Spike turned a speculative look on Xander, eyebrow fully cocked and aimed. “Whelp?” he drawled slowly.

Xander blushed, but didn’t take his eyes off Spike. He met Spike’s look steadily, and then dropped his gaze, returning the slow, full body eye-fuck Spike had given him earlier.

Spike and Xander moved closer, eyes locked, until they stood facing each other. The heat between them grew more palpable as they drew near one another, growing deeper in intensity until it exploded in a blast of pheromones that hit the others like a cleansing flood, washing away the last lingering hints of vanilla, dragon gore and hair gel.

“Well, this seems like the path least likely. And kind of sudden,” Willow said, waving her hand in front of her face to dispel the cloud of Xander/Spike lust.

“But is it?” Xander asked, dragging his gaze away from Spike. “I mean, who’s to say that I didn’t take Larry up on his oft unspoken offers before graduation, just to make sure I wasn’t missing out on something in case I died? And what about Oxnard? Sure, it was a ladies’ club, but come on, all those hot, sweaty male dancers just scream gayness. Oh, and my over-the-top, manly posturing hatred toward Angel and Spike? What was that, if not repression? Or all those times I tied Spike up right next to my bed – we could have been up to naked shenanigans years ago.”

“But did you? Were you?” Willow asked.

“No,” Xander admitted. “But who’s to say I couldn’t have? Get me?”

“Hmm,” Willow answered, considering. “Good point.”

Spike cocked a quick grin at Willow and then turned back to Xander, reveling in the hot chocolate lust glowing in those dark eyes. “This is real, yeah, pet?” he said quietly. “No spell, no wish, no dream…just you and me.”

“Just you and me,” Xander agreed huskily. His tongue snaked out to brush nervously against his lower lip and Spike growled low in his throat as he watched the motion.

Spike ignored the startled yelps from Buffy and Willow behind him and even Xander’s gasp of surprise as he lunged forward and captured Xander’s lips in a hotly possessive kiss. Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one was way freakin’ hotter than those.

“Okay,” Willow said, staring, “I’m getting some of my ‘gay now’ street cred back, ‘cause watching them is so much hotter than the me and Spike thing.”

Xander’s chuckle was muffled in Spike’s mouth, his eyes closed tightly, his heart racing and the minimum chafing from his leather pants suddenly accelerating to maximum chafing, but in a good way.

“Bleedin’ Jesus, pet, you can kiss,” Spike said, as they broke apart, gasping.

Xander ducked his head bashfully. “What can I say? Months of playing Cordy’s Closet – all red lips and blue balls? Let’s just say I learned through necessity that my special skill was the first base orgasm.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Buffy snarled. Spike found himself separated from Xander as a righteously indignant Slayer shoved her way in between them. “Not ten minutes ago, you were all ‘Ooo, ah, Buffy’ and making with the vampire pissing contest with Angel, and now suddenly you’re spelunking in Xander’s tonsils and giving him the behind-blue-eyes of love.”

Spike pushed Buffy off, glaring at her. “Well, it’s not about you now, Buffy, is it? Look at you, still trying to play me and Angel against each other. Well, you know what? We made a pact, the Poof and me. We’re movin’ on.”

Buffy shot a glare over her shoulder to Angel, who raised his hands to his chest in a lamely defensive ‘Hey, not me’ gesture.

Spike looked back at Xander. “So, we kissed. Gonna punch me now?”

“No,” Xander said firmly, not taking his eyes from Spike’s.

“You gonna have the Slayer dust me? Let the witch turn me into something nasty?”

Xander shook his head slowly, a smile quirking his lips.

Spike moved closer to him until they were almost touching from shoulder to knee. “Am I ‘beneath you’?” he asked so quietly that had Xander not been staring at his lips he would have missed the words.

Xander closed the distance between them, one hand settling on Spike’s hip as the other rose to cup his jaw. He leaned in until his lips just brushed Spike’s ear and breathed hotly, “Not yet.” He rolled his hips, his pelvis dragging across Spike’s in unspoken promise.

“I want you,” Xander said, tuning out Willow’s gleeful voyeurism, Angel’s semi-discreet panting and Buffy’s laser-like eye-rolling. “I want this, whatever it is.”

“And I want you prostrate while I’m above you, slamming your prostate.” Spike watched as Xander’s eyes darkened to the color of really expensive bittersweet South American chocolate. “Maybe this was it, pet,” Spike said softly. “Why we’re back here. So’s you and me could find each other.”

“Oh, and I’m self-involved?” Buffy asked harshly. Spike and Xander turned to see that her eye rolling had reached spinning velocity. “Yeah,” she said, dripping still faintly vanilla scented sarcasm, “that’s why we’ve all been brought back to the Hellmouth, so that you two could gay up.”

“Well, I’m glad I got to see it,” Willow said, grinning.

“Come on,” Buffy said, turning away from them. “We’re not gonna figure out what the Big Bad is standing here on the street watching Confused Sexual Identity Theatre.” She put her hands on her hips, surveying the deserted main street. “Let’s go to my house and try and re-group.”

She headed out, glancing back to see Willow gamely following behind her, Angel stoically picking up weapons and avoiding the hot guy-on-guy action and Xander and Spike pressed together, attempting to reach saliva nirvana.

Buffy gave one last disgusted eye roll. “Nothing we find here could be more frightening than that.”

***

"Since the invention of the kiss..." is, of course, from The Princess Bride by William Goldman.

Part Five