Trickster´s Treat Sequel –
Janus´ Shadow 6
Morning came entirely too soon for Xander, or afternoon anyway since he found late hours suited both his sidekick–to–the–slayer and his translator–to–the–demons personas. As he struggled out of sleep, he found himself remarkably unbothered by the whole giving–Spike–permission–to–kill thing even though he knew Giles and Willow would put him through a depossession spell while Buffy yelled at him. He was just going to have to live with not telling them. Ever. Never ever.
While Spike still slept, Xander went to the outer apartment to get some of the sire´s blood to help Spike heal up. Despite the human blood he´d had yesterday and the night´s sleep, the vampire´s color still suggested poor feeding. And despite the agreement, Xander could still practically feel Spike fighting to not fight. Xander wasn´t about to let Spike near anyone until he was physically ready and not struggling with their relationship. Putting the blood into his real refrigerator until Spike woke, he started his ´morning´ routine.
"Soddin´ bored now," a voice complained when Xander had all his concentration on tracking down the possible verb conjugation forms for an Amphisbaena dialect.
"Gah!" Xander dropped the pen he was using and clutched the edge of his desk.
"What the?" Spike´s voice sounded concerned for only a second before he started laughing.
"Laugh it up," Xander groused, "I´m trying to do work here, and you startled me."
"Right, scared of the dark too?" Spike´s voice carried none of the venom of his words but even so, Xander felt a flare of anger that his own childe would so disrespect him. Xander pushed himself half out of his chair. Before he could even stand, Spike´s eyes dropped down to the floor. Fury drained from Xander as he realized that for Spike, this probably counted as obedience. Besides, he didn´t want to pull his hellcat´s claws.
"At least I´m not stupid enough to piss off the person with the keys to the chains and the access to the sire´s blood," Xander pointed out, and he went ahead and stood up, a smirk on his own face. Spike´s eyes darted back up, and Xander remembered being on the other side of this dominance ritual.
He remembered racing through the park, Buffy distracted by the need to pound Giles´ location out of someone, scabby–faced minions stalking them, being human and getting dragged to Angelus. He remembered being forced to his knees while Angelus ruffled his hair with deceptively gentle fingers and described how he would torture Xander, not that he had time to do most of it. He remembered being shoved in a room with Spike, expecting that the younger vampire would want revenge. He remembered making those same darting glances as he tried to figure out how far he could push the crippled vampire... or rather the not–crippled but faking it vampire.
Spike´s eyes darted up and found something that encouraged him to keep eye contact. "Oi, not fair," he complained in a thick accent.
"Oh yeah, and you expect me to be fair?" Xander turned his back to the rather satisfying sight of a chained Spike in his bed and fished two blood packets out of the refrigerator.
"Yeah, well you´re a human, the slayer´s white knight even. You were ready to die under Angelus in order to give her time to save the world," Spike´s voice had an unusual seriousness, and Xander remembered that night, what he´d done to keep Angelus busy while Spike went to Buffy for help.
"And you turned against your line to save the world right beside her," Xander pointed out as he heated the blood.
"They weren´t my line by then, were they?" Spike answered just as quickly. Xander looked up at the seriousness in Spike´s face, their gazes locking for a good minute until the microwave beeped to a stop. Retrieving the giant yellow mug with "Thinking of you" on the outside and "naked" on the inside hidden by the blood, Xander headed over to the bed.
"They aren´t worthy of you," Xander said as he put the cup down on the triangle–shaped shelf between the last kitchen cupboard and the bedroom area. "They´re deficient," Xander added when he considered the ploys Angelus had fallen for. He never would have fallen for the doe–eyed "please don´t rape me again, you´re just too manly and big" trap.
"Not like my plans have been goin´ well lately," Spike pointed out, and Xander stopped, key half–way to the manacle as he looked down at his vampire.
"Yeah, well considering Buffy´s taken out the Master and his minions and Angelus and Order of Teraka and Bazor–momma and the Judge and how long are you going to let me keep going on because the blood´s getting cold," Xander said as he unlocked the chains.
"Well, when you put it like that, I´m in good company," Spike smirked as he sat up, cracking his back before reaching out for Angel´s blood.
"Of course, no one else had a chance to take down Buffy, and you had her dead to rights twice and couldn´t finish her off because you were doing the whole bragging bit. You really need to work on that," Xander finished. Spike didn´t answer, and Xander had no idea if that was some silent acceptance of the criticism or enjoyment of sire´s blood. He put the chains away without continuing with the lecture since he didn´t really have room to throw many stones.
"So, ya plannin´ on telling me what your handiwork means?" Spike finally asked, looking down at the small runes carved along the left side of his chest.
"You mean these?" Xander asked, reaching over and tracing fingers down the pale skin. The runes remained, small flat scars that would remain as long as the spell. "Just a little blood magic," Xander shrugged dismissively. "Don´t you trust me?"
"Let ya carve ´em, didn´t I?"
"You didn´t have much of a choice," Xander pointed out as he carried the now empty mug to the kitchen where he put it on the counter.
"Details," Spike dismissed that with a wave, "so what exactly did you carve in there?"
Xander returned to the bed and looked down at the strong, lean body and at the runes carved into it. He considered whether or not he really wanted to confess. Reaching out, he ran his finger over Spike´s cool skin, feeling the edge of the scar that formed the first rune, the double–sided cup.
"It invokes Janus." Rubbing the skin a little harder, he felt the heat of friction as his finger traced the nearly invisible scar. "He´s the god of beginnings and endings and new starts. Ethan used his image to summon the original spell, so it seemed right to ask him back."
"Can´t say I´m in favor of any god watchin´ me–demon here," Spike objected, and Xander shrugged.
"Little late to object now," he pointed out. He moved his finger down to the second mark, the ´x´. "The Roman god Orcus might be more your kind of god. He´s the god of oaths, and he punishes anyone who breaks an oath, like someone who would refuse to obey after submitting." Xander looked at Spike with a serious expression, and allowed the silence to say all the things he didn´t want to have to say out loud, all the consequences for breaking an oath once you were brought to that god´s attention. The threats that lay in that figure that Xander had carved in flesh, Xander couldn´t bring himself to say, and illogic, thy name is Xander.
"Bloody hell, that´s taking things a mite bit far," Spike said, his eyebrows lowering in concern as he looked at the mark.
"Ah, but he is also a vengeance god who will give blood retribution for those who are wronged," Xander then pointed out. Spike´s eyes snapped to him, and Xander stared back steadily. Spike´s expression slowly turned from one of outrage to satisfaction.
"The third mark," Xander fingered the checkmark, "is Furrina, the Roman goddess of darkness who makes things clear. When those who hunt in the dark pay homage to the goddess, their luck will improve." Spike´s face took on a definite smug edge.
"The last one," Xander fingered the "I" mark. "It´s the Celtic symbol for need, but it´s also the symbol for the goddess Adeona." Xander stopped there.
"And what´s she do?" Spike asked quietly.
"She guides lost children home," Xander answered. He looked up, and Spike stared at him with open shock. For several seconds, they remained frozen, Spike sitting on the edge of the bed clutching a mug, and Xander allowing his hands to explore the carved spell, fingertips brushing off flakes of dried blood.
"Not exactly a demonic spell there, luv," Spike finally said, the accent mutated into something that sounded like Giles and BBC news and that soap opera he could never understand.
"I´m not a demon, Spike. You demon; me human." Xander shrugged. "Of course, I think I might be a morally challenged human because this spell means you have to obey me or suffer the anger of some pretty big gods, and I´m fairly sure than enslaving people is on the not–so–much side of morality."
"What? No lightening? No Hellmouth opening and flinging me to hell if I disobey?" Spike asked, blue eyes both amused and challenging.
"Don´t even say that!" Xander reached out and slapped a hand over Spike´s mouth.
"I think having four powerful beings pissed at you and giving you the worst luck in all creation is bad enough. Around here that might even be enough to open the Hellmouth." Xander pulled his hand back and clapped it over his own mouth. Spike gave a quick bark of laughter before he settled for smirking so broadly that his cheekbones became sharp cliffs.
"Hey, this is the Hellmouth. And I totally didn´t mean that, so takebacks," Xander said as he glared at Spike.
"Right, because the evil gathering around the Hellmouth allows for takebacks," Spike said.
"Yeah, well if you aren´t careful, you´re going to find yourself with the kind of luck where a car kicks up a rock and breaks your front window when you´re driving in daylight or you trip over a shoelace in the middle of kicking the ass of some demon or the slayer is seriously PMS´ing on the day you insult her new jeans," Xander warned in a more serious tone.
"Bloody hell, you wouldn´t."
"I already did, my Hellcat. Break your vord to submit to me, and Orcus will demand revenge and Furrina will find you anywhere you hide. You´re mine." Xander watched Spike´s body shiver, that cock, which had started hardening when Xander traced the runes, hardened even more now.
"Wait a soddin´ minute. If this means I can´t ever lie..." Spike let a growl carry the bulk of his threat.
"Nope, just your word to me that you would submit, so at this point, doing anything that would be considered refusing to submit would be bad of the unlife–ending variety," Xander confirmed.
"Effin´ mojo," Spike snapped.
"Yeah, but now that I know you aren´t going to try eating the innocent of Sunnydale, we can concentrate on getting that chip out of your head. Well, that and other stuff of the you submitting variety." Xander trailed his fingertips up and circled the back of Spike´s head, pulling the vampire up. He could feel a moment´s hesitation before Spike followed the unspoken command and stood.
"Someone needs a reminder lesson in submission," Xander commented calmly, a thousand lesson plans running through his head, many of them making his stomach roll uncomfortably even as his cock hardened, and he was a sick, sick boy.
"Don´t bloody need lessons. Could do with some shaggin´ though," Spike suggested with a shimmy of his body. Spike´s naked body pressing into him reminded him that his childe needed this; his childe needed to know that Xander´s Zeppo parts wouldn´t stop him from being a sire. Xander hesitated, his hand on Spike´s ass pulling him close as the realization struck him. God. He really was dumb. After Angel and the soul and the no more with the sire stuff and the whole Yoda betrayer screaming, he really should have figured this one out about three exits back.
"You will take whatever lessons I chose to teach, my Hellcat," Xander corrected him, suddenly understanding what he had to do in order to prove himself. He slapped Spike´s ass hard enough to make the sound echo in the room. Against his neck, bone shifted, and Xander could feel vampire ridges pushing into his skin. Well, he could feel them until Spike started slowly sucking at his neck, giving him an old fashioned hickey like Amy had... at least until she´d gone and rat–tat–tooied herself, and Xander shivered as he realized that of all his potential and actual lovers had been some attempt to get back this feeling: Amy with her magical powers, Faith with her slayer powers, a blissfully short–lived crush on Cordy with her emasculating powers. He missed the feeling that he was petting a tiger that could turn an rip his hand off if he wasn´t careful.
Now he knew what he wanted. He wanted to own and control a body where power ran below the skin. He wanted to throw himself against a lover strong enough to survive it. He had this raw need to mark and possess and demand and dominate. Xander lowered his mouth to Spike´s neck and placed a gentle kiss on the smooth skin before he bit down with all his might, the sharp taste of metal like when he´d chewed aluminum foil making his jaw muscle feel almost a shivery cold as saliva rushed into his mouth.
Spike´s whole body jerked, and Xander slapped a hip awkwardly, unable to get a good angle. "Face the bed," Xander ordered.
"Like facin´ you more," Spike retaliated with a hand down the front of Xander´s pants, fingers finding the sensitive cock´s head.
"Childe," Xander did a fair imitation of a growl as he twisted as hard as he could on Spike´s exposed nipple.
"Oi, that hurts," Spike howled as he backed away, rubbing the offended skin.
"I said face the bed. Stand at the end, and face it," Xander crossed his arms and allowed himself a very un–Xanderish smile, or rather a very vampire–Xanderish smile. Spike hesitated, but then turned and took the two steps to the end of the bed, facing it so that he was standing between the two iron poles that stood at the foot of the bed. Xander took his time as he walked around to the second rack and chose items. Spike watched carefully, but Xander ignored him as he picked up one item after another, fingering them carefully. Some he put back on the various racks, others he laid out on the messy sheets.
"Chain your ankles," Xander ordered as he tossed two manacles at Spike. Each had a wide iron cuff for a limb and then a small one that would fit perfectly around the iron pole. Spike caught them as they bounced off his chest, and Xander could see the need to submit warring with instincts that still told Spike to eat the human. Xander stood with his arms crossed, waiting. This could only end one way, but every second Spike hesitated would bring more punishment.
Spike finally took the chains, and locked them around his ankles before spreading his legs wide in order to chain himself to the poles.
"My hellcat," Xander whispered, walking around behind Spike and pressing himself into Spike, the childe´s reward for obedience.
"Bloody neutered hellcat."
"Don´t look neutered to me," Xander remarked as he slipped a hand around and cupped Spike´s heavy balls. He rubbed the skin, feeling the curly hairs bristling against his fingers as Spike hissed his pleasure and dropped his head back onto Xander´s shoulder. The sight of that neck arched out in submission left Xander´s legs so unsteady and trembling that he just felt like he´d just outrun a troop of zombies the entire length of Sunnydale.
"Soddin´ hell yeah," Spike breathed out.
"Plenty more like that, but first you have a debt to pay to your sire, yes?" Xander commented as he pulled back. Spike tried to push himself back into that retreating body until he nearly lost his balance. Unable to reach either pole to steady himself, he ended up bending over to brace himself on the bed.
"Such a lovely offer. I´ll have to make sure to chain you more often, pretty one," Xander commented as the position gave him clear access to everything since Spike´s legs remained chained open. Spike started pushing himself back up, but Xander reached out and ran the back of one knuckle over the skin behind Spike´s balls and up to the puckered entrance. Xander circled the ridge, and Spike sighed and lowered his top half back down onto the bed. "So pretty and so submissive. You know I´m master, and your demon will learn," Xander promised.
He slid a finger inside Spike, the skin dry and warm with friction as he pushed in. Spike wiggled a little, going up onto his toes before he settled back down and pushed himself down the last inch or so until Xander´s finger reached all the way up inside, the knuckles of his other fingers pressing into Spike´s tender skin.
"Someone went to his grave a virgin," Xander chuckled as he felt the muscular ring tighten around even one finger.
"Not exactly one now, am I?" Spike answered, his words muffled by the bed as he lay with his head and chest against the mattress, his ass pushed high by the angle.
"No, my hellcat, you are most certainly not," Xander agreed as he bent his finger, finding the lumpy, slightly harder spot where the prostate pressed into the colon. He wiggled his finger over it, watching as Spike jerked, his leg muscles cording and straining against the chains.
"Bloody hell, bugger me already. Can´t take this rot," Spike cursed as he grabbed fistful of dirty sheets. If Xander hadn´t already written off the sheets as a complete loss, the sound of tearing fabric might have annoyed him.
"That is the point, childe. You will take what I give you. More than that, you will beg me. You won´t beg me to end the teasing, you will beg me to fill you, to remind you of your place, you will beg for the right to suck my cock and sit at my feet." Xander could feel that body shiver even as Spike pushed himself partially up, Xander´s hand on his back keeping him bent over even though Xander could feel the tightness increase around his finger.
"So you can turn me into a pet?" Spike snarled.
"So I can make you my childe as I promised I would. You will sit at my feet and terrify nations of demons," Xander promised, draping his own body over Spike´s back. "Isn´t that vhat I promised you? I value your strength enough to chain you and keep you. I vill make you strong again, and vhen we face..." Xander hesitated as the thought of that crossed his mind. He took a deep breath and ordered himself to stop thinking of all sorts of nasty, tricky, pus–filled and demonic possibilities down that path.
"When we face the solution to the chip problem, you will be my hellcat: no doubts, no hesitation, no rebellion." With each word, Xander pressed into Spike´s prostate, feeling the body fight him even as Spike reached back desperately, grabbing his jeans and hanging on with one hand despite the awkward angle.
"Not goin´ to be tossed aside again," Spike muttered as he let his second arm collapse so they both fell to the bed, Xander on top with a finger still up Spike´s ass.
"Betray me, and I´ll stake you myself," Xander promised seriously. "Show me the loyalty you have thrown away on fools, and you will sit at my feet as long as I sat at Nusa´s." Xander pulled his finger out so quickly that he could feel the friction burn the skin and Spike growled lowly. "Annoy me, and I´ll just torture you," Xander finished.
Spike didn´t comment as Xander locked a manacle around each wrist; he simply watched with yellow eyes. Stepping up onto the bed, Xander took the right wrist manacle and pulled it up until Spike stood at the end of the bed again. Looping the leading chain through a hoop at the top of the pole, Xander used a simple clip to keep the chain as tight as possible. Xander repeated that on the second arm before hopping down. When he walked to behind Spike, he could see that the wrist chains were tight enough to leave Spike the choice between standing on his tip toes or letting all his weight dangle from his wrists. Soon enough both would become uncomfortable.
"Do you have any begging for me?" Xander asked as he trailed a finger down Spike´s tight back. Spike shifted his feet as much as he could, which wasn´t much, and remained silent. "You doubt I have the will," Xander guessed.
"Bloody hell, ya already went with the effin´ mojo, think you´ve proved ya still are a bastard."
"Oh, but you think I don´t know what you need. You need to know that I´m a ruthless bastard who will do what I have to do to get my way. It´s our way, is it not?" Xander pointed out as he walked around to the bed. "You need to know that I want you enough to torture you into staying in your place. I made a mistake in that warehouse when I untied you, but to be honest, I hadn´t had time to figure out exactly how the two parts of myself fit together yet. I understand much better now."
"Oh yeah?"
"Oh definitely. Now I know that the correct response would have been to leave Angel chained up as I took you again and again, whipping your skin red until you pledged your allegiance and actually meant it. I have your obedience, but now I will force your allegiance."
"But you didn´t do that, now did you. Little late to change history now."
"If Ethan´s spell has taught me anything, it has taught me that it is never to late to change history," Xander pointed out with a laugh. He gathered a number of cool iron spheres from the bed, old–fashioned things with the marks of long–dead blacksmith´s hammers forcing the iron into a ball shape. The globes rolled around in Xander´s hand, three or four fitting in his palm. "I made a mistake, and now I´m fixing it. However, you have sinned, childe. Tell me your sins," Xander said as he walked over to a shelf and picked up the oil from the previous night. He carefully poured it into his palm with the iron orbs.
"You *asked* me to take you," Spike snapped, his voice now defensive.
"Oh, my hellcat, you didn´t sin that night. You acted with far more control than I ever expected from such a young one. Barely a century and you gave up the chance to tear into a hot, virgin body. Such control. Such beautiful and deadly control," Xander corrected him as he came around to Spike´s back, picking one oily ball from his hand and slowly working it into Spike´s unguarded entrance. "That was one wrong guess, so shall we try again?" Xander asked, his finger slowly pushing the iron ball deeper into Spike´s body as Spike writhed.
"Not good at guessing games, so why don´t you just tell me," Spike snarled, but Xander could see the vampire´s hips move in a short and jerky thrusting motion, the chains rattling as Spike pulled on them in frustrated need. The childe wanted to thrust, or be thrust into. Xander might not be able to bring himself to strip the skin from Spike´s back the way Nusa had done to him after finding out about his first duel with a slayer, but that only meant he had to be more creative in his punishment.
"Refusing to guess is an incorrect answer," Xander said sadly as he took a second heavy ball and slowly worked it into Spike body. "Try again and you at least have a chance of being right. Think carefully, childe."
This time, Spike remained silent.
"Silence is also an incorrect answer. You will answer me when I ask you a question," Xander said as he worked the third iron sphere into Spike´s body. "You will hold those or I will punish you beyond these little games," Xander warned before he pulled his fingers all the way out and left Spike to struggle to hold the balls in with his legs spread wide. As Xander walked around to the bed to retrieve more iron, he didn´t miss the heavy cock, fully erect and starting to turn a dull red color. Spike might fight, but he seem to enjoy the fight.
"So, I ask again. What sins do you have to confess?" Xander repeated the oil treatment before he returned to Spike´s backside. The oil made the heavy balls go in easier, but they also meant that Spike had to tighten his muscles more firmly in order to keep the balls from dropping out again. He slowly turned the metal sphere in his palm to make sure it had as much oil as possible.
"I killed people?" Spike asked, his voice confused as he cocked his head to one side.
"I am starting to think you want to be tortured," Xander commented as he worked a fourth ball in, pressing harder to get the previous bits of iron worked farther up the body. Xander could feel the moment one pressed into Spike´s prostate as the lovely chained body twisted and fought the restraints. Spike panted heavily, a human habit Xander still found both curious and endearing. "You are a vampire, and while I don´t condone killing, and I won´t have you kill, I can´t exactly call killing a sin for you. More like a disagreeable eating habit," Xander pointed out, pushing the iron up so far that his finger disappeared up to the second knuckle.
"Bloody fuckin´ hell," Spike snarled as soon as he had enough breath to complain and not just pant.
"I am your sire. What sin have you committed since accepting your place in my line?" Xander demanded as he nipped the skin of Spike´s shoulder where the muscle bulged out as the chain pulled the arm tight. Spike grew still.
"You can´t expect–" Spike started, and Xander pulled his finger out and shoved a fifth sphere up so fast that Spike swallowed his words. This time Xander had to work at it to get the iron all the way up inside.
"I didn´t come to you for help," Spike snapped out. "Shoulda crawled back and admitted I got my arse kicked by some thing with antlers who took Dru from me."
"You should have admitted your failure and taken your punishment," Xander agreed. Now he let his hand reach around and close around Spike´s cock, the oil making his skin slide smoothly as he teasingly stroked.
"Didn´t know you´d kept the Halloween upgrade, mate," Spike pointed out, but his breath came in shallow needy gasps.
"Vampires do not live alone. If you could not come to me, you should have gone to my line or even to Angel."
"Never soddin´ turnin´ to Peaches," Spike instantly snapped. Xander slowed his touches until Spike whined with need, forgetting his anger. Xander´s mouth found Spike´s ear, sucking and nipping as Spike´s body struggled with the bonds. In order to stop the game before it began, Xander kept the thumb of his second hand up Spike´s ass while he tickled the back of the Spike´s cock and balls with his fingers. Soon enough Spike´s mouth gaped open like a dying fish, his head fell back so that his Adam´s apple stood out on the curve of his neck, and his hands opened and closed in time with Xander´s slow, torturous strokes.
"You vill never have the chance to turn away from me again," Xander promised. "You will turn to me as the center of your universe. I am sire. I offer protection. I punish transgressions." Xander increased the pressure on his stokes, slipping his thumb over the now exposed slit at the end of the cock as Spike began trembling. Xander stopped. He stood, holding his childe´s bound body and feeling the chest rise and fall with unnecessary breaths.
"So, your punishment is for thinking that at a mere one hundred you could stand alone. You´re lucky a chip and not a stake found you. Lucky and strong," Xander corrected himself when Spike´s breathing stopped a little too quickly. His hellcat carried scars from the Aurelius clan, and Xander intended to replace them with marks of his own. And his first order of business was to make sure Spike didn´t ever feel weak, no matter what his idiotic clan had told him.
"So, you will endure your punishment without letting these balls drop," Xander said as he slowly pulled his thumb from Spike´s body. "For each ball that drops, you shall either have to do something that truly pleases me, something you come up with on your own, or you will endure twenty–four hours chained like this so that I can admire this body I own," Xander stepped back, trailing an oily hand across Spike´s hip as he walked diagonally across the large room to the bathroom tucked in the corner behind the television. He wouldn´t damage a good whip with oily hands, and maybe he still had more than just a shadow of Nusa´s childe in him since he still remembered his own sire´s adamant insistence on caring for equipment.
When Xander saw himself in the mirror, his eyes dark with lust and his hair unruly and hanging in front of his eyes in waves, he froze in surprise for a second. For that instant he´d expected to see empty air, and Xander washed up quickly, avoiding the glass that reminded him both how much humanity he had and how much the shadow of his vampire self affected him.
Returning to the bed, Xander picked up a brown, leather whip, the long tails hanging straight and the wood handle worn smooth by handling. "A number, childe. And don´t disappoint me," Xander added when Spike opened his mouth too quickly. Spike looked at him, shifting a bit as he worked back up onto his toes to take the strain off his shoulders.
"A hundred," Spike finally offered, his gaze focused on Xander. Xander nodded his approval as he considered the number. He would keep the first sets light enough that a hundred wouldn´t damage his hellcat too much.
"And what is the rule vith the iron spheres?" Xander quizzed Spike.
"Five up there. Each one that falls means I need to do something to impress ya or go twenty–four hours strung up like a bloody Persian carpet," Spike answered.
"Not impress, childe. You never need to impress me. At a hundred you held a Hellmouth. You took your first slayer when you were so young you probably still smelled of your grave. You escaped the Initiative, an act only managed by three other demons in all of history. Childe, you have no need to impress me. For each sphere you let fall, you disappoint me, and that disappointment must be repaid with pleasure," Xander corrected him. Xander smiled as Spike´s cock twitched in response, and Spike pushed himself up as far on his toes as he could.
"Count," Xander ordered. He brought the whip down sharply on the skin where ass and back met.
"Bloody fuck, one," Spike snapped, and Xander walked over and flipped on a light so that he could better appreciate the cobweb of red from the many tails of the whip. Xander waited until the heat of the hit had reached a peak before bringing the whip down in a series of lighter strikes that spread the heat from the shoulders down to the knees. Xander stopped and waited.
"Two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight," Spike immediately offered. Xander waited, watching the skin turn pink slowly before striking again, this time at Spike´s ribs, making the ends of the whip twist around to his front and nip at his chest.
"Nine."
Another flurry along the legs, the edges of the whip tails dancing dangerously close to the vulnerable cock and balls, and Spike counted without complaint. Xander reached eighty before his shoulders started to ache so badly that switching hands no longer helped. He went to the kitchen to pull a beer out of the fridge, rolling his head on his shoulders as he considered the body still enduring silently.
Xander reached ninety three before a ball dropped, the heavy iron ringing against the concrete floor despite the area rug. Xander stopped and waited as he watched muscles strain as Spike fought to hold the rest.
"Childe?" Xander asked.
"Sire, can´t hold ´em," Spike admitted, desperation coloring his voice. Xander closed the distance, tossing the whip on the bed as he slipped a thumb up into Spike, pushing to get the remaining four balls back up in place where Spike could hold them. Spike panted roughly, and Xander rested his head against a shoulder marked with red railroad tracks that connected every part of his backside.
"I´m pleased with you for admitting your need. You have held up well," Xander crooned as the breathing grew more uneven. "We aren´t finished, but you can relax for now, my young one," Xander said as he wrapped his free arm around Spike, pulling the suffering body to his chest as he felt the body sag into him. For long minutes, Xander stood, holding Spike as the breathing became more regular and finally stopped.
"Right, let´s finish this, ´cause I´m ready to get down. It´s takin´ too bloody long." Spike finally said.
"Only you would complain when spread–eagle and at the mercy of someone famous for having none," Xander said as he slowly pulled his thumb from Spike body. The iron spheres remained inside. Retrieving the whip, he finished the last seven hits, drawing blood only once he reached one hundred. Xander smiled with pleasure as he realized he could still wield the whip just as artfully, leaving a regular redness across Spike with individual trail criss–crossing from the harder strikes. Xander continued to feel pretty damn self satisfied until he went to toss the whip on the bed and his arms practically screamed with pain.
"Problem there, luv?" Spike´s head still hung wearily, but he turned it slightly to the side to look at Xander while Xander rubbed his arms.
"Yeah, I need a hot shower to get the blood flowing again, and then I have to finish that translation," Xander answered as he looked at the few items remaining on the bed.
"Let me down, and I´ll join ya in the shower, Spike suggested with a flip of his eyebrow despite the fact that his body hung limply, the single scored whip mark slightly oozing, and red trails winding down his arms from the manacles. Xander felt his stomach turn at the sight, but that didn´t stop him from feeling a little satisfaction from removing some of the hesitation from Spike´s voice.
"I somehow think I´ll get more done alone," Xander said as he grabbed a wood and leather item. "Open up," Xander ordered. Spike´s eyes went wide in either disbelief or anger, but at least this time he obeyed without hesitation. Xander slipped the thick wooden dowel into Spike´s mouth and then buckled it in place, effectively gagging him.
"Oh, you do remember what happens if these fall out, right?" Xander asked as he slipped a finger up into Spike, pushing at the iron balls and feeling only a slight tremor when one pushed into the prostate. Xander could imagine that the nearly purple and rock–hard cock hurt Spike about as much as the whip marks. Spike gave a short nod.
"Right. Now that you aren´t going to complain about boredom, I have to finish my work." Xander slapped Spike´s hip sharply before heading for a cold shower because he really was a sick, sick boy. A sick, sick boy who wanted to still be hard in a couple of hours when he let Spike down. He just hoped that he had some Ben Gay left for his arms because they hurt like the last time he offered to spar with Buffy.
