Chocolatey Goodness

Part 8: Pillow-Talking

rated NC-17

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Xander stomped his way down the basement stairs huffily, Spike following with a half-amused shake of his white-blond head. Enjoying the view, what he could see of it over the unwieldy bag of weapons in his arms. Xander Harris: dark hair, loose curls, growing a little long on the back of the currently dusty neck...well-built form encased in a gray sweatshirt, and... Well, nothing's ever quite perfect, is it?

"Nothin'." Thump. "Nothin'." Thump, thump. "Nothin'." Down to the concrete floor. "This is the freakin' Hellmouth. Plan a Tupperware party, get a rain of toads. Maybe an arm in a box. Take a nice peaceful walk, get jumped by every demon and vamp in a five-mile radius. But go looking for 'em? Nooooooo. Nada. Squat. Where are they-- all staying home to watch Survivor?"

"Maybe they were all just too afraid of those trousers to come near. I'd vote you off the island for 'em..." Spike commented, glancing down at Xander's neon-green sweats. They were bright enough to warn off a pack of blind cave-demons at five hundred meters.

Xander grimaced. "Yeah, well. Loosest thing I own." He belly-flopped crossways on the unmade bed, kicked off his tennis shoes, and scavenged around for something beneath one of the pillows.

Er... yeah. There was that. Xander would hardly be in the mood for tight jeans after last night's...interesting...excursion into the Twilight Zone of the human's darker spanking fantasies. Or whatever it was that had been going on in that pretty, muddled head of his.

"Right. Understood. So... you wouldn't actually be upset if I burned them for entertainment value tomorrow while you're at work?" Spike gave up trying to find a place to unpack the assorted implements of mayhem, and let the thick canvas bag fall to the floor with a resounding clang.

"This thing you have about my clothes... have you considered seeing someone?" Xander asked, twisting around to glare at Spike.

"Thought I was seeing you. What, you wanna see other demons now?" The vampire stretched, trying to unkink muscles he'd forgotten he owned. At least their foe-less foray tonight had landed them this sweet little treasure trove of blunt instruments and sharp objects, found in the abandoned nest of a Dagonish demon.

Packrats and opportunists, the lot of 'em. The little froglike cthuloids weren't big enough to use most of these lovelies, but they'd fence 'em, for a tidy profit. Somebody'd got to the Dagonish elsewhere, before it had the chance to come home and shift this little windfall, but its loss was Spike's gain. Spike and Xander's gain. Heavy, awkward gain, though, and after a half-mile of carrying them through the darkened streets, his back was killing him. He pulled off his duster and tossed it on the chair.

"I wanted to see some other demons tonight, but the Hellmouth pisses on Xander's head again..." the boy answered, flipping through the magazine he'd dug out from between the sofa-back and the edge of the mattress.

"When'd you start caring whether we actually met up with any demons or not? I thought you were just keeping me company?" Spike reached into the bag of sharp stuff and extracted a neat little fourteenth century dagger, with a nicely-decorated silver hilt: demonically-twisted skulls and bones, with briar roses threaded in and out of the eyesockets. Non-human work. Good balance. Worth a bit more money as an artsy antique than as a weapon, but who was he gonna try to sell it to: Joyce Summers? Bloodbaths on the Hellmouth, an artistic legacy, now showing at the Fourteenth Street Gallery.

Maybe there was something in the stash that was more appropriate for Xander to use than that ridiculous "little" helm-axe that was almost too big for him to swing. Not the dagger--Xander tended to trip over his own feet if he was concentrating on hand-to-hand dexterity. Unless the military bloke in Xander's subconscious decided to put in an appearance; then he really was a treat to watch. Fighting their way back out of the Initiative, after everything went bollocks-up, he'd sneaked a few glances at Xander battling demons and other nasties alongside the Slayer.

Spike wondered if the boy even realized how well he'd been doing. Wondered if the military atmosphere, which Spike otherwise detested, had triggered the confident, competent mind that knew how to use that well-put-together body to best advantage, or if it had always been there. Even before a cursed Halloween costume had turned Xander into soldier-for-a-day, over two years ago, and left the lingering memories as a sometimes useful gift.

"Mmmm?" Xander said, looking up from the magazine. Apparently as distracted as Spike had been, obviously for different reasons. What was he reading? "Oh, why do I care about finding some demons? 'Cause the weapons are cool, and I kinda wanted to try that bastard sword."

"Not your poison," Spike assured him. "Not without a bit more practice than you've had. Stick with the sweatpants and your mouth until we find you somethin' better."

"I am a great kisser, but I'm not playing tonsil hockey with demons and vamps. Besides you."

Yeah, you are a great kisser, but not the point. Spike had meant that gormless, annoying, and occasionally blinding humor that managed to babble its way out of Xander's mouth. Nonetheless, it gave Spike an excruciatingly obnoxious thrill of pleasure to hear Xander say, even as a laugh, that he wasn't going to be using his mouth's other talents on anybody else. Well, kissing, at least. There were other things Xander could do with his mouth... that Spike wasn't too keen on him sharing with the rest of the demon population of Sunnydale either.

Xander. Fighting. Nice. Not that Spike wasn't getting a rush out of looking at Xander doing anything these days. It had been great though, in the middle of the underground bunker, to see that body doing what Spike knew it was capable of, if Xander's own insecurities weren't getting in the boy's way. Not that Spike was supposed to have been looking, at the time... but he had been, just the same. Almost got his head bashed in by a big old unidentifiable nasty, actually, while he was watching Xander take on a Wendigo with a borrowed bayonet and a cocky grin.

It was something he was hoping to coax out of his now-lover. Just every so often. He didn't want to lose the wise-arse, or even the infuriating puppy-child, just to find the fighter.... but Xander'd looked good in fatigues. Unlike a certain bleached-blond vampire Spike knew and loved, who , on the two occasions when he'd had to put on the military drag, most likely had resembled an 'evil olive', to quote Willow.

Right, weapon. He set down the dagger. Something heavy enough to hack and slash with, light enough not to knock the boy on his arse, and long enough to keep him out of range of the nasties while Spike did most of the actual work. Because the concept wasn't to put Xander in danger. It was to have some fun. Together. Fun. Right.

Yet again Spike marveled at the concept that Xander was still clueless as to how completely…lost… Spike was over him. Fun? With Xander Harris? William the Bloody, and Alexander Harris, hanging out? Trolling for adventure on a Sunnydale night? Came pretty close to an actual date, Hellmouth-style, if there'd been the chance that anyone would see them together. Spike, having non-horizontal fun with Xander. Bothered and bewildered, utterly and without a doubt. Yeah, kid, it's all about the sex.

Sex. Mouth. Kissing. Boy's here, Spike. You can wax philosophical on his finer points when you don't have the opportunity to sample 'em.

"I meant, you'll just have to use your alleged rapier wit, as clown prince of stand-up." Spike crawled onto the bed beside Xander, stretching out to his full length, feeling muscles twitch and begin to really ache. They'd heal by morning (or, rather, by the time he woke in the early evening, if he could get himself back on a decent sleeping schedule), but for right now, he was just this side of knackered.

"Hey, get your boots off. I just changed these sheets this morning. Don't want Dagonish droppings on 'em."

"Nag, nag, nag." But Spike sat back up, unlaced his Docs, and kicked them across the room, before turning back to lie next to Xander. Peeking over his shoulder at the magazine the human was perusing intently.

"Truth-- you buy it for the fascinating Voyager schematics, or the two-page spread of Seven-of-Nine in the silver bikini?"

Xander looked over at him, their faces inches away from each other. Grinned. "Bought it for the articles. Possibly also to test whether Seven-of-Nine in a silver bikini still does it for me."

Spike grinned right back. "Does she?"

"Yeah. Just not as much as you do. Which pretty much says everything there is to say about my mental status at this point." Xander rolled onto his left side, facing Spike. "And you…owe me a bedtime story. "

Spike groaned. "Once upon a time there was an annoying American git who got a fanwank magazine shoved up his arse. I, for once, am tired. "

"You?"

"Those things were heavy, and you spent the whole walk back singing "I Know A Song That'll Get On Your Nerves…" and swinging your damned helm-axe until you caught it in that telephone pole. Where it can bloody well stay, for all I care. Too big for you anyway. I'm tired, my back hurts, I don't fancy coming up with a tale from the Brothers Grimmer for you tonight."

"Poor vampire. Tough shit. I told you the sordid tale of my brief but passionate affair with Dru. It's your turn. I was a good boy, I went to work, I paid the rent, I bought you Nestle's Quik 'cause you said you'd never had it before. I. Want. My. Story."

He punctuated each of the last four words with a poke at Spike's t-shirt-covered chest, and Spike looked at him like he'd gone utterly barmy. Until the vampire remembered that Xander was utterly barmy, and that's why he was lying stretched out three inches away from Spike, and there was a decent chance Spike might get lucky tonight. Luckier.

*****

Xander waited. Grinned. Spike owed him a smutty story about the vampire's past, and he was damn well gonna get it. It was a night overdue, actually, though he wasn't exactly in the mood for it last night. Or rather, in the wee hours of this morning, after he'd woken up from his exhausted sleep and a bit of rationality had begun to creep over his mind. A bit of rationality, and a hell of a lot of Oh, God, what did I just do, and if Spike didn't think I was nuts before, he's gotta be ready to run screaming away now...

Because surely even an admittedly insane vampire would be freaked by Xander Harris flipping out on him in the middle of what was supposed to be a bit of kinky fun, and demanding...something else. He'd been about to bury his head in the pillow when he woke up, just wait there 'til Spike wised up and took off, but somehow he hadn't. He'd faced up to his own whatever-he'd-done, to an extent, and waited for Spike to freak.

Thing was, Spike never did. Not during. Not after, not while Spike was holding Xander close to him, just looking into his eyes, as Xander tried to make his way back from the dark place he'd fallen into, and had at last drifted into a dreamless sleep. Not after he'd woken up, and Spike just calmly asked if that was going to happen every time. Meaning... that Spike wasn't taking off. That there might even be a next time.

So Xander hadn't ruined everything. Whatever everything was. Spike hadn't laughed it off like it never happened, and in a way, Xander was grateful for that. It forced him to accept it himself, and... just go on. Like there was another option? Spike had been... kind, which was almost too much to take, but other than that, he'd just gone on. Like it didn't matter. Like it happened to him every day, and it didn't change a damn thing. Like it wouldn't bother him if it happened again, he just wanted a little advance warning.

If Spike can shake it off, I damn well can. Have to. Might never be able to look at Willow's hair again without blushing, but… But Spike owed him a story, and if Xander could tease it out of him, he'd obviously returned to the same old dopey geek he'd always been. He wasn't sure if he was trying to convince himself or Spike, but...either way, it seemed to be working. He could smile again, anyway.

Spike was still just looking at him, like he couldn't believe anybody had the balls to poke the Big Bad in the chest and live to tell about it. And that had Xander grinning even wider. Who's afraid of the Big Bad Spike? Not me! If he hasn't killed me yet, God knows what it would take. Besides, I know he gets cold if he's alone in bed and he looks completely goofy walking around naked with only his socks on, and his shins are ticklish. That's gotta be worth some sorta hush money.

"Well? Story. Story story story story….." He did his best impression of Spike trying to annoy him, and got a raised eyebrow for his trouble.

"What's in it for me?"

"Rent-free luxury accommodations?" Xander offered sarcastically, waving a hand at their surroundings.

"Yeah, about the rent…" Spike gave him The Look. Or at least he thought it was The Look.

"Not moving, can't afford it, cope and deal," Xander replied, glancing down at the Jeri Ryan pseudo-centerfold so he didn't have to look at Spike. Come on. Lay off the basement. Yeah, it sucks, but I'm just not… I dunno. Ready to leave those two alone up there on a permanent basis.

"No, I just meant if I can sell some of that lot we brought home tonight, I might have some green to chip in," Spike explained.

Oh. It wasn't The Look. It was the "Spike's Embarrassed Because He's Gonna Say Something Squishy and Human" look. So easy to confuse.

"No biggie. You need it for blood money. I'm not worried about the rent, Spike." He looked back up at the vampire, who was grimacing at him.

"Yeah, maybe. But I hate being such a…"

"Rentboy?" Xander teased. Spike had called him one not that long ago. Just meaning he had that damn fragile look, the one that made everybody's mom but his own want to feed him hot chocolate and cookies. Something which disturbed him and annoyed him and gave him a little happy at times, depending on how good the cookies were. Spike had it too, though, if you looked at him right.

"Yeah. I actually do have money, you know. I just can't get to it right now." Spike still had that half-embarrassed twist to his mouth.

"Ooh… story... story…."

"No. Don't wanna talk about it."

"Oh. Okay, what happened to your car?"

"You never learn, do you?" Spike reached out a finger and poked him in the side, making him curl up in helpless laughter, with one touch. Never let an evil demon know where you're ticklish. At least that one was mutual. Xander had figured out two of Spike's weak spots…. The vampire finally withdrew his torturing hand. "I said I don't wanna talk about it."

"Fine!" Xander mock-pouted at him. "But you owe me a story, and I'm getting a story if I have to bug you until tomorrow morning, so give it up already!"

"Grrrr…. "

Xander gave his best innocent look. Willow, age six, caught with her hand in her mother's cookie jar (which turned out to be filled with "Daily Affirmations for a More Positive Psyche…"). "I'll make you Nestle's Quik…"

"It's chocolate milk, Xander. I've had chocolate milk…" Spike rolled his eyes ceilingward. Well… pipe-and-ducting-ward, anyway. "It's fine, it's chocolate, but not exactly a gourmet taste sensation. If there were ice cream…"

"No ice cream. I had to stop too many places on the way back from work; it would've melted. But Quik is a gourmet taste sensation the way I make it," Xander assured him. Spike rolled his shoulders forward and back, and winced.

"And a backrub…" he bargained. "Throw in a backrub and I'll try to come up with a story."

Xander considered. He did a pretty decent backrub, if Willow was any judge. Not that they'd tried that recently, in the post-clothes-fluke days… Should, really. Pretty safe now, wasn't it. Seeing as they were both engaged in other activities... but that wasn't knowledge he was quite ready to share with Wills. Maybe when he was...oh...ninety....

But the thought of his hands all over Spike's cool, pink-white back.... That thought had definite possibilities. Digging his fingers into Spike's spine, kneading the muscles until they went 'spung!' under his hands, feeling the Big Bad relax beneath him... But there was a little problem...

"I would… but to give you a backrub, I'd kinda have to… sit. Which I'm thinking… maybe tomorrow?"

Spike laughed. Not meanly. Just… Spikily. "Don't be an idiot. You just crawl up on top of me, and work from there. I promise you won't squish me, or anything."

Xander considered some more. Decided that was a pretty good idea. A very good idea.

"Okay. Shirt off, I make Quik." Xander shimmied off the bed and headed for the fridge, watching Spike over his shoulder all the way. Because Spike was good to look at. Good. Ha! Evil... well, maybe, but 'good' is definitely an understatement on the looks and charm scale. What the hell was Spike doing with him? This ball of muscle and energy and deceptive stillness with the accent that could make his cock twitch just by reading the instructions on a bottle of shampoo out loud...with the dark eyebrows and the blazing blond hair and the mouth...

Yeah. The mouth. And the lip. The bottom one. The one that stuck out when Spike was pretending to pout, or thinking really hard about something... and the damn scar on his eyebrow, just to prove he wasn't perfect. Which really didn't help at all, because it made him look dangerous and damaged and...and the sound of Spike laughing, when he was legitimately amused... It wasn't that Xander didn't believe Spike when the vampire said he wanted Xander Harris. Wanted to have sex with him, anyway. Even wanted to hang around after. He just didn't understand why. Still hadn't quite got that part figured out.

"Was that English?" Spike asked, yawning and peeling his black shirt off over his head. "Don't answer that. Jeans too?"

Xander took a break from dumping about ten heaping tablespoons of chocolate powder into the bottom of Giles' (Well, face it, it was Spike's, by now, because would Giles want it back?) 'Kiss the Librarian' mug. Contemplated Spike's question. Imagined the results of an affirmative answer. Imagined them with great...imagination. Imagined them with whipped cream and sprinkles.

"Er... you were supposed to answer that one, pet."

Xander blinked. Oh. Yeah. Speech. Worked when you made air come out of your mouth and moved your lips to kind of... shape it into something other people could understand.

"You take your jeans off, I don't know if the backrub'll last very long..." Xander finally replied, pouring in some milk, and grabbing a spoon. Stirring like crazy. Because that would obviously banish the image of him crawling on top of a naked Spike...licking the vampire's prominent shoulderblades... fingerpainting a line of cold chocolate Quik down Spike's spine, and kissing it off hotly from neck to ass without pausing for breath or conversation or... The backs of Spike's legs, right behind the knees, where he was also ticklish... to plant kisses there and watch Spike squirm because he didn't dare kick Xander in the head... And I accused him of having an oral fixation... Stir...stir...stir...

"How about I take the belt off, unzip the jeans, and you decide when you get that far?" Spike suggested with a dripping summer heat in his voice, like the AC had suddenly broken down and the only thing cool in the room was this porcelain mug of cold milk and chocolate that Xander just kept stirring and stirring...

Spike rolled over on his back, unbuckled that wide leather belt, and slid it sloooooowly from its loops. Let it fall with a slither and a thud and a thwap, to the floor, where Xander could only stare at it for a minute, imagining the things he might be able to persuade Spike to do with that belt if he ever got his tongue working. Maybe when he was actually old enough to go out and buy the several gallons of whiskey it would take to lubricate his mouth enough to get the request out, if Spike was still hanging around by then... And this time it wasn't about being dark and lost, it was just an innocently perverted hard-on for a feeling, that leather...maybe just to have it wrapped around his wrists... or maybe more. Not that it would take much persuasion to get Spike around to the idea, and Spike might come up with it all on his own, a lot sooner, especially if I don't stop staring at it... Stir. Stir. Stir. Gulp.

And Spike was undoing the button at the waistband of his jeans, the faded blue ones, not the black ones, and he was coaxing down the zipper and Xander was trying very, very hard not to break the handle off the mug, because for some reason Spike had really taken a liking to it. And Spike saved what little sanity Xander had left, finally, by grinning at him, and rolling back over on his stomach, the denim of his jeans now loose around his waist, the line of his spine disappearing into the shadows of the soft fabric. Urk. Right. Backrub.

He carried the mug back over to the bed, leaning over Spike, who was studying the under-dressed Borg in the fanmag with an appreciative eye.

"Here. Don't spill it. I draw the line at sleeping on chocolate Quik. In it, maybe, if we could find a bathtub big enough, but on the pillows... no thanks." He handed the mug to Spike, who eyed it warily.

"Is there actually milk in this? I'm seeing sludge here. Chocolate sludge, so not a problem, but..." Xander just laughed at him. A little raggedly.

"That's the best way, the way you do it when your parents let you make it yourself. And I graduated to that a few lifetimes ago, so I've had some time to perfect it. Drink, then tell. Story, story, story." And Xander crawled back on the bed, straddling his lover's hips, leaning forward, and putting his hands on those shoulders. Which were cool, and tensed, and really needed to be rubbed until they felt as warm as oncoming July under his hands. So as Spike sipped, and stirred (because you had to stir, and keep stirring, to chase those little globs of chocolate and powder around the cup until they disappeared under the milk, or dip them out and let them spread all over your tongue...), Xander began to move his hands on Spike, and finally, Spike started to talk.

*****

Spike's Fish Story

"Right. Story for the brat. Long, long ago, in a galaxy... Oi! Don't stop, I'll be good. Once upon a time, somewhere around nineteen sixteen, Dru and I were walking on the beach...

Dover, where else. Middle of the night, dead calm after a big arse-kicking storm. Nothing going on but the waves and the stars and that poncy hotel up on the hill where Matthew Arnold used to spend 'is time being all broody and Sire-like... Down on the beach, we were kicking around at shells and rocks. Not hungry, fed on a couple of local girls, waitresses, walking back from the hotel, thinkin' there was safety in numbers or some such. Dru was bored. You think I'm dangerous when I'm bored? Annoying? You've never spent time with somebody who thinks the fishes sing to 'er, and wants to go diving to see if they'll come and play. Never mind she can't swim, just sinks like a bloody great stone, and I have to go in and fish her out every time she takes it into her head. Had to. Had. Anyway.

She was hearing something singing to her again, that night. "Spike... s'like angels, like the Holy Mother herself. All high and sweet and smooth... like it must be not to be lost." She was leaning on me, the way she did when she got like this, like she couldn't quite manage to stand on her own, though she could. She wasn't always like she was when we got to Sunnydale. Always fragile, yeah, but not your consumptive heroine-type, like she was after Prague. She could walk about on her own sweet legs. But when she got one of her real mad-ons, then she was spinnin' or dancing, or collapsed on the ground, or leaning on me. Which worked just fine for me.

Oh, yeah, luv. Just there. Just...right there. You're good at this, you are. Yeah…

Angel song. Right. Thing was, I was 'alf sure I'd lost it myself, 'cos I thought I could hear something too. Sort of like music, yeah, dunno about it bein' like angels, but not bad. Just down the beach, round a bit of rock that edged out into the water. Sharp stuff, nasty place to wash up a boat. You could walk over it, if you were careful, but it was slick, and it was a good way to take a rotten tumble. This I know because? Because Dru had to take off like a dark little gypsy doing the tease-Spike tarantella, running towards it, turning round, coming back, pulling at me.

"Come on, Spike! It's calling to us! It's such a lovely song, I know it has to be something wonderful."

Never was very good at saying no to Drusilla. You might've gathered that. So we clamber up over these rocks, me in halfway decent clothes for it, Dru in one of her fancy stolen upperclass frocks, dripping with lace and fringe and just waiting for a chance to trip her up and send her down to the bottom of the rocks with a poor little smashed head. Which wouldn't kill 'er, of course, but Dru was hard enough to take care of as it was. Dru with a real hurt to go crazy over? Been there, done that, wanted to try to avoid it as often as possible.

We made it over the top of the rocks, Dru slippin' in her little boots, nearly pulled me over and sent me down for a smash on the noggin a few times. The music's getting louder, and it does sound like singing, but nothing quite human. Which ain't all that surprising. Weird shit shows up everywhere, not just the Hellmouth. Slipped and slid and even took a few actual steps down to the little sort of beach or inlet or sandbar or whatever it was, cove, I guess. Completely surrounded by rocks, so you couldn't see it at all except from the water.

That's where we found her. What was making the music. A girl, I s'pose, if you can call her that. Greeny-gray skin, long seaweedy hair. Big black eyes like a shark's, all pupil. This mouth, full of the longest, sharpest teeth you can think of. Hell of a lot sharper than mine. Open in a big round circle, crooning this strange little tune. Completely starkers, of course, and not looking bad at all with it. Bloody toothsome, in a skin-crawly way.

What? Yeah. Merrow. Damn, you met up with everything on the Hellmouth? Or just the really creepy shit? Cos' she was. Creepy. Even to me. Looked at me like she was eleventy-hundred thousand years older than the oldest vamp I'd ever met. If you lot diced it up with some merrows, you only saw the fellas. They don't let the girls leave the deep-water breed-and-hatch places. You ever seen one, you'd know why. Lads wanted to keep these birds for themselves. Sparkly. Makes you want to run your fingers over that skin, see if the sparkles would come off on your hand. Cold. No worries there, for a vamp, but sorta salty... wet cold. Deadish-but-not. Things that live underwater, like another kind of life altogether. Those Dagonish... they're a bit like that. Lovecraft knew what he was babbling about. And that song... Like a Siren, 'cept those're real too. Probably related. Close-up, a few feet away, it was like... draw you in, eat you up.

Which I gather's how they hunt, underwater, at least the girls. The blokes're warriors, but the girls just lie about, putting out this cold-sweet music, Dru's angel song, and wait for something big and warm and stupid to come swimming by. This one... must've washed ashore in the storm. Must've been a big damn storm, out to sea, for her to get blown all the way in from the deep.

Dru's in ecstasy, of course. Having kittens over the poor pretty sparkly thing on the sand. Dru being Dru, the first thing she did was try to nibble on her, even though we'd already fed. I'm trying to hold Dru back, 'cos I know these things are dangerous, like to eat human flesh and we're not all that far off human, just the dead version. Heard they like live meat, but how picky would a desperate and hungry one be?

Dru pulls away and rushes over, and I'm thinking, 'Great. One dead girl with big teeth, one fish girl with bigger ones, I've lost her for sure this time.' But they just sort of sniff each other. Dru's gone demony, and leans in to take a nibble from the girl's shoulder, same time the Merrow girlie snaps that head around like a Great White, and plants those teeth in Dru's arm. Still humming that damned song.

Growling and spitting and hissing like you wouldn't believe. Dru backed off and screamed and whimpered, and the spitting was actually onto the sand, not at the other one. Guess fish-girl's green blood wasn't exactly a tasty treat. Dunno... I let Dru be my guide on that one, and didn't try it. Merrow had the same idea, spitting and still humming at the same time. Didn't like the taste of Dru either. Dunno why… I sure as hell did.

"She bit me, Spike. That wasn't nice at all. But..." and Dru was back on her own little demented path, walking round the green girl, looking down at her like... she was thinking about it. Whatever was talking to her said she was supposed to like this one even if it had decided to take a taste for itself. "She's pretty. Sparkles. Let's take her home. She'll make the place shine, then we don't have to light the fire."

"Can't take her home, love. She'd die if she had to stay outside of the water, and she can't live on blood. They eat live meat. Which I'm not willin' to share, not with the pickings around here being as slim as they are."

Dru stamped her foot at me. Works like a charm most of the time, but there really wasn't any way to indulge her even if I wanted to. Couldn't carry that slippery green girl back over the rocks if she'd let me. Out to sea was the only way she was getting off this little piece of sand.

Now, I speak a little Mer, which is close to what that lot speak, sort of cousiny. What? Don't know how many languages I speak, you just pick 'em up. Ask me when you're not doing that thing to my spine, and I might be able to count a little better. You want a story, or not? Right. No, I didn't mean stop doing the spine thing. I just meant shut up.

Mer. I figured she knew a bit of it. Not what the Mer-folks speak among themselves, but sort of a trade-language. They have some magic-users underwater, which means your traditional Mermaid-types... well, Mermen, mostly, do come into contact with other creepy night-folk like us, every so often. Merrows, the nasty cousin-sorts, are pretty insular, but I figured she'd at least have some clue as to what I was going on about if I kept it simple.

So I asked her name… or maybe I asked her for the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow, but I think I asked her name. She said something liquidy and bubbly that I don't even have the equipment to repeat. So helpful. I think it translated to "Princess Contessa Vanessa Bananafana the Third," or suchlike. They're all bloody aristocracy when they're introducing themselves to the rabble, aren't they.

"Right. Spike. Drusilla. Vampires. You're a Merrow, right?" Or something I hoped worked out to that, and not an invitation to snack on my girlfriend, tasty or otherwise.

Yeah, head nod, supposed that meant the same thing for them as us. We worked out that yeah, she'd washed ashore, yeah, she'd like a bit of help getting back out there, and yeah, Dru tasted nasty and she wasn't about to eat us. Conversational monster, how to find a loo and a bus station in the netherworld.

And then Dru got her brilliant idea. Not that I'm ever really against that sort of thing, mind you, but it was cold, and wet, and here was this thing with the big long teeth that were sharper than ours, and she wanted to shag it? 'Cos it was sparkly ? And how was I supposed to get that one across?

Apparently I didn't need to, 'cos the next thing I knew, Dru was down on the sand, snogging the Merrow girl like… well, you know from experience we don't have to breathe, and the fishwife had gills, so… Nobody was coming up for air anytime soon. And yeah, it turned me on. I mean, Dru and almost anybody turned me on, long as I got to play, or watch, or hear about it afterwards. Long as it was…voluntary, on my part. That's the way it was, for both of us. For a long damn time.

In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess, so I figured why not join in. Still a little nervous of those teeth, you get me, 'cos when I say long, and sharp…yeah, you've seen them on the blokes, right. So.. you want details, like how when I pulled Dru's frock off, the cold and the wet made her nipples stand out like little dark currants? How she looked when she bent over that green girlie, all hungry and mad and sweet, and brushed the ends of her hair over the girl's forehead? Growled at me, 'til I stripped off and lay down in the surf with 'em, rolling and licking and petting everything I could lay my hands or mouth on that wasn't sand or me? 'Cos there were enough hands and mouths and legs and fins on me to take care of that just fine, without any help from me.

So Dru's howlin' at the moon, 'cos she's got her fancy being attended to by that croony round mouth, and I'm thinking… better you than me, love, and if that thing bites anything off my Dru that can't be replaced… and Dru's doing that same little favor for me an' all, but what about the little fish-girl? Aside from a lot of petting and tickling and kissing and that sorta thing, nobody's been seein' to her needs. Dru brought me off nice, the way she always could, and I thought…fair's fair… and started to pay a bit more attention to the green chit.

But… there's always a snag, ain't there. This is where the funny part comes in. Y'know, where you're allowed to laugh, wanker. But don't stop that, and aren't you happy I undid the jeans, then? I sure as hell am. Xander? Hello? I said don't stop tha…. Oh. Yeah, you can do that. Keep doing that. I like your hands.

Ahem. Snag. Female Merrows… when I said fins, I didn't just mean the flipper hand thingies the boys have. I meant… fins. Like your traditional Mermaid. Green all over, different eyes, big teeth, whatever, but this girl was pretty much built like your basic Hans Christian Andersen wet dream. All grown up… and no place to go. Yeah, Spike, Big Bad master of the horizontal, vertical, and everything in between, can't figure out where to put it. Where to put… anything.

Stop it. You don't have to laugh that hard! Let me up and I'll… oh. Okay, if you keep doing that, I won't beat you silly. Sillier. Anyway. All three of us, sitting in the sand and the water, completely bollocks-naked, though of course the Merrow'd started out that way. Dru's sort of tittering behind her hands, and I'm trying to find…well, something. I mean, nipples are erogenous zones, yeah, but I doubt I could bring her off just by licking and sucking… Oh, you think I could've? Oh. You think I could do that with you. Let's save that for a long, rainy afternoon, shall we?

Finally I just sat there, and I'm sure I looked like a complete gobsmacked idiot, just tilting my head to one side and thinking… Right. Basic demonic anatomy. Wished I paid more attention when Angelus was trying to shove my face in one or another of his books of bloody 'dark lore.' And the chit starts nattering at me, and I'm only catching half of it, but I've pretty much got the picture. How I'm either an utter moron, or I don't have the common courtesy to do a turnabout is fair play, or maybe I'm the sort who'd be happier with her brother than her.

And maybe I was, 'cos I sure wasn't overly attracted to her at the moment, since she'd started to sound like a real fishwife. Bitchin' up a storm, flipping her tail in the water and waving her hands about like a pissed-off lorry-driver. Not that there were a lot of those about at the time, but you know what I mean. I couldn't pick up half of what she was saying or signing or singing, but I was pretty sure most of it had to do with me and my mother and my probable preference for her brother instead of her.

And I got sick of it. A real bellyful. Not my fault she had to go and be an egg-layer! Not my fault I didn't speak the language well enough to ask her what exactly I had to do to send her to the moon and back. Not terribly overjoyed with Dru giggling to herself in a puddle of water, either, making little splashy fishy noises and flipping her fingers like fins. So I stood up, cold and wet and naked, and just a bit utterly humiliated, and picked up the bloody little bint---the Merrow, not Dru! --- and carried her out into the waves. Said ta muchly, with as bad an accent as I could muster, and tossed her as far as I could out to sea.

Yeah, hilarious, but not quite the end of the story. Dru's still laughing, I'm standing in the water, waves up to my cock, fish-girl's flipping her tail at us and diving into the breakers, and there in the shallows is this bloke. Merrow. Must've been that brother she was so sure I'd take a fancy to, and damn if she wasn't right. Built like… ever seen Harrison Ford take off his shirt in one of the Indy Jones flicks? Like that. Yeah, greeny-blue hair, shark-eyes, all that, but… damn. Could've bounced rocks off his chest. He wasn't wearing anything much in the way of anything either, and… well, damn about covers it. Gave me this… look, like… yeah, I'd like to see what you're all about, but I've gotta get this one back to the spawning grounds, so… have a nice unlife, mate.

He dived into the waves after her, and there I was, wet and pissed and naked and still a bit horny, and trying to get Dru dressed enough to stumble back over those rocks and get back to the lair where I could start a nice fire. Never saw the bugger again. Don't know how long they live, don't particularly care, wasn't exactly a blind date love connection, but… you should've bloody seen the one that got away, kid."

*****

And Spike waited for Xander to laugh, but all he heard were the sounds of gentle breathing on his neck. The massage had died away as he'd started to describe the Merrow bloke, but he'd just thought it was… well, an exciting part of the story. No. He couldn't be that bloody lucky. Somewhere in the middle of the best part, Xander had fallen asleep on him. Literally.

Well, his back didn't hurt anymore, and the warm presence of Xander's body atop his own wasn't exactly unpleasant, though he'd been hoping to get a bit more… action out of tonight's version of full-contact sports. Maybe he could fish that magazine out, and… nah. He'd have to shake Xander off him to do anything useful with Seven-of-Nine in a silver bikini. And anyway… Nah. He stirred what was left of the chocolatey goop in the bottom of his mug, and drained it, licking his lips. Not bad. A bit of a whitebread, afterschool special sort of taste, but Xander was right. It had a nice kick. Speaking of kicks…

Xander. Weapons. He'd been thinking about weapons. And fish. And… As he drifted off, his body more relaxed than he'd realized, he noticed that he had knocked the mug over on the pillow, and Xander was going to tease him about it in the morning. Not as if the boy really cared about the bedclothes, with the things they'd been doing in them… Weapons. Fish… Harrison Ford. He wondered idly if there was a bullwhip anywhere in that bag of tricks on the floor. Xander in a leather jacket, dark brown fedora, cracking the whip at a pack of nasties, with Spike smiling, or maybe drooling, nearby… It was a pretty good image to fall asleep on.