A Second Chance

Part Three

His feet were warm. As that hazy blurred thought passed through his mind, he slowly drifted awake, the soft sound of a heartbeat caressing his ears. Only one person could get in without waking his demon and he smiled slowly. His eyes flickered open at the sound of a soft, “Shit!” and he grinned sleepily.

“Your mum know you use that kinda language?” he rasped out, and the boy stretched out on the end of his bed turned to look over his shoulder and smirk. “Of course,” Alex lied glibly, before turning his attention back to his game.

Taking advantage of the teenager’s inattention, Spike slid out of bed and grabbed the jeans that were lying in the floor, pulling the soft material over naked hips in a quick, smooth movement. “You been home yet?” he asked, stretching his muscles and running a hand through his sleep mussed curls.

“Yeah, I went home before coming over, yeah, she knows where I am and yeah, you’re invited to dinner if you wake up before it’s all gone,” Alex answered, focused on the tv screen and his creature taking an axe or whatever it was, to what looked like a bunch of zombies.

Kid musta bought it because that wasn’t one of Spike’s. Turning his attention from the promise of a new game to explore, he stared longingly at the small strip of tan skin, tapering down to the dip of Alex’s spine just above the boy’s jeans, his shirt having hiked up from his movements.

“I know you want me,” Alex said softly, so softly Spike almost didn’t hear him and he froze, hoping he had imagined it. “I can feel it when you look at me,” he continued and Spike cursed under his breath, a feeling of hot panic rushing through him as he moved towards the bedroom door.

Before he got past the end of the bed, though, Alex paused the game and sprawled back onto his elbows, looking challengingly at Spike through heated dark eyes. “When are you gonna do somethin’ about it?”

Ripping his eyes away from the expanse of sleekly muscled flesh that was the boy’s belly, Spike shook his head quickly, backing up. “’M not,” he bit out, moving again towards the door.

Rolling off the bed and jumping to his feet in one smoothly fluid move, a move that would have had him tripping over his feet in his last incarnation, Alex stormed over to Spike, hands fisted and eyes narrowed. “Why the hell not? You want me,” he yelled, ignoring the guilty flinch on Spike’s face, “and I sure as fuck want you. So why not?”

“Watch your mouth,” Spike snapped out, wincing again internally at the ludicrousness of the statement, and watched as Alex growled in frustration, turning away from the older man to pace, driving his hands through his dark hair.

“Stop fuckin’ treatin’ me like a child!” he finally yelled, whirling back around to glare heatedly at the vampire. “You are a fuckin’ child!” Spike yelled back, trying to beat that very fact into his own head.

At the boy’s silent snarl, he calmed his voice and tried to speak evenly, reasonably to the upset teenager. “Alex… you’re too young to know what you want. You’re too young to even be thinking about stuff like this.”

He rolled his eyes, scowling, “Oh right, like no fourteen year old knows jack shit about sex. Come on, Will. Over half the kids at school are doin’ it.” Stepping closer to Spike, he touched his shoulder gently, as if expecting him to bolt. “We’ve been dancin’ around this for months, Will. You can’t pretend anymore.”

And they had, to Spike’s chagrin. He had hoped Alex hadn’t noticed his small touches, the hugs that lasted a bit longer than necessary, the consuming need to just touch the boy sometimes too overwhelming to resist. He had ignored the small longing looks from the corners of the boy’s eyes, and Alex had pretended not to see his own, but apparently the kid had decided to stop playing.

And God help him, Spike wanted it, too.

Long nights of cuddling with the warm familiar body, watching movies or competing on the playstation, of helping the boy do his history or English homework or just sitting and reading quietly while Alex worked laboriously over his math, the one subject Spike had no clue on, they had brought the two closer and closer. Guiltily, Spike had started to see Alex as a totally different person than his Xander and he found he even liked the changes that separated the boy from who he used to be.

Of course, whenever he saw the small glimpses of Xander within him, his heart would melt all the more.

He wanted the boy, alright. More and more each day, until it was all he dreamed about, all he thought about. But Alex was just a baby. Having helped raise him for the past five years, he just couldn’t get past that fact. Shouldn’t, either. Fourteen was much too young to get involved with a Master vampire.

It was unbearable, but it was the truth. He had no business whatsoever touching the boy.

Clenching his teeth, he stepped away from the soft touch and muttered, “Can’t, Alex.” Closing his eyes, he breathed in deeply and shook his head to clear it. “We need to get you home, almost past dinner time,” he said softly, not looking at the boy.

The barely suppressed hiss made his eyes jerk up to the boy’s face, his furious face, dark eyes narrowed and blazing as he shoved past Spike, spitting back at him, “Don’t bother, Will. I’ll tell her you’re still sleepin’.”

Spike stood frozen, flinching at the sound of the front door slamming shut, as his hands started shaking wildly. He couldn’t do this. He shouldn’t be expected to do this. Had loved the boy for decades, even before he had existed. Loved his Xander with an all-consuming need, a love that had transcended to the boy wearing his face, bearing his soul.

How could he be expected to not touch him, want him, need him? But he was. Couldn’t live with himself if he hurt the boy, took too much, too soon. So fuckin’ young.

Trying to calm his shaking hands, Spike grabbed a t-shirt and pulled it over his head, yanking on a pair of socks and his boots. He grabbed his bomber jacket from the back of the kitchen chair and slipped it on as he picked up his keys and headed for the door.

No matter how pissed his boy would be when he showed up, he couldn’t let him walk home at night by himself. Even with the Hellmouth closed, in an eerie parallel to his last life, the kid was still a bloody demon magnet, of the non-human and human kind.

---

The next couple of months crawled by tensely. Alex stopped coming over after school, unless it was because Willow sent him over for some reason. Even then, he just recited what he was supposed to tell or ask him and left, though Red could’ve easily used the phone. Spike figured she noticed the tension and distance between them and was trying not too subtly to bridge it.

He could tell by her eyes sometimes that she was fully aware how hard it was for him, all of it. Occasionally, it got to her too, Xander did. And she would show up in the middle of the day while Alex was at school and break down in his arms, sobbing, and they would spend hours talking about the boy he had been and the man he had been becoming.

She wouldn’t let him distance himself from all of them, wouldn’t let him stay away, even for the boy’s sake. So with Alex not coming over to his place, Spike found himself spending more and more time over at Giles’ than he ever had before.

They never talked. Ever. Just the sight of the boy made Spike’s throat close up, knowing that Alex wanted him as much as he wanted the dark haired teenager was agonizing and chipped at his self-control. The looks between them got hotter and longer as the weeks passed, until Spike could feel that dark gaze burning on his skin every time the boy looked his way.

They moved carefully around each other, as if afraid to touch, afraid they would break down if skin touched skin. It was unbearable.

Sprawled out in his bed, staring moodily up at the ceiling, Spike sighed in frustration. It couldn’t go on much longer, neither of them could live with the tension, the longing and need. His demon was on his back constantly now, urging him to take the boy, already. Claim him again. Need him, need him.

Last night, he had come so close, so close to giving in. To shoving the boy over the counter and just fuckin’ taking him, right in his mother’s kitchen, with his family in the next room.

He had gone in to put his plate in the sink, not knowing that Alex was in there alone. As soon as he had stepped into the small room, he had known it was a mistake and tried to back out again before the boy saw him. At the sharp hitch in Alex’s breath and the way he stood frozen, Spike knew resignedly that the boy had felt him.

Trying to keep his calm façade, he had walked over to the sink and set down the plate, before turning to the boy. He hadn’t known what he was going to say to him, and never got a chance to really say anything.

Huge luminous brown eyes, aching eyes, eyes that were way too old and way too young. Flushed cheeks that Spike had had a feeling hadn’t been flushed until he walked into the room, tanned skin over his jaw flexing like he’s clenching his teeth to keep from saying something… begging something.

Unable to stop himself, Spike had stepped closer, reaching out a shaky hand to stroke over the heated skin of Alex’s cheek, watching those dark eyes close as the boy’s breath hitched again. “Please…” he had whimpered out, voice breathless and hoarse, going straight to Spike’s cock, swelling it against his tight jeans.

And he couldn’t not. As if pulled by a string, he had stepped another step closer, another step farther off the path. His breath ghosting over Alex’s lips, lips he remembered the feel of, the taste of, lips he would know blindfolded, yet had never touched, he gave in, leaning down the tiniest bit more, until the only thing between their lips was the heat rising off of the boy’s. Shivering against him, panting and trying to hold still, Alex had raised his mouth up to meet his, barely touching, not even enough to be called a touch and then…

“Hey William, bring the cake in when you come back and I’ll start us all some coffee.”

He fuckin’ hated his sire. And since when did he eat and drink human food? Stupid Buffy.

Jerking away from the boy pressed up against him, he had panted harshly. Alex’s black eyes, eyes dilated with lust and need, had flown open and the boy had sobbed once, before biting down on his quivering lower lip to suppress the others.

Before Spike could say anything to him, he had whirled and ran out of the room, going out the back. Shaking, Spike had dropped heavily into a chair and tried to breathe, not that he needed to but thinking that it might ease the terrible tightness in his chest.

Hadn’t helped. Nothing had and eventually he had left, ignoring his sire’s knowing gaze, understanding gaze. Ponce would have had to have been dust to not have smelled the lust pouring out of the kitchen.

Flipping over with a sigh, Spike closed his eyes. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he knew he had to do something. They couldn’t keep on like this.

When he heard the sound of his front door being unlocked, he blinked and glanced over at the clock. Four A.M. What in the world was the boy doing walking around at four o’clock in the morning, coming over here when he knew Spike would be getting ready for bed?

He hadn’t seen him since their almost-kiss last night, had stayed away that night.

Sitting up, he reached for the jeans he had pulled off about twenty minutes ago, wanting to at least be half-dressed before Alex came in. He had them tugged up and halfway buttoned when the knock came on his bedroom door, the boy opening it before he could reach it.

Opening his mouth to lecture the kid about walking around before dawn, he stopped at the scent of tears. What the fuck? Eyes roving over the boy concernedly, he saw the disheveled hair, sleepy eyes, red-rimmed with half-dried tracks of tears down his flushed cheeks.

“Alex?” he asked slowly, reaching toward the boy. He gaped when Alex flinched away, never having had the boy not want his touch before.

“I can’t do this anymore,” the boy rasped out almost silently. “I hate that you won’t let me near you, let me touch you.”

“Alex…” he started, voice strained with the knowledge of just why he couldn’t.

“No, you don’t fuckin’ understand, Will! You don’t listen. You think I’m some kind of horny kid who doesn’t know what he wants, just has his hormones totally out of wack. You’re gonna fuckin’ listen to me this time,” Alex snapped out, slamming the bedroom door closed, rolling his eyes at Spike’s wary look. “I’m not gonna molest you, damn it.”

“Well, wot is it then? Why’re you here at four in the morning, upset?” he asked, forcibly holding his hands down at his sides so he wouldn’t reach for the boy again.

Alex started pacing, face flushing even more, and Spike flinched at the Xander-ish way the boy was acting. Gone was his cocky confidence, his brash openness. The boy was uneasy and uncomfortable, scared, but was bravely trying to come up with a way to say whatever it was he needed to say without coming across as a total idiot.

It hurt.

Then Alex was turning back towards him, eyes bright with a pain that made Spike forget all about his and he took a step towards the distraught boy but Alex shook his head.

“I dream about you, did you know that? Every night. I wake up screaming your name sometimes, bawling like a baby. Some dreams are filled with blood and death, so scary that I can’t sleep right for days after. But,” he bit out, turning away from Spike’s shocked face, “not all the dreams are bad. Some are very, very good. I feel things, do things… that I hadn’t known were possible. I know how you taste, Will… Spike. I know how you taste everywhere, how you feel moving over me, inside of me. It’s all so perfect, so god damned beautiful, that it hurts. Aches.”

He glanced up again, taking in the vampire’s paler than normal face, his pain-filled eyes.

“After those dreams, I wake up crying for a different reason, aching for you so badly that I can’t fuckin’ breathe. I don’t know what’s goin’ on, Will, but I’m so damn scared. It’s not fair that I know this, feel this, know what it’s like to be loved by you and then have to see you every day, unable to go near you. I don’t even fuckin’ care that it might not be me you care about. I can’t deal with that now. I just know I can’t do this. I can’t- If you won’t-” his voice caught, choking on the words. “If you won’t let me close to you, then just stay away from me. It fuckin’ hurts too much.”

Spike’s eyes glittered, too caught up in the ultimatum to acknowledge the terrible pain that the memories of their past put inside the boy. He stalked forward, making Alex back up at the expression on his face until the boy’s legs touched the bed and he fell backwards across it.

Leaning down, he fisted a hand in the lush black hair, yanking back Alex’s head as the boy gasped in pain. “Is this what you want, pretty little boy? My body over yours, taking what I want without any consideration to you? You have no fuckin’ idea,” he bit out, voice hard, his face mere inches from the panting boy’s, “how dangerous it is to provoke me.”

Rubbing his hard cock lewdly against Alex’s shivering belly, he rocked into him, smiling cruelly at the shudder of fear from the boy. “Are you ready for this, Alex? Ready for me to part those long legs of yours, drive myself into your hot little body?” he purred out, wincing inside but trying to make it clear to the boy that as much as he thought he was ready, he was still a child, emotionally and physically. Because without Alex to stop him, he was so dangerously close to the edge that he could go under any moment. Stop me, baby, please stop me.

“Stop…” he finally sobbed out, struggling, eyes wide and tear-filled. “You know this isn’t what I want.”

“Its not? Seems to me it’s what you’ve been beggin’ for. Let me know when you figure out what you want, little virgin,” Spike mocked cruelly, letting go of the boy and turning away from the bed.

“Fuck you,” Alex snapped, shaking with fear and shame. “None of this is my fault, damn it. I can’t help it that I feel this way, I can’t control it.” With his voice quavering that way, he sounded no older than he had when Spike had first met him five years ago and it made the scene on the bed even more unbearable for him.

Forcing himself not to turn around, eyes filling with hot tears of self-hatred at the words the scared and confused boy panted out, he heard Alex move towards the door. He wanted to hold him, comfort him, tell him he did care, did need him, always had… but he didn’t dare.

Turning back to him once he was at the door, Alex ground out, “Don’t worry, I won’t bother you again. There are plenty of guys at school who’d love to have a go at me. Maybe after I’ve been fucked a few times, this,” he motioned between them, “won’t matter so fuckin’ much.”

Spike snapped.

Before Alex could take another step, Spike had him up against the wall, yellow eyes in a demon face boring down into him, snarling out, “Don’t fuckin’ push me, boy. Don’t push me.”

The boy’s face paled, brown eyes huge in his face, as he stared up at the demon holding him to the wall. It was one thing to know someone close to you was a vampire; it was another thing entirely to see it.

Feeling the slight body against his tremble, Spike smiled grimly down at Alex’s shocked face through a mouthful of fangs. Releasing him and stepping backwards, he said roughly, “This is who I am, Alex. And you aren’t ready for this, yet.”

With shaking fingers, the boy bravely reached up to stroke his fingertips lightly over the demonic planes of his face, making Spike smother a purr of pleasure.

“I know who you are, Will. And I love you.” Soft, aching words, words that made him close his eyes in helpless wonder and sharp pain, his face smoothing back to human. Biting back the sob that wanted to come from his throat, he opened his eyes to stare down at the beautiful tear-streaked face of the boy in front of him.

“I love you, too, pet. God help me, I do. Which is why we can’t bloody do this,” he whispered.

When Alex’s eyes filled and dropped bleakly, his shoulders slumping, Spike pulled the dejected boy into his arms, kissing the silky black hair that tumbled down over his forehead. Closing his eyes, he held him like that for a few moments, reveling in the feel and smell of the boy, smiling sadly when Alex’s arms came around his back to clutch at him tightly.

He rocked him, his boy, comforting him silently, letting him feel how much he cared about him. Steeling himself, he backed up, knowing he had to let go, and gripped the boy’s chin in a cool, hard hand, tilting it up so that he could look down into those dark eyes.

“You know I care about you, right? More than anything on this bloody planet,” he asked quietly, and Alex bit his bottom lip and nodded, a last, silent tear rolling down his cheek. Spike wiped away the little bead with his thumb, feeling his chest tighten unbearably.

He smiled down at the boy and Alex smiled back bravely, a bit quivery but still a smile. “Go on home, pet. Your mum will be in soon to wake you up for school, don’t want to give her a scare, yeah?”

Alex nodded, jaw flexing as he clenched his teeth, and Spike could feel the ache coming off of the boy.

Unable to say anything else, he followed him to the front door, as far as he could since the sun was slowly rising. As Alex opened the door, he whispered out, “Love you, Alex,” and saw the boy freeze, before continuing outside.

The whispered, “I love you too, asshole,” made him grin and then the door closed and the boy was gone.

Leaving Spike to fall down to his knees and sob out the agony of knowing his Xander was still in there, somewhere, knowing it was hurting the boy so much that he didn’t dare to sleep… feeling his heart almost burst from the joy of it, mingled with the deep pain at the thought of losing him again.

Neither of them could bear it any longer, the closeness when they couldn’t touch, show their love. It was agony, pure and simple. Torture.

So, when Alex showed up the next evening to invite him to dinner, he wasn’t that surprised to find a note telling him goodbye. Not surprised, but hurt, so hurt and devastated. It was hours before he was able to pick himself up off the floor and make his way back home.

Days before he could stand hearing William’s name. Weeks before he stopped being furious.

And it was a month after, that the first of many gifts and postcards arrived for him. Nothing big, just a box of chocolates from Germany and a silly postcard with the words, “Know how much you love them. Thinking of you, W.”

Even longer before the first short, but agonizingly sweet, phone call.