I begin with the requisite shout out to ponders_life, on whose birthday I have a tradition of posting my fall_for_sx fic. Hopefully, this is a tradition she enjoys. Happy Birthday, dear!

Honestly, I'm kind of amazed I finished this. I think I have reremouse and cordelianne to thank for that. Also - I am not now, nor have I ever been Joss or any sort of representative of Mutant Enemy.

Or Forever Hold Your Peace

by
Savoy Truffle

Part One

Spike’s got no idea what to expect when he knocks on the door. So when it turns out to be Xander Harris, he doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

The conflict rages for a moment in a very apathetic way.

“You’re not real,” Harris says.

Spike decides to go with annoyed.

“Am too,” he says, but finds himself tapping his fingers against the door jamb just to be certain.

“Are not.”

“Am too.”

“Are not.” Harris’ words slur and he’s shaking his head with enough conviction to make a sailor seasick.

“You’re pissed,” Spike says. He pushes Harris out of the doorway to see if there’s any left for him.

“Am not,” Harris says and Spike’s sure it’s just to be contrary. He shuts the door behind Spike with a bang and then jumps at the sound. “Not pissed,” he says. “Happy.” A finger is being waved in Spike’s face. “I’m pre-happy. Pre-happiest-day-of-my-life-happy, which is pretty damn happy, buddy, let me tell you.”

“Drunk, Harris.”

Spike watches the gears shift in Harris’s head.

“Oh, yeah.” He nods slowly. “Good point.”

Spike follows Harris’ gaze as it scans the room—rumpled couch, scattered cartons of half-eaten takeout, precarious piles of paper topped with the occasional CD, remote or game controller. A stand on a side table implies the presence of a cordless phone, but its whereabouts are anybody’s guess.

And the pièce de resistance of Harris’ decorating scheme? A dazzling array of strategically placed empties—beer and liquor.

Clearly the dwelling of a pre-happy man.

Spike watches Harris’ eye settle on a beer bottle on the mantel that appears to be only half-empty—Harris clearly sees it as half-full.

Ever the bloody optimist.

“I’m allowed to be drunk,” Harris explains as he beelines for the bottle. “It’s my bachelor party.” He picks up the beer and downs a long swallow… spits it back into the bottle and pulls a face. “Okay, so not from today. Possibly not from this week.” He lifts a finger in warning. “Stay away from the half empty ones.”

Spike snorts. So much for the optimism.

Now that he’s got what there is of Harris’ focus, he raises an eyebrow and casts a meaningful glance at their surroundings. “Party?”

Harris shrugs and turns away from Spike, stepping over a pile of Spike-knows-not-what and wandering out of sight. “All my friends are girls,” he calls from his mystery location.

Some things don’t change, then. Spike’s about to take comfort in this fact when he notices that both the TV and stereo are on, down low. Country music and Star Trek reruns and he’s getting a basement flashback. He can practically smell the mildew. He scowls, unable to decide which to shut off first. Something crunches beneath his boot as he heads for the stereo. Before he can find a path between stereo and TV, Harris is back, carrying a bottle and a glass.

“Jack Daniels,” he says. “That’s your drink, right?”

Spike shrugs. “Good as any.”

Harris tips the bottle and amber liquid splashes into the glass. He holds it out and Spike takes it. Inside the glass, the liquid is amber plus. Spike runs a finger along the rim and doesn’t like what he feels. When it comes to drinking, he’s got standards. He gives the glass back to Harris with one hand and snatches the bottle with the other.

Harris just stares at him.

Blinks.

“Hey,” he says, “how’d you do that?”

Harris looks genuinely perplexed, so Spike takes pity and answers. “Dulled reflexes?” he suggests.

It shouldn’t be possible, but Harris looks even more confused. He looks down at the glass in his hand and back up at Spike, shakes his head. “No, no, not that. I mean the door thing.”

Spike frowns.

“I mean, before.” Harris waves an unsteady hand in the direction of the door. “The thing where you were standing on the other side and now you’re standing in here and disdaining my dirty glass and I may be drunk or pissed or whatever the hell you want to call it but I haven’t accidentally uttered the words ‘come in’ since I was in high school.”

Damned if the boy doesn’t have a point. “Told you I was real,” Spike mutters.

Harris just stares for a moment—big bloody brown eye—then takes a slow step forward, reaches out and places two fingers against the pulse point in Spike’s neck. They rest there for the space of a heartbeat.

Then two.

Three.

The telly goes to commercial, volume doubling in an instant. Harris blinks. The hand falls.

Tomorrow there’s a Voyager marathon starting at ten, nine Central.

Harris lifts his dirty glass and clinks it against Spike’s bottle. “To humanity,” he says.

Spike doesn’t move. No way in hell he’s drinking to that.

Harris pauses, glass halfway to his mouth. “Human bodies get drunk faster,” he says at last.

Spike raises the bottle, figures he can finish off half the remaining contents in one breath. Fucking breath. “Cheers,” he says.

Part Two

“I know why you’re here, so go ahead—talk me out of it.”

It occurs to Spike that maybe Harris has had enough, but Harris is buying the rounds and it’s not like he’ll keep buying if he stops drinking, so Spike opts to keep his mouth shut.

And humor the lad.

He signals their waitress. “Out of what?”

“My wedding,” Harris says.

Spike snorts. “Would figure you could handle that one on your own.”

“Hey, now.” Harris’ voice rings with the righteous indignation of the truly soused. “I’ll have you know that it took plenty of… mystical… magical… I mean, we’re talking major mojo to talk me out of it last time. I mean, I was in. I was all in. There was a tux. And… and all kinds of members of my family that I can’t stand. And dance lessons. And… and dresses! Dresses that even I knew were ugly but I made my friends buy anyway. I was so going to go through with it.”

“Uh huh,” Spike says. He thinks about trying to care, but then the waitress arrives with another round of JD. “Ta, love.”

She smiles, bending low to give Spike a clear view down her top as she sets the glasses on the table. Spike leers his appreciation.

Harris balks.

“Wait, wait, wait. No way. I don’t think so.” They both turn to stare at him. “It’s my bachelor party,” Harris says. “Remember? If anyone gets to sleep with the hot waitress, it’s supposed to be me.”

The hotness in question narrows her eyes and straightens up, turns on her heel and walks away.

Not like Spike can say it matters to him one way or the other, but he tosses Harris a glare on principle. “Think it’s safe to say the offer’s no longer on the table.”

Plus, he’ll probably have to get up and walk to the bar for the next round.

“She’s nice, you know.” Harris is slumped over his drink now, managing to look even more pathetic, which is a notable feat. “Really, really nice.”

“The waitress?” Because Spike can’t recall a distinct personality.

“No, no. Not her. She’s mean.” Harris pushes his lip into a pout. “I’m talking about Carrie.”

“Carrie.”

“My fiancée, Spike. Geez, keep up.”

Spike considers punching Harris, but it’d be messy and isn’t worth it, even without the chip. “Carrie. Fiancée. Nice. Got it.”

“But, no, you know? Not just nice. Like really, really nice. I mean, like it’s-impossible-not-to-like-her nice. Like even if you try. People meet her and it’s like… it’s like… ‘Wow, how can someone be that nice?’”

“Uh huh.” There’s a toothpick on the table and Spike contemplates sticking it through his eye.

“Oh, sure, you wouldn’t like her. But you’re evil.”

“Hey, human and souled now, thank you very much.”

“Whatever. Nice so isn’t your type.”

“Says who?” Spike takes umbrage. “Harmony was perfectly…” Spike drops the umbrage like a hot coal. “Point taken.”

And now Harris’s got this annoying look on his face like he’s proved something. Spike snorts. “Last I checked, sugar and spice weren’t exactly your cuppa, either.”

He watches Harris open his mouth to protest, pause to run through the mental checklist, and close it again. Spike turns and catches the eye of a new waitress.

“Ampata!” Harris blurts. “Ampata was nice.”

Spike turns back and eyes Harris’ face. “And?”

“And pretty.”

“And?”

“And… and foreign.”

“And?”

Harris sighs. “And an ancient Incan mummy princess who could only live by sucking the life out of other people.”

“And?”

Harris’ shoulders slump. “And she tried to kill me.”

“Uh huh.” Spike leans back in his chair and crosses his ankles. The new waitress is there smiling down at him. “Another round, love, if you don’t mind.”

Her smile widens at the accent. She clears their empties and puts an extra sashay in her step as she returns to the bar. Spike obliges by ogling her arse.

“Jesus,” Harris mutters. “Is there anyone in the world who doesn’t want to sleep with you?”

Spike turns to look across the table through lowered eyelids. “I don’t know,” he says. “Is there?”

He expects a blustering denial, but Harris suddenly finds the table’s wood grain fascinating. Spike follows a single wide and callused fingertip with his eyes as it traces its way up to and around a knot.

He jumps as the finger curls into a fist, which pounds on the table.

“Oh my god! That’s why you’re here. You’re going to sleep with her.”

“What?” Spike’s thinking he ought to cancel that round.

“You’re going to sleep with her,” Harris repeats. “I totally should have seen it before. Man, this is so typical of her.”

“Carrie? Thought you said she was nice.” Spike tilts his head. “’Course nice girls do love a little Big Bad…”

“Carrie?” The look on Harris’ face has Spike eyeing the nearest exit, though it wouldn’t take vampire speed to dodge a blow with Harris reflexes in their current state. “Jesus, Spike, how can you say that? How can you even think that? She would… she would never even…. God, what’s wrong with you?”

Spike’s pretty damn certain Harris isn’t the one who should be asking that question, but before he can say so, Harris turns a pale shade of green and bolts for the back door.

The waitress arrives with their drinks. Good thing Spike thought to pinch Harris’ wallet on the way over. He double-fists it, tosses both back, then tosses the bird an apologetic smile along with a few twenties—goes after Harris.

Part Three

“How do you know you’re in love?”

They’re a few blocks into the mile walk back to Harris’ place. The night is cool and clear around them—used to be quiet, too.

Spike stops walking, pauses in the ongoing campaign to blacken his brand new lungs, turns to look at Harris. Vomiting up the entire contents of his stomach along with an internal organ or two has ushered the boy back to something approaching sobriety.

Spike’s not sure he appreciates the change.

“You’re asking me?”

Harris shrugs, starts walking again. “Okay, so yeah, I may be a little desperate.”

“Ta ever so.”

Half a minute of silence and renewed smoking, but when Spike looks over again, Harris still hasn’t dropped the subject.

“C’mon, Spike, you gotta give me something. You’re practically an expert. I mean, sure, you always erred a little on the side of stalking, but at least you knew what you wanted.”

Spike takes another drag, blows out smoke with his snort. “Not exactly rocket science, you know.”

“If only,” Harris says. “At least if it were rocket science, no one would expect me to be any good at it.”

“Point is,” Spike says, “it’s not the sort of thing you can weigh and measure. Or teach. You just know.”

“Oh, yes, that’s great. Very helpful. In fact, I think you’ve just saved my marriage.” Harris is throwing his arms about like an agitated chimp, providing ample evidence for the theory of evolution.

Spike is unimpressed. “Look, if you want therapy, go find a bloody couch.”

“Like I really need to pay someone to tell me that my fucked up upbringing and way too much experience with evil and death has left me emotionally unavailable. I just need some advice.”

“I gave you advice.”

“You gave me a fucking fortune cookie.”

“Who do I look like to you—Dr. Drew?”

“I don’t actually remember what Dr. Drew looks… wait a minute—you watch Loveline?”

Spike shrugs. “Listened to, actually. Used to have a clock radio, didn’t I? Came on about that time.”

“That time? So, what—you used to set an alarm clock so you could wake up in time to… kill?”

“Hey, you oversleep, all the good victims are taken.”

Harris nods. “You know what they say, the early bird gets the…” He stops, frowns. “Where did this conversation go wrong?”

Spike drops his still burning cigarette butt into a trash can, smirks at the burst of flame. “The beginning?” he suggests.

Harris sighs. “Look, you must have some clue about this stuff. You’re like the poster-child for the opposite of commitment issues. Sure, okay, not an exact science, but aren’t there at least some signs? I mean, it’s not like you just wake up one morning and realize she’s The One.”

Spike shrugs and lights up a new cigarette. “Can do.”

“Oh, come on, you just woke up in love with Dru?”

“Well, the night before she gave me the first orgasm I ever had that didn’t involve my own hand, drained all the blood from my body, and then offered me immortality.” Spike stares off at the night around them and knows he’d do it all again in a heartbeat—and at the cost of one. “Quite a girl, my Dru.”

“Okay, granted, memorable morning after,” Harris sums up, effectively clearing the air of nostalgia. “Doesn’t really count. What about Buffy, then?”

“Had a dream.”

“A dream? What kind of—?” Harris stops, hold up his hands. “Nevermind. This is me so not wanting the details.” He frowns. “Just like that, though?”

“Just like that.”

A silence and Spike knows Harris wants something more—even knows there’s more he could tell Harris—but he doesn’t offer it. It’s enough that he’s remembering Dru. Some things are better left unanalyzed.

“Okay, but before the dream, or even after, there must have been…”

Spike scowls. Wanker’s like a pit bull with a bone. “Since when do you want to talk about me and Buffy?”

“Since now.”

“Well, what you about you and Buffy?” Spike asks, turning from defense to offense on a dime. “You were in love with her, too.”

He looks over at Harris, who’s looking away now, hands shoved in pockets, shoulders tense, and Spike even imagines he can still hear the accelerated pounding of the boy’s heart. Take that.

In the quiet, it doesn’t take vampire hearing for Harris’ footsteps—heavy and measured—to ring in his ears, but when the words come they’re so soft he almost misses them.

“Buffy’s Buffy,” Harris says. “Impossible to love and impossible not to.”

Spike drifts closer and their arms brush. “Ain’t that the truth.”

Part Four

Back at the apartment and Harris’ couch sucks them in like a black hole. They find the remote somewhere in the cushions and an action flick somewhere around channel seventy-three and they zone together until the men with the guns finally save Los Angeles.

“Doesn’t have to be a big thing, you know. Angels singing from on high, royal fanfare. Sometimes you just look over at her and you know you’d miss her if she left. The way she smells, the sound of her footsteps across the room, that smile she gets just before she rips someone’s throat out. Just little things you realize you don’t want to live without.”

“You’re creepy,” Harris says, but he grins a second before he frowns.

They lapse back into silence, sink further into the sofa. Somewhere along the way, Spike’s foot sinks into Harris’ crotch and he thinks about moving it but doesn’t.

“I’m twenty-six years old,” Harris says. “I don’t have a calling. I don’t have superpowers. Hell, I didn’t even go to college. I’m just a regular guy who finally has a nice, normal girlfriend and who isn’t getting any younger. I don’t even know what I think I’m waiting for.”

Harris’ hand moves to the foot in his crotch and Spike starts to pull it back, thinking it’s about to be shoved away, but the hand just wraps and holds.

“Who says you have to be waiting for anything? Maybe you just do what you want until what you want finds you.”

It comes out a lot more like a pickup line than Spike intended—or maybe that Freud bloke really was onto something—but Harris just laughs. “That doesn’t even make any sense.” But what really doesn’t make sense is how Harris tugs on Spike’s foot and how Spike winds up half in Harris’ lap, breathing in Harris’ face. “You’re warm,” Harris murmurs, as if by way of explanation.

Spike snorts warm air over Harris’ cheek. “Only real perk of this whole great and noble humanity Angel was always whining about, far as I can tell.”

“Intoxication,” Harris reminds him. Spike considers pointing out that neither of them is really under the influence anymore, but at the end of the day it’s as good an excuse as any.

Then they’re kissing and Harris is better at it than Spike expected, so if this is the way the boy wants to talk himself out of a marriage that’s bound to be a bloody bore at best, Spike’s not inclined to protest.

Spike’s inclined to participate.

Actively.

Spike’s inclined to explore with his hand the area with which his foot so recently became acquainted. Spike’s inclined to use his thumb to push the button of Harris’ fly through its hole and to slide the zipper down with his fingers for better access. Spike’s inclined to work Harris’ cock with a loose but firm fist and to swallow Harris’ string of moans and groans with his lips.

Harris has a nice cock, Spike notes, but finds he’s inclined to forget all about that cock once Harris shifts their position, sinks to the floor and takes Spike’s into his mouth. Harris clearly has less experience with cocksucking than with kissing, but Spike not really inclined to care as long as there’s warmth and wetness and suction.

And tongue.

And just a hint of teeth.

The orgasm hits hard and fast.

After a moment of recuperation, Harris leads Spike into the bedroom, where Spike finds himself inclined to return the favor.

Inclination strikes again that night. More than once.

One and a half times, to be exact.

The half arising—or failing to arise—with Spike’s discovery that while his sexual appetite is still tuned to vampire stamina, his dick is disappointingly human.

Harris doesn’t seem disappointed, however, the four a.m. exchange going something like:

Spike’s dick to Harris’ hip: Yea, baby!

Harris’ hip: Um, no.

Harris: “Jesus, Spike—you’ve got to be kidding.”

Spike’s dick: Whoops, just kidding.

Spike: “Apparently so.”

All parties then agreeing to call it a night.

Morning brings renewed inclination with a stiff probability of follow through, but when Spike rolls over he finds the other side of the bed empty. He listens for sounds of shower, coffee maker or television, but gets nothing more than distant street traffic and dripping faucet. The clock on the night table says 10:38 and it occurs to Spike that he forgot to ask the time of the wedding.

Not exactly pillow talk.

Harris could be married right now. Or soon. If any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak…

Spike doesn’t finish the thought—has a leisurely wank instead, turns over and falls back to sleep.

Part Five

Spike still resents receiving the call of nature, but resentment has yet to make it go away, so he answers. When he steps out of the loo, Harris is back.

“Aren’t you supposed to be off getting married or honeymooning or some such?” Spike says, because it’s better just to say it than to wait to be told.

“Called it off,” Harris says. “Breakfast?” He holds up a bag that looks and smells of a greasy spoon—extra grease. “From the diner down the block. Better decide quick. It’s heavenly hot, but pretty gross cold.”

Harris doesn’t wait for an answer—toes off his sneakers, strips off his jacket and climbs into bed, still holding the bag. He unfolds the top and more smells waft in Spike’s general direction. Spike thinks heavenly might not be hyperbole. Plus, he’s still naked and starting to get cold.

Harris holds open the blanket and Spike climbs in.

Biscuits, gravy, sausage, hashbrowns and Spike’s mouth is too full to ask for the sordid details. Harris’ mouth is too full to offer any, anyway.

Not that he would or that Spike cares.

Before long, the Styrofoam containers are emptied, the plastic forks and paper napkins tossed aside, and Spike thinks there ought to be a TV in the bedroom, but there isn’t so he reaches for Harris’ dick instead. Harris isn’t much harder to turn on than a telly and Spike chooses to take it as a personal compliment.

The choice of activity is apparently not unanticipated, since Harris leans over the side of the bed, fishes in his jacket pocket and comes up with a tube of KY.

“You do this kind of thing often?” Spike asks, but he’s guessed the answer even before Harris shakes his head.

He does the gentlemanly thing and lets Harris fuck him.

He can see why people keep getting engaged to Harris—boy knows how to fuck.

After the grunt and groan, it’s all silence and stickiness and still no TV. Lying side by side and Spike doesn’t have to turn his head, he can feel Harris preparing to speak and he knows no good can come of that. He closes his eyes and fakes deep breathing, but to no avail.

“This is so not what I expected.” There’s something like a laugh in Harris’ voice and Spike doesn’t know what to think.

“Bought the lube, didn’t you?”

“No, not that.” Harris grins. “Actually, that was way better than I expected—and my expectations weren’t exactly low.”

“Should try it from the other end next time. That’ll really—” Spike cuts himself off, didn’t mean to mention a next time. Harris doesn’t seem to notice.

“I mean, I knew she was gonna do something. How could she not? But even when it was you, I didn’t think it was going to be this.”

Spike’s not sure he’s following.

“I guess I figured she’d be angry,” Harris says.

“She wasn’t?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I suppose this could be meant as a curse, but it kinda feels more like a gift.”

Spike’s sure he’s not following.

“Okay,” Harris says. “That sounded really girly. Like, ‘Oh, your love is such a gift.’ I mean, not that you love me. I mean, of course you don’t love me. I’m obviously just talking about the sex. The sex was a gift. Which—right—doesn’t sound any less stupid. But it’s not like I’m saying this specific sex was a gift. Like, you know, ‘Gee, I forgot to pick up a wedding present, I guess I’ll just give you some sex instead’—although that would be kind of a hard one to return once you cancel the wedding. I mean, it’s not like it comes with a gift receipt. And boy am I glad that we were just doing the justice of the peace this time and not a real wedding because those are kinda a bitch to cancel, but I think the sudden discovery that you’re probably mostly gay is a pretty good reason to call off even a big church wedding—especially a church wedding, actually, unless it’s one of those gay-friendly churches. But the point is: that was the gift. The gay thing.”

The babble comes to an abrupt stop, as if Harris thinks he’s made some sort of point.

“Harris…” Spike tries to make his words slow and clear so as not to set off another round of blather. “I have no bloody idea what you’re on about.”

“Oh,” Harris says. “Anya.” Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Anya?” Because really, it’s not.

“Well, see, I figure a person like Anya doesn’t just go away just like that—what with all that demon history and the dying saving the world and everything. So, the way I look at it, she’s up in some kind of heaven—or maybe one of those weird intermediate dimensions—and I can’t imagine that she’s not keeping an eye on things down here, you know? Or that she’s not going to interfere with stuff where she thinks she’s got the right. I mean, it is Anya. And what’s she got more right to interfere with than me getting married again?”

The pieces start to click into place. “So you figured she’d try to put a stop to it?”

“Well, yeah. If she didn’t get her perfect wedding day, why should anyone else?”

Does sounds like Anyanka. “So when I showed up…”

“I didn’t think it was really you. I figured you were some sort of Ghost of Christmas Past come to show me the error of my ways. But then when you were real and you didn’t try to talk me out of it and I saw that waitress flirting with you…”

“You figured she’d sent me here to sleep with your fiancée.”

“Yep.” Harris nods. “You gotta admit, it would have been—”

“Poetic justice,” Spike says. “Only I didn’t sleep with your fiancée.”

“You really didn’t. So maybe she thought this would totally freak me out and be a great punishment, but I can’t help wondering if maybe she doesn’t actually want to punish me at all. Maybe we really did end friends. Maybe she just wants me to be happy.”

It’s a nice sentiment and all, but… “It ever occur to you that maybe Anya has nothing to do with it?”

Harris doesn’t look fazed. “Why did you come here, Spike? How did you even know where I lived?”

Simple questions and Spike searches his memory for the reasons.

He comes up blank.

The confusion must show on his face, but Harris just smiles. “Why don’t you stick around for a bit?” He reaches out to run rough fingers down the center of Spike’s chest and, damn, it feels good. “She could be onto something, you know.”

Spike’s inclined to agree.

The End

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