After Midnight 11/12 No Good Thing Ever Dies
Hey all! Yup. This is the next to the last chapter, which will be up tomorrow night sometime. *is feeling a little sense of loss*
Anyhoo.
Crossposted to _xangel, a_darker_angel, and darker_spike
Title: No Good Thing Ever Dies, After Midnight 11/12
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None for this chapter. Lotsa thinky-ness in this one.
Disclaimer: I don't own, not makin any money, don't sue. I'm poor.
Pairing: X/A(us) overall, but with Spike playing a major role.
Feedback: As always of course. CON-CRIT WELCOME!!!
AN: This is still unbeta-d(hence the concrit welcome). See any probs, let me know.
AN the 2nd: The title is taken from a line in the Shawshank Redemption that goes something like, "hope is always a good thing. And no good thing ever dies."
Previous chapters are archived here.
Story banner by lit_gal
Previously:
“I can’t kill her!” Xander moaned aloud.
Then Cordelia’s wavering voice, “I’ll forgive you, Xander. I swear, I’ll forgive you. Don’t let them hurt me. Don't let them do this to me.”
“It’s better than being dead, Cordy.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that, precious.”
“You selfish bastard...” The insult died on a scream as Angelus tore into her flesh.
~~~~~
Xander heard Cordelia’s words and wept for her as she screamed, but Spike had his body wound so tight with arousal - blunt fingers squeezing and massaging his hard cock, fangs buried deep in his throat, and lips suctioned to his skin - that he could do nothing but moan in frightening harmony to her screams.
His voice broke, but he whispered “please” anyway, knowing his begging was futile. He opened his eyes again to see that Angelus now had Cordelia laying flat on the floor, her legs spread wide and his face nestled between them. Xander heard the conflicting moans and screams coming from her, knowing that Angelus was alternating fangs and tongue to work the beautiful girl into a confused frenzy of pain, pleasure, and orgasm.
Spike lifted his lips and fangs from Xander’s neck, and said to him, “See what he does? She doesn’t matter to him in the slightest, Xander. Her pain is a tool. Her pleasure an instrument of your destruction. Are you really going to let him torture her? The things he will do to her, pet. He can make it last for days, weeks even. Keep her alive to break you. Is that what you want?”
Xander shook his head. “No, I never wanted any of this.”
“Then you’ll have to do something about it, won’t you, love? He’ll control you through her, and the only way you’ll avoid it is if you kill her now.” Spike’s seductive whisper traveled through Xander’s ear to his brain, where he filtered out the sex and arousal to understand what Spike was offering. Kill Cordelia and Angelus’ torture of her stops, as well as the manipulation of himself. But it was also giving in, surrendering to what Angelus wanted. Would it be so terrible to put the human out of her misery? Xander’s demon was shouting for him to do it, but the humane part of him that remained knew it was a trap. A well laid, very effective trap. No matter what he did, what ever action he took, Angelus had won this round.
“Fine.” Xander crawled out of Spike’s embrace to lean over Cordelia’s face. “Hey, Cordy.” He reached out and petted her cheek, brushing his fingers through her tears into her hair. “I’m sorry. You know that right?”
Her nod made him smile. “You want me to end this for you?”
She lifted a hand that had grasped the carpet and her cramped fingers couldn’t lay straight on his cheek. He felt the heat of injured knuckles and the soft pads of fingertips. “Please, Xander. Don’t let him do this to me anymore. It hurts so much. I just want it to end.”
Xander placed his hand over hers and nodded. “Angelus. You can stop now.”
Angleus lifted his bloodied face from between Cordelia’s legs and asked, “You’re hungry now, precious?”
“Yeah. Just a little.”
“Then take her, Xander.”
Xander leaned down and kissed Cordelia’s pale pink lips. “I’m sorry.” Then he felt the shift of his demon and heard a whispered, “Thank you,” when his sharp, not-quite-familiar fangs slid into her skin and her blood popped into his mouth.
The heady taste of arousal and fear slid over his tongue and he was lost. He snatched her body off the floor, away from Angelus, and into his lap and he bit down harder into her neck, feeling the tendons snap beneath his powerful jaws. The taste of her overwhelmed him, pushing any semblance of humanity he hoped to keep into the background, and he tore he neck open and feasted on her.
He felt hands on his back and whispers in his ear, but all he could do was growl at the threat to his meal. Angelus laughed in sheer pleasure, as Spike cooed into his ear, “That’s a good boy, Xander. Feast from her, enjoy her.” Spike ran his palms over Xander’s naked back, dipping low into his unfastened jeans and touching the sensitive skin of his lower spine. Xander rose up onto his knees to let the jeans slide down, keeping his fangs embedded in Cordelia’s neck.
Angelus tugged the jeans down below his hips, freeing his erection and lowered his mouth to take Xander in deep. Spike, meanwhile, laid open-mouthed kisses along his exposed back and the crevice between the globes of his butt. Xander shivered and dropped Cordelia, now dead, onto the stone cold floor and jerked Angelus up for a blood coated kiss.
“This what you wanted, Sire?”
“Her hot blood covering you? Yes, precious. You’re so beautiful drenched in her life’s essence.” Angelus extended his face forward to scent his childe. “You smell whole, childe. Well fed. Are you still hungry?”
Xander cocked his head and reached back to pet Spike’s head that rested in the curve of his spine. “Not for humans, Sire. I want...”
“Ask me. For you, tonight, after feeding off her, I’ll give you what ever it is you want.” Angelus leaned in and licked Xander’s open lips, tasting the young blood there. “Oh, my boy. She was a ripe plum wasn’t she?”
Xander moaned out a little sigh and smiled. “Yes, but she’s not at good to me as you are. Sire.” He pressed forward for a more real kiss. “I want more. But I want it from my family, Sire. Please?”
“Oh. I see, precious. You wish to feed from me?”
Xander was beyond words. The headiness that he’d denied himself, the lusciousness that was human blood, blood from those he’d loved, rendered him almost incoherent. His anger and mistrust at Angelus forgotten in the ecstacy of the kill. He nodded at his sire and growled with unsuppressed pleasure when Angelus nodded and slid a long nail into the flesh of his chest. He watched the blood well up and pause for an infinite second before breaking form and sliding down the pale skin in a perfect line of scarlet.
He traced the path with his demon eyes, the suddenly swooped down onto his sire’s body, licking the rich nectar with a raspy tongue. He heard a faint growl from behind him and realized he still had hold of Spike’s hair, and let him go, smiling against Angelus’ pale skin when Spike joined him in his feast.
Angelus wrapped an arm around each of his childer and pulled them in closer to him, reveling in their desire and proximity. “My boys,” he said, and kissed both their heads. Xander and Spike pulled away from his chest together and looked at each other. No words spoken, but a message passed between them, nonetheless. They nodded to each other and, as one, leaned forward to kiss their Sire.
Xander opened his eyes for a moment, his vision a blur of dark and light and blood. Then he pulled away from the kiss to look at the body of his former friend. His mouth turned up in a cold smile. She was beautiful, laid out naked and sprawled indecently. Her throat a raw mess of meat and veins. He frowned a little, noting that all he felt - for all his protests against killing her - all he felt was a full sensation of satiation.
She was nothing to him anymore.
***
For weeks after that, Angelus would take Xander hunting. He’d teach him to learn about his prey. Get close to them, unnerve them, then gain their trust. Dupe them into offering assistance, then kill them slowly, rewarding their Samaritan ways with agony and humiliation. Xander learned to love the look of abject humiliation. It was one he remembered wearing so often as a human. That look of incredulity and shame. He felt it was high time someone else wore that look and he did his level best - under his Sire’s expert tutelage - to see it on his victims before he ate them.
If he wasn’t hunting with Angelus, he and Spike went out. Spike was less meticulous about his killing, but thoroughly enjoyed himself despite the lack of artistry and thought. With Angelus, Xander would perhaps kill one a night, sometimes not even that, just laying the trap for a future night. With Spike, he killed at least three a night. They would gorge themselves on the fat and healthy, pick their teeth with the bones of the sick and infirm. They attacked at random, drowning in the smell of fear and panic. Adrenalin became a drug for him, it made the blood spicy, like it was flavored with cinnamon oil, and it set his mouth and nose on fire.
On the nights he hunted with Spike, he would return home - he’d finally come to see the mansion as home, wondering why it took him so long - soaked in blood and bodily fluids. Angelus would scent the air from his position on the chair and rise, walk over to his childer and snatch them by their clothes into the bedroom. The sex would hurt and Xander would scream out his pain and desire as Angelus slammed into him. Then the scent of fresh blood would permeate the air and Xander would go crazy with frustration, thrusting himself back on his Sire’s hard prick, fucking himself into oblivion while Spike looked on and offered encouragement in the form of handjobs or suckjobs or tiny bleeding bites along his arms and chest and ribs and thighs. The bed would be soaked with their blood, and it only drove them to higher and higher peaks of sexual arousal.
Those nights with Spike usually culminated in a loud and growling mass of vampire flesh and bone and blood and Xander could feel the last bits of him slipping away with every drop of semen, every kiss and lick of blood. His surrender, finally, a choice he made with the death of a young dark girl. Sometimes, in the afterglow of orgasm, wrapped in the loving cage of his Sire’s arms, he would remember how Cordelia had pleaded with him for the two days they had her. How he had refused, thinking he knew anything about her living being better than her death. He’d been so stupid, so human. Spike had been right.
The last few weeks with his family had taught him about true belonging. He hunted with them, loved with them, fucked with them, and found himself. Why had he waited so long?
“I’m sorry I fought so hard, Sire.” He whispered into the darkness, trusting Angelus to be sleeping.
“Precious. Go to sleep. I knew you’d come around. Everyone of my family has. In time. You were no different.” Angelus sat up and looked him over, head to toe. “Did you really think you could have outlasted me, precious?”
Xander twisted his head, a question in his eyes. “You didn’t think me special?”
Angelus laughed. “Oh, no. I chose you because you tasted divine. There was no more thought to it than that. You were dark and pretty, and probably would have been good going down, and had despair been the only thing in you, I would have just killed you.” He shrugged. “But even in your first surrender, when you kissed me that night three years ago? There was hope in you.” He laid back down on the bed, and pulled Xander in close to him. “Hope is a terribly strong thing, Xander. And yours was buried so deep, even you didn’t know you had it. I wanted to destroy it.” Angelus’s voice faded to a whisper, “That was the only reason I turned you,” then silence as he fell into his sleep.
Xander listened for a while to the utter stillness and silence of the mansion. He was nothing special, even now. He felt some of the pain of his humanity returning. He thought he’d found family, thought he’d done enough to be accepted, but all he’d ever been good at followed him into death. He was an afterthought, a sidekick.
Angelus had said he had hope. Xander searched himself in the silence of the day. Was that still true? Did he still have hope? He had family now, a place he thought he belonged. He hunted and was getting better and better at it. But was it all he wanted? He heard his demon whispering that yes, there was nothing else he could possibly need or want, and for some reason, he couldn’t accept it as true. The pieces of his humanity that he’d thought destroyed started to cry out for something. And he felt it, the tiniest smidgeon of hope. Hope for love, acceptance, being wanted. Hope, he thought, was a good thing, and Angelus liked breaking good and pretty things. And Xander finally understood.
Angelus had turned him, not because he wanted Xander, but because he wanted to destroy him.
Finally he whispered, “And you always get everything you want?”
***
The next night, as the sun was setting low casting an eerie red glow through out the mansion, Xander watched Spike and Angelus prepare to go hunting. His magnificent Sire, dressed in black leather and silver, Spike in black denim and cotton, hard underneath the leather duster that draped him. He sat on the bed and gazed longingly at them.
“Family.” he thought he whispered soft enough to be undetected. But Spike heard him and grinned as he walked over to the bed.
“‘At’s right, pet. We’re your family.” Spike bent down and kissed him hard, then nibbled on his lower lip, and Xander fought his arousal. “Bloody well gonna take care of you. Aren’t we, Angelus?” He called out over his shoulder.
Angelus stalked forward, the silver silk of his shirt whispering against his body, causing Xander to shiver in unrestrained lust. “My family,” Angelus’ voice floated down to Xander’s ears, followed quickly by his lips. Xander moaned. “Going hunting, precious. Sure you don’t want to come along?” the voice just seeped into his mind, seducing him.
“No. I’m sure. You’ve both been taking me hunting, teaching me different things. I think you should go together. Angelus and Spike. Hunting together. Killing marvels you’ll be. And I get to wait here, anticipating you both coming home.”
“Your boy there’s a smart lad, Angelus. Right smart fuckin’ lad. Gotta point with the waiting for us.”
“He does at that, doesn’t he?” Angelus kissed him once more and rose to follow Spike. “I think tonight is going to be one of the best night’s for this little family. Have fun waiting, little one.”
Xander watched them leave, a part of him wishing he was going too. He stomped that part down hard. They don’t really want me, so why wish for it so hard? He proceeded to get dressed for his own excursion.
He found the clothes he’d been turned in, the jeans and flannel shirt. The t-shirt had been ruined, so he took one of Spike’s. He wondered at that for a moment, when he knew Angelus’ clothes fit him better. But Spike had done exactly as he said he’d do. He’d been there, coaxing, helping Xander adjust. He felt close to his new brother, and didn’t want to leave him entirely behind. Hence the smaller black tee. He smoothed the material down over his chest, and felt a pang of sadness.
He found his boots, put them on and gave a last look around the mansion. Then he opened the heavy iron door, and left it all behind him.
TBC in the last chapter.
Anyhoo.
Crossposted to _xangel, a_darker_angel, and darker_spike
Title: No Good Thing Ever Dies, After Midnight 11/12
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None for this chapter. Lotsa thinky-ness in this one.
Disclaimer: I don't own, not makin any money, don't sue. I'm poor.
Pairing: X/A(us) overall, but with Spike playing a major role.
Feedback: As always of course. CON-CRIT WELCOME!!!
AN: This is still unbeta-d(hence the concrit welcome). See any probs, let me know.
AN the 2nd: The title is taken from a line in the Shawshank Redemption that goes something like, "hope is always a good thing. And no good thing ever dies."
Previous chapters are archived here.
Story banner by lit_gal
Previously:
“I can’t kill her!” Xander moaned aloud.
Then Cordelia’s wavering voice, “I’ll forgive you, Xander. I swear, I’ll forgive you. Don’t let them hurt me. Don't let them do this to me.”
“It’s better than being dead, Cordy.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that, precious.”
“You selfish bastard...” The insult died on a scream as Angelus tore into her flesh.
~~~~~
Xander heard Cordelia’s words and wept for her as she screamed, but Spike had his body wound so tight with arousal - blunt fingers squeezing and massaging his hard cock, fangs buried deep in his throat, and lips suctioned to his skin - that he could do nothing but moan in frightening harmony to her screams.
His voice broke, but he whispered “please” anyway, knowing his begging was futile. He opened his eyes again to see that Angelus now had Cordelia laying flat on the floor, her legs spread wide and his face nestled between them. Xander heard the conflicting moans and screams coming from her, knowing that Angelus was alternating fangs and tongue to work the beautiful girl into a confused frenzy of pain, pleasure, and orgasm.
Spike lifted his lips and fangs from Xander’s neck, and said to him, “See what he does? She doesn’t matter to him in the slightest, Xander. Her pain is a tool. Her pleasure an instrument of your destruction. Are you really going to let him torture her? The things he will do to her, pet. He can make it last for days, weeks even. Keep her alive to break you. Is that what you want?”
Xander shook his head. “No, I never wanted any of this.”
“Then you’ll have to do something about it, won’t you, love? He’ll control you through her, and the only way you’ll avoid it is if you kill her now.” Spike’s seductive whisper traveled through Xander’s ear to his brain, where he filtered out the sex and arousal to understand what Spike was offering. Kill Cordelia and Angelus’ torture of her stops, as well as the manipulation of himself. But it was also giving in, surrendering to what Angelus wanted. Would it be so terrible to put the human out of her misery? Xander’s demon was shouting for him to do it, but the humane part of him that remained knew it was a trap. A well laid, very effective trap. No matter what he did, what ever action he took, Angelus had won this round.
“Fine.” Xander crawled out of Spike’s embrace to lean over Cordelia’s face. “Hey, Cordy.” He reached out and petted her cheek, brushing his fingers through her tears into her hair. “I’m sorry. You know that right?”
Her nod made him smile. “You want me to end this for you?”
She lifted a hand that had grasped the carpet and her cramped fingers couldn’t lay straight on his cheek. He felt the heat of injured knuckles and the soft pads of fingertips. “Please, Xander. Don’t let him do this to me anymore. It hurts so much. I just want it to end.”
Xander placed his hand over hers and nodded. “Angelus. You can stop now.”
Angleus lifted his bloodied face from between Cordelia’s legs and asked, “You’re hungry now, precious?”
“Yeah. Just a little.”
“Then take her, Xander.”
Xander leaned down and kissed Cordelia’s pale pink lips. “I’m sorry.” Then he felt the shift of his demon and heard a whispered, “Thank you,” when his sharp, not-quite-familiar fangs slid into her skin and her blood popped into his mouth.
The heady taste of arousal and fear slid over his tongue and he was lost. He snatched her body off the floor, away from Angelus, and into his lap and he bit down harder into her neck, feeling the tendons snap beneath his powerful jaws. The taste of her overwhelmed him, pushing any semblance of humanity he hoped to keep into the background, and he tore he neck open and feasted on her.
He felt hands on his back and whispers in his ear, but all he could do was growl at the threat to his meal. Angelus laughed in sheer pleasure, as Spike cooed into his ear, “That’s a good boy, Xander. Feast from her, enjoy her.” Spike ran his palms over Xander’s naked back, dipping low into his unfastened jeans and touching the sensitive skin of his lower spine. Xander rose up onto his knees to let the jeans slide down, keeping his fangs embedded in Cordelia’s neck.
Angelus tugged the jeans down below his hips, freeing his erection and lowered his mouth to take Xander in deep. Spike, meanwhile, laid open-mouthed kisses along his exposed back and the crevice between the globes of his butt. Xander shivered and dropped Cordelia, now dead, onto the stone cold floor and jerked Angelus up for a blood coated kiss.
“This what you wanted, Sire?”
“Her hot blood covering you? Yes, precious. You’re so beautiful drenched in her life’s essence.” Angelus extended his face forward to scent his childe. “You smell whole, childe. Well fed. Are you still hungry?”
Xander cocked his head and reached back to pet Spike’s head that rested in the curve of his spine. “Not for humans, Sire. I want...”
“Ask me. For you, tonight, after feeding off her, I’ll give you what ever it is you want.” Angelus leaned in and licked Xander’s open lips, tasting the young blood there. “Oh, my boy. She was a ripe plum wasn’t she?”
Xander moaned out a little sigh and smiled. “Yes, but she’s not at good to me as you are. Sire.” He pressed forward for a more real kiss. “I want more. But I want it from my family, Sire. Please?”
“Oh. I see, precious. You wish to feed from me?”
Xander was beyond words. The headiness that he’d denied himself, the lusciousness that was human blood, blood from those he’d loved, rendered him almost incoherent. His anger and mistrust at Angelus forgotten in the ecstacy of the kill. He nodded at his sire and growled with unsuppressed pleasure when Angelus nodded and slid a long nail into the flesh of his chest. He watched the blood well up and pause for an infinite second before breaking form and sliding down the pale skin in a perfect line of scarlet.
He traced the path with his demon eyes, the suddenly swooped down onto his sire’s body, licking the rich nectar with a raspy tongue. He heard a faint growl from behind him and realized he still had hold of Spike’s hair, and let him go, smiling against Angelus’ pale skin when Spike joined him in his feast.
Angelus wrapped an arm around each of his childer and pulled them in closer to him, reveling in their desire and proximity. “My boys,” he said, and kissed both their heads. Xander and Spike pulled away from his chest together and looked at each other. No words spoken, but a message passed between them, nonetheless. They nodded to each other and, as one, leaned forward to kiss their Sire.
Xander opened his eyes for a moment, his vision a blur of dark and light and blood. Then he pulled away from the kiss to look at the body of his former friend. His mouth turned up in a cold smile. She was beautiful, laid out naked and sprawled indecently. Her throat a raw mess of meat and veins. He frowned a little, noting that all he felt - for all his protests against killing her - all he felt was a full sensation of satiation.
She was nothing to him anymore.
***
For weeks after that, Angelus would take Xander hunting. He’d teach him to learn about his prey. Get close to them, unnerve them, then gain their trust. Dupe them into offering assistance, then kill them slowly, rewarding their Samaritan ways with agony and humiliation. Xander learned to love the look of abject humiliation. It was one he remembered wearing so often as a human. That look of incredulity and shame. He felt it was high time someone else wore that look and he did his level best - under his Sire’s expert tutelage - to see it on his victims before he ate them.
If he wasn’t hunting with Angelus, he and Spike went out. Spike was less meticulous about his killing, but thoroughly enjoyed himself despite the lack of artistry and thought. With Angelus, Xander would perhaps kill one a night, sometimes not even that, just laying the trap for a future night. With Spike, he killed at least three a night. They would gorge themselves on the fat and healthy, pick their teeth with the bones of the sick and infirm. They attacked at random, drowning in the smell of fear and panic. Adrenalin became a drug for him, it made the blood spicy, like it was flavored with cinnamon oil, and it set his mouth and nose on fire.
On the nights he hunted with Spike, he would return home - he’d finally come to see the mansion as home, wondering why it took him so long - soaked in blood and bodily fluids. Angelus would scent the air from his position on the chair and rise, walk over to his childer and snatch them by their clothes into the bedroom. The sex would hurt and Xander would scream out his pain and desire as Angelus slammed into him. Then the scent of fresh blood would permeate the air and Xander would go crazy with frustration, thrusting himself back on his Sire’s hard prick, fucking himself into oblivion while Spike looked on and offered encouragement in the form of handjobs or suckjobs or tiny bleeding bites along his arms and chest and ribs and thighs. The bed would be soaked with their blood, and it only drove them to higher and higher peaks of sexual arousal.
Those nights with Spike usually culminated in a loud and growling mass of vampire flesh and bone and blood and Xander could feel the last bits of him slipping away with every drop of semen, every kiss and lick of blood. His surrender, finally, a choice he made with the death of a young dark girl. Sometimes, in the afterglow of orgasm, wrapped in the loving cage of his Sire’s arms, he would remember how Cordelia had pleaded with him for the two days they had her. How he had refused, thinking he knew anything about her living being better than her death. He’d been so stupid, so human. Spike had been right.
The last few weeks with his family had taught him about true belonging. He hunted with them, loved with them, fucked with them, and found himself. Why had he waited so long?
“I’m sorry I fought so hard, Sire.” He whispered into the darkness, trusting Angelus to be sleeping.
“Precious. Go to sleep. I knew you’d come around. Everyone of my family has. In time. You were no different.” Angelus sat up and looked him over, head to toe. “Did you really think you could have outlasted me, precious?”
Xander twisted his head, a question in his eyes. “You didn’t think me special?”
Angelus laughed. “Oh, no. I chose you because you tasted divine. There was no more thought to it than that. You were dark and pretty, and probably would have been good going down, and had despair been the only thing in you, I would have just killed you.” He shrugged. “But even in your first surrender, when you kissed me that night three years ago? There was hope in you.” He laid back down on the bed, and pulled Xander in close to him. “Hope is a terribly strong thing, Xander. And yours was buried so deep, even you didn’t know you had it. I wanted to destroy it.” Angelus’s voice faded to a whisper, “That was the only reason I turned you,” then silence as he fell into his sleep.
Xander listened for a while to the utter stillness and silence of the mansion. He was nothing special, even now. He felt some of the pain of his humanity returning. He thought he’d found family, thought he’d done enough to be accepted, but all he’d ever been good at followed him into death. He was an afterthought, a sidekick.
Angelus had said he had hope. Xander searched himself in the silence of the day. Was that still true? Did he still have hope? He had family now, a place he thought he belonged. He hunted and was getting better and better at it. But was it all he wanted? He heard his demon whispering that yes, there was nothing else he could possibly need or want, and for some reason, he couldn’t accept it as true. The pieces of his humanity that he’d thought destroyed started to cry out for something. And he felt it, the tiniest smidgeon of hope. Hope for love, acceptance, being wanted. Hope, he thought, was a good thing, and Angelus liked breaking good and pretty things. And Xander finally understood.
Angelus had turned him, not because he wanted Xander, but because he wanted to destroy him.
Finally he whispered, “And you always get everything you want?”
***
The next night, as the sun was setting low casting an eerie red glow through out the mansion, Xander watched Spike and Angelus prepare to go hunting. His magnificent Sire, dressed in black leather and silver, Spike in black denim and cotton, hard underneath the leather duster that draped him. He sat on the bed and gazed longingly at them.
“Family.” he thought he whispered soft enough to be undetected. But Spike heard him and grinned as he walked over to the bed.
“‘At’s right, pet. We’re your family.” Spike bent down and kissed him hard, then nibbled on his lower lip, and Xander fought his arousal. “Bloody well gonna take care of you. Aren’t we, Angelus?” He called out over his shoulder.
Angelus stalked forward, the silver silk of his shirt whispering against his body, causing Xander to shiver in unrestrained lust. “My family,” Angelus’ voice floated down to Xander’s ears, followed quickly by his lips. Xander moaned. “Going hunting, precious. Sure you don’t want to come along?” the voice just seeped into his mind, seducing him.
“No. I’m sure. You’ve both been taking me hunting, teaching me different things. I think you should go together. Angelus and Spike. Hunting together. Killing marvels you’ll be. And I get to wait here, anticipating you both coming home.”
“Your boy there’s a smart lad, Angelus. Right smart fuckin’ lad. Gotta point with the waiting for us.”
“He does at that, doesn’t he?” Angelus kissed him once more and rose to follow Spike. “I think tonight is going to be one of the best night’s for this little family. Have fun waiting, little one.”
Xander watched them leave, a part of him wishing he was going too. He stomped that part down hard. They don’t really want me, so why wish for it so hard? He proceeded to get dressed for his own excursion.
He found the clothes he’d been turned in, the jeans and flannel shirt. The t-shirt had been ruined, so he took one of Spike’s. He wondered at that for a moment, when he knew Angelus’ clothes fit him better. But Spike had done exactly as he said he’d do. He’d been there, coaxing, helping Xander adjust. He felt close to his new brother, and didn’t want to leave him entirely behind. Hence the smaller black tee. He smoothed the material down over his chest, and felt a pang of sadness.
He found his boots, put them on and gave a last look around the mansion. Then he opened the heavy iron door, and left it all behind him.
TBC in the last chapter.