there, left over from the Anya era? What else was in the box under the bed? Jesus. Why hadn't he ever pitched any of that stuff out?

Well. His dick had an answer for that.

He walked slowly to the bedroom door and leaned against the frame, his arms crossed over his chest. Spike hadn't turned the light on, but there was street light through the venetians, just enough to see the pale body propped against the headboard, examining something. Xander cleared his throat, and Spike looked up. Just enough light to see the smile, the bottles he'd balanced on top of his knees. Ah, Christ. Sure you're not a professional, then?

"Clever boy," Spike said, and his tone was so plainly admiring that Xander's shoulders unknotted slightly and he smiled back.

"I should cull." He pushed off the doorframe, took a few steps forward into the darkness, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Not touching Spike. Now was the time to say, Look, sorry, I've had a second to think and I don't know what I was thinking. Bad idea. Don't be pissed, but— He wasn't saying it. His mouth was dry and stiff, and his hands were freezing, and his dick was adamant. His dick had embargoed speech.

"Nah. Should use them." Xander looked over at the smile in Spike's voice. And Spike let his knees fall apart, so the bottles dropped and he was splayed, grinning, hard-on displayed like a magic trick in his pants. Xander's jaw fell and swung gently from his skull. Spike laughed. "C'mere."

Xander swallowed, hesitated a second longer, then turned and put his fists in the mattress, leaned in between Spike's knees, and kissed him. Bad idea. Sweet, wet, hard, bad idea. Spike's fingers were around the back of his neck, down the back of his shirt, pulling it up and over and off. There was a second of being stupidly trapped, a second to think construction tan—, and then Spike was kissing him again, laughing at him and smoothing his hair, and what the fuck. What the fuck. Willow was always, always right.

He was yanking at Spike's shirt, making little headway, and fuck, how had Spike done that so smoothly? Spike's hands were on his chest, on his belly, his belt. Jesus. He gave up on the shirt and started on Spike's jeans. His hands brushed Spike's hard-on and they both jumped.

"Jesus Christ," Xander gasped, pausing to breathe. His head was pounding, and he glanced down and saw Spike's legs still open, knees apart, stupid faded jeans he'd washed with his own clothes twice already, Spike's cock straining through, and somewhere off to the left a bottle in the sheets. He had to close his eyes and groan.

Then Spike got through his belt and popped his fly open, and there was a cool light hand easing his dick out, and he grabbed Spike's shoulder and squeezed hard. Spike paused. They sat there a second, Xander making little gasping sounds.

"Just—" He stopped, wet his mouth, hung out there for a second. "Just give me a second."

Spike eased his hand away. Xander thought about filing cabinets.

After a minute or so, he could look up again. His vision had adjusted and he could see that Spike was watching him with a strange, sharp expression. Like he was memorizing Xander's face. He didn't look away from Xander's eyes.

"All right?" he asked. Xander nodded. Spike reached down, took hold of Xander's free hand, and opened the fingers. "Cold hands," he said rhetorically.

"I'm a little—" Xander laughed shakily. Scared. "Scared."

He hadn't meant to say it, and as soon as he did, he tried to pull his hand out of Spike's. Spike didn't let him. He clamped onto Xander's wrist and held it, and now his eyes were dark and steady.

"Scared," he said. "What are you scared of?"

Xander laughed again, and cut it off right in the middle. I'm scared because you're an evil bastard and I'm an idiot and you're going to find some way to use this, I know you are. He managed not to say it, but he had to say something, so instead he said, "I—haven't done a lot of this." Which was true, he realized. He was scared of that, too.

"Lot of what?" Spike still had his wrist, and he'd started rubbing a slow circle on the inside of it with his thumb. It felt good.

"Lot of…this." Xander nodded at the bed. "You know."

"Sex."

"Um. Gay sex."

"Don't see what's gay about it."

Xander paused. Spike was still looking at him, the same dark steady look, hungrier than he'd seemed before. He didn't look like he was kidding around, or being a jerk for the sake of it. He looked serious.

"I'm a guy, Spike. You're a guy. That kind of makes this—"

Spike's free hand had travelled down to the waist of his jeans. He popped the button, let the zipper slide, and he had dark hair, a foreskin, and sweet holy fuck, Xander's mouth was wet. He tore his eyes away and found Spike's face. Bastard was smiling. Running a hand up and down his own cock, his eyelids heavy.

"Get your trousers off," he said, and then a look of annoyance crossed his face. "And, fuck, get this kit off me." He let go of Xander's wrist and started tugging at his shirt with a shaking hand. Xander skinned it off him without thinking, a magician hoiking a tablecloth free, and only then did his brain kick in.

"Fuck, you're sick." He held Spike's shirt in one hand and stared at the skinny white chest, the ribs and collarbone standing out. The pearled muscle he'd wanted to touch, weeks ago now. Spike was sick. An invalid. Why the hell hadn't he thought of that before? "Spike, you're sick. We shouldn't—"

Spike leaned forward and bit him on the lip. Not hard enough to really hurt, but hard enough to make him shut up. They sat there with Spike's teeth sunk in him, noses touching. After a second, Xander put his hands carefully on Spike's shoulders and eased him back. The teeth came out grudgingly.

"Okay." He ran a finger through his mouth, testing. "Okay, point taken."

"Get these fucking things off me," Spike growled, prying at his jeans. Xander got hold of the waist and yanked, and Spike toppled backward into the pillows. The jeans hit the floor. A couple of seconds later, Xander's joined them. He was still on the edge of the bed, looking back over his shoulder at Spike sprawled out behind him. Spike, who was splay-legged and unapologetic, examining one of the bottles of lube and smirking at whatever was printed on the side.

"Spike," Xander said quietly. "You're sure this is—"

"I'm sure," Spike said, without looking up. After a second, when Xander hadn't moved, he raised his head. Pure undiluted carbon-black-hearted depraved sexual smile. "What does a bloke have to do to get some cock around here?"

Sometimes there was no point arguing any more. Xander turned and pulled Spike's leg out to the side, kissed the inside of his knee, and kept kissing all the way up.