Sunday Morning Coming Down

PART FOURTEEN

“Why do you always wear this?” Xander breathed into Spike’s ear, his hands running down the leather sleeves of Spike’s duster.

Spike tilted his head to give Xander better access to his neck and continued walking, a slow process with Xander pressed against his back, hands exploring beneath his coat and an insistent hardness grinding against his ass every time he slowed to untangle his feet from Xander’s.

“It’s a part of me,” he answered, hearing his voice hitching and taking a deep breath, trying to hide how much this was getting to him. “Feel naked without it.”

“Don’t like it,” Xander said, tugging lightly at the leather collar with his teeth. “Not that it’s not sexy as hell,” he said quickly when Spike stiffened against him and then started walking faster. “It’s just that it’s thick and heavy and…” his hands slid beneath the lapels of the jacket, running down Spike’s chest and stomach to the waist of his jeans, “makes it hard to get to the good stuff.”

“Hmm,” Spike said as they finally made it to the door of the apartment, Xander still pressed hard against his back, warm mouth on his neck and warmer hands making their way beneath his shirt. “Have to take it off then.” Spike leaned back against Xander, bracing one hand on the doorframe. “Hold on – better idea. How ‘bout I take off everything but the coat?”

He grinned as he felt Xander jerk behind him, hands clenching tightly on Spike’s waist, digging in and hurting almost enough.

“Oh, God,” Xander groaned, his hands sliding from Spike’s stomach to his hips and yanking him back hard, the thickness of the duster insignificant between Spike and several inches of excited Xander.

Spike chuckled, reaching back and slipping a hand up Xander’s thigh, over his hip, searching.

“Yeah,” Xander said his hips swiveling into Spike’s fingers even as his hands dropped to Spike’s belt, unbuckling it. “Nothing but the jacket.” He paused with two buttons to go on Spike’s fly. “And the boots.”

“Xander,” Spike said, his voice cautioning despite the laughter that filled it, “you do realize we’re still in an extremely well-lit hallway?” His fingers tightened around what he sought in Xander’s jeans and he pulled the key ring out of the pocket with a tug. “And while I don’t give a flying fuck who’s leering at us out their peepholes, I don’t want to listen to it from you after the blood flows back to your brain.”

Xander spun Spike around, shoving him against the door. “Let ‘em watch.” He bent his head to Spike’s lips, but Spike held him off, yanking Xander’s shirt out of his jeans and pushing it up, his lips lowering to Xander’s chest instead.

His tongue traced a path down Xander’s breastbone, feeling the grip on his arms tighten as he made slow circles around each nipple. Xander hitched against him, his hands sliding down Spike’s arms to clench on his wrists.

Spike felt the tension building in Xander and knew he needed more…they both needed more. Everything so far had been slow and careful, Spike leashing himself in acknowledgement of Xander’s inexperience, trying to avoid both an emotional jolt from the boy and a literal one from the chip.

But as warm fingers dug so deeply into his wrists that bones ground together and Xander's leg pressed so hard between his legs that Spike was almost lifted off the floor, he decided they both wanted something darker...something more. His lips parted around Xander’s nipple, blunt teeth breaking the skin and his tongue catching the few drops of red that welled up.

Spike felt the pain burst in his skull and closed his eyes against it. They flew open again when he realized that the chip was silent and the pain was from Xander’s fingers clenched in his hair, tugging his head up to meet eyes wide and startled, and lips wet and parted, hot gasps of air bursting against Spike’s cheek.

“You’re not supposed to be able to bite me,” Xander said, the words thick with shock and need.

“You’re not supposed to want me to,” Spike answered, his voice low and knowing.

They stared at each other for a long moment, Spike’s fingers cool and soothing on the bite mark, Xander’s hand trembling in Spike’s hair.

Spike started to pull away, his fingers sliding regretfully from the warm wetness on Xander’s chest and then felt the shudder beneath his hand as Xander spoke.

“Open the fucking door. Now.”

Spike jabbed the key into the lock just as Xander attacked his mouth. Then the door was opening and Spike was turning to press against Xander as they stumbled through the doorway, Spike’s hand still on the key and Xander’s fisted in the leather collar.

Xander dragged his lips from Spike’s mouth, across his jaw and then down his neck, biting teasingly even as his hand found its way beneath the jacket again, smoothing over Spike’s hip to curve around his ass, pulling him closer.

Xander grinned as he heard the breathless, high-pitched gasp, lifting his head to ask who the girl was now, and then everything just kind of stopped. In the empty quiet he could hear the pounding of his own heart, even hear the sound of air being drawn through Spike’s open lips and hear it find its way back out, unneeded. He could feel his hand, still clutched tight around hard flesh beneath the soft denim of Spike’s jeans, feel each individual fiber rasp against the calluses on his palm.

He felt a coldness creep up his legs and fill his gut, spreading through his chest and arms, leaving him numb. But it stopped there, not reaching his face, which seemed to be burning and expanding and spreading way too wide. He tried to shake his head, tried to turn away, but the heat just burned hotter and the silence grew louder and there was nowhere he could look where he couldn’t see her.

And her eyes stared back at him, as wide as his felt, her face bright with the heat that was filling the room around them and her mouth trembling with the same unspoken words he couldn’t say.

Then his chest hitched, rising and falling and breaking the silence as the word fell from his lips, sounding broken and harsh, “Willow?”

She didn’t answer and when she rose from the couch it was like something from above had yanked her up by strings. Her legs wobbled as she stood, her hands grasping uselessly around her, like she was searching for something she’d brought with her and not finding it. And then somehow she was across the room, brushing past him as he stood there, his body still pressed against Spike’s, cold and lifeless where they had been hot and urgent just moments before.

Willow’s shoulder scraped his as she rushed by, her hair almost touching his cheek, the smell of her shampoo and the soft thud of her purse against her thigh making her real.

Still Xander stood there, his fingers tightening and loosening damply against the leather collar of the duster, his other hand numb and bloodless over the pocket of Spike’s jeans. And it was almost funny. Like he could call her back, laughing, begging for some witchy assistance, because it obvious that he and Spike were just stuck together with some kind of freaky mojo, ‘cause otherwise he could let go, right?

He felt a tightness in his chest and looked down, wondering if this is what a heart attack felt like. He stared for a moment at the hands pressed flat against his shirt front, feeling the twisting and the wrenching and then it was gone as Spike shoved him away.

Xander watched his hand as it fell to his side, away from Spike, the fingers still curved in the shape of Spike’s body but grasping and empty now. He looked up at Spike, saw the hand that relented, reaching for him and jerked away from it.

Looking at Spike, the duster crumpled, hanging off his shoulders. Saw the t-shirt shoved up, bunched around pale ribs, baring a hard stomach mottled with bright pink finger marks above unbuttoned jeans. Saw the open belt, the buckle swaying slightly, bumping against a black clad hip with an unfulfilled promise. Saw everything Willow had seen.

And Spike looking back at him, his eyes acknowledging what Xander was seeing, but his face blank, waiting. No anger, no leering, no apology. Not even posturing embarrassment at having been caught getting bent by the Slayer’s boy, neck arched in submission, moaning Xander’s name between curses and kisses. Just blank, now, as if his face were clay and Spike would mold it into whatever emotion Xander felt this moment required.

Xander shook his head. They could figure out what this feeling was later, after he’d made up something to call it to explain it to Willow. Maybe whatever he came up with would sound good enough that they could believe it, too.

“I can’t now,” he said, trying to answer the silence and blankness of Spike. “She doesn’t…I’ve got to…”

He watched Spike turn away from him, looking toward the window where a flash of red hair caught the streetlight. “Hurry,” was all Spike said, and then Xander was out the door.

Xander caught up with Willow at the corner, her arms crossed, her head down as she walked determinedly, as if the only thought in her mind was, “away from here.”

“Willow,” he gasped, his lungs burning from the dash down the stairs, the sprint across the street. He expected her to ignore him, keep walking, and he geared himself up to jog alongside, but she stopped and turned, almost as if she had been expecting him.

“So this is what it was?”

“W-what?” he asked, his tongue tripping over itself, his brain rushing to catch up as his half-prepared speech was preempted by an unexpected Q&A.

“This is why you’ve been fighting me so hard about patrol, about Buffy, about…everything?” Her eyes didn’t quite meet his as she asked, and for some reason that pissed Xander off, because it wasn’t like he and Spike had been naked and it wasn’t as if she had been expected…

“Fighting you…I haven’t been fighting you on anything, Will,” he said, bending and leaning in a bit, trying to force her to look at him.

“Avoiding me, then,” Willow said, as she hugged her arms against her body, her eyes on the ground and then she whipped her head up to face him. “Telling me you ‘don’t know,’ or changing the subject, or saying that you have to go to work, or you have to patrol with Spike.”

Xander winced at the inflection in her tone and shook his head. “Willow, there are things you don’t know…”

“Well, duh, Xander,” she cut in, flinging her arms out, her purse just missing him. “The only thing I do know is that you’ve been walking around like a zombie for weeks. And at first I thought, well, yeah, after everything with Anya…but this, I just…you and Spike?” Her eyes widened then in realization and met his fully for the first time.

“What?” Xander asked, his discomfort growing ever more discomforting, and he looked around them uneasily, trying to see what Willow was seeing that had her advancing on him, eyes locked on his.

“I think I get it now,” she said, nodding slowly. “Cordelia. Faith. Spike. Xander…you’re attracted to mean. You know, I wasn’t serious with that whole ‘demon magnet’ thing, kinda thought it was just hormones and dicey decision making skills, but you’ve really got a thing for mean!”

Xander backed away from her, shaking his head. “What? That’s not tr...” he bit the inside of his lip, changing tactics. “Anyway, Spike’s not mean, he’s evil. Well, Reform Evil.” He hesitated, and then went for it, a nervous smile tugging at his lips, “’Cause all that pig’s blood? So not kosher.”

There was a moment of uneasy silence, and then Willow did the very last thing he expected her to. She giggled. A sort of nervous tension, giggle-choke combination, but still a giggle.

They stared at each other, Willow giggling behind her hands, her eyes still comically round and wide, brimming with tears and Xander just looking back at her, dumbfounded.

“God,” Willow said softly, her giggles fading away as she sighed, “I always seem to be walking in on you kissing the last person on earth I’d want to walk in on you kissing and then storming off in a snit, don’t I?”

Xander wiped damp palms against his thighs and swallowed. “Look, Willow, I know you’re incredibly freaked and probably really mad at me right now, but…”

“I’m not mad, Xander,” she answered; reaching a hand out to him and then letting it fall. “There’s the overwhelming sense of fear, and if you’re getting a vibe of ‘seriously wigged,’ you’re not wrong, but I think I was more…shocked than anything. Well, other than embarrassed, ‘cause um, yeah, there was a lot of that. I mean, seeing you kissing Spike was one thing, and I think I’m entitled to a little shock, here, but it wasn’t just kissing, was it?” she asked, her face trying for stern but flaring pink again.

Xander flashed back to the image of Spike with his belt torn open, shirt hiked up around his nipples, and closed his eyes, groaning. Definitely not just kissing.

He opened his eyes to see Willow looking back at him, her face flushed and concerned, filled with the same uncertainty he felt. They were too old for jokes about second base or third, but separated by too much left too long unspoken for unflinching honesty.

Xander cleared his throat. “A ‘gay now’ joke would probably be a bad choice at this point, huh?”

Willow shrugged, “Actually, kind of explains a lot…” she trailed off as Xander blanched, his eyes widening, “and um, I’m really not making this better, am I? Look, Xander, the whole guy thing, okay, something new and sort of unexpected, yeah, but Spike…” she chewed her lip for a minute, looking at him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but aren’t you worried that he could be just…using you? You know, messing with you, somehow, to…”

“To what, Willow?” Xander answered as he geared up for Willow’s ‘point A to point B’ thought process to start clicking through the same mental checklist of wrongness he’d been tabulating for the past weeks. “There’s no Slayer to get revenge on, and I don’t think any demons with world domination plans are going to start chatting him up to foil the crack team of Harris and Rosenberg.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Willow said, frowning at him. “It’s just that…we saw the way he was that day…at the tower. That was real, Xander, whatever he felt for her. And now he’s all into you and that doesn’t freak you out just a little?”

Only every other nightmare, Xander thought.

Willow’s hands tightened around her purse straps, worrying them. “I know there are things you haven’t told me, and I get that, I do. I mean, I wasn’t exactly sharey about Tara and me, either, and she wasn’t even a…”

Her eyes were no longer avoiding his, but searching and seeking and Xander found himself wishing she’d get a little less comfortable and snit off again as she steadied herself and continued, “Hey, this is me, remember? And I know how this goes for you; it’s never just kissing…or more, to you. You just kind of…fixate, and less appropriate the person is…” She gave a short laugh, rolling her eyes, “I mean, it took you ten years and me finally getting a boyfriend for you to want to us to get smoochy…”

Xander’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head, ready to refute that, so Willow cast around quickly for someone else, “And, uh, Faith! You thought you had a connection with Faith, you were ready to marry Anya, and that whole thing with Cordelia…”

Willow tilted her head considering, “Although somehow, Spike? Slightly less horrifying than Cordelia.” A grin wobbled out from the concern etched in her face. “I mean, it’s not like we ever elected officers for the I Hate Spike Club.”

Xander snorted. “How could we? Buffy had already declared a dictatorship.”

And the elephant in the room stood up, bowed and did a pirouette.

Xander watched as thoughts flitted across her face, realization and remembrance that there was more at stake here than what Spike might be doing to him or what he and Spike might be doing with each other.

Xander’s throat tightened, the words rising and choking. “I haven’t told him,” he said finally, his voice hoarse, unsteady. Willow didn’t answer, just stood there watching him silently, carefully. “But I’ve wanted to,” he said thickly.

“You can’t, Xander,” Willow said, her face earnest, voice even, steady. “Spike is too…well, we don’t know what he’d do. Try to stop us…not understand,” she shook her head. “We have to believe in this, to make it work. You, me, Tara – there’s power there, Xander, because you both believe in me, and we trust each other. Even if Spike wanted to help, it wouldn’t work. We can only tell the people we can trust…”

“That’s just it, Willow,” Xander said softly. “I trust him.”

He watched Willow’s face as those words sank in, and he could tell that she realized that he had just figured that out for himself, as well.

“Xander, he’s a vampire.” She raised her hand as he stared to speak. “I know, I know, a vampire who’s patrolled with us all summer and baby-sits Dawn and sometimes, kind of sort of hangs out with us, but he’s a still vampire. And one without a soul.”

“Oh, come on, Will,” Xander angrily. “How much of Angel’s fighting along side us had to do that soul you crammed back into him and how much was getting an ‘in’ with Buffy?”

“And how much of Spike’s was?” Willow snapped.

“But he’s still here, and she isn’t,” Xander said.

“And she won’t be, ever, unless you stop fighting me on this, and you are Xander, and I get now that there have been…things that you’ve been dealing with, but we have to stop everything now. Our lives, the pain of her being gone…none of that matters when we have this chance to get her back. For us…for everything she fought and died for. Stop. Think,” she said, her eyes pleading with his. “Think of how much better this, all of this, would be if we could have her back.”

Xander rubbed his hand across his mouth, shaking his head. “It’s just that…Willow, this all seems like something we should just let be…and I…I don’t know…”

“You don’t know,” Willow repeated, and then stopped, taking a deep breath and shaking her head. “Even if we fail, and I promise you, I will do everything in my power to make sure we don’t, it won’t be any worse than it already is. Xander,” she said softly, “sometimes it’s like you don’t even want her back. Can’t you see what her death is doing to me, to all of us? How much Giles and Dawn and, God, even Spike would want her…”

Willow stopped, her mouth falling open, her eyes widening in accusation as Xander’s breath caught in his throat. “Xander, you don’t want her back…because of Spike?”

“Willow…no, that’s,” Xander shook his head, backing away from her, because, oh, God there wasn’t truth there, not a truth he could face, and certainly not in front of her and it was just because Buffy was dead and they had buried her and bringing her back wouldn’t make everything all right, because it hadn’t been all right before she was gone and oh, God, what if it was true?

“I understand that your loyalties are little…divided right now,” Willow said tightly, glancing past him to the darkened window of his apartment and Xander wondered if there was a tiny red glow on the balcony and if she saw and if she knew. “But what I’m asking from you is bigger than us, what we want doesn’t matter, the only thing that does is what’s right.”

“I’m not divided, Willow,” he said, his lips stiff, tight with anger and fear and the words forced out anyway, no real thought, just feeling and God, please let these be the right words, “what I don’t know is which right is the right. How do we know that this is right, and not something we want?”

“Because it’s hard,” Willow said, walking over to take his hand. “Because it hurts and it’s scary and it feels wrong. That’s how it is for us, remember? When we’re terrified, we know we’re doing the right thing.”

Xander squeezed her hand, looking past her as his jaw worked, bargaining with himself. “All right,” he said finally, nodding. “Whatever you need, whatever it takes…I’m there.” He swallowed hard. “It’s Buffy.”

Willow let her fingers brush soothingly against his as she pulled her hand away. “Thank you, Xander…really. I need you, and Tara, to be with me on this. I need your strength.” She looked up at him and they stood there for a moment as Xander tried to find that strength for her and Willow searched for answers in his eyes. “Because it’s soon, Xan. Saturday night, at midnight, we’re doing it. We’re going to bring Buffy back.”

Xander took a deep breath, the air hitching in his chest and then nodded again, jerkily. He turned slightly, waving a hand in the direction of his apartment, the darkened balcony, Spike. “Are you…gonna be okay with this?” he asked.

Willow smiled at him sadly. “Are you?”

Spike heard Xander enter the apartment behind him and pitched his cigarette through the open balcony doors, turning around slowly. “So. What's got Red bunched up more? That I'm a man...or that I'm not?”

Xander didn’t answer, just looked back at him with an expression that was drawn, tired and closed off.

Spike sighed, drawing his duster tighter around himself, his hands gripping his shoulders and then he let his hands drop, reaching for the bag of cigarettes, blood and t-shirts next to him.

“Right,” he said quietly, hauling the bag up to his shoulder and starting toward the door, toward Xander. “I guess you can send Dawn ‘round if anything too nasty for Willow to control pops up, otherwise…you know where you can send the rest of my stuff. Or burn it. Whatever gets you through the night.”

Xander moved then, coming toward him with a brow furrowed in confusion and lips that moved wordlessly until he was close enough to touch Spike, reaching out for him and then drawing back and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Okay, why do I feel like I missed a few episodes?” He nodded to the bag in Spike’s hand. “Where are you going? And what’s with the running away from home act?”

“Going home. My home,” Spike said slowly, deliberately, his hand tightening around the neck of the bag as he stared at Xander. “Crypt. Graveyard. Sodding off…getting out of your life…breaking it off. However she put it.”

Xander seemed to relax a little, edging closer to him. “Spike…Willow didn’t say you should…” he jerked his hands out of his pockets, raking them through his hair. “God, when will everyone stop thinking Willow runs my life?”

Spike shrugged. “When you do, I ‘spose.”

Xander appeared about to argue and then shook his head. “No. Not anymore. And even if she did, she didn’t say you should leave, Spike. Or that I should ask you to.”

Spike’s hand dropped from his shoulder, the bag swinging between them. “So, what’d you call this, then? Temporary insanity? Put the blame on me? What did you tell her this was, Xander?”

Xander shrugged, smiling slightly. “How could I tell her when we don’t even know?” He sighed, turning away from Spike. “I don’t think Willow would see the ‘why’ in fighting and fucking.”

“S’not just fighting and fucking,” Spike said, grabbing Xander’s arm and turning him back to face him. “It’s…a thing.”

“A thing?” Xander asked, his voice rising and cracking. He laughed, a little bitterly. “I just faced down my very confused and not a little horrified best friend over a thing? Well, thanks, Spike; that clears up everything. All right, then, I’m not going through some freaky sort of post-traumatic stress sex therapy. I’m not attracted to mean. No demon magnet, here. Nope. It’s a thing.”

“God!” Spike groaned, closing his eyes and pushing Xander away as he tossed the bag aside.

He stood silent for a minute, his fists clenched, his body taut and trembling with frustration before he turned to Xander again. “Why does everything have to sodding be spelled out for you? I know I’ve given you hell in the past, but I never really thought you were slow. Isn’t it enough? You’ve got Red’s blessing, or lacking that, her indifference. Stop trying to define everything and…for fuck’s sake, Xander, I’ve already lived twice as long as you ever will, and at some point you have to realize sometimes there isn’t a why.” He stared into Xander’s eyes, finding the same tired, defeated look he felt in himself. “Why can’t something just be?” He moved forward slowly, raising a hand to brush against Xander’s lips, cupping his cheek. “Can’t it just be?” he whispered roughly.

Spike felt Xander’s throat working beneath his hand, and then a warm mouth was on his, the lips driving and reckless. Memory slammed into Spike, a hard, hungry kiss in a graveyard, a boy desperately trying to prove he was a man. He moved his hands to Xander’s arms, rubbing lightly, soothing, but he felt Xander surge against him harder, not wanting to be soothed.

Xander’s hands were in his hair, running down his back and then back up to grab the collar of the duster, jerking Spike closer. His lips crushed Spike’s, driving them into teeth, drawing blood and then flicking it away with his tongue.

Xander’s tongue plunged deep, coaxing Spike’s out to play as his hands twisted loose from the collar, raking down Spike’s chest to clench on his sides, hard, rough thumbs scraping his nipples through the thin t-shirt.

And for the first time, Spike was the one to break the kiss, gasping as he pulled away from Xander, his lips swollen, wet and hurting in the very way he needed. “Christ, Xander, what is it about a showdown with Red that gets you so hot and needy?” He quirked a brow, wincing a little as his lips pulled into a grin. “Something you need to tell me?”

Xander shook his head, his eyes on Spike’s mouth. “No. Done that. Didn’t work out – kiss called on account of impalement.” Xander reached for Spike again, drawing him back with fistfuls of t-shirt.

Spike’s head fell back as Xander’s tongue swept down his neck, tracing tiny blue veins. Xander’s hands were down his ribs, under his shirt, shoving it up; nails scraping the muscles of his stomach as they followed their path back down. Then they were tearing at his belt, the buckle banging against Spike’s hip as Xander got it open.

Xander eased back slightly, his eyes hot as they ran over Spike. “That whole time, out there with Willow, this was all I could see. All I wanted to get back to.”

Spike swallowed, running his hands over Xander’s chest. “Didn’t think you’d come back,” he said, shrugging lightly and then looked up at Xander, his lashes lowered, eyes knowing. “Waited…in case you did.”

Spike’s duster fell to the floor as Xander shoved off of his shoulders and then their lips were pressed together again, kisses hot and hungry between tearing at clothes, rough touches that sought skin and found it.

Xander’s hands slid down Spike’s thighs, shoving jeans in their wake and then tugging impatiently at laces. Spike stepped back, kicking boots and trousers aside and then grinning down at Xander, who slid his hands around Spike’s hips, pulling him closer.

Spike shook his head, easing Xander to the floor and following. “Don’t need it, love,” he said, his lips brushing Xander’s as he ground their bodies together, earning him a harsh groan. “Wanna be inside you.”

Xander nodded, his head falling back as his hand closed around Spike’s cock, guiding it to him. Spike chuckled, brushing Xander’s hand away and then leaning back to dig through his bag, finding the small tube beneath the cigarettes and blood and drawing it out.

Xander raised his head, staring at Spike as he popped the cap. “You were stealing the lube?”

“Souvenir,” Spike said, slipping a slick hand around Xander’s erection and then sliding it teasingly below. “Didn’t want this to be for anyone but me.”

“Well, technically,” Xander gasped, his body tensing as Spike’s fingers slid into him, “there was a whole lot of this before you,” he said, curling his fingers into a loose fist and shaking it.

“You’re ruining the moment, Xander,” Spike sing-songed as he twisted his fingers inside the warm body beneath him, making Xander shudder, clenching around him until the only sounds he heard were low moans and wordless pleas.

“Shh,” Spike murmured, his lips brushing Xander’s and then he rose up on his knees, cock jutting forward, glistening and eager, as he wrapped his hands around Xander’s thighs, lifting him. He felt Xander tense and tighten around him in a way now so familiar as he eased inside.

He moved them slowly, carefully, allowing Xander’s body to adjust to the burn, finding the rhythm, but Xander hands closed over his, forcing them together harder, faster, “More, Spike, please,” gritting out between clenched teeth.

Spike eased Xander’s grip on his hands, pulling him up so that he could lean down for a kiss, but Xander turned his head, his mouth opening against Spike’s throat, biting sharply and forcing a groan from Spike, his thrusts deepening, matching the pull of Xander’s mouth on his skin.

“Harder,” Xander groaned, his breath hot, his mouth careless, his teeth sharp on Spike’s neck. Spike answered him by sliding his hands up Xander’s hips, his body bowed and trembling as he pulled Xander closer, rhythm breaking and bending into a fierce desperate lunging of bodies that made them both cry out.

Xander’s fingers closed over Spike’s hand again, dragging it to his cock. Their slick hands slid together over it until Spike squeezed firmly from base to tip with an almost vicious twist. The force of Xander’s orgasm wrenched them apart, and he fell back to the floor, his hands closing around Spike’s hips in a bruising grip, thumbs digging into hipbones as ground the two of them together until Spike tensed above him, pressing deep as he came with a choked cry.

They lay there for a moment, Xander’s breath bathing Spike’s neck and their bodies trembling against each other, warm and weak.

“Fuck,” Spike groaned, as he rolled off of Xander and rubbed a hand over the finger shaped bruises that were rising on his hips and thighs. “What the hell got into you, pet?”

Xander grinned up at him blearily. “I might be loopy with the afterglow, but I’m pretty sure it was you…”

Spike looked down at him and then chuckled. “You know, I thought we were, I dunno, drawn to each other ‘cause we were both blokes with great cocks who got off on a spot of monster fighting, but that’s not it, is it? It’s the bad sexual puns.”

Xander shrugged, pulling Spike back against him. “Maybe that’s our ‘why,’” he said, grinning, as he fitted them together and smoothed his hand over the marks he’d made on Spike’s skin.

Spike watched as Xander got quiet again. He wasn’t blind, he’d seen how the boy got this sort of…desperate calm about him when they were shagging, face blissed-out, as if he were using Spike’s hands, his body, to help him to forget. And then afterward came the quiet, when it all came back around them, could see it roaring in Xander’s head behind eyes that turned away, closing, shutting him out.

Spike sighed as Xander relaxed against him in sleep, hoping that this…thing, whatever it was, whatever they made it, was stronger than their past.