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
AFTER
He came to with a yawn, and grunted at the twinge in his back. He also realized he was alone on the recliner, his stomach in a pretzel-esque contortion that had his lumbar region snarking in truly eloquent fashion. Rolling stiffly onto his back he gave a sigh of pain, then paused, looking around the room.
No duffel on the floor or near the door, and his heart began to sink like a stone. No. No WAY, no fucking WAY Spike would come back just for "Shut up," he muttered. That little voice in the back of his head was really getting on his nerves. Reaching over, he flipped the handle on the right-hand side of the chair and the back flipped up cheerfully, causing him to wince at the spark of pain in his back. "No." He repeated to himself as he gingerly found his footing in a stiff waisted move that made him sympathize with pregnant women.
< Hello. This is Xander's denial. I serve no purpose other than to metaphorically fuck and torment you. > He couldn't have left. < oh, really? > Xander took to the stairs, trying to ignore the awful, growing suspicion that he had royally screwed up, and shit, he couldn't get that back, he could never get that back.
The sound of the shower reached him as he neared the top the of the stairs and the relief was so great he had to stop and brace himself on the wall, hand at his stomach to still the flutters there.
The black duffel sat on the floor, unzippered, and Xander took everything in: open travel gear; mussed bed, still unmade from the night before last when he tried to sleep in it and failed- again. The bathroom currently occupied by the person he'd most wanted to see again. Really here. Holy god, he was really HERE, and again with the flutters. Also with the disbelief, so Xander wondered how good of an idea it was to join Spike in there, more just to see him again, to reaffirm that he hadn't imagined the hot recliner sex, and would he ever be able to sit there again without getting turned on?
Instead, he carefully bent over to rummage through the surprisingly neat and folded contents of the travel bag. Black jeans, black shirt, black briefs - which made his ears warm - but no sweat pants. Of course. Like Spike would ever own such a plebian article of clothing. Xander did find, on the very bottom, a plain white t-shirt, which he removed and lay on the bed, smoothing it out over the rumpled bedcovers. Rising slowly, and keeping one ear on the shower, he walked to the corner of the room and bent over carefully to pick up the pair of black sweat pants that had been lying in the same place ever since Spike left. Xander hadn't moved them, couldn't even look at them, as if to acknowledge their presence would turn him to stone. Knowing that if he got too close, the urge to bury his nose in the soft, worn fabric and inhale for one slight scent of Spike would be too strong, and he'd have gone crazy. Crazier.
Xander spread the sweats out next to the white t-shirt, absently stroking the soft, worn, material; unable to see them without remembering Spike in them, how they dipped below his navel. How the curve of hipbone looked, vulnerable and sharp, above the dark elastic waistband.
Another twinge of pain at his own waist made him suck in his breath, and fine! Mea culpa, mea-fucking culpa for drowning his sorrows in carpentry. He needed an ibuprofen cocktail with a dash of hot shower, maybe, except the pills were in the bathroom. Remembering the spare bottle in his work backpack, Xander left the clothes on the bed and negotiated the stairs again, grumbling further when he realized he'd left his backpack in the damn car due to his earlier fatigued, depressed state earlier.
After a trek out to the garage and back, Xander popped three ibuprofen with a swallow of water and walked up the stairs again. The shower had stopped but the door closed, a sliver of light still shone from beneath, and he firmly quashed the urge to knock.
< What if he's sick in there? You could knock... Jesus, let the straw go. >
The plus of an entire house was the having of more than one bathroom. He could do the mature thing and give Spike some space after the hot and sweaty reunion. Maybe he had to kick his inner voice's ass. Resolving not to pay attention to his internal peanut gallery anymore Xander gathered some clean clothes and walked across the hall for a quick shower in the guest room.
The shower took longer than planned once he got a good look at himself in the mirror, though. Shit, Spike couldn't resist THAT? His hair looked like birds nested in it, he had a five o'clock shadow, and not in a sexy, GQ way, and the goatee was scraggly. Spike's skin was sensitive enough as it was. So he'd washed AND conditioned his hair, trimmed his beard, and witched out the ancient U2 t-shirt for a maroon thermal top before padding into the bedroom. He paused, stilled by the sight of the undisturbed clothes still on the bed.
The duffel bag was gone.
His heart dropped. He felt it, a long descent to his toes like the first hill on a roller coaster.
Christ, chill the fuck OUT, Harris! So it's gone. So what? Neat vampire. You saw all the folded clothes. Must have been a free gift with purchase deal when he got the soul: politeness and neatness YOURS for the low, low price of only a pound of flesh!
The desire for the Spike he knew in his basement overtook him, total and complete. Towels on the floor Spike; smoke in his face Spike; steal his radio, dog his clothes, rude, crude, dangerous to know blood-sucking Spike. Xander knew that one. Always knew where he stood, where they stood, back then. That Spike didn't have the power to shred his heart to pieces, to make his breath catch as he sped downstairs. He smelled the smoke the minute he entered kitchen and for the second time that night relief flooded powerfully through him. He could see Spike pacing on the back patio, which was really nothing more than a glorified slab of concrete with a trellis and some plants. Even before Xander stepped outside he saw Spike had on a black t-shirt tucked into black jeans, his duster swirling around his legs. The ends of the honey curls gleamed damply, and the vampire cut a look at him as Xander opened the door and walked outside.
"Didn't want to stuff up the house." Spike gestured the cigarette at him with a flick of a wrist and Xander nodded, eyes following the pacing vampire where Spike outlined the perimeter of the small patio with restless, impatient strides. It was the first sign of the agitated pre-soul demon Xander had been reminiscing about, and he had a moment when he wondered if that demon was back and no longer wanted a thirty-something human human with a bad back.
"Sit down?" he offered, but Spike shook his head on an exhale before removing another cigarette from his pocket and lighting it with the one in his hand. For long seconds they stared at each other then Xander's gaze fell to the purpling mark on Spike's neck peeking out of the duster's collar. Xander realized that he had done that, recalled the gush of salt sweet nectar exploding on his tongue. A huge weight of awkwardness settled between them and Xander tried to overcome it by reaching out to see how badly he'd mauled the petal-soft skin. Spike caught his wrist with lightening-quick accuracy and he froze, stung beyond belief at the gesture.
"Sorry. Sorry, I..." Fucked THIS up, didn't you Harris, he thought in despair. Well, of course. Guy comes back and you not only don't let him say a damn thing you fucking attack him in the bargain. Smooth. What's that say about what you think of him. "Sorry," he repeated intelligently, went to move away but the nimble, cool fingers tightened into a vise, blue eyes all of a sudden boring into his with burning emotion.
"It's not that," the vampire blurted. Xander knit his brows even as his insides jittered at the touch of Spike's hand on his skin.
"What's not....what?"
"Right now, I didn't mean...when I pulled away, it's just..." Xander realized the hand on his wrist was shaking, fine tremors, like ague, and he turned to study Spike even closer. The agitated pacing, the chain smoking, the imperceptible little pants making the vampire's chest rise and fall all said Spike was scared, terrified of something.
"I..." Pink tongue peeked out to lap at pink lips. "Just don't touch me while I say it, right? Won't get through it."
"Spike..."
"Drusilla did it," Spike began bluntly, and the words didn't penetrate until Xander played them back a couple of times; what they were and what they referred to. He reached for Spike's face without thinking, head shaking, but the blond man backed away, blue eyes pained, angry, and apprehensive.
"No. Not like this." Xander whispered.
"Yeah, like this."
He stared into the tortured eyes until the silence stretched out in the space between them. He tried once more. "You don't have to.."
"She found me in Africa." Spike cut him off before he beginning the compulsive pacing again, like a trapped lion. Xander didn't open his mouth again. He knew the start of a story when he heard one, and the fearful glint in Spike's eyes told him the blond man needed to get through this is one swoop, if he could.
"I'd been wandering around, out of me mind, basically. Soddin' miracle I didn't crisp myself in the sunlight a dozen times over. Never understood what Angel went through 'till then, the...pain of what you've done; it never leaves. How the." Deep swallow, and Xander watched trembling fingers bring a cigarette up to the parted lips before the vampire lashed out at a tall ceramic planter, shattering it, shards, Boston Fern and soil scattering everywhere, causing Xander to jump. "Lives of everyone you ever drained flying around you like birds, every one, and there were so many birds. So." Angry inhale, quick exhale. "So bloody many."
Spike's eyes had fixated on the tips of his Docs; he seemed to be speaking to them. "Said I called to her when the soul happened, that she heard me. When she showed up I was so happy I wept. Can you imagine? She did save me, though," he added, as if Xander had said something against Spike's sire. "Had three K'Nethlin demons at her bidding and she bundled me up and took me away, singing to me the whole time. Wasn't until I listened to what the words were that I got petrified. She thought she could-fix-me." An actual /giggle/ escaped Spike's lips as he walked and it ran a cold finger down Xander's spine, because try as he might he couldn't find any sanity in it. "Like I was a defective motorcar, or a broken pipe. She knew I had the chip, she knew, but she didn't understand."
"When I was out of it she'd feed me blood from her own mouth and her own veins, cutting her wrist and holding it to me lips like I was an infant. Except when I woke up, when..." Spike's eyes fluttered closed and he covered his face, cigarette dancing in his quivering hands. For a second Xander would have bet his life Spike couldn't continue, not with the trembling and the hyperventilating, but the cut-glass features soon peeked out again from under the tousled curls, and Spike continued. "I knew the blood was human. She wouldn't feed me anythin' else, and I could... Xan, I could /taste/ the people. I could feel their essence on my tongue, like a wine bouquet. I knew their hopes and dreams and how many kids they had and when they first shagged. I knew what made them angry and their last thoughts, I knew.."
< DON'T WANT TO KNOW THIS! > Xander's brain trumpeted shrilly and he shut. It. Up. He'd asked for it, no? Oh yes, he had, and he would sit here through every word because it was the least he could fucking do.
"I kept bein' sick on the blood, even hers, because hers tasted like poisoned sugar. I could see how it was with her, the voices, the illusion, and it made me crazy. I went crazy for a while." Spike said this like someone would say "I went to the store for a while."
"She got so angry then, more desperate to 'fix' me, and she started bringin' home victims that weren't altogether drained for me to finish off. I wouldn't do it, didn't want to, but then she stopped feeding me from herself and I got...I got so hungry." Tears thickened the velvet voice, ran from beneath the tightly squeezed lashes, and Xander watched the gossamer pearls run across Spike's face and drip on his shirtsleeves before an alabaster hand dashed at them like they were acid and Spike started to pace again, as if he could outrun the awful memory. "So awfully hungry. So I did a few, just a few!" Spike's voice became almost childlike in its defense. "Didn't matter. Almost nothin' stayed down, and the chip went off with the ones that weren't drained. Gave me nosebleeds."
Oh my Jesus God, Xander thought numbly. He was tortured. The crazy bitch /tortured/ him and he thought he deserved it.
"Then she came in one morning chipper as posies, said she figured it out, but she wouldn't tell me what. Just kept prattlin' on about everything being all right after 'this' and so forth. I was pretty weak, so I just went back to sleep." Xander watched Spike like he would a tennis match: back and forth, inhale, exhale into a cloud of smoke. "Came to on me stomach with my arms and legs latched down. Would have thought Dru got tired of not gettin' her end off but I knew she shagged those demons blind, and she hadn't touched me that way since she found me. I heard her near my ear, said she was going to take the chip out and everything would be grand after that. I tried to tell her I'd tried that, that it wasn't that simple, but I forgot my Dru's no complicated girl. The hack she got to cut into me couldn't get it out, and he tried for hours. Wound kept healing so he used holy water to keep it open..."
"Oh, God." Xander whispered when he hadn't intended to say anything at all, felt moisture on his chin and swiped at it. Only then did he realize he'd been crying. A Steady flow of tears trickled down his face. They felt cold.
"It's almost over." Spike said, not unkindly, and Xander had to struggle not to make a sound at that. It was so damned obscene, Spike comforting HIM.
"That's why the scar. Can heal from holy water, but not that much, not continually. Hurt." Spike paused Xander noted the tightening of his knuckles into fists, the closed eyes. "Hurt quite a lot. For a long time. Couldn't really move for a while, and Dru lost interest after that. It's as if that was her grand idea and when it didn't work all the wind went out of her sails. Came home with some boy band reject soon after and got her demons all in a snit. Barely noticed when I left." The last sentence occurred abruptly, so much so that Xander hadn't realized the narrative was over until Spike stopped pacing and looked at him, unspeakable sorrow in the summer blue. "I'm all empty now," he said in wonder. "Feels odd."
Xander walked towards Spike, struggling not to sob, wiping his eyes on his sleeve but never dropping the vampire's angry, apprehensive gaze. However, when he reached out and Spike tripped backing up he almost lost it. "Come on." The sobs cracked his voice. "Just let....I'm so sorry..."
"Yeah, that's it." Spike spat out, voice brittle with tears as well but so much resentment in the shining blue orbs. "Know now and it's all 'poor Spike', 'I'm sorry, Spike.'" He tried to light another cigarette and the flame danced and jiggled from the shaking so much that Xander reached to help, but got a sharp slap at his hands for the gesture. "Fuck you, Xander!" Xander pulled back at a total loss, panic so profound it had no name.
"Got your precious story and now what? Takin'me in like I'm charity? Still the White Knight after all these years, ey? 'Poor cracked in the center Spike," A thin finger flew to the fine temple and pointed savagely, and he Xander couldn't stop staring at him in abject horror. "Can't let 'im die and end his misery. Can't let 'im starve.' Bleedin' wonder this place ain't overrun with strays for you to save, but you were waitin' for the big time, were..."
"Are you done?" The furious question flew out of Xander's mouth without planning, and the anger that had turned into lust was back, clean and vicious. He let it take him, despite how much his soul broke for the pain Spike had undergone. "Because not even Mike Tyson referred to himself in the third person that much."
A shocked look overcame the fury on the perfect features before the angry mask fell. "I'm not bloody done"
"The fuck you aren't. That's all the pity parade I can stand for one night. My turn."
"Go to hell." The snarl ripped out of a mouth suddenly full of fangs but Xander reached for him anyway, overcoming the desperate attempts to get away, until he had both arms in his hands and pulled the vampire kissing close.
"Listen, damnit, you LISTEN," he shook Spike furiously and amber eyes with pupils like pinpoints stared back at him. "That's what you think? That I'd take you in out of pity?"
"Why else?" Spike growled back and Xander thrust him away in disgust and frustration.
"What the hell do you think that was, earlier?"
The pink mouth curled in disdain. "A pity fuck."
Xander's hand shot out, slapping hard and Spike's head jerked sideways from the force, curls flying.
The sound seemed to echo in the quiet night. When the vampire turned back slowly tears had escaped their moorings and sailed glistening streaks down the ocean of his face. Four red fingerprints stood out like exclamation points, marring the fair skin, bracketing the livid purple bruise on his neck, and Xander's stomach roiled at the sight of them. Great, Harris. So maybe dear old dad isn't as dearly departed as we thought. Before guilt had a chance to paralyze him, Xander grasped the sinewy arms once more and pulled Spike close, blinking tears out of his eyes yet again. Spike didn't resist this time.
"It wasn't just fucking to me." His said, voice uneven and rough. Spike met his stare silently, a million emotions flashing among the anger. "I thought I'd never see you again and it killed me. I missed you in my bed and in my life and I hate what happened to you. I hate it," Xander repeated vehemently. "I'm not sorry you told me, I can't be, and it's not pity. I had no right to hit..." His voice broke on the last word and his throat worked for control as the magnitude of what he did grew. Oh, god, what had he done?
The starry, dark lashes slipped shut and more tears escaped their confines to trickle down each sharp cheekbone. Spike's forehead dropped onto Xander's shoulder, the body in his hands suddenly malleable. He slid his arms around the thin back even as Spike tried to hold him away with both hands. "Y' don't know what you're doin', Xander." The black velvet voice could scarcely be heard.
"Maybe," Xander murmured into the honey curls, inhaling peach shampoo and smoke. "You owe me a planter."
Spike snuffled into his neck and he thought it was crying until the watery laughter became louder. Xander crushed the slim body tight with shaking arms, because he had almost lost this unbelievable, amazing man. Xander felt like he'd walked in the dark and missed the open manhole by inches and the dark abyss called his name still.
Trembling lips covered his and Xander crushed Spike to him, greedy and starving, the contact through clothes not enough. Never enough. Relief and wonder, desire, overwhelmed him as their tongues fenced, as he re-learned the taste of Spike and swam in it. Spike had to pry them apart for him to breathe through the dizziness in his head. They stayed welded to each other and he wanted to lick the tears off that perfect face.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, fitting his hand over the just-fading imprints on Spike's cheek. "Spike, I'm ...."
"Shhh, luv." Spike whispered into his mouth, eyes dark blue and shining. "I know." Their hands delved into waistbands and under t-shirts, seeking, claiming. They fell into another kiss and Xander moaned far back in his throat because he had thirsted for this like water, craved it like oxygen and his memories had nothing on the reality of it. The palm of his hand slid between Spike's legs, cupping the hardness there and the vampire gasped into his mouth. He rubbed the denim with the heel of his hand, fingers following the seam, pushing up until Spike made that keening sound that found his spine and ignited all his nerves. "Xander....," A pleading whisper.
The moving of his legs took actual concentration but Xander began to walk backwards, pulling Spike by the hands, wanting him in the bed, their bed, open and naked. Despite his best efforts, they bogged down on the stairs or when one or the other of them started a kiss or a touch that always escalated immediately. Spike's duster was lost along the way, as was Xander's thermal shirt. By the time they reached the bedroom, Xander had no patience left, and he pushed Spike down, pulling his white t-shirt off in the same quick move.
Spike sprawled topless, on the rumpled bed, curls askew, pink lips moist and parted, blue eyes hungry. Xander knelt over him and stared. The feverish want of seconds before calmed, evened as he stared at the beautiful vampire before him. < He's here. He's mine. God help me, I think he is > Spike's expression started to become doubtful, but Xander placed both hands on the jean-clad knees, stilling him. "Do you know how amazing you are?" he asked in a whisper, because that was all his emotions would allow.
Spike swallowed, shaking his head. "No." Low, plain voice, wrapped in melting butterscotch.
"I do," said Xander.
Spike's hands moved towards the buttons on his jeans but Xander caught them gently and eased them over Spike's head, laying over him but not touching, the ache in his back a forgotten, far-away throb. He fit Spike's fingers around the bottom of the wooden headboard, mouth playing around the vampire's lips. Spike's legs parted around his waist and the fire in Xander's veins roared despite how he kept it slow, easy. He brushed their crotches together, the slightest pressure, and Spike threw his head back into the pillow, shuddering.
"I said I wanted to taste you." His lips said against a soft ear and Spike began doing that airless pant he did, sparks of gold starting to lace the pure blue. The vampire's gaze never left him and the corded, muscled arms quivered with tension but didn't move from where Xander had placed them. It was this wordless acquiescence that had Xander's cock straining against the zipper of his jeans, pulsing and leaking. His fingers ran lightly over Spike's arms, baptizing every muscle with his touch, tracing the sharp clavicles, circling the stiff, dusky-rose nipples until Spike made a ragged sound.
Roaring, ringing in his head, but outwardly calm, like the eye of a hurricane, he thought. They'd had rough, intense, savage sex, frenzied lovemaking, but not this, and Xander wanted to give Spike this. To show him it didn't always need to be rough to be good.
With intense, specific care Xander undid each button of Spike's 501's, sliding his thumb over each inch of skin revealed. Then he smiled at the writhing, trembling figure on the bed and shifted back to undo Spike's boots and lay them neatly to the side.
"Xander, please," Spike gritted, watching in desperation as Xander removed the socks and rolled them into a ball to toss away.
"Hm?" Xander murmured absently as he stood and took hold of Spike's jeans pulling them off in one smooth slide. His vampire lay nude in the bedside lamp-light, beautiful - Mercury or Adonis wrapped in alabaster. That bone, his favorite obsession, sharp on Spike's hips; he had to touch it. He knelt between Spike's legs once more. The avid blue eyes watched him as he surrounded the weeping cock with both hands, pushing the foreskin all the way down, and twirling the pre-come around the head, gossamer, sparkling strands. Meeting Spike's eyes, Xander brought a finger to his mouth and sucked, sweet salt musk on his tongue, and Spike groaned, hips arching helplessly. "Please, please..."
"Okay," Xander whispered. He wondered, in some compartment of his brain not struck dumb by the feast before him, if Spike-sex had mysterious healing qualities, because his backache was all but gone. He kissed the quivering head of Spike's cock almost primly, liquid making his lips glossy, before taking all of Spike's cool, trembling length in his mouth.
"Ah!" Spike cried out, spasming almost in two from the attack, hands no longer above but buried in Xander's hair, a desperate carding that Xander didn't mind. In fact, he barely registered the pull on his scalp because Spike was in his /mouth/ and Xander was making the sleek, white body quiver and groan, and slim hips thrust higher and nothing, nothing could compare with this incredible power. Sliding his hands beneath, Xander cupped Spike's hips and lifted them, beginning a gentle motion that slid the pulsing cock in and out of his lips, and the vampire's back arched further, hands pulling sheets from the mattress, rending comforters and pillows.
"Almost, Xander, ..." Spike panted, thighs quivering and Xander shushed him from around his cock, reached a hand down in his jeans where 'wet spot' didn't even begin to describe how soaked he was. He pulled away, smiling at the whimper of protest.
"I'm going inside you with my finger," Xander said, low and clear, lips moving against Spike's steadily leaking member. "And you're going to come in my mouth when I do."
The vampire's snarling groan rose high as Xander's mouth took Spike's cock and his finger breached muscle and tissue at once, lips sucking hard, finger brushing that magic spot and his thumb rubbing the sensitive place behind Spike's scrotum and his ass. An animal growl and Spike exploded down his throat, body quaking, little tremors fluttering against his secreted finger. All it took was a sharp squeeze from his own hand for Xander to come with a breathless "Uh!" body shaking then melting into one pile of raw nerve endings, the cock between his lips still twitching.
Crawling slowly up the bed after his mind came down from the clouds, Xander shed his jeans so he could pull Spike's cool body against his hotter one. The heavenly satin clutched at him so tight and sleep came up and tried to mug him through the spinning in his head and body.
"Not leaving again," he muttered into the damp honey curls, holding Spike tighter to emphasize his point.
"Not leaving." Spike whispered into his chest.
"'Kay," Xander said, yawning. "Promise."
"G'night, luv." Chaste brush of petal-soft lips, like butterfly wings.
Xander slid into sleep like Mark McGuire at third base, the most restful slumber he'd had since Spike left, arms full of vampire, body exhausted and sated, back miraculously cured.
He didn't wake up once before morning.
~fin~