Drowning Not Waving - three S/X adult - read the warnings!
Warnings: This is a story in which Xander's not being the best he can be. It's human horror. Dare we say it ?- it's dark. There's explicit sex and drugs and addiction, cowardice, grit, the porn industry and people behaving badly, blind eyes and Xander exploitation and enabling, good intentions, funny moments, a chip, evil, soulless and atavistic Spike and a baby. And almost everybody lives happily ever after in the last chapter.
The air had sticky fingers, pawing at Xander's eyelids and groping in his throat and he didn't know what time it was, why Frank hadn't called to yell at him and get him out of bed or tell him what it was he was forgetting because there was something really big, wiggy and important sitting in the economy-class seat behind him and ordering its complimentary orange juice with ice.
Xander tried to ignore it.
He knew he didn't want to move. That if he moved, something might break off, or shatter - or start to cry -
The something leaned back and kicked Xander's seat because for one gut-sucking second, he hoped Fee's rainbow of fruit flavors had finally killed him. The baby was quiet. The baby was never that quiet.
And there could be nothing good in infant silence. SIDS. Shaken baby syndrome. Baby sold to Panamanian organ dealers by stoned and hallucinating sperm donor.
Baby - Xander sucked breath and dropped his pounding head onto the pillow and made himself think. Stared at the baggie of red pills peeking out of the covers and closed his hand around it with relief. Baby last seen with ex-cheerleader. Baby? Likely not dead.
Baby likely very happy, smothered against boobies, and going shopping for overpriced onesies.
Jesus.
Xander dropped back into the musty covers with a groan that pulsed and pounded between his ears and tried to feel guilty. Tried and failed to feel anything but gross and kinda relieved.
His tongue felt like he'd been licking the carpet, his face felt oily enough to power a Volvo and god he needed to piss.
He pulled himself to the edge of the bed - rubbed sticky palms into gummed eyelids and basically felt like he'd been lightly spritzed with Elmer's glue then drank the leftovers.
*Never take the yellows and the reds together. Never ever ever. Don't get Mogwai wet - don't take the reds and yellows together.* He pushed himself upright, staggered sideways and tripped over a boot. He could see a slash of LA skyline and late-afternoon light through the window, hazy with smog. *Okay. Window. Door I came in...bed...chair...door - closet? Please be a bathroom -*. Xander stumbled toward the door in question and turned the knob. He breathed out in relief as it opened to reveal blessed, gleaming porcelain. He slapped at the light switch and all but ran the last steps to the toilet, getting the lid and seat up just in time.
He was so full it hurt to piss and Xander leaned his hand on the wall above the tank and shut his eyes, trusting habit and his ears to keep him on target. *God, okay. Find my stuff - brush my teeth. Eat. See what's going on with the baby. See if anybody noticed me being gone and if they didn't...get gone some more and call work. Shit. Work. Find babysitter then go throw myself on Fee's mercy.* Xander shook his head at the memory of Angel and Wes cooing over the baby - Cordelia cuddling it like it was her own - babysitting might not be a problem in Xanderland anymore. They were all crazy. *Won't catch Spike... Oh, fuck.*
Xander's thoughts whipped around a corner and smacked him in the face. "Spike's here?" Xander opened his eyes - shook himself off and flushed the toilet on automatic. There were no soap or towels but he rinsed his hands anyway - scrubbed a handful of water over his face and drank from the faucet until his stomach lurched, unhappy. No way Spike was here. Angel wouldn't put up with Spike...would he?
"Did we talk?" Xander had a hazy memory of Spike leaning on the bed - of Spike talking and...whiskey...lemons and salt... "Oh, no fucking way!" No way - no way he gave Spike a blowjob. Or anything else. No way Spike would want one. He was all into Dru and - Dru. Jesus. "Never mix the pills," Xander muttered and walked out of the bathroom - straight into Cordy.
"Cordelia! Jesus - Christ!" His own surprised yelp made his head throb and his throat rasp and he scuttled to the bed and snatched up the crumpled sheet, hastily draping it over himself. "Uh - hi!" And some day, he'd be able to address Cordelia with the manly tones of a twenty year old, not a falsetto.
"Okay. That?" Cordelia swept a vague hand in the direction of Xander's lower half and he really hoped she meant his waxed legs. "Is also totally new. Along with the undead hours. What's up with that?"
Xander sank onto the bed and scrubbed his palms over his face, smeared water droplets from his hair over his skin and leaned into his fingertips, pressing them against his eyeballs through the lids. He wasn't in any position to be picky and went with the first thing that came to mind and felt kinda good about himself when it happened to be the truth. "Haven't been sleeping much - new baby."
"Uh-huh. Well your baby sleeps like a baby and you sleep like the dead. Wesley came up here and checked your pulse about four hours ago and I came up to check it again now though you're probably alive and I don't have to." She sat on the edge of the bed and gave him the look that always used to make him feel cute and funny and not like a total geek.
So Xander didn't even try to remember. He knew fruitless when he stared it in the face and this search was as fruitless as Carmen Miranda after a mugging. "I'm alive." Then he said it again when she put an arm around his shoulders. "I'm alive. I'm okay." It stuck in his throat and burned in his eyes, how okay he was and how okay everything would be if it could stay okay like this. He licked his lips and tried for okay-plus. "Where's the baby?"
"Don't worry, new daddy. Your baby's just fine. Apparently, there's a lot more to Angel's gruesome history than he's telling us because between you and me?" Cordy leaned forward - like there was somebody else in the room who might overhear, "that baby loves Mr. Big Broody Vampire."
Does he want to keep it?
For once, the words stayed on the inside of Xander's head.
"Can't be my kid then - any son of mine would hate Deadboy on principle." Lighthearted, not too forced - 'son of mine' coming out almost like he said it every day. Almost like it meant something.
"It's weird. The grrr-face makes him smile! Wes said it was just gas - you should have seen the expression on Angel's face - I mean he's fine with blood but threaten him with a little baby gas and he's all Mr. holds at arm's length." Cordelia grinned at him and Xander was pretty sure he grinned back and Cordelia's perfume was making his head spin.
He tried for something not baby related, wishing for big glass of water or maybe a big glass of tequila. Big glass of something that'd wash down whatever was clogging his throat and making it hard to swallow. "Wes as in Wesley Wyndam-Pryce as in - the most uptight guy since Giles?"
"Oh, that's right - you're kinda out of the loop. Wes is so much better than he was in Sunnydale. Don't get me wrong -" Cordy held up a perfectly manicured hand, nails flashing, and Xander found himself staring fixedly at them. Fee would like Cordy's manicurist. "He's still King Geek of Geekonia, but he can fight and - well - he really knows his stuff. He's our Giles."
And something softened inside Xander at that. The warm - safe - okay, bookishly safe as in 'we're safe because Giles will tell us what to do' - feeling of a Giles. "That's - " The lump in his throat wasn't going away and he rubbed his palms on the sheet. "Can't save the world without a Giles."
"Between you and me? It's just not worth going into business without one."
"Yeah." And the lump in Xander's throat was growing, "Uh...listen, Cordy, I really need a shower -"
"You kinda do." Cordelia looked him up and down. "I went through your stuff - I was looking for, uh, something for the baby. You really need some new clothes, too. Wes put 'em through the washer, though."
"Okay -" Xander tried to smile, pulling the sheet a little tighter - wondering frantically if he'd accidentally packed anything stupid like - one of his movies. Or something besides the Xanax. Or - Christ - that 'oh my god, it does not belong to me, Officer!' purple jelly toy Ted had given him as a joke.
"And you didn't pack any soap or anything - guess you were kinda in a hurry, huh? But never fear!" Cordy stood up and made a 'come along' gesture and Xander untangled the sheet from his ankles and stood up - because this he could do. Following he could do even if it was following a cheerful Cordelia naked and hello, teenaged fantasy. I almost didn't recognize you. "I had to go shopping for Julian so I got you some shampoo and stuff. And - what's so funny?" She cocked a hip and her head and folded her arms and Xander could feel the grin on his face.
"Nothing." He caught her in a one-armed hug and took a deep breath of perfume. "It's good to see you again."
"Ugh. Be glad to see me again after the shower next time. You stink." But Cordy hugged him back before easing him away and leading the way out of the room. "This room hasn't been cleaned since like 1970 - there's a better one down the hall, come on."
Xander followed Cordelia in a daze, his head thumping along with his heels and the route to his new room passed in a tastefully shabby brocade-patterned and perfumed whirl with a little refrain of okay - maybe it's gonna be okay. He hovered in the door to a bathroom that looked just like the one he came out of while Cordelia fiddled with taps and fussed with shampoos with fancy labels and he stood there in nothing but a dusty sheet and his own sweat.
It should have bothered him but it didn't. Because there was a kind of untweedy Giles downstairs and a benevolent Cordy upstairs and a vampire babysitter and it was possible Xander had finally reached the point where his life couldn't actually get any more weird.
It didn't even bother him when she took the sheet and shooed him under the spray because he was under the spray. Eyes closed and limbs loosening and he opened his mouth to the chlorinated water of Los Angeles and let the droplets pelt his tongue and slide down his throat and up his nose. And everything would be okay if the water could only rinse away the fog and fugue that always followed a yellow.
He turned around, crossed his arms on the wall and leaned his forehead on them - let the warm spray needle over his back and between his legs and wash away the sweat. And when his eyelids drooped, he let them. A muscle in his right cheek ticked and he rubbed it over his crossed wrists - side effect of too many reds but not enough to take away the possibility of that okay. And okay - sure - the bills weren't going to go away and money wasn't going to grow on trees and eventually he'd have to make an excuse, use a pay phone to call Frank or Fee - apologize.
Beg.
Get his job back and then get the name of Fee's guy in LA. Eighty bucks would get him sixteen reds. Or four yellows. Twenty blues but the blues never quite got him relaxed. Never quite made him forget -
Cooler air puffed across Xander's skin and he shivered, shivered more to a cold hand running up his back. Shivered - but didn't move while the wild card in Xander's big quest for okay joined him in the shower. "Thought I'd find you here." Spike moved for both of them, close and wet - hard where Xander wasn't but that was only the hangover talking and Spike felt good rubbing up between his cheeks in spite of - well - being Spike. "Heard the cheerleader talking."
Five more minutes of that rubbing and he'd join Spike in happy hard-on land for a one-way ticket to okay.
Spike's lips slid up his neck and a hand slid down to cup his balls, rolling them up against his body in a cool palm. "Miss me?"
Three minutes.
Maybe two if his head didn't hurt so fucking much.
"Miss this? Come on, pet. Open your eyes. You left my present under your pillow in the other room." Spike's hand slid back up his spine, comforting circles and Xander opened his eyes to stare into Spike's other hand. Two reds. A green he didn't recognize. Soothing ovoid shapes swept across his back. Xander closed his eyes and opened his mouth. Lipped the pills from Spike's palm and swallowed them on the rivulets of water running into his mouth. "Yeah - just like that."
"How come you're here?" Xander asked, not really caring as long as Spike kept moving but feeling like he had to say something. Spike had just saved him money and time and was making him feel pretty good - like Xander could just stand here and let Spike do anything and he'd keep feeling good. Xander wondered how he'd want his payback.
"I remembered you, you know. Little boy snapping at Angel - rushing in to save the day. Not so little anymore." Spike's fingers slipped around Xander's ribs and brushed across his growing erection.
"Hmmm." Xander just went with it - go with the flow and all that. Halfway pretending that Spike was Greg and this was just another day - another job. But Spike's body was hard and tight where Greg's had been a bit pudgy, and there was no way he'd mistake the size of what was being pushed against his ass for Greg. Didn't matter, though - his body was a whore and didn't care whose hands touched, just that they did and he didn't have to do anything but stand there and react.
"Knew you'd wake up all hurting," Spike murmured, his touch a little firmer and his other hand finding a nipple - pinching and twisting and making Xander's head come up off his wrist, mouth open. Sucking in steam and water and the whiskey-lemon of Spike's scent. "Knew you'd need a little something... Like that, pet?" Spike asked, both hands between Xander's thighs, now - one hand still stroking and squeezing, the other finding his balls and tugging - rolling them.
"Mmm...uh. Yeah..." All his hard-won talent for dirty talk in a throaty, needy voice deserting him as one cool finger pushed inside, hooking forward and pressing, the hand speeding up - twist and squeeze and tug and Xander's back arched - his knees wobbled as he came, hard, against the slick tile of the wall. He leaned there, panting. Shivering as Spike's tongue glided over his shoulder and Spike's teeth nibbled gently.
*Vampire at my throat,* Xander thought, waiting for the adrenaline and the terror and not all that surprised to find they'd left the building.
All that happened was Spike tugging him back - insinuating himself between Xander and the wall like a serpent. Pushing down, ever so gently, and Xander smiled drowsily and went. Not actually that bad. And he was good at this. This? He could do all afternoon and into the night with Spike's hands carding through his hair and the heavy weight of Spike's cock on his tongue and only enough air to keep sucking. Not enough to think and that was as good as it got.
Xander didn't think too hard about that.
And when Spike pulled out before he came - jerked and shot all over Xander's face, mouth, eyelashes, tongue - heavy cool strands that slithered down his skin and washed away - he thought he might've been smiling.
Spike disappeared after drying Xander off, wrapping him in a towel - which had been kinda nice in a weird 'I can do this myself' way - and shoving him toward the bed where his clothes were folded into piles and Xander's skin tingled from the brisk rubdown and the quick transition from hot shower to the cooler breeze coming in the window. He dressed in a red and green festive cloud - Christmas in July - where all the presents were made up of minutes where he and Julian weren't ruining each other's lives and he could actually believe it'd stay that way. So with a hand on the wall to steady himself he'd keep putting one bare foot in front of the other till he got all the way down the stairs.
That was the plan until his steam ran out in the lobby and he stood there, staring around himself at the hotel - Angel's hotel - feeling nothing at all and it was possible, okay - probable - that he might've overdone the oblivion thing and that the green pills weren't actually made for human consumption.
It was like trying to think through brick.
He ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth and tasted minty freshness and maybe a hint of cigarette and had a feeling he was forgetting something important.
Again.
After a while he moved - followed his nose to what smelled like coffee and there was a pot, and a desk and books - heaps of books. And a Wesley, bent over something crinkly and old and yellow. A hand, maybe, or was that a paw?
And whatever it was, it was euugh.
He clumsily got himself a cup of coffee - sugared and creamed and took a sip and it was good and he figured he could get along just fine without thinking at all.
"Doesn't it taste more like - coffee-flavored ice cream with that much sugar?"
"Huh?" Xander did a slow turn to find Wes a few steps away, watching him with a small smile. A 'isn't that cute' smile that sometimes meant -
But no, this was Wes. Even with his finger-combed hair and freshly shaved face that made him look sixteen, Xander knew Wes wasn't making that sort of small talk. Or - he didn't think he was. The sexy shower time with Spike was like a stage scrim, and the pills put up nice blindery walls, obscuring everything in a sated daze.
"I like the caffeine, just don't like the bitter," Xander said and grinned into his coffee because apparently shame couldn't get through green pill brick walls either. "I'm not that manly."
Wesley glanced into an abandoned half-full cup, sniffed it and shuddered. "It is probably best not to attempt Cordelia's coffee black whether one is manly or not."
"Who drank that one?"
"Angel."
"He really can't taste anything that's not blood can he?"
"We've had no evidence of it, no."
They smiled at each other. And Xander was vaguely aware it was his turn to say something again so he said, "I'll - uh - let you get back to work." Because there was something Gilesy about Wes and that was okay and they were still smiling when Xander turned and walked out from behind the curving front-desk area and flopped down on the weird, circular couch in the center of the lobby. The ceiling was very far away - very pretty - and Xander lay there with his head back and the coffee mug warming a spot on his thigh - everything floating about two inches above the ground. It was nice, the floaty. And the lobby was quiet. Considering he'd spent most of his life with a TV or radio or CD blaring, Xander thought the quiet was - kinda nice.
"In case you're wondering -" Wesley's voice was close and the familiar tones of a Giles repeating himself - again - which was always the point where a guy had to marshal his troops and give Giles his full attention. He poked the hamster in his head hard until the gears started to turn.
"Huh?"
Wesley? Still smiling. Xander relaxed and smiled back because smiling was easier than a mental pat on the back. "Cordelia took Julian to the mall. Apparently, she wasn't happy with what she'd bought for him earlier. In case you were wondering."
The hamster rolled over and gave Xander the toe. "Yeah, uh - she said - she was shopping, uh - before. When she showed me the shower and stuff." Which was - good - actually really good and Xander rolled his head against the back of the couch. Bond, Cordy, bond. And there was no better way to bond with Cordelia than shopping.
"Well - yes. She's been out twice already. Cordelia could shop through an apocalypse."
"Prob'ly has," Xander muttered, and toasted plan B with coffee and red pills and the green pill of mystery. His teeth felt too big - they were crowding his tongue and it was hard to talk.
"Xander," Wes said and this time the tone was the concerned tone. The tone Giles used the one time he pulled Xander into his office and asked how he was coping with his encounter with Faith.
Except whatever Wes had to say couldn't be as embarrassing as that.
Xander drank another mouthful of coffee and counted his teeth with his tongue, stretched and rolled it until it could move easily in his mouth with too-big teeth. "What?"
"I realize this may be too personal - coming from me - but Cordelia is worried. What - exactly..."
Xander sipped his coffee and stared at the front doors, wondering when they'd been installed. He didn't think that kind of door had been standard when the rest of the Hyperion was built. Maybe Angel went through a lot of doors in his line of work.
The third time Wesley coughed, Xander realized he wasn't going to finish the sentence alone.
"What exactly what?"
"Happened to his mother?"
"She left." Xander sat up, braced himself against the seat of the couch but still managed to slosh coffee over his thigh. He licked his lip and stood up. "I'm gonna get some more coffee. You want some?"
"God, no." Wesley hovered awkwardly between Xander and the coffee pot and Xander stood swaying and waiting for him to say something or move out of the way. "Xander...I'm terribly sorry."
Xander cracked a smile or the smile cracked him. "She wasn't cut out for motherhood." Xander could see Wesley wanting details - could see the words piling up in his great big brain, ready to take down the green brick walls and he stared into his coffee cup.
Awkwardly.
He took his time filling it.
Awkwardly.
Wes cleared his throat and sat down at his desk with the yellow - thing.
Awkwardly.
The air had sticky fingers, pawing at Xander's eyelids and groping in his throat and he didn't know what time it was, why Frank hadn't called to yell at him and get him out of bed or tell him what it was he was forgetting because there was something really big, wiggy and important sitting in the economy-class seat behind him and ordering its complimentary orange juice with ice.
Xander tried to ignore it.
He knew he didn't want to move. That if he moved, something might break off, or shatter - or start to cry -
The something leaned back and kicked Xander's seat because for one gut-sucking second, he hoped Fee's rainbow of fruit flavors had finally killed him. The baby was quiet. The baby was never that quiet.
And there could be nothing good in infant silence. SIDS. Shaken baby syndrome. Baby sold to Panamanian organ dealers by stoned and hallucinating sperm donor.
Baby - Xander sucked breath and dropped his pounding head onto the pillow and made himself think. Stared at the baggie of red pills peeking out of the covers and closed his hand around it with relief. Baby last seen with ex-cheerleader. Baby? Likely not dead.
Baby likely very happy, smothered against boobies, and going shopping for overpriced onesies.
Jesus.
Xander dropped back into the musty covers with a groan that pulsed and pounded between his ears and tried to feel guilty. Tried and failed to feel anything but gross and kinda relieved.
His tongue felt like he'd been licking the carpet, his face felt oily enough to power a Volvo and god he needed to piss.
He pulled himself to the edge of the bed - rubbed sticky palms into gummed eyelids and basically felt like he'd been lightly spritzed with Elmer's glue then drank the leftovers.
*Never take the yellows and the reds together. Never ever ever. Don't get Mogwai wet - don't take the reds and yellows together.* He pushed himself upright, staggered sideways and tripped over a boot. He could see a slash of LA skyline and late-afternoon light through the window, hazy with smog. *Okay. Window. Door I came in...bed...chair...door - closet? Please be a bathroom -*. Xander stumbled toward the door in question and turned the knob. He breathed out in relief as it opened to reveal blessed, gleaming porcelain. He slapped at the light switch and all but ran the last steps to the toilet, getting the lid and seat up just in time.
He was so full it hurt to piss and Xander leaned his hand on the wall above the tank and shut his eyes, trusting habit and his ears to keep him on target. *God, okay. Find my stuff - brush my teeth. Eat. See what's going on with the baby. See if anybody noticed me being gone and if they didn't...get gone some more and call work. Shit. Work. Find babysitter then go throw myself on Fee's mercy.* Xander shook his head at the memory of Angel and Wes cooing over the baby - Cordelia cuddling it like it was her own - babysitting might not be a problem in Xanderland anymore. They were all crazy. *Won't catch Spike... Oh, fuck.*
Xander's thoughts whipped around a corner and smacked him in the face. "Spike's here?" Xander opened his eyes - shook himself off and flushed the toilet on automatic. There were no soap or towels but he rinsed his hands anyway - scrubbed a handful of water over his face and drank from the faucet until his stomach lurched, unhappy. No way Spike was here. Angel wouldn't put up with Spike...would he?
"Did we talk?" Xander had a hazy memory of Spike leaning on the bed - of Spike talking and...whiskey...lemons and salt... "Oh, no fucking way!" No way - no way he gave Spike a blowjob. Or anything else. No way Spike would want one. He was all into Dru and - Dru. Jesus. "Never mix the pills," Xander muttered and walked out of the bathroom - straight into Cordy.
"Cordelia! Jesus - Christ!" His own surprised yelp made his head throb and his throat rasp and he scuttled to the bed and snatched up the crumpled sheet, hastily draping it over himself. "Uh - hi!" And some day, he'd be able to address Cordelia with the manly tones of a twenty year old, not a falsetto.
"Okay. That?" Cordelia swept a vague hand in the direction of Xander's lower half and he really hoped she meant his waxed legs. "Is also totally new. Along with the undead hours. What's up with that?"
Xander sank onto the bed and scrubbed his palms over his face, smeared water droplets from his hair over his skin and leaned into his fingertips, pressing them against his eyeballs through the lids. He wasn't in any position to be picky and went with the first thing that came to mind and felt kinda good about himself when it happened to be the truth. "Haven't been sleeping much - new baby."
"Uh-huh. Well your baby sleeps like a baby and you sleep like the dead. Wesley came up here and checked your pulse about four hours ago and I came up to check it again now though you're probably alive and I don't have to." She sat on the edge of the bed and gave him the look that always used to make him feel cute and funny and not like a total geek.
So Xander didn't even try to remember. He knew fruitless when he stared it in the face and this search was as fruitless as Carmen Miranda after a mugging. "I'm alive." Then he said it again when she put an arm around his shoulders. "I'm alive. I'm okay." It stuck in his throat and burned in his eyes, how okay he was and how okay everything would be if it could stay okay like this. He licked his lips and tried for okay-plus. "Where's the baby?"
"Don't worry, new daddy. Your baby's just fine. Apparently, there's a lot more to Angel's gruesome history than he's telling us because between you and me?" Cordy leaned forward - like there was somebody else in the room who might overhear, "that baby loves Mr. Big Broody Vampire."
Does he want to keep it?
For once, the words stayed on the inside of Xander's head.
"Can't be my kid then - any son of mine would hate Deadboy on principle." Lighthearted, not too forced - 'son of mine' coming out almost like he said it every day. Almost like it meant something.
"It's weird. The grrr-face makes him smile! Wes said it was just gas - you should have seen the expression on Angel's face - I mean he's fine with blood but threaten him with a little baby gas and he's all Mr. holds at arm's length." Cordelia grinned at him and Xander was pretty sure he grinned back and Cordelia's perfume was making his head spin.
He tried for something not baby related, wishing for big glass of water or maybe a big glass of tequila. Big glass of something that'd wash down whatever was clogging his throat and making it hard to swallow. "Wes as in Wesley Wyndam-Pryce as in - the most uptight guy since Giles?"
"Oh, that's right - you're kinda out of the loop. Wes is so much better than he was in Sunnydale. Don't get me wrong -" Cordy held up a perfectly manicured hand, nails flashing, and Xander found himself staring fixedly at them. Fee would like Cordy's manicurist. "He's still King Geek of Geekonia, but he can fight and - well - he really knows his stuff. He's our Giles."
And something softened inside Xander at that. The warm - safe - okay, bookishly safe as in 'we're safe because Giles will tell us what to do' - feeling of a Giles. "That's - " The lump in his throat wasn't going away and he rubbed his palms on the sheet. "Can't save the world without a Giles."
"Between you and me? It's just not worth going into business without one."
"Yeah." And the lump in Xander's throat was growing, "Uh...listen, Cordy, I really need a shower -"
"You kinda do." Cordelia looked him up and down. "I went through your stuff - I was looking for, uh, something for the baby. You really need some new clothes, too. Wes put 'em through the washer, though."
"Okay -" Xander tried to smile, pulling the sheet a little tighter - wondering frantically if he'd accidentally packed anything stupid like - one of his movies. Or something besides the Xanax. Or - Christ - that 'oh my god, it does not belong to me, Officer!' purple jelly toy Ted had given him as a joke.
"And you didn't pack any soap or anything - guess you were kinda in a hurry, huh? But never fear!" Cordy stood up and made a 'come along' gesture and Xander untangled the sheet from his ankles and stood up - because this he could do. Following he could do even if it was following a cheerful Cordelia naked and hello, teenaged fantasy. I almost didn't recognize you. "I had to go shopping for Julian so I got you some shampoo and stuff. And - what's so funny?" She cocked a hip and her head and folded her arms and Xander could feel the grin on his face.
"Nothing." He caught her in a one-armed hug and took a deep breath of perfume. "It's good to see you again."
"Ugh. Be glad to see me again after the shower next time. You stink." But Cordy hugged him back before easing him away and leading the way out of the room. "This room hasn't been cleaned since like 1970 - there's a better one down the hall, come on."
Xander followed Cordelia in a daze, his head thumping along with his heels and the route to his new room passed in a tastefully shabby brocade-patterned and perfumed whirl with a little refrain of okay - maybe it's gonna be okay. He hovered in the door to a bathroom that looked just like the one he came out of while Cordelia fiddled with taps and fussed with shampoos with fancy labels and he stood there in nothing but a dusty sheet and his own sweat.
It should have bothered him but it didn't. Because there was a kind of untweedy Giles downstairs and a benevolent Cordy upstairs and a vampire babysitter and it was possible Xander had finally reached the point where his life couldn't actually get any more weird.
It didn't even bother him when she took the sheet and shooed him under the spray because he was under the spray. Eyes closed and limbs loosening and he opened his mouth to the chlorinated water of Los Angeles and let the droplets pelt his tongue and slide down his throat and up his nose. And everything would be okay if the water could only rinse away the fog and fugue that always followed a yellow.
He turned around, crossed his arms on the wall and leaned his forehead on them - let the warm spray needle over his back and between his legs and wash away the sweat. And when his eyelids drooped, he let them. A muscle in his right cheek ticked and he rubbed it over his crossed wrists - side effect of too many reds but not enough to take away the possibility of that okay. And okay - sure - the bills weren't going to go away and money wasn't going to grow on trees and eventually he'd have to make an excuse, use a pay phone to call Frank or Fee - apologize.
Beg.
Get his job back and then get the name of Fee's guy in LA. Eighty bucks would get him sixteen reds. Or four yellows. Twenty blues but the blues never quite got him relaxed. Never quite made him forget -
Cooler air puffed across Xander's skin and he shivered, shivered more to a cold hand running up his back. Shivered - but didn't move while the wild card in Xander's big quest for okay joined him in the shower. "Thought I'd find you here." Spike moved for both of them, close and wet - hard where Xander wasn't but that was only the hangover talking and Spike felt good rubbing up between his cheeks in spite of - well - being Spike. "Heard the cheerleader talking."
Five more minutes of that rubbing and he'd join Spike in happy hard-on land for a one-way ticket to okay.
Spike's lips slid up his neck and a hand slid down to cup his balls, rolling them up against his body in a cool palm. "Miss me?"
Three minutes.
Maybe two if his head didn't hurt so fucking much.
"Miss this? Come on, pet. Open your eyes. You left my present under your pillow in the other room." Spike's hand slid back up his spine, comforting circles and Xander opened his eyes to stare into Spike's other hand. Two reds. A green he didn't recognize. Soothing ovoid shapes swept across his back. Xander closed his eyes and opened his mouth. Lipped the pills from Spike's palm and swallowed them on the rivulets of water running into his mouth. "Yeah - just like that."
"How come you're here?" Xander asked, not really caring as long as Spike kept moving but feeling like he had to say something. Spike had just saved him money and time and was making him feel pretty good - like Xander could just stand here and let Spike do anything and he'd keep feeling good. Xander wondered how he'd want his payback.
"I remembered you, you know. Little boy snapping at Angel - rushing in to save the day. Not so little anymore." Spike's fingers slipped around Xander's ribs and brushed across his growing erection.
"Hmmm." Xander just went with it - go with the flow and all that. Halfway pretending that Spike was Greg and this was just another day - another job. But Spike's body was hard and tight where Greg's had been a bit pudgy, and there was no way he'd mistake the size of what was being pushed against his ass for Greg. Didn't matter, though - his body was a whore and didn't care whose hands touched, just that they did and he didn't have to do anything but stand there and react.
"Knew you'd wake up all hurting," Spike murmured, his touch a little firmer and his other hand finding a nipple - pinching and twisting and making Xander's head come up off his wrist, mouth open. Sucking in steam and water and the whiskey-lemon of Spike's scent. "Knew you'd need a little something... Like that, pet?" Spike asked, both hands between Xander's thighs, now - one hand still stroking and squeezing, the other finding his balls and tugging - rolling them.
"Mmm...uh. Yeah..." All his hard-won talent for dirty talk in a throaty, needy voice deserting him as one cool finger pushed inside, hooking forward and pressing, the hand speeding up - twist and squeeze and tug and Xander's back arched - his knees wobbled as he came, hard, against the slick tile of the wall. He leaned there, panting. Shivering as Spike's tongue glided over his shoulder and Spike's teeth nibbled gently.
*Vampire at my throat,* Xander thought, waiting for the adrenaline and the terror and not all that surprised to find they'd left the building.
All that happened was Spike tugging him back - insinuating himself between Xander and the wall like a serpent. Pushing down, ever so gently, and Xander smiled drowsily and went. Not actually that bad. And he was good at this. This? He could do all afternoon and into the night with Spike's hands carding through his hair and the heavy weight of Spike's cock on his tongue and only enough air to keep sucking. Not enough to think and that was as good as it got.
Xander didn't think too hard about that.
And when Spike pulled out before he came - jerked and shot all over Xander's face, mouth, eyelashes, tongue - heavy cool strands that slithered down his skin and washed away - he thought he might've been smiling.
Spike disappeared after drying Xander off, wrapping him in a towel - which had been kinda nice in a weird 'I can do this myself' way - and shoving him toward the bed where his clothes were folded into piles and Xander's skin tingled from the brisk rubdown and the quick transition from hot shower to the cooler breeze coming in the window. He dressed in a red and green festive cloud - Christmas in July - where all the presents were made up of minutes where he and Julian weren't ruining each other's lives and he could actually believe it'd stay that way. So with a hand on the wall to steady himself he'd keep putting one bare foot in front of the other till he got all the way down the stairs.
That was the plan until his steam ran out in the lobby and he stood there, staring around himself at the hotel - Angel's hotel - feeling nothing at all and it was possible, okay - probable - that he might've overdone the oblivion thing and that the green pills weren't actually made for human consumption.
It was like trying to think through brick.
He ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth and tasted minty freshness and maybe a hint of cigarette and had a feeling he was forgetting something important.
Again.
After a while he moved - followed his nose to what smelled like coffee and there was a pot, and a desk and books - heaps of books. And a Wesley, bent over something crinkly and old and yellow. A hand, maybe, or was that a paw?
And whatever it was, it was euugh.
He clumsily got himself a cup of coffee - sugared and creamed and took a sip and it was good and he figured he could get along just fine without thinking at all.
"Doesn't it taste more like - coffee-flavored ice cream with that much sugar?"
"Huh?" Xander did a slow turn to find Wes a few steps away, watching him with a small smile. A 'isn't that cute' smile that sometimes meant -
But no, this was Wes. Even with his finger-combed hair and freshly shaved face that made him look sixteen, Xander knew Wes wasn't making that sort of small talk. Or - he didn't think he was. The sexy shower time with Spike was like a stage scrim, and the pills put up nice blindery walls, obscuring everything in a sated daze.
"I like the caffeine, just don't like the bitter," Xander said and grinned into his coffee because apparently shame couldn't get through green pill brick walls either. "I'm not that manly."
Wesley glanced into an abandoned half-full cup, sniffed it and shuddered. "It is probably best not to attempt Cordelia's coffee black whether one is manly or not."
"Who drank that one?"
"Angel."
"He really can't taste anything that's not blood can he?"
"We've had no evidence of it, no."
They smiled at each other. And Xander was vaguely aware it was his turn to say something again so he said, "I'll - uh - let you get back to work." Because there was something Gilesy about Wes and that was okay and they were still smiling when Xander turned and walked out from behind the curving front-desk area and flopped down on the weird, circular couch in the center of the lobby. The ceiling was very far away - very pretty - and Xander lay there with his head back and the coffee mug warming a spot on his thigh - everything floating about two inches above the ground. It was nice, the floaty. And the lobby was quiet. Considering he'd spent most of his life with a TV or radio or CD blaring, Xander thought the quiet was - kinda nice.
"In case you're wondering -" Wesley's voice was close and the familiar tones of a Giles repeating himself - again - which was always the point where a guy had to marshal his troops and give Giles his full attention. He poked the hamster in his head hard until the gears started to turn.
"Huh?"
Wesley? Still smiling. Xander relaxed and smiled back because smiling was easier than a mental pat on the back. "Cordelia took Julian to the mall. Apparently, she wasn't happy with what she'd bought for him earlier. In case you were wondering."
The hamster rolled over and gave Xander the toe. "Yeah, uh - she said - she was shopping, uh - before. When she showed me the shower and stuff." Which was - good - actually really good and Xander rolled his head against the back of the couch. Bond, Cordy, bond. And there was no better way to bond with Cordelia than shopping.
"Well - yes. She's been out twice already. Cordelia could shop through an apocalypse."
"Prob'ly has," Xander muttered, and toasted plan B with coffee and red pills and the green pill of mystery. His teeth felt too big - they were crowding his tongue and it was hard to talk.
"Xander," Wes said and this time the tone was the concerned tone. The tone Giles used the one time he pulled Xander into his office and asked how he was coping with his encounter with Faith.
Except whatever Wes had to say couldn't be as embarrassing as that.
Xander drank another mouthful of coffee and counted his teeth with his tongue, stretched and rolled it until it could move easily in his mouth with too-big teeth. "What?"
"I realize this may be too personal - coming from me - but Cordelia is worried. What - exactly..."
Xander sipped his coffee and stared at the front doors, wondering when they'd been installed. He didn't think that kind of door had been standard when the rest of the Hyperion was built. Maybe Angel went through a lot of doors in his line of work.
The third time Wesley coughed, Xander realized he wasn't going to finish the sentence alone.
"What exactly what?"
"Happened to his mother?"
"She left." Xander sat up, braced himself against the seat of the couch but still managed to slosh coffee over his thigh. He licked his lip and stood up. "I'm gonna get some more coffee. You want some?"
"God, no." Wesley hovered awkwardly between Xander and the coffee pot and Xander stood swaying and waiting for him to say something or move out of the way. "Xander...I'm terribly sorry."
Xander cracked a smile or the smile cracked him. "She wasn't cut out for motherhood." Xander could see Wesley wanting details - could see the words piling up in his great big brain, ready to take down the green brick walls and he stared into his coffee cup.
Awkwardly.
He took his time filling it.
Awkwardly.
Wes cleared his throat and sat down at his desk with the yellow - thing.
Awkwardly.