Trickster´s Treat Sequel –
Janus´ Shadow 7
Xander heard the second ball drop while he tracked down felicitous numbers in relationship to the two Amphisbaena tribes that wanted to make eggs together. The dull clang of metal against concrete startled him, and then a strangled sound from Spike suggested that the vampire was struggling.
"Busy here, quiet down or I´ll make you quiet," Xander commented as he continued scratching numbers on a notepad. Spike, surprisingly, did fall quiet. A second clanging sound echoed as the third ball fell to the floor. Xander shifted on his seat, equally lustful and uncomfortable with the thought of Spike´s body aching as he struggled to hold the last two heavy spheres. Xander waited for them to drop, but no other sound came and he went back to calculating numbers of tribe members and days since the full moon and egg production.
Standing up from his desk nearly an hour later, he went over and ran a hand over Spike´s back, feeling the welted skin under his fingers. Spike made a soft grunting noise around the gag, and Xander used a thumb to trace the puckered skin of the vampire´s ass. The muscles shook with fatigue, and he could feel the cool iron right at the entrance.
"Let them go," Xander ordered and immediately the last two oiled balls fell into his hand as Spike wuffed a heavy sigh around the gag. Xander retrieved the other spheres from the floor and dropped them all into a dish on the corner shelf. Despite knowing that a vampire´s colon was clean, he wanted to disinfect those five balls before pulling them back into the leather pouch that hung on the weapons rack. Just ew. Xander wiped his hand on his jeans and looked at Spike, who hung utterly limp.
Jumping up onto the bed, Xander unclipped the vamp´s right arm, and Spike´s body swung and hung limply from the left one, a new trail of blood creeping down his arm. Even through Xander moved as quickly as possible, Spike´s left wrist had a deep cut from the manacles before Xander could loosen that chain from the ring and lower Spike´s body to the bed.
Spike didn´t move as he lay with his arms stretched over his head, and Xander realized that the young vampire´s time with the Initiative had weakened him even more than Xander expected. When Xander climbed off the bed, Spike lay limply, his lips stretched around the wooden gag that he didn´t even try to remove, and his legs still chained wide open. Xander opened his mouth to apologize, to say that he hadn´t meant to do so much damage, but Spike blue eyes stopped him. Reaching over, Xander brushed a hair out of Spike´s face, and Spike closed his eyes, his body settling into the mattress.
"My beautiful childe. Too exhausted to move, and yet you followed orders the best you could. So much control. So much deadly control," Xander praised, and Spike´s eyes remained closed as he lay wilted and still on the bed.
"Sore?" Xander asked as he walked around to the end of the bed and put his hand over Spike´s loose asshole and perineum. Spike nodded slightly, and Xander easily slipped two fingers inside, rubbing the sore muscles and watching Spike´s back arch like a cat. Nusa had played this game with him once, making him hold a dozen of the balls until each one dropped like an overripe apple from a tree. He remembered the unique aching that made his entire body sore. He remembered the pleasure when those sore and aching muscles were stretched by one of his sire´s toys.
"Just relax and you´ll enjoy this," Xander said as he unzipped his pants. Spike opened one eye and looked back, but he otherwise lay still. Xander slowly pushed into the already opened body, forcing himself deeper into Spike as the vampire moaned low in his throat, the gag muffling the sound. "Just relax," Xander crooned. He´d been afraid that he would come immediately, but seeing Spike like this had brought up enough guilt to prevent that. Strangely though, he didn´t feel enough guilt to get rid of his erection, and that made him feel even more guilty because naked, chained, gagged, and subjugated Spike should not make him so hard he ached. And yet...
Xander stopped thinking and just started slowly rocking in and out, groaning at the feeling of Spike´s body trembling around his cock. He kept his motions slow, massaging and working those fatigued muscles. Below him, Spike arched and closed his hands into fists, and Xander started thrusting a little harder.
Now Spike´s back arched so strongly that his shoulders came up off the bed, his forearms supporting his weight as he made noises that didn´t sound like any language, and Xander knew over a hundred languages. Taking that as his cue, Xander began to slam into Spike, his thighs slapping against Spike´s skin as he aimed downward into the prostate. Spike now added little thrusts, as much as he could with his ankles chained, as he rubbed himself into the bed.
"If you want to come, I suggest you do it before I do," Xander commented hoarsely. The sight of Spike´s wanton pleasure quickly overrode any guilt as he could feel his own orgasm gathering. He slammed in again, and Spike growled around the gag, pushing himself up to his hands so that his back was inhumanly arched as the body stiffened. Xander thrust once more, and then started to come himself. He dropped onto Spike, grabbing the vampire´s arms and biting into an exposed and arched neck.
Once the waves of orgasm passed, Xander let his weight fall on his lover, his childe. His cock still buried and warm, he reached up and played with a bit of hair, wishing he could order his childe to grow it long, but understanding that this persona the childe had created was his armor. He would have to wait until Spike felt strong enough to let this personality go. Trailing his finger down Spike´s nose, he finally reached the lips, tracing their edges as they stretched around the gag.
"I think we can get rid of this," Xander said, as he unbuckled the thing. Spike immediately pushed it out with his tongue, but before the hellcat could offer any complaints, Xander crushed his own mouth to Spike´s. The angle was wrong with Xander laying on Spike´s back and too lazy to pull out of Spike´s body, but Xander didn´t care. He explored alien teeth and tickled the top of Spike´s mouth and nibbled at a lip as Spike´s tongue explored him.
Finally Xander pulled away, pushing himself up onto his arms and looking down at Spike, who still lay like a rag doll with his arms flopped on the bed.
"I told you I would see you limp with pleasure and pain," Xander whispered.
"Not soddin´ limp," Spike disagreed without moving, his words muffled by the mattress his face was half embedded in.
"Of course not, my hellcat," Xander conceded as he slowly withdrew. His cock ached in a good, overused kinda way. He´d been hard for hours, so he didn´t know why he was surprised at being all owie. "I´m glad you´re not limp, childe of mine," Xander offered as he slapped a hip, "because we have a meeting to go to if we don´t want Giles to think you ate me." For the first time that day, Xander looked down at his damaged arm, where the hicky with the puncture marks still showed against his skin. Right, long sleeves for him.
"And the slayer?" Spike asked suspiciously, even though he didn´t move.
"I told you last night, I´m not good with the thinky, so we´re going with impetuous stupidity and hoping she´ll forgive me later," Xander offered cheerfully. Spike just made a grunt.
"Bloody hell, might be nice if one of us had a plan," he finally added after Xander had retrieved several packets of blood and one of the huge, plastic stadium glasses with a logo from a local hardware store on the side.
"Oh, I have a plan, not a good one, but one that will probably work if we don´t end up dead first," Xander assured him as he waited for the blood to heat and appreciated the view Spike offered from behind with his legs chained open and the back of his thighs still red with whip marks. Now Xander could even see a trickle of white leaking out since Spike was too limp to tighten the ring of muscle at his ass. Oh yeah, he was a sick, sick boy. A happy, sick boy. A happy, sick boy who missed vampire stamina because not even a teenager could get up again this fast.
"And?" Spike asked when Xander fell silent.
"And nothing. I told you. No more thinkiness. Nope, no thinky, just acty," Xander insisted as he pulled the blood from the microwave and brought it to the bed. With a sigh, Spike pushed himself upright.
"Right then, planning on unchaining me?" Spike asked as he took the large cup filled with enough sire´s blood to cure his pains. If Xander had to guess, he would say it was more sire´s blood than Spike had ever been allowed. Spike drank the blood slowly, his eyes closed in pleasure.
"I rather like this view. I think I may leave you like this whenever we´re home. You chained up like some offering, ready for me to take as I like, those muscles straining and your most private parts vulnerable only to me. I think you may spend quite a bit of time like that," Xander said as he went to one of the two small closets where he kept his less geeky clothes. Stripping off his t–shirt he considered his choices. Normally a night of Scoobie meetings and patrols called for flannel or brightly colored Hawaiian wear. Tonight, he decided to go for a change. He pulled a soft, midnight blue sweater over his head and turned to look at Spike, who watched him, the empty cup still in hand.
"Oh yes, I think that´s a good place for you. It keeps you out of trouble, and it does so amuse me to see you like this," Xander said as he came after the cup.
He expected Spike to preen at the compliment, but instead he watched Xander carefully, that ocular game of dominance back again as he dropped his gaze to the ground.
"Say what you´re thinking," Xander ordered as he took the cup.
"Wot? Nothing," Spike said, and the expression had cleared, his face becoming neutral.
"I tell you that we´re going to a meeting, and you get... distant. I am sure this is not nothing," Xander contradicted Spike as he rinsed out the cup and put it in the dishwasher.
"Not scared of the slayer."
"I never thought you were, certainly not after you made a deal with her to save the world or attacked her in broad daylight."
"Just don´t want her..." Spike stopped.
"Spike, I can´t stop her from taking verbal shots at you any more than I will stop you from taking verbal shots at her. However, she will not physically attack you when you´re helpless. She wouldn´t, and if she would, I won´t let her," Xander promised. Spike´s expression returned, relief evident, and Xander turned to the closet to find the smallest things he could. He had a pair of jeans that had shrunk in hot water that would probably still be too big for Spike but at least they would sorta fit.
"So, if I tell her she´s a slut for sleeping with Angelus?" Spike asked as Xander dug through the clothes that had fallen to the bottom of the closet.
"Not like I haven´t thought it," Xander answered. "I´d never *say* it, but I´ve thought it."
"And if I point out that her hair color comes straight out of a bottle?" Spike´s voice now had more of the devilish glee that Xander had first fallen in love with back when he´d been a vampire and Spike had tried to kill him.
"People in glass houses, Spike," Xander pointed out. "I have some evidence here that your hair color isn´t exactly natural," Xander waved a hand toward Spike´s naked body where the hair definitely wasn´t blonde.
"Yeah, but I can carry it off; she looks like a washed out housewife with that color."
"Just as long as you don´t call her fat, I don´t care what you say. Just don´t expect her to take it lying down," Xander pointed out as he came up with the jeans. They were wrinkled, but a quick spin in the dryer would fix that, and at least they were dark blue and in decent shape.
"And if I call you her lapdog?" Xander froze, his cold gaze turning to Spike as he felt fury rise in his chest. Spike´s eyes dropped to the floor. "Not like I mean it, mate, but I´m thinking your chums... they don´t want to know about this side of you." Spike´s words cut through the anger, and Xander started to smile. His hellcat might be impetuous and foolish, but he wasn´t stupid. Even more importantly, he had turned that sharp mind to doing something to make Xander´s life easier, as he should.
"Fair enough. Outside this room, we are the parts we need to be, but in here," Xander dropped the jeans on the top of the dryer revealed behind kitchen cupboards before walking over to Spike and grabbing the vampire by the back of the neck, "in here you are my childe, and you will not forget it."
"Not bloody likely to," Spike said as he leaned into the grip.
"I´ll be happy to remind you any time you like," Xander answered with a smile.
"Just me that you´ll remind?" Spike asked curiously.
"I´ll do vhat I have to do," Xander insisted seriously, and Spike nodded. "Right now, unchain yourself and go get cleaned up. You´re a mess," Xander pressed a key into Spike´s palm and went to shove the jeans in the dryer with a damp towel.
"I´m still voting for chaining him in some dark basement," Buffy complained, her arms crossed and a determined expression making it clear that she wasn´t going to go down easy on this issue.
"If any of us had a basement available I might consider the plan, but we cannot leave Spike unguarded," Giles had his patient teacher–voice going, and Xander bit his tongue as he tried to stay out of the fight.
"Xander guarding Spike," Buffy snorted.
"Hey! Sitting right here," Xander snapped back before he remembered he was supposed to be biting his tongue.
"No offense, Xander, but you´re not exactly reliable–boy any more. I went by Hotdog on a Stick after I talked to Giles, and they said you´d stopped showing up for work like a month ago. What happens if you flake out when you´re supposed to be keeping an eye on biteless wonder here?" Buffy turned on him, and Xander closed his eyes and counted to ten in three different languages.
"Brainless bint," Spike hissed under his voice.
"Buff, I stopped working there because of that huge bruise and cracked ribs I got flying into a headstone when those biker guys rose from their graves. Remember? Oh, wait, that was the night you had to quit early to study for a chem test, so Giles and I had to deal with that one alone."
"Oh hey, look, they have ice skating on television," Willow piped in, turning the television up so that the overly cheery music filled the room. Spike snorted. Giles rolled his eyes.
"Are you saying I´m not doing my job?" Buffy´s voice was low and dangerous.
"He´d never say that!" Willow instantly insisted.
"No, I wouldn´t *say* that," Xander retaliated, crossing his own arms over his chest.
"I´ve given my life for this slayer–gig. I´ve given up everything to do my duty, so don´t even go there," Buffy practically shrieked, and Xander could feel an edge of something permanent and ugly creep into the landscape.
"God, Buff, I know that," Xander dropped his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face. "I know you´re doing your job."
"Like bloody hell she is," Spike offered from the arm of the couch where he sprawled as if it were his home. "Never seen a slayer that asks for nights off or lets other people do her work for her. Demons have minions, but I never knew slayers to before you lot," Spike waved an unlit cigarette around the room as everyone froze in place.
"Hey, not big with the minioning, we are so not minions," Willow said as she sat up straight.
"I really think–" Giles started.
"Watch it, because if you think I should be more traditional with the slaying, Mr. Pointy has no problem with turning you to dust," Buffy took one step forward, and Xander practically threw himself off the couch and between the two. He didn´t *think* Buffy would staking Spike, but he wasn´t taking any chances.
"Hey, he´s not with the biting, and you´re not with the staking. We already agreed on that!" Xander said as he put his back to Spike and held out a placating hand toward Buffy. He discovered his mistake when Buffy´s face reddened with fury, and he turned to see Spike making a face at her. Putting his elbow into Spike as hard as he could, he kept focused on Buffy, who now looked ready to stake him to get at Spike.
"Oi! Didn´t call her fat... you said it was fair game as long as I didn´t call the bint fat," Spike complained, and Xander felt his stomach roll the way it had when he´d spotted that dead cat with the maggots making the scabby fur on it move. Buffy´s face twisted into something first ugly and then hurt, and Xander preferred the angry Buffy to this injured expression.
"You talked about me being fat?" Buffy asked in a small voice.
"Xander! How could you?" Willow flew up from her spot on the floor looking for the perfect television show to stop a fight and aimed a fairly serious backhand at his arm. Of course, for Willow, "fairly serious" meant a fair–to–middling chance it would have killed a fly, but Xander still flinched.
"No!" Xander yelped as he considered the two women now glaring at him. "I *never* said she was fat. She just talks about dieting all the time when she doesn´t need to diet and I told Spike to not say anything." Xander glared at Spike, who looked remarkable unfazed. When Xander had given permission for Spike to play the part of an unwilling captive, he hadn´t expected it to go quite so far. He narrowed his eyes in frustration, and Spike suddenly got up and began exploring Giles´ book collection.
"So, you don´t think I´m fat?" Buffy asked.
"Of course he doesn´t," Willow stepped in before Xander could say anything.
"Of course I don´t," he echoed.
"Right, if we´re finished with the pointless bickering, are we ready to discuss this new government Initiative? Or rather, what may be an on–going government program, since Angel called this morning with information on his contact with a similar group in World War II."
"Angel?" Buffy asked, turning away from Xander and Spike, and Xander breathed a sigh of relief right before Willow hit him again for good measure.
"And there goes Slutty the Vampire Layer on the quest for a good lay," Spike offered and Xander could only roll his eyes.
"Spike, do shut up," Giles answered as he picked up a legal pad full of scratchings. "This experimentation is a little..." Giles paused.
"Barbaric," Xander offered in the silence.
"Yes, quite."
"What did Angel have to say about them?" Buffy asked.
"They blackmailed him into retrieving an enemy sub. They made no attempt to perform experiments on him."
"Oi, that´s because he ditched the thing before he met up with them again," Spike interrupted. "Knew the bugger was up to something when he tossed me and Lawson overboard."
"He what?" Xander could feel his anger rise at the thought of Angel carelessly tossing Spike aside, again.
"Lawson?" Giles asked.
"Nazis thought they could use demons, yeah?" Spike started, waving the cigarette Giles had forbidden him to light. "Had several of us on this sub when we staged a bit of a revolt. McAttitude shows up and tells us we can´t eat the rest of the crew, then he goes and eats one of the crew, then he kicks me and his newest childe right off. Tells us he´ll stake us if he sees us again."
"A childe?" Xander asked, horrified, "not a minion?"
"Mate, he had more sire´s blood in him than I did. He wasn´t just a childe, he was juiced on sire´s blood."
"But Angel just–" Xander couldn´t get the words out.
"Angel wouldn´t have turned someone unless there was no choice," Buffy insisted.
"I´m sure that´s true," Giles assured her.
"Who gives a flying fuck? He made a childe and then dumped him without a thought," Xander snapped.
"Xander? What the hell is wrong with you lately?" Xander felt a pull on his arm, and he turned to see Buffy looking up at him, her eyes wide with worry. The Xander he had been could see that he was hurting his friends, worrying them. The whispers from the past wanted to find Angel and beat him until blood ran in rivers.
"Buffy, that´s wrong," Xander said earnestly.
"Angel wouldn´t have turned the man if he didn´t need to. They were fighting Nazis, demons and Nazis," she explained earnestly.
"And Nazis are right up there with demons on the ´absolutely must stop to save the world´ list, " Willow agreed. "Way up there, maybe higher than some demons even."
"But he..." Xander let his voice trail off as he realized he had no way to explain the reason for his horror. He looked to Spike, whose carefully neutral expression showed the vampire´s distress, and then at Giles, who polished his glasses and avoided eye contact.
"Buffy, I´m tired and not feeling all that charitable toward Deadboy or the government or anyone else right now. Maybe I should just head out."
"That might be a good idea," Giles offered as he slipped his glasses on.
"But the pizza, the pizza hasn´t even come yet, and we ordered the extra cheesy goodness, and you can´t give up pizza," Willow said softly. Buffy stepped back and dropped into a chair, still looking cranky, but clearly not wanting to fight any more. Xander felt a stab of regret that he couldn´t seem to find his footing with Buffy now; they couldn´t seem to find that comfortable place where they could all three of them curl up and make fun of people on television. Of course, adding Spike to his life wasn´t going to help matters, but he wouldn´t abandon Spike.
"Tell you what, come over Saturday, and I´ll order the pizza," Xander offered as he looked at Willow. He didn´t limit his invitation to her exactly, but he did drop his eyes to the floor without looking at Buffy.
"But we have this big paper coming due," Willow had a dismayed tone, but Xander just shrugged.
"Hey, that´s okay, college girls have college deadlines, and non–collegy boys don´t," Xander offered with a small smile and another shrug. "Come on, Bleach Boy, let´s run through a cemetery or two before we head back to the apartment."
Xander got up and headed for the door. Giles stepped into his path, and Xander looked up at the man, expecting worry or even anger. Instead Giles pressed a small book into his hand. "Do be careful, Xander," Giles suggested.
"No problem, G–man," Xander answered as he detoured around the man without looking down at the book. Xander opened the door and practically bolted into the night. He didn´t bother to even wait for Spike as he power–walked the length of the block to where his blue lady waited in the pool of light from the only working streetlight on the block.
"Right then, what he give ya?" Spike asked, and Xander turned to find the vamp already leaning one hip into the two–tone car, a glowing cigarette between his lips as he sucked deeply. Xander glanced down and started laughing.
"Wot?" Spike asked, straightening up and leaning forward so he could see the title, "Imperium," written in a sharp scrolling script that was probably Rual or Waa´ath.
"He´s a little behind the time, innit he?" Spike asked with a gesture toward the small demonic book of spells that allowed a person to gain control over another.
"Just a bit, yeah," Xander said, surprised both that Giles would offer that kind of help and that Giles would give him a demonic book. "Oh shit," Xander said as he looked at Spike in horror. "He knows I read demon."
"Yeah, so?"
"But that means he knows... okay, I don´t know what he knows," Xander admitted. He looked at Spike, who just cocked a head at him.
"He goin´ to be a problem?" Spike asked, obviously confused by the whole conversation.
Xander laughed. "God, you sound like a mafia boss when you say it like that," Xander said, worried that the laughter just might be hysterical. Walking around to the driver´s side, he opened the car and slid in. Spike pulled open the windowless door on his side, and Xander added "car shop" to the list right under "new sheets."
"So, where to now?" Spike asked, as he slammed his door shut.
"To see a man about a chip," Xander said in his best 007 impression. He looked over his shoulder for traffic before guiding his car into the road as he headed for the bad part of town. The really, really bad part of town.
