Helping Hand

***





Wesley hadn’t followed Lindsey into the showers. He had been entirely too scared. What if Lindsey laughed at him because he hadn’t been good enough? What if Lindsey punched him, because he hadn’t really wanted to do what they’d just done, and felt like Wesley had pressured him or something? What if Lindsey ignored him completely, and acted like it had never happened?







Wesley hadn’t felt up to facing any of those possibilities so he had grabbed his coat and ran back to their room to shower and change there. When he had finished, he sat, waiting, on his bed, for Lindsey to return.







He waited for almost two hours before it became painfully obvious that Lindsey wasn’t coming home that night, and was grateful that he hadn’t followed his roommate into the showers at they gym, because he had been right; it seemed Lindsey wanted to forget the whole thing.







He had fucked up. He had pushed too hard and too fast, and if he was honest, he had scared himself, a little, so it was a small wonder that he had sent Lindsey running for the hills.







He was pretty sure he wasn’t willing to give up on Lindsey entirely, almost sure that he would like to develop at least a better friendship with him, completely sure that he would like at least one more go at that sweet arse of his, but equally sure that he should probably give him some time, if he needed it. And he tried to hide from himself the fact that Wesley needed a little time, too.







He fell asleep that night to thoughts of what he could to do win Lindsey’s affections and what he could do to show the bastard what an idiot he’d been not to notice Wesley sooner.







And he woke up to thoughts of what he would do for Lindsey if only the other boy would give him a chance, and what he’d do to him if he came back thinking he was too good for Wesley.







Basically, all of his thoughts for the past twelve hours had revolved around Lindsey, for good or ill.







And just because he hadn’t given up on Lindsey, it didn’t stop him noticing other boys. One other boy in particular. And he found it a bit odd, considering only a couple of months ago he had never even considered another man in a sexual context, but after what had happened with Lindsey, he couldn’t seem to get the idea out of his mind.







***







When Lindsey hadn’t shown up for their political science class the next morning, leaving the seat next to Wesley free, it had been occupied 10 minutes into the lecture by Spike. Spike, who usually sat at the back of the classroom, so he could go mostly unnoticed as he snuck in late, and snuck out early, and left in the middle of class for a cigarette break. Spike, who had never said two words to Wes, or Lindsey or anyone else he knew, except to let them know that all of their questions or comments during the lectures were not well received, and if they had all had half the brain that Spike did they wouldn’t need to be asking the dumb questions in the first place.







Spike liked his privacy.







But Tuesday morning he sat next to Wesley.







“Can I borrow a sheet of paper, mate?” Spike leaned in close and whispered in his ear.







He had never even spoken to Wesley before, and as far as first words went, there were definitely better ones, but his voice was rough from sleep, as Wesley had no doubt that Spike must have rolled out of bed just ten minutes ago, and those were probably his first words that day, and it made Wesley shiver.







Random tufts of hair that Spike hadn’t bothered to slick back like he usually did, tickled Wesley’s cheek, as Spike leaned even closer and helped himself to two sheets of paper from Wesley’s binder. He didn’t mind, really. He was going to say ‘yes’ anyway as soon as he regained the power of speech.







Wesley shook his head to clear it of his bizarre non-thoughts about Spike and turned his attention back to the professor. Less than a minute later his focus was brought back to the man next to him as he heard him ask, “And a pen?”







He didn’t get a chance to answer before Spike plucked the pen from his fingers and started jotting some chicken scratches down on his stolen paper, and his handwriting so bad that Wesley wasn’t sure if he was taking lecture notes or writing a shopping list.







“Excuse me!” Wesley shout-whispered, looking at Spike to demand… he wasn’t sure what. An apology? A thank you? But he was interrupted yet again by Spike pulling Wesley’s open text book between the two of them on the bench-style desk and flipping to a new page.







“Page 167. Keep up, yeah?” Spike said, looking at him as though he was a little bit dim and then kicking back in his chair to look up at the front of the classroom.







Wesley opened his mouth and stared at Spike in indignation, but after several seconds it became apparent that he had been dismissed, at least until Spike needed something else, so he reached into his backpack for another pen and got back to his own scribbling.







Sure, Spike had that incredibly attractive air of careless distraction, and intense good looks, and a superiority complex that on him seemed to work. But he also had exceedingly bad manners, and after less than five minutes of him opening his mouth, some of the shine had certainly come off.







An hour and a half later the lecture ended, and Spike tossed Wesley’s pen back at him, standing up and stretching, like he’d just been having a nap. Perhaps he had been.







“Cheers, mate,” Spike said, nodding to the book on the table, and the notes of paper in his hand. “’Preciate it.” And Wesley figured it was a pretty good thank you, considering.







“How ‘bout you let me buy you a pint tonight. Say ‘thank you’ proper like.” The suggestive smirk that accompanied Spike’s offer, and the slight shift in his hips as he said ‘thank you’ caused a bolt of pleasure to shoot down Wesley’s spine and land straight in his lap. Spike couldn’t have meant… No. He was only trying to be friendly. And there was no reason for Wesley to be rude, but he couldn’t seem to shake the unfamiliar feeling of being sexual prey, ridiculous though it was.







“What?” Wesley asked, scooting his chair back several centimetres, and snapping shut his notebook. “A drink? Us? Together? Tonight?” He almost really hoped the floor would just open up and swallow him down, because he didn’t think he could possibly look any stupider.







Spike laughed, and Wesley was worried that he had come across even stupider than he thought, but then smiled, a kinder smile than Wesley had ever seen on anyone, and asked, “What’s wrong, mate? Not seein’ someone, are you?”







Shit! Spike was…. Christ! Wesley tried to pull himself together, stood up, collected his notes and stuffed them in his pack. “I, um, that is… no. I’m… I’m not. Not really.” Oh, well, that could have gone better.







But Spike only continued to smile at him, and said, “Good then. Meet me at eight o’clock at the Madison.” He winked, and nudged pass Wesley to get out of the desk row and into the aisle, and smacked Wesley on the ass as he passed, disappearing into the crowd.







Wesley blinked, adjusted the strap on the pack that held his books to his back, and blinked again. He had just been asked out. On a date. By the sexiest damned boy in the whole of the political science department. And he had agreed. Asked out by the sexiest damned boy… Okay, and that little tidbit was making him feel slightly off.







He wasn’t really at all sure why, given that he had fucked a boy not twenty four hours ago, and agreeing to go out on a date with one would certainly be several steps down the ladder from that. Still, it seemed somehow like a bigger step up to Wesley, and he had a hard time not shouting after Spike to tell him to forget it.







***







He had attended his calculus class, and grabbed some lunch and headed back to his room to see if Lindsey had shown up while he was out. He hoped his roommate had decided to come back from wherever he’d been, and tried to snuff out the hope that flared when he opened the door.







The room was empty. Well, that was fine. If Lindsey had better things to do, then so did Wesley. He had a date, after all. With someone significantly more good looking than his twat of a roommate.







Okay, so he was being petty. Tom Petty, move over, Wesley Wyndham-Petty was in the house. Lindsey was every bit as attractive as Spike, even more so in some ways, and Wesley had a hard time convincing himself that he would have gone out on the date anyway, even if Lindsey had been home.







Such a hard time, in fact, that he didn’t even bother. He knew that he wanted another chance with Lindsey, and if he’d been there, to talk to, to hear, to touch… Wesley knew he wouldn’t have gone anywhere. He’d have stayed within arms reach of him, trying to get closer even than that, until the other man got sick of him, and ran off again.







But Wesley wasn’t faced with that chance. Lindsey wasn’t there, and Wesley had no idea where he was, and he was off going out on dates with even hotter guys for all Wesley knew, so he wasn’t going to sit home and waste what could turn out to be a fantastic night.







He tried not to dress up in anything too fancy, sticking to a pair of jeans, and a concert t-shirt. He tried not to feel too embarrassed that the concert t-shirt in question was Def Leppard, and sat down at his desk to fill the seven hours until he had to meet Spike.







He managed a piss poor job of it, looking to his watch at least once every half hour, to both wonder how long it was before he was supposed to meet Spike, and count off the minutes since he had last seen Lindsey.







Supper time finally rolled around and he headed down to the cafeteria to pick up something to eat, but was only able to manage half a dozen or so bites of his sausage and pepper penne before he lost his appetite and tossed it in the bin, going back upstairs.







Once he got back, there was only an hour or so left before his date, and he spent most of that time adjusting his clothing and smelling himself. The Madison, the campus pub where he was to meet Spike, was about six minutes from his dorm, so he left with approximately twenty minutes to spare.







Of course he got there early, and after ordering a bottle of beer, stood at the bar waiting for Spike to arrive. He waited at the bar, facing the bar. Not looking out into the room, onto the dance floor, onto the patio. He wouldn’t have been able to see Spike when he showed up, and really, he knew he should have been looking, but nerves had got the better of him, and he was beginning to hope that Spike wouldn’t notice him here, and he wouldn’t have to go through with all of this.







No such luck, he realised a moment later. Or, incredible luck, depending on how he chose to look at it.







He had the half full bottle raised to his mouth, tipped back so that a small amount of liquid was free to trickle in, and almost spit out what had managed its way into his mouth when he felt his backside pinched solidly between two fingers, and a hand clap him on the back.







“What you drinking, pet?” Spike asked, nodding the bartender over to take his order.







Wesley coughed around his mouthful of beer and put the bottle on the counter looking over at Spike and smiling, slightly. “Bud,” he offered, titling his head at his drink as proof. “But I’ve still got plenty.”







“Too bad for me then,” Spike said with a wink and promptly asked the bartender for a pitcher of Wesley’s wretched choice in brew, and a couple of shots of tequila.







“Oh, no,” Wesley protested when the shots arrived. “I’m afraid I can’t possibly.”







“Can’t possibly what, love?” Spike asked, pushing the small glass across the short distance between them on the bar. “Can’t accept a drink from a classmate who owes you a favour? I think you can.”







Wesley couldn’t resist as Spike smiled at him again and picked the glass up in his hand, while at the same time grabbing his own in the other. He held one drink to his own lips and the other to Wesley’s. Wesley blinked back the tears that formed in his eyes at the first overpowering taste of the liquor, and closing his eyes, swallowed the drink down as Spike tipped it back into his mouth and down his throat.







Spike slammed his own, and then Wesley’s, shot glasses down on the bar and then poured them each a glass of beer from the pitcher, cocking an eyebrow at Wesley as he slid the other man’s drink over.







“There, that’s better,” he grinned. “Knew you weren’t as stuffy as all that.”







Wesley had the vague notion that he should probably be offended by that, but figured he’d be wasting his time. He normally was that stuffy, and more besides, but for some reason he didn’t want Spike to think so. He wanted him to think he was cool, and laid back, and ready to have a good time. And he wanted to be all those things. Desperately.







So all he did was smile at Spike and drink a rather large sip of his beer and ask for another shot of tequila.







Things seemed to go swimmingly. They talked and flirted and finished off the beer and each had two more shots, and then they were dancing. Not with each other, but Wesley was drunk enough to think that that didn’t really matter.







Five minutes ago a couple of very attractive girls had approached them, and before he had a chance to tell them that he wasn’t interested, Spike had accepted the offer of a dance on their behalf. Before he knew what had hit him, he had been pulled out onto the floor, and was currently trying to will his erection down from a very talented young lady, grinding herself against his crotch.







Then he caught sight of Spike over his girl’s shoulder, and Spike winked at him, and Wesley’s erection grew even larger, and he had to excuse himself from the dance before he made a rather large fool of himself.







He wasn’t even half way back to the bar before he was caught around the waist by an exuberant Spike, tugging him off in the direction of the exit.







He was roughly guided around a corner, and pushed up the stairs with a hand securely on his arse, stuttering and stammering the whole way.







When they arrived outside, Spike pushed him up against the brick wall of the bar exterior, and worked one of his legs in between Wesley’s, as two sets of fingers joined against the cool brickwork and Spike’s mouth descended, slowly.







“Wait,” Wesley panted, before Spike’s mouth met his own, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do.







Spike sighed, aggravation not at all absent from his tone, and asked, “What? Do you want sodding flowers or something?”







Wesley shook his head, both to deny Spike’s question, and to deny any lingering feelings that it might have been true, and said, “No. I just… how did you know?”







Spike narrowed his eyes and pushed his thigh up a little harder against Wesley’s groin, hoping to distract him. “How did I know what?”







“That I was…” Wesley trailed off, not sure how to finish. He swallowed and tried again. “That I…”







“That you’re gay?” Spike finished for him, leaning down to nip at Wesley’s lower lip, and letting his eyes roll back in pleasure when Wesley groaned and pushed forward at the action. “That’s how.”







Wesley jerked his head and blinked rapidly. “No. That doesn’t… I mean before now. How did you know that I’d… You know. That I’d do… or rather wouldn’t…”







“For Fucks sake, Wes. Breathe.” Spike ordered, getting a little impatient with Wesley’s hemming and hawing, but still bending down to place a commanding kiss on Wes’s jaw.







That was the first time Spike had ever said his name. He hadn’t even been sure up until that point that Spike even knew his name. Even though it wasn’t said under the best of circumstances, it still sounded pretty good.







“I didn’t,” he said as he pulled back. “I had hoped, but I didn’t know.” And then he leaned in further and placed his mouth full to Wesley’s and waited for the other man to respond.







Wesley couldn’t possibly have denied the blond, even under pain of death, and he didn’t bother trying. He opened his mouth, and let Spike’s tongue in, and pushed his own out in return, and let them both play in a delicious, crazy game of tug of war, and let his fingers clench Spike’s biceps and let his hips push up against the hard set pinning him to the wall, and let himself moan, out loud and uncaring if anyone passed by, and revelled completely and utterly in being caught by possibly his only true sexual predator.







Spike pulled back and licked his tongue across Wesley’s teeth and lips and jaw and neck. “I didn’t know, Wes,” he breathed against the taut neck. “But I’m so fucking thankful that I was right.”







Wesley closed his eyes and clenched his teeth and bucked up yet again into Spike.







“Take me home, Wes,” the blond pleaded. “Take me home, and let me have you.”





TBC