Chocolatey Goodness

Part 8: Pillow-Talking

rated NC-17

__________________________

"Xan...der...." buzzed a little voice in his ear. Great. Gnat season had started early. Xander sleepily tried to smack the thing, only for his hand to come into contact with somebody's hard skull, centimeters away from his ear.

"Xan....der..." Spike whined again.

"What, Spike?" Xander hissed through gritted teeth.

"What's the tattoo of?"

Smack. This time it was intentional, but Spike just laughed at him.

"I'm not telling you, so get an unlife and go back to sleep. It's..." he squinted at the red numbers on the radio alarm clock (the new radio alarm clock, since Spike had smashed the old one with his bootheel when he couldn't get it to shut off...) "two-thirty in the morning. I'm tired."

Grumble. Silence. He was waiting for it, though.

"Xan-der..."

Sigh. "What, Spike..."

"How'd you manage to go websurfing on Wednesday if you couldn't sit down?"

Annoying bastard. Why do I keep him around here again? "Carefully. Would you like to find out? Go to sleep."

"Now that you mention it.... Did get the highest bowling score..."

"That didn't count, and you know it. What if Tara had won?"

"Wouldn't have said no to givin' that little bottom a good smacking... seems fair..."

"Go to sleep, Spike."

Silence. More silence. Freakin' deafening silence.

"WHAT, Spike?!!" Xander finally snapped.

"You get the idea for the sundae all in your own little head?"

"Mostly."

"Mmmm?"

"The recipe she gave was actually for a three-course meal. The ice cream was my idea."

Spike was kind of gnawing on his earlobe now, which was usually nice, but the little hamster in his wheel inside the vampire's skull must have been running the hundred-yard dash, because the nibbling was starting to hurt. A distracted vampire with an oral fixation is a dangerous thing to have in your bed.

"Hey, ow!" Spike moaned, his teeth disappearing from Xander's ear. "Christ, I hate this chip. Wasn't trying to hurt you. Okay, I have to ask. She? What the hell was this site you were looking at?"

Lala la la la....

"Xan-der..."

"If I tell you, will you shut up about the tattoo for tonight, and go to sleep?"

"Er... yeah. S'pose."

"It's called 'Nancy's Home for Wayward Boys.' "

Two-thirty in the morning silence when you've just been woken up by your asshole of a lover who lives, or rather doesn't, to drive you absolutely crazy... is the second loudest kind of silence there is. Thankfully, it was broken by the sound of Spike tittering in his ear. Snuffling and snorting and doing all kinds of things that a guy who didn't need to breathe shouldn't have to do.

"Nancy's... home for.... oh, God, that's precious. Suits you to a tee. Only you could go out and get gay sex advice from a woman...." Spike lost it, and Xander lost what little patience he had left.

"Get up," he ordered.

"Eh?" Spike replied between gasps of laughter. "No. Quite comfy here, thanks."

"Get up and get me the other carton of ice cream from the freezer. I'm gonna be hungry when I get done with this."

Spike had the light on and was across the room and back before Xander really got the chance to appreciate the sight of a naked vampire scrambling away from the bed...or towards.

The ice cream and two spoons waiting on the bedside table, Xander hauled the uncomplaining and still snickering Spike across his lap. After a moment's thought, he reached across and flicked the radio part of the alarm clock on.

"It's been... one week since you looked at me, threw your arms in the air and said 'You're crazy'... "

"Hasn't been," Spike remarked. "Been about five hours."

"Five days since you tackled me... still got the rug burns on both my knees..."

Spike giggled. "Quite like this song, but innit a little loud for the wee hours? Wouldn't want to wake Mummy and Daddy..."

"Rather have them hear this than you yelping..." Xander answered, bringing his hand down firmly on Spike's behind.

"I don't yelp" Spike answered with dignity.

"You will when I'm through with you.... Wake me up at two-thirty in the morning to bug me about the damn tattoo on your ass..."

Which looked very nice, come to think of it, on Spike's left buttock, just about where Spike had put Winnie-the-Pooh on Xander. Maybe a little lower... after all, if Spike did decide to summon up the balls to drop his pants and ask somebody else what the tattoo was, Xander didn't want to make it easier on him...

He smacked his hand down right on top of the tattoo, and was rewarded with a pleasing bounce of the pale flesh, and the tattoo as well. Well, that's what they do best, so I hear... A few more smacks (and no sound at all from Spike, though there was some nice squirming going on...) and Xander was having a thought.

"You're not gonna turn pink, are you?" he asked Spike.

"Nope..." the vampire replied mockingly.

"How'm I gonna know when you're done, then, huh?"

Xander didn't even want to see the ha-ha-got-you face Spike was undoubtedly making at the blankets. The back of Spike's head, blonde hair tousled from sleep, skull shaking with silent laughter, was enough to spur him on to smacking the slim white ass even harder.

"Guess I'll just have t'let you know, won't I..." Spike finally choked out.

Smack. Smack. "I'm being manipulated here, aren't I?" Xander asked with an exaggerated sigh.

"...problem with that?" came the muffled reply.

SMACK! SMACK! "Yelp!"

"Nope. No problem at all," Xander answered smugly. Spike pounded voicelessly on the bed, and the unreliable support bar beneath the mattress gave an ominous creak.

"This...bed..." Smack. "...has got to go..." Spike pointed out. "Gonna..." Smack! "...collapse, sooner or..." Thwap! "..later."

"Could be worse," Xander answered, watching the little waves run through the flesh in front of him. "We could be trying to do this in a waterbed."

" I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve...I have a history of losing my shirt..."

*****  

In the tiny glow cast by the phosphorescent reading light (no removable parts, no sharp edges, nothing you could make a bomb out of), the dark-haired young woman crumpled up yet another piece of stationery and threw it at the trash can. Took another chocolate bar from the tiny shelf next to her bed, and glanced across the cell. No movement from her sleeping cellmate, so obviously neither the light nor the thwap of crumpled paper hitting the plastic wastebasket had woken her up. Two thirty in the morning, the only one awake in a cell-block full of snoring women, trying to write something you'll never be able to put right... Alone in your head. That might very well be the loudest kind of silence there is.

She unwrapped the chocolate, broke off a piece, and let it dissolve slowly onto her tongue. He brought it to her. Him. It wasn't enough he had to bring himself, every week, like some father-confessor at St. Mary of the fuckin' Palms. No, along with his soulful basset hound face and his big old unbeating heart in that eight-foot-wide-chest, and his God-damn-it-all-to-hell understanding, he had to bring her chocolate. This chocolate. Dairy Milk, smooth and creamy and the best time you could have with your clothes on that didn't involve kicking, punching, or dusting something. God knew where the hell he got it; she'd never even seen this brand in the stores... back when she was actually free to walk into one and slip something off the candy counter and into her pocket, nobody the wiser.

She ate them all. Every last one he brought. Well, as a gesture of whatever, she did share with her cellmate, but everybody else could go fuck themselves. Sell 'em? For what? Nothing she needed in here. Nothing she needed at all, that anybody in here could give her. Trade 'em? For what? Protection? Ha freakin' ha.

Another blank piece of paper, spread out on top of a book, on top of her bed. Big hardback copy of Les Miserables. More redemption crap from Angel, long and thick And thinking those words in the same sentence as Angel's name ain't giving me any ideas, no, ma'am, and I never think of big dark dead guys when my hand's under the sheets in the middle of the night... and boring as hell but it gave her something to read besides the crap in the Offenders' Library, and it gave her a little desk to put her papers on tonight. This morning. Whatever. Another letter she wouldn't send, because there wasn't a damn thing to say. Pick somebody. Anybody. Anybody she owed something to.

"Dear Xander...

Before you tear this up, I hope you read far enough down to see the part about I'm sorry..."

Crumple.

Oh yeah, that'll do it. He's soooo fuckin' likely to read anything with your name on the outside of it anyway, Faith. Throw in some weak-ass humor, and it's just tailor-made for Harris.

"Dear Xander...

I don't do apologies very well. Maybe I don't do a lot of things very well, but I'm trying. Really trying, these days. You may not want to hear anything from me at all, but I hope you do read this much. I'm sorry I hurt you. Sorry I scared you. Sorry I was gonna do exactly what you were afraid I was gonna do. I'm..."

Crumple. Thwack.

Nothing she could say to him. Nothing she could say to any of them, that wouldn't come off sounding like "Poor, poor Faith, please forgive me, I was out of my head..." Like a whiny little kid. Whiny, helpless little kid who couldn't defend herself. Who wasn't big enough and strong enough to make it through on her own. No thanks. Not Faith. Hell, she didn't deserve their forgiveness anyway, though Angel kept trying to foist his on her like some lame Christmas present that you didn't want in the first place. Except she did... want it. All of it. She just didn't have a damn clue how to accept it. Or, in anybody else's case besides Angel's, how to even ask for it.

"Dear Xander..."

Crumple. He wouldn't even want to hear from her. It would hurt him more to be reminded of the whole thing, right? Maybe...

"Dear Buffy..."

Crumple.

She sucked the last of the chocolate from her fingers, and shoved the blank paper , pencil, and book back on the shelf. Crumpled herself into a little ball, just like the letters. Faced the wall, and tried to go back to sleep.