Suki Blue Fiction

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Chapter 7

The house was quiet when Xander crept in just before dawn. He hadn’t expected it to be any different. Even on a normal weekend, it was almost unheard of for a Harris to get up before ten o’clock. And, of course, this was no ordinary weekend. This was no ordinary Saturday morning. This was The Saturday morning after The Friday Night Celebration.

Xander knew that he’d spied trouble as soon as he caught sight of his uncle the night before. Sometimes just the thought of that man made Xander want to run for the hills.

Hey, why do people always run for the hills? Xander wondered. Wouldn’t a taxi be quicker?

Something crunched beneath one of Xander’s sneakers. He lifted his foot and saw that it was his mother’s watch. “Great,” he muttered, bending down to scoop it up. The face was completely shattered. He shoved it in his pocket and headed straight for the kitchen. It had been a long night and he was half-starved. The nachos Spike had bought him had long ago been digested and now Xander was just about ready to promise the sacrifice of his first born to the devil for a waffle or a slice of toast.

But no toast. No waffles. No eggs – god knows what his mother had done with the rest of those. He settled for cereal, pulling a box of corn flakes from the cupboard, the milk from the fridge, and sitting down at the tiny kitchen table.

The place was a mess, and who knew what hells lay upstairs. Was his room trashed? With suddenly wide eyes and a belly full of panic, Xander clutched his bowl and charged up to his room.

No, they hadn’t been here.

Relieved beyond words that his sanctuary was still safe, Xander sat down heavily on his bed, spilling milk and a few flakes over his legs.

But the door had been open.

Xander checked over his shoulder at the shelf behind his bed. Yep, there they were, three little maids all in a wobbly row. It would be a few hours before he could risk putting them back. Never wake a sleeping Harris, especially one with a mammoth hangover that would, most likely, last all day.

Quickly shovelling the rest of the cereal into his mouth on the way, Xander headed back downstairs, making sure to make less noise this time.

On this morning, unlike the other mornings, he had already made a decision. Usually
he would debate and argue with himself whether or not to clear up the mess from the night before. But not this time. He always ended up clearing it all up anyway, and the few times that he hadn’t he‘d had to listen to his mother bitch and moan and why the hell can’t you help, Xander?! Can’t you see I’m not well!?

Well, duh. And he’d actually said that once. And only the once. He’d never had someone scream at him quite like that. It had been the only time he’d ever been afraid of his own mother.

Bottles and plastic wrappers and broken pieces of unidentifiable stuff were shoved quickly into a large plastic sack. There were stains on the carpet and that would have to be cleaned too. Xander wasted little time. Saturday mornings were for lounging, reading and Justice League. Who the hell wanted to spend their time scrubbing and cleaning? Urgh. It was worse than death.

It took Xander just under an hour to right all the wrongs, clean all the spots and clear all the trash. The carpet still needed a damn good vacuuming, but, seeing as the Harris family vacuum cleaner was fifteen years old and had the mouth of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Xander decided, as he always did, that vacuuming would only lead to trouble. And besides which, he was a little bit scared of it. He was almost certain that it showed signs of AI. And it looked at him funny.

“Hello, honey.”

Xander turned at the sound of the sleep-filled voice. His mother stood at the bottom of the stairs, rubbing her eyes. Dressed in a long white nightgown with her hair completely flat on one side of her head, Xander guessed that she’d literally just fallen out of bed and staggered down the stairs.

“Hey, Mom.” Damn, he’d just been about to put his cartoons on. “You okay?”

“Of course,” came the immediate answer. “Why wouldn’t I be?” His mother’s tone was suddenly sharp and clipped. It wasn’t to be argued with.

“Sorry. I was just…” cleaning up your mess, “…tidying up. You know, spring cleaning.”

Jessica Harris looked pleased, her expression losing all sourness and blooming instead with love and affection for her only son. “Oh, sweetie, you didn’t have to do that.”

Xander shrugged. No, he didn’t. She was right about that. But it was infinitely easier if he did. Clearing away the evidence and pretending it hadn’t happened was far better than facing the truth. For all concerned. “It’s okay. I thought I’d make myself useful. Prove to you that I’m more than a lazy teenager with childish tendencies.” The grin was tried and tested and when his mother smiled back at him the grin took on a realness that he felt deep down inside.

“Well, you’ve done a lovely job.”

Xander looked around him - at the Pringle crumbs scattered randomly across the carpet. “I couldn’t…I mean, I didn’t…” he hesitated, fearful to almost say the word. He made a sweeping motion with his hands and arms instead.

Jessica’s mouth formed a knowing ‘o’. “We’ll leave that until later, shall we?”

Looking relieved, Xander nodded and watched as his mother made a bee-line for the couch and her handbag. He pretended not to see her dry swallow four pills. Obviously her head wasn’t pounding as hard as it could have been. He’d seen her knock back six before.

“So, Xander, any plans for the day?”

**

“This is so not what I had in mind for today,” Xander complained as he closed the heavy book with a boom that echoed around the library.

Willow looked up, sympathy swimming in her eyes. “Me neither. I was going to get a head start on my History homework and then there was this documentary on ants’ nests that I wanted to…” She stopped when Xander and Buffy regarded her with expressions that were a cross between amusement and incomprehension.

“I was going to paint my nails and watch TV,” Buffy simply said in a flat, monotone voice. “It’s a Slayer’s dream.”

“Same here,” Xander said. “Uh, I mean, the watching TV thing. Not the Slayer’s dream thing. And I painted my nails yesterday.”

Giles arrived at the table just in time to hear the last part of the conversation. He shook his head and carefully placed a pile of dusty books onto the hard surface. “Check these next, please.”

Xander saluted and took the top-most book. He’d only just sat down after finishing his cleaning duties when the phone had rung. Trying not to groan down the line to Willow had been immensely difficult when she’d informed him that Giles had called an emergency research session. Was there ever a weekend when Giles didn’t call an emergency research session? Were all weekends now full of research and emergencies? Was there to be no respite?!?!

They were looking for anything pertaining – and that was a Giles word – to vampires, churchy looking robes, virgins, a strange symbol and any event that could possibly incorporate all those things.

Xander flicked through the yellowed pages of A Crypt Keeper’s Guide to the Strange and Unusual, trying to skim and digest, and dimly wondering at the same time if he was flicking past something important.

“Sacrificial lambs,” Buffy read aloud. “Poor little things.”

Willow looked up and nodded. “I know. Why does it always have to be a cute little lamb? Why can’t these evil cults sacrifice…spiders?”

“Maybe they do?” Xander suggested. “Some of them. Now that would be cool.”

“I would totally join,” Buffy agreed. “Unless…unless they were sacrificing spiders to make bigger spiders. Or to conjure the Queen of the Spiders. Oh, god, we have to stop it!”

“Buffy, please concentrate,” Giles pleaded. “This could be very important. If a new vampire group is rising then we need to be ready.”

“I am ready,” Buffy argued. “Just let them try anything.”

Giles’ voice deepened just the way it always did when he was making a scary point. “Just let them try to suck us all into hell? You know better than that, Buffy.”

Xander tapped Buffy on the shoulder. “Hey, I don’t wanna get sucked.”

Nobody knew quite what to say to that. So, with faces that were tomato red, they all went back to their books.

**

Late morning turned into early afternoon and early afternoon turned into late afternoon and late afternoon turned into early evening and…

Xander sighed. Again and again.

“It doesn’t matter how much you hold back, the boredom voices itself in the end,” Buffy pointed out. At Xander’s quizzical look she explained. “You keep sighing. I’m starting to think that you’re randomly hyperventilating. You’re not, are you?”

“Bored or hyperventilating?” Xander asked.

“Both.”

“Ah. Uh – neither.”

“Really?” To say that Buffy was sceptical was an understatement. “Really, really?”

He’d been bored at first, the words on every page blurring together and the voices of his friends becoming a constant drone in the background. But then he’d started thinking. And when Xander Harris started thinking, it was pretty damn hard to stop him.

“Maybe a little.” It was and wasn’t a lie. That’s totally possible, you know? “Kinda.”

Buffy put down her book and turned to face her friend. “Your brain drifted to another time and place? Like mine?”

“Oh, thank god,” Xander said. “Me too. When did yours reach meltdown?”

“After the first hour.”

Xander thought about the point when his own brain had given up the cause. “Hey, you beat me. I think I lasted two. And after three this book started to look like it was written in Latin.”

Giles suddenly teleported beside him and lifted the book from Xander’s hands. “That would be because it is in Latin. Or Spanish. Perhaps we could all use a break,” he admitted.

“And I really need to patrol.” There was reluctance painted on Buffy’s face, but it didn’t show up in her voice.

“Need some company?” Xander hoped that he hadn’t sounded desperate. Or needy. He wasn’t exactly dying to pick up a stake and risk having to face off vampires and demons, but…

“Sure,” Buffy agreed. “Company would be good. Grab yourself a weapon, comrade.” After initially, if reluctantly, accepting her Slayer duties, Buffy had been wary of taking her friends out on patrol. The Slayer was supposed to work alone, The Chosen One standing apart from the rest and saving them all from the horrors of the dark. But that was Boredom incarnate. And stupid.

Having her friends by her side kept her alert, kept her real and ready. Alone, she was a sitting duck, her mind either wandering or concentrating too hard on what was creeping in front and behind. There was a left and a right, too.

“Stakes are in the bottom,” she called.

Xander nodded and pulled open the gate to the cage. Weapons were fun. At least they would be if he was actually allowed to play, uh, use them. He wondered if he could get away with borrowing something a little more…

“Don’t touch the crossbow,” Giles chided across from across the room. He was definitely an alien with stupid eyes in the back of his head.

Xander dropped his hand. No, it hadn’t fallen off, but he was pretty sure there was a good chance that Giles would have cut it off if he had, in fact, touched the crossbow. “I wasn’t going to…oh, never mind.” Adults never listened to excuses. Even when there were mitigating – another Giles word – circumstances. Instead, Xander scooped up several stakes from the bottom of the cupboard and jogged to catch up with Buffy.

“He’s very possessive of his toys,” Buffy explained when they were out of the school and well out of earshot.

“You’re telling me. I mean, what harm could it do to let me use the crossbow?”

“No harm. Well, apart from the really incy chance that you might shoot yourself in the foot. Or shoot my foot.”

“No way. You have Slayer reflexes. You’d get out of the way in time. And hey, human here, I could use some arsenal to back me up.”

“That’s actually a really good point,” Buffy allowed. “Maybe I should talk to Giles about some weapon training for you and Willow.”

Xander immediately brightened. “Really? You think he’d agree?”

“I dunno. Maybe.” Buffy flapped her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry. I can nag, whine, whinge and blackmail him into it.”

“Greatness.”

“I think it would be good for you two. I mean, you’re out here fighting the forces of vampiness almost on a nightly basis. It’s only fair that you should have the means to defend yourselves.”

“Exactly!” Xander pointed sternly at his friend. “Now, make sure you say just that when you ask. He can’t argue with that.”

Buffy smiled and tucked several stray strands of hair behind her ear. “I’ll try. But you know it’s gonna go more like Please, Giles, Please! You have tooooooo! It’s not Fair! And then there’ll be the stomping of feet and possibly even some tears.”

Xander put his hand to his chest. “Oh no, you mustn’t make Giles cry,” he joked.

Buffy laughed. “But it’s what I live for. Well, that and ice-cream. Oh, and slayage.”

“Talking of, which cemetery will be host to this evening’s events?”

“Shady Hill, I think. I haven’t hit there in a while. We might even see some action.”

“Oh, goody,” Xander said dryly. He ignored the tingle at the base of his spine. He also ignored the butterflies flapping and partying in his tummy. He Did. Not. Want. To. See. Spike.

Or maybe he did? Spike was a vampire and Buffy needed to dust him.

So why did he have no intention of telling Buffy anything?

**

At the exact moment the sun hid behind the horizon, Spike’s eyes flicked open and he grinned. For the first time in many nights he’d been lost in a dream instead of a nightmare. No emptiness, no loneliness, no uncertainty. Just him and a warm human body.

Spike stretched like a cat, reaching to touch and grip the headboard to pull himself up where he’d scooted down the bed in his sleep.

Even with just a sheet covering the lower half of his body Spike felt warm, and he wasn’t sure if it was more to do with his subconscious fantasies or the weather.

A cigarette was the first order of the day, and Spike had lit it and smoked it halfway down before he even realised he’d done it. He had a lot on his mind and, for once, it was a whole lot of nice.

Once, maybe, he would have felt guilty. His heart belonged to Dru and thoughts of anyone else should have been like blasphemy. But over the decades another person in their bed had been very close to normal. It certainly wasn’t unusual for Dru to invite a pretty young thing to dance with them both, and Spike had only a few times objected, and that was only because Drusilla had been too busy communing with the Man in the Moon to notice that she’d picked up a right troll. Once, literally.

Spike had to be more careful when he picked another to join them. Drusilla had to be in the mood. When she was, she embraced the newcomer with all her dark beauty and passion, but when she wasn’t she would feast on the tenderfoot and spit the clotting blood on Spike’s boots.

But Spike knew Drusilla would approve of Xander. He could picture the scene now. Drusilla opening her arms and legs to the young boy, her brightly painted nails gently scraping his flesh and teasing him until he screamed for more. It was so clear, her ruby red lips opening and slipping over Xander’s cock. And Spike would be holding him down, commanding, drinking his blood and heightening the boy’s pleasure with a light-headedness that only the pleasantly drained knew. And Xander was loving it all, his mouth gasping and his breath panting as his chest rose and fell in a rapid rhythm.

Spike stubbed out his cigarette and threw off the cotton sheet. His erection stood tall and proud against his belly, the head seeping pre-cum and the whole length throbbing with the desire to be touched and caressed.

Only twice had he ever set eyes on Xander, but he’d only needed the first occasion to see the beauty he held. Dark hair, deep eyes and a body that, in Spike’s mind, was too perfect for words. Of course, Spike would need to see to prove his theory. He would need to pull the clothing from Xander’s body and touch his fingers to skin that Spike knew would feel like silk.

He curled his hand around his cock and started a firm, slow rhythm. With Xander in his mind he stroked, imagining it was Xander’s hand giving him so much pleasure.

A picture of Drusilla floated back into Spike’s mind and he saw her lifting her skirts and sinking down on Xander’s groaning form.

And what would he do next? If it was real.

He would unfasten Drusilla’s dress from the back, drop it town and take her breasts in his hands, massaging and kneading for a wide-eyed Xander to see. He would show their guest exactly how you touched a woman, how you took her from aroused to on the edge and ready to murder someone for release.

And then he would show him how to touch another man.

Spike threw back his head and it banged against the wall. But he didn’t feel the pain. He only felt what it would be like to have Xander’s body draped across his. Xander’s lips on his skin, on his nipples, around his cock. Xander, flipped over on his back, consensually trapped beneath Spike’s unmovable body. All the while the room would be filled with the harsh sounds of Xander’s panting and groaning, Drusilla’s delighted giggling and his own sounds of approaching climax.

As that familiar feeling coiled up inside him, readying to burst forth and flood him, Spike’s brain overloaded with images, and he groaned with frustration that he couldn’t seem to pick just one. Xander beneath them, between them. Xander on his back, on his belly and on his knees.

His hand jacked his cock hard now, desperately fast, his back beginning to arch and his voice keening as though in pain. A last image shot passed the others: Xander, straddled over him, sunk down on his cock and holding his own, jets of come spilling and spilling over Spike’s chest.

Spike screamed, “FUCK!!” and came.

He slumped bonelessly against his motel room wall and laughed. “Well, shit. That was…yeah.” His laugh trailed off as he glanced around the empty room. It was enough to sober him.

He’d needed to upgrade from his temporary tunnel and there was no way that he was prepared to doss down in The Master’s lair.

Living with Dru, Spike was used to a soft bed and four clean walls. He couldn’t easily give that up and live in the sewers or a crypt like some vampires and demons did.

But the walls were bare and, except for him, the bed was empty.

Spike reached over to the nightstand and snagged his wallet. At least, it was his wallet now. It had belonged to – Spike pulled out the drivers license and frisbee’d it across the room – someone that Spike didn’t care to know, especially as the blood had an acrid taste of pineapple in it.

Spike hated pineapple to the point of rage.

Fifty dollars left. That was good. It would buy gas and snacks. And maybe even a new cassette for the car. But then he needed to think about where the next lot of gas was coming from. If he wanted to avoid the Slayer, then he also needed to avoid leaving a trail of bodies.

But this was a Hellmouth. Bodies, bodies, everywhere, and so many to drink. He could just blame it on someone else.

Then again, Angel would know. Would he tell? From what Xander had told him, the answer was probably yes.

And from everything else Xander had told him, Angel would probably want his vampire past remaining exactly that – way in the past with no reminders.

And what would Angel pay to keep his Granchilde quiet and sedate until he was ready to leave?

Spike headed for the bathroom, happily smirking to himself.

Excellent. A bloody brilliant orgasm, a possible pay check and the chance to get right up the old bastard’s nose.

Perfect.

TBC…