A Spandery Fairy Tale (part 1 of 6)(*Complete*)

(A/N: co-written with Nash)

Xander made his way to work, feeling a rare sense of enthusiasm bubble through him. Willow was coming home for his birthday and the only thing in this world guaranteed to make him smile was seeing his Willow. She had always been the one good thing in his life. The one real thing, he amended, scowling as he walked.

As he reached the construction site he caught sight of Steve leaning against his truck, laughing at something or other. Steve looked like a typical Californian beach boy, all tanned muscle and sun streaked hair, and the second most beautiful pair of blues Xander had ever seen. Xander couldn't help but smile a little as he appreciated the view Steve made, eyes sparkling with merriment, chest heaving from the power of his laughter. As he watched, Steve made eye contact and the power of that smile was trained at him. Xander immediately sobered and looked elsewhere, passing by the laughing group without another glance. He didn't need anyone to smile at him.

"Yo... hey, Xander," Steve jogged up to him. The guy had been promoted to foreman months ago, he was his boss, and yet outside of work, he hardly ever said a word. "You wanna grab a brew after work? Some of the guys are planning..."

"No, thank you," Xander replied curtly, barely turning his head to look at the guy. "I'm busy," he added as an afterthought. He kept walking, leaving Steve behind.

"Told ya you'd get shot down. He's a cold bastard, Steve, don't pay him any mind."

Xander froze for a moment, closed his eyes as he forced the disdain he'd heard in those words away from him. He was fine, he didn't need anyone to smile at him. They'd only end up leaving anyway.

A little sparkling light circled the tree, then dropped to the ground. Spike materialized with a thoughtful frown, looking in the direction Xander had gone.

First off, he'd expected to find eight year old Xander. Looks aside, this man he'd become was nothing like the boy. Even under his father's heavy hand, the boy had always had a ready smile, one that peaked out at the smallest excuse. Now that thunderous and foridding expression seemed permanently etched on his face. Second, Spike had seen sheer longing in Xander's eyes the instant before this Steve character spoke. Now why had that put the light out of the boy's eyes instead of making them light up? Third... well, he was looking at a guy.

A strange feeling washed over Spike. He didn't have a name for it. Not really. But he knew what he wanted. He wanted to rip that dark look away from Xander, and he wanted Xander to look at him the way he'd looked at Steve. And then he wanted him to smile.

Mine.

He remembered boy-Xander looking at him and saying that. Staring one last time at the bungallo, Spike shifted to his smaller form and took off.

*

Xander worked steadily through the day, ignoring the looks and glares he got from the crew. He wasn't here to socialize with them, he didn't care what they thought anyway. He only allowed himself to relax a little when he left the site.

Arms crossed, Spike stood leaning against Xander's door, waiting. When he heard the footfalls nearing, it took everything in his power to stay still. Facing the soft brown eyes of a boy was much different than looking into the hard eyes of the man he'd become. Lifting his face, he unerringly met Xander's gaze. "Shall we play a game?"

Xander stared at the man leaning against his door. He seemed vaguely familiar, as if he should know him somehow but he couldn't remember. Maybe he was one of the stress-relief brigade. Damn, didn't he know that one night stands were supposed to be just that? One night. No following around necessary.

"Look pal, I don't know how you figured out where I live but one night is one night. Pretty sure I never made any promises. Now get off my door, I want to go in."

"Wrong about that. You made me plenty of promises, yeah?" Spike's smile was bitter sweet. Who was he to talk when he'd broken the most important one. He moved slightly away from the door, just enough to allow Xander to slip his key in the lock. "Can we talk?"

Xander stepped forward, intruding on the guy's personal space and glaring hard at him.

"I never made anyone any promises, buddy and I don't talk to strangers. Get away from my door before I move you away." Xander only ever made promises to Willow or himself and one of the major ones was 'no violence'. He would never hit anyone but this guy didn't know that.

Angry and rude. Not how it should be. Not how he would have imagined it in ten more decades in the land of the Fey. "That any way to talk to an old friend. Look at me," Spikes own voice took an edge, though his anger might be directed at himself. "You - know - me."

Xander groaned in frustration as the guy just kept going. "For the last time I don't know you. If I fucked you one night and you liked it enough to - " The stranger was looking sadly at him and there was something strangely familiar about that look. "I don't know you," he repeated, more to himself than to the guy.
"Fucked..." Spike rasped, assaulted by images of this angry man throwing him down on the ground and doing just that. He didn't need this on top of everything else. Didn't need to have this get even more complicated. "If you had... fucked me, you'd remember." He lifted his chin to make a point. "Did sleep with me though. I watched you every night. Kissed you every morning. Loved you..."

Xander stared, his mind working overtime to place that face, the voice, the words, anything that would tell him who this guy was. Then he remembered.

"No." The simple word was filled with despair and pain as Xander retreated as far from Spike as he could in the narrow hallway. He looked around, making sure no one could see him talking to himself. Because Spike wasn't real. "Fairies aren't real, I made you up. I...I'm going crazy. That's it I finally snapped and I'm seeing things."

"No..." Spike put his hand out.... then dropped it. "Don't say that, don't think that," was his anguished answer. It had been a risk. It still was. Two more times... if Xander denied his existence two more times, he was a goner. And that was why fairy folk didn't visit older people.

He followed, slowly, but making it clear he wasn't about to retreat. "I'm real... as real as this coat," he pulled on the lapels, and kept following Xander. "Spike. Remember me. I'm Spike. Say my name. Call me like you used to." Smile for me.

Xander closed his eyes, trying to make the apparition go away. He remembered Spike so well, as if he'd been real, as if he'd really had someone to play with. He'd even looked for him after Spike had disappeared. His father had finally managed to break something that day and Xander had been stuck in bed with a cast around his leg for weeks. A social worker came to visit, to make sure that his parents were treating him okay and she'd stuck around to talk to him a little. She was the only person he ever told and she'd looked at him so sadly. She had explained that fairies weren't real, that he'd made Spike up but Xander hadn't believed her. He'd known Spike was real and he'd come back if only he waited a little. Except Spike never did and after three months of waiting Xander finally had to admit that Spike wasn't real.

"No...no Spike never existed, just a figment of my imagination. Get yourself together Harris, he's not real."

Fuck. If he stayed here, he was going to die. "Put your hand out Xander. Do it." He didn't wait for Xander to. This might be his last chance to prove who he was, but it didn't mean the boy wouldn't deny him again.

The world dropped away as Spike shifted to fairy form. All six inches of the leather clad dark fairy zoomed straight to Xander's face, until they were nose to nose. "It's me. You bloody well know it is, Boy-Xander. But if you say I'm not real one more time, you won't see me again. Ever." His wings beat so fast, they stirred the air, and with it, Xander's hair.

Xander closed his eyes tight, tried to persuade himself that the voice wasn't real but the air against his face felt so familiar and he finally peeked through one eye to find a tiny little version of the guy flying in the air in front of his face. Both eyes widened impossibly and he reached out to gently poke the fairy, just to make sure that he wasn't seeing things again.

"Sp-spike? You're real? But you can't...you're real?

"Mind my parts," the fairy hissed, as Xanders thick finger slid down his body, stroking him from chest, to abdomen, to the zipper now pressing too tightly over the bulge in his pants. Idiot human!

Wings beating, he backed away slightly, then dropped to the ground, materializing in full size and staring into Xander's astonished eyes.

Xander involuntarily took a step back as the tiny fairy turned into a full sized human-looking person. He stared at Spike for a moment, feeling like his brain had been derailed because Spike was real and he was standing there in front of him. His amazement swiftly turned into anger and he punched Spike as hard as he could, sending him sprawling on the floor. Xander may not believe in violence but some people fucking deserved to be hit.

"You left me. I was lying there, with my leg broken and you broke my...you left. Fuck off Spike, I don't need you anymore."

Xander somehow managed to open the door and storm into the apartment, slamming the door behind him before he broke down. He wasn't sure which was worse, thinking that he was crazy or knowing that Spike had been real, he'd been real and he left.

His world tilted. Not from pain... at least not from pain where he should feel it... where he'd been punched. Spike wiped his hand across the corner of his mouth, and licked the blood off his hand. Boy had bled that night. He'd had broken bones. He'd needed help, and there had been no one for him. No one to talk to. No one to wipe away his tears or tell him stories. No one to help him dream of a better place.

Water didn't pour out of Spikes eyes anymore. But red streams slid down his face and hit the floor, leaving red droplets. He stood up and put his forehead against the closed door. He had no words. None. None for the boy he'd called friend. None for the one person he'd ever loved.

I tried.

It hadn't been enough.

*

He'd dogged Xander for days. Followed him to work. Followed him home. Sometimes he was visible. Those were the hardest times. The cutting looks. The reproach. The arctic stares. Worse... worse when he looked right through him as if he weren't there.

Xander walked home from work, not even sparing a glare for his shadow. Spike just kept following him everywhere. A part of him was screaming, yelling at him to go apologize for hitting Spike, to just do whatever was necessary to have his friend back. He ruthlessly ignored that voice much as he ignored Spike. He wasn't the one to leave, Spike was. He wasn't the one to just abandon someone when they needed him most.

Xander felt tears filling his eyes for the first time since that day. He angrily wiped them away before they could fall, telling himself over and over again that he didn't need anyone. He was fine on his own. He was fine. He just needed some stress relief.

"Just need to let off some steam," he muttered, quickly showering and changing into his club gear. He stormed out of the apartment, ignoring the depressed looking blond standing outside his building and headed for his usual bar.

The bar was a meat market. That was it. Everyone was buying and selling. Showing. Spike sat in a corner, munching on tasteless pretzels, eyes trained on Xander. The boy was on edge... anyone could see that. Spike knew all about that. After endless hours of working in the troll camps to work off his servitude, he'd let off steam in just the same way. Find a tavern, a warm body... male or female... sink into oblivion with them. There was no surer way to block out the pain of existence.

He watched Xander drink, and dance, kiss and grope. One thing he didn't catch a glimpse of was a single smile. The boy had lost his heart, and Spike had to give it back to him.

Pushing away from the table, Spike strode to the bar, bracing against rejection. He stood slightly behind Xander, leaving him no room for a quick escape. "Buy you a drink, or take you for a whirl around the floor?"

Xander turned around intending to just tell Spike to fuck off but the other guy was so close. He stared into Spike's eyes for a long moment, nearly losing himself in them. He reared back shaking his head to clear it and finally formed the words he'd wanted to say. "Fuck off Spike, I told you I don't need you."

"You need something, else you wouldn't be here, yeah?" Spike didn't back off. Instead, he pressed closer, ran his hand down the guy's back and over his ass. "You want to fuck me over the way I did you? Here's your chance. C'mon, then... do it, fuck me, show me how you feel about what happened. I'll let you do whatever you want... leave when you say." He'd thought the offer was for Xander's sake... to give him an outlet. But the way his own body tensed in anticipation, the way his cock jutted out, pressing against his pants, he wondered who needed this more.

Xander felt a hot hard body against his and he instinctively moved closer, pressing his body against Spike's. He wasn't sure this was a good idea...he opened his mouth to deny Spike but the blond chose that moment to push his pelvis against Xander and his resistance died away.

"One night, then you leave me alone, right? Shouldn't be that hard, you already did it once." Xander didn't wait to see Spike's reaction, he pushed past him and stalked off, not looking back.

"It's already hard," Spike muttered, following close behind.

Xander's place was close by. There was no chit chat. No 'getting to know you' talk. Spike did try, but when Xander shut him down a few times, he decided silence might be golden.

When they reached the apartment door and Xander was fiddling with the key, Spike turned him around and kissed him. It was a hard, needy kiss... an invitation. One that was immediately taken up, from the way Xander reversed their positions and slammed Spike's back up against the door. Spike took the kiss, took the heat of Xander's anger, his rough groping. If Xander couldn't express himself in words, then maybe action was one way they could communicate.

Somewhere to his right, he felt Xander's hand. Still trying to open the bloody door. Spike tried to move away, to allow him to focus on it, but Xander's surprisingly strong grip prevented him from moving. Sure he could have tossed the boy on his ass, but he'd offered to let the boy teach him a lesson... and he would do exactly as Xander wanted.

Xander pulled back from Spike, his breath harsh and loud in his ears. He wasn't sure where all that...passion had come from but now it was here he couldn't fight it back. He finally managed to push the key into the lock and for the second time since he met Spike again, he slammed the door open and stormed in, this time dragging Spike with him.

He barely waited for the door to close before pushing Spike against it and capturing his mouth once more. He pushed his tongue inside, ruthlessly exploring Spike's mouth, his hands busy pushing and tugging at the blond's clothes. Long moments later he stepped back, glaring at the clothes, clinging stubbornly on Spike's body.

"Clothes off. Now."