*****

"So?" Spike asked impatiently. "How bloody long does it take anyway?"

Xander swallowed nervously then looked up from his seat on his bed to where Spike was pacing beside him. "Uh, sorry to tell you this fangface but a half hour isn't enough time to read a 200 page manuscript."

"Bloody hell," Spike cursed as he lit another cigarette and continued pacing.

"You might consider sitting down and oh let's think.*stop asking me how long it's going to take every 5 minutes!*. Hey-- I might even get to form a thought here."

"Fine. Okay." Spike sprawled onto the sofa in front of the television. "I'll be quiet as a church mouse. You'll never know I'm in the room. Not my fault if you can't focus your tiny mind on more than one thing at a time," he muttered sullenly.

Xander sighed and turned back to the handwritten pages. Before he knew it he felt a tickle on the side of his face. He waved his hand up to brush away the fly and came into contact with a very cool and solid presence.

"Gahhh!" Xander jumped up, sending the papers flying.

"Stupid ponce! Look what you've done!" Spike knelt down and started gathering up the pages.

Putting his hand to his chest, Xander tried to get his breathing under control. "ME? Who was the one perched on the bed, peering over my shoulder like some insane gargoyle trying to give me a *heart attack*??"

Spike didn't look up. "I was just checking to see where you were.well and if you were still breathing. You were sitting there so still. Freaked me a little bit, didn't it."

Xander sat back down on the bed. "Didn't you promise to sit over there?" he pointed across the room. "And to give me a few minutes to read your story?"

Spike climbed to his feet and sat on the bed beside the human, putting the spilled pages back on the pile. "Yeah. But you've been sitting over here for 2 hours! I smoked all my cigs. I listened to your mum and dad going at it for the past hour. I was bored!"

Xander flushed. "Two hours? You're kidding me?"

"No, mate. So?" Spike looked over at him expectantly. "Don't keep me in suspense here, is it any good?" The vampire shifted nervously. Xander couldn't ever remember seeing Spike looking so uncertain. It was endearing in a way.

"You actually wrote this?" he asked in amazement, half expecting it to be a big joke.

"Why? Is it that bad?"

Xander paused for a moment, having a hard time separating the man who became a vampire in the story he'd been reading from the vampire he thought he'd known so well that was sitting beside him. "No, it's definitely not bad, the opposite of bad-the extreme opposite of bad. Is it you in the story?"

Spike frowned. "So what if it is?" he growled.

"Woah." Xander said putting a hand on the vampire's arm to stop him from getting up. "Defensive-much? Hold on. I'm just curious."

"Yeah. I was human once too you know. Had all the necessary parts, including the touchy feely ones."

"I'm having a hard time here. I can't seem to put together the person in that story with well.you."

"It's so far fetched that I could have been a poet? It's so far fetched that I loved someone? Fuck off then. I'm sorry I asked you to read it, I have no idea what I was thinking." Spike pulled away from Xander and stood up.

Xander caught Spike's hand on the manuscript before he could take it. "No. Leave it. I'd like to read the rest if you'll let me?"

Spike stared at him for a long moment before asking, "Why?"

"Because.because I'd really like to get to know the William in this story, Spike. I think that he and I have a lot in common. I think that I'd like that very much."

Spike nodded once and stepped back, leaving the manuscript on the bed, under Xander's care. Without another word, he grabbed his coat from the chair and was out the door.

Xander stared after him for a minute and wondered why Spike had brought this to him. Why he would share something so private with him? He shook his head. God knows why Spike does anything that he does. He turned back to the roughly stacked pages. Just maybe he had all the answers he was looking for right under his nose. He moved closer to the light, pulling the manuscript with him and set out to find them.

End
Like I said, just a snippet :)