templemarker

Notes: Written for Remix Redux II : Electric Boogaloo. Original story was Low Tide by Herself. Rated R, Spike/Xander.

***

The relationship began with little fanfare. Xander came to him one night, cautious but angry, and took out his anger and frustrations on Spike and Spike’s body. There was no reason for it, no moment or quirk when this was decided. Xander needed something, and Spike was there.

In retrospect he should have gone to Anya. He should have talked with Giles, or thrown himself into his work. But grief marred his young face, and Spike had been watching him for years. It worked, then.

Spike called him ridiculous names, muttering them as Xander entered him swiftly and inelegantly, a litany of “Goddamn Gorgeous Fuck, Hot Piece of Ass, Fucking Glorious Ass, Fucking Hell Harris you’re a Marvelous Piece, You’re this Shitburg’s Best Kept Secret, Dick is Brilliant, Love, an Absolute Wonder” and finally Xander clamped his hand over Spike’s mouth and hissed, “Shut up, Spike.”

There was everything wrong about this, a relationship characterized by perversities. It should have been a woman, not a man beneath him; Anya, not Spike; Spike hard and angry and everything Xander had always hated, not pliant and weak beneath him; Buffy should be alive, but she wasn’t. It was the little things that colored this wrong.

But Xander kept coming back, out of annoyance and frustration. Watching Willow create a plan to bring Buffy back only made him more angry, because he wanted Buffy back but not this way, not the way Willow was willing to sacrifice. He didn’t want to take his anger out on Anya; it was all he could do not to bite her head off about the ring and wedding and telling people. He worked all the time, trying to avoid going home. The best part of all was that everyone was wrapped up in their own forms of grief, too distracted to notice he was falling apart.

It was to be expected, to some degree. So instead Xander lost himself in Spike, the sight of him spread out under his hands and his tongue. Xander messed up his hair, because he knew Spike hated that, and he was so disappointed when Spike just smoothed it back again and rose up from his position by Xander’s hip.

Sometimes he thought that this was it, this was his life without Buffy. Bereft of purpose. He ran over the first year she came to town over and over again in his mind, trying to pinpoint the time when her destiny became his own, and the need to fight back the darkness became greater than his fear of it. Xander couldn’t find it, so instead he sought out Spike and bound him to the bed, and wondered if someone could fuck away their dreams.

Spike finally snapped one night, shoving Xander off him and telling him to leave. Xander was so surprised he did, though he looked longingly back at the door. This was the Spike he remembered, that he thought he’d be fucking when he started all this. A week later and Xander was back at the door, and instead of shoving his way through the crypt Spike grabbed him and pulled him in, growling in his ear about how pretty he was, and how much better he’d look with a few bruises on him. It was easier to let go this way, Xander found, though he never truly found peace–only oblivion.