Second Verse
Chapter 7 -- Getting to Know You
Xander didn't remember drifting off to sleep; his next memory included laying on his back with a cool body draped over his half-naked frame and his hands still chained with about twelve inches of chain between the manacles and a couple of feet of chain giving him just enough movement to prevent his arms from becoming sore.
He shifted, and a cool hand reached out and gently smoothed his hair back, and a sleepy British voice mumbled, "'S'all right luv."
In those moments of partial consciousness before thought fully engages and only half-understood messages reach the sleep-addled brain, Xander found happiness. He felt content, the little voice in his head felt protected, and Xander Jr. was rapidly moving toward ecstatic. However, as the sleep slowly fell from his mind, he rediscovered his anger, even if the little voice and Xander Jr. insisted on remaining happy.
"Wake up, bleach boy." He looked down and found Spike's head on his bare chest with one leg thrown over both his legs. Since he couldn't reach down and push Spike off, he bucked his body. "Wake up," he shouted louder.
"What the…" Spike woke up, in full game face with a growl already rumbling from his chest and gold eyes staring into Xander's frightened brown ones. As Spike crouched above, he froze in fear at the image of the powerful beast that lived within Spike, but then the face faded back into human features and he could see the look of confusion. He wondered if he had woken Spike in the middle of a dream because Spike didn't seem to recognize him for that moment. "Why?" Spike started again, his voice still blurry with fatigue.
"I need to get up," he said quietly once Spike seemed fully in control again.
"Bloody hell, I'm warm; no you don't. You're comfortable," Spike lowered his head to Xander's chest again. For a moment he wondered whether Spike was ordering him to be comfortable—you know that whole dominate the inner demon thing—or whether Spike was trying to compliment him on making a nice pillow. Either way, it didn't really matter.
"You aren't going to be comfortable in about five seconds when your bed is wet and smelly."
"Why would…" Spike began, but then the voice stopped as Spike started rolling himself toward the opposite side of the bed. Xander told himself not to notice that the vampire was naked and damn sexy with his leg muscles clearly defined all the way up to his firm ass. Nope, not noticing at all.
"Bloody inconvenient humans with your bleedin' bodily functions," Spike complained as he retrieved a key from the floor on the far side of the bed. He crawled back and reached up for the padlock that fastened the chain to the wall. With a quick click, Xander found himself free, or at least relatively free. His hands were still shacked and he was half-naked since both his shirt and now his shoes had disappeared and he was still locked in a vampire's lair, but at least he could walk around that lair.
Yeah, he thought to himself, really making progress here. Not only was he going to die in this place, he really did deserve it after all the stupid mistakes he had made in the last 24 hours. He gathered up the chain so that it wouldn't make a lot of noise as he walked, and when he stood, Spike slid forward into his old spot in the bed. Had he taken Spike's side of the bed or was the vampire finding the warmth left behind by his body? Did vampires care about being warm?
Xander thought about his strange situation as he walked to the bathroom. If asked a week ago, he would have told people that he knew all about vampires, but the longer he spent with Spike, the less he seemed to understand. Yes, Spike was clearly a predator. A couple of times Xander had thought himself dead, but Spike was also a person. He stopped and thought about that one for a moment; okay, Spike was at least a person-shaped being. He didn't like getting laughed at, he was impatient, he joked around, he hurt over the loss of his 'dark princess,' he wanted revenge: these were not the actions of a mindless monster. He sat on the toilet taking care of his morning business and he wondered just how many other things he didn't know.
The whole pet business for example. Yes, on the one hand that had a real ewwww factor, but it also implied that the vamps fed and cared for their humans, at least cared for them enough to keep them alive. And what about the whole child thing? Spike said vampires keep humans around until they could turn the humans into their children. Did vampires have family feelings? Did they have and care for their children? The only vamps he had ever seen were barely able to take care of themselves; they certainly didn't engage in any sort of activity that suggested intelligence. Xander suddenly came up with a counter-example. The thought of Fredrick's body being laid out in a pattern, and his blood being used to write…that did indicate a sick sort of intelligence. Xander shivered, finding himself suddenly cold. He hurried to finish and then walked back to the main room, once again clutching the chain so he didn't wake Spike. He didn't especially like the way Spike reacted when woken unexpectedly.
Xander quickly glanced toward the stairs, but he remembered a clicking sound when Spike had first led him in, and so he assumed that the door was locked. Besides, Spike knew where he worked and could probably find where he lived. Xander decided to finish it one way or the other himself. If Spike planned to use him as bait, that meant that Spike intended to keep him alive, hopefully long enough for Xander to find a nice sharp piece of wood.
Ignoring the howling in his mind at the very thought of staking Spike, he wandered over to the shelf. The CD player was old and one speaker was cracked, but the very lack of dust on the buttons in contrast with the thick coat of dust on the top suggested that Spike liked his music. Eyes swept the CD's. He didn't know any of the names on the CD spines: The Clash, the Sex Pistols, Screeching Weasel. The title on the last one made him pull out the green CD, and sure enough a white weasel sneered at him on the cover. He looked closer at the title, Boogada Boogadaboogada! Some sort of demon language, maybe? Ah, here's a name he knew, Kennedy. Even his inadequate, inner-city education covered the Kennedys. Xander pulled out the CD labeled Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. Flipping it over, he started reading the tracks and couldn't quite stifle a hysterical giggle. The tracks included "Kill the Poor," "Stealing People's Mail," and "I Kill Children."
"Go on then," a voice said behind him, and Xander nearly jumped out of his own skin. The CD flew out of his shackled hands and clattered to the cement floor.
"Oi," Spike complained as he got up from the bed and retrieved the CD. "That's no way to treat great music." He had put on a pair of black jeans, but his chest showed his wiry muscles and well defined shoulders, and Xander couldn't help but think that Spike was lithe and compact and just plain sexy.
"If it's so great, why I haven't I ever heard of any of it?"
"'Cause you're an uneducated git?" Spike asked with a laugh-snort as he pushed him to one side and inserted the CD. Xander had two seconds of being surprised by the thought of a musically-inclined vampire before his ears were assaulted by the punk music blasting at full volume.
"Gah," he yelped as he backed away from the speakers. Spike must have translated that correctly because the volume dropped dramatically with a quick adjustment the knobs.
"Bloody great music." Spike returned to the bed and began searching the pockets of the leather duster. When he came up with a package of cigarettes, he smiled in triumph.
"That's great? Are you insane?" The same four chords played loudly over and over as someone crashed some drums. He couldn't understand the words of the singer until the chorus came on and he heard, "kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill the poor," over and over.
"Not hardly. Dru cornered the market on insanity in our little family, and *that* is bloody wonderful," The vampire insisted as he lit his cigarette and leaned back against the wall with his body spread out on the bed.
"Do they know more than four notes?"
"Oi! Don't go insulting the music, pet."
"That's not music, Spike," Xander insisted and he went over to the brown chair and sat down—he couldn't quite figure out what else he was supposed to do with himself. "That's someone screaming to kill the poor, which is mildly disturbing,"
"Git," Spike repeated, and Xander resolved to look that word up as soon as he could find a dictionary. "That's social commentary." A blonde head nodded to the heavy beat.
"Yeah, right."
"It's protestin' the bomb and the upper classes throwin' the poor away like yesterday's trash, you ponce." Spike pulled on his cigarette, making the end glow red and his cheekbones become even more prominent. "You just have no taste—take your shirt, for example. What happened to the kit you were wearing at the club?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna wear silk to hunt vampires," Xander sarcastically snapped and rolled his eyes before it occurred to him that he was running the risk of appearing to insult Spike's intelligence. He froze, hoping that he hadn't just set Spike off. Nice job, he thought to himself. As if things weren't bad enough you had to go and piss off the nice…okay, less homicidal than normal…vampire. In the long silence, he waited for the explosion.
"What you smellin' all fearful for?" Spike asked after a long pause.
"Um, I'm being held by a hyperactive vampire who plans to use me as human bait?"
"That's not what I smelled when you woke up. When you woke up, you were smellin' of something far more interesting. So what set you off?" Spike walked over to the cabinet, opened it, and let the cigarette ash fall into a bowl. Xander remained quiet as he tried to figure out a story that wouldn't get him in trouble, but the silence must have gone on too long.
"Pet, answer me," Spike commanded, and Xander found himself blurting before he realized it.
"I thought you might take that as an insult and get mad." For a moment, Spike stood there and stared at him with emotionless eyes until Xander finally listened to the little voice in his head and dropped his own eyes to the floor. Xander heard soft cursing and the sound of Spike walking over, but he didn't look up—Spike's face had gone so blank at that little confession that he feared he had said the wrong thing, so he continued to focus on the floor.
"Let me tell you a story, pet." Spike started as he sat on the arm of the chair so that his leg pushed into Xander's arm. "Dru, my princess," Xander looked up as he heard Spike's voice break. The vampire had gotten rid of the cigarette and now he took a deep breath as he clearly struggled for control. Ridges on his forehead appeared and disappeared so quickly that he wouldn't have believed his eyes if he hadn't already known Spike was a vampire.
"She was a pet for a good long time. Vampire named Angelus took her, made her watch all sorts of things a young lady of the day wasn't prepared to see. She'd been a right good little girl until Angelus made her bleed and scream and beg for him to take her at the same time she begged for death. Angelus left her a pet, with a soul, even as he used the demon he put in her to make her beg for the touch of the man who killed her family in front of her face." Xander shuddered violently. If this was supposed to be Spike's version of comfort, he was failing miserably, but then this is a man whose idea of complimenting Xander's hair had been to point out that this Dru would have kept his body around to play with after killing him.
Spike reached down and put his hand under Xander's chin and pulled it up. "I am what I am luv, and I meant what I said last night," he said as Xander looked into bright blue eyes and a face that seemed incongruously compassionate. His voice became even softer, "but I'm not Angelus. For nearly a hundred years, I held Dru through her nightmares and listened to her confused ramblings because the demon and the soul managed to right wreck her mind before Angelus ever turned her. Won't do that to you. You do something wrong, you'll be punished. You try to escape—I'll break your neck. Might even turn you. But I won't do to ya what was done to Dru, and I control my demon well enough that I won't go bashing ya around."
"But last night," Xander protested before the higher order thinking part of his brain pointed out that he probably shouldn't argue with a demon who had just promised to…what? What had Spike just promised? Xander hadn't yet come to a clear decision before Spike started speaking.
"Last night I was a mite upset. Thought you might be lying, might be one of Cassidy's lot. Had a hard time not tearin' you to bits a time or two,” Spike admitted even as he stood up and started pacing. Were all vampires so fidgety? "Went out last night and saw someone. Asked him about making pets, about how much a pet could fake, about whether a pet could desire one vamp while bound to another."
"And? Who'd you go to? What'd they tell you?"
"Told me that if you smelled of lust for me, if you could bloody *come* for me, you weren't bound to Cassidy."
"Does that mean I'm bound to you after all?" Xander asked even though he suspected that he already knew answer.
"Nope, Peaches said the demon can't bond without either blood or semen." Xander froze for a moment at the unexpected answer. He knew that a voice in his head howled for Spike; he had assumed that the lust came from the demon. Since the moment Xander had first seen Spike, Xander had wanted nothing else. If it wasn't the demon, what was going on? He couldn't face this little dilemma just yet. Please, could the universe just sent him one fucking disaster at a time, please.
"Wait…Peaches?" Xander asked. "What kind of person goes by Peaches?"
"Angelus," Spike admitted, and Xander gasped audibly. As much as Spike clearly loved and missed Dru, how could he even talk to the vampire who had hurt her?
"But don't you want to… I mean, after what he did…"
"Not quite so easy luv. Angelus was Dru's sire, her maker and master. He had the right, even if I didn't like it one bit. And Dru was my sire. She made me. For decades Angelus and his sire, Darla, ruled our family. For vampires it's about status and position in the clan. I can hate Angelus all I want, even hurt him a bit if I can get away with it without him hurting me back, but I can't do something like kill him."
"So you just call him Peaches to annoy him to death?" Xander smiled. He had the image of a sharp-fanged vampire about to tear into someone's throat when Spike waltzes in calling him 'Peaches' in a falsetto voice. He couldn't contain a giggle.
"Somethin' like that. I'm a master in my own right now. Have more status than him in some ways since he went and got himself a soul." Xander was quickly developing the kind of headache he got in history class when he tried to keep too many ideas in his mind at all.
"So, Darla made Angelus who made Dru who made you?" A blonde head nodded in confirmation. "And now that you're older, you don't have to listen to everything they say, but you can't do anything really big against them because they're higher than you in the clan." Again, the confirming nod. "So vampires live in clans with clan rulers. And while most vampires don't have a soul—including you, Angelus does which means he's lost some respect in the community, and so you call him 'Peaches' to kinda rub that in cause you hate what he did to Dru?"
"That's my boy," Spike returned to the arm of the chair and patted him on the back. "'Cept being a master isn't about just age—it's about control. When I was first turned, the demon's hunger and lust controlled everything I did. Now I have enough control that I can enjoy good music," at this Spike waved toward the still playing CD, "or I can walk through a crowd of humans when I'm hungry and not vamp out and start feasting."
"So the vampires I fought were still 'children'?" Xander tried to think of the bloodthirsty monsters who tore into the necks of the homeless as little vampire babies. It didn't work.
"Childer. Well, childer or minions. Minions are never loved or protected or generally even disciplined by their masters. A minion who displeases the head of the clan will find himself on the end of a stake, and without someone to help them learn to control the demon's hunger, they can never become more than mindless beasts. Minions are just thrown out there as cannon fodder in a fight because their demon has to obey the head of the clan. Childer are different. Childer are kept at their master's side and forced to control themselves or suffer terrible punishments. The older a childe gets, the more control he has over himself and the less often his master has to beat or threaten him into controlling himself. Eventually, a childe has enough control to go out on his own, and then he's called a master."
"So you became a master when Dru died?"
"Not hardly," Spike snorted. "Dru never became a master because she had no control. Anything she thought about, she did. Dru turned me, so she was my sire in a technical sense, and my demon certainly always felt loyalty to her. But Angelus and Darla are the ones who kept me by their sides as we hunted. First Angelus because he enjoyed the whole punishment aspect of siring. After Angelus got his soul and turned into Angel—the fangless wonder who couldn't kill his own meal unless it ran on four legs and scuttled through the trash—Darla became my sire because she wanted someone to essentially baby-sit Dru. Dru may have been mad, but she had visions that saved us more than once."
"So you became a master when you left Darla." Xander corrected himself.
"Yep. Took my dark princess and disappeared so that the bitch would never find us. Now she's dead and souled-up Peaches is embarrassed to even think about what he did to me, so I don't have anyone in the line to answer to." Spike's hand still rested on Xander's back from the early pat. Now Spike started moving it in circles. "And you're not smelling of fear any more, pet." Spike announced as his hand moved in ever larger circles. When fingers brushed the edges of the scar on his neck, Xander jumped so suddenly that the chain hanging from his wrists rattled.
"Shit," he softly cursed as he felt a shiver run the whole length of his body and his heart beat faster. He let his eyes fall closed as the fingers traced the edges of the scar.
"Responsive, like that," Spike whispered into Xander's ear. Xander felt the pull on his wrists and opened his eyes to find Spike standing in front of him, pulling him toward the bed.
"Why?" he managed to mumble as he followed Spike's lead, which led, inevitably to the bed. "I mean, if you can't …" The words broke off when Spike pushed him back onto the bed and pulled the chain up to fasten it to the ring once again. This time, there was far less slack leaving Xander's arms pulled above his head, his body, his half-dressed body stretched across the bed. Oh, the universe had just let him down because this was definitely a fucking disaster. And he didn't even mean the chains part, he meant the growing erection he could feel struggling to rise in his jeans. Bad enough to get captured by the enemy, but now he couldn't even deny the raging lust. Please god, just don't ever let Gunn find out. Xander had an image of his dead body with two fang marks in his shoulder and a raging erection. Yeah, that would be the final humiliation.
"I can play," Spike said with that same head tilt that he was learning to associate with sexual Spike. "Been years since I've played," Spike undid the button at Xander's waist and quickly unzipped and pulled down the baggy jeans. The underwear disappeared even faster leaving that traitorous and engorged body part fully exposed. "Been years since I wanted to." Xander felt an entirely new set of emotions at that. Three girlfriends and a number of rude comments had convinced him of his total lack of desirability, and now this creature couldn't resist him. This creature who had survived years of celibacy couldn't resist him.
"What do…" Xander half-heartedly tried to protest, but then Spike lowered his weight onto him and the contact with his cock against the denim of Spike's jeans nearly caused him to come.
"Not yet, luv" whispered a voice as Spike braced his knees on either side and bodily shifted him toward the wall so that his arms had a little more slack. Spike then nuzzled his head between Xander's cheek and arm in order to reach the scar. When the pleasantly tepid and wet tongue touched the sensitive skin, Xander's whole body arched up off the bed as he made an incoherent noise. Spike lowered his weight again, and he rolled his head to one side to give Spike more room to work. Spike obliged by sucking the scar and running his delicate fingers down the muscles right side. For several minutes, they lay locked in this position while Xander felt every skin cell come alive and Spike shifted slightly so that fingertips could explore more skin.
"Oh god," Xander gasped as fingers finally darted in to touch the crease on the inside of his hip. He tried to turn into the touch; he tried to get those fingers to touch his cock, but they simply slipped away to stroke the outside of a thigh.
"Bad boy," Spike chided as he stopped sucking for a moment to run blunt teeth over the mark. This time Xander did scream and he bucked and he pulled his hands as hard as he could, desperate to touch in return. "Lay still and don't come, or I just may have to find some leg irons in that closet," Spike threatened softly, and Xander felt the tightening in his balls that always preceded release.
"Don't come." Xander wanted to ask him if he was kidding; he wanted to say that he couldn't physically prevent it if he tried. He wanted to point out that he had a right to do whatever the hell he wanted and Spike could fuck off, except Xander could already feel the impending orgasm retreat, and he groaned in frustration. He wanted to come!
Spike began his attack again, this time using his mouth to suck to and nip at one nipple, while his fingers pinched and pulled at the second. As the busy tongue slid down his chest one agonizingly slow millimeter at a time, Xander spread his legs, and Spike's smooth chest pressed against his cock. Xander was in a place equal parts heaven and hell. He knew he was babbling, but even he couldn't make out his words as Spike's tongue now worked around his belly button, first a tongue circled and then the mouth closed over the skin and a warm pressure began to build.
Spike's hands, meanwhile, were exploring Xander's thighs, and Xander could feel the cool satiny fingers run back and forth along his inner thighs . An eternity later, he whined as Spike unexpectedly closed his blunt teeth over a piece of skin near the belly button. Xander would have expected such an act to cause pain, but instead it simply sharpened everything: the feel of Spike's hands on his legs, the movement of air across those patches of his skin still damp from Spike's tongue, the tingling in his scar, the weight of the chains, and the increasing ache in his genitals. If he didn't come soon, he thought he might actually damage something.
"Flip over…and don't come."
"Huh?"
"Flip. Over," Spike repeated deliberately as if speaking to a slow child. He felt hands at his hips, guiding him, and he started to roll. The minute his leaking cock touched the satin, He groaned and tried to rub, it would just take a bit of friction, but he just couldn't move fast enough. Spike must have realized his intentions because strong hands soon pulled him up so that his forearms supported his upper body while his butt stuck up in the air. Hands easily arranged him, pushing his knees apart and forcing his head down to rest on his forearms.
"Stay." Spike now ordered. Xander considered protesting, arguing, refusing, something; however, Spike had disappeared so quickly that he didn't have time, besides he realized that one wrong move and he was going to ejaculate all over Spike's bed. Xander wondered if that would annoy the vampire more or less than peeing the bed. So, instead of protesting, he stayed and tried to calm his breathing.
Long before he had calmed his breathing, a familiar hand ran down his back. This time the fingers explored more firmly, first running up to the shoulders and then following the line of the arm all the way out to the fingers, and then running down the length of the backbone, over the hips, and down the legs one at a time. Both hands encircled and ran down his right thigh and calf and then his left. Finally he felt arms slip around to the front and one held his waist while the other firmly grabbed his cock. Xander screamed once again and desperately tried to hump, to get just enough movement to come since he was so damn close and the erection was really starting to ache now.
"Don't come," Spike simply warned as he continued to hold the throbbing cock. Spike slowly tightened his grip until pain overrode the pleasure evoking a sharp gasp, and then the pressure disappeared almost immediately. The hand then encircled the overly sensitive balls, and he winced before Spike started pressing at all, but Spike only gave each one a small squeeze before releasing them. Xander was beginning to get angry, even through all the sexual haze and the happy noises he could now clearly hear in his own mind. What had begun as a lover's caress had become something that felt vaguely like an inspection.
"What exactly are you looking for?" He could feel Spike freeze in place.
"Oh, after 120 years, I know where to look," Spike assured him as both hands disappeared. He started to lower himself, but a sharp voice stopped him. "Stay."
"I’m not some stupid dog," Xander complained, but he stayed.
"You were happy enough a few minutes ago, what happened?" Spike as ran a hand up and down Xander's back before moving up to the left shoulder and the traitorous scar. Almost immediately Xander felt all his doubts disappear in a cloud of longing and hunger. He moaned as one cool hand massaged the shoulder as the second hand pressed something cold and slimy between his cheeks. That cleared the head in record time, and he tried to sit up on the bed.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing? You said you weren't going to rape me, or have you changed your plans again?" Xander knelt up on the bed even though he had to lean forward slightly because of the shortness of the chain connected to the thick manacles around his wrists.
"Shhh, you're fine luv," came a deep, quiet, rumbling voice from behind and a mouth descended on the scar, sucking and teasing with both tongue and teeth. Xander shuddered and felt his resolve dissolving under the rush of lust. A hand eased him back down, and he couldn't find the will to fight. After all, he told himself, hadn't he already decided that he wasn't really in a position to fight? When he got back in position with his head resting on his forearms, Spike continued to rub his scar and murmur vague soothing noises. The wet finger returned, and this time he didn't argue. He could feel the trail as silent tears left wet tracks for the air to cool, but even as he cried, he wanted more. Shit, he really did need to find a therapist, maybe even two or three. If Spike did this, he knew that he was lost; he could barely fight the desire to throw himself at Spike without the "bond," so he could never fight an even stronger connection fed by the vampire's blood or semen. Xander trembled with the realization that chains far stronger than steel would soon trap him.
"Relax, pet. Relax and don't come." The quiet voice ordered, and for the first time Xander realized that Xander Jr. had never once complained or stopped wanting to come. The finger slipped in without more than a little discomfort, and Xander could feel the unfamiliar movement inside his own body. "Ready pet?" Spike asked. He was trying to form the words to ask 'Ready for what?' but the answer came as Xander discovered the spot called the prostate. Xander, in his sexual confusion, had checked out a couple of websites from the public library, so he had theoretically known what the prostate did. This theoretical knowledge meant nothing when compared to the pleasure that washed through his body. Xander Jr. begged to come, and Xander soon found himself begging on Jr.'s behalf.
"Oh god," he gasped as Spike rubbed the spot again. "Please touch me Spike. Please. Oh god I have to come," he moaned as Spike continued on his unhurried way. "Please Spike," Xander begged. The pressure had long since become painful, and now that pain transformed into an all-consuming fire that left nothing in his world except a need to come that couldn't be denied. The hand disappeared from the scar, and Xander felt a single finger moved up the underside of his cock. It was enough.
Xander's limbs stiffened, and with a wail, he came in waves that started as painful and then transformed into pleasure and a release from pain and a release from pressure all synthesized into one earth-shattering moment. Xander's shaking legs mutinied, and Xander found himself stomach down in the impressive wet spot. However, he noticed in a distant haze, Spike hadn't entered him with more than a finger. He couldn't decide how he felt about that as relief battled with agony in a psyche so fragmented that Xander decided that he might need a whole damn team of therapists.
"Planning on sleepin' in the wet spot, pet?" Spike asked from above, and Xander had to coax words to from in his newly-rearranged mind.
"Never moving again," he announced foggily. "Fuck off." That earned a laugh and a slap on the butt.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Spike chuckled. "I assume that means we can sleep the rest of the day 'til sunset?"
"This was about getting me to go back to bed?" He turned his head so that he could look at Spike out of at least one half-open eye.
"Not quite luv, but we'll talk this evening," Xander would have been mortified at the thought of this meaning nothing, at Spike feeling nothing, except Spike had gotten off the bed which put his crotch at eye level, and he could see an impressive bulge in Spike jeans.
"I've got to go clean up," Spike said before throwing a tube of something to the floor and leaving. Xander decided that he didn't have the energy or spare brain cells to figure it all out, so he did exactly what Spike wanted. He fell asleep.