Ahestele
FEEDBACK: Love some.
SUMMARY: You meet the damndest people at the airport.
SPOILERS: Through Season 6. Set fifteen years after Season 6 finale.
CONTENT/WARNINGS: Some four letter words
RATING: NC-17
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, Never were. All rights to Joss, Mutant Enemy and assorted capitalist entities.
NOTES: Unbeta-ed. All mistakes are mine alone.
CAPS = emphasis
/ / = Xanderthought
>< = memory
TWO WEEKS LATER
Measure twice. Cut once. It was a good rule and Xander followed it. Deafening screech of the saw. Methodical hammering of six-inch nails into new wood still reeking of wood sap, tireless sanding by hand until the surface felt smooth and slightly dusty beneath his palm, and then sanding some more. Muscles groaned, then bitched in protest, his lower back most severely unhappy, but he toiled on; sweating a little, out of breath a little. He wasn't a kid anymore.
Tried not to think about much at all, and definitely not about those two and a half days that seemed to never leave his memory, hovering just below his consciousness to stage sneak attacks with the ruthlessness and success of the Viet Cong. Spent too much time on that already, and it showed. People at work had started to notice, and Xander tried to keep his face expressionless, though it felt like it would crack with Patrick's good-hearted words of concern Patrick only asked after Spike once. Xander's face must have shown something after all.
"No, I'm okay. I haven't been sleeping too well. Sure, dinner would be good. Yeah, I'm fine. Really." He'd had dinner at Pat's house four times since that fateful night; so hard to face the house alone all of a sudden. Fucking joke since he'd been doing it for ten years.
He couldn't sleep in the bed for very long. Kept imagining he could still smell Spike even after he'd changed the sheets. Changed them that morning at four a.m., jerking the fabric off the bed so hard his knuckles got sheet burn, bundled the whole works into the washer on hot and dumped a quart of detergent in. All the while the mindless mantra in his head /Don't think about it. Don't think about it / Woke up hard and gasping in the dark, reaching for a cool satin body that wasn't there. Jerked off so often his cock got chafed raw and he stopped, embarrassed with himself. /Don't think about it. Don't think about. Don't fucking think about it/.
But for now there was only this. Precision. Crafting. Creating with his own two hands. Power tools were for sissies, and the project had taken him four solid evenings, but now stood finished. Xander stepped back and allowed himself some satisfaction. Not too bad for someone out of the construction business for a decade. The sound of two hands clapping interrupted his perusal and he turned to the tall, light-skinned black man, smiling.
"Applause, applause, honey. I am blown away. Ecstatic. Amazed. There are no words."
"It's a pantry, Fontaine."
"What makes you think I was talking about the cupboard?" The sharp black eyes gave him a broadly suggestive look, and Xander laughed a little, for the first time since The Departure. Things were looking up.
"Fontaine, my man." He shook his head. "Where were you in high school when my self-esteem sucked?"
"Dressing like Boy George and asking jocks if they really wanted to hurt me." The statuesque figure, wearing a pristinely pressed coat and tie, draped itself on a cheap plastic chair with a shudder. "The Eighties. May they rest in peace." Xander agreed with a sympathetic hum and began picking up his tools.
He'd begun doing gratis construction work on the Casa Soledad Hospice soon after he got to LA. Figured the dying souls in Boyle Heights needed his talents more than he needed to spend one more Saturday alone in his apartment staring at crappy cartoons. No one made good cartoons anymore. The two-line announcement in the local gay newspaper had been pretty vague, hidden on the back page in a corner. He hauled his toolbox over anyway; exiting the beat-to-hell Toyota he'd been driving at the time to collide with the appraising stare of a mocha-skinned, bald, unabashedly gay man. The man's hips were canted to the side, elegant hands perched on them like accessories and his t-shirt read 'Shuck Me Suck Me Eat Me Raw~Joe's Crab Shack'. The gaydar never had to work too hard with Fontaine.
"You bring all your SNAP-on tools, BROWN eyes?" The voice spoke with clear, rhythmic precision; a voice used to carrying from a stage in a crowded bar."Most of them." He'd grinned and Fontaine looked him over a few more times. He'd dressed to work and was wearing his ripped, paint-splattered jeans and a threadbare t-shirt, both faded and molded to his body from years of washing. His utility belt rode low on his hips and he'd pulled his hair back with a rubber band, gold-rimmed glasses already on. The sharp, long- lashed eyes lifted with a wide smile.
"Honey, if you can't hammer a nail we'll find something for YOU to do."
But Xander could do a lot more than hammer nails.
Fontaine concentrated on getting funding and Xander worked his ass off. Fontaine made sure any first-time offenders who had a background in construction doing freebie work for a DWI or a first possession charge ended up at the house. Patrick had logged a few Saturdays helping Xander with the ancient electrical wiring, and the odd college student looking to pad their resume wandered through. Once a band of Mormons showed up and Xander thought that accepting a few tracts turned out to be a small price to pay for getting the kitchen painted in record time. Besides, the look on the apple-cheeked boys' faces when the statuesque house facilitator showed up in cut-off shorts, a be-jeweled du-rag and a t-shirt bearing the legend 'More Man Than You'll Ever be And More Woman Than You'll Ever Get' was worth the perky proselytizing. He and Fontaine had been talking and joking ever since, the easiest friendship he'd fallen into since Willow.
Except nothing got past the incisive house coordinator. He had a built-in shit detector the likes of which Xander had never seen. So when Fontaine leaned back on the chair while Xander picked up his tools and said, "Want to tell Auntie Fontaine all about what ails you?", he wasn't really surprised. Not meeting his friend's eyes, Xander began running a large magnet over the floor to pick up any spare nails.
"I'm okay."
"Oh, please." The clear voice dropped low in an aggrieved sigh. "When you show up four days in a row to minister to the bitchy and dying and do a Bob Vila on the kitchen closet something is wrong. Give a girl some credit."
/Don't think about it. Don't/ But that just wasn't going to fly here, in this place he'd refurbished with his bare hands, in front of one of the most honest people he'd ever met.
And he was so tired of pretending that he didn't miss Spike so badly it ached."Who is he?"
"How do you know it's a 'he'?" Xander asked idly, resigning himself to spilling his guts, but giving avoidance the old college try anyhow.
"Well." A long-fingered hand wandered gracefully to Fontaine's chin. "It is hard to tell with you switch hitters, but call it a hunch. No one can hurt you like your own, Lexi-babe."
Maybe it was the silly nickname that no one else would be allowed to use or the simple, awful truth of the words, but suddenly his throat tightened and his eyes burned and he had to bend down to screw totally unnecessarily with some wood chips because the deep regret rising in his throat threatened to choke him.
"Tell me his name." Fontaine's voice was low and conversational. "So I can scratch his motherfucking eyes out."
A watery laugh was surprised out of him and he finally looked at his friend, finding nothing but sympathy in the inky black eyes. He was about to utter Spike's name for the first time since That Night when the single syllable was the last thing he said to the vampire, when Fontaine's features became hard and annoyed and the man rose up from the hideous plastic chair with the grace of a debutante. Xander turned around to watch his friend walk toward a short, dark-skinned boy leaning against the door frame, broom hugged forgotten in one arm while he stared at a point below Xander's waist with dreamy, half-closed eyes.
"ExCUSE me." Fontaine stood in the boy's line of sight so the fixed gaze had to travel all the way up to the black man's glaring dark eyes. "You see, honey, the POINT of community service is that you actually BE of service. Do you comprende? Now quit drooling on my counter and move. The dust bunnies in the rec room are procreating."
"I was yust enjoying da scenery." The boy scoffed in thick East L.A., tossed his curly pert ponytail and tried to look past Fontaine to Xander, who smiled kindly.
"Dream on, sugar. Lexi don't shop the boulevard."
The little hustler sniffed reflectively, adjusting his tight t-shirt. "Heem I do for free."
"Donations accepted only on Tuesdays. Now shoo." Long-fingered hands made waving gestures at the boy.
"I going, I going." But the short boy's glance strained hopefully around the glowering supervisor and Xander shook his head, bemused.
With a sigh, Fontaine returned to where Xander sat, folding himself back on the plastic Wal-Mart special chair with more elegance than that piece of furniture ever deserved.
"New one?"
"Mhm." Fontaine grumbled. "Someone called in a favor. Be out on the street the second he can, mark my words.
"He might make it." He shrugged and Fontaine tilted his head, studying Xander for a moment before replying.
"Maybe. But that's just me being the cynical old drag queen."
"You're not old, Fontaine."
"Yes, I am. How old was the person that cut your heart out in little bitty pieces?" And wasn't that a loaded question?
"Hundred sixty-five." Xander answered and Fontaine nodded thoughtfully. "Does that mean there's hope for me?" Xander smiled. Fontaine could always coax this out of him, no matter how down he might be.
"No. He's a little younger. I knew him from back home."
"Ah. Blast from the past."
Xander felt his smile become bitter. "You have no idea."
"Baby, do you think you're the only one this has happened to? That's probably why it did happen. You meet someone you knew once and, suddenly, you don't have to do the whole my history, your history song-and-dance. Next thing you know, there you are with cucumber in one hand and a glow in the dark condom in the other." Xander glanced at him pointedly.
"Or maybe that's just me. Were you safe?" Fontaine asked bluntly and Xander rolled his eyes.
"Yes, mom."
"You better. Don't make me go upside your head."
"Nope, I like my head downside if that's okay with you."
"Damn skippy."
"You know," Xander said as he arranged his tools in the metal box, "I've always wondered what that meant. Is it someone named Skippy? Is skippy some kind of cool shorthand for 'you bet your ass?' I am not getting out of this, am I?"
"Nope." Fontaine said. "You can do the white-boy verbal two step all you want, Lexi. I know you ain't right." A gentle finger lifted Xander's chin and he reluctantly met his friend's concerned dark eyes, so black he could see himself in them. Little Xanders stared back at him. "That pretty brown stare is so sad, baby."
Fontaine doubled, then tripled and Xander looked away, blinking furiously at the burning beneath his lids. A strong, long arm guided him onto a plastic monstrosity and he let it, throat working, fingers wiping quickly at the moisture that escaped his lashes, struggling not to cut and bawl in his friend's arms.
"Goddamn." He laughed roughly at himself, as he bent over to rest his elbows on his knees. "Where did you learn to do that? You are scary, man."
"Boy Scouts." Fontaine's slender hand rubbed his back in slow, soothing circles, like Xander had rubbed Spike's that time he threw up and Xander gave a deep sigh, allowing himself to be soothed, and began speaking.
He started with that the night flight he blew off when he found Spike in the airport bar and ended the night Spike left. He left out that Spike was a vampire. As much as he'd never seen Fontaine thrown yet, he thought spouting casual phrases about the undead, demons, and one hundred sixty five year old vampires with souls might do it. When he finished Fontaine had leaned closer, chin in hand, sharp eyes unblinking.
"Two and a half days, hm?"
"Give or take."
"Must have been some good sex."
"Phenomenal," Xander deadpanned, letting the images come, not even bracing for them anymore. >Soft, soft, satin muscle, bouncy curls like sewing silks and sweet Jesus the tightness of him; the mind-blowing feel of being inside all that velvet and strength and even after two weeks, he couldn't imagine being in anyone else, with anyone else; the bare, naked look in those eyes.
Fontaine's eyebrow did the question mark thing Spike's could do and Xander shut his eyes against another onslaught of girly tears. He'd had enough of that today, thanks.
Two days and change, it shouldn't do this to him, dammit, it shouldn't!
"So, let me get this straight, for lack of better word." Fontaine began, pulling him out of that place he'd been. Pulling him out kicking and screaming, even though outwardly Xander just blinked mildly, ran a hand through his hair. "You don't see him for fifteen years. You run into each other at the airport, he looks all delicious and needy, you bring him home, bodily fluids are exchanged, and you go off because he won't tell you all his secrets?"
"It's not that simple. Something was wrong." Except put like that, it sounded pushy as hell, didn't it?
"Do you think he's using?"
"No." Xander admitted. Whatever had Spike doing a Karen Carpenter in his commode, it wasn't drugs. Not after hour after hour of being together. "No." He repeated decisively.
"So, no drugs. But he wouldn't tell you after the a grand total of two days, what was going on."
"No."
"Lexi." Xander turned his eyes to Fontaine's and was actually surprised to see exasperation coloring them. "What are you, a lesbian? You yourself aren't all down with the opening up, or isn't that what that last little boy said, and the one before him? We're MENS, baby. What side of the fence we take our pleasure with don't matter, we're still MENS, and we don't give it up on a dime. Not unless we ain't got no sense, or a daddy complex."
Xander looked away, because of course some of that had been lurking around his head ever since that night. That he could have handled things better. Been calmer. Not painted Spike into a corner with no out but to leave. /but the sickness, couldn't take that, couldn't watch that/ No, he couldn't have. But sitting here Spikeless for fourteen days and counting, all he had were second guesses and might-have- beens. All he'd ever have. /NO/
A warm hand smoothed his back again and he turned to Fontaine, saw a reflection of how bleak he looked in his friend's eyes. "I'm not sure I'll ever see him again."
"Did you get the impression he felt the same way?"
"I thought he did," Xander said softly.
"Then you'll see him again," Fontaine said, smiling warmly. A smile not many people saw, Xander knew. One that Fontaine didn't trot out often, because when a gay black man chose to make a life's work out of working with end-stage AIDS patients, and said black man had been a fairly well-known drag queen called Luscious Dupree, and said black man didn't have the decorum or inclination to be even vaguely embarrassed about that fact, warmth didn't get you very far. But when the smile appeared it was a gift, and Xander returned it as best he could.
"I don't think so."
"You need to have some faith, my brother."
"I'll work on it." He sighed, and felt as if he could just lay down here on the floor and go to sleep. Fontaine's hand lay on the middle of his back again, and he was so grateful for it the tears almost started again. Man, he was messed UP. "Thanks so much for the pantry, Lexi. Now go home with your bad self and get some sleep. You look tired."
"I thought I always looked gorgeous," he teased. Marching on. Okay, limping on. He'd take what he could get.
"You do, baby. It's the eyes."
Xander nodded in understanding and then leaned and hugged his friend, floating in the cloud of patchouli and clothes starch that always reminded him of Fontaine. Left with promises to call soon, to not get too depressed, to call if he needed ANYTHING, did he hear? Mind already on the empty vastness of the town house and how he'd made a bed he couldn't lie in.
NIGHT
The doorbell intruded on him, an insistent, buzzing insect and Xander stirred in the easy chair, trying to turn away from the sound. Must have fallen asleep in front of the TV again, and the muscles in his back groaned with every movement, paying him back in spades for his carpentry marathon. Everything felt fuzzy, but grating, dancing on his nerves with sharp needles: the canned laughter from Leno, the bright light he'd forgotten to even dim, the pilly fleece of his rattiest sweatpants rough on his cock, because laundry seemed to take too much energy and he couldn't even look at his black sweats without his chest getting tight.
Chime, chime, fucking chime, like the person got their finger stuck on the button and he stumbled to his bare feet, running a shaking hand over his face. Fucking ten forty-five at night and didn't people have a LIFE? Who the hell would show up now? Most of his friends had kids, and jobs, and Fontaine had way too much class to just appear unannounced.
Actually bumped his head on the door when he leaned into the peephole to look and had a kind of scary moment when the bubble of laughter rising in his chest fought to escape, because he thought the sound might not be good. Thought the sound might become the slightest bit /insane/ hysterical, and he thanked any god that would listen that he lived alone and no one was around to watch him fall apart piece by tiny piece. Finally focused one bleary eye and saw the space full of the top of someone's head before the person looked up.
Summer blue gaze gone indigo in the porch light filled his vision and Xander pulled his head back as if the sight burned his corneas. Every ounce of air gone from his lungs, just vacuumed out, and he stood with one hand on the door, trying to grasp shallow breaths around the shock, not moving, unable to move at all. For long moments he stood there, still, until the doorbell began its merry melody again, and a strangely disembodied hand closed on the doorknob and flung it open.
Spike stood under the light, hand on the same black duffel, the other holding a cigarette that unraveled a long ribbon of smoke into the night. Honey-blond curls catching highlights, fine bones a study in shadows, and since when did Spike wear BLUE? Xander didn't think he'd ever seen the vampire in anything but red and black, and the rich royal tone of the tight knit top turned Spike's eyes to sapphires. Those eyes on Xander, a million emotions in them, no shutters anymore, and a powerful rush of almost dizzying anger suffused him. Because he'd been dreaming this, he'd just left this scenario in his head. The evidence sat between his legs like a stone- not hard, no, but wanting. Throbbing. Needing with an ache so deep it defied description and now he was HERE...
"Lose the cigarette." Xander commanded harshly, and Spike held his eyes for a beat before obediently bending to rub the tobacco out in the soil of a potted ficus plant. Xander stepped back and Spike hesitated on the threshold, like he wasn't sure that walking in would be a good idea, but finally ducked his head, curls cascading forward, and entered. He shut the door behind him and leaned back, lifted sooty lashes to lock stares.
Xander felt held together by cheap rivets about to burst free, and he was so fucking angry, he was fucking livid. Angry because he'd been dreaming and wanting Spike the moment the door closed behind him that night. Enraged that just looking at Spike could make him weak and desperate, infuriated that Spike just stood there, asking, oh, everything with that look in his eyes, that bare naked look. Jesus, he had to clench his fists to keep from flinging himself at the man and just babbling, laying himself bare at Spike's feet if he'd just promise to never leave again and Xander refused to DO that, godamnit! He wasn't that person anymore; hadn't been puppy Xander or doormat Xander for years; 'Walk on me, hurt me, insult me, but don't leave me! Should I lay a little flatter, if you please?' He'd worked long and hard not to be that person, and FUCK Spike for making him feel that way again.
The delicate Adam's apple swallowed, one unneeded breath. "Xander, I..""Shut up," he ground out, seeing the brilliant blue bruise at the words. Savage joy blossomed in his chest from it. "Shut. Up." Repeated before turning away and walking-he hoped calmly- back in the house, leaving Spike standing inside the doorway holding his duffel bag. Breathed through the pounding in his throat, trying not to fucking swoon from the Spike-scent in the air that aimed right for his brain like pure heroin: musk, ash, clinging remnants of the night air.
Reaching the recliner just as his legs gave out beneath him, Xander realized he'd sat on the remote and cursed, while reaching under his ass for the thing. When he finally rescued it from easy chair hell and leaned back, Spike stood directly in front of him, blocking his view of the TV. Xander's eyes followed the slender, lean, lines of that body all the way up to the devastating intensity of summer blue eyes.
"You're in my way." The words were hoarse, tight, and Xander scrambled to sit up when Spike dropped to his knees in a rolling, feline move. Blinked at the bald regret in the flawless blue orbs because looking right at them burned, like the sun.
"What d'you want me to do?" Spike asked plaintively. Xander breathed hard through his nose, unable to tear his eyes from the expressive face that looked like it might crumple before him, realizing how close Spike was at that height to... "I left because..."
"No." Xander shook his head, hands gripping the arms of the recliner so hard he felt the leather squeak. "No, you don't get to do this. You don't get..." Spike reached out a leather-clad arm, hesitant, and Xander shot a hand out to stop the movement before he could think. They both gasped at the touch. Locked eyes that wouldn't let go, and he wanted the anger. He wanted to nurture it and feed it, it felt better than anguished despair, but, ah, he was drowning in Spike's eyes, going under, and the anger just barely kept him afloat.
Spike's hand closed around his where it lay on the vampire's breastbone, smooth-rough fingers slightly trembling, and Xander lids dropped at the touch. Should have known, should have known one touch and his mind would shatter, explode and disintegrate into a thousand pieces because, oh, because the very flesh on his palms hungered for Spike's skin like sustenance. He begrudged every fiber of the fabric beneath his hand, and even as part of him fought to hold onto the clean, sharp rage, the need to feel, continue feeling, split him in two. His other hand inched over Spike's chest on crawling fingers. No heartbeat beneath, but the firm pecs rose up and down like Xander's own. Closer, closer, no control, not a shred, damnit, DAMNIT.
He pulled Spike to him with an angry growl and hadn't realized he'd yanked Spike's head back by his hair until the strong chin snapped up. Xander stared into ocean- blue eyes that didn't even look surprised at the move, and that brought the fury back in a storm.
He could do anything to Spike right now, ANYTHING. He could sense it. The knowledge horrified him, and made him hard, and horrified him again. He didn't want a professional victim, he'd never wanted that, and Spike would rather offer himself up like some fucking sacrifice than let Xander IN a little bit /like you/ and Xander's breath trickled out in a shocked stutter. The hunger in Spike's eyes became questioning concern as Xander shook his head, staring into the brilliant blue with fear.
/ "It's like a part of you is always away, Alex. Like you don't think enough of us to trust me with anything important. Do you realize that?"/
/ "Alex, I just can't be with anyone that holds back like that. Great sex isn't enough, and I can't believe I just said that. I should thank you, really. Until you I wasn't sure I deserved more."/
"No," He whispered.
"Xander?" Spike touched his cheek gently, head still jerked back in the [same] awkward position when Xander crushed Spike to him with a moan, groping for skin beneath the leather with something like insanity. No finesse, nothing thoughtful as his hands dove under the shirt, slipped in the /too loose/ waist of the jeans to cup muscular globes of flesh and Spike groaned into his neck, suddenly alive and WILD in his arms.
And YES cool fingers on his back under the awful t-shirt and cool lips mouthing his neck in a way that dove right to his groin. Leaning over like this made his back bitch some more but that could go right to hell at this moment because, oh, scrape of teeth on his pulse, oh. With a helpless sound Xander tightened his arms around Spike's waist and pulled him up on the recliner, up and back, felt the expensive La-Z-boy shift down, felt Spike start in alarm that melted away when Xander gripped his face to pull him into a bruising kiss.
God he'd missed this, he'd craved this so much. The litany whirled in Xander's head as he devoured Spike's mouth in biting, claiming breaths. Smoke and salt and so, so sweet, the cool mouth dissolved into his with a groan. Spike opened his legs around Xander's hips, knees locked behind his back. He thrust into the pulsing hardness battling with his, rubbing the rough fleece on his sensitive cock in delicious friction, over and over until Xander blindly rolled on top of the slimmer body, straddling it on the dangerously creaking chair. Cradling Spike's head in his hands, he rocked hard into the slim hips, the sight of the pure desire on Spike's face causing pre-come to constantly leak between them, and, fuck, so good, so, oh.
Spike morphed in his hands; he felt the ridged brow lower, saw feral amber when the sooty lashes opened, and they stilled, suspended for long moments as brown gaze met gold, the sound of their hard breathing riding over the pulsing in Xander's ears and the one between his legs. Giving Spike's temples a faint caress with his thumbs, Xander brushed his lips over Spike's mouth with a helpless sound, again, gently tracing the long fangs with his tongue and Spike spasmed beneath him, cool hands scratching at his back. The pain sizzled along his skin, ropes of desire to his crotch and he clutched Spike to him, tasting the hollow of his neck as the vampire quivered underneath him, wanting to drown in Spike's scent, his flavor, to roll in him like a field of opium flowers. Spike's hand suddenly burrowed its way between them, palmed his erection and squeezed skillfully. Xander came so fast he wailed as orgasm ripped through him, wave after wave and he clamped down on Spike's neck as he shuddered, breaking skin with his teeth, blood rising into his mouth. Spike HOWLED in his ear, body shaking apart beneath him as they rode out the waves, the recliner shaking precariously as they writhed against each other, grabbing and thrusting, and never letting go.