::::::::::::::::::
Spike patted his thighs as if his jeans were there, helpfully offering a pack of smokes for the taking. Just bare skin there, bare and cold. "Er, smoke?"
Xander stared at him, not stupidly, or even very studiously. Just stared, like Spike was a Cantonese movie playing late on the ethnic tv station without subtitles. Fascinating, slightly familiar, but ultimately incomprehensible.
"In the drawer," Xander said. Leaned back and fumbled in the open drawer and handed Spike a half-empty pack of Winstons. "You left them here, so--"
"Home?" Spike heard himself ask.
"Yeah," Xander said quietly. "Something like that." He unfolded his legs and slid off the bed. "I'll get you a light."
Xander left and Spike watched him, watched the way his smooth muscles worked under golden skin. He tapped the pack against the heel of a palm, working it into a soft tattoo. Still tapping when Xander returned.
"I couldn't find the Zippo. But these are good, right?" Xander handed him a big box of wooden strike-anywhere matches.
Spike nodded. "Yeah." He struck the match against the leg of the bed and tossed it at the mirror. The flame whimpered out in the downbeat of the arc. "Sorry."
"Littering's allowed," Xander said. His left foot rested on top of the right, slowly scratching an itch. Spike looked up, saw Xander standing there, arms crossed, head bent, looking at his feet.
//I don't know what to say.//
"Can't you sit down?" Biting the words out.
Xander's feet shifted, right going over left.
"Stop hovering, Harris."
Xander kneeled and Spike jerked his head away from fluttering, rising hands. Hated for a second how obedient the boy could be, how quickly he responded to a harsh tone or wrong look, how solicitous and grateful he was over any attention. Xander sank back, hands in his lap. Spike sucked hard on the cigarette. He glanced over at Xander and raised his eyebrow. The hatred dropped away and he knew all over again that whatever happened, he still had to try.
"So this is the talking part, right?" Xander asked. "Because I don't know if I'm up to it. But I would like to say, just for the record, that I didn't make you quote any poetry."
::::::::::::::::::
Spike barked out a laugh at that: short and insincere, but it was something, and something was better than hunched, silent nothing. Xander screwed up enough courage to reach forward again. "Can I?" Fingers brushed the fist Spike held the cigarette with. After an initial clench, Spike opened his hand and Xander plucked out the cigarette. Sucked in a good mouthful, let it settle in his chest, and handed it back, exhaling. "Thanks." It tasted like shit.
Spike shrugged.
"And, not that you care, but don't worry about me having any more of those panics. At least not self-induced. I mean, you could induce some in me, definitely, because there are fangs and, hey, blood-sucking, but I'm not going to, you know, descend into some tortured, heart-wrenching identity crisis or anything like that. About the whole thing. The queer thing. This thing."
Spike reached out and stroked his hair, not really there, the hand light, but it felt good. It felt really good.
"Thanks."
Spike sighed, leaning over to crush the cigarette on the windowsill behind Xander. "You're welcome."
"Thanks, then. Again." Xander rocked from knee to toe and back again.
"You're not going to yell at me about the security deposit?"
Xander pulled an old grin from his repertoire, one he'd stolen from Oz, the 'hey-I'm-too-rad-to-care-about-this-mortal-coil' smirk. Not a great one, but it would do. "Don't worry about it."
"What about respect for other people's property? Their personal space?" Spike sounded so quiet, so tense, even as he quoted some highlights from past arguments, Xander started feeling dizzy. Spike lit another cigarette.
Spike touched his hair again, drummed a ragged rhythm on Xander's scalp. Made a fist again and rapped with his knuckles. "Contrary to popular belief, there is a brain in there," Xander said. "And it could get damaged."
Hand dropped away. "No, it's okay," Xander said, immediately missing the touch. "Sorry, I--"
"I'm sorry." Thin, tight lips holding the filter in place, Spike squinted at him through the smoke. Long white fingers taking the cigarette, brushing the smoke away. "Can we go to sleep?"
//Up to you, freaky depressed vampire guy.//
"Can I go to sleep, then?" Spike asked.
And the thing was, Xander knew this feeling so well, this dull, heavy, everything-sucks-and-I-can't-move, so-I'll-put-pennies-on-my-lids-and-lie-still-and-see-how-long-it-takes-for-them-to-slide-off feeling, he knew it and wanted to slide back in under its haze, but he couldn't. Not his mood to take. Somehow it had become his responsibility to tug Spike out of it. And that didn't seem entirely fair, because it wasn't as if anyone had ever done that for him, or at least not in a long time. No, that was wrong, no one ever had done that for him, so why the hell should he be the better, bigger guy about this?
"Why?" Xander asked. "From where I'm sitting, the talk thing's going fucking splendidly. Here we are, sharing and caring, moving and being moved. I feel like we're really getting somewhere. For instance, you haven't rapped me on the head for like two minutes now, and there hasn't been a hint of boxing my ears."
Spike crushed out the second cigarette and grabbed Xander's bicep, hauling him up on the bed. He lay back against Xander, his cold skin sending up a stripe of goosebumps where it met Xander's skin. "I take it back," he said.
"What?"
Spike ran his hand through Xander's hair, and, jesus, why should that feel so good? Why did it make his knees go all trembly and send relaxing little ripples out through his chest?
"All of it, any of it," Spike said. "I don't know." Finger tangled in a lock of hair, screwed it, released it.
::::::::::::::::::
"I don't think either of us is any good at this," Xander said. "This talking thing." He probably wasn't even aware of it, but Spike could feel his body drawing closer, feel blood and muscle creeping closer. Warming Spike up as it neared.
"You are," Spike said. Because it was an offer, a hand extended, giving him some kind of choice to retreat, and that had to be respected. And also, fuck-all if he'll ever say this, but, because Xander was good at it.
Xander reached out a shaky hand and pressed lightly on Spike's sternum, as if he were testing that Spike really was there. Satisfied, he drew back. "You pretty much suck at it, though."
Spike caught the retreating hand and pulled it back over his chest. "True. But I've had less practice."
"At talking? Yeah. The other stuff? Way ahead of me, pal."
Spike grinned. Shivered as Xander traced the outline of his smile with his index finger. "But you've--what did you say? You've been researching?"
Xander ran his finger down Spike's nose. "That was bullshit," he said. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing." Sighing, sweet warm breath clouding Spike's eyes, Xander dropped his hand and pulled away.
"About that apology?" Spike asked.
"Which one?" Tensed body next to his, dim heat hovering over the skin.
"Any of them."
"Mine or yours?"
"You go first."
Xander snorted and turned his head back. Blinked in surprise when he realized Spike's face was right there; expression readjusted, softened, and dark eyes were shining.
"Um, I apologize a lot. So I'm not really sure which one to go with. So any guidance here would be appreciated, because--" Xander licked his bottom lip and chewed it. Spike brought his hand down on Xander's hip and stroked him until Xander breathed out again. "Yeah, okay. I said I was sorry about the Bad Spike jerk-off thing, but that was really more for your benefit, because I wasn't. Sorry." Spike smoothed the fine hair on Xander's skin. "Your turn."
"I'm not sorry, either," Spike muttered as Xander nudged against him. Dug his fingers against the sharp ridge of pelvic bone. "For the thing--"
"The coming on my face thing?" Xander kept nudging him until he was half on top of Spike.
"Yeah, that," Spike admitted, almost groaned at the memory. Xander smiled slowly, lowering his lips to Spike's jawbone, fingers raking up his thigh. Spike felt himself jerk up against the touch.
"Good." Xander was running his palm over Spike's waist, hard, as if he was buffing something silver but long-darkened. "Shouldn't be."
"Okay--"
::::::::::::::::::
They were kissing again, slowly and deeply, but as far from romantically as it was possible to go without looping back around. A long, tired kiss, tongues twisting and catching each other. Spike's body felt cold and tight under Xander's hand as he rubbed. Xander broke the kiss, struggling to prop his head up on his elbow. Spike stared at him, open-mouthed and glassy-eyed.
"So we're not sorry, then?" Xander asked him, moving his hand down, cupping Spike's incipient hard-on.
Spike growled lightly, arm flashing around, hand finding Xander's ass. "Appears not."
Xander pressed back against Spike's hand. Vestigial soreness should have protected him, whined against more touch, but instead it opened his legs for him, willed Spike's finger to find that spot. Right there.
"Cool." He grinned, catching Spike's cock between two knuckles, squeezing as he rubbed the shaft. "Wanna, y'know, fuck around?"
