TumbleTurnOverflow
by
Tabaqui
Part Nine
"Spike?"
"Yeah?"
Xander shifted a little, heat all along his right side, coolness along his left. "What's that...noise?" It was a thundery sort of sound - rushing, roaring, booming sort of noise. "Is it raining?"
Spike laughed softly and Xander slowly realized that Spike was lying beside him on a thick pallet of blankets and sleeping bags. That they were on the floor in front of the fire place, and the heat was the fire, chuffing and hissing and popping. It almost seemed to breathe, flares of color and heat passing over and over it as the air in the fireplace moved and rose and skeined out of the chimney.
"No, it's not raining. You're hearing him." Spike's fingers - chill and strong - touched Xander's chin and turned his head. There was a man lying on the couch, wrapped around in a length of rope. His naked skin was marked with bruises, his eyes wide and frantic above a gag, rolling white like a cornered dog.
"He's...gagged, I don't -"
"Listen, Xander," Spike whispered, and Xander listened.
Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump. 'It's his heart. I can hear his heart beating...sounds like thunder, like...' Knowledge sliding into place, slotting in with near-physical sensation. What he was, now - who he was. This new being... "What'd you do to me, Spike?"
"Don't you remember?" Spike asked, fingertips touching his throat. Touching skin that was swollen - raw.
Xander hissed, jerking away, but behind the burn of contact came a furry, crawling warmth. Something soft and electric that made his skin shiver. He turned his face back to the fire and whined softly when Spike's mouth touched him. When Spike's tongue slipped gently over that same skin. Spike's hand was on his chest - Spike's thigh over his and Xander rubbed his palm over the knob of Spike's knee, his other hand trapped against damp hardness.
"You remember," Spike said, the tip of his nose cool, pressing into Xander's cheek.
"You...there was... Something I...drank. It...hurt," Xander whispered, shivering. Ghost of pain running through him, barb wire around his heart and fire in his bones. Smothering cold and the ache of a chest that wouldn't - couldn't - rise. Xander gasped in a sharp breath, reflex and memory and Spike laughed again.
"There, now. First breaths. Taste it, Xander. Let it tell you..."
Xander breathed in again so deeply it hurt, scent that was taste rolling over his tongue. The dark earthiness of the woodsmoke from the fire - the muddier scent of the coals and charred wood. Laundry soap and cedar from the blankets, the acrid smell of a cigarette and... Spike. Earth, musk and citrus, tobacco and salt and iron. Sharper, higher stink of the man on the couch, the scent of his sweat savory-bright on Xander's tongue. Scent of...
"That's fear you're trying to eat," Spike breathed, his hand slipping down and down to rub slowly over Xander's belly. It felt hollow - utterly empty - under Spike's touch. "His fear. Like a piece of good beef, isn't it? Like cake so dense with honey and egg you need a knife for it." Spike's teeth nipped at Xander's earlobe and Xander whimpered again, his eyes going shut for a moment and then snapping open as Spike's hand threaded slowly through Xander's pubic hair, tugging a little. "It's what the gods eat, that smell. When you put the sacrifice on the altar and blood it - burn it. That's what we send up to them on the smoke of it. That...ambrosia."
There was a muffled, choking sound coming from the man. Words clogged behind the gag that Xander couldn't make out. Not really. Something like...no.
"Yes," Spike said, and fitted his mouth over the place on Xander's throat, sucking and scraping with needle teeth. Xander arched into him - into Spike's hand, into his mouth. Nails sinking into Spike's thigh and his trapped hand twisting and turning and finding. "Yeah, just like that..." Spike murmured, and a moment later he was hovering over Xander, knees straddling Xander's hips and the blanket slipping down off his shoulders. Skin like old ivory in the glow of the fire and Xander could only stare at him. Track the smooth planes and curves over and over, eyes and fingers and finally his mouth.
Tasting Spike's flesh, cool and sour-sweet under his tongue. So, so rich - so perfect. Spiking the hunger that coiled and squirmed in his belly. 'If you eat what the fairies offer you forget... This is like that... Like the cake Alice ate and she changed... Not human. Not earthly. Not...alive.'
"Not dead, either." Spike's whole body swayed and then lay down onto Xander's, cool and heavy. Hard length of his cock pressing into the groove of Xander's hip - solid push of pectorals and ribs and thighs into Xander. He writhed there for a moment and Xander pushed helplessly back, every inch of his skin feeling as if there were static chasing over it - as if a hundred thousand fingers were stroking, pushing, plucking. His own cock was heavy against his belly, crushed between them. Aching in pulses with the throbbing of the heartbeat in Xander's ears.
"God - Spike - j-just -"
"Soon enough," Spike said, something like regret in his voice. He lifted himself away, kneeling over Xander, his fists beside Xander's shoulders. "Something you need, first."
"This, I need this." Xander wound his arms around Spike, grappling, and Spike laughed, letting Xander pull him down - roll him over. Xander felt the shaky just-woke-up weakness of his own limbs - knew Spike was letting him win - letting him settle astride and above, hips grinding down and hands tight enough to bruise on Spike's shoulders.
"Do you? What do you think 'this' is?"
"It's...it's what..." Xander closed his eyes, breathing deep. Breathing in the thick, musk scent of Spike. The iron and salt smell that he knew was blood - the singing notes of citrus and burning that were magic, demon - maker. 'Creator... Like Frankenstein - like...like that movie...' "The rain in Spain..." Xander mumbled, finding his mouth pressed tight to Spike's throat and Spike's laughter tickled against his lips - into his skull.
"You think I'm Henry Higgins? Made you over proper, I suppose...but I'm never that pompous ass." Spike eased his arms up around Xander - stroked down his back with fingers that still held human calluses and rough spots. Tingling rasp that Xander couldn't help arching into, his mouth open and panting in the scent of...
'Him, him, mine, he...he is...I need...'
"Call me Pygmalion, instead. Or Daedalus." Spike's mouth pressed, wet and sharp-edged, to Xander's jaw and Xander craned his chin aside, begging for...something.
'Anything...please...'
"I'm Hephaestus, molding you...clay in my fingers..." Spike's hand was between them, guiding - pressing - and Xander went rigid as Spike's cock slid inside.
Cold-burning push of flesh and he dropped his face to Spike's neck and bit, hard. He didn't even notice when his mouth changed - when his useless human teeth honed under the pressure of his need and metamorphed into something sleeker - deadlier. Taste across his gums - tongue - down his throat; pepper-hot, sulphur-tinged with magic. Dark and slick and 'good, good, better than...anything, god, Spike...'
"Learn fast, you do," Spike murmured, his hands smoothing - holding. Pulling Xander down into the up-thrust of Spike's hips - cradle of bone and muscle.
Xander heard his voice keening, muffled by flesh and blood. He pulled away from Spike - leaned back onto bent legs and rode the rise and fall of Spike's body, his hands rubbing slow circles over Spike's chest. Gaze fixed on the bird-flutter jump of blood in the throat of the man on the couch. "Learn whatever you can teach me," he said, and Spike's fangs sank into Xander's wrist, and it was... 'Right. Meet, as they say. As who says? Fuck, do that again, do that...'
"You don't say that. That's my word...fuck, Xander -" Spike arched up, chin going back and throat a taut, pale curve against the dark blankets and Xander let his eyes fall shut - let his body move. 'This is...this is...the same, I'm the same, how am I...? Is this really me?'
"Of course it's you, Xander. Who else would you be?" Spike said, and Xander's body surrendered to the crackling fire that was racing up his spine - to Spike's cool, practiced hand on his cock. The room swung - reeled - and shredded away, and Xander went with it, willingly.
"So how do you feel about them now?" Spike was squinting into the wind, smoke furling out from his mouth and Xander shrugged - shifted his hands deeper into his pockets, watching the dazzle of headlights as they fractured through the prisms of rain.
"Sad, I guess," he said finally, and Spike stopped walking and turned to look at him.
"Sad? Why in fuck do you feel sad?"
Xander shrugged again - noticed Spike's glare of irritation and tried to organize his thoughts. The rich scents of the street were still - distracting him. "I can't go and see them or anything...it's just like it was before."
"What makes you think you can't go see them?" Spike shifted his irritation to the weather - reached out and grabbed Xander's jacket and towed him into the lee of an ugly brick building. "Smoke's too damp to bloody smoke," he muttered, tossing the cigarette into the gutter. He felt around for a new one.
Xander felt a flash of his own irritation and leaned there, damp-brick smells and alley smells and bloodsmokesaltlife. Two blocks away the bass line throbbed out from a club and Xander could practically feel it in his bones. "Well, I'm a vampire now, Spike. Thanks to you."
"Not quite so annoyingly immortal now, either. Thanks to me."
"Well, yeah. But - evil, you know? Can't exactly pop up in front of Buffy and say 'hi'."
"Popping up in front of a Slayer's not a good idea now matter who you are," Spike said. He inhaled sharply on his new cigarette, his eyes darting up and around at some noise in the building they were leaning on. Flashing cat's-eye gold in the street light, uncanny and beautiful. "And who says you can't?"
"Well - she does, for one. Slayer's slay. And - I don't wanna hurt Buffy."
Spike snorted, flicking ash into the wind. Xander could actually see it, and he watched the grey-white flakes tumble past and down, lost in the rain. "You wouldn't stand a chance against that one, mate. And what makes you think you'd fight?"
"You're doing this on purpose," Xander said, and Spike's eyebrow went up at him. "I'm a vampire - the thing that hates Slayers!"
"Do you hate Buffy?"
"Of course -" Xander stopped. Thought about it for a long minute, chewing his lip a little and flexing his fists in his pockets. "Well...no. I don't." 'I really don't. Even though that dancing-with-me-to-fuck-with-Angel thing still kinda burns my ass...'
"Thought so." Spike flicked the half-smoked butt of his cigarette away and strode out of the alley and Xander followed him. Two weeks of the whole vampire thing and he still wasn't sure, most of the time, what he was thinking. Or feeling.
'Feeling a lot. Too fucking much, it's...' "It's crazy," he muttered and Spike slung an arm around his shoulders, pulling him off balance for a moment.
"It's nothing you haven't felt before," Spike said, and Xander wondered how much of the frantic, stomach-clenching fear got through to him. Spike was eerily good at picking up the random thoughts Xander thought the loudest; he seemed to be getting the quieter, more hidden stuff now, too.
"But I'm not supposed to feel like this! Or - that, I mean."
"Not supposed to feel what?"
"I'm not supposed to be all - worried about Buffy and Willow and Dawn. I'm not supposed to lie awake half the day feeling like I've disappointed Giles! 'And I'm not supposed to be this...this fucking normal. It's...not normal.'
"Is that what's got you in such a tizzy?" Spike laughed - stroked his hand over the back of Xander's neck and guided him up a set of five stairs to a broad, iron door. The music was even louder now and Xander took a couple of deep breathes, focusing on making it just a little...less. Turning it down, kind of, with an invisible knob. Something he just knew how to do.
'The demon knows...but it's like when I was the soldier. It's just there, waiting for me...'
"Other way 'round, really," Spike said, banging hard on the door. "Everything you know's just waiting there for the demon to use."
"But I'm me."
"'Course you are," Spike sighed, his voice the tired parent's voice that's repeated the same thing over and over to a particularly stubborn - or dense - child. "You with a few extras. And one thing less."
"No soul," Xander muttered.
"Wrong," Spike said, and whapped Xander on the back of the head. A little door opened in the bigger door and a pair of red-glowing eyes looked out. "Gy'nch." The little door slammed shut and the sound of a lock working came through over the music.
Xander rubbed his head, glaring at Spike. "Well, I don't have a soul. We didn't have Willow put it back in and I know it was - was pushed out when you - did it." 'I could feel it. It...hurt.'
"When I killed you, you mean," Spike said, the irritation back, and Xander sighed and let himself be dragged into the club - across the dance floor and up a staircase and along a hall to a room. One wall was only hip-high, overlooking the seething mass of humanity that jumped and shimmied and twisted to the music. The other walls were covered in heavy, violet drapery that was spangled with a silvery mist, like someone had sprinkled diamond dust over them. Fat, honey-gold candles smoldered in iron brackets and stands.
Spike hung his coat up in a little niche - stared at Xander until he did the same. Then they both leaned on their elbows, watching the crowd. Lights skimmed and flashed, dazzling Xander when they flicked in his direction and he concentrated on keeping his eyes down a little so he wouldn't be blinded.
"Okay, yeah, when you killed me. No soul."
"Again - you're wrong. You have a soul, Xander. Just not working quite right, is it?" Spike flashed a grin at him, all ivory and brass-gold eyes dancing with mockery and Xander felt the surge of reaction go all through him - clamped down on it.
"Giles said -"
"Giles never got turned into a vamp. Your soul's still there. You just lost the collar it was born with. Slipped it, easy as a canny dog."
"Then how come I don't wanna kill Buffy?" Xander saw a shock of pale-claret hair that strobed blue and green and acid-white in the shifting lights. Long limbs encased in slick black PVC - heeled boots and a smear of black under the eyes - across the lips.
Spike followed Xander's stare and considered for a moment, then nodded. "Because she's your friend, you git! Look - you're still you. Still the same pathetic loser that tried to ride the Slayer's coat-tails to glory -"
"Hey! I stopped an apocalypse or two!"
"Who hasn't?" Spike scoffed. He pointed toward the dance floor, nodding again - stepped away from the wall and over to the bar, cracking open a fresh bottle of whiskey. Something old and Irish and undrinkable, as far as Xander was concerned. "Point is - everything you've done, and been, and seen - it's all still there, Xander. All still...affecting you." Spike drank the shot down with a sharp motion of his wrist and then stood there, turning the crystal glass in his fingers. Water had pearled in his hair, glimmering in the floor lights. Sparkling along still-damp cheekbones and the nails of his hands. Everything about him was...beyond human. Xander wondered if he looked half as good.
"The demon - it settled into the grooves of your brain. Curled around your spine and wormed into your rib cage..." Spike poured out another drink and cocked his head, listening. "It formed itself to you - you're the mold, Xander. You're the sand, and it's the wax. And nothing's changed. Except..." Spike put the glass down and crossed back to Xander - took his face gently in his palms.
Xander stood there, looking at Spike - at the kaleidoscope sheen of his eyes. The shifting, restless lights played over skin and hair, making them both glow with a pale, nacre gloss. "Except what?"
"Except you're fucking gorgeous now, Xander. Just...beautiful." Spike tasted like whiskey and lemon and earth and Xander rested his hands lightly on Spike's jean-clad hips. "And you know what's important, now. And what's...dross."
"Buffy's not dross," Xander whispered. "Willow isn't -"
"No, they're not..." Slow brush of Spike's lips over Xander's and Xander shuddered - pressed closer, Spike's thigh sliding between his. His skin felt - too small. Tingling and tight and so fucking sensitive that his soft cotton shirt rasped across his shoulders. "They're - fires, Xander. Burning brands that you want to touch. Heat and light that you need so fucking bad you'd burn yourself on them again and again..."
"Don't - wanna burn," Xander said, biting gently into the curve of Spike's jaw - tasting his skin with little, darting laps of his tongue. "I just...just wanna..."
"Feel the heat, right? Be blinded, for just a moment... Dance the dance, body to body..." Spike swayed and Xander swayed with him, mouth to mouth and Spike's fingers threading up through Xander's hair, tugging and stroking.
"Never thought it'd be like...this," Xander murmured a few minutes later, forehead to forehead with Spike, eyes closed. "I thought I'd just be a...monster. Just hate - everything."
"The world's too bloody marvelous to hate," Spike said, and then the door opened and a narrow-faced demon - all angles and dull-grey skin - ushered two people in. The boy Xander had watched earlier, his hair an ashy plum in the candlelight. He was all muscle and bone under the PVC, straps and buckles and silver highlighting the line of thigh and rib.
The other was taller and dark, skin-tight jeans and glo-light bracelets and the chiseled, perfect profile of an Egyptian god. The grey demon bowed and shut the door and the boys looked around, wide-eyed.
"Wow - hey - this is cool. This a private party?" Egypt looked Spike over, hip-shot and grinning. The other slinked sideways until he was leaning against the half wall, looking up at Xander through impossibly long eyelashes.
"Some kind of party..." PVC-boy said, his voice suprisingly hoarse. "What's your name?"
"Xander." Spike's fingers slipped away and he headed for the bar, gathering up the other boy on his way, arm curling possessively around his waist.
"You can call me Five," the other said, half-smile on his black lips and Xander smiled back.
Later, when Xander found the bass-heavy thump of Five's heart under his lips, he bit almost delicately, sipping slowly while the whipcord body writhed over him, pale as Spike under all that black vinyl. Five tasted like wintergreen and cardamom - salt and the sick-sharp bite of Ecstasy.
'Dross. Some things are just dross,' Xander thought. 'And some things are like the sun in the sky. Just have to keep from being burned.'
"Don't get burned," Spike said, his tiger-citrine eyes staring from above the arched and trembling back of the Egyptian. One hand digging into the almond-brown hip, the other reaching out - coaxing Xander's own hand up from a sweat-slick back to catch and hold and tangle, cool flesh like water - bones and tendons flexing and curling around.
'No - won't get burned. Just...warm, that's all. Just steal a little heat against the night.'
The End
Index
