All Hallows Eve

THANKS: Thanks to Edi and Mantis, not only for being great betas, but for the support and the humor.


Pt. 7

Xander was floating and that was fine with him. Here, in his head, there was no cold, no snow and no flames. He gave a mental shudder. In this murky darkness there was no wrenching pain of separation, which Xander/Alexander had learned was worse, in many ways, than the pain of death.

Slowly, familiar feelings returned. He felt the hard floor of the crypt and smelled the damp, musty air. Ah, and there was the smell of cigarette smoke. He opened his eyes. Spike was leaning against the sarcophagus smoking, his face haggard and his eyes glassy with shock. Xander didn’t want to break the silence, didn’t want to move and draw attention to himself, but his body rebelled. He fell onto his side and dragged himself a few feet into the shadows on numb hands before vomiting. He lay there shaking for a moment before gathering the strength to get to a crouch. When he spoke his voice was barley audible. “Can I leave now? Have you finished your spell?”

Spike looked at him with empty eyes, and with a mutter to himself, blew out the candles that anchored the pentagram in the magical realm. “Go.”

Xander didn’t wait. With blurry vision, a roiling stomach and a tearing pain in his heart, he wandered off through the cemetery.

It didn’t take long; he didn’t even have feeling back in his stiff legs, when he realized that he someone was following him. He called out, “Spike, you bastard, leave me the fuck alone.” He was struck dumb when Anya stepped into the waning moonlight.

“Ahn…I haven’t seen you in weeks. What the hell are you doing out here?” He made a cautious move towards her before he noticed the rage contorting her face.

“It’s always the same, isn’t it? Ye never learn, boy.” Her lips were barely moving and the voice, *ohgodno*, the voice was intimately familiar. Thomas. “Look at her,” the voice commanded as Anya went rigid and her eyes closed as if in pain. “She still loves ye, just as she always did. I could feel her pain callin’ to me, askin’ me in, askin’ me to avenge her for the suffering that ye have caused her.”

Xander was backing away, stumbling in the frozen grass when he tried to reply. “Anya? Are you there? C’mon, sweetheart, wakeup. You’re Anya, remember?”

Anya jerked, opened her eyes and laughed, “Not Anya, Anne. Anne, Anne, Anne, Anne.” She danced awkwardly toward Xander, reminding him for a strange moment of Drusilla, and pulled a large knife from the waistband of her jeans.

“No, Anya!” Xander made a grab for the knife and missed Anya’s other hand coming at him. A vicious right hook connected with his face, sending him spinning off balance, blood seeping from his split lip. Taking advantage of his surprise, Anya swept his feet out from under him with a kick from a booted foot and threw herself at his unprotected chest with the knife.

The first cut burned but it was shallow. When Xander grabbed Anya’s slender wrist and tried to push her away, he discovered that the new, crazy Anya came with a strength upgrade. She was impossible to dislodge. He had just about given up when he heard the distinctive sound of ribs cracking and Anya flew off of him, screaming in pain. He lay still for a moment listening to Anya retreat, cackland and muttering to herself as she went, before turning his attention to his rescuer.

Spike stood silhouetted against the first rays of the pre-dawn sky. His expression was carefully blank. Xander struggled to his feet, swaying with dizziness, and started to walk home, pointedly ignoring the blond. He did nothing, did not even acknowledge the other’s presence even when he was sure that Spike was following him.

~*~*~

They made it back to the apartment minutes before sunrise and still neither of them said a word. The silence was deafening.

Xander headed toward the bathroom to clean up, determined to continue the game when Spike appeared as an immobile barrier in front of the door. “You can’t hide, Xander. I won’t let you.”

Xander snapped. He threw a careless punch at Spike, who ducked and easily dodged it. “You won’t let me? You ugly sonofabitch. *How dare you?*” Xander was yelling and blood was splattering Spike’s face from his split lip.

Spike stood still for a moment, blinking at the pure rage in Xander’s tone before grabbing the bigger man’s shoulders and slamming him against the wall behind them. “Shut up, Xander. Just shut the fuck up.” Xander was shocked into stillness for a moment, fear trickling down his spine. It hadn’t been too long ago --centuries, hours-- since he had felt the full, brutal force of this man’s anger, and knowing that the chip was gone made it all so much more real.

He whispered, “You don’t know how I feel right now. I can’t face it, not with you.” When Spike reached out a hand to Xander’s face, he recoiled, knocking his head against the wall. “Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me again.”

Spike narrowed his eyes and Xander could see the vampire was keeping his emotions on a tight leash. “You’re wrong, y’know. I do know how you feel.” Spike thought for a moment. “I know what it is like to love and to be hurt…” He licked his lips. “And to love to be hurt.”

Xander gasped at the unbelievable implication of Spike’s words, but the vampire was still talking, “What happened between us…well, I can’t ever be sorry enough for that. But believe me when I say that I have been punished.” He moved closer to Xander, trapping him between leather-clad arms braced on either side of his head. “You cannot imagine what living with Angelus was like. What lovinm wam was like. What that meant. What it entailed. I have suffered for what I did to you. I have suffered for loving you through loving him.”

Xander was frozen in Spike’s gaze as if enchanted. The violence always present in the vampire was simmering just beneath the surface. The possibilities of that violence terrified Xander, not for what Spike could do to him, but for how he, Xander, would respond.

He knew, *had always known*, that succumbing to Spike’s darkness would mean utter loss of control, utter loss of responsibility for his actions, and utter freedom to give in to both pain and pleasure.

It would mean release.

His tired legs could no longer support him, and as tears crept slowly down his face, he slid to his knees in surrender. Spike nodded, almost to himself. “You understand then.”

~*~*~

Spike carried the exhausted man into the bathroom and set him gently on the toilet seat. Xander drifted in a painful, confused haze as Spike ripped his bloody t-shirt off and carefully disinfected the knife wound in his chest. He came fully awake, startled, when Spike cleansed his lip, and hovering inches from his face, placed a chaste but tingling kiss on his swollen mouth.

Xander let Spike lead him into the bedroom and was passive while Spike undressed him. Xander was jolted uncomfortably back into the present when he felt the other man slide into bed next to him. For a moment he tried to ignore the feathery touches on his back but it was impossible, his body betrayed him, shivering with arousal.

“Relax, Xander. Just get used to my hands on you, luv, O.K.? You can’t even see me back here.” Spike’s voice was low and intense.

“What is this, Spike?” Xander mumbled.

“We have until tomorrow night to break the curse. That’s not much time…we have to finish what we started.” Spike’s touch grew more insistent, demanding a response from Xander’s exhausted body.

“What if I don’t want to, Spike? I’m not gay in this life…whatever I was in the past. I don’t love you; in fact I believe I hate you. Oh, and I’m totally freaked out by the fact that *you raped me*.” Xander wasn’t even going to voice the more complex issues that had been raised earlier.

Spike’s hands tightened on Xander’s shoulders and he moved until his firm body was molded to Xander’s, his erection pressed against Xander‘s ass. “You’ll die if we don’t work it out, if we don‘t finish it. Thomas is already here and he has your demon ex in his thrall.” He dropped a kiss on Xander’s shining, dark head. “Xander, listen very closely to me because neither of us wants to talk about this again. We are bound together regardless of our gender, so whether or not you’re gay is beside the point.” He rested his forehead on Xander’s shoulder before continuing. “As for yotingting me? Well, mate, there’s a very fine line between love and hate. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out which one is behind the passion that you feel.” He slid one hand down Xander’s side to his waist and then to his hip and let it rest there, ignoring Xander’s sudden intake of breath. “And I won’t lie to you. Ethouthough so much time has passed, our souls, the essence of who we are, remains basically the same. I have always been, and always will be, a violent man, and you will always love me because of that. But here, in this time, things do not have to turn out the way that they did in Scotland. That’s why we are reborn. We learn from the past. I can control myself now, I will never hurt you like that again.”

*Not your typical seduction*, Xander thought hysterically. *I love him because he’s violent?* Xander wanted to scoff, wanted to run, wanted to fight. Instead he let out a groan, smothered by his own arm against his mouth and gave an involuntary shudder that drove him hard against Spike. Against all of his better judgment, Xander had begun to believe. It was the churning in his gut. It was the melting in his muscles. It was the sweaty palms and the shivers that he got while Spike was touching him. It was the heavy hard-on between his legs. But most of all it was the almost nauseating mix of arousal and terror that Spike awakened in him. It was a familiar, remembered feeling. It was natural to him, like Spike’s touch was natural and desired. It made him feel *alive.*

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, letting Spike claim his mouth in a forceful kiss. The vampire’s cool hand slid from his hip to his cock and gently began to stroke him. Xander moaned into the vampire’s mouth, intoxicated by the unfamiliar taste and texture. He rolled to face Spike, hesitantly running his hands over the smooth, pale skin.

“Ohgodxander.” Spike’s voice was full of tension.

Xander stopped. “Wait. I don’t know what to do…No, I don‘t know if I can do this.”

Spike growled at him, his eyes gleaming in the watery light that filtered in through the shades. “Look at me.” Xander looked. Spike held his gaze with his own as he traced Xander’s full lips with the tip of his finger. Xander did not feel any better. His mind was in turmoil and he was terrified of the fact that he had no control over his body’s fierce response to Spike’s touch. The other man gave him no time to come to grips with the situation. He slid his finger into Xander’s mouth and squeezed his cock at the same time, eliciting a frantic, gurgling cry from Xander.

“That’s it,” Spiroonrooned as Xander sucked on first one, then two of his fingers. “Just like that, luv.” He nudged Xander’s legs apart and replaced his fingers with his tongue, distracting Xander while he gently prodded the tight ring of muscle between the other man’s legs with a slick digit.

Xander went completely rigid. *Ohnononodon’ttouchmethere.* “Shhh. S’alright.” Spike murmured as his kissed his way lightly across Xander’s chest, tonguing his nipples.

Xander was in a place he had never been before. A place of terrifying contradictions. He had never been so painfully aroused but it was a razor’s edge between fear, shame and pleasure.

He felt no relief, only intense emotions and overwhelming physical sensations when Spike finally moved from his chest to his stomach and from there to his cock. He didn’t want to look but he couldn’t turn his eyes away from the sight of the tousled blond head between his legs. He could feel his balls, heavy in Spike’s hand and he could feel Spike’s throat convulsing around him as the vampire swallowed his cock.

Xander thrust several times iSpikSpike’s willing mouth before he exploded. “Spike…coming…ohfuck.” He almost lost consciousness but for the fearful, unwanted voice in his head chanting, *nowwhatnowwhatnowwhat. What does he want now?*

It was obvious. Spike was taking advantage of his plistatstate to lay him on his stomach, all the while stroking him and whispering to him as if he were a frightened animal. “No worries, luv. S’ok. Not gonna hurt you. Love you.”

It was hearing that those last terrible, appalling, wonderful words coming out of Spike’s mouth that forced him to lie still in horrified anticipation.

Spike left the bed for a moment and Xander felt a sudden, sickening rush of adrenaline. *Is this it? Are we gonna do it?*

Spike returned seconds later and crouched between Xander’s legs, “Kneel, pet.” Xander shivered at Spike’s suddenly tender tone, and slowly got to his hands and knees. “Gonna fuck you, Xander.” The vampire hesitated with his hand on the small of Xander’s back and whispered, “You can tell me no.”

Xander thought, *Sure, I can say it--but would it matter?*

As if reading his mind Spike wrapped his arms around Xander’s waist and said, “I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

They both waited for a moment, the words *gonna fuck you* flitting through Xander’s head making his limp cock twitch in response. He was in way too deep to play any more games. Images of the vampire taking him, fucking him, hurting him, controlling him, owning him, loving and caring for him were all entangled in his mind. The ideas, the acts, were inextricable. And that was, undeniably, what he wanted. To be fucked, to be loved, to be taken care of. To have all of his choices made and to find the release and relief in the pleasure and in the pain.

“Don’t ask me. Just fuck me.” He reached behind him for Spike’s cock and grabbed it. “I want this. *I want you.*”

That was all the vampire needed. He had brought hand lotion from the bathroom back with him and he didn’t even bother to warm it in his hands as he rubbed it across his fingers and found Xander’s hole. Xander jerked away when felt the first gentle touch and Spike had to hold his hips still with his other hand when he began to push his index finger inside. There was burning and stretching and it felt right. It felt nearly unbearable when Spike crooked his finger and found Xander’s prostate.

Xander howled into the pillow under his head as Spike added a second finger. Then the vampire paused as if he wanted to say something but Xander’s words hung heavy in the air between them. *Don’t ask.*

When Xander felt the pressure increase he knew what it was. He knew what was about to happen and, with an effort of will, he kept the bile from ing ing him. Flashes of the pain from Alexander’s last hours invaded his consciousness and he battled with separating the past from the present and accepting the necessary hurt from Spike’s invasion of his body.

And that’s what it was. It was both an invasion and a completion. Spike was taking him, conquering his body, tearing him apart both physically and mentally, and then making him whole.

Spike wasn’t gentle. Xander hadn’t expected gentleness, but neither was he brutal. His thrusts were deep, strong and slow, designed to make Xander fully aware of what was being done to him and by whom, without damaging him. His moans were interspersed with cleansing sobs and when Spike’s fangs pierced his neck and the vampire cupped his hand around Xander’s cock, again fully hard, he came with breathless abandon, shoving himself back onto Spike, taking the other man as deep as he could.

When Xander came, giving himself completely to Spike, blood, body and soul, the vampire was lost. He came with his lover’s blood on his lips and his come on his hand.

There was a loosening, then. As the two of them collapsed onto the bed it felt as if old ropes, long knotted, were finally beginning to come loose from around them.

~St. Lucifer hear me praying to thee

On this eve-of All Saints

High be the price but then nothing is free

My soul-I’ll glady trade~

TBC