Speed Demon

Chapter Three

Glancing over at the big black boots that clomped into his line of vision, Xander sighed when he heard the snick of a lighter.

“I really wish you wouldn’t do that when I’m under a car, covered in gasoline. No desire to become a screaming ball of fire, orange just isn't my color,” he complained.

Spike chuckled and stepped back.

Xander rolled out from under the car, wiping his oil and grease blackened hands on the towel slipped into the waistband of his jeans.

“You’re here early, anxious about today?” he asked, wiping at the sweat rolling down his face with his forearm.

Spike blinked at him a moment and shook his head, “Wha- yeah. A bit,” he admitted.

He smiled at the kid and looked around for his shirt, giving up the search after a minute in the already smoldering heat of the morning. Motioning Spike to follow, he walked towards the air conditioned garage, feeling a cold chill as it cooled the sweat rolling down his spine.

Grabbing a coke out of the cooler, he tossed one to the blonde standing next to him and waved him down to his ‘office’ at the back of the building.

A tiny shabby room with nothing more than a desk and a few chairs, and a telephone, it was all he needed for the short few days they were in town.

Collapsing into his chair, Xander leaned it back on two legs and kicked up his feet to the top of the desk, opening the coke and drinking half of it down in one long swallow. His eyes blurry from the burn of the carbonation, he almost missed the look that flashed across Spike’s eyes.

There was no mistaking the hot look in the boy’s eyes as he took in Xander’s shirtless and sweaty state, gulping down a coke as if it were the last thing on earth to drink.

Shaking his head in confusion and almost telling the boy straight out to stop sending him so many mixed signals, Xander told his body to behave.

“Come in and sit down, Spike, why you hoverin’ over there?” he said, ignoring the tense moment. Getting out an ashtray, he sat it on the corner of his desk and waited for Spike to come in.

After he sat down in one of the chairs, Xander told him about the adjustments they had made that morning, and what they would mean for him. The moment passed and Xander sighed silently in relief, glad he didn’t have to make a decision just yet.

Later that afternoon, after Spike was suited up and had already test drove the car around and they were putting the finishing touches on it, Xander smiled as he watched the boy talking with some young fans, signing shirts and posing for pictures.

He was very much the younger generation of racing fans’ idol. Not that he didn’t have fans in the older, but with his cocky ways and ‘who gives a shit’ attitude, younger fans loved him.

He might follow the rules, but he followed them his way.

When it was time for the cars to line up, he gripped Spike’s shoulder and smiled, putting on his headset and heading for the pit.

“Okay boys, give me everything you’ve got,” he told the crew, as they turned to watch the cars explode past the green flag.

Closing his eyes, Xander let the roar and rumble pulse through him, into his veins, knowing that soon he would be too hot to notice anything but the blistering sun and the position of the number two car.

Spike had qualified twentieth, and after only fifty laps, he was up in the top ten, working his way through the pack.

A couple of cautions later, with the crew getting him out of pit road first and gaining him positions, he was running third, with fifty laps to go.

With twenty-two laps to go, he eased in front of Tony Stewart, taking the lead. The crew cheered and jumped up and down, but Xander watched with speculation in his eyes. The tires were old and Spike needed badly to come in and get new ones, but he knew there would be a fight to make him give up the lead, even temporarily.

When the leading cars after him started talking through the radio about taking a pit stop, he told him to come in. After some bickering back and forth, it went quiet and Xander turned to Oz in shock.

“The cocky bastard turned off his radio! Son of a bitch.”

Near vibrating with anger, he watched Spike keep the lead even though the cars behind him had fresh tires.

One more caution and they were out, if he didn’t blow a tire before then and get himself killed.

Xander waited tensely, cringing at every almost collision.

Luckily, there were no more cautions and he passed under the checkered flag a foot before Tony Stewart.

As the deafening roar from the crowd rose up, Xander sighed in relief, making a mental note to check in the mirror later for gray hairs.

A few minutes later as he grasped Spike’s arms to help him from the car, he smiled and leaned forward, hissing into his ear, “If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I swear by all that’s Holy that I will wear. you. out.”

Letting him go, he smiled at the camera crew and picked Spike up, tossing him at the other crew members, who caught him and rose him up over their shoulders.

After much laughter and filming, they let the fans in and everything went crazy. Suddenly, a big dark haired man came over and picked Spike up by the waist and hugged him, before setting the smaller man down.

Xander frowned and walked over, about to interfere, but Spike laughed up at the man and turned to Xander.

A look flickered across his face but Xander couldn’t tell what it was. Guilt or uneasiness, maybe?

Biting into his lower lip, which made Xander shiver cuz well, he wanted to bite that lip, Spike motioned to the man.

“Xander, this is A-uh, Liam. Liam, Xander, my crew chief.”

The man gave Spike a long, considering look before turning to Xander. “Yeah, I’ve heard a lot about you, Xander. And call me Angel, please.”

Xander blinked. He looked from Spike to uh… Angel… and blinked again. Opening his mouth to comment or ask for clarification, nothing came out.

Finally he shook Angel’s hand and nodded at Spike before turning and walking back over to the other crew members.

Part of his brain, the part left over from his teenage years, was whooping and jumping up and down. He’s gay, I told you he was gay! Those looks he’s been giving you, total gayage!

The more adult part was torn between the desire to laugh or the desire to cry.

Yeah, he might be gay but he’s got Anngeell now. What the fuck kinda name is Angel? Oh god, does that mean I haven’t been imagining those looks? Have I been given my chance already and blown it? Not that it matters, cuz I can’t anyway. He’s just a kid, man. A hot, sexy, blue-eyed temptation of a kid.

Then a recurring thought.

What the fuck. Angel?

Groaning and shaking his head, he smiled weakly at Oz and Gunn, the newest member of the crew. He sensed something between the small, calm redhead and the tall black man, but it was hard to tell with Oz’s laid back personality.

Oh man, has my entire crew gone gay and no one told me?

After everything was packed up into the trailer, he walked over to his car to head back to the hotel.

He heard the sound of jogging footsteps behind him and turned around, looking into Spike’s wary expression.

Oh god, not the lip again. Fuck.

After nibbling on his lip way too long for Xander’s comfort, he looked up and said, “Can I catch a ride, Harris?”

Xander nodded and they climbed in his car, neither saying a word the whole ten miles out to the hotel.

He could feel the glances Spike kept sending his way, though, and he tightened his fingers on the steering wheel so he wouldn’t give in and ask Spike what hell he wanted from him.

Pulling into the parking lot, he sighed and turned to Spike. “Good race, kid, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Getting out of the car and locking his door before Spike could respond, he made his way inside, stopping at his suite of rooms to unlock the door.

Feeling a hand on his arm, he rolled his eyes upwards and breathed in before turning to Spike.

“Yeah?”

Big blue eyes looked at him, then down, studying the cream carpeted floor. He didn’t know where cocky Spike had ran away to, but this Spike had a kicked puppy look to him, which made him want to cuddle and –yeah, no cuddling the big bad annoyances.

“Spike?”

The blonde sighed and looked up at him again, motioning towards the door. “Can I come in?”

Mentally scolding his body that the boy hadn’t meant it the way he took it, he nodded and opened the door, following Spike inside.

Tossing his keys and wallet onto the table by the door, he tugged his sweaty, dirty t-shirt over his head and wiped some of the grease off of his face.

Spike was pacing in front of the couch in the sitting area and looked up at him as he walked in.

“Christ, do you ever keep your clothes on?”

Xander shrugged, dropping down onto the couch with a moan. “My room,” he reminded him. “And you better hurry because in five minutes I’m stripping and walking into the bathroom to take a shower.”

Blinking his eyes rapidly at him, Spike shook his head.

“Why are you so pissed at me?” he asked.

“What?” Xander did some blinking of his own. “You know good and well why I’m pissed off at you, Spike.”

Spike studied the floor a minute and looked up, squaring his shoulders. “Is it because I’m gay? Is it going to be a problem?”

Xander’s mouth dropped open. “Jesus fucking Christ, Spike! I was pissed at you before that, not that I’m pissed at you over that. I mean, I’m mad because you turned your fuckin’ radio off, mad that you coulda gotten yourself killed running on old tires. I’m not mad at you because you’re gay, why would I be mad?”

He blinked again. “I coulda sworn I got over babbling in college.”

Spike’s mouth twitched. “I think it’s cute.”

Xander narrowed his eyes at him. “Yeah well, don’t expect a lot of it. But no, Spike, I’m perfectly fine with you being gay.”

He watched as Spike breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Why does it matter what I think?” he asked calmly, stretching out on the couch and groaning as his muscles protested.

Spike shrugged, “Just does. You’re more than just a soddin’ crew chief to me, ya know.”

He wrinkled his nose as if he was about to say something he really didn’t want to and Xander grinned at the cuteness of it.

“I need your approval, wanker. Don’t want to need it, but there it is.”

He stared challengingly at Xander as if daring him to comment. Xander just stared back, his mind whirling.

He wasn’t sure if he should be glad or annoyed over that fact. Did that mean Spike saw him as some kind of replacement father-figure?

He didn’t really want that, although the thought of bending Spike over and making him call him ‘Daddy’-

He grunted, shifting. Yeah let’s not go there.

“We’re fine Spike, I promise. I know I might snap at you a lot, but it’s because I care, you know that, right?” He got up and stood near Spike, willing him to look up at him.

When he didn’t, Xander reached down and grasped his chin, tilting his head up. “Right?”

Melting at the naked need that shone from the bright blue eyes, he moaned and bent his head, helpless to resist.

Pausing an inch or so from his lips, he waited to see what Spike would do, smiling against his lips when Spike brought his mouth up to meet Xander’s.

He brushed his lips gently over Spike’s, once, twice, before sliding his tongue into that hot sweet mouth.

They both moaned at that first intimate contact and Xander thrust his tongue deeper, wrapping his free arm around the boy’s waist and pressing him closer.

As their arousals brushed, he hissed and Spike brought his hands up, running them along Xander’s naked spine.

Drawing back, he looked down into those dazed huge eyes and thought that no angel could have eyes that blue.

Mm, angels… Angel! Fuck.

Xander stepped back, shaking his head. “We can’t do this, what the hell am I thinking?”

He ran his hands through his hair, trying not to look at the boy’s lost expression. “I’m going to take that shower, now. Make sure you lock the door on the way out.”

He walked into the bathroom and closed the door softly, leaning his back against it as his legs gave out.

He winced at the sound of the hotel room door slamming shut and closed his eyes, rubbing his hands over his face.

Laughing harshly, Xander stared up at the ceiling.

He could still taste the boy.