Prawn!Verse

by

Wit Ling

Part Nineteen

Another couple of weeks slide by like that, business as usual, everything operating right on the edge of collapse. We're quitting that place, he'd said. Right. Because the circus pays so very bloody well.

Spike stops following Xander around on his nights off, because that's always the same anyway—the diner, the little hooker friends. Instead he finds himself standing on ledges five storeys up, staring down at lone stragglers heading home and running the plays in his head. Thinking without doing: across the street, into the alley, down the fire escape, corner, bite. Wallet. He wonders whether Angel ever thinks that kind of thing, watching the idiots he's supposed to protect. Maybe he does; maybe that's what gives him that fucking constipated expression.

There's really no other game in town, and at two o'clock Friday morning, sitting propped against the break room lockers with a cigarette burning down between his fingers, he wonders whether that's a sign. Whether it's time to leave this town. It's a strange thought. Only reason to do it is to find something else, some other place where he can…what? Support Xander in the style to which he is accustomed? Find him a good therapist who'll get him to bloody talk? Hope the sight of the Chrysler building wipes that blank look out of his eyes? Stupid. The whole situation's fucked, and he needs to get shut of it. He should just leave. On his own. Leave all this behind.

He's rolling the tip of the cigarette against the sole of his boot, lost in thought, when Bitte bangs in.

"That girl's here," she says, without preamble. "Again."

"Yeah." He doesn't look up. "I let her in."

"Stupid!" She goes to her locker, flings it open, and grabs a towel. It's hot in the bar tonight, she's sweating through her shirt. The nights keep shrinking, all that manic energy keeps getting packed tighter and tighter. "Why in God's name do you let her—"

"She's Xander's little friend," he says, taking a drag. "She's not hurting anything."

"She's a nuisance, sitting there all night. One Coke, she drinks."

"So charge her double." He has no idea why he's defending the tart, and he cranes his neck sideways and watches Bitte while she slugs water from the bottle in her locker. "Put on a few pounds, haven't you?"

She coughs, stares at him a second, then flicks the neck of the bottle around and hits him with a line of water. "Skinny little herring-fish of a man."

"Built big where it matters though, love."

"I wouldn't even feel you. A little tickle is all. Like a sneeze."

"Right, the kind of sneeze that leaves you walking bowlegged." He glances down and frowns. "You put my cigarette out."

She sits down and goes back to wiping her throat and neck while he relights the cigarette, and for a couple of minutes they sit in silence, listening to the thump of music through the door.

"You think I could get work somewhere else?" he asks after a bit, studying his cigarette. She looks over with an expression of faint surprise.

"Work like this," she says, "yes. Another kind of work?"

He waits.

"Your sire—"

"Not my sire," he says automatically.

"He could give you work, yes?"

"Not an option."

She accepts that, wipes her neck, studies the ceiling. "Maybe…a night job, somewhere. Security. The garbage—they collect it at night."

He keeps studying his fingers, and she falls silent.

"Right, well." He drags hard, then butts his cigarette out and stands up. "Just thinking out loud."

"I'll think about it, Spike."

"Yeah, thanks." He hauls the door open and lets in the blast of noise. "Charge the silly cow triple next time. Maybe that'll get rid of her."

Bitte shrugs and goes back to wiping her neck, and he lets the door fall closed and heads out into the noise.

The night takes forever to end. Feels like he's taking bills and stamping hands for ten more hours, and it's still only four o'clock when he has to call Vincent out so he can go down into the alley and break up a fight between a six-foot junior vamp and a couple of goblins. He gets clipped in the gut pretty well, which pisses him off, and after the goblins scatter he finds himself slamming the vamp's curly red head against the bricks, over and over. Past the point of deterrence, really. All he's aware of is the hard frenzied body under his hands, the stink of cold blood, the roar in his ears. When he finally lets go and staggers back, the vamp has to crawl before he can stand.

"Judas," the vamp spits, getting slowly to his hands and knees. "Faggot."

"Loser."

He walks back to the door, rolling the fury out of his shoulders. "Go okay?" Vincent asks mildly, glancing at the blood all over his hands and shirt. Spike grabs a kobold, wipes his hands on its shirt, and lights a cigarette. They keep taking money and stamping. After a while there's another fight inside, and Vin goes in to take care of it, and the night just drags on.

Finally it's five o'clock and he kicks everyone off the step. They're shoving them out the back door, too—closed by dawn, club policy. He can hear Bitte back there, haranguing some poor sod who's tried something dumb. Vincent never has to yell; he just looms. Takes half an hour to chuck everyone out, and then Foreigner's back on the sound system and they're cashing out, cleaning up, closing shop.

Xander ghosts past with a crate full of glasses, his face pale and tired. No sign of the tart; she must have left hours ago. Spike does another shot and goes back to counting his float out of his total. He could be a rubbish collector. Christ. He does another shot.

"What a fucking night," Bitte says, slamming trays into the rack. "If it's going to be like this, Texas needs more people."

"You tell him that," Spike says. "I'm going to change my shirt."

He's in the break room, shirtless, when Xander walks in. Doesn't look surprised, just nods and goes to his own locker, swings it open, and hooks his jacket. He moves like his shoulders hurt. Been a busy night for everyone.

Spike pulls a spare shirt on, stands for a minute fiddling with his keys, then says, "You know how I said we were going to quit this place."

Xander sits down heavily on the far end of the bench. His expression is dead tired, not really listening, not really interested. Spike studies him, swings the door of his locker back and forth absently, and then says, "What if we went—"

The door opens and Texas leans in. "You," he says, pointing at Spike. "Come with me. Now."

Spike stands there, eyebrows raised, mouth still open. Without thinking, he turns his head and looks at Xander. Who is looking back at him with a little more attention now, a slight frown. He starts to straighten up, and Texas shifts the finger to point at him.

"You stay put." He lets the door fall shut, and it opens again right away—Bitte. Her face is white and locked, her eyes stunned. The back of Spike's neck prickles up.

"What's—"

"Go," she snaps, not really looking at him. Xander starts to stand up and she shakes her head. "No, you stay here, Piaf."

There's a long second of silence, while Spike tries to read her face and can't. Out in the bar, someone cuts the sound system, and suddenly the place is very quiet. He swallows and looks back at Xander. "If there's something—"

"Texas wants you," she says, walking past him, still not looking at him.

He stares at Xander over the back of her head, sees his own confusion and trepidation reflected back, then thinks, Well, fuck it, and turns on his heel. Whatever it is, it can't be that bad.

"Where's Texas?" he asks the swamp crew, who are hanging around by the bar doing nothing. One of them nods to the back door. He heads back and sees that it's propped open. Texas is standing on the back step, staring down into the back alley. A few people are down there, standing around looking useless. Vincent's leaning against the wall.

"What the hell is going on?" He says it just as one of the swampers steps aside and he sees the skinny white arm flung out across the pavement. His stomach drops. "What—?"

Nobody bothers to answer, and he shuts up. It's Xander's little brown-haired tart, of course, half-buried under a pile of rubbish bags, most of her throat gone missing. Her purse still around her wrist, a look of bewilderment on her face.

"What do we do with it?" someone says. "We can't just leave it here."

"She," Spike says automatically. Texas gives him a sideways look.

"You know her," he says.

Spike blinks, pulls his eyes away, and straightens his shoulders. Not like he's never seen a dead girl before, no reason to go all wobbly. "Sure," he says. "Yeah, she was Harris's friend."

Texas gives a long low breath, almost but not quite a sigh. "Friend," he repeats.

"Friend," Spike says sharply.

"Name?"

Spike shrugs. One of the swampers leans down, plucks delicately at her purse, and comes up with a card. "Angeline Suarez?" Spike shrugs again, under Texas's eye.

"I didn't bloody know her, I just let her in."

"You let her in," Texas says thoughtfully, watching the swampers start to move the bags off the body. Spike feels his shoulders go up an inch.

"I didn't do this—"

"No. You just let her in."

"I just—" He stands there open-mouthed, staring at Texas, who stares evenly back at him. Then there's commotion behind them, someone's being shoved, and before he has time to react, Xander's standing on the step. Oh, fucking hell.

There's a long, long second while he just stands there, his face white, his lips open, his hands cupped at his sides as if he's going to put them to his mouth and yell. His eyes are fixed on the girl, completely blank. Like he's waiting for the next slide to fall into place, the new reality to take over from this one. Behind him, Bitte appears and makes a grab at his shoulder. He doesn't notice.

"Xander—" Too late, Spike realizes he should do something about this, should stop this from happening. He puts a hand out to pushes Xander back a step, herd him back into the bar. "Come on—"

Without any warning, Xander suddenly starts fighting him. With his knees and fists, his whole body, everything all at once. His knuckles catch Spike's temple, his knee gets the nerve inside Spike's thigh, and then he's shoving past, back to the step. Spike grabs for him, but he keeps going.

"Vincent—"

He's there already, all seven feet of him, solid as a wall. Filling the door, letting Xander get a few punches in before he wraps his big hands around Xander's forearms and pushes him back, off his balance. Thank God for Vincent. His expression is sorrowful and disturbed.

"I'm sorry," he says, lifting Xander off his feet an inch and carrying him back into the bar. "I'm really sorry, Xander."

Spike stays where he is, beside the door, one hand on his temple. Bitte stands opposite him, biting her lip. Outside, the swampers are doing something with the body—shifting it, carrying it somewhere.

The doorway blackens and Texas steps in between them. "LeRoy'll bring you a stake," he says to Spike as he passes. "Don’t come in to work tomorrow. Or the kid, either."

It takes a second for that to sink in. Texas is halfway across the bar, heading for his office, when Spike thinks to call after him. "I'm fired?"

"Don't come in to work for a while," Texas says over his shoulder, and disappears into his office.

Vincent's got Xander over at the bar, sitting down on a stool now. Spike starts to head that way, but suddenly LeRoy's there, holding up a stake.

"Texas said give this to you."

He takes it with a ginger hand, as if it might bite him. Bitte's still standing beside him. Her face is pinched and closed.

"I didn't mean to—" he starts.

She walks away to the bar, sits down next to Xander, and signals to the bartender for a bottle.

Xander's dead drunk by the time they leave, and Spike tells himself that's why he's like this. Dazed, glassy-eyed, stumbling instead of walking. Hasn't said a single word, and doesn't say anything when Spike tries to draw him out, asks him if he's all right, if his arms are all right, did Vincent hurt him, stupid things like that. He just sits slumped in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead while Spike breaks laws getting them home because it's practically light already. He's got the girl's blood under his fingernails. She hadn't been turned, she was just dead.

In the flat, Spike leaves Xander in the kitchen and goes down to the toilet to wash up. He wants a proper shower, but it's not the right time, he should make sure Xander's all right. He has to use the brush to get his nails clean.

When he goes back into the kitchen, Xander's still standing by the doorway, wavering slightly on his feet as if he's just waiting to fall down. Doesn't look as if he's moved. Spike pauses.

"You all right?"

No response, and he frowns, walks forward, and touches Xander's shoulder. Xander sways slightly, turns his head, and looks at Spike. Like Spike's a mild curiosity, something he's heard about, something he's withholding judgment on. The smell of alcohol rolls off him in waves.

"Come on," Spike says, slipping a hand inside Xander's jacket, along his shoulder. "Get this kit off you."

Xander doesn't put up any kind of fight, just stands there with limp arms while Spike slides his jacket off and chucks it onto the sofa. Keeps standing there while Spike takes his own coat off, toes off his boots, and then can't think what to do next. Stupidly, he finds himself wishing Bitte were here. She'd have a soup for this.

"All right, come on." He tries to sound like he knows what he's doing. For some reason that seems important. "Let's get you to bed. Or—you hungry?" Xander just stares at him, fumey and addled, and after a few seconds he nods. "Okay, bed then."

He starts for his bedroom, realizes halfway there that Xander's not following, and turns back. Xander hasn't moved. Spike frowns.

"Just bed," he says after a second. "Just sleep."

That takes a second or two to penetrate, and then Xander starts obediently across the room toward him.

In the bedroom, he pulls his shirt off and is working on his jeans when he notices that Xander's just standing again. Jesus Christ. Drunk, he reminds himself.

"You sleeping, or not?" Xander glances at him, and his eyelids lower slightly, as if he's suddenly been hit with a wave of fatigue. He sits heavily down on the edge of the bed, pulls his shirt halfway off over his head, and gets stuck. Spike reaches across and yanks it off him. "Christ, you're hammered."

Xander nods woozily, prying at the button of his jeans. Spike lets him do that bit, but helps pull them off his legs. He's already half asleep, or maybe half passed out, his head rolling back on his neck as he tries to thumb his waistband down.

"Take it easy," Spike says inanely, folding the sheets over him. "Just…just go to sleep."

Xander nods and closes his eyes, and in no more than a minute or two, he's gone. Sunk straight to the bottom like a rock dropped overboard.

Spike stays awake a while, thinking of Bitte's face, the thin arm outflung, the nail brush bristles turning brown, then yellow.

Xander sleeps ten hours straight without moving. Eyes closed like they're stitched that way, mouth open, deep belly breaths. It would look restful if it didn’t look dead. Spike stands in the bedroom doorway with a mug of blood, just watching. He can't sleep much, himself—it's thrown him off, knowing he's not going in to work. Knowing he's fired, or something like it. Knowing that sooner or later Xander's got to wake up, and not knowing what's going to happen when he does.

It's not much of an event, as it happens. He's given up watching and is sitting on the sofa with a book open in his lap, staring at the carpet, when he hears movement in the bedroom. Waking-up sounds, and he's on his feet and halfway back there when Xander appears in the bedroom doorway. His hair's flat and tangled, and he looks puffy, confused, a little sour. He braces one hand on the doorframe, rubs the other down his jaw, and says, "I feel like shit."

"Yeah?" Cat's got his brain as well as his tongue, apparently; he can't even quite make the quip he should, here. Look like it, too… He just stands there, holding the book open at his side, as if he's expecting Xander to order a pot of coffee and a couple of eggs sunny. Xander nods, rubs his forehead, and then realizes Spike's still standing there. He gives him a funny look.

"What?"

Spike shakes his head, steps back, and drops the book onto the sofa. Maybe this isn't going to be the fiasco he thought. Maybe the kid's dealt already. Maybe—

"Shitty dreams," Xander mutters, and starts for the fridge.

Spike just stands there waiting, while Xander plucks at the refrigerator door with clumsy, hungover hands. He can't seem to get it open, and after a couple of seconds of watching him try, Spike realizes that he knows they weren't dreams. Isn't awake yet, but knows. He's just giving Spike and the rest of the world a chance to take him up on that theory. Dream, yeah, sure, it was all a really bad dream. Next time don't drink that shit Bitte pours down your throat.

Xander's fingers latch onto the refrigerator handle and he jerks it open, rattling the bottles inside. Digs around a second and comes up with a bottle of orange juice. "Really fucking shitty." He uncaps the bottle, leans on the open refrigerator door, and starts to drink without turning around. Spike listens to his throat work and work until he has to stop, put the bottle down, and take a long, shaky breath. He wipes his eyes, then wipes his hand on the back of his shorts. Wet.

"I'm gonna shower," he says to the cupboards, and closes the refrigerator door. He takes the juice with him. Spike stays where he is.

The thing about being so fucking acute all the time is, he can hear Xander crying even over the running shower. For what seems like an hour. The practical part of his mind notes that the water must be cold by then. The rest of him is…distracted. Wants to sit and think, wants to do things. Heat up soup, change the sheets, call for takeaway. Call for Bitte. Because God knows he doesn't know what to do.

It's his flat, it's his bathroom. If he wants to go in there, he's got every right.

He sits at the kitchen table and reads the job ads. Night watchman, corner shop clerk, cleaner at the morgue. That last one seems almost possible. When the shower shuts off he sits bolt upright, then eases back in his chair and looks around for his cigarettes. It's afternoon, almost evening, and he hasn't smoked a one yet. No wonder he's on edge.

He hears Xander go down the hall to his room, hears him root around in there and find his clothes, and then he's coming back down the hall to the kitchen. When he appears in the doorway he looks wrung-out. His eyes are red and tired. He's dangling the half-empty juice bottle in one hand, and he stands in the doorway and looks around the room as if he's just seeing it for the first time.

Spike rubs his mouth and says, "You want…a coffee?"

Xander doesn't respond for a second, until he's done looking around the room, or until the question filters into his brain. Then he raises the juice bottle and shakes his head slightly. He's barefoot, wet-headed, dressed in jeans and a cruddy old shirt. The way he always is. He looks different, though.

"You hungry?"

Xander turns his head and looks at Spike. Calm deep tired look, and when he's done looking he shuffles across the linoleum and sits down in the chair opposite Spike. Studies the paper Spike's reading, upside-down, and then looks over his empty blood mug, his cigarettes and lighter, as if all this is new too.

"Nah," he says. "I'm still a little hung over."

His voice is quiet and raw, and he clears his throat with a look of irritation, then reaches out and drags Spike's cigarettes toward him.

"You don’t smoke," Spike says automatically.

"I know." He separates a cigarette carefully from the packet, draws it out, and studies it. "I feel like one right now, though."

Spike takes it from him, puts it between his own lips, lights it, and hands it back.

"Thanks." He takes a small drag and frowns. "Fuck."

"You sure you don’t want something to eat?"

He sits back in his chair, the cigarette out in front of him with the tip straight up, the smoke drawing a line toward the ceiling. "Did you get fired?"

Spike just sits there, staring at the red tracks in Xander's eyes. Like something's scratched him. Miserable. "Don't know," he says finally. "Maybe."

"Did I?"

"Why would you be fired?"

"I wanted her there. I'm the one—" His voice hitches and he stops short, studies the burning tip of his cigarette intently, then tries another short drag. "This is fucking disgusting."

"It grows on you. And you're not fired."

"Was she—" He stops again, and this time he can't quite pick it up. He just sits there, staring at his cigarette and blinking, his throat working like a bird's. Spike looks away.

"Wasn’t turned. I took care of it." He checked, is what he means; he doesn't know what the swampers did with the body. Better not to ask too many questions about Texas's methods.

Xander nods, still staring at his cigarette. "Okay," he says, after a couple of minutes. "Okay, thanks."

Now is not the time to say No problem or You're welcome, and thank God he has the soul to tell him that. So he just sits there feeling increasingly bad, increasingly uncomfortable, while Xander tries a couple more drags of his cigarette and finally leans over to drop it into the empty mug. There's a sizzle and a quick niff of burnt blood.

"Look," Spike says, lowering his head and studying one thumbnail. "I know there isn't anything I can—"

"I'm going back to bed," Xander says, standing up and scraping his chair back. "I think I need to sleep some more."

Spike sits there with his mouth still open while Xander walks back across the kitchen and disappears into his bedroom. Not the little spare room with the cot; Spike's room. As if it's his now, as if he belongs there. Spike hears him set the juice down on the night table and fall heavily onto the mattress. It gives him a quick, completely unlooked-for shock of pleasure.

Part Twenty

Xander sleeps a couple more hours, and Spike wanders the flat in circles. He's restless, antsy, can't sit down for more than a few minutes at a time. He keeps picking things up and carrying them around with him, then putting them down when he realizes he's got them in his hands. Outside the blinds, the world's getting dark again.

He's in the bathroom holding a fork when he hears a low thump from his bedroom. Sounds like something's hit the wall, and he frowns and starts back down the hall, tapping the fork absently against his leg. Halfway there he hears Xander's voice, low and muffled, saying something about the Slayer. Talking to her, sounds like. He can't help it—his brain flashes to the phone on the night table. That jolts him in the heart and the gut at the same time, and sends him walking fast back to his bedroom.

He's an idiot, of course. Xander's not on the phone, he's talking in his sleep. He's worked himself around so he's got his back pressed to the wall at the head of the bed, curled in a nest of pillows. While Spike stands there watching, he frowns and jerks one hand back suddenly, as if he's reaching for something. His knuckles hit the wall, and there's the thump again.

Spike goes in and stands by the bed for a minute or two, just looking. Xander's hair is thick and heavy on the pillow, so dark it's almost black. From hip to throat he's white as a sugar mouse, his ribcage a bony ledge under his skin. Carrying crates has built his shoulders up. He's pretty, sure. But he's something else too, different from all that, nothing to do with what he looks like lying there, more about the fact that he's been here months now and his skin smells familiar.

Xander's face twists, he frowns and sighs and reaches back again against the wall—thump. Spike walks over and kneels on the side of the bed.

"Here, look." He gets hold of Xander's shoulder and hip, drags him down off the head of the bed and feels him wake up in the process. "You're all turned around." He expects Xander to stiffen and pull out of his hands—it's the pattern, he's resigned. But Xander twists, looks up, computes, then flips over and presses his forehead to Spike's knee. Spike kneels there for a couple of seconds, not sure what to do. He's still got the fork in his hand, he realizes. He puts it down on the night table and holds his palm over Xander's shoulder. Carefully, he pats.

"You…okay?"

Xander doesn't reply. One arm snakes through the sheets, curls around the back of Spike's leg, and clings. Spike pats his shoulder a few more times, then starts to feel a little off-balance and stupid. "Hang on a second." He edges back off the bed, and Xander gives him a bleary, baffled look. "Shove over."

Again, he expects Xander to wake all the way up and retreat back to arm's length, and again, it doesn't happen. He lies down and Xander's on him without a second's hesitation, arms wrapped clumsily around his neck and chest, heel hooking his ankle to pull them right together, head to toe. He's warm and heavy and lax, and he drives his head into Spike's side as if it gives him some kind of relief.

It turns into a kind of wrestling, a warm slow urgent negotiation of limbs, Xander finding way after way to latch on and pull them tighter, closer, as if he's trying to climb into Spike's clothes or right into his body. He finds one position, lies still a few seconds as if he's testing it, then gives it up and moves on. His arm behind Spike's head, around his waist, under his shoulders. His legs twined through Spike's, overtop and pinning him, then flat to the sheets. Like he's telling a litany of every position they've ever lain in, everything that's possible. He keeps his head down, pressed to Spike's side, and doesn't say anything.

Spike lies still, trying to figure it out. He's not sure whether he should be doing something, anything—saying there there or asserting some kind of discipline, pinning the kid down and making him talk or sleep or whatever. At the same time, he's aware of a growing heat in his legs and crotch. For fuck's sake. Even without the soul, he'd know this wasn't the time, but apparently his dick is still evil. He starts trying to hold himself so that Xander won't feel it, but it's awkward and useless and thinking about dog racing does no good. It's another few minutes before he realizes that Xander's hard, too. Well. That's a relief. Or it's worse—he can't decide which.

"Hey—" He gets his hands on Xander's shoulders and pushes gently, trying to get enough room to see his face. "Look, you should get some sleep." His dick, meanwhile, prods Xander's leg. Xander mutters something into his chest and curls closer around him. "What?"

"Don't go." Xander stops moving, just lies still. His face hidden, his dick prodding right back.

"You need sleep."

Xander lies still a minute, then rolls his head sharply against Spike's chest and rears up out of the sheets. Spike tenses, but he's leaning away, across the bed to the night table, yanking the top drawer open, rummaging. He flips the lube onto the covers with a careless flick of his wrist, like he's tossing Spike a beer. Spike tenses.

"Not sure this is the best time for—"

Xander drops down beside him and starts grappling again, harder this time. Like he's testing the strength in Spike's arms and legs, or in his own. Spike tries to lie still and let him do it. It's not bad, just baffling. Mainly it's warm and rough, and at some point Xander's started shaking in the shoulders. He's not crying, just shaking. He drags his face over Spike's chest, scuffs his palms over Spike's belly and thighs. Looks for handholds. Finds them, gives up. Looks for better ones.

After a bit Spike realizes he's started making quiet little noises, the same little shushing sounds he used to give Dru. It's automatic. Probably stupid, but really there's nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with telling the kid he's all right, it's all right, just be quiet, he's all right. He does it until finally he can't stand being mauled anymore, then brings his arms up around Xander to hold him still.

"It's all right," he says softly, to the top of Xander's head. Hot breath against his chest, a hot cheek pressed to his skin. For a few seconds, things seem all right.

Then Xander plants his palms against Spike's hip and shoulder and shoves away. Spike lets go, and Xander lunges straight into him again. Hard, his hip in Spike's belly, his chin digging into Spike's neck. They're both jarred by it, and Spike flashes on the bite on his thigh, Xander stunned and breathless against the wall. God, not again, not back to that, he has to get out before this turns sour.

At the same time, he feels Xander's weight heavy on him, desperate and clumsy, and realizes it's not an attack. It's more of the same, except now Xander's shaking all over, pressing them together everywhere he can. Grinding their cocks together so hard it hurts, breathing hard. Not speaking. Not until Spike gets a hand in his hair and pulls his head back, too disgruntled to be gentle, to get a look at his face. His eyes are drenched, black, lost. His mouth's wet and open. He's panting.

"Please," he says.

Spike stares at him, then realizes he's still got a fistful of black hair, and lets go. Xander topples over onto his back, lets his legs fall apart, and grabs for Spike's arm.

"You want that?" Spike says slowly, avoiding Xander's hand. Stupid question, when he can smell it. Of course Xander wants it. Spike's not made of stone; he wants it too. Doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, though. "Xander—"

"Please." Xander gets hold of Spike's shoulder and tries to yank him over, somehow make it a done deal by sheer force of will and physics. He's damp now, sweating a fine sheen.

"You're upset," Spike says, trying to sound like the reasonable one, because one of them has to. If only he'd had more reasonable role models. "This is a bad time for you, and—"

"I'm not a kid," Xander spits. His face is suddenly white with fury, maybe hatred. Spike pulls back instinctively, and Xander's fingers dig into his shoulder. He smells like a bullet's just been fired. Explosive tang, rage.

"I know that."

"I want you to fuck me, Spike."

"I know."

"So fuck me already." Xander yanks at Spike's shoulder, and Spike puts a careful hand between them, on the mattress, and pushes away. "What, you suddenly grew a conscience?"

"I don't—" He doesn’t know what to say to that one—yes? Or maybe he just grew a healthy sense of self-preservation. Right now, Xander smells like he could kill someone. For the first time, it occurs to Spike that he's been doing something very stupid and dangerous here. "It's not a good time."

Xander gapes at him for a second, then drops his head back on the mattress and laughs. Two short barks like coughs; they sound painful. "Not a good time?" he repeats, and Spike winces. Shitty thing to say, he didn't mean it. There's nothing he can say right now, the only thing he can do that isn't complete hypocrisy is fuck the kid, and he's not going to do that. Couldn't even if he wanted to, at this point.

"I'm sorry," he tries to say, but Xander's rolling over and fixing him with a too-bright, too-sharp, predatory gaze. Feels like the tines of a fork raking him, but he can't get up and walk out; he doesn't have that right anymore. He sits silently with the sheets gathered in his lap, waiting to hear what Xander's going to dish out.

"You took me in," Xander says, in a musing tone. "I was making minimum wage letting guys suck me off in alleys and you found me and brought me home and kicked it up a notch. Room of my own, three meals a day, and a regular dick up my ass. Like Bible camp." He props his head up on one hand. Looking at Spike like he's a curiosity in a museum the whole time. "I've been paying rent here with my mouth for, what, six months now? And the one time I want you to fuck me, you won't fucking do it."

Spike sits in silence. Outside in the street, faint music is driving by.

"You asshole," Xander says, and drops his head back onto the mattress. His eyes are wet, his lips are a thin line.

"You didn't have to," Spike says. Probably going to unleash all hell, but it's true and he's still got some spine left in him.

Xander lifts his head and just stares at Spike, like he's speaking Urdu.

"You didn't have to do anything," Spike says. "Nobody chained you to the radiator, Harris. You could have walked out anytime."

"I could have—" Xander cuts himself off and the sentence just hangs there in space between them, while his eyes go blank and internal as if he's just realized that's true. Spike studies him, picks at a loose thread on the sheet, studies him again.

"Yeah. Could have robbed me blind and taken off, could have found a proper job and taken off. Could have just bloody taken off. Back to Sunny—"

Xander's face tightens like a mask, and he lets out a sharp, involuntary sound, something between a laugh and a sob. Spike just looks at him.

"Sunnydale," Xander says after a second. "Right. You're right, Spike. I could have gone back there."

"Why the hell not?"

"Well, for one thing I'm not sure my newly-discovered superpower of taking it up the ass would really fit in."

Spike frowns. "You want to tell me what's really going on here?" Xander drops his head and sneers at the sheets. "Buffy came looking for you, you know." He had no idea he was going to say that, but as soon as it's out, he's glad he did. It splits the sneer right in two, and suddenly Xander just looks young and shocked. He looks quickly at Spike, then away. Spike waits.

"I didn't know that."

"Told her I hadn't seen you. Practically got staked doing it."

Xander stares at the edge of the bed. "Nobody asked you to do that."

"Oh, fine, it's all right she knows you're here? I'll just ring her up then." He moves to swing his legs off the bed, all show, but Xander puts a hand out halfway before he can stop himself, and that's enough. Spike sits back. "So what happened?"

There's a long silence. Then Xander drops flat on his back, head back on the mattress, and laughs. Not sharp and hard this time, just deflated and bitter. "Nothing unusual," he says. "I'm a fucking idiot, is all."

"What did you do?"

"Dropped the Orb of Jebel Moya."

After a few seconds of silence, Spike raises an eyebrow. "Right, I don’t want to look stupid or anything, but maybe you could explain what that means."

"The Orb of Jebel Moya," Xander says, putting his palms over his face and rubbing, "is the crucial ingredient in a really big protection spell. It's like…the sand in the concrete. But you put it in last. Or, if you're me, you get suckerpunched by a vampire and you drop it, and it breaks. And your friends get pretty much ki—" He stops, swallows, and gives another sharp little chuckle. "Killed."

"Who got killed?"

"Nobody. Barely." He's still got his hands over his face; it's a little hard to make out what he says. "Buffy was really—" Long pause. "Really, really, really…"

After a minute, Spike says, "Mad?"

"Hurt," Xander says, wiping his face and then wiping his palms on the sheet. "Really bad."

Spike lets that sit a minute more, then says, "Looked all right when I saw her."

"That's good." The news doesn't seem to interest Xander much; he just lies staring at the ceiling, his hands loose at his sides.

"So, you decided you weren't a Slayerette anymore, and came to the big city to—"

"Make it," Xander finishes wryly. "Yeah. And things just kind of…snowballed."

Spike picks at his thumbnail, considering. "If it's any consolation, you're not bad at it."

"Thanks."

"Sure." He leans over, fishes the bottle of lube out of the covers, and studies it. "What's the amulet?"

Xander lies still for a second, then raises his head. He looks confused.

"In your backpack. That little—" Spike gestures to his neck, and Xander's face clears. Then he looks pissed off.

"You went in my stuff?"

"You asked for it, when you were sick. Some kind of spell on it, so Red can't find you?"

Xander looks at him warily, then shrugs and drops his head again. "Yeah. Except when I left I forgot to take it, and it wore off." He lifts his head and looks at Spike again. "Buffy was really here?"

"Yeah."

"Did she look…okay?"

Spike looks down at the lube in his hands, then sits up carefully, reaches over, and drops it into the drawer. Shuts it with a quiet click. "She looked tired," he says. "And she cried a bit."

Xander crosses his arms over his chest and goes back to staring at the ceiling.

"I've been thinking," Spike says. "It's time for you to fuck off."

Xander doesn't move.

"I'm out of a job," Spike says. "Time to get out of this bloody city anyway, never liked it here. Too close to the Slayer. Think I might go back to London for a bit." He's never given it a second's thought; he can't quite believe he's hearing himself say this. Something in his chest is splitting. Slow and easy and awful, like a piece of rotten wood.

Xander still hasn't said anything.

"You can keep the job if you want it," Spike says. "I'll have a word with—"

"I don't want it."

The pain's up in his throat now, and he has to swallow hard to be able to talk. "Right. Well, then. You want to keep the flat?"

"No."

"Right." The fork's still sitting on the bedside table, useless and out of place. He reaches over, picks it up, and stands up slowly. Every movement feels precise and clear. "I'm going to have a shower. You can sleep here if you want."

He heads for the door, the fork in his hand, every muscle in his neck and shoulders wired tight. It's dark out, thank Christ, he can go out, he doesn't have to be here in the flat with Harris in the other room and silence in between. And God, the pain behind his eyes, that's stupid, hypocritical, he's got no right to it. Or to the little sawing of hope he gets when he hears Xander shift on the mattress behind him.

"I'll sleep in my own bed," Xander says, getting up. "And I'll be out tomorrow morning."

Spike nods briskly without looking back, and goes to take his shower.

Part Twenty-One

It was the red-haired vamp, the one that called him a faggot. It only takes about two hours to find that out—a lot less time than he spends in killing the bastard. Afterward, wandering rooftops with blood on his hands and ashes up his nose, he can't decide whether it's made him feel any better. Which must mean it hasn't.

He goes in for his last week's pay, and Texas makes him come into the office. Tells him to close the door. Spike stands there in front of the desk with his knuckles tingling, wondering if Texas knows how pitiful and weak the soul is right now.

"Where's the kid?" Texas asks, not looking up from the ledger he's perusing.

"Gone."

Texas licks one huge thumb and turns the page. "Gone where?"

"Home."

"You taking his last week's, too?" There's another envelope on the desk, Spike notices. He stares at it for a few seconds, then shakes his head. Texas still doesn't look up, just puts out one hand and slides the envelope back into the open drawer beside him. Shuts the drawer. "You killed that vamp?"

Spike says nothing. Texas's thick yellow thumbnail creases a line in the page beneath a row of figures, and he frowns. Then he lays his pencil down carefully in the spine of the book, folds his hands on the pages, and looks up at Spike. "You might want to leave town."

"Is that a threat?"

Texas watches him, those cold black eyes showing nothing at all. "No," he says at last. "That guy had friends. You don't. You might want to leave town tonight."

Spike stands there trying to look certain, or at least big. He feels small. Feels like he's made of broomstraws and loose string, nothing to hold him together. Killing that vamp was the last thing that made him feel like anything at all, and that wasn't much.

"Right, okay," he says finally. Texas nods and picks up his pencil again, and Spike shows himself out.

"Where will you go?" Bitte asks while he's clearing out his locker. He shrugs.

When he closes the locker door and turns to go, he almost runs into her, startling both of them. She grabs him around the shoulders and wraps him in a punishing hug, her forehead buried in his neck. She's warm and firm, and she smells like linden flowers.

"It's all right," he says, patting her shoulder awkwardly.

"Oh shut up," she says, and squeezes him tighter, until the only thing he can do is squeeze her back.

He fully intends to leave town that night, but he gets caught up in little things—the albums, an extra razor on the edge of the tub, a folded fifty he'd completely forgotten, still sitting on his dresser. The silence. He doesn't know what to do with any of it. And then suddenly he's drunk and it's nearly dawn and he's stuck there another day. That's when the vamp's friends arrive and beat the crap out of him. Four of them, with stakes, and the only way he gets out of it alive is by chucking himself out the window onto the fire escape and scrambling up to the roof with his hair on fire. He's medium-rare by the time he gets into the shade of the air output.

He spends seven hours up there counting the breaks in his ribs, watching the sun slope across the sky until the shadows are long enough that he can make a running jump across to the building opposite. On that roof he rests again. After a few minutes, another jump. Finally it's dark enough to half-fall down another fire escape and drag himself into the sewers.

When he gets back to his flat, he's not surprised at what he finds. The albums are snapped to pieces, his books are confetti. The television's been kicked in. Couch cushions in ribbons. There's stuff written on the walls; he doesn't bother to read it. He stands in the middle of the mess, looking around. Feeling a strange sort of satisfaction.

There are still bandages in the bathroom, so he fixes himself up as well as he can, then pats his pockets for the keys to the DeSoto and leaves.

It's not strange, knocking on Angel's door—it feels like something he's been meaning to do for a long time.

Autumn in New York isn't moody or nostalgic or any of the things they put in movies. It's cold and busy. He's supposed to be keeping tabs on three leads, picking up a shipment from LA down on Pearl, and somehow getting back up to Morningside Heights in time to check the park for kreblins. Angel's a prick about schedules.

He gets two of the three leads squared away—one's in custody, won't be going anywhere for at least 24 hours, they tell him at the precinct desk; the other's conveniently dead. The third one's a loose end, there's no answer at the apartment when he tries it and the work address doesn't exist. He drives down to Pearl with his head propped in one hand, mulling over his options. He could give it up for the night, call LA and tell them the information was bad, he couldn't find the guy. Not like he doesn't have enough to do as it is. Or he could pick up the package and then go talk to Lewis, see if he's heard anything about a werewolf running around loose.

He leans forward over the steering wheel and peers up at the moon through the top of the windshield. Round and bright, almost full. He almost rear-ends the car in front of him, staring.

By the time he's down to Pearl and found a place to park he's smoked three cigarettes and bitten both his thumbnails down to nothing. He's in a shitty mood. He's in a shitty mood a lot these days.

He sometimes thinks those ribs may not have healed right. From the beating, that last night in his flat. His chest aches a lot. His shoulders are heavy.

Cynthia usually keeps packages in the back, but this time when he walks in she just looks him over and goes back to her Palm Pilot. He stands there a second, breathing in the warm stale smell of all the dried whatsits in the drawers, then raises his eyebrows at her.

"Got something for me?"

She nods at the back of the shop without looking up. He frowns, considers asking for a little more input or else just turning around and walking right out—he's not in the mood for inscrutability—then remembers he'll just have to come back tomorrow if he doesn't get it today. Whatever it is.

"Want to give me a hint?" He's already walking away down the first narrow little aisle, letting one hand knock against the handles of the drawers, scuffing his boots. If it's too big for Cynthia to drag around, he doesn't want to try to get it into the car. What a fucking night.

He rounds the corner, ducks a hanging bundle of some kind of nasty dried seedpods, and freezes.

"Hi," Xander says.

He's standing there with his back pressed against the counter, his hands gripping it on either side, the knuckles a little white. Wearing clean blue jeans and a white T-shirt and a down jacket over that. He's gained a couple of pounds. That's good; he was too thin before. His hair's been cut. Short and a little choppy. Makes his head look different. And he's brown, face and hands and throat, like he's been out building split rail fences in the sun all day. Or something.

He looks older.

"Hi," Spike says.

They just stand there, looking at each other, until Xander finally looks away. He's been opening drawers back here, occupying himself by peering in at the powders and bundles; he carefully shuts each drawer. Spike watches his knuckles, the back of his neck. The hair's cut so short there he can see the skin through it. Short enough to prickle against your palm if you touched it. When the drawers are all closed up, Xander turns back.

"So," he says. He smells like himself. Like skin and soap and warmth, and a little bit like he's scared spitless.

"You eat on the plane?" Spike asks.

Xander gives him half a smile, and shakes his head.

"Number two." Xander studies the menu a few seconds longer, then adds, "And a number thirteen."

The waitress takes the menu and turns to Spike. "You?"

He shakes his head. "Coffee."

After she's gone, they sit there in silence for a bit. Xander plays with his cutlery, lining them up fork knife spoon, then knife spoon fork, then spoon fork knife. Spike watches him do it. He's filled out more in the shoulders, just in the few months since he left LA. He's solid now. Substantial. And by the look of his knuckles, he's been doing some fighting.

"Buffy showing you the ropes?" he asks. Xander looks up, a little startled, then follows Spike's gaze and spreads his fingers on the table between them, as if for inspection.

"Nah. I've been in LA again. With Angel."

Spike takes that in silently. Xander's watching him carefully, though, and he's never been any good at hiding what he feels.

"It's okay," Xander says, looking back down at his hands. "I mean, I asked him not to say anything to you about it. It just seemed…"

"Right, I get it."

"It seemed complicated."

"Right."

"I wasn't sure I was going to come."

That touches on something sharply, a nerve he didn't even know was there, and he has to clamp his mouth shut and just sit there like an idiot, staring at Harris's hands.

"But now I am. Sure."

After a few seconds, Spike clears his throat and says inanely, "Well, here you are."

There's no answer, and he looks up to find Xander smiling at him. A shy sideways smile that takes him completely off guard. He looks away again, down into his own lap where his fingers are fighting each other.

"Here I am," Xander says.

The coffee comes, and Spike puts cream in it just for something to do. Then he sits watching his spoon circle, trying to make his brain cough up something to say. The only thing he can think of is I'm sorry, and he's pretty sure he's already said that enough.

"Spike," Xander says. His tone is gentle, and it startles Spike into looking up. Xander's eyes are calm and dark. His own hands are still flat on the table. "You want to get out of here?"

Spike fishes out a twenty to cover the check, and they're gone without another word.

His flat's smaller than the one in LA, and grubbier. He has a moment of shame with his key in the lock, then converts it into a perverse pleasure. He's just another one of Angel's lackeys now—he gets the same salary everyone else does. In New York, it doesn't go very far.

"No spare room," he says, stepping inside and jiggling the lock to make it let go. "Sorry 'bout that. Sofa folds out, though—last bloke who slept here said it was all right." He realizes a second after he's said it that it sounds wrong. "Angel sends people out sometimes on jobs, is all."

Xander's looking around, unzipping his jacket, nodding a little as if he's not really paying attention to what Spike's saying. It's bizarre to see him here, next to the four locks on the door and the little corner table that came with the place, covered in faxes and shipping invoices and notes to self in Spike's own crabbed black hand. He looks larger than life. Realer than life. The flat's a mess, Spike realizes.

"Make yourself at home," he says, walking quickly over to the kitchenette and swinging the fridge door open, studying what's inside as if he didn't know what's in there. Blood, beer, and half a molded lemon. "Shower's just down—" He starts to point, then gets seized by a memory of sending the kid off to the shower that first night in LA, and grabs his hand back as if he's burned it on the air. "You hungry?"

Xander doesn't answer, and Spike has to look around to see him shaking his head. He's toeing off his shoes, running a hand through his hair. Looks tired. Spike turns back to the fridge.

"So how long you been working for the poof?"

"A couple of months."

"Sunnydale didn't agree anymore?"

There's a pause, and he glances back over his shoulder to see Xander stuck with his hand halfway through his hair, staring at the floor as if he's trying to remember a word. When he realizes Spike's looking at him, he looks up with a quick, apologetic smile. "Sunnydale was just…it just felt small."

"Well, yeah."

"It was good seeing everybody again. It was good I went back." He pauses again and studies his socks, then shrugs. "But, you know. They didn't really need me."

Spike opens his mouth to disagree—Slayer cried for you, mate—then shuts it. Xander's the one who'd know, after all.

"So how come the poof sent you here?"

Xander looks mildly surprised. "He didn't send me. I came."

Spike turns back to the fridge and stares at the green-grey furze on the lemon. His chest's aching again, and he has this strange urge to breathe. "Why'd you come?"

After a pause, he hears Xander cross the floor to stand behind him. He doesn't move. If Xander hits him, he won't fight back. He won't let himself be staked, but if it's just hitting, he doesn't mind. The thought of Xander's fists on him is almost appealing, actually. It might be a good thing, might knock some of the pain out.

Xander's hand on his shoulder is firm and gentle, pulling him upright. He lets himself be pulled. Stands still while Xander closes the refrigerator door. There's silence for a few seconds. Warm hand on his shoulder, and the smell of his body right there, standing just behind him.

"I came to find you," Xander says, and tugs his shoulder. He turns easily, like he's set in a hinge, and Xander's smiling at him soberly, and then they're kissing. Xander's warm and heavy, pressing him into the refrigerator, the handle sunk in his spine but he doesn't care about that. All he cares about is the taste in his mouth, the feel of Xander's breath against his lips, the hands sliding up his sides to his shoulders and the back of his neck. The warm tongue against his own, the little sounds they're both making. The way Xander pushes into him, nudging his feet apart so he can stand in between, body to body. Like palms pressed together, the way people pray.

He knows he's grabbing hold too hard, but he can't seem to stop himself.

Xander doesn't complain; he leans in harder too, cups a hand around the back of Spike's neck and kisses him so their teeth knock together. Bites his tongue, licks him. He's grinning, Spike realizes, and when that sinks in it's all too surreal, and he has to pause a second to get his bearings. It takes a hand on Xander's chest to make him back off that long.

"You're…sure about this," Spike says, not quite finding the courage to make it sound like a question. Xander smiles, grabs Spike's free hand, and starts to bring it down between his legs. Spike pulls it away. "I don't have any money."

Xander leans back on his heels and studies Spike's face.

"I don't have a spare room, I don't have any money, and I'm not interested in making deals." It sounds flat, hostile even, and he winces. "I mean, it's fine if you want to stay here a bit, find your feet—" God, he's such a fucking idiot. "Look, all I mean is—"

"I know what you mean." Xander looks down at Spike's hand on his chest, reaches down, and carefully removes it. "I just wanted to see you." He's still got a couple of Spike's fingers in his; he presses them, then suddenly latches them through his and hangs on. When he looks up, he's smiling. "Got a real bed in this dive?"

Spike knows how stupid his own smile must look—slow, shy, practically virginal—but he doesn't fucking care. He leans forward and there's more kissing, more of the good familiar taste in his mouth, familiar and strange because they never really kissed before, and he's stumbling over his own feet, walking backward with Xander's hands unbuttoning his shirt. Xander's laughing at him. Fine. He kicks the bedroom door open with his heel and immediately falls backward onto the bed because there's no room to walk in there. Also, it's black as sin with the shades down.

Xander falls down on top of him, still working on the buttons, one knee in between Spike's legs and a look of concentration on his face. It's too dark for him to see what he's doing, and for some reason that makes it easier to lie back and look at him properly. He's fucking beautiful. Clumsy and wet-lipped and flushed, and there's something in him that acts like a magnet to the ache in Spike's chest and shoulders. Pulls it all right out, and in the space that's left behind there's a quivering barely-held-in feeling that he doesn't know what to do with. Except to reach up and get Xander's shoulders in his hands, and pull him down for another kiss.

"Jesus Christ," Xander gasps finally, pulling back and rolling to the side to shuck his shirt in one economical yank. "Could you get it a little darker in here, please? I can still see faint outlines."

"Blinds," Spike says. "Find they help me wake up not on fire."

"I'll close them again," Xander says, rolling off the bed on the far side and feeling his way to the window. "Am I anywhere near—ah, fuck—" He lets the blinds up with a snap and limps back to the bed, squinting in the faint glow of the street lights outside. "I think I just stepped on a blood bag." He stops suddenly, staring at Spike, an unselfconscious smile creeping across his face. "Hi."

Spike stares back, a little unnerved. "Hi."

Xander drops back onto the bed and reaches out. Spike rolls over onto him, and there's more kissing, heady ridiculous kissing that goes on forever and he'd be happy with just that, it's plenty. But Xander's popping the buttons on his jeans and before he can say anything stupid, his cock is free. The first touch of Xander's hand makes him gasp and twist away, because he's damned if he's going to come like that. For a second Xander looks concerned. Then he gets it, and his grin is huge.

"Hey." He's wriggling out of his jeans, getting his feet caught and laughing at himself, jerking his hips up so their cocks rub and laughing again when Spike pulls away again. "You're close, huh?"

Spike just looks at him, trying to get a handle on it. Xander's eyes are huge and black, fascinated, happy. His dick's hard in the seam of Spike's groin.

"Can you be in me like this?" he asks, his hands skimming down Spike's back and taking hold of his hips. Before Spike can find the words to answer, Xander's holding him tightly in place and pushing up, jacking his cock against Spike's leg and belly. Hard, two three four times, then letting go suddenly and lying still, his eyes closed, his face concentrated. Breathing. Right on the edge.

Spike lies staring down at him, feeling the deep tender trembling in his chest again. Xander opens his eyes and smiles. Slowly, Spike smiles back.

"It's good to see you," Xander whispers.

"It's good—" Spike repeats, and then doesn't know how to finish. Finally he just shakes his head, still smiling like an idiot. Xander arches up and kisses him gently.

"Come on," he says, and puts an arm out to where the bedside table used to be. There isn't one now—there's no room for one. He looks confused for a second, then rolls his eyes and laughs. "Fuck, wrong apartment."

"Right, yeah."

"So where should I be looking?"

Spike says nothing. He doesn't have lube, because he doesn't have sex. Not lately, not since he's lived here. Suddenly it seems like a stupid oversight not to have laid some in. He tries to think of something to say, but it's too late—Xander's already seen it in his face.

"Nothing?"

He shakes his head. "You?"

"I didn't—no."

They lie there for a second, looking at each other. In Spike's chest, the delicate push is folding in on itself. He has a sickening feeling that he's failed, he knows it's stupid but he can't help it. He has a vision of Xander quietly disentangling, getting up, and finding his clothes in the dark.

"Please don't go," he says desperately, all in a rush. Xander looks startled.

"I'm not," he says. "Spike, it's fine, it's no big deal." One hand settles on the back of Spike's neck and holds firm.

"Right, I know." He's embarrassed now, but now that he's made a fool of himself he wants to keep going. "Don't go, all right? Just…stay. Please."

"I'm staying."

"Because I can't stop thinking about you and it's doing my fucking head in and I'm sorry for everything, I'm so fucking sorry."

"Spike, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

"I want you here."

"I'm here."

They stare at each other for a few seconds. Spike realizes he's gone tense all over, and tries to get his shoulders down.

"Well, now that that's settled," Xander says, and kisses him. His hips come up at the same time, his cock scraping Spike's belly, and Spike pushes back without thinking. It's the closest they're going to get tonight. He'll take it. It's awkward and painful and sweet and frustrating, and all he wants is to get inside, push in and see Xander's eyes soak black, hear him stammer out what he wants God, please, fuck—, but he's already doing that. And then Xander loses rhythm and there's a hot syncopated wetness on Spike's belly and cock, and he gets his hand down in time to feel some of it on his fingers.

"I love you," he gasps, and Xander's dopey, electric smile is so near to what he's dreamed of that it's like a hand between his shoulder blades, pushing him over his edge.

Xander gets up before it's light to pull the blinds closed, then burrows back under the covers, one arm around Spike's waist.

"How long are you staying?" Spike asks, because he can't help himself.

"I'm staying," Xander says. In less than a minute, he's asleep again.

Spike lies awake, one hand moving gently over Xander's forearm. Outside, the streets are filling with traffic.

The End