Square Twenty-Three

[reremouse]

Xander writhed against pillows, against velvet and cotton, linen and silk, thighs shaking with the spread and with the aftershocks of Spike's wicked tongue doing too much and not enough and then leaving him, opened and wanting.

"Don't want to take it too fast, do we, pet? Only get to do this once." Spike's fingers played up the back of a thigh, slid along the crease, brush against his balls making him whine. "Don't want to hurt you." The words buzzed into his skin before Spike bit into the back of his thigh - a bird bite that tickled and Xander dropped his face into the pillows, rubbing his cheek against a rough brocade that still had the Pier One sticker on it, laughing helplessly.

"Oh fuck - jesus. You're gonna kill me and you don't want to hurt me?" He twisted as far as he could go to meet sparking gold eyes with a grin and arched, pushing his hips back against Spike. "So - so not the point."

A Nest-warm hand slid up his thigh, took a possessive detour up his cock in a way that made him moan and slid up - up to cover his banging heart. To hold it in and the irony set him off again, laughing until Spike mounted him and entered - one stretching, burning thrust that filled him completely as Spike growled into his ear.

"Not the same and you know it." Small, deep thrust - so deep it had nowhere to go and drove a gasp out of Xander, lust and adrenaline and nerves racing through him and making him shake. "Feels good when you laugh. When you're around me... Kinda tickles, right...here." Spike's hand slid down to press his belly - stroke it like a cat.

"Yay for my inappropriate sense of humor." Xander groaned, tightening his fingers on cool muscles, groaning at the answering twitch inside him and the horny possessive vampire pheromones that made his head spin.

"One of the things I love about you, pet," Spike murmured, laying a series of nibbling kisses down Xander's neck - doing a slow roll of his hips. *Love you, love you, want you so much, Xander...gonna have you forever...* Pushing that out through the link as hard as he could, love and want and shh shh shh.

"Gonna be all right, love - promise."

"That's so much easier to say when you're already dead." It was hard to breathe with Spike in him, hard to think with Spike around him, talking and touching and stroking and whispering. Spike's forehead, ridged and hard pressed to the back of Xander's shoulder, nuzzle and purr and - "Fuck!"

Spike mumbled a querying sound into his shoulder, rolled his hips and Xander had to concentrate to get the words out. "Wh-what about my tattoo?"

"What about it, love?" Spike traced the arabesque, the curve over his cheekbone with a fingertip.

"Will it - look the s-same - ahh -" Spike grinned as another hip-roll cut off Xander's words - his breath - and he traced the tip of his tongue over the twisted knot tattooed at the top of Xander's spine.

"They'll be perfect, Xander - just like they are now. All of them."

"Okay - cause - grr. Bumpies. Bumps - ohhh fuck." Spike nuzzled the bumps and ridges of his forehead up into the crook of Xander's neck, rubbing, nibbling like he was trying to find the perfect place to bite and Xander's pulse leapt up to meet him. Meet the tickling growls, the prickling teeth for the instant before they sank in, deep and hard and plugged in and turned on.

Xander stared sightlessly at the mantel where a douse stared back, pink head tilted so far to the side it looked like it would topple over and Spike was making the kind of noises Xander made with ooey gooey hot fudge ice cream sundaes and he wanted to laugh, shout, cry, moan - because this was it.

A giggle escaped - a giggle that might have been a moan, yes, animal whimper because the way Spike was sucking, he felt it down to his toes and they curled and wanted too.

In his hind brain, cave!Xander curled up under his fur blanket and was scared and Xander gripped Spike's hips in both hands, listening to his heart pound and stumble and his breath catch, told cave!Xander it'd be okay - it'd be more and better and a whole brave new world and he was gonna love it. Love - Spike. Love. Was why. "G-gonna - have to take a picture of my tattoo in game face. Gonna look all b-ba-dass."

Around them, the house was mostly silent. Just the background noises that come with old houses - and dice. The faint tick tick of the furnace, creaks of settling timbers - the patter patter of dice-feet through the walls and up the stairs - across the floors. The soft sucking, feeding sounds against his neck. And Xander's head was spinning and it was hard to feel the heat from the fireplace on his skin.

Pins and needles and Spike. Xander's tongue was thick and didn't want to move.

Hard to talk - and that was another first and last for Xander Harris. He gave cave!Xander a pat. Gave Spike a shiver and a weak smile and the last squeeze his fingers had in them. "D-don't - bury me anywhere gross."

"D-don' - b'ry me an'-where...gr'ss..." and Spike had to grin around his mouthful of flesh and blood. He pulled Xander closer, feeling the lassitude of blood loss creep over his boy - muscles going limp, his heart...slowing. Spike moved his hips slowly, drawing out the pleasure for both of them. Fear in the link, but it was fading. Love love want fading as well as Xander took a long breath in - out - in, slower and slower. Spike pulled away, careful not to tear artery or muscle - licked the sluggish trickle of blood that followed. Xander's body was dead weight against him, back to Spike's chest and Spike settled back on his heels, pulling Xander closer - arm tight over Xander's chest. Xander's blood *life blood* fizzing through and through his body and making the demon whimper in ecstasy.

"Now's your part, love, now's the hard part...love you so much, Xander..." Spike sliced his wrist with one razor-edged canine and pushed it tight against Xander's mouth - squeezed him gently.

"Come on, love, drink now. I've got you and you're safe, just drink, pet..."

Love and want, urgent coaxing, pulling from his veins, inside and out. The sinuous thereness of the link insisting drinkdrinkdrink. All warm and iron red and voluptuous lust and coming home.

Drink drink beautiful love mine mine mine. The demon wanted - the demon had played along with the wait of months, irritated and covetous - impatient and frustrated. Waited additional weeks while paperwork was finalized. Now it roared its triumph to the heavens, crushing Xander close and rutting furiously - watching with glee as Xander drank, his throat undulating and his jaws working to get more. Mine mine love want love love havemineforever. Wash of yes and love and cold from Xander. Fading fast, now. Light burning brighter and then - not at all.

In the beginning - or perhaps not the beginning but close to it - there were pillows.

There were big pillows, there were little pillows.

There were well-worn velvet pillows and pillows which still smelled of plastic wrapping to Wesley's demon nose. There were pillows with the price tags and federal warnings still attached.

There were - a bloody great lot of pillows.

And under them somewhere - Spike said - was Xander.

Of course with that many pillows, it could have been an elephant sleeping under there.

"Was this really necessary, Spike?"

"Wha'd you mean, 'necessary', Wes?" Spike's eyes never left the mound of pillows as he spoke - long fingers fumbled blindly for cigarettes, lighter - whiskey. There was a circle of ash and spilt drink and crumbs around Spike's chair that had been steadily growing for the past eight hours - several dice were running back and forth, collecting the bounty. They perched on the headboard of the empty bed-frame in which the massive...Resurrection Nest had been constructed. They balanced on the windowsills. More lined the fireplace mantle, flanking the two squat muo-pings - one dark and the other glowing warmly, glowing brightly, alive - and given respectful distance by the dice. Wesley clicked his biro once or twice and eyed the Nest.

It had taken a finicky Spike two hours to build - and he'd barely moved since. Wesley scribbled a note on his pad to ask Spike - later, when he wasn't quite so on edge - just what determined the waking hour of a vampire. Surely Spike couldn't intend to sit there with that sort of focus for days?

"I mean - if you wanted him to be comfortable, you only needed to lay him in the Nest. You didn't actually need to gather every pillow in the house into this room."

"Or buy a cart-load more," Gunn muttered, and Spike made a strange sort of grimace, conveying - what, Wesley wasn't sure.

"He's got to dig himself out, right and proper, Wes. Can't just have him...lying there. Not right."

A thought nagged at Wesley and he tapped his biro against his lips, willing it to take a more useful form than 'Spike is an odd vampire'. It came to Gunn first.

"This a family thing? I mean - Dru did all that weird 'among the flowers, close to the sky' shit and buried Darla in a goddamn rooftop nursery." Gunn took his beer bottle back from the two groaning dice who were trying to make off with it. "You can drink it when you can lift it," he told them.

"Did she now?" Spike absently located a Jaffa cake and stuffed it into his mouth - chased it with a gulp of very fine, aged whiskey and Gunn and Wesley winced in concert. "Dru was very traditional, you know. Liked to follow the old rituals - all that funeral stuff. Had to claw my way out of my own coffin, I did." Something - flashed through Spike's rapt gaze at that and Gunn shuddered - smiled when he felt Wes' hand come down warm and heavy on his knee.

"Not doin' that to my boy...sodding ground's frozen, Charlie-boy - tear his hands up something awful..."

Wesley glanced at the three electric blanket power cords snaking out of a corner of Nest with a small smile and tried to be inconspicuous at note taking. "Was it cold when you woke?" *Spike really is...the softest-hearted vampire.*

"Fucking cold and wet, besides - rained all that day. Fucking mud in my ears and in my throat -" Spike stopped talking abruptly and groped for his cigarettes. The douse who was investigating them squeaked and jumped aside as Spike grabbed the pack and tapped one out.

"I'm... That must have been dreadful," Wesley said softly. He tapped his biro on the pad but didn't write anything. "I'm sorry, Spike."

Spike stilled - cigarette between his lips, lighter lit but held awkwardly in front of him - then turned to stare at Wesley until the lighter burned him and he dropped it with a hiss.

An opportunistic douse dove for it and tumbled headlong into Spike's foot blocking its way. "Not the lighter. Sodding pests." Spike snatched up the lighter and lit his cigarette, returning his gaze to the Nest. "It was a long time ago. Forgot all about it."

Spike hadn't forgotten - his waking as a vampire had actually figured in several nightmares when he'd been ill. But he wasn't about to admit to that.

*You're such an odd duck, Percy. Watcher to your core but...* His gaze flickered up again, skimming over the two jars on the mantle. The one that held...something...of his boy. Soul, or essence, or conscience...Spike didn't know. He only knew that he'd been - astounded, when Wes had presented them. Astounded and amazed and the rush of love for Wes at that moment had been like a tsunami.

Wes listened.

And he trusted, and he - loved. He was an amazing man. Spike still didn't know what he was going to do with his jar. Use it, or hide it away with Xander's. The soul was a restless thing in him, but familiar now.

*Think about that later. Now - it's all about my boy. All about my love...* He barely noticed that his cigarette had burned down to the filter.

The phone rang in the kitchen. It'd been ringing on and off since fifteen minutes after Xander's 'I decided to become a vampire today' emails had gone out from Wes' computer.

Spike closed his eyes and listened to Xander's voice when the machine picked up. 'You've got Xander. I can't come to the phone right now because I'm dead. Leave your name and number and I'll get back to you tomorrow.'

*You git. Only you, pet.* A click, a beep, then another voice. Willow again, sounding - strident.

"Xander! This really isn't funny! Pick up the phone, mister! I'm about ten minutes from teleporting over there... Xander?" Spike tuned her out - tuned out Gunn murmuring to Wesley, and the dice and the traffic outside - folk going home from a day's work. Listening for the first telltale susurrus of flesh on cloth that would mean Xander was awake. The link had been dead since Xander had died - Spike hoped it would come back.

"That is the Willow who sucked down a bunch of magic books and tried to end the world?"

"Yes. I'm reasonably sure we have nothing to worry about."

"English - I want better than 'reasonably sure' when it comes to flayin' alive, magic-suckin, world ending witches."

"Charles! You've met her. She's perfectly sweet when she's not -"

"Ending the world?"

Wesley cleared his throat. "She got better."

"Jesus."

Spike was about to say something - to refute that better because Willow wasn't better, just - more subtle. But at that moment a pillow - small and covered in black silk with dull-silver stars - moved. Shifted and slithered down the face of the Nest and Spike shushed Wes and Gunn.

"He's waking up," he hissed, hands curling tense on the arms of the chair. Gunn opened his mouth and Spike growled. The Nest shifted again, another pillow tumbling down. Wes fielded it before it bounced onto the hearth. The Nest stilled and then heaved, and Spike heard a sharp, gasping breath.

"Spike?" Querulous voice, irritated and a little confused and Spike grinned, his foot bouncing in barely-leashed tension against the floor.

Flicker of movement in the corner of Spike's eye and he held up a hand.

"Don't - don't move, Wes. He has to do this himself," Spike said and Wes subsided in his chair, biro and pad clutched in his hand. "He'll be fine..."

"Spike?" Spark of the link coming back - of searching fearneedlove that made Spike want to roar with triumph as a drift of pillows collapsed on one side of the Nest and Xander...struggled to the surface. Dandelion-haired with static, dazed and confused and his eye wide and drugged. "Stupid - weird - vampire. B-burying me in fucking p-pillows." A douse raced in front of Xander and he jerked away, stumbled and flailed.

Spike launched himself out of his chair - across the Nest and beside Xander before he'd toppled even half-way down. Cradling Xander close, fully aware of the insane grin on his face - of the demon flashing to the surface to snuffle into Xander's neck - run hands over the Nest-warm, naked body.

Lovelovebrightlovewant from Xander, chaotic and strong, so damn strong. The demon purred, ecstatic.

"Had to do it, love - had to bury you..." Kissing the still column of Xander's throat - hands rubbing up and down his back and pulling him close and Xander burrowed, eye closed, brightbrightbright and shivering, just a little.

Fire and cotton candy and sex and Spike - and the world whirled with details where it'd been darkness before.

*In the beginning, there were pillows,* intoned a voice in Xander's head that sounded a lot like Wesley and a hysterical giggle bubbled up. Bubbled out and he pressed closer to Spike - felt Spike like a roaring presence in his veins that made him want, made him hard. Made him clutch Spike tight and he groaned with the feeling of his face changing, shifting - full - feeling that left him panting. "Fuck," he said again - because it seemed like the thing to say.

"God yes," Spike breathed - shifted and then twisted and got them down onto the Nest on their knees. "Xander - love -" Lips on Xander's lips, arousal and fierce possession pounding through the link - the demon drinking in scent and taste of minefamilymemine. Wanting - demanding - and Spike nipped at Xander's mouth and pulled back - gazed on the face of his beloved - transformed.

"So fucking...perfect," Spike breathed. And then he had to kiss Xander again, ignoring the tiny noises from Wesley and Gunn and the gradually closing ring of inquisitive dice.

Xander's lips tingled, teeth itched, and if he'd known dying would make him so horny he would've - "Ssspike" - been lisping for a while by now. Another giggle broke the surface and then Spike was kissing him again, lips and fangs - then lips and teeth and tongue with a feeling like melting bone and he groaned, feeling the touch...everywhere. Dizzy. "How...the fuck do they come out of the ground acting like Bruce Lee?"

"All pumped up from - digging," Spike said - leaned back again and regarded Xander. Eye wide and dazed, still - chest heaving in irregular, half-conscious breaths. Hard - beautiful - aware. The slightly hysterical laughter had only confirmed what he knew would be true. This was Xander.

Moving slowly - not to disturb - Wesley leaned close to Charles, one hand on his thigh and lips close to his ear. "What do you think?"

"Jesus. It's like a birth and an orgy at the same time," Charles whispered.

"Technically, you need more than two for an orgy."

"Well, there's four of us, Wes, and you're lookin' like this is pretty much catnip for demon-types, you know?" Charles' voice was low - circumspect - but his hand was anything but as it crept up Wesley's inner thigh and brushed the hard flesh beneath his fly. Wesley blushed - shivered to the demon and then back to human and Charles grinned at him and pulled him over for a kiss.

Everything smelled so damn - good. Like - spice and blood, sex and food - like life, and Xander clung to Spike's shoulders, trying not to get dragged into the hypnotizing dance of the flames - the incredible layers of brass and gold and crystal of Spike's eyes. Spike's hands made little tingles everywhere they touched his skin and Xander pushed closer, wanting more of that - more of everything and barely aware of Wes and Gunn in their chairs. He wanted to - run. He wanted to fuck, he wanted to bite and he was starting to shake with the conflicting cues the demon was sending out.

"Spike - J-jesus, I - n-need -"

"I know, love - shhh. I know. We'll fix it, Xander. Fix you right up."

"Wh-where're we going?" Xander mumbled - with no circulation the cold bit and numbed, made him feel reptilian and sluggish - overwhelmed, because everything was bright and everything was scent and the wind on his skin tingled, tickled, scraped and whispered, like being tapped by a thousand invisible hands. But he wasn't shivering. Couldn't shiver - and the white puffs of his breath were - gone. Which would be really wiggy if he didn't feel so - himself every other way.

Himself with sparks and fizz and an urge for fight, fuck, feed stronger than the first hit of Spike's blood he'd had that night on the road to Ojai.

"Get you somethin' hot to eat, pet," Spike said, arm tight around Xander's waist. They were headed for a bar that catered to demons and humans - headed to a place where Spike knew a handful of lowlifes hung out nightly. The sort of humans other humans were hard put to care about even if they were viciously murdered. He'd chosen carefully, because Xander was Xander and random murder of the innocent would probably be as foreign - and repellent - a concept now as it ever had been.

*Course, if it's not...that's a horse of a different color entirely,* Spike thought - and grinned wolfishly at the thought of that other jar, waiting for him at the house. If he wanted it.

"Got a bead on a few bad men - give you something to cut you teeth on, love."

Xander drew in a deep, quick breath, scents and impressions crystallizing like ice inside. "Does it always feel like this?" The hunger was a low throb underlying everything. Like the feeling on the cusp of orgasm - the drive.

"Depends on how hungry you are, love. But it's like - like wanting to fuck, that. Always there - ready to flare up - make you burn..." Spike leaned over and nuzzled into Xander's neck - sucked the flesh up into his mouth and bit gently, feeling the quiver go through Xander - feeling the blast of it through the link.

"Wait'll you taste it, Xander...god..." The bar was half a block away, spilling neon spangles onto the wet parking lot and Spike grinned - tipped his head back and growled, subdued roar. He couldn't wait to see Xander in action.

Xander reacted - shivered, shuddered at the growl, the urge to growl back nearly overwhelming - the urge for everything was nearly overwhelming.

Like puberty again.

Only when he was seventeen, linoleum made him horny - but now he'd grab the linoleum, fuck it until it begged for mercy, bite it and drain it dry. He pulled back into himself with a gasp, shaking away the itch of demon wanting to emerge and tipped his head back to the sky. "Sure you didn't slip me some vampy Spanish fly?"

"Got it bad, do you?" Spike stopped them - tugged Xander close, groin to groin and hardness to hardness, slow grind of his hips and his hands cupping Xander's buttocks. "Some of that's me, love. You're so fucking beautiful...can feel you - so strong, now. Makes me..." *Want want want* and Spike grinned as Xander closed his eye - clutched at Spike and pulled him into a crushing embrace.

"Think you can do it, love? Walk in there and - start something?" Xander gasped into Spike's neck - shook himself. Then he lifted his head and regarded Spike with a wide, golden eye - curling grin of a feral Cheshire Cat.

"Don't think that's gonna be a problem, Spike."

"Y'know what's weird?" Gunn asked, limping across the sitting room and falling onto his chair before the fireplace. His chair - that's right. Big, plush and red with wings. Class act with a matching footstool.

Wesley glanced up from his notebook, frantic scribbles to document everything - every detail eyes, ears and nose could remember. "The sitting room without a Nest?"

Gunn looked around - had to admit it was damn empty. "Yeah. Okay. What's really weird is that was Xander."

"Yes it was, wasn't it," Wes said, stopping his scribbling for a moment and getting this look on his face.

"You're gonna be milkin' them for info for weeks, aren't you Mr. Spock?"

"Hmmm?" Wes went back to scribbling and Gunn wormed a little lower into his chair, sighing. He wasn't - freaked. That had been over a month ago, when Wes and Spike and Xander had first told him about the 'Kill Xander' plan. That had been...hard. Had made him think of Alonna in ways he hadn't in a long time. Running their last minutes together over and over in his head. How she'd been - how she'd acted. What she'd said.

Now he had to think - had his little sis been in there? Just - overwhelmed with the new, scared and hungry? If he'd waited - talked - tried... Gunn shook his head, hard. *Not going there. Just...not.*

"You makin' the rounds again?" Gunn found himself being watched by the fuckin' big one-eyed douse that'd been coming around for the last week - that'd been the first douse to sniff over Fangs Harris and declare him - whatever the hell dice declared acceptable beings who weren't lunch.

"If you're lookin' for the master of the house, he ain't here. He's out raping and pillaging - you'd like it."

The douse twitched its whiskers - one of them was bent in the middle, giving it a more rakish air. It did look approving. Gunn held out his bottle. "There y'go. If you can lift it, you can drink it."

The douse scampered off and Gunn settled back in his chair with a chuckle - less Alonna on his mind and more *ha - showed your fuzzy pink ass, didn't I?* Until the douse hopped back - with a determined look and a fuckin' straw.

"You win." Gunn set the bottle on the floor and watched a crew of three dice appear and carry it away behind their - "Hey - English. Do those guys have leaders?"

"Vampires?" Wesley asked - a million miles away in a sea of yellow legal pad pages.

"The demonic Chia pets. Seems like that Cyclops one is kinda the leader. He had a straw."

Wesley blinked down at his notes - circled something - then: "Straw? Whatever are you talking about, Charles?"

"I'm talkin' about drunk dice in the attic. You're way too involved over there, Wes - haven't given me a leer in at least an hour."

"I do not leer," Wesley protested, but he put his notes and biro down - got up and crossed over to Charles and crouched down beside his chair. Tipped his head up and tugged Charles down for a long, slow kiss.

"I do do that, however. Is that better?"

"Gettin' better by the minute."

The phone rang.

"Jesus. Not again."

'You've got Xander. I can't come to the phone right now because I'm dead. Leave your name and number and I'll get back to you tomorrow.'

They looked toward the kitchen. "Nothin' keeping us from turning the sound off is there?"

"No."

"Xander, this is Rupert Giles. While Buffy and I have talked Willow out of immediate teleportation, please call soon - whether you have a conscience left or not, it's in your best interest. Buffy asks me to remind you that Ben and Jerry only solve a woman's problems until she can't button her jeans."

"Must've turned their damn cells off," Charles grumbled, and Wesley stood up, going for his own cell phone that was perched on the mantle.

"They probably did. Let me just - call Rupert. Reassure him and then..." Wesley turned a long look on Charles - a look that roved from head to foot and back, with significant...pauses. "Then I think that we might - retire. Spike and Xander won't be home for hours." Wesley added, and the heat in Charles' gaze went up a notch.

"Nothin' like 'my parents aren't gonna be home' to turn a guy on." Gunn levered himself out of the chair and slid his hands down Wes' upper arms - the firmness of him - the solidity and warmth. Not a damn thing like Fred, Gwen, Anne - and he was starting to think that might be some of what was right.

"They're hardly parents." Wes turned, shy-smiled the way that made Gunn forget this guy was ever Danger Man The Broody.

"The kids are out," he answered, grinning and slipping his hands down to rest in the small of Wes' back. "The scaryass punk kids with sharp teeth and tattoos." Close enough to kiss - so he did.

"What is today's youth coming to?" Wes asked - a little breathless.

Really breathless a few minutes later and Gunn watched in smug satisfaction as Wes bumbled his way through the phone-call overseas, apologizing for the late hour - even though he knew Rupert was up - apologizing for not calling sooner, apologizing for apologizing until Gunn plucked the phone from his hand.

"English has got some heavy-duty necking to get to while the Gruesome Twosome are out and about. He'll talk to you later, okay? Bye." Gunn flipped the phone shut - put it on the mantle - and grinned at Wes' poleaxed look.

"Wanna get naked?"

Gunn gave Wes a real generous thirty seconds of verbal stumbling, then caught him up, crushed him close and shut him up with a kiss. "That a yes?"

"Yes." Wes was giving him that wide-eyed, dazed and horny look that didn't scare him anymore - hell, it made his blood-pressure rise in all the right places. A guy could get used to making his boy weak in the knees. "Charles - a-are you certain you're -"

"Don't you dare go getting all chivalrous on me now."

"Or what?" That look had changed - that look had gotten dangerous. Danger Man in the house looking - god help him - coy.

"Or I might try out those handcuffs Blondie Bear's been swishin' around with."

"Oh? Big talk, Mr. High Powered Lawyer." Wesley shivered - changed - watched speculation and lust flare in Charles' eyes. "Better be sure you can back it up." Charles smelled - good. Like spiced cookies and musk and earth. Dark and rich and Wesley had to taste. Had to push into the warm crook of Charles' neck and fasten his mouth over the skin there - lick and then suck as Charles moaned. Wesley kissed and nibbled and tasted while his hands made themselves busy untucking Charles' shirt and stroking over warm, silken skin. Charles' hands, meanwhile, were doing the same - running lightly along the spines that crested Wesley's skull and lacing his fingers through the ones along Wesley's back. Sending shivery tingles up and down Wesley's spine and straight down his cock.

"Oh - god, Charles..."

"Like that?" The spines quivered and clattered quietly against each other with every shiver, Wes' lids getting heavier over those shark-dark eyes. "Naked time. Now."

Wesley caught his breath, cock twitching to the growl in Charles' voice - and growled back, tearing Charles' shirt cleanly down the middle, licking a broad stripe up his chest in an explosion of salt and musk and spice until his knees buckled.

"Jesus!"

"I," Wesley said around a nipple, hard and hot between teeth he was careful not to puncture with, and emphasized his words with a thrust of his hips, "like that very much."

Gunn was amazed they actually made it up the stairs. If the Nest had still been in the sitting room, he'd have taken his chances in it. But they did make it, leaving a trail of clothing behind - and oh fuck but wouldn't Blondie Bear have something to say about that? But then Wesley - human again, flushed and panting - pushed Gunn down onto the bed and straddled him - pressed groin to groin and Gunn arched, making a squeak of surprise. *Who fuckin' knew? Jesus -* "Christ, Wes, that's - that's -"

"Good, isn't it," Wes murmured, and did it again - then reached between them to grasp them both in a slide that would've made Gunn weak in the knees if he'd been standing up.

"Damn good - where you been all my life good!" Gunn grasped a handful of the bedclothes and a handful of Wes, hot smooth skin under his palm and it was nothing like anything else - hard and rough and fast and no worrying he was gonna hurt Wes when too much was almost enough.

But not, not quite and Gunn reached up and wrapped his arms around Wes - pulled him down and held him, press of that fever-warm body all along his. Wes' legs were hugging his hips and Wes' cock was sliding along his hip - his belly - leaving a cool trail of fluid behind - and Gunn's cock was trapped between them.

"Just - wanna feel you. All over me -" Gunn panted, and Wes moved - did something that undulated his whole body and Gunn had to squeeze his eyes shut. "Oh god, god, god!"

"Mmm..." Wes was kissing his neck - his jaw - his mouth. Wes was scratching his nails lightly over Gunn's scalp and shoulders and Gunn was palming the heavy muscles of Wes' buttocks - kneading and pushing and pulling and Wes was grinding down, breathy little moans of pleasure coming out between the kisses.

"Wes - fuck -"

"You're so beautiful, Charles -" Wes murmured, and Gunn stilled in shock. "You feel so good...taste absolutely...wonderful..."

"You're such a girl, English."

"I realize you mean that only in the emotional sense." Wes said in a voice far too dry for a guy moving like that, for a guy that hard - for a guy who'd just been sucking Gunn's brains out through a bottom lip that still tingled. "At least - I do hope you meant -"

"Yeah, yeah." Gunn pushed with his good leg, rolled them over and thanked whichever resident hedonist chose a soft mattress for this bed, grinding Wes down into it with a groan that wasn't all English. "I noticed you're all man." His hand shook, sliding over the angles of a hip, concave curve of Wes' muscled belly - and wrapped around Wes' fingers with a tingling slide of flesh. He jacked slow - hard - good - till Wes' leg came up and around and locked behind him. "I like it."

"Yesss..." Shiver of demon not-demon and Wesley fought it back. Wanted this time - first time - to be just himself. His hands stroked up and down over Charles' back, finding the small scars - the bulge of muscles. Marks of a physical man - a powerful man and Wesley brought his other leg up, thighs wrapping around Charles hips and his body tilting - tongue flickering over Charles' collarbones and nipples. "God - yes, like it..."

"I'd like a whole lot more of it." Charles groaned, ground down against Wesley until he could feel bruises forming, sparking waves of possessive want from the demon.

"That - oh - that can be arranged. You would have...far more trouble putting me off -"

"Than gettin' you off?" Their hands were slick now - wet and warm and fluid - and hot and tight as he could ask for.

"Yes - yes - that won't be a - god! - problem!"

"You always talk this much and I never noticed?"

"I can be quiet if you like," Wesley said, and then he was kissing Charles with everything he had - kissing and arching and squeezing their hands together, tight and hot around their cocks and his other hand was on Charles' ass, pulling him close just like his legs were doing and Charles was groaning into his mouth, and Wesley's heel was riding in the hollow behind Charles' knee and their hands were moving, grasping, clutching...

And Charles broke away with a low moan, eyes wide and then fluttering shut and Wesley was chanting "yes yes yes" with a dry throat and swollen lips and then Charles bucked hard, his hips moving out of rhythm with hands and Wesley's hips, grinding down and thrusting and Wesley pulled him down again, mouth to mouth and his hand slicked and hot, tangled with Charles' and - oh - his world grayed around the edges, sparks jumping, trickling, rushing through his nerves.

Then Wes was arching against Gunn and breaking his promise like a sailor. All yes and fuck and fuck me and dirty, passionate English things Gunn couldn't translate - and then for one second - so fast Gunn wasn't sure if it was real, Wes shivered half way to demon and back - glowing silver all around the edges, pink and flushed in cheek and lip and - "Beautiful, English."

"You -" Wes panted, raised a shaky hand to stroke across Gunn's skull, eyes sated and half closed, "girl."

The cemetery - Old Burying Point - was old, and Spike settled himself carefully on a decrepit tombstone from 1722, lighting a cigarette and watching Xander do a little dance with an obnoxious vamp who'd followed them, apparently spoiling for a fight. He was getting one, and Spike watched - grinned gleefully as Xander twisted aside from a punch and came up fast, fist sinking into the other vamp's midsection and doubling it over. Xander's elbow crashed down on the other's neck and the vamp went down hard. A moment later it was over and Xander was up and bouncing toward Spike, fangy grin and a smear of blood on his lip.

"He caught you, then," Spike said, standing up and wiping his thumb along the blood - sucking it into his mouth. Xander shook the demon away and probed his lip with the tip of his tongue.

"Yeah - got lucky - or I got unlucky. Jesus - I'd have been hamburger before tonight." A grin lit Xander's face and he tilted it up to the moon, laughing.

Spike took a long drag on his cigarette - looked around at the rows of crooked headstones. Everything silver and white, humps of wet weeds and stone almost indistinguishable and the new-Spring trees like stark sentinels over all. Old here - older than Angelus and maybe someone Darla once knew was buried here, who knew? Spike shivered slightly and hooked his hand around Xander's neck - drew him in for a kiss.

"You wanna go home, pet? Sun'll be up soon."

"Uh huh." Xander slipped his hands around Spike's waist, under the duster, under the shirts where cold hands didn't matter and rubbed his nose against the duster collar. "Home, where the Nest lives." He peppered kisses up Spike's throat to his lips and walked backwards. He didn't have super special grace. Or fancy martial arts moves - but now when he fell on his ass, it didn't hurt.

Or it hurt and felt good - *and hey, not complaining about what feels good, here.* Not that he'd want to try out the big pain. *Nope. Not a whip me, beat me, tie me down vamp here.

Okay - maybe a tie me down vamp.

Or a tie you down vamp.*

"What're you thinking?" Spike asked, assaulted by musky arousal and a blast of want in the link, Xander's teeth pressing into his lips.

"Thinking about...tying you up..." Xander mumbled and stopped with an oof of breath as he walked himself into a tree. Spike leaned in hard, hands tangled in Xander's hair and his thigh between Xander's.

"Yeah? How d'you want me, pet, back or belly?"

Xander drew breath to moan and wriggled against Spike. Prickles of oncoming dawn skittered over his skin. "On your elbows and knees. Ass up, head down." Xander slid a hand between them and cupped Spike, felt him, hard and soft and his. "Want this where I can get at it. Where only I can get at it."

Footsteps approached - a whistle - and the demon surged with hunger but it was like...his inner kid. Who surged with the same ravenous want when it passed the Cinnabon. He breathed deep and let it out with a growl - stopped. "Hey. Does Cinnabon smell good to vampires?" Which might be a weird thing to ask in a cemetery before dawn with his hand on Spike's dick and some really lucky pedestrian passing by to work. But Xander could take weird. Weird and Xander were old buddies.

"You smell good," Spike murmured, dazed by the force of wantminewant that Xander was putting out - ready to grind into Xander's hand and get them both off. But the want went from lust to blood in the time it took for Spike to notice some human walking perilously near. He kissed Xander - distraction and affection - and tugged him away from the tree.

"Let's go see about that, then," he said, arm around Xander's waist. "Had fun tonight, yeah?"

"I've gotta hand it to you. Vamps know how to party," Xander admitted, skirting the grave of one Samuel Leech and giving him a wave, one leech to another. Xander felt another grin coming on. He cracked himself up. "Gonna let me? Tie you up and drive you to Crazyville?"

"Let you? I expect you to, pet. All spread out and helpless for you? Fucking hot..." Spike slid his fingers down inside the waist of Xander's jeans and stroked the top curve of his ass - dug his fingers in and kneaded. "Let you do anything, Xan." *Anything you want...everything.*

Xander hitched, a bolt of oh yeah! slithering into his libido and playing around. "Gonna show you how a construction foreman ties knots to start. I'm gonna tease you till you're begging - and fuck you when I'm ready - and not feel even a little guilty about it."

"Fuck I hope not," Spike breathed. He swung Xander around, kissing him hard - pushing hard cock into hard cock. "Gonna make me scream, love?"

"Gonna make you sob, it feels so good." Xander growled, grabbed Spike's hips and ground into him, stumbling in the purple predawn light, the demon sated and Xander exultant.

"God I love you." Spike grabbed back just as hard - pushed his face into Xander's neck and bit at it, human teeth pinching and nipping. He felt the tremor go through Xander - felt the yes and mine and joy in the link and changed - bit for real, shuddering as the pepper-spice of magical, demonic blood hit his tongue. Just a mouthful and then he was pulling back - licking his lips and grinning.

"Last one home - doesn't get to come," he said and bolted away, laughing.

"Wh - hey!" Xander chased after him - after flapping coattails and peppermusk spice. He tackled Spike on their stoop, slamming them both into the door. He was panting - because hello, old habits - and panting was breathing - and breathing was great lungfuls of pheromones pouring off Spike and into him. He thrust, ground Spike into their front door and bit - the pop of fangs through skin and rush of blood over his tongue like summer grapes if summer grapes went straight to the cock. He slid out, traced the punctures with his tongue as they closed, feeling the tremors through Spike's body rattling the door. "You're gonna have to beg so much before I let you come."

"Might...Jesus fuck! Might make you work for it... Might be baaad..." Spike arched up into Xander's body - clutched at muscle and coat and rolled his hips, trying for more contact - more friction. Xander's blood still on his tongue and the bite on his neck sending out hot little tendrils of buzzing pleasure. "Might have to...make me..."

Xander growled out loud and shoved his hand into Spike's front jeans pocket; got a knee between his thighs and pinned him to the door with a hip and a look as he fished for the key and jerked it out. "Might have to spank you. See - I learn by doing. And being done. And fuck, does Wes know how to do." He dangled the key for Spike.

"That he does," Spike said, the growl a pleasant tickle through his bones. He took a startled step backwards as Xander opened the door, then he was pushed into the jamb and Xander was kissing him with a sharp-toothed mouth - and stepping back one, two steps.

"I guess I made it home first. Guess who doesn't get to come?" Then he whirled around and ran, giggling like a maniac and Spike sprinted after, slamming the door shut behind him and pounding up the stairs hot on Xander's heels.

"Damn kids." Gunn muttered. He would have rolled over but damn it, he had an armful of Englishman and it felt too good to waste for drama. "Earplugs, English. I'm buyin' earplugs tomorrow."

"Doesn't help. They can shatter the sound barrier. Dampening spell," Wes muttered back, and then shifted - sighed - and was asleep again. Gunn glared at a pair of winking red eyes that were running along the baseboard and then he sighed, too and settled back to sleep. *Figure it out in the morning.*

"Coffee, tea or blood?"

"Do you have any idea how wrong that is?" Gunn lifted his head - but also his cup 'cause hey, a guy had to get his morning jolt somewhere and if a vamp could make a decent cup of coffee, he'd drink it.

"On a scale of mismatched socks to William Shatner albums, it ranks between white chocolate and fat free Oreos." Xander pivoted with a cup of coffee, a cup of blood and a package of regular Oreos, a douse hanging on for dear pink life from the crinkling corner, and set down the coffee for Gunn.

"If you dunk, I'm giving the rest of the package to the furballs."

The douse sat up instantly, whiskers quivering.

Xander pulled the package protectively closer. "Over my dead - huh. That so doesn't work for me anymore."

"And I thought you and Spike got your meals...on the hoof, so to speak?" Gunn settled into the chair opposite Xander and sipped gingerly at the scalding - really good - coffee. He almost didn't wince when he asked that question, too. *Good one, Charlie-boy. Sounded real - natural.*

"Oh, I do. I mean - we do. But not cows 'cause that's - gross. This is a snack. Like Oreos. Nice warm blood and an Oreo cookie. They forever go together what a classic combination..." Xander sang the jingle, ruining it forevermore and grinning at Gunn's wince. He tore open the Oreo bag and took out a stack of eight or so - handed one off to the douse who clasped it eagerly, tight to the furry, pale-pink belly and started nibbling along the top.

"And - you know it's just really bad guys, right? I mean - we're not eating little old ladies and girl scouts," Xander added - not that he really cared one way or another but it still felt best going after the kind of guys who'd made his skin crawl when he was human. And Gunn nodded - ran his hand over his jaw like it itched and winced

The scent hit Xander like a sledgehammer.

Fresh blood.

The douse was looking at him. Narrow limpid eyes. Then it grinned, gobbled the Oreo down and hopped off the table and away with a flick of its tail.

Xander picked up his cup in shaking hands and drained half of it, rich and thick - salty and good. Human. But without the spark. Like drinking flat orange soda when he could smell the fizz and bubble of -

He shivered and licked his lips, put the cup down and sniffed.

No harm in sniffing...right?

"Uh - Harris?"

Xander's eye popped open to find Gunn leaning way back and him leaning way forward.

"Xan, there any more of those pierogies left? I fancy a few of those before we -" Spike stopped dead in the doorway of the kitchen because Gunn was looking...spooked. And Xander - was looking a little too feral for his own good. The rich scent of fresh blood was on the air and Spike shook his head slightly and sauntered casually over to Xander - pulled him back in his chair and straddled his lap, blocking Gunn and filling Xander's senses with his own scent and feel - and taste, with a lingering kiss.

"You tryin' to scare Charlie-boy, love?" he murmured, and Xander shuddered under him - kissed him back, his fingers digging into Spike's hips.

"No, I - I'm not...I'm really not -" Xander murmured back, sounding a little desperate, and Spike kissed him again, thankful to hear Wes on the stairs. More distraction, until Xander could get himself calmed down

"Course you're not, love..."

"Smells so good," Xander groaned, aware he was hard and breathing, flexing his fingers on Spike's hips. Trying to get it all under control with the demon turning happy circles inside like an overeager puppy - and wasn't that just his luck? He shivered, resting his forehead against Spike's, licked his lips and cleared his throat. "Oreo? Anyone?"

"Certainly not for breakfast," Wesley said, breezing into the kitchen and then shooting a hard look at Xander and Spike - a questioning one at Charles because those two looked - a bit het up. And Charles looked - a little shaken. Wesley crossed to the range, getting a mug off the rack there and lifting the still-steaming kettle - pouring as Charles pushed himself to his feet and limped over

"Everything all right, Charles?" Wesley asked, and Charles took a sip of coffee, brows drawn down a little in thought.

"Yeah. Junior over there couldn't resist the Gunn charm." Gunn made up his mind, reached across Wes for a paper towel and slapped it onto the stinging spot on his jaw. He didn't add 'for breakfast' 'cause a guy's gotta have some standards on his lame quips, no matter how low. Being sniffed didn't rate too high on his freak scale anymore.

Course, that could have had something to do with Wes standing in between him and the Twosome.

"You do smell...edible."

"It doesn't count when you're tryin' to freak me out, English." Wes answered by covering his lips with a warm, tea-flavored kiss and that was all right.

"All right then, Xander?" Spike asked, and Xander took a deep breath - leaned back a little and smiled up at Spike. Slightly crooked smile, but real.

"Yeah. I am. Think I'll just finish up my Oreo's - hey!" Spike ducked as Xander lunged and Oreo's rolled and bounced everywhere as the bag split. The five dice who'd been trying to surreptitiously drag the entire bag off the table scattered, sqreeeling. "Oh, man! Look what they did!" An Oreo crunched underfoot as Spike hopped off Xander's lap.

"If you didn't feed them, they wouldn't be so damn greedy," Gunn intoned, and Spike flipped him two fingers, grinning. Gunn flipped him one back.

"Like nobody's caught you feeding them your extra moo shoo chicken when you think nobody's looking." Xander lifted his head with a grin and Gunn...grinned back.

"I have the right not to incriminate myself and I'm gonna use the hell out of it." Gunn poured himself another cup of coffee, the first a loss to the dice who'd taken a liking to the metallic lettering, a tale spelled out in spilled coffee that was turning spilled Oreo crumbs to mush as fast as Xander could pick them up, casting evil looks at the dice. Gunn slipped the enterprising undersized douse a sugar cube and plopped two more into his coffee cup.

"Good lord - it's like we have...dogs. Or children. Is this what children are like?" Wesley asked, and every other person in the room turned completely blank looks on him. Nearly blank. "Spike - when you were -"

"Don't go there, Watcher. Wasn't married, was I? And no, I did not have children. Unless you count the strays Dru picked up and brought home. She read those bloody books about that bloody French girl with the hat and wanted to have two rows of girls in hats -" Spike stopped talking abruptly as Xander shoved an Oreo into his mouth.

"Oi!" Only it came out more like "Uuuh!", with an accompanying spray of chocolate crumbs. Spike spat the biscuit out into his hand. "That's got teeth-marks on it, Xan! May be a vampire but I don't eat after bloody rodents!"

"And we do not corrupt my childhood reading habits." Xander scooped soggy handfuls of cookie off the floor and onto a napkin.

"You read that shite?"

"Uh - well - Willow..." Xander tried to look like a vampire who'd never worn a yellow hat and marched around for a summer behind a little Jewish girl in a nun's habit - at least until Mrs. Rosenberg had caught them.

"Just when I thought life could get no more weird and disgusting." Gunn moved aside for Xander to drop his soggy handfuls of cookies into the garbage disposal. "I am never gonna be able to eat an Oreo again." He realized Xander was grinning at that. "Ain't none of your Twinkies gonna be safe after this, Harris."

"What? It's just - crumbs and stuff and Spike spitting cookie everywhere - I didn't even dunk!" Xander grabbed some paper towels and went back to mopping up sodden cookies as Spike fixed himself a cup of tea-with-whiskey standard and opened the 'fridge, rooting around enthusiastically.

"Besides, this is your coffee down here making things all gross and melty."

"Says the vampire who put Cheerios in his blood two days ago - you don't get to say anything's gross anymore, my man. And besides - I can't get down there with this knee -" Gunn smirked.

"That's right, trot out the war-wound Lord Nelson," Spike said, wrestling with a Gladware. Xander snickered - saw the grin on Wesley's face quickly hidden behind his mug.

"Besides - the Cheerio thing was an experiment. Spike said I should try something new." Xander scooped the last of the mess up and tossed it - went to the sink to wash his hands. "And clean!"

"Not hardly," Wes drawled, looking with a raised eyebrow at the streaks of mushed Oreo that still decorated the floor.

"What?" Xander asked, looking at the streaked floor with the young American male's blind eye for messes.

Wesley handed him a mop.

Xander took it with a mutter and bent to work - and it was in no way disturbing watching him lift the kitchen table with one hand so he could mop all under it with the other. Gunn shook his head and downed his coffee. "Need a hand, Blondie Bear?"

"No, I - bugger." The lid popped off and pierogies scattered, much as the Oreo's had done and Wes snorted into his tea. "Bloody hell. These? Suck." Spike shredded the 'ware with a jerk of his hands and glared at the food on the floor - stalked over to Wes as he continued to grin much, much too widely.

"All your fault, Wes - you bought the sodding things. Told you we didn't need them." Wes opened his mouth to protest and Spike pounced - kissed him long and hard, hearing with satisfaction the hiss of in-drawn breath from Xander - and the smaller noise from Gunn.

"Tryin' to domesticate us, Wes?" Spike murmured, hip to hip and lips brushing, and Xander was suddenly there, pushing in all eager and grabby, claiming his own kiss before Wes could even blink.

"Yeah - trying to make us into Susie Homemakers," Xander muttered, finding that spot on Wes' neck and sucking gently, sucking up the pepper smell that was stronger now - and slipping Gunn a sly glance when the human lust ratcheted up abruptly.

"Surely - a vampire is clever enough to defeat a simple piece of kitchen equipment."

Xander pointed at the shredded container on the floor. "That? Is defeated kitchen equipment." Gunn's breathing, on the edge of his awareness, was ragged - heart a steady pound and Xander felt a rush of love for Wes - for Wes' timing. For Wes' ability to make it all normal again and pushed into his neck, sucking and nibbling his way to Wes' ear, whispering. "Thanks, Wes." And then kissing the incredible heat of his mouth with a sigh.

"You're - you are quite welcome, Xander," Wesley said, once his mouth was free to speak. He smiled at Xander, a little bewildered and then glanced over at Charles who was...looking. And not a look of disgust or amusement or jealousy, a look of...

*Oh ho - is that how it is? Well, then...* Wesley smiled - tugged Spike a little closer and ran a hand up Xander's back - into the thick, silken hair. And Charles...watched.

Watched but oh no it was not turning him on. No way was he turned on by two vampires kissing and sucking on Wes. *Down boy,* he told the part of him that stopped listening to him around the age of thirteen. "When you're done macking on my boy there, remind him we've got a shop to open and an order coming in."

"Our boy," Spike objected, but he grinned at Gunn - pried Xander loose and gave Wes a small push towards the other man. "Better go be the shopkeeper, love. Maybe we'll have a...family night tonight," he added. Then, pierogies forgotten, he got his arm around Xander and started pulling him toward the door. *Need to go talk to my boy and then need to fuck him unconscious. Or maybe the other way 'round and save the talk for later.*

"Some family. It's like the fuckin' Addams Family around here. Plus incest," Gunn added when Spike's hand dropped to Xander's ass and copped a feel. But before they got out of the kitchen, Xander was squirming like a fish - and then Xander was right there smelling like blood and chocolate and Wes. And then he - licked Gunn's jaw, little coldfire sting. "What the fuck, Harris?"

Xander darted away with a grin, eye dancing, mouth wide and bright - like that was one happy soulless guy. "Would you believe me if I said vampire saliva heals minor wounds?"

"Not in a thousand years."

"Don't be a Doubting Thomas, Charlie-boy," Spike added - sidled in next to Gunn and then snaked his head down to do the same - sucking kiss right over the tiny cut and Gunn's blood tingled on his tongue, rich and sweet and peppery with some sort of magic. Gunn twitched away reflexively but Spike knew. His spicy musk was spiked with lust - the same wantwantwant that was pulsing from Xander and from Wes, even.

*Oh yeah, family night. Wonder if Charlie-boy'll ever...*

"You should always be up for trying something new, pet," Spike purred.

"First man who says I'm up all right is gettin' staked." Gunn wormed out of the cool embrace and backed to Wes. The two vampires gravitated together like some kind of two-bodied organism, winding around each other and sharing his warmth, he was pretty sure.

"Is that a no?" Xander's forehead rested against Spike's - a pose Wesley knew he'd seen before but couldn't place. He rubbed his fingers over Charles' back in a comforting gesture.

"That's a - " Gunn flicked a look at Wes, whose hand in the small of Gunn's back was soothing but not pushing. He licked his lips. "That's a maybe."

Spike grinned - fangs and golden eyes and a cant to his hip that made Gunn swallow, hard.

"Good enough for me, pet," he said - his voice low and rumbling and beside him Wes shivered, just a little.

"Stop teasing now, Spike and - oh my, it's nearly half past, we really must be going. Charles? Are you ready?" Wes' hand never stopped its soothing pressure and Gunn blinked - licked his lips and watched Xander change as well - watched them both watch him and - Jesus fuck. It was...turnin' him on

"Just - need to get my coat, English," Gunn said, his throat feeling much too dry and his trousers too - tight.

Xander sniffed the air once they'd both gone - in a swirl of the kind of scents he'd have described as 'musky' as a human and 'pure fuck me now' as a vampire. Strong enough to make his head spin and the little taste of Gunn's blood sparkled on his tongue. Control - control he had. But the want - Jesus, that wasn't getting any easier.

"I think we're wearin' him down, love. Gettin' him turned around to our way of thinking," Spike said, doing a slow hip-roll against Xander's thigh.

"He wouldn't be the first white-hat seduced to the dark side by the wiles of a sexy vampire or two. Even construction foremen aren't safe these days."

"Mmmm..." Spike nuzzled into Xander's neck - kissed a slow trail up to his mouth. "Now then, love - want to talk about it?"

Xander pushed into the kiss, comfort and promise of sex - heat that took the edge off the hunger that never went away. "I can resist but god it's hard to remember why I want to sometimes."

"That's why we hunt, love - that's why we fight and fuck like the demons we are. That need... And you can resist anything, Xan. Know you can." Spike kissed his way around to the other side of Xander's neck - nibbled the scar that had claimed his life and grinned at the hitch of breath - the jerk of Xander's hips. "Even I don't wanna drain Charlie-boy. But he did taste...fucking good."

"I could give up Twinkies for that taste." Spike went still under Xander's petting and gave Xander the most skeptical look in his repertoire. "Okay, so I couldn't." He buried his nose in Spike's neck, nipped with demon teeth and sucked on the coppery brightness of Spike's blood - intimately familiar now. Home and family and sex - no longer unmixy things. "But I'm an evil soulless monster so I can lie if I want to."

"You can do all kinds of things if you want to. Like -" Spike got his arms around Xander's waist and leaned back - looked up at Xander through his lashes, pouty smile and grind of groin to groin - cock to cock. "Like that thing you did last night..." Suggestive lift of an eyebrow and Xander's demon shimmered and fell away as he leaned forward to kiss Spike hard. Spike pushed his own demon away and let himself be roughly kissed for long, long minutes. They both jumped when the phone rang. Xander pulled back and eyed the handset on the base - frowned.

"Let's get upstairs so I can try that thing again," he said, and they both walked out of the kitchen. On the way past, Xander picked up the handset and dropped it down into the cradle. "I'll call you back," he told it over his shoulder, letting Spike tow him up the stairs two at a time.

The air, that early, was still crisp with cold but the bone-freezing bite that it had had in March was nearly gone. Recent rain had brought out a strong smell of earth and growing green and Gunn breathed deeply as they walked along, enjoying the day - enjoying the clean air and the sight of budding flowers in tidy gardens and empty lots. He was - happy here. Happier than he'd been in a very long time and it was all down to Wes. *And the Gruesome Twosome. Don't sell 'em short. Disturbingly...sexy and wrong as they may be...* Gunn pictured the Xander-Wes-Spike clinch from the kitchen and felt a warm rush of blood go from head to toe - and then return to his groin.

"Oh, my god. They've done it, Wes. They've actually done it," he moaned.

"Discovered cold fusion?" Wes looked at him with that mischievously thick look, the 'I'm too proper to know what you're talking about' look.

"And why do you have to be so English? I'm having a crisis here."

Wesley unlocked his shop door and smiled over his shoulder, catching the scent of lust instead of panic. Helpless amusement instead of anxiety. "Stronger men than you have fallen to their charms."

"Oh, you're stronger than me now, are you?"

"Oh, I fell ages ago, Charles - I won't deny it. But, you know - Rupert has confessed to me -"

"No - no. Stop right there." Gunn stomped inside - turned on the heel of his good leg and fixed Wesley with a gimlet eye. "I do not wanna hear the Secret Life of Watchers confessions about lusting after Blondie Bear. Bad enough he and Angel -" Charles snapped his mouth shut at Wesley's look and Wesley took pity - shut the door and locked it and then leaned forward to kiss Charles cool, mint-and-oranges mouth.

"It's all right, Charles. I'd actually find it a bit...odd, if you didn't have some sort of - reaction. Vampire hunters are known to be more...susceptible. It's the appeal of the forbidden."

Gunn snorted and slid a hand under the back of Wes' shirt where his skin was always hottest. "Forbidden is the castle on the hill where the master will be with you and he bids you drink. These guys are...something else. Hell, even Angel had an air of forbidden mystery. These guys are...less like a Nocturne and more like the Monster Mash."