Title: The sick rose

Pairing: Spike/Xander (Spike/Angelus, Spike/Male)
Warning: non-con, torture, angst
Notes: pretty much non-canon, also AU, and I like my Spike a bit on the soft side, that means not a crying wimp who depends on others, but more of a complex being, with emotions Joss didn’t want to give him, BUT there never was, is or ever will be anything between him and Buffy ( and I know the river in Egypt you want to mention right now, so just shut up)
Thanks to Spurglie, whose wonderfull fic: “Joined at the hip” kicked my lazy ass into writing down the story that had ghosted around in my head for a few days, I forgot to breath as I read the beautiful scene at the end! (Read it, you’ll know what I mean) The first part of the "Rose" series, does Blake ring a bell?
/Thoughts\
Disclaimer: I don’t own them, Joss does, Joss is just a fallible human, we are slash goddesses who know it better *g* I don’t make money, I just play with them, and correct a few things, when I’m done with playing I’ll put them back (o.k. maybe not Spike, cause he’s mine, mine, mine --- don’t I wish *sigh*)

Chapter 1

Xander

“Wakey, wakey boys.” Xander groaned, his head pounding like a bitch, just wanting to turn over and sleep off whatever was wrong with him. But soon he registered that it was not his mum trying to pull him out of his sleep. Something next to him rustled, sounding like leather moving around, /Spike. And just when had the sound of leather become an equivalent of the blond menace moving?\ “Get up.” /Nope, definitely not his mother\

Xander jerked, but a voice he knew nonetheless and had hoped to never hear again. The young man opened his eyes only to have his worst suspicions certified, a dark haired man, correct vampire stood above him, black shirt, /was that silk?\, black leather pants and black leather coat identifying him easily, but…
“Angelus” Spikes words confirmed what the mad smile on the vampires face had hinted at. The human couldn’t stop the flinch or the sudden cold sweat that broke out over his body. /Fuck! What happened to Deadboy, who did he fuck now to lose his damn soul again?\
“Will, my boy, nice to see you again.” The leer in Angel’s face was scary, even more so as Xander could feel Spike tensing up. The young man’s body seemed to be frozen, angrily Xander shook his shock off, trying to jog his memory about what happened. One moment he and Spike were patrolling, abusing each other verbally as always, the next moment ..darkness.

“Can’t say the same ‘bout you peaches. Who did’ya bugger this time? And don’t let the slayer know ‘bout it, you know women can be a li’l bit pissed, being so easily replaced.” Xander snorted inwardly at having his thoughts spoken aloud in that dry, Spikish way, although he doubted it was wise to provoke the guy who’d obviously kid..vampnapped them. But the chipped vampire’s voice brought him back to reality, with a little moan at his headache he pulled his poor body up, greatful for the wall behind him.
Neither of the vampires paid him any attention, so he used the time to take a look at the situation in which they’d gotten.

/First, his body, all bodyparts still there, check, no blood, check,\ he let his hand run through his hair and winced in pain as he encountered the bump on his back, /that was where the headache came from, but why the hell hadn’t Spike noticed that somebody had sneaked up on them? He’d have a word about that with him later.\
Brown eyes then proceeded to take in their surroundings, /greatness, another basement, why were all the bad guys so taken with these damn basements? Couldn’t they for once snatch and keep them in a nice furnished appartement? And lingering on these thoughts was probably just a result of the hit he took on the head \, Xander excused himself, /or the result of too many kidnappings and too many basements, minus his former home\.

A bit shocked Xander noticed that they were in a cage. The door standing open behind Angel, cold stone floor underneath him, beyound the cagebars he could see that the basement was really wide, /probably another damn warehouse, so typical\ There were a few stark bulbs casting the room in a sick yellowish light. A few tables and chairs, and… chains (!) running down from hooks on the walls and the ceiling.
/Where the hell are we?\ Xander looked at his watch and was shocked to see that he’d been out of it for over 5 hours, it was around 4 am. His head jerked up, his fear growing, they could be miles away from Sunnydale, which meant their hope on rescue was as well. There was only one door, far away on the other side of the hall. Xander squinted his eyes to see a little bit more, on the table closest to them laid ..weapons, he gulped, guns, knives, daggers, a sword, and other stuff he really didn’t want to think about now. In his rising panic he turned towards the only hope he had, Spike. Who sat still next to him, still engaged in a staring contest with his Sire.

The vampire looked as always, nonchalance in every curve, only the tightly clenched fist next to Xander betrayed his tension. The black leather duster still on his lean frame, a dark red silk shirt /Is silk a vampire fetish?\ Covered him and black jeans laid over his ancient Dock Marten’s.
“Ah, don’t be like that childe. I’ve come back to you. “ Xander again jerked as the old vampire’s words pulled him out of his musings.
“After all, I owe you one.” Searching his memory the young man remembered that the last time Spike had gotten his hands on his Sire he’d tortured him. Horror of what the again soulless vampire meant with his words made Xander gasp in shock.

This time brown eyes with golden sparks turned towards him, another mad grin twisting the usually pleasing features into the face he’d once seen and hated more than anything.
“ Xander, how nice of you to join us. Welcome on my playground.” With a pompous gesture he spread his arms to indicate the nearly empty basement, making himself look like an evil copy of Batman. Xander shot a look at the vampire next to him, at the same moment Spike’s eyes flickered to him, asking silently if he was o.k.

The human nodded and felt a rush of warmth run through his body at the concern.
“You know I didn’t really plan on you being here, I only wanted Willy, but as you were together and I didn’t want the slayer on my tracks, “ he paused contemplating the thought and then went on grinning “not yet anyway, I had to take you with me. And the more the merrier, isn’t that right?”
/God, the guy had gotten even more theatrical \, Xander thought and couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer, “Yeah, thanks for that Deadboy..” He wanted to say even more stupid things that would probably result in ugly bruises but Spike fell in with a warning look towards him “ So, oh great poof, what happened? Don’t ya wanna tell us, gloat a bit?”
The grin on Angelus face twisted into something more dangerous and he stepped up to the bleached vampire sitting on the floor. in a gesture so fast that Xander’s human eyes didn’t register anything but a blur, he had Spike at his throat and pushed against the wall. Gameface on.
The young man automatically made a move to interfere but a warning glare from Spike kept him down.

“Don’t provoke me Will, I’m not Angel, I’m Angelus, your master, and it would be good for you to remember your training boy, there is enough on punishment as it is now, you do not want to anger me further. “ Even though vampires didn’t have to breath the grip on his throat had to be very painful, and strong, Spike used both hands to claw at the other vamps arms but Angelus only tightened his hand. A human would be dead by now. Xander sat frozen in shock.

Every word of the dark haiered man sending icy shivers down his back. Painting horrible pictures of the relationship the two had in his mind. “You are mine, have always been and will always be. I’ll prove it to you again, obviously you have been without me too long.” He switched to his human face, leaning closer to the blond he groweled lowly but still understandable “And I will have so much fun along the way sweet Will” His tongue then traced a way down the sharp cheekbones to the elegantly curved lips, which he then kissed/bit, at a groan of pain that got barely out of the chipped vampires mouth he let him slide down the wall to the floor. Looking down at the coughing and gasping bundle he licked the blood from his lips and said grinning

“Oh, have I missed your taste childe, I have a few things to take care of now, we’ll continue this later.” Than a mysterious expression crossed his face “By the way, I invited somebody else, he’ll be here in a few days, you’re going to love what I did for you Willy, we will make sure that you know your place once and for all boy. Sleep well.” With that he kicked the body at his feet, turned and left them.
As soon as the basement door closed behind him, Xander scrambeled to the blond vampire and pulled him into his arms, supporting his chest to help him take the unnecessary breaths he seemed to need.

Spike

/Damn, human reflexes, you think after a hundred years you get out of the habit to breath, but no as soon as somebody chokes you, you start to need air.\
“Bloody hell” he croaked out, his abused throat not up to anything else. He leaned back into the warm chest, /warm chest? Fuck Xander!\ He jerked away and around looking up into troubled brown orbs. /So much deeper, warmer than his Sire’s.\ Spike noted absently.

“You o.k. ?” Spike rolled his blue eyes, refusing to be comforted by the concern the boy showed “Of course I’m o.k., my old Sire is back, he’s probably a bit pissed ‘cause I tortured him the last time we met, but I’m sure we’ll overcome this little problem after a few rounds of whip the bloody hell out of ol’ Spike and to top it all of, I’m stuck in this hell with you!” But as always the human didn’t seem the least bit hurt. That’s how it always was with them, ´they bickered like an old married couple`, Dawn’s words not his, but they both had left the hurtful stuff behind somewhere around the time Xander stopped to tie him up when he slept at the boy’s place,

/And when exactly had that stopped or more why? Idiot boy can’t be so foolish as to trust him now, can he? Argh, don’t I have bloody more important things to think about than that? Like my soddin’ poof of a Sire?\ Xander sighed “Great, just fuckin’ great. This is so typical. Why me? Why always me? Do I have a target sign on my forehead?” Against his will the vampire had to smile inwardly at this and answered “Hey you wanted to gay yourself up, so you wouldn’t attrack the female demons anymore, ‘gratulations you got the poofs now.”
This reminded Spike of what was to come though and he stared hard into the brown eyes of the scooby gang member

“Listen Xander” the unusual use of his real name caught the man’s attention “Keep your mouth shut, whatever happens don’t catch his attention, you really do’t want Angelus on your ass, and I mean this literally” That got the boy, he paled visibly and stuttered “So, you and he I mean he wants …” Smirking drily and the boy’s inability to say what he wanted to he finished “Yeah, me and Angelus” He shrugged, not wanting to go into details, the boy would have to see all the sordid details soon

“He’s my Sire, well Grandsire really, but he took me from Drusilla so..” That didn’t clear things up by the way the man's confusion showed on his face, he sighed “You don’t know a thing about the Sire and Childe bond, don’t ya. He’s my Sire that means he owns me. He can do whatever he bloody wants with me.” Ignoring the despair that crept into his voice he concentrated on the anger letting it be fueled by the pity he saw in the whelp’s eyes . “Don’t look at me like that, just keep your mouth shut and your eyes adverted if you don’t want to lose the lousy bit of mind you still have, although maybe you’d like the show, seeing me bloody and helpless after all I did to you guys could also be entertaining..”

He was jerked out of his ranting as the young man gripped his arm and looked into his eyes as if he wanted him to understand the next words “Shut it Spike, you’re not the vamp I wanted to kill a year ago, you’ve proven yourself and I don’t want to see you hurt anymore than I want Willow to be hurt. Got it?” At this the blond could only nod dumbly. /Gods I hate what you do to me Xander, and you have no idea, do you?\
Spike freed his arm roughly and said “We should check how our chances of getting out are. Where the hell are we anyway?” Blue eyes looked around searchingly and Xander told him what he had concluded.

“Five hours, damn. That’s an awful lot, the basement’s probably protected by some bloody spell, so Red’ll take some time to find us. Fuck” Well, that was it, nothing to do. He tried to rattle at the bars and the door but there was no give. He reluctantly pulled his duster off and laid it onto the ground close to the wall.
Laying down he said “Get some sleep whelp, the poof’s going to come home by daylight, that’s a few hours of blessed silence, that is if you can keep your mouth shut.”

He turned on his side and pretended to sleep. After a while of hearing the boy rustling around he snapped “Come ‘ere and sleep!” Another moment went by and then he could feel the human warmth of a body settling down next to him. /That was kinda nice\ and Spike tuned his vampire hearing to the boy, breathing and the rush of blood through the boy's body soon lulled Spike into a much needed sleep.

Xander

/How could Spike sleep? They were in the hands of a mad vampire who'd just threatened, no promised to torture him and the blond just fell asleep? On the other hand it obviously wasn't anything new to him.\ Xander shuddered at this thought. He still reeled from this information. Angel, no Angelus had tortured Spike, trained him, he'd said, like some dog. ´He can do whatever he bloody wants with me.` The words came unbidden into the front of Xander's mind. He had known the vampire long enough to hear the small tremor in them. Spike was terrified. And something that could bring him to show such emotions had to be ... totally out of Xander's imagination.

The young man turned gently and leaned up on his ellbow to look at the still figure next to him. Funnily enough the non-breathing part didn't disturb him much anymore, it was just another part of Spike that he'd come to accept. A dark look crossed his face as he remembered the vampire's assumption that he would enjoy seeing him being tortured. /But of course he had to think that, I behaved like an ass towards him!\ A small sigh escaped him as he thought guiltily over the last two years. They'd started off badly and after Spike got chipped Xander still had not been able to get over the hatered he had for this vampire. It had taken a long time for him to find out that part of that had been because of the attraction he felt for the vampire. Longingly he mapped the sculptured features below him. Cheekbones to die for, snow white skin, clearer than any vampire's he'd ever seen, the eyebrow with the interesting scar, the straight nose, the elegantly curved mouth with the full bottom lip, looking as if it was created for being sucked and bitten.... /Stop it!\ Xander admonished himself for letting his fantasy run away with him. Only after Spike had started to hang out with him for no other obvious reason but to watch TV or steal his beer had he started to talk with him, not at him. And when he'd seen that there was so much more to the vampire than the Big Bad he'd started to acknowledge openly at least in his mind that maybe he wasn't so straight, or just infatuated with his vampire.

/My vampire, don't I wish.\ Again he sighed softly, but obviously not softly enough as suddenly his ellbow was knocked out from under him and he fell onto his back after trying desperately not to fall onto the vampire. After gaining his breath he expected to find stormy blue eyes glaring at him and a scathing remark but instead a cold body settled over his chest and blond hair tickled his chin as the vampire made himself comfortable on Xander, still deeply asleep or so it seemed.For a second the man was frozen but then a soft smile crept on his face. Spike, a snuggler! Maybe there really was something good found in every situation. Black mail material and a very comforting gesture. Cool, heavy, smelling of smoke, leather and ..vanilla? Xander's smile widened and he tentatively put his arms around the slim body after a few second without reaction he relaxed and soon followed Spike into the dream realm.

Chapter 2