Never-Ever Land
Once upon a time, not long ago at all, a vampire walked deep into the favelas of Rio de Janeiro on the heels of the setting sun, intent upon visiting a witch-doctor who called himself Bruno. The wind and the starry sky told her the way, and she went humming-humming-humming to his front door. She waltzed into his clap-trap shop, spun around in a pretty circle, and said, "I can smell the breath of chickens screaming in your hair."
Bruno merely blinked, for he had not a word of English, or so he liked to pretend.
Her eyes glowed and her brow snarled, and not being a stupid witch-doctor despite his lack of years, Bruno ran.
Or tried, rather, and then there was a crash, a bang, and next a whimper as her fingernails drew fresh blood from the flesh at Bruno's neck.
"Traveling all this way for princess. It won't do. He'll die with me like a daisy." Her light-dark eyes focused on him, and they made him afraid. "But my sweet William shall have his dark kitten," said the vampire, and she smiled a smile made sharp with pointy teeth.
She hummed a broken song as he gathered the ingredients for her love spell, blood oozing down his neck. He glanced fearfully over his shoulder as he stirred the potion in the hissing cauldron, and when he presented the vampire with a blood-warm bottle, he fully expected to die.
She clapped her hands and squealed in delight, and then pressed a cold kiss to his cheek. Interested in self-preservation much like a untethered goat finding himself too near a roasting spit, Bruno graciously waived the usual fee.
Xander walked with his head down, the soles of his shoes scuffing against the sidewalk. He sucked down the last cool, delicious drop of triple chocolate chunk ice cream, and then crunched the rest of his waffle cone between his teeth. The bouquet of flowers he held in his other hand bounced against his leg.
She'd refused to let him stay and visit, claiming that she didn't have any more room for flowers, which was understandable considering how much money Xander had spent at various flower shops in the greater Sunnydale area over the last few days. So much money, in fact, that he only had enough on him to pay for a bunch of tulips wrapped in cheap green paper. Their petals were soft and yellow. One had a broken stem.
Good thing he hadn't spent the emergency ice cream fund on the roses.
And, okay, he really couldn't blame Cordelia for not wanting to see his lying, cheating face, because he was pretty much never going to get over seeing her crumpled on the ground with rebar through her stomach -- which, hey, brought around the crippling guilt right on schedule. Plus Willow was acting all weird and skittish and pine-y, and he had no idea how he ever was going to look Oz in the face again. Betraying his only guy friend since Jesse -- he hadn't really thought that one through, had he?
Of course, he hadn't really been thinking. Lusting aplenty, but thinking? Not so much.
All in all, his life pretty much sucked right now, and he mostly had himself to blame for it. Which probably went a long way to explain why he was taking a short-cut through an alley. In Sunnydale. After dark.
He was depressed and an idiot. And most likely about to get eaten. Buffy was going to kill him.
Xander froze when he heard a clatter and a muffled curse around the corner where the alley met another in a 't'. He took a deep breath. And then another. Because apparently being well-oxygenated when he died was the best idea ever. And since Xander was not a sissy boy who hid behind the Slayer all the time, he poked his head around the corner to see what horror awaited him.
A hulking black car was parked a few yards away, its bumper crumpled like a candy bar wrapper. The trunk was open, and someone stood behind it loading cases of booze and cartons of cigarettes. Whoever it was cursed again, and before he realized that his brain had done the math, Xander had already shouted, "Spike?!"
A white head popped over the top of the trunk, the wary lines of his face sharpening into a really annoying smirk. "Well, well. What do we have here?"
"You!" Xander said, pointing at Spike with the bouquet of tulips. "What are you still doing here? You told Buffy you were leaving town!"
Spike finished loading the last case and slammed shut the trunk. "Had to get supplies for the road trip, didn't I?"
For just a moment, Xander cut his eyes to the back door sitting drunkenly on its hinges a few feet away from the black car. He was pretty sure it led to Joe's Party Shop on Alameda, and of course Spike would knock over a liquor store on his way out of town.
Maybe if he was lucky, Spike had stolen all of Uncle Rory's favorite Kentucky bourbon.
"You're driving to South America?" Xander said instead of indulging in half-hearted moral outrage.
"I like cars. Too hard to avoid sunlight in airplanes, so I hear," Spike answered, and walked around his car. His eyes narrowed to slits, his smirk turned a little dark and scary, and Xander got a belated case of the wiggins.
Right. Evil vampire. He should've been running by now. Except for the part where he really couldn't, because Spike had just crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye and pinned Xander against the rough brick wall of the alley. Spike squeezed his hand around Xander's neck, and when he tried to swallow, his Adam's apple moved uselessly against Spike's hard palm.
"For me? You shouldn't have," Spike purred, snatching the bouquet from Xander's hand and tossing it over his shoulder. "Since you bought me flowers, I'll spring for dinner, what d'you say?"
Spike leaned in close, his face going all bumpy and demonic evil, and Xander could feel his heart pounding in his ears. He wheezed and scrabbled uselessly at Spike's wrist when he felt sharp teeth against his neck, and god, this was such a stupid place to die.
And then the world exploded in bright white to the chorus of a hundred yowling cats. A thing opened in the air less than ten feet away. A door, blood-red and gaping, like the laughing mouth of an evil clown. Something big -- no, someone really freaking big stepped out of it. The door wavered, and Xander thought it was just his eyes watering until it snapped shut with a force that made his ears pop. The big thing took two steps forward, and then it was standing right next them. Seven feet tall, with a body like a Valkyrie, a face like a rhino, and red lips like Angelina Jolie, all poured into a brown service uniform shirt and shorts.
It was kind of disturbingly sexy, actually.
It tapped the box it carried with one arm, glanced at the clipboard it carried in the other, and said, "DCS express delivery for a Mr. The Bloody?"
"Yeah?" Spike stepped back. His bumpy vampire face melted into a forehead wrinkle, and the pressure on Xander's throat eased up by just a hair.
"Mr. The Bloody? Sign here," it said, indicating at space at the bottom of the clipboard with one long purple fingernail. They looked like the same Lee Press-Ons that Sally Watkins had worn all year in sixth grade after she discovered that beauty products and superglue really weren't mixy things. "And initial here, please."
Xander stared. Face like a rhino, voice like Billie Holiday, and wearing a monstrous pair of purple sneakers that could crush his head like a rotten watermelon. The nametag on her shirt read 'Yolanda'. Probably not so much an 'it', then.
Spike signed the clipboard with a flourish, one hand still squeezing Xander's neck.
"Here you are," Yolanda said, handing over the cardboard box. "Sorry for interrupting your dinner, sir. Have a nice night."
"Yeah," Spike said absently, eyeing the box. "You, too."
Yolanda turned on one giant, purple sneaker, and then the portal burst open again, hot air rushing back to toss grit in Xander's eyes. Yolanda stepped through and disappeared into the red, and the door closed behind her with another painful ear-pop. And then the alley was quiet, his ears were ringing, and death was suddenly less imminent when Spike let go of Xander's neck in order to shake his box like a Christmas present.
"What in sweet crap," he gasped, rubbing at his throat, "was that?"
"That was a DCS girl," Spike said.
"Huh?"
Spike tore his attention away from his delivery long enough to roll his eyes. "Demonic Courier Service?"
"What, is that like the UPS for hell?" Xander said.
Spike snorted. "Well, yeah. How else are demons gonna get their mail? Regular post has all those stupid rules and regulations, not to mention the fact that they only deliver to places and not people. Damn shoddy system if you ask me."
Xander knuckled at the grit in his eyes. "Who would be sending you mail, anyway?"
"It's from Drusilla," Spike said confidently. "Looks like her handwriting, with the loopy things drawn in there."
He peered at the package. "There's a 'd' and like half an 'r'. It could be from Dr. Doom, for all you know."
"Or Dr. Love."
"Dr. Strange," Xander said.
"Dr. Who."
"Dr. No."
"Dr. Kildare," Spike said, shaking the box again.
"Dr. Dolit -- never mind," Xander said, cutting that one off at the pass.
They squinted at each other over the box top, and Xander for one was a little perturbed by their moment of geeky bonhomie.
"Right," Spike said, and ripped open the package. It went off in his hands like a Roman candle, only instead of sparks, it spewed pink smoke and glitter-shaped hearts like a demented Valentine's Day gift. Xander clapped his hands over his ears and tried not to breathe as they were both enveloped in smoke and glitter, the high-pitched scream cutting out only when Spike tossed the package onto the ground and stomped on it with a crunch of glass. The pink cloud roiled and slowly dissipated, leaving Spike and Xander blinking at each other owlishly in the gloomy dark.
Spike brushed glitter off the shoulder of his coat and took a deep sniff. "Huh. Smells like burnt chicken."
Xander opened his mouth, and then let out the biggest sneeze of all Sneeze-onia.
"Gesundheit," Spike said.
Xander sneezed again, and then the alley wobbled under his feet. "I feel kinda --" he said, and then pitched forward against Spike, grabbing onto the smooth lapels of his duster to keep himself from eating dirt. Spike caught him by the hips and pulled him close.
"You feel kinda what?" he said.
"Um..." Xander blinked at him some more. Spike's eyes were a really pretty shade of blue.
Spike leaned closer. "Got glitter on your nose."
"Wow, I don't think anybody's said that to me since I was eight," Xander said. He'd always gotten a little crazy with the construction paper and Elmer's during arts and crafts time.
Spike leaned closer still, his eyelids drooping, teeth denting his lower lip. He brushed his thumb over Xander's nose, and a glittery heart fluttered to the ground. Then he brushed his lips over Xander's mouth, and Xander's breath caught in his throat. "Mm," Spike murmured. "Taste like chocolate."
This was all very weird. Very disturbing. Very random. Very strange. And Spike was very much kissing him, his lips soft and cool. He stroked his slick tongue into Xander's mouth, and he opened wide and kissed Spike back, because... Because? It seemed like the thing to do?
Spike kissed like... like one of those starving children in Africa who were the reason Xander always had to finish his dinner. Or maybe like an animal, with the licking and the biting and the sucking. Kissing a guy was just like kissing a girl, only totally not. It wasn't gross. It wasn't just like kissing himself or his non-existent brother. It was...
It was totally hot.
Spike pressed his hand to Xander's crotch. He moaned and pushed into Spike's palm, and then Spike urged him to move backward until the brick wall of the alley dug into his back and shoulders. Spike dove in and sucked a messy kiss onto Xander's neck, still moving the heel of his palm in a hard circle on Xander's cock. He knew that he should be all 'vampire! neck! danger, Will Robinson!' but it felt too good to care. The kiss moved up his neck, under his ear, across his jaw, and ended back at his mouth. Xander's lips buzzed with blood and heat, and Spike kept driving him nuts with his tongue, switching from long and deep to fast and shallow thrusts as he put his hands everywhere on Xander's body.
He clenched his hands on the lapels of Spike's jacket, the leather protesting the rough treatment with a faint squeak as Spike popped the button on his jeans and eased his zipper down. Spike pulled Xander's hands off his coat and dragged them down, and suddenly Xander had Spike's ass in his hands. There was nothing to be done except squeeze, and Spike growled softly in appreciation.
Spike smelled harsh, like guy and smoke and whiskey, his body hard and his palm wide and rough as he wrapped his hand around Xander's cock. Xander was hard already, had been for who knew how long. He'd been doing the dance of sexual frustration with Willow for weeks, and the whole time, Cordy had just thought that he'd really liked her new perfume. None of it had gone anywhere, and when his dick wasn't overriding his brain waves, Xander wasn't so sure he wanted it to.
But if linoleum made him think of sex, having someone else's actual hands on him was -- hands jerking him off, thumb rubbing over the head of his cock, tongue doing lewd things to his neck again.
And then Spike's hand was gone, and Xander's lizard brain went "Bzuh?" until he realized that Spike was unbuckling his belt. He yanked down his zipper and pulled out his -- Xander boggled a little. Cock. Hard cock. Hard cock with a crinkly foreskin. It was definitely a guy yanking Xander's jeans halfway down his thighs and then shoving him back against the wall again.
"Oh god," Xander said when he felt Spike's cock rub against his own, velvety and almost warm. Xander squeezed Spike's ass some more, and he groaned in appreciation when Spike settled into a rhythmic little shimmy. He shoved at Xander's shirt, sliding his hands up Xander's chest. Spike scraped Xander's nipples with his thumbnails and grinned when Xander bucked into him. He did it again and again until Xander's nipples were hot and tender, until Xander was using Spike's hips like a steering wheel for harder-more-faster.
Spike slipped his hands between their bellies and jerked them both, Xander breathing hard into Spike's mouth, ear, neck. Spike muttered things like "yeah" and "beautiful" and "fuck" in between kissing Xander stupid. It felt like his body was made up of all these points of need, red zones about to go thermal. Spike curled his tongue under Xander's teeth, nudged his knuckle behind Xander's balls, and squeezed their cocks together hard one last time. Xander came over Spike's fist, his own belly, and Spike's black shirt.
Xander sagged back against the brick wall. Spike's knuckles brushed the skin under his bellybutton as he finished himself off. Dimly, he felt the bite of teeth on his neck.
His vision went pink.
Xander fumbled with his zipper. He felt hot and sticky, and he was in very, very deep denial about the sticky substance on his skin.
Shock. Horror. Shock and horror. Appalled shock and horror. Xander needed to learn new words in order to adequately express how much shock and horror filled him as he stared at Spike. His hair was messy, his mouth red, and he hadn't bothered to do up his pants.
Yolanda wasn't the only demon who was disturbingly sexy. And now Xander needed to dry clean his brain.
Had they been possessed? It seemed to be a recurring problem for him. Recurring and traumatic, considering that he still couldn't bring himself to eat pork products. Except for bacon, but then, Xander always made exceptions for bacon.
"Well, that was unexpected," Spike said.
Xander clenched his jaw. "You really excel at understatement."
Spike shrugged. "Had a lot of years to practice."
"Did you take a correspondence course?"
Spike sneered and lit a cigarette. "Natural talent."
"Please tell me I didn't just have sex with you," Xander demanded loudly. Possibly hysterically.
Spike exhaled a cloud of smoke. "You. Are a giant git."
"Oh god." Shock, horror, and utter panic.
"Oh, come off it," Spike said. "Why get your pants in a twist? 'S'not like we did the nasty on purpose." Spike nudged at the delivery box on the ground with his boot. Glass tinkled inside it. "Whatever was in that thing's what did it to us."
"Is it permanent? Will it come back?" Xander asked anxiously. "Oh god, what if it comes back?"
Spike squatted next to the delivery box and poked at the contents inside it, lifting up a shard of glass and holding it out to Xander. "It isn't permanent."
Xander squinted at the glass, but the words were upside-down and in some foreign language that could possibly be Hebrew or some demon language called 'ohgodijusthadsexwithavampire.'
Who, him, obsessing?
"Says 'good for one dose'," Spike said, tossing the glass back into the box and standing up. He shoved his hands in his coat pockets. "Look, we could sit here and flap our jaws over what possible reason Dru could've had for sending me that vile stuff. Or we could both turn around, walk the other way, and never speak of this again. And I mean never."
"I'll take door number two," Xander said. "I am so down with never-ever land."
Spike's lips twisted, and they stared at each other for a few moments more. "Right, then," Spike said, turning on his heel and his coat flaring out behind him. His car door opened with a cranky squeak and Spike slipped inside the driver's seat. He turned it over, gunned the engine, and took off with the squawk of tires and rumble of the exhaust.
Xander walked the other way back toward his house. Something caught on his shoelace, and when he bent down to free himself, he saw the bouquet of yellow tulips lying there in the dirt. All the flower petals were mangled and sporting tire tracks except for the one with a broken stem.
"Figures," Xander said, and took the flower home.