A Quiet Day
They are holed up in one of the rooms of the Gilroy mission, which is full of arches and brick walls, heavy doors and crosses. In a small and dark room that is bare except for a few tapestries and a couple of lit candles, to be precise, and the thin band of sunlight that falls in from outside is the only reason they have not returned to Sunnydale yet.
Andrew lies on his stomach, his chin resting in his hands, lazily swinging his legs back and forth. He has already forced his grumbling companion to play "I spy" with him, but in an empty room that game does not have much appeal, much less for a frustrated, newly-souled vampire who worries about the Slayer. The day drags on forever, though, and they can't do more than nap on the hard stone floor.
Andrew is babbling even more than usual, but then he is more than ever in awe of Spike. It's the first time he has the punk-vamp all to himself, and also the first time he is able to be so close to him. Andrew wonders if Spike felt his rapid heart-beat when he pressed onto him on the bike during the long ride last night. Feeling himself go red in the face, he quickly chatters:
"Do you wanna play 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' again?"
"Oh please! Gimme a break, mushroom boy!"
Andrew doesn't only ignore this comment, he doesn't even mind what Spike throws at him and he is used to people telling him to shut up. And anyway, what if he wanted to take on Spike's flavour?! Buffy should never have coined that phrase, it wasn't fair; and he got rid of his fancy leather-coat after they made fun of it.
He is glad about that at the moment, as his padded over-coat has kept him warm on the way here. While Spike would always look more stylish in his sleek black outfit moulded on his sleek, muscular body - Andrew has to check his thoughts for a moment - his own clothes might be soft and blue-grey, but they kept him warm. And Andrew can be realistic enough to admit to himself to no-one in the world gave a damn about what he looked like anyway. He sighs and tries to cover up quickly.
"I'm glad about my nice thick jacket, you must be rather uncomfortable on the bare floor," is Andrew's attempt at getting the upper hand. Typically, it backfires.
"Well, I'm glad you ditched the black overcoat, didn't suit you."
"Hey, that's uncalled for! I don't say anything about your coat either!"
"Because I look cool in mine."
Andrew seems genuinely crushed by that, and after a short pause he says: "If we go by colouring, I've also got blond hair and blue, well, kinda blue eyes, and I am nearly your size, so I don't see why it should suit you and shouldn't suit me."
As Spike just snorts, he continues: "But I admit, maybe mine are a bit washed out, and you, everything about you ... ok, you are extremely cool! I promised Buffy a-and myself that I would stop living in a fantasy world, so, yeah, you are good-looking and athletic and sexy and me, I am nothing, there, I said it, satisfied?!"
"What the hell are you blubbering about now?!"
Spike stares at him hard now, and Andrew, unused to people actually looking at him or paying him more than the most cursory attention, quickly turns his head to look ... straight at Spike, who had moved next to him in the blink of an eye. Or actually faster than that.
"Wow, how did you do that?"
"Vampire here, have you forgotten? But what's up with you, thought you already played with the big boys and even murdered your friend, and now you sit around like a little girl talking about the clothes I wear and what colour my eyes are."
"I didn't", splutters Andrew, feeling even more nervous now that the older man sits face-to-face with him. "I mean, I was just making conversation. To ... to pass the time."
"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, move over a bit, give me some room on that blanket of yours."
"It's not a blanket, actually, it's a rather expensive ..."
"Shush."
Do vampires sleep? Andrew lies wide awake. He hasn't said a word since Spike settled down next to him. He knows that vampires have no body-heat of their own, but he imagines heat radiating off the slim body next to him. They are lying back-to-back on top of both their overcoats, and if he moved a fraction of an inch he would touch Spike. Or Spike's clothes. He was never less interested in those pieces of fabric than now, he couldn't care less if they were stylish or 'baaad' or cool - Andrew admits to himself for the first time that he only wants what's inside them. Wants it badly.
Another sigh escapes him, and as this gets no reaction, Andrew sits up slowly. Spike seems to be asleep, the high cheek-bones thrown into sharp relief by the flickering candle-light in their chamber, the mouth looking soft, and the brow smooth. Andrew itches to touch him, but then settles for lying down again - facing the other way, though. Carefully, so as not to wake Spike, he copies what he knows to be called spooning. With an inch between them, just in case. Yes, that's better.
And it was - but only for about half an hour. Andrew never could stand silence, or sitting still, waiting, being alone, or boredom in general. Getting more self-assured by the minute, he nestles closer until his body is moulded to the back of Spike, and his nose is actually at the nape of Spike's neck.
And Spike's hair tickles his nose. And he has to sneeze.
"Bloody hell, you stupid little idiot, what did you go and do that for!" roars a wide-awake vampire into the embarrassed boy's face. They have both jumped up and face each other warily now.
Spike does not wait for an answer. "You have been sneaking around me all day, no, don't interrupt, and then you make me the weirdest compliments I ever got from a guy (although Xander keeps mentioning things like that when he throws abuse at me), and when you think I'm asleep you start groping me!"
Andrew surprises himself when he retorts quickly: "You were awake? Why didn't you move away or say something?"
"I was glad for a bit of silence for a change."
"Huh, so you say, very convincing. To get me to shut up for the rest of the mission you would probably let me snog you, right?"
"Is that what you want?"
In the ensuing silence, a truck rumbles in the distance. A bird trills shrilly.
"No ..." mumbles Andrew, very quietly, but this time not looking away from Spike. Two pairs of eyes are locked now, but not in combat. One is weary, the other nervous.
"That, my dear, did not sound very convincing," sighs Spike and settles back down on the make-shift blanket. "Sit," he adds.
Andrew drops down beside him.
"Did Giles put you up to this? Is that his latest strategy to get rid of me?"
"No!"
"Alright. So this is just about you ... and me. What exactly do you want from me, Andrew?"
"I ... I can't ..."
"Say it."
"O-okay, alright, I will say it. Uhm. Spike," Andrew pauses, takes a deep breath," I - I want you to ... uhm, you know the other day ..."
"Oh, forget about it, let's cut this short," Spike grumbles. As Andrew's face lights up, he adds as an afterthought: "But if you tell anyone, I will definitely kill you, understand?"
"Yes, sure, understood."
Having rid him of his pants, Spike lifts Andrew's pale knees onto his shoulders, which makes Andrew squirm.
"Uhm, Spike? This is ... weird; why can't we do it like, you know, back when I saw you on the camera's we had cunningly installed at the Magic Shop? That was cool. And you and ..."
Spike honoured this with an exaggerated sigh: "No, I can't do you like Anya, becau-ause, despite appearances to the contrary, you are not a girl, Andrew!"
He watched the boy blush, and the unbidden thought that Andrew could be rather sweet flashed through his head.
"Oh come 'ere, you silly bugger."
Staring glumly at the annoying whelp, Spike suddenly realizes that Andrew reminds him of young William, the boy he once was, the young man he never quite could get rid of. You can take the soul out of the boy, but you can't take the boy out of the vampire, or something to that effect, right? Well, he had just gotten rid of the spectre of his mother, maybe he could do something about the boy is well. But did he really want to?
He notices that Andrew smells rather nice - now that the girls forced him to bathe - ok, after admittedly, having him tied up for days, so maybe he was always ... Hm, snffff, what was that?
Spike's nostrils flare, and he pulls away from Andrew.
"Buffy!"
"Uhm, Spike? I ..."
"What?"
"Uhm, you just called me ... Buffy."
"No, I did not. Bloody hell, you do have an overactive imagination!"
"Hey, you said ..."
"Yeah, yeah. It's just that smell. Why the hell do you smell like Buffy? What is wrong with you, have you prepared all this in advance, did you think smelling like her you would win me over!"
"I don't! I don't know ... wait. You know, I never really got my own stuff and there are so many girls at the house and, you know, what with so many bottles of shampoo and stuff standing around, I didn't think anyone would notice if, well, I really needed a shower!" Andrew finishes on a whine, looking at Spike beseechingly. The vampire doesn't know if he should slap him or kiss him, but that would have been too mushy. He tousles the soft blond hair instead.
"Don't you start thinking that you can replace Buffy, understood?" he growls.
Andrew might not have noticed, but there is an unusual tenderness in Spike. To the vampire, the boy feels so good, soft and warm, so warm, and Spike finds it strangely erotic how the other's inexperienced tongue starts to venture into his mouth, how Andrew's lips are actually quivering when meeting his own. Spike smiles broadly as he runs his hands through the other's hair and murmurs into his ear: "Easy does it."
"Y-you know, you are not the first guy I am with. Girl, I mean of course, girl I'm with. Well, I didn't mean that you are a girl, I meant ..."
And then Spike finds the only sure-fire way to shut Andrew up.
"Good thing you stole their Vaseline, too!"
"Borrowed, I just borrowed it. I thought our ... my lips would get chapped during the motor ride!"
"Well, lucky you", Spike whispers, as he takes more than the recommended hazelnut-size dollop of the clear paste and wastes no time massaging it into Andrew's rectum. He bites his lower lips as he grins down at the softly moaning boy.
"Give it a bit, that stuff is thick, and you will have to melt it a little, I guess."
"Spike, I feel ... really hot. And you, you look hot."
"Enough with the compliments, chatterbox. I want some of your heat," and Spike, having stroked his penis to semi-hardness, inserts its head into Andrew's puckered opening.
Andrew's eyes widen until they look like small saucers, but he only tightens up briefly. Spike reaches down with one hand and strokes Andrew's opened lips with a rough thumb, as he uses his other to slowly enter him. Small moans escape Andrew's throat, and his cheeks, normally as pale as Spike's, are flushed bright red. The sight arouses the vampire more than he thought possible just a few minutes ago. He pushes into the upturned ass with his whole length, and when he feels the hot, damp, silky flesh of Andrew's sensitive anal canal clamp around his dick, the familiar-yet-new sensations spread through his whole body, and he feels hot and horny and incredibly alive.
Andrew watches fascinated how two vertical veins in Spike's forehead stand out, as the other man pushes in and out of him. Spike's dick in his ass is the strangest and most wonderful think in the world right now, and seeing the vampire lose his cool causes the glow in Andrew's nether regions to spread to his heart or stomach or wherever you feel that glowy feeling that makes you so glad.
He bites down on Spike's thumb, but the hand is taken from him as Spike grabs him below both knees and lifts Andrew's hips a little higher, pushing into him faster and faster, rubbing his pulsing shaft along the sensitive tissue, hitting Andrew's prostate again and again, until Andrew comes messily onto his own chest and belly, soon followed by Spike's own orgasmic release.
As he lies on his side, with Andrew's arm possessively draped over his waist, Spike realizes that for a short while he had forgotten about Buffy and the fear, the new fear of hurting ... people, using sex like violence ... and maybe it disappeared for good. He snorts at the thought that he might have just experience tenderness for the first time since his mother died (and that in itself was not a memory to dwell on too closely). Sex with Dru or Harm or even Buffy was never tender. Even when he loved them ... but then he had to admit that souled Spike could be considered a virgin in that respect.
"Why are you smiling in such a weird way, Spike?"
"Shut up," he rumbles.
"Make me."
"Runt," he says, softly, and turns back to Andrew.
The moment the sun has set they are on the road again. Andrew puts his hands around Spike, just like he did the day before, but when he feels Spike tense up as his hands land in Spike's lap, he shrinks back and hastily loosens his grip.
"Don't be silly now," Spike chides him and, hardly slowing down, grabs one of Andrew's arms and puts it firmly round his leather-coated waist again.
They keep bickering back and forth, the wind whipping their words around until they are lost in the air stream and leave nothing behind but the cloak of darkness, under which Andrew holds on tightly to Spike, pressing his chest close to the other man's back, drifting under the endless starry night sky in a state of forlorn happiness.