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WIP Amnesty, Part 1 of Dear God.
So I've been meaning to participate in WIP Amnesty every year since... 2004? And always manage to miss the big official one at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
wip_amnesty. So now that I've built up a three-year backlog of permanently unfinished stories that I still, for some reason, wish could have a chance to see the light of day, I'm taking a page from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rubynye's book, and the bull by the horns, and dear lord so many other cliches, and rolling my own.
I plan on posting once a day until I run out of WIPs, which should take... until the end of the month. Whee? And it goes without saying, but I'll repeat it up front: none of these are ever, ever, ever getting finished ever.
Going in roughly chronological order, this is the oldest WIP I have kicking around for which I still feel any fondness, dating from early Spring 2003.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike/Xander, post-S4 basement-dwelling abused!Xander h/c. I mentioned the cliches, right? NC-17 and probably one of the first slash sex scenes I ever wrote, if not the very first. Hooboy.
So with all that to recommend it: click away!
Chapter One
Xander stood at the top of the stairs for a moment after he’d closed the door behind him as quietly as possible, running through a mental checklist.
Twenty years old and living in my parents’ house.
Recently fired from humiliatingly menial job.
Recently dumped by funny sexy lovable girlfriend.
And it’s all my own fault.
Dad has kicked off another summer vacation bender.
And beat the shit out of me.
And cracked more than one rib.
And my nose... Xander shifted his grip on his profusely-bleeding nose, but the pain was only the usual kind. Not broken. Okay, so this may not be the worst night of my life after all.
With that encouraging thought, he set off down the stairs, reassuring himself that, in light of the breakup and the inevitable job hunt, he at least wouldn’t have to be creative in making up excuses not to see anyone for a few days. They’d all stuck pretty close since the whole primal slayer experience, but they’d buy it if he claimed to need space and country music brooding time.
Xander froze on the third step from the bottom as Spike appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He must have walked there, somehow, but to Xander it seemed that he’d just made some magical dramatic entrance. And he was squinting intently up at Xander, and, okay. Evening rounded out by visit from world’s most annoying neutered psychopath? Check. Officially the worst night at home ever.
Xander shook his head slightly and started walking again, brushing past Spike when he didn’t move out of the way, and headed for the bathroom.
“Hey.”
Xander, for reasons beyond his power to explain, stopped and turned at the sound of Spike’s voice. Spike nodded his head toward Xander. “You going to just waste that? Cos... there are starving people.”
Xander moved his hand away from his face slightly, glancing down at the blood there and then back at Spike. “Let me just say, ew. And yes, I am.”
Spike tsked softly. “Well. Just be on my way then, shall I? And if I run into the Slayer, I’ll let her know you were hoping she’d drop by.”
Xander’s eyes slid shut. It was an unmistakable threat, and far from idle. Spike had nothing to lose, and quite a bit of entertainment to gain, by telling Buffy and the others everything he’d seen and, probably, heard. “Spike, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Mm? Oh, just visiting the old stomping grounds. ‘Course if I’d known it was dinner theatre, I’d have been here right at the overture.”
Xander didn’t actually groan out loud, and didn’t open his eyes, either; he could hear the smirk.
“Yes sir, I was just sitting down here, minding my own business, figuring out which comics I could sell for a decent bit of change, when, my oh my, what do I hear?” Xander’s eyes had opened at the mention of his comics, so he got to see this smirk for real. “I do love a family drama.”
Spike clearly knew where this was going, because he started moving closer, slinking forward like the predator he was. “So help me, Spike, if anything is missing, I’ll tell Buffy, and she will stake you.”
Spike shrugged, opened his duster and tossed a few enveloped comics on the bed as he passed it. “Fine.”
Still Xander hesitated. “I thought you said I wasn’t worth biting?”
The smirk widened into a grin, with teeth, and even though it was Spike’s pretty–-no, not pretty, human--face, Xander had to remind himself that Spike couldn’t actually harm him. “Well. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that. And you might not be worth biting,” and all of a sudden Spike was just an arm’s length away, staring into his eyes, “but you’ll certainly do for a lick.”
Xander rolled his eyes, breaking the hypnotic gaze and reminding himself that he wasn’t scared of Spike, or in awe of the way he acted like he was still the Big Bad even when they both obviously knew otherwise, or anything like that at all. He was annoyed.
“Okay. Fine.” He lowered his hand and held it out, and Spike smiled, and Xander took a slightly-too-deep breath, and flinched as his ribs pulled. Spike’s smile widened at that, and Xander forced himself to take shallow, even breaths as he sneered back.
Spike’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, cool and firm against his slightly sweat-slicked skin, and brought his hand up to Spike’s face. As he watched, Spike bent his head, and then a cool tongue stroked firmly through the pool of blood in the cup of his palm. It was an odd sensation, but before he had time to think about it, Spike turned his head away, fingers tightening on Xander’s wrist, to the edge of pain but not over it. Whatever had been making him need to remember to breathe gently was suddenly chased away by cool curiosity. “Spike?”
Spike turned his face back just far enough for Xander to see that he was semi-vamped before he shook himself back to human face. He shrugged slightly, and the smile was a little rueful this time. “If I go all bumpy, I’ll probably try to bite you, and I don’t need the headache. It’s hard. Haven’t had human blood in ages, specially not all warm and...” Spike bent his head again, this time licking tentatively, so that the tip of his tongue only just brushed the skin of Xander’s palm. It kinda ... tickled, but Xander kept still, breathing. There was no sound but Spike lapping up Xander’s blood, delicate as a cat, and Xander’s steady shallow breathing.
Spike didn’t stop when the blood pooled in Xander’s palm was gone, but went on licking over his skin, chasing down every trace of blood with firm swipes of his tongue, across his palm, over the base of his thumb and the pale inside of his wrist, between his fingers, until his hand was perfectly clean, just slightly damp and tingling in the wake of this strange assault.
Before Xander knew what had happened, Spike had twisted his now-clean hand behind him, still holding him by the wrist, still just at the edge of pain and not beyond, being careful not to set off the chip. Spike closed the distance between them and just stood still for a moment, staring at the blood covering the lower half of Xander’s face. Xander realized that he only had to make a quick movement with his left arm, and Spike would have to either let him go or set off his chip when Xander’s shoulder protested. He was really the one in charge here, he realized, as Spike’s face bent toward his, Spike’s hand on his jaw holding him still. He had nothing at all to worry about.
And then his eyes slipped shut because Spike was licking his chin. Licking blood, off his chin. Totally disgusting. Yes. Licking, and licking, and licking, at the same spot, making sure that even microscopic traces of blood were gone, and Xander couldn’t say anything about his newly revealed obsessive-compulsive streak, because Spike’s mouth was right by his mouth and if he moved his lips, embarrassing things, more embarrassing than having your blood licked by a neutered vampire, could happen. And then Spike wasn’t licking at the same spot anymore, his tongue was sliding over Xander’s lower lip, and then again, dragging, this time, with enough force that Xander’s lip shifted a little with the motion of Spike’s tongue. This was way too much for Xander’s poor brain, which shut down just as Spike’s tongue flickered for an instant between his parted lips, interrupting the rhythm of his breathing.
Spike took no notice, just moved on to cleaning the blood from Xander’s upper lip, paying particular attention to the side of his nose, where the blood had begun to congeal.
The next time Xander’s brain was really able to process what was going on, Spike had stepped back, and had one hand in his duster pocket while waving the other in front of Xander’s eyes. Xander summoned up an irritated look and slapped Spike’s hand away, earning himself the night’s thousandth smirk. “As I was saying, I’ll just be off now. See you soon, ducks.”
Xander rolled his eyes as Spike turned away. “You’d better not have action figures in your pockets, Spike.”
They landed on the bed beside the comics with a dull plastic clatter. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
***
Spike almost danced down the quiet residential street. He had finally slipped his self-control, going into gameface as soon as he’d turned his back on the boy. Human blood, hot and fresh and live, sang in his veins, leaving him looking forward to the night ahead as he hadn’t since he’d been chipped. He needed something to fight, or something to fuck; his every sense was alive and kicking and, bloody hell, in another second he was going to start composing poetry.
Spike reined himself in, slowing to a more dignified swagger as he headed to the nearest cemetery. The blood was intoxicating, and he wasn’t sure whether it was his long deprivation or just some unsuspected something about the Slayer’s dark-eyed wonder-boy, but he was drunk on that mouthful like he’d just made his first kill. Hell, he’d been about to toss Xander down on the bed and have his way with him before remembering that what with the chip and the boy’s sexist and species-ist partner preferences, it all would have ended in pain and humiliation, and then more pain and probably a staking–-not the good kind. He wondered absently where the ever-present girlfriend had wandered off to, before a wicked smile crossed his face–-the Slayer was just up ahead, attempting to fight four vampires at once while protecting Red, who was sitting against a gravestone looking dazed. Just the action he’d been looking for.
He started running, and snatched the stake neatly out of Willow’s slack fingers as he vaulted over the gravestone she leaned on, landing in the middle of the fight with a dramatic flare of black leather and a quick dusting of the nearest target. Buffy shot him one of those Looks, half annoyed and half, well, really annoyed, but took quick advantage of the situation to knock the nearest vamp to the ground and stake him. That left Slayer and master vampire each facing a single fledgling, and the fight didn’t take any longer than they chose to let it. Spike dragged his out an extra couple of minutes while Buffy efficiently finished hers and went to check on Willow, but dusted the stupid blighter when Buffy stayed crouched at the witch’s side. He stood a moment, enjoying the sensation of the kill, returning to his human visage as he laughed with the sheer exultation of the night.
Spike lit a cigarette as he walked over to stand near the girls. Willow’s eyes had drifted shut, and Buffy was leaning over her, speaking quietly in a quick, steady voice. “Will, come on, I know you’re tired, but we’ve gotta get you home now. I’ll carry you if I have to, but I know you hate that.”
Willow’s eyes opened again, to Spike’s secret relief. If she’d been bad off, Buffy would have found a way to blame it on him. “I just need a minute,” she said, smiling shakily.
Buffy glanced up warily at Spike. “He didn’t step on you or anything, did he?”
Willow shook her head before Spike could protest this slur on his surefootedness. “Next time I’ll just keep walking, then, shall I?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “We’re deeply grateful and yet not paying you, Spike.”
Willow glanced over at him with, if not sympathy, an encouraging lack of overt hostility. “It’s my fault, Buffy. You could have handled them if you hadn’t had to protect me when the spell went wrong.”
Buffy shrugged. “You made a good try. It would have been really cool if it had worked.”
Spike blinked. “So I didn’t just interrupt girls’ night out, then?”
Willow’s eyes lit up. “No, I’m working on a way to produce a ball of sunshine in slayage situations.”
Spike shuddered. “Remind me to stay home the next time you’re testing it, right?”
The witch shrugged. “So far, I haven’t been able to do much more than piss them off, ruin Buffy’s dark adaption, and knock myself on my ass.”
“Yeah, well. I still don’t want to be around when you do get it right.”
For some reason that made Red smile, and Spike turned his gaze toward their surroundings. “So, where’s the Gents’ Auxiliary? At home tatting doilies?”
He glanced back in time to catch the tail end of the eye roll. “Riley’s visiting his family in Iowa, and Xander...” She glanced down at Red, who looked up at him uncertainly.
“Anya left,” she explained, in a troubled voice. “I guess she told Xander he didn’t really care about what was ‘important in a relationship’, whatever that means, coming from her, and then took off for San Antonio to meet some guy she’s been talking to online. I bet he turns out to be a slime demon or something,” she added bitterly.
Spike nodded sagely, betraying nothing. “They always are, pet.”
This earned him the shadow of a smile on the Slayer’s face, quickly vanishing as she helped Willow get unsteadily to her feet. They made their goodbyes and staggered off into the night, and Spike shadowed them as Buffy deposited Willow at her parents’ home and then walked back to her own, just in case they attracted any more opportunities for arse-kicking. By the time the little girls were safely behind doors for the night, the riot in Spike’s blood had eased a little, and he headed off to look for quieter entertainment.
***
Xander was lying in bed, half-asleep, when Spike opened the outside door and came in. Xander sat up quickly. “Spike? What the hell are you doing?”
Spike was walking toward him, staring at him just like he had earlier, his eyes intent and looking almost black instead of blue. “I was going by outside and I smelled you,” he murmured, stopping before Xander. He reached out one hand, pressed a finger to Xander’s upper lip. When he pulled it back, it showed a dark smudge of blood. “See?” Never taking his dark eyes off Xander, Spike licked his finger clean. “I missed a spot.”
Xander blinked, shifting away from Spike, but that just left him leaning back on the pillows, half uncovered. “Oh.” He was scrambling for a better verbal follow-up when Spike moved toward him again, kneeling up on the bed, and words and the very idea of words fled as Spike leaned over him, planting his hands on the bed to either side of Xander’s shoulders, and lowered his head. He licked at Xander’s lip, one quick, almost perfunctory swipe, and then bent lower. Xander felt cool lips against his own, and then Spike was sucking on his lower lip, as if it too was covered in blood, and then Spike’s tongue slipped into his mouth. Xander, after a moment of complete paralysis, stunningly turned the tables by pushing himself up into the kiss–-oh God, this is a kiss, oh, God–-and greeting Spike’s tongue with his own. His response, or maybe just the taste of his blood, set off a low pleased-sounding growl in Spike’s throat, like a saber-toothed tiger purring.
Just when Xander’s vision was starting to go dark from lack of oxygen, not that he’d ever dream of complaining, Spike’s mouth moved away from his, trailing hungrily down his jaw, to his throat, and then Spike was licking and kissing down the line of his jugular, and the scrape of blunt teeth just above his collarbone brought him to full attention. He’d been half-hard since the moment, hours ago, when Spike’s tongue first touched his face, but he’d refused to deal with the situation, to even acknowledge that it existed, not that he had that problem anymore. There was undeniably a situation here.
He thought he felt Spike smile, against his throat, and Spike’s left hand moved from where it was braced by Xander’s shoulder. He felt the cool touch slide lightly, teasingly, down his bare heaving chest. Then he pushed aside the bit of sheet that had been covering Xander’s lower half, and there was nothing teasing at all about the businesslike way Spike’s hand slid into Xander’s boxers. Cool strong long fingers wrapped around his length, and the angle was weird, but Spike was jerking him off, a little rough, a little fast, but just exactly what Xander needed. Spike’s mouth stayed on his throat, working up to his jaw and down to his shoulder, and Xander tried to play it cool for about half a second before his hips began to buck up of their own accord, seeking Spike’s body, still out of reach, braced above him. Then Spike raised his head, and Xander could see in the dim light that he was vamped out. Before he could make a sound, that wicked mouth was on his, kissing him fiercely, and Xander’s toes were curling into the mattress, and as the razor sharp fangs sank through his lower lip, he came so hard he woke up.
He lay perfectly still. His mouth was full of blood; he’d bitten through his own lip. His boxers were a sticky mess. Xander stared at the ceiling, lost in shadows, and realized that he didn’t know any words bad enough to do this moment justice.
Chapter Two
Xander had had a plan. He’d taken control of his destiny. He’d left the basement before he was called up to dinner; best case scenario, he’d make it all the way out of the house and head over to Giles’, maybe cadge a bite to eat before the others showed up for patrol. Worst case scenario... well, this wasn’t quite it, so he didn’t need to think about that.
His dad had screamed a lot, and thrown a beer bottle and a couple of place settings in Xander’s general direction, as well as a steaming pot of Xander-knew-not-what, straight off the stove. His mother had fled, sobbing quietly, into their bedroom, a moment before his dad stormed out of the house. Xander had remained miraculously unharmed, until he turned to leave the house, slipped in the puddle of half-cooked something, and put his hand out to catch himself right on a piece of broken glass. He’d also managed to slam his opposite elbow into the floor, and now he was just lying there, watching something dank and brownish soak into his pants, waiting for the shooting pain to stop.
After a moment he managed to find a spot to put down his uninjured right hand and gingerly push himself up, waiting for his elbow to protest the weight put on it. It didn’t actually buckle, so the pain didn’t count, and he managed to get to his feet without falling over. Xander picked his way carefully through the wreckage of the kitchen to the basement door. He’d need clean clothes and a bandage before he could go, but at least he’d be able to eat something here. He hated patrolling hungry. He sighed when he reached the bottom of the stairs; Spike was sitting on the foot of his bed, head cocked, still apparently listening, looking amused.
He turned his attention to Xander and leered. “Got something for me, pet?”
Xander rolled his eyes, because that seemed like what he would be expected to do, and glanced down at his left hand. It wasn’t actually bleeding much yet, probably because he hadn’t yet pulled out the piece of glass. He wiggled his fingers experimentally, but they all moved, although it hurt like a bastard. When he looked up again, he realized that he’d crossed most of the distance between him and Spike, and Spike had closed the rest. Spike raised his eyebrows when he saw the shard still embedded in the heel of his hand. He wrapped both of his hands around Xander’s, raising it closer to his face. “Am I going to get some nasty demonic infection if I let you do this?”
Eyebrows again, but it was better than that fucking smirk. “Don’t you read, Harris? Demons don’t have germs, they can’t live in our bodies. Vampire saliva is practically sterile.”
With a preternaturally quick motion of his left hand, Spike plucked out the shard and tossed it aside. It landed on the floor with a small clink, but didn’t break more. The blood welled up brightly in his palm, and Xander was holding his breath, bracing for the feel of Spike’s tongue on his skin. He tried to keep his face impassive, tried to be sure that Spike would see only boredom if he looked up, but he never took his eyes off the blood flowing from the short gouge. “And, hey,” Xander said, only a little breathlessly, “no making me bleed more, right?”
Spike sort of nodded as he lowered his head, and Xander wondered why he even bothered. Then Spike’s tongue swept across the heel of his hand, and Xander just closed his eyes and tried to think about Faith. It was his standard emergency unsexy thought, usually worked, but for some reason a couple of hands on his throat just wasn’t as unpleasant an image as usual, maybe because he was envisioning them as cool and pale, and the eyes staring down at him were blue, and, right, serious emergency. He called up a half dozen assorted memories of Cordelia laughing at him, and that got him through the endless minutes that followed. He was even able to peek down at Spike through his eyelashes.
He stopped licking a couple of times. He’d get all semi-bumpy and then he’d turn his head, away from the sight and smell of blood, Xander supposed, and shake himself out of it. He was being careful around the cut, tongue sliding right along the edges but not quite touching the torn flesh. The unnatural coolness of his tongue and the fingers steadying Xander’s hand all combined to cool the burn of the cut, aside from the other distraction they presented. Finally, the bleeding slowed to a sluggish trickle, and Spike licked his lips a couple of times, steadied himself in his human guise, and raised his head, looking, Xander noticed, a little dazed himself.
“First aid kit?”
Xander blinked.
“Harris? This needs bandaging, unless you want to smell like a vampire snack bar all night.”
“Right. Oh.” Spike was offering to help? “It’s by the sink.”
Spike nodded, and headed across the room to retrieve the well-stocked plastic box.
Xander fished for something to say. “So, Spike, why are you here today?”
Spike glanced over his shoulder, licked his lips pointedly. “I thought that was pretty obvious.”
Xander sighed. “Well, yes. But why today? Why didn’t you show up yesterday?”
Spike picked up the box and turned to face Xander. “Cos there’s always that day, between, where you and the old man each pretend the other doesn’t exist. Woulda been boring.”
Xander’s mouth worked silently while he tried to fathom how Spike could know the particulars of his secret, but Spike just sighed impatiently. “Look, Harris, where I grew up, everybody got hit, right? Some more than others, but I know how it works.”
Xander tried to think of something to say, but words escaped him entirely, and Spike towed him by his uninjured hand over to the bed, and pulled him down to sit. There was a small amount of blood standing in his palm, and Spike licked it away quickly, almost roughly, apparently more interested in clearing off the cut than anything else. Xander watched silently as Spike packed the cut with most of a packet of antibiotic cream. He was careful about opening the butterfly bandages, not touching the sterile bits, just like the diagram directed. He made a little gauze pad to go over the cut, and then wrapped more gauze around his hand to hold it, taping the whole thing securely in place. It was possibly the nicest bandaging job Xander had ever had, and he was going to have to beat himself to death with a shovel if his brain insisted on putting into words how that made him feel.
Spike seemed suddenly embarrassed, fiddling with the first aid kit, like Xander had caught him doing something shameful, which was sort of an odd concept for a vampire. “So, what next? Where were you headed? Out for patrol?”
Xander nodded, getting up and going to find some clean jeans.
“I’ll just tag along, shall I? Wouldn’t want to miss any... excitement.”
Xander scowled down at his dresser as soon as the thought occurred to him, and he turned to face Spike again immediately. “If you do anything to get me hurt on purpose–-“
Spike rolled his eyes. ”I know, I know, you’ll tell the Slayer and she’ll stake me.”
Xander’s mouth tightened into a hard line, and he stared until Spike looked back, until the steadiness of the dark blue eyes told him he had Spike’s attention. “No. But I’ll probably have her hold you down.”
Spike blinked just once, and nodded, and Xander headed to the bathroom to change.
***
As I recall, the rest of the arc was, you know, fairly typical of basement-dwelling abused-Xander S/X: the blood-licking thing keeps going, with less and less pretense of hostility on either side, and evolves into sex, which neither of them want to admit is in any way emotionally engaged, and then the abuse escalates until Spike has to directly intervene and Take Xander Away From It All, and then there is that scene where they tell the Scoobies they're together and someone tries to stake Spike.
And then they all live happily ever after! Also there was going to be actual candy at some point. I'm pretty sure this one died because instead of actually working on it, I went and reread Chocolatey Goodness several times in a row and promptly recovered from all ambition to write my own. And thus the world was spared. *g*
wip_amnesty. So now that I've built up a three-year backlog of permanently unfinished stories that I still, for some reason, wish could have a chance to see the light of day, I'm taking a page from rubynye's book, and the bull by the horns, and dear lord so many other cliches, and rolling my own.I plan on posting once a day until I run out of WIPs, which should take... until the end of the month. Whee? And it goes without saying, but I'll repeat it up front: none of these are ever, ever, ever getting finished ever.
Going in roughly chronological order, this is the oldest WIP I have kicking around for which I still feel any fondness, dating from early Spring 2003.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike/Xander, post-S4 basement-dwelling abused!Xander h/c. I mentioned the cliches, right? NC-17 and probably one of the first slash sex scenes I ever wrote, if not the very first. Hooboy.
So with all that to recommend it: click away!
Xander stood at the top of the stairs for a moment after he’d closed the door behind him as quietly as possible, running through a mental checklist.
Twenty years old and living in my parents’ house.
Recently fired from humiliatingly menial job.
Recently dumped by funny sexy lovable girlfriend.
And it’s all my own fault.
Dad has kicked off another summer vacation bender.
And beat the shit out of me.
And cracked more than one rib.
And my nose... Xander shifted his grip on his profusely-bleeding nose, but the pain was only the usual kind. Not broken. Okay, so this may not be the worst night of my life after all.
With that encouraging thought, he set off down the stairs, reassuring himself that, in light of the breakup and the inevitable job hunt, he at least wouldn’t have to be creative in making up excuses not to see anyone for a few days. They’d all stuck pretty close since the whole primal slayer experience, but they’d buy it if he claimed to need space and country music brooding time.
Xander froze on the third step from the bottom as Spike appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He must have walked there, somehow, but to Xander it seemed that he’d just made some magical dramatic entrance. And he was squinting intently up at Xander, and, okay. Evening rounded out by visit from world’s most annoying neutered psychopath? Check. Officially the worst night at home ever.
Xander shook his head slightly and started walking again, brushing past Spike when he didn’t move out of the way, and headed for the bathroom.
“Hey.”
Xander, for reasons beyond his power to explain, stopped and turned at the sound of Spike’s voice. Spike nodded his head toward Xander. “You going to just waste that? Cos... there are starving people.”
Xander moved his hand away from his face slightly, glancing down at the blood there and then back at Spike. “Let me just say, ew. And yes, I am.”
Spike tsked softly. “Well. Just be on my way then, shall I? And if I run into the Slayer, I’ll let her know you were hoping she’d drop by.”
Xander’s eyes slid shut. It was an unmistakable threat, and far from idle. Spike had nothing to lose, and quite a bit of entertainment to gain, by telling Buffy and the others everything he’d seen and, probably, heard. “Spike, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Mm? Oh, just visiting the old stomping grounds. ‘Course if I’d known it was dinner theatre, I’d have been here right at the overture.”
Xander didn’t actually groan out loud, and didn’t open his eyes, either; he could hear the smirk.
“Yes sir, I was just sitting down here, minding my own business, figuring out which comics I could sell for a decent bit of change, when, my oh my, what do I hear?” Xander’s eyes had opened at the mention of his comics, so he got to see this smirk for real. “I do love a family drama.”
Spike clearly knew where this was going, because he started moving closer, slinking forward like the predator he was. “So help me, Spike, if anything is missing, I’ll tell Buffy, and she will stake you.”
Spike shrugged, opened his duster and tossed a few enveloped comics on the bed as he passed it. “Fine.”
Still Xander hesitated. “I thought you said I wasn’t worth biting?”
The smirk widened into a grin, with teeth, and even though it was Spike’s pretty–-no, not pretty, human--face, Xander had to remind himself that Spike couldn’t actually harm him. “Well. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that. And you might not be worth biting,” and all of a sudden Spike was just an arm’s length away, staring into his eyes, “but you’ll certainly do for a lick.”
Xander rolled his eyes, breaking the hypnotic gaze and reminding himself that he wasn’t scared of Spike, or in awe of the way he acted like he was still the Big Bad even when they both obviously knew otherwise, or anything like that at all. He was annoyed.
“Okay. Fine.” He lowered his hand and held it out, and Spike smiled, and Xander took a slightly-too-deep breath, and flinched as his ribs pulled. Spike’s smile widened at that, and Xander forced himself to take shallow, even breaths as he sneered back.
Spike’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, cool and firm against his slightly sweat-slicked skin, and brought his hand up to Spike’s face. As he watched, Spike bent his head, and then a cool tongue stroked firmly through the pool of blood in the cup of his palm. It was an odd sensation, but before he had time to think about it, Spike turned his head away, fingers tightening on Xander’s wrist, to the edge of pain but not over it. Whatever had been making him need to remember to breathe gently was suddenly chased away by cool curiosity. “Spike?”
Spike turned his face back just far enough for Xander to see that he was semi-vamped before he shook himself back to human face. He shrugged slightly, and the smile was a little rueful this time. “If I go all bumpy, I’ll probably try to bite you, and I don’t need the headache. It’s hard. Haven’t had human blood in ages, specially not all warm and...” Spike bent his head again, this time licking tentatively, so that the tip of his tongue only just brushed the skin of Xander’s palm. It kinda ... tickled, but Xander kept still, breathing. There was no sound but Spike lapping up Xander’s blood, delicate as a cat, and Xander’s steady shallow breathing.
Spike didn’t stop when the blood pooled in Xander’s palm was gone, but went on licking over his skin, chasing down every trace of blood with firm swipes of his tongue, across his palm, over the base of his thumb and the pale inside of his wrist, between his fingers, until his hand was perfectly clean, just slightly damp and tingling in the wake of this strange assault.
Before Xander knew what had happened, Spike had twisted his now-clean hand behind him, still holding him by the wrist, still just at the edge of pain and not beyond, being careful not to set off the chip. Spike closed the distance between them and just stood still for a moment, staring at the blood covering the lower half of Xander’s face. Xander realized that he only had to make a quick movement with his left arm, and Spike would have to either let him go or set off his chip when Xander’s shoulder protested. He was really the one in charge here, he realized, as Spike’s face bent toward his, Spike’s hand on his jaw holding him still. He had nothing at all to worry about.
And then his eyes slipped shut because Spike was licking his chin. Licking blood, off his chin. Totally disgusting. Yes. Licking, and licking, and licking, at the same spot, making sure that even microscopic traces of blood were gone, and Xander couldn’t say anything about his newly revealed obsessive-compulsive streak, because Spike’s mouth was right by his mouth and if he moved his lips, embarrassing things, more embarrassing than having your blood licked by a neutered vampire, could happen. And then Spike wasn’t licking at the same spot anymore, his tongue was sliding over Xander’s lower lip, and then again, dragging, this time, with enough force that Xander’s lip shifted a little with the motion of Spike’s tongue. This was way too much for Xander’s poor brain, which shut down just as Spike’s tongue flickered for an instant between his parted lips, interrupting the rhythm of his breathing.
Spike took no notice, just moved on to cleaning the blood from Xander’s upper lip, paying particular attention to the side of his nose, where the blood had begun to congeal.
The next time Xander’s brain was really able to process what was going on, Spike had stepped back, and had one hand in his duster pocket while waving the other in front of Xander’s eyes. Xander summoned up an irritated look and slapped Spike’s hand away, earning himself the night’s thousandth smirk. “As I was saying, I’ll just be off now. See you soon, ducks.”
Xander rolled his eyes as Spike turned away. “You’d better not have action figures in your pockets, Spike.”
They landed on the bed beside the comics with a dull plastic clatter. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
***
Spike almost danced down the quiet residential street. He had finally slipped his self-control, going into gameface as soon as he’d turned his back on the boy. Human blood, hot and fresh and live, sang in his veins, leaving him looking forward to the night ahead as he hadn’t since he’d been chipped. He needed something to fight, or something to fuck; his every sense was alive and kicking and, bloody hell, in another second he was going to start composing poetry.
Spike reined himself in, slowing to a more dignified swagger as he headed to the nearest cemetery. The blood was intoxicating, and he wasn’t sure whether it was his long deprivation or just some unsuspected something about the Slayer’s dark-eyed wonder-boy, but he was drunk on that mouthful like he’d just made his first kill. Hell, he’d been about to toss Xander down on the bed and have his way with him before remembering that what with the chip and the boy’s sexist and species-ist partner preferences, it all would have ended in pain and humiliation, and then more pain and probably a staking–-not the good kind. He wondered absently where the ever-present girlfriend had wandered off to, before a wicked smile crossed his face–-the Slayer was just up ahead, attempting to fight four vampires at once while protecting Red, who was sitting against a gravestone looking dazed. Just the action he’d been looking for.
He started running, and snatched the stake neatly out of Willow’s slack fingers as he vaulted over the gravestone she leaned on, landing in the middle of the fight with a dramatic flare of black leather and a quick dusting of the nearest target. Buffy shot him one of those Looks, half annoyed and half, well, really annoyed, but took quick advantage of the situation to knock the nearest vamp to the ground and stake him. That left Slayer and master vampire each facing a single fledgling, and the fight didn’t take any longer than they chose to let it. Spike dragged his out an extra couple of minutes while Buffy efficiently finished hers and went to check on Willow, but dusted the stupid blighter when Buffy stayed crouched at the witch’s side. He stood a moment, enjoying the sensation of the kill, returning to his human visage as he laughed with the sheer exultation of the night.
Spike lit a cigarette as he walked over to stand near the girls. Willow’s eyes had drifted shut, and Buffy was leaning over her, speaking quietly in a quick, steady voice. “Will, come on, I know you’re tired, but we’ve gotta get you home now. I’ll carry you if I have to, but I know you hate that.”
Willow’s eyes opened again, to Spike’s secret relief. If she’d been bad off, Buffy would have found a way to blame it on him. “I just need a minute,” she said, smiling shakily.
Buffy glanced up warily at Spike. “He didn’t step on you or anything, did he?”
Willow shook her head before Spike could protest this slur on his surefootedness. “Next time I’ll just keep walking, then, shall I?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “We’re deeply grateful and yet not paying you, Spike.”
Willow glanced over at him with, if not sympathy, an encouraging lack of overt hostility. “It’s my fault, Buffy. You could have handled them if you hadn’t had to protect me when the spell went wrong.”
Buffy shrugged. “You made a good try. It would have been really cool if it had worked.”
Spike blinked. “So I didn’t just interrupt girls’ night out, then?”
Willow’s eyes lit up. “No, I’m working on a way to produce a ball of sunshine in slayage situations.”
Spike shuddered. “Remind me to stay home the next time you’re testing it, right?”
The witch shrugged. “So far, I haven’t been able to do much more than piss them off, ruin Buffy’s dark adaption, and knock myself on my ass.”
“Yeah, well. I still don’t want to be around when you do get it right.”
For some reason that made Red smile, and Spike turned his gaze toward their surroundings. “So, where’s the Gents’ Auxiliary? At home tatting doilies?”
He glanced back in time to catch the tail end of the eye roll. “Riley’s visiting his family in Iowa, and Xander...” She glanced down at Red, who looked up at him uncertainly.
“Anya left,” she explained, in a troubled voice. “I guess she told Xander he didn’t really care about what was ‘important in a relationship’, whatever that means, coming from her, and then took off for San Antonio to meet some guy she’s been talking to online. I bet he turns out to be a slime demon or something,” she added bitterly.
Spike nodded sagely, betraying nothing. “They always are, pet.”
This earned him the shadow of a smile on the Slayer’s face, quickly vanishing as she helped Willow get unsteadily to her feet. They made their goodbyes and staggered off into the night, and Spike shadowed them as Buffy deposited Willow at her parents’ home and then walked back to her own, just in case they attracted any more opportunities for arse-kicking. By the time the little girls were safely behind doors for the night, the riot in Spike’s blood had eased a little, and he headed off to look for quieter entertainment.
***
Xander was lying in bed, half-asleep, when Spike opened the outside door and came in. Xander sat up quickly. “Spike? What the hell are you doing?”
Spike was walking toward him, staring at him just like he had earlier, his eyes intent and looking almost black instead of blue. “I was going by outside and I smelled you,” he murmured, stopping before Xander. He reached out one hand, pressed a finger to Xander’s upper lip. When he pulled it back, it showed a dark smudge of blood. “See?” Never taking his dark eyes off Xander, Spike licked his finger clean. “I missed a spot.”
Xander blinked, shifting away from Spike, but that just left him leaning back on the pillows, half uncovered. “Oh.” He was scrambling for a better verbal follow-up when Spike moved toward him again, kneeling up on the bed, and words and the very idea of words fled as Spike leaned over him, planting his hands on the bed to either side of Xander’s shoulders, and lowered his head. He licked at Xander’s lip, one quick, almost perfunctory swipe, and then bent lower. Xander felt cool lips against his own, and then Spike was sucking on his lower lip, as if it too was covered in blood, and then Spike’s tongue slipped into his mouth. Xander, after a moment of complete paralysis, stunningly turned the tables by pushing himself up into the kiss–-oh God, this is a kiss, oh, God–-and greeting Spike’s tongue with his own. His response, or maybe just the taste of his blood, set off a low pleased-sounding growl in Spike’s throat, like a saber-toothed tiger purring.
Just when Xander’s vision was starting to go dark from lack of oxygen, not that he’d ever dream of complaining, Spike’s mouth moved away from his, trailing hungrily down his jaw, to his throat, and then Spike was licking and kissing down the line of his jugular, and the scrape of blunt teeth just above his collarbone brought him to full attention. He’d been half-hard since the moment, hours ago, when Spike’s tongue first touched his face, but he’d refused to deal with the situation, to even acknowledge that it existed, not that he had that problem anymore. There was undeniably a situation here.
He thought he felt Spike smile, against his throat, and Spike’s left hand moved from where it was braced by Xander’s shoulder. He felt the cool touch slide lightly, teasingly, down his bare heaving chest. Then he pushed aside the bit of sheet that had been covering Xander’s lower half, and there was nothing teasing at all about the businesslike way Spike’s hand slid into Xander’s boxers. Cool strong long fingers wrapped around his length, and the angle was weird, but Spike was jerking him off, a little rough, a little fast, but just exactly what Xander needed. Spike’s mouth stayed on his throat, working up to his jaw and down to his shoulder, and Xander tried to play it cool for about half a second before his hips began to buck up of their own accord, seeking Spike’s body, still out of reach, braced above him. Then Spike raised his head, and Xander could see in the dim light that he was vamped out. Before he could make a sound, that wicked mouth was on his, kissing him fiercely, and Xander’s toes were curling into the mattress, and as the razor sharp fangs sank through his lower lip, he came so hard he woke up.
He lay perfectly still. His mouth was full of blood; he’d bitten through his own lip. His boxers were a sticky mess. Xander stared at the ceiling, lost in shadows, and realized that he didn’t know any words bad enough to do this moment justice.
Xander had had a plan. He’d taken control of his destiny. He’d left the basement before he was called up to dinner; best case scenario, he’d make it all the way out of the house and head over to Giles’, maybe cadge a bite to eat before the others showed up for patrol. Worst case scenario... well, this wasn’t quite it, so he didn’t need to think about that.
His dad had screamed a lot, and thrown a beer bottle and a couple of place settings in Xander’s general direction, as well as a steaming pot of Xander-knew-not-what, straight off the stove. His mother had fled, sobbing quietly, into their bedroom, a moment before his dad stormed out of the house. Xander had remained miraculously unharmed, until he turned to leave the house, slipped in the puddle of half-cooked something, and put his hand out to catch himself right on a piece of broken glass. He’d also managed to slam his opposite elbow into the floor, and now he was just lying there, watching something dank and brownish soak into his pants, waiting for the shooting pain to stop.
After a moment he managed to find a spot to put down his uninjured right hand and gingerly push himself up, waiting for his elbow to protest the weight put on it. It didn’t actually buckle, so the pain didn’t count, and he managed to get to his feet without falling over. Xander picked his way carefully through the wreckage of the kitchen to the basement door. He’d need clean clothes and a bandage before he could go, but at least he’d be able to eat something here. He hated patrolling hungry. He sighed when he reached the bottom of the stairs; Spike was sitting on the foot of his bed, head cocked, still apparently listening, looking amused.
He turned his attention to Xander and leered. “Got something for me, pet?”
Xander rolled his eyes, because that seemed like what he would be expected to do, and glanced down at his left hand. It wasn’t actually bleeding much yet, probably because he hadn’t yet pulled out the piece of glass. He wiggled his fingers experimentally, but they all moved, although it hurt like a bastard. When he looked up again, he realized that he’d crossed most of the distance between him and Spike, and Spike had closed the rest. Spike raised his eyebrows when he saw the shard still embedded in the heel of his hand. He wrapped both of his hands around Xander’s, raising it closer to his face. “Am I going to get some nasty demonic infection if I let you do this?”
Eyebrows again, but it was better than that fucking smirk. “Don’t you read, Harris? Demons don’t have germs, they can’t live in our bodies. Vampire saliva is practically sterile.”
With a preternaturally quick motion of his left hand, Spike plucked out the shard and tossed it aside. It landed on the floor with a small clink, but didn’t break more. The blood welled up brightly in his palm, and Xander was holding his breath, bracing for the feel of Spike’s tongue on his skin. He tried to keep his face impassive, tried to be sure that Spike would see only boredom if he looked up, but he never took his eyes off the blood flowing from the short gouge. “And, hey,” Xander said, only a little breathlessly, “no making me bleed more, right?”
Spike sort of nodded as he lowered his head, and Xander wondered why he even bothered. Then Spike’s tongue swept across the heel of his hand, and Xander just closed his eyes and tried to think about Faith. It was his standard emergency unsexy thought, usually worked, but for some reason a couple of hands on his throat just wasn’t as unpleasant an image as usual, maybe because he was envisioning them as cool and pale, and the eyes staring down at him were blue, and, right, serious emergency. He called up a half dozen assorted memories of Cordelia laughing at him, and that got him through the endless minutes that followed. He was even able to peek down at Spike through his eyelashes.
He stopped licking a couple of times. He’d get all semi-bumpy and then he’d turn his head, away from the sight and smell of blood, Xander supposed, and shake himself out of it. He was being careful around the cut, tongue sliding right along the edges but not quite touching the torn flesh. The unnatural coolness of his tongue and the fingers steadying Xander’s hand all combined to cool the burn of the cut, aside from the other distraction they presented. Finally, the bleeding slowed to a sluggish trickle, and Spike licked his lips a couple of times, steadied himself in his human guise, and raised his head, looking, Xander noticed, a little dazed himself.
“First aid kit?”
Xander blinked.
“Harris? This needs bandaging, unless you want to smell like a vampire snack bar all night.”
“Right. Oh.” Spike was offering to help? “It’s by the sink.”
Spike nodded, and headed across the room to retrieve the well-stocked plastic box.
Xander fished for something to say. “So, Spike, why are you here today?”
Spike glanced over his shoulder, licked his lips pointedly. “I thought that was pretty obvious.”
Xander sighed. “Well, yes. But why today? Why didn’t you show up yesterday?”
Spike picked up the box and turned to face Xander. “Cos there’s always that day, between, where you and the old man each pretend the other doesn’t exist. Woulda been boring.”
Xander’s mouth worked silently while he tried to fathom how Spike could know the particulars of his secret, but Spike just sighed impatiently. “Look, Harris, where I grew up, everybody got hit, right? Some more than others, but I know how it works.”
Xander tried to think of something to say, but words escaped him entirely, and Spike towed him by his uninjured hand over to the bed, and pulled him down to sit. There was a small amount of blood standing in his palm, and Spike licked it away quickly, almost roughly, apparently more interested in clearing off the cut than anything else. Xander watched silently as Spike packed the cut with most of a packet of antibiotic cream. He was careful about opening the butterfly bandages, not touching the sterile bits, just like the diagram directed. He made a little gauze pad to go over the cut, and then wrapped more gauze around his hand to hold it, taping the whole thing securely in place. It was possibly the nicest bandaging job Xander had ever had, and he was going to have to beat himself to death with a shovel if his brain insisted on putting into words how that made him feel.
Spike seemed suddenly embarrassed, fiddling with the first aid kit, like Xander had caught him doing something shameful, which was sort of an odd concept for a vampire. “So, what next? Where were you headed? Out for patrol?”
Xander nodded, getting up and going to find some clean jeans.
“I’ll just tag along, shall I? Wouldn’t want to miss any... excitement.”
Xander scowled down at his dresser as soon as the thought occurred to him, and he turned to face Spike again immediately. “If you do anything to get me hurt on purpose–-“
Spike rolled his eyes. ”I know, I know, you’ll tell the Slayer and she’ll stake me.”
Xander’s mouth tightened into a hard line, and he stared until Spike looked back, until the steadiness of the dark blue eyes told him he had Spike’s attention. “No. But I’ll probably have her hold you down.”
Spike blinked just once, and nodded, and Xander headed to the bathroom to change.
***
As I recall, the rest of the arc was, you know, fairly typical of basement-dwelling abused-Xander S/X: the blood-licking thing keeps going, with less and less pretense of hostility on either side, and evolves into sex, which neither of them want to admit is in any way emotionally engaged, and then the abuse escalates until Spike has to directly intervene and Take Xander Away From It All, and then there is that scene where they tell the Scoobies they're together and someone tries to stake Spike.
And then they all live happily ever after! Also there was going to be actual candy at some point. I'm pretty sure this one died because instead of actually working on it, I went and reread Chocolatey Goodness several times in a row and promptly recovered from all ambition to write my own. And thus the world was spared. *g*