*****

Me: ... Then one more photoshoot one -- unngh -- okay this one, upper body shot, he's turned a little at an angle, one hand holding his own throat...

Head tilted toward the camera, jaw *clenched* -- he looks... on the edge, you know?

Angry, or... like he's just been pushed too far, like by say a naked indecisive Xander saying things that make him want to...

Take him somehow, take Xander and *give* him what he wants, what he's dying to admit he needs...

He's looking down in this one, so I can imagine Xander's sitting on his haunches on the floor, naked, head in his hands -- he's been crying maybe, or they've been fighting. Maybe it's the thing with the belt again.

Xander's hair is getting long, it's curling damply over his fingers...

Maybe Xander's got the belt draped across his thighs. It started out as some kind of tease. He didn't know what the hell he'd been thinking, only that he'd seen the belt coiled on top of Spike's jeans and picked it up. Fingered the leather. Worn and soft but so thick... sturdy. He'd picked it up, held it to his face... breathed it in.

Bitter leather smell. Animal smell. One side smooth and cool against his heated face -- blushing. He's been thinking about this damn belt far too much...

The inner side napped and soft. Brown leather. He rubs it against his cheek, holding it with both hands -- smooth side, nap side. He tries to imagine what it would be like to feel it on his naked back and shudders.

He's hard, but it horrifies him -- truly horrifies him to think of himself allowing...*asking* Spike to...to beat him. Hit him. Whip him. Hurt him. Rubbing the leather back and forth, letting the loose ends of the belt dangle between his thighs, brushing...

Maybe he was alone in the room when he picked up the belt. Spike out. It's night, so he knows where Spike would be...

Mind picture: flashing on Spike, game face, burying his fangs into someone's bared throat. Can't even see the victim's face. Imagining the *sound* of Spike feeding.

The victim's scream choked off, trailing on its own to soft ecstatic open-mouthed moans... The tickle of hot blood running down cool, damp skin. His gums ache in sympathy.

And horrified again. Getting sicker by the minute. Spike was wrong about everything except that it didn't matter... He separates his hands, snapping the belt straight with a loud crack...

Loops it back around his own shoulders, runs it back and forth.

Xander knows...dirtier than Willow. Dirtier than *Spike* because Xander *knows* it's wrong...

Loops it around his own shoulders, skinning it back and forth, harder to make it burn a little, softer to soothe like it was Spike's cool, smooth hand.

How would he do it? What would the mechanics of it be? Him on the bed, hands tied to...well, to something since they didn't actually have a bed with posts or anything.

Or would Spike string him up, both hands over his head, up on his toes, unable to keep his balance... and what would it *feel* like to be hit because you wanted to be hit...not...not just off-handedly smacked or shoved against a wall...

Really hard from thinking this. His cock is *heavy* between his thighs, hanging down, glassy strands sliding toward the hardwood floor. Cold in the room. His feet are getting pins and needles.

But he doesn't want to get up, doesn't want to be any warmer. Wants only the heat where he's sanding his shoulders with the belt, which slides up, catches the back of his neck...

Or maybe Spike wouldn't have to hit him at all.

He slides the leather a little higher, brings his arms around the front to cross them, tugs...

Te:

Me: oh, oh lovely...

All alone in that huge building... the only *alive* thing in there. If you were looking with infrared, it would be a big blue/green void with this one tiny spot of yellow/pink/red/white and he's flushing now. Setting his tingly feet a little wider apart...

Holding the belt just tense, not tight. Just enough pressure to feel it, to hear his breathing roughen a little. To feel the pulse beat in the tender place where Spike has marked and marked and marked him.

He's heard of this, of course. One of his favorite X-files lines but he'd always thought of it as yeah, undignified, embarrassing. But what if Spike... and he hasn't loosened his grip, swallows hard against the leather and he can feel the pulses everywhere now -- throat and wrists and knees. And the big one, hips rocking a little to send his cock swinging...

He could ask for this.

He could ask...he could ask for this to be his ticket. End of the month, three weeks, six months whatever... he could ask and Spike would... do it. Gleefully. Choke him, fuck him, bite... make it last as long as he needed...it could feel so...

He winces, teeth suddenly chattering. Spike. Would. Do. It.

Too familiar chill at the now too familiar thought of dying under Spike's hands, Spike's cold weight, with Spike watching him die, watching him with so much love... hot, slow slide of more blood to his cock and Xander groans. Catches the choked break in the groan and coughs but doesn't loosen his grip. Blood is pounding in his head now, pounding through him the way it does when Spike feeds on him...

He twists his neck a little under the tightness of the leather, pulls just a little with his left hand, letting the motion turn his head. Then the other hand, sawing a little.

So dangerous. Letting his hands do this. Letting them, giving them that independence. Just like jerking off. Not *my* hands officer, oh no, my hands would never do a thing like that...

These are Cordelia's hands or Buffy's hands or Faith (ho ho no, no thank you very much brain for that one. Perverting my nice wholesome autoerotic experience here..) And he wants to let go then, get rid of this one altogether, but his hands aren't ready yet.

Just a little more, just to feel it -- the last breath that wouldn't come. He's close to that, breath rasping slow and strained, struggling a little against his own bondage. Amazed that he can *do* this...

And then, abruptly he can't -- throws his arms apart to suck that breath in before it gets away, head back and coughing...

"My turn, then?" Spike's voice is dark, low. A lot strained.

Xander feels himself go white, then hard red as the blood floods back into starved braincells.

Looks up to see Spike standing farther away than he might have expected, one hand holding his own throat, jaw *clenched*.

Quails a little at that look because if it isn't anger it's close enough not to be allowed to *marry* anger in case they have little two-headed three-eyed anger children and he knows he isn't making any sense at all. Not even to himself.

And the belt is still around his neck, still held heavy by the weight of his own hands clenched around the leather.

"It's not--" Xander starts but then he coughs again, dryly. Attempts a smile, flips the belt up off over his head and lays it flat across his thighs. Going for cynically cheerful: "Not too humiliating." Coughs again. Spike hasn't moved.

Doesn't move. Face devil-lit by the pale margarine light from the hallway, so ridged by shadows it could be vamped but Xander knows it isn't. Flare of nostrils.

//So that's what a disgusted vampire looks like...//

And it's too much, suddenly. Xander drops his head, brings his fingers up to press into his eyes, make pretty lights. He isn't crying, but he feels as though he has been.

Lets his palms slide up his face until his fingers tangle in the damp curls of his hair. Too long, now. He wishes he *could* cry. Wishes he weren't hard. Wishes he weren't so goddamned transparent. Wishes...wishes...

Lick of cool air across his arm and Spike is *there*. Cold leather stiff against his damp back, Spike's hands tight on his upper arms.

"Xander, let me,.." Growled breathless behind his ear and Xander feels that strange, affecting weakness run through him. He shakes his head, wordless behind his own hands.

"Yes," says Spike. He shifts his too-tight grip to Xander's wrists, pulls Xander's hands away from his face. Brief sham of resistance and then Xander lets go, lets Spike have his hands: opens his eyes on the dark, empty room in front of him. Spike tugs his hands down and back behind him.

Captures both his wrists in the grip of one, strong hand and brings his other arm up across Xander's chest.

Cool lips press to the flayed skin at the back of Xander's neck. Spike's soft kisses petal there, leave him shivering, breath hitching in his chest like silent sobs.

"Say 'no'," Spike says. Xander shakes his head.

"Say 'yes', then." Wanting to, his mouth already shaping the word, but no, no, no... shaking his head to stop it from coming out.

"Then say nothing at all, my love," whispers Spike and he slips the belt off Xander's shaking knees. Brings it behind and over Xander's head to loop it around his throat again.

Xander feels more than hears the dull clink of the buckle as Spike feeds the tongue of the belt through it. Hears more than feels the scrape of leather on flesh as the belt pulls taut. Wild spasm of terrifying pleasure rushing him as it begins to tighten and Xander jerks forward, falls onto one knee, hands twitching in Spike's iron grasp.

"Fight it if you need to, love," Spike says. "Go on..." And Xander suddenly finds he needs to very badly. He wrenches his shoulders hard, pulls his arms, wrists against Spike's grip, manages to free his hands. Fingers scrabbling hard to get purchase on the leather welded to his throat. Not a chance and he is gasping for air, which Spike is not letting him have nearly enough of.

And then none at all for one scary minute. Two. Real panic setting in as strength ebbs, pulsebeat deafening in his ears and Xander rolls his head wildly from side to side, tearing uselessly at the constriction around his throat until he can't anymore.

Simple as that. His hands fall away from his throat. Everything sinking down into gray and he can feel Spike settle around him.

"Better?" Spike asks, not letting up an ounce of pressure. Hard to think now, but death by strangulation apparently does wonders for the nerves.

//Definitely better.// Very, very good, in fact. Maybe going to come soon. Xander nods and amazingly, the belt loosens and he's whooping in gulps of air, panting -- life thudding back into his chest, throat, groin, head with big rubber hammers.

The noose tightens again, slowly. Not all the way. Just right for a man on the edge. Spike at the controls, like Spike is his heart, his lungs.

He wants more.

*****
Part 2:

Apparently he's going to get it.

Spike gently pushes him forward and Xander sinks down onto both knees. He feels Spike untuck his tingling feet for him, one at a time, run soft fingers over the exposed soles. Drawing shapes. That should tickle, but it doesn't. And Spike's fingers feel just the tiniest bit warmer than his own flesh.

//Not good, I'm guessing...// Then Spike pulls him back a little to rest on his own heels, and waits. Waits. Xander wonders what they're waiting for, but actually he doesn't care all that much. His immediate world has gotten pretty small. Cozy even. Breathing is at the center of it.

Breathing has become something labored, slow and loud. Rusty sounding. And who knew you could learn a whole new way to be breathing? But there he is, puzzling it out like senior Math. If he goes too fast, tries to move, he suffocates. If he takes it slow and does nothing else but breathe there is almost enough air to last him through the entire inhalation process. Which doesn't seem to make much sense, but there it is. And of course it would help if the air was a little less thick and syrupy, a little more air-like. Still, the syrupy stuff has this pretty monstrously nifty side-effect.

Which is that it all seems to want to drip down through his insides and settle in his cock. Heaviness building there and now Xander finds that when he isn't paying attention long, slow shudders crest and break through him. Gently gathering spasms of something -- not exactly a sex thing -- but like if his whole body could be having an orgasm it might start like this. And just that thought is enough to start another roll.

Xander rolls his hips with it, groans. It sounds strange. Hardly a human sound.

"That's my boy," says Spike. He sounds a little strange too. And now Spike's hand is moving -- down Xander's chest and across the hollow of his belly, back again. Stroking him, pale hand with it's pretty rust-colored fingernails. Spike's hands are so soft, so smooth. His touch is light but strange. Xander can feel Spike's fingers tracing subtle designs on his skin. Can feel the traces of the patterns left behind. Cold fire. So good...

//So *not* good...// And somewhere deep inside, another voice he hasn't heard in years, full of love and pain: //oh, *Xander*...//

I'm sorry, he wants to tell the voice. I really didn't think it was going to happen like this. And he knows he doesn't mean just this, but all of it. All eighteen years. He's done everything *so* wrong and well, too late now. Spike's hands are writing the whole rest of his future with a blood-colored fingernail and a leather belt and his future is... this. Is *now*.

Another wave rolls and breaks over him. Stronger now and oh god, so definitely a sex thing.

Right. Sure. Willow wanted *this* -- why did she *think* he'd stayed away from her for so long? Willow--

Thought cut short like a stuttering track as one of Spike's fingers finds his left nipple, polishes it tenderly. Sensation spirals out from the spot. Xander gasps too fast and starts to cough. The belt loosens just enough to let him catch his breath, then tightens again and no real time to worry about it because the finger is back -- circling and circling, marble coolness round and round his nipple, making it peak and ache and throb.

Swallowing hard against the leather as Spike pushes against him from behind, pushing Xander up onto his knees. Surprised to find he doesn't have enough strength left to hold himself up, but that's cool, because Spike is right there, pressed right up hard against his back.

Xander lets his head fall back to rest on Spike's cool shoulder, Spike's cool cheek against his own. Circled sway of leather-clad hips against his ass and Spike's fingers tighten on his nipple, sending another wave through him and another. Xander grinds his head into Spike's shoulder, moans -- a dry and broken sound.

"Soon, Xander," Spike whispers. "Very very soon. I promise..." And seals his promise with the bright silvery flash of nails digging into Xander's chest. Driving him higher. Higher...

And then Spike's hand is sliding down again, down and Xander's cock drools for him, wetness slicking the insides of his thighs. He doesn't care. The pulse of blood is so loud inside his head, so violent in his veins that he thinks Spike must be going mad from the sound of it drumming.

The darkness is filled with sparkles and bright white worms of light that crawl across the insides of his eyes. Distracting him. He doesn't know where Spike's hands are. And then...and then //oh *god*...// he does.

Everything picking up so fast and hard. Spike's hands gripping his hipbones, the cool length and fill of Spike sliding into him, staking him -- shot of cold core pleasure when Spike pulls back on him, angling his hips. Xander able to do nothing but break and roll, break and roll. Deaf behind the roar of blood; blind behind the curtain of glittering dark. Head thrown back, trying to scream...

//touchmeSpiketouchmegodtouchmeplease...// and no sound coming out at all.

But Spike's low vampire growl and his head jerks back away from Xander's. The belt pulled taut and jerking as Spike rides him in and out.

And then Xander can't breathe enough or maybe at all and it doesn't matter, nothing really matters except that big, black earthquake coming up from somewhere way far down below. That too-much *something* rolling through him, steamroller pleasure hammer stretching him to breaking, pushed hard up against some big, warm black wall...

...and Spike's cool hands close around his cock like blue sparks from a closing circuit...

...black wall...

...pleasure ripping through him...

...black wall...

//oh god I'm really going to die..//

And pushing through to heartstop nothing for a second, before he comes and the black wall of the universe explodes into stars.

***

"Xander?" Spike's voice was soft in the darkness. "Xander, love, come on..." Xander didn't answer. Not sure why. He'd been not answering for a long time. Hours maybe. Spike was good about it too. Didn't push too hard, didn't force it. But didn't leave him alone, either. Lay on the mattress behind him. Rubbed his back, sometimes. Kissed his neck. That was nice.

Brought him a ice cold Coke once, put the straw to his lips, told him to drink. Xander drank. A bit. Then stopped. Didn't know why he stopped that either. It had felt good on his swollen throat. Felt good all the way down, and he could feel all the sugary, caffeine-y goodness replenishing his cells. But he'd stopped anyway. Spike's eyes on him in the gray unlight. It wouldn't have been much to smile at Spike, tell him he was okay, he was just lying here for now, but he didn't do that either.

Just lay there on his side, knees to chest, feeling nothing whatsoever. Kind of nice, that. Nothing. Just... nothing. Maybe he should be scared by it. Probably. Yeah, he should be scared. But he wasn't scared. Just... gone. Sort of. Nothing. No one. Just...

Gone.

More time passed and Spike was in front of him again, touching his face, thumb tracing the shapes of his features: eyes, nose, mouth.

//Hi, Spike,// Xander thought, waving cheerfully from about a hundred feet back behind his eyes. Spike frowned, cocked his head curiously. Xander almost smiled.

Yeah, this was all right. Good to be gone. To be nowhere, nothing. He could think of anything, anyone and it didn't hurt at all. Buffy. Faith. Cordy. Mom. Giles. Dad... Nothing.

Willow.

Nothing.

"Xander...?"

Particularly nothing. Which was probably a bad thing, but it felt pretty good, actually. He could lie there forever like this, plant-like. Empty.

//So I'm guessing I've taken that little jump to the left and this is 'crazy'...// Xander thought. Really crazy, like... 'Drusilla crazy' maybe...

Now *that* was something. A... a *pang* or something at the mind picture of himself prancing around in lacy-sleeved Goth drag, pressing his fingers to his temples and making Drusilla sounds. Still, he could kind of see it.

How bad could it be, really? In the grand scheme of things, of which his part was, up until now somewhere between comic relief and screw-up sidekick. What had Cordy called him? The Zeppo of the gang. Yeah, just about right. It certainly helped to discover his secret weapon, his one true *thing* was the power of 'nothing left to lose'. Sure, other people fought evil with stakes and spells but hey, Xander Harris could just stand there and really not give a shit until evil got bored and wandered away...

//Ooh, and that oughta be worth some big bonus points for the self-pity round...//

And he did kind of laugh at that, a rusty little croak that couldn't have carried much farther than the edge of the bed but Spike was right there again, suddenly, with Coke and a straw.

So, had he been away?

"Not far," said Spike. "How about you?"

"Hey," Xander croaked, knowing from the terrible untried roughness in his throat that he *hadn't* said that last aloud. "You're mind-reader guy now."

"Nope," said Spike. "Still just 'scary dead guy with a belt'. Or actually, a Coke," he held up the can of Coke where Xander could see it. "And a smile." He smiled. The smile faded after a second or two. "And an apology, if it's needed."

Xander closed his eyes.

"Love means..." he said. Surprised when Spike answered, clearly not recognizing the quote:

"Love means what?"

Xander felt the smile push it's way up and out across his mouth like something sweet. He caught his tongue between his teeth and lower lip and god it had been a long time since he'd felt like this. Like... happy. And he opened his eyes to see that Spike was closer still, just inches from his face, the can of Coke between them. Spike, still worry-faced but already smiling at his smile.

"Means I could so whip your ass at Tag-line, Spike," Xander said. His voice was all gravel. Kinda killer, but it hurt so he reached out and took the Coke from Spike's hand. Sucked on the straw.

Same Coke as before, but now it was warmish, thick and syrupy and way too sweet. The best thing in the world and Xander only stopped drinking it long enough to kiss his Spike and he didn't stop smiling at all.

-happyend (tm)