Stealing the Truth
It´s almost time. He can hear the clock by his bed, tick, tick, ticking the seconds away.
He´ll be here soon. And Xander can´t sleep.
When you´re lying awake at night, naked and sweaty in a bed all by yourself, the mind turns naturally to thoughts of how utterly fucked– up your love life is. Or at least Xander´s does. The central air´s dead and he´s burning up, attempting to cool himself off with a still– capped Heineken from the fridge. Frosty cool goodness in bubbled green glass, rolling slowly over his stomach and arms and forehead.
Good idea on the drawing board, but in practice it isn´t working. No sooner is one spot cooled off than another´s hot again. He thinks he´d be better off just drinking it if it weren´t for that whole 4 a.m. alcohol–bad concept. Especially when you are, for now, alone. And naked. Don´t forget the naked. There´s a world of bad that could ensue when you combine a lack of clothes and beer.
Not that it won´t, anyway.
He´d rather think about something else. Like how the air would choose tonight to throw up its mechanical arms and die. The weathermen have been raving all day about how it´s "the hottest, sunniest day in Sunnydale since 1937! Completely unseasonable, and how about that complete lack of cloud cover, huh?" – which is one, really depressing, and two, a little confusing, because did they even keep records back then?
Huh. He shoves his hands beneath his head, under the pillow, and stares into the semi–darkness. What if the Mayor did keep that on file? Maybe he used the info to plot good incantation times. Giles was always big on the positions of the stars. Wonder if it´s the same for clouds?
But then again, would your average Wink Winkleman in front of a green– screen weather map be able to figure that out? Not unless the networks know more than they´re telling.
Well, that´s a given.
But it´s still a mystery, too. Xander´s pretty sure they didn´t just open the Mayor´s files to the press when he – erm – you can´t call it died – although it´s funny how many people remember it that way – anyway, he´s pretty sure that what didn´t magically self–destruct is sealed up tighter than Fort Locks. Or is that Fort Knox? He´s not sure.
Maybe one beer wouldn´t hurt after all. He´s being quiet, honest, trying to relax, to doze out into sleep – maybe, please God, stay asleep in peace, just this one night – but the babble won´t stop inside his head.
God, he wishes his brain would just shut up. Maybe then he could get some rest even if he does feel like a slow–roasting Thanksgiving turkey. Minus the rotisserie. Unless you count the tossing and turning on uncomfortably warm sheets.
Come on, brain, quiet! I order you: silence! Like that´ll work. He can never turn off the wild rambling, derailing trains of thought his mind wires itself up with. Even if his mouth is sealed shut with duct tape – and trust him, he´s in a position to know – the endless jabbering just goes on and on and on and on...
About the only thing that takes care of it is the five or ten minutes of utter, dazed stupidity induced by an orgasm, but he´s too hot for even that. Yet.
Especially when he´s nervous.
No, not nervous... on edge. Wary. Watching the shadows in the darker corners of his bedroom. Not that anything´s in there with him – now – he thinks. There couldn´t be. Nowhere to hide. That´s the only reason he kicked his favorite washed–thin cotton sheets and comforter to the foot of the bed, despite stated state of nudity. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.
Still, he doesn´t know. Might take his mind off his… well, he´s not going to call them troubles, because the word could sue him for defamation of character. After rejecting a few other names, he decides to call them the "what the hell?" aspects of his existence.
Point the first on the Great List of "Huh?" is his love life. He´s always wondered if Willow really did lift that "my will be done spell". Did she even need to bother with setting it on him in the first place or was the universe just acknowledging the fact?
Or is it just that – like he said a long time ago – he´s doomed? ´Cause, demon magnet? Was. Is. Probably always will be. Which sucks. Big time. Has sucked, ever since he knew he could be... um... magnetized. Get it, drawn to someone?
And some kind of ride that´s been. Faith was the closest thing to a normal human he´s ever had, and that is just plain scary. Makes him reach for the cap on his beer, time of the night be damned, and take a long swig.
He misses Anya. Right about now she´d be awake, complaining that he was keeping her from her beauty rest, and screeching at him about how alcohol consumption in the wee hours of the night was a sure sign of addiction and that if he did not seek counseling immediately, she would be forced to stage an intervention. Tomorrow. As soon as she got off work.
That would have been hell.
God, he misses her. Misses the way she saw straight to the heart of anything, then ripped it open to pick over the bleeding remains. Misses her smelly cheese in the fridge and her fragrant little bottles with pictures of flowers on them littering up his bathroom.
She played such a big role for so long, you know? And then poof... gone. OK, not so much poof. More like: Xander Harris, you are a great big chicken. And you just laid a rotten egg. A few steps out the door of a moose lodge that smelled like mildew and bye–bye, semi–normal kind of life!
He rolls the opened bottle carefully, over his forehead. Anya might, just might, forgive him – in a lot of time – but she´s never going to forget. They can´t ever go back to the way things used to be. She won´t be the someone he picks up on his way home from work, the person who debated corned beef on pumpernickel over Caesar salad and saw nothing weird about it. Someone who knew how to make every appliance behave just by frowning at it.
Come to think of it, if Anya were here, they´d be the only apartment in the complex with perfectly functioning air and he´d be fast asleep by now, comfy– cozy and cool.
Maybe with his arms wrapped around her.
All thing considered, he´d probably have been floating in that great orgasm stupor before he passed out. Safe. Comfortable. Satisfied.
His dick gives a halfhearted twitch at the thought. But the fact is, since the worst of the teenage hormones rode over him in a battered wave, it hasn´t been so much about getting off. If he was really desperate, he has enough Vaseline and his hand to take care of the problem. No, he wants... more. Someone there to enjoy it with him.
Even if that someone´s...
God, when was the last time he was so hot? He can´t remember back to 1937 (unless there is such a thing as reincarnation, and with his luck, this is his fourth or fifth life spent rotting above the Hellmouth). Worst heat wave he can remember is... oh. Yeah.
He tosses a little on his rucked–up sheets, frowning. Sometimes, he finds himself wondering if he´s ever had one single relationship with something that wasn´t from the Dark of Beyond, or even a one–night stand. And then he remembers:
...Yeah. Once.
The summer of 1997. Before Buffy. When there was still Jesse, and they´d had the bright idea to go out and do the camping trip thing before school started. Dumbasses. They didn´t know the first thing about it, and neither did either of their folks, so they just threw a few things into backpacks, picked up sleeping bags and headed for Breaker´s Woods.
Supper he remembers as being the night he discovered how nasty Beanie– Weenies taste cold, because there aren´t any microwaves in the great outdoors and they´d forgotten to bring a cooking pot with them. Their Vienna Sausages looked like things he´d eviscerate in later years, pale tubes soaking in crusty white jelly.
His stomach flops, and he sips the beer to soothe it.
Jesse had brought out a surprise... something to celebrate their growing up. Not alcohol – both their dads counted how many cans they had for themselves alone, and they weren´t quite brave enough to shoplift. But he was able to lift a half–pack of his mother´s cigarettes, and a cheap plastic lighter.
They smoked two each, and got sick into the bushes. Xander grins, remembering. He can almost smell the nicotine and tar right now, the buzz that rushed them and made them think they were kings. God help them if they´d ever gotten into pot, like they talked about when they were skateboarding in deserted grocery store lots, way too late at night.
God help them, period. He´s still amazed that no vamps ever got them before then, all alone out there without a clue.
He guesses that things happen for a reason. But while when he thinks of Jesse, there´s such big a hole in his heart that it matches the Anya–shaped one, he can´t regret what time they had together.
That one time.
So different from...
He has a minute. He can let himself remember:
When he and Jesse had come down from smoking the cigarettes and puking, they´d sipped warm Gatorade and lain on their backs on top of the open (heavy flannel) sleeping bags. They hadn´t known any better. No sheets. And it was so hot that they were wiggling and shifting, wanting to strip down to skin but way too embarrassed to do it or suggest it.
Then they´d looked at each other, cracked up, and started wiggling out of jeans and T–shirts. The night air had been just like heaven kissing their skins, sweeping from head to foot and giving them shivers that felt so, so good. Xander had stretched out, longlonglong, pulling every muscle in his body just the right way.
Quiet, then, looking up at the sky. And he hadn´t been thinking – really he hadn´t – it was just habit, something he always did before he slept. His hand slipped down to his cock and started to rub at it, still kinda clumsy but able to get the job done. It had been good, thick and hard in his hand before one: he felt Jesse´s attention totally riveted on him, and two: he realized what he was doing.
And then what? Not exactly anything to crawl under, and his hands weren´t gonna hide that kind of hard on, flat against his belly and already leaking a little (hey, he was sixteen). Jesse´s eyes were huge as they stared. "Jesus, Xan," he´d whispered.
He´d been too ashamed to speak. Too frozen to cover back up. Too turned–on to stop – and at that age, not even visualizing his science teacher naked would make him go back to soft and inoffensive. All he could do was shake his head, way sorry and completely helpless.
But not alone. ´Cause then, like in slow–mo, he´d watched in this sick fascination as Jesse´s hand crept down his own stomach, down to his cock. Half–hard. From watching him?
Xander´s heart had sped up in his throat. He´d heard of guys doing this... whacking off together... it was like a game, right? Either see who comes last or comes first, who´s got the most jizz... Jesse was playing a game, right? Except that his eyes...
He´d watched his best friend stroke himself, hard and fast, fingers and thumb working. Weird strokes of heat thumped through him, lolloping down his nerves straight into his cock until it pulsed and jumped with the rhythm of his heartbeat. Kept it up until Jesse was hard as him, and still stroking. He could see clear stickiness – why was he still looking? – and the big vein tracing the bottom of his cock.
Jesse squeezed himself, still staring at Xander, who realized he was staring back. "Xan?" he whispered roughly.
"Yeah?" and it was a shock to find out he could still form words.
"You ever..." Jesse swallowed hard, "you ever taste yourself?"
For a moment his head spun, thinking about how hard it would be to bend over and give yourself a blow job – something he´s only ever done serious dreaming about – then he realizes that´s not what Jesse meant. "No!" ´Cause ew, disgusting.
Or so he´d thought. Until he watched his friend lift his hand, shaking hard and leaflike, fluttering to his mouth with stickiness on the fingertips, sucking it in. He´d bucked his hips, unable to help it. This was wrong – sick – but God, it was so hot.
"Tastes salty," Jesse mumbled around his fingers. "Try it."
"Me?"
Jesse swallowed hard. Lifted up onto one bare hip and leaned over, close enough that just the tip of his cock brushed Xander´s leg. "Naw," he said huskily. "Me."
Then they´d kissed, and... he learned a lot of stuff that night. Like what the feel of a cock that´s not your own is like. The way people are sensitive in different places. The taste of spunk, his own and Jesse´s. How if you´re careful with your knees and elbows, you can get on top of someone and thrust down in the V between their legs, and though he had no experience he knew it was as good as sex. Even though he couldn´t call it sex, not really. Not even when they both came in huge messy messes all over each other, shaking and flailing hard enough to rattle the tin mugs two feet away.
How you can fall asleep in each other´s arms, red as tomatoes, shy as rabbits, but feeling grown–up as adults.
He´d wanted to talk about it the next day, but... they just... and Jesse, too. It just didn´t happen, and it went on like that until pretty soon they were back to skateboarding and talking about girls and it was like it never happened... except every now and again, they´d accidentally on purpose brush hands, meet eyes, and know that they both remembered.
Then there was Darla. And Jesse had that new, crazy, deader–than–thou vibe going on. Then sharp wood, and ashes...
And a really sick feeling in his stomach that´s lasted to this day. That´s why he hates vampires more than anything. They took away his choice. His could–have–been.
There´s no telling if they would ever have gotten over their shyness. Maybe they would have gone camping again, or started sneaking into each other´s bedrooms at night. Holding hands on the quad. Showing people how they still weren´t afraid of what they said. And who knows, they could have either been way cool major front–runners or the most hated students at Sunnydale for coming out of the closet and not apologizing.
So Xander, unable to sleep, thinks back on that and wonders about it all. Was he in a closet with Jesse? It made his "relationship" with Cordelia just that bit much more ironic. Was he a pinch–hitter or was it a one–time, one–guy kind of thing?
He wishes he didn´t know for sure.
And he wishes he hadn´t gotten lost in that memory, because while it still confuses him it always, always gets him heated up, and now his cock´s stiff as a board, pointing up to heaven. Demanding that he pay it a little attention before his balls start to turn blue and ache.
And fuck, fuck, fuck that, because it´s almost time. He can tell.
Maybe if he´d stayed soft. Been all hot and sticky with nothing else to offer. Maybe then the shadows wouldn´t be so threatening, especially those in the rustling tree that, dammit, just has to be right outside his window. He´s asked management to cut it down, says it interferes with his sleep – which hell, yes, it does – but it´s part of their so–careful landscaping exterior, and they won´t hear of it.
So things go on. Like they have been. For the past – month? Two months? He´s lost track by now. If he thinks hard he could remember the exact day, but it gets foggy when it´s late and all the blood in his body has been diverted past brain and gone straight to dick.
He wants to touch it. Hard, fast, rough. Bring himself off, never mind the apartment´s stuffy heat. Leave nothing behind but a mess that a few tissues could take care of, and be asleep before –
Yeah, right. He knows that´s no good. He´s not a teenager anymore, but he´s not far from it. He could wake up and be ready to go again any time.
He knows, because it´s happened before. A lot. Recently. And his heart starts hammering at the thought, though whether it´s from fear or excitement, he doesn´t know.
The clock on his bedside table ticks. He looks at it without thinking. Five a.m., just about an hour before dawn. Almost time.
He´s regular, have to give him that. Except when he´s not, when he likes to show up just after sundown or when Xander´s watching the game in sweats and a battered T, or when he´s cooking dinner. But if he hasn´t decided to play games before now, Xander knows he´s going to show up before dawn.
So. Any second now.
He knows what to do. How to prepare. His hand goes automatically to the drawer in his bedside table and pulls out a stainless steel cock ring. It doesn´t go on easy – and those things aren´t made for comfort – but he knows what´ll happen if he comes before he´s – allowed to.
Alone in the dark, but not for long, he swallows hard and lies as still as he can. Beer forgotten. Waiting.
For Spike.
Who´ll be coming for him, climbing that tree, tapping on his window. Any. Second. Now.
See, he should have known. Really, he should. There were all those subtle hints – the long stares over the gleaming coal of a cigarette, measuring him up. The evil smiles with tongue flickering over teeth. Less subtle, the way he´d felt Xander up carrying him into that warehouse with Willow. Cupping himself every once in a while, when he caught Xander looking at him. The way he´d thrust his pelvis rhythmically against Xander´s arm every time he tied the bastard up in his barcalounger.
How he´d keep Xander up every night – in every sense – by telling these long, detailed, so–dirty–sailors–would–blush stories about fucking men. Explaining exactly what the tight wrinkled pucker of a hole felt like, tasted like, around your fingers and your tongue as you worked your way in. The best way to suck someone off, and what it felt like when someone lapped and stabbed at your dribbling slit. Learning how to take an entire cock in your mouth, down your throat. Spreading yourself wide for someone to settle between your legs. Breathing slow and steady to let muscles relax, open up, take in something as big as a hard–on with almost no pain.
He´d talk and talk and talk, no shutting him up, until Xander was so hard he hurt and he had to finish, sweating huge drops and jerking himself off with a few pulls to the sound of Spike laughing at him.
"Little boy," he´d say. "You think you´ve got one over on me?" He´d thrust his pelvis high as he could, arching his back on the chair, and give Xander the look of a night predator peering bright–eyed through the darkness. "One day, I´ll have a leg up on you. You want it, I can smell it. Just about screaming for it, you are. I´ll see you get it. Just wait and see. You hate me? Don´t give a damn. But you belong to me – my voice, my tongue, my cock. You got that, Harris?"
He´d hated that so much. The whole ´you know you´re mine, bitch´ thing when he was just trying to understand. Wanting to get why it was that when he hated vampires so much, there was something about Spike that fascinated him – like the deadliness of a white tiger that hasn´t been fed.
But then he´d grown an Anya, attached to his arm, and Spike had dived headfirst into Buffy–worship. He´d hoped – prayed a little – that it was over, now. That the crazy dreams that woke him up wet and sticky would stop. That if he could just fling enough barbs and hatred Spike´s way that he would only kill him if he got the chance, not come after him like – like he does now.
Then he got the chip out. And Xander discovered that it doesn´t matter how hard you wish upon a star. You never get the innocence of childhood back.
A sharp tapping startles him out of his thoughts, and he jerks around without thinking – groaning as his cock sharply taps the sheets – to see Spike, standing easily on the tree branches as he would on the ground, leaning in with that hungry look on his face. "Little pig, little pig," he mocks. "Let me in."
Xander swallows hard, despite the vicious jerk his cock gives at the sound of that voice, that accent. "No."
"Let me in, I said." Spike spreads one hand flat against the window. "Open this, or I´ll break it and you can explain to your landlord in the morning how something else got destroyed. Pay for it out of those funds of yours that are running so low now the First´s got every construction company out of town with their tails between their legs." He strikes the glass one hard, rattling blow. "You do what I say, Xander. You always do what I say, and you do it now."
Xander closes his eyes. "It´s unlocked," he says softly. Yeah, he left it that way. He knew.
He doesn´t look to see the sash slide up and Spike slip in. He can hear the sounds of buttons and zippers coming undone, the soft swish of clothing sliding to the ground as the vampire panther–stalks his way toward the over–warm bed and his own naked body spread out like a sacrifice. Which he is.
He feels Spike climb up and push him onto his back, spread–eagling his legs so that the blond can crouch between them. So he can lift Xander´s knees and have everything on display for his pleasure. "Good little boy," Spike purrs. "Look at you, so hard for me. Thinking about me?"
Xander can´t say no, and he can´t say yes. Memories did this, but they´re all tangled and twisted together now with that cold, unbreathing presence so close. Jesse´s warmth and the ceiling of his bedroom and Spike´s cold fingers and the night sky hanging heavy overhead.
Spike´s hands run up and down the length of his thighs, ending at his cock, bound tight with the ring. "You even remembered this." He sounds pleased. "You´re learning, little boy. That gets you a reward this time."
Don´t suck it. Please don´t suck it. Just do it, do it until he´s willing to take the band off, and let them both come. Then leave. Like always. Please.
A cool tongue laps across the head of his dick. He knows what Xander hates/fears/loves the most, and he always goes in for the kill. "A prezzie just for you," Spike murmurs as Xander throbs and hurts and wonders why him, why him, why him. Even though he knows. This is payback. Revenge. Learning what it´s like when a cunning master vampire has had a long time to make his plans, and gets the chance to carry them out.
He strokes gently at Xander´s sac, already drawn up tight, and laughs under his breath. "I´ll make you mad," he breathes. "Drive you wild. Have you screaming for it, for me, before we´re done here this night."
And Xander knows that he will. He´ll want Spike – more than he already does. And he still doesn´t know why.
Does he?
"Good boy," Spike whispers as Xander threshes and jerks. "Such a sweet child you can be." He licks again, long and slow. "Now what do you say, pretty baby? What do you say when I´m going to be so very nice to you?"
The words sting like acid. But he says them. He says them. Hoarse, rasping over his tongue and out his lips. "Thank you, Daddy."
"That´s what I wanted to hear." Spike´s cold mouth envelops him, only drawing off when Xander´s almost screaming, to murmur: "Say it again, child. Keep saying it if you want this to end. If you ever want to come this night. I can keep you going until daybreak and have us both caged inside here all day. Keep you swollen till you´re going black with all that lovely trapped blood."
Xander shakes.
"Say it." Spike slaps his hip once, a hard spank. "Say it!"
And he does. He gives in. Because he always does. Because he wants it no matter how he hates it. "Daddy," he whispers. "Make me happy, Daddy, please, keep your mouth on me. Let me come."
"That´s more like it." Slick fingers probe at his opening. "Can I come home, then? Are you ready for me?"
He isn´t. But he knows he will be. "Yes, Daddy," Xander whispers, burning bright with humiliation.
"Then say it."
"Come home, Daddy," Xander says around the choking lump in his throat. "Come inside."
And that´s all the invitation that the vampire needs, for now and for ever, for however long he wants this to go on and there´s nothing Xander can do about it because deep down, at the root of his throbbing cock and the bottom of his twisting soul, he doesn´t want his new vampire Daddy to leave him alone.
So he can´t have stars and sweetness. He can have this.
And he does. He will. He knows it.
Every. Single. Night.
For those interested:
Sonnet #48
How careful was I when I took my way, Each trifle under truest bars to thrust, That to my use it might unused stay From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust! But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are, Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief, Thou best of dearest, and mine only care, Art left the prey of every vulgar thief. Thee have I not lock´d up in any chest, Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art, Within the gentle closure of my breast, From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part; And even thence thou wilt be stol´n I fear, For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.
The End
