Assorted Drabbles

by
Electricalgwen

Beer Good

This was started with a vague plan of writing a longer fic that would at some point use/make fun of the odd names of various beers available around here¹. I don't have the energy right now, though, and it makes a nice S/X kinda-pre-slash drabble. Rated R for language and advocating alcohol.

It started with beer.

Exactly which beer, Xander couldn’t say. One of the many I’m-gonna-kick-your-ass-this-time pitchers consumed during pool nights at the Bronze? One of the post-patrol good-fight-thank-the-gods-I’m-still-in-one-piece bottles in his basement? Maybe one of the she-dumped-me-for-a-fucking-Chaos-demon and I-can’t-believe-she-went-back-to-D’Hoffryn binge sessions contained the particular beer that turned the corner. That somehow made the transition from you’re-a-vampire to you’re-a-friend plausible, desirable, even necessary.

He wasn’t sure when he’d started thinking about what it would be like to make another transition. From friend to… more.

He figured they’d need a lot of beer to get past that one.

Which include Waggle Dance, Dog's Bollocks, Bishop's Finger, Wyre Piddle, Fursty Ferret, Circle Master...and the list goes on.

Knife

This is virtualpersonal's fault, for saying "Cerebral drabble" around me. I warned her I would. :P

“Knife.

Swab.

Periosteal elevator.

Huh.”

“What do you mean, huh?!”

“His skull appears completely intact.”

“Uh - isn’t that good?”

“I would have expected some indication of the prior craniotomy. I understand he heals well, but this… looks like it’s never been opened. Was he certain it was this side that was operated on?”

“Hey, ‘s my bloody skull you’re talking about. I’m right here. Quit ignoring me.”

“Uh, Spike? Can you not talk while he’s cutting you open? It’s… creepy.”

“What, and seeing my unconscious brain would somehow be better?”

“Urgh. I am not going to look at your brain.”

Lick

Written for the batpack International Day of Slash celebration's Drabble Tree.

Xander blinked sluggishly and realized the end credits were rolling. His lap was full of crumbs, his back had a kink in it, and his neck was strangely cool.

He turned his head slightly, and got a mouthful of stiffly gelled hair. Spike was dozing with his feet on the coffee table and his head slumped on Xander’s shoulder. He looked peaceful and ridiculously innocent, nuzzling into the hollow of Xander’s neck. Nuzzling and… moaning?

Xander leaped up in horror, unceremoniously dumping Spike on the floor and knocking the remnants of the popcorn onto him.

“Did you just lick me?!”

Early One Morning

Somewhat loose interpretation of the prompt "puppet", perhaps...

Early one morning…

Xander picked up his bowl and slurped the last of the Corn Pop flavoured milk. He could hear Kennedy hollering as the Potentials turned right at the end of the street. They’d be jogging for at least an hour.

Mornings like this were all too rare. He grinned and stretched, spread the paper out, and stirred extra sugar into his coffee.

Just as the sun was shining…

A shadow fell over him.

“Spike?” He looked up. “You – uh, you okay? You look a bit…”

“Waited a long time for this, pet.” Crunch, shift. “Just relax.”

“Spike! No!”

Nov 2006: This has now been expanded into a full-length (10,000+ words) fic, Dies Irae

Insomnia

Season 4, and Xander can't sleep... Written for open_on_sunday

He shifts again, cursing himself, but he can’t lie still. The air is too sticky, too stifling. The sheet is too scratchy. The hum of the fridge is too loud.

The vampire is frighteningly close.

The fear twisting in his gut is not that Spike will break free and bite him and drink his blood. No, what frightens him is that he thinks Spike may know.

Know that Xander is startlingly, painfully hard from imagining such a bite.

He wills down the memory of Spike looking up through dark lashes, as he pulled the ropes just tight enough to burn.

Chilled

Written for open_on_sunday

He can’t get warm any more.

Time was, he couldn’t get cool. Days, he worked hard, baking in the sun, soaked in sweat. Nights, he’d wake up stuffy and hot, even after throwing off the blankets. Anya used to call him her personal furnace.

Now the heat sink at his side is insatiable, and the anemia isn’t helping.

He lies next to the vampire that he can’t get enough of and can’t get away from, staring at the ceiling and wondering again why he can’t bring himself to leave. Wondering how long until the day he wakes up room temperature.

Change

Buffy stared. “But, Xander, you hate vampires!”

I hated Darla for killing the first boy I loved. I hated Angel for not loving you enough. I hated Spike for loving you too much.

He sighed and fiddled with his straw.

“I used to. But… I’ve changed. He’s changed.”

“If you believe that, you’re a fool.” Her tone was colder than his drink.

“You know he has, Buff. You got his chip out.”

“Not so he could bite you!”

“Well, no, but it’s a nice fringe benefit.”

She gaped. He winked. She blushed, finally grinned conspiratorially. He relaxed. They’d be okay.

Flicks

For the Batpack Birthday Drabble Tree

“I thought you’d pick something else, all right?”

Spike tried to look hurt. The smirk made this difficult.

“You said I got to pick the movie if you got to pick the beer.”

“My point exactly! This is guy movie night, with beer!”

“Movie, check. Beer, check. What’s the problem?”

“The problem?” Xander spluttered. “The problem is I expect explosions! Monsters! Car chases, or space battles, or Carrie-Ann Moss in PVC! Who hijacked your brain in the video store?!”

“Yeah, but you actually watch those movies.”

“That makes…no sense.”

Spike leered. “I like what happens when the movie bores you.”

Residual

Written for the prompt "Leftovers" at open_on_sunday. Standard disclaimers apply.
Continued in Past Lives

Spike had expended a fair bit of thought and effort on getting Xander Harris into bed.

He hadn’t wasted any thought on the mechanics. Vampire top, human bottom. Harris? Definitely a bottom.

He was pleasantly surprised when after the blushing denials and guilty fumbling, Xander started getting into it. The boy could kiss.

He was very surprised when Xander growled and knocked him face-down on the bed.

When Xander’s teeth tore into his shoulder, he had his best orgasm in decades.

“What the hell was that?” he asked when he could speak.

Xander smiled lazily. “There was this class trip…”

Past Lives

Written for the prompt "Leftovers" at open_on_sunday, sequel to Residual. Standard disclaimers apply.

Xander sprawled back against Spike’s chest, idly rubbing circles on his right hip, and finished the story.

“A hyena.”

“Yup.”

Spike looked thoughtful. “So… does this count as bestiality? That’d be new.”

Xander laughed nervously.

Spike wrapped his arms around Xander’s waist. “Then laugh, leaning back in my arms. For life’s not a paragraph. And death, I think, is no parenthesis.”

“Then… what?” Xander twisted around to stare at Spike.

“’S a poem. Famous American poet. Did you ever pay attention in school?”

“You’re quoting me poetry? Okay, where’s the real Spike?”

Spike sighed. “Let me tell you a story…”

It's from 'since feeling is first' by e.e. cummings. Original does not have the punctuation.

Strain

Written for the prompt "stress" at open_on_sunday. I've gone with mechanical, rather than emotional, stress... ;)

“Oh God. Yeah! Right there!”

The bed crashed against the wall.

“Just like that. Ohhh. Deeper!”

Spike gripped the headboard for better purchase, hammering relentlessly into the hot body beneath him. The bed creaked ominously.

“Fuck, Spike, gonna… Yeah, more, do it…”

Spike slammed forward again. Xander yelled. One corner of the bedframe separated from the headboard and they plunged sideways at an alarming angle as the slats broke under the strain.

“Don’t stop, oh fuck, ohhh…!”

Spike groaned and joined Xander in climax.

Xander lay there panting, grinning stupidly. “Y’know, they just don’t build beds like they used to.”

Better To Give

Happy Birthday tistoo!
If I were going to honour her properly, I should post a long, plot-twisty, angsty but ultimately happy Spander fic containing a lot of amazingly hot sex. Sadly, I'm exhausted and out of time, so instead she gets a silly but seasonal drabble.

Spike’s stocking was producing all manner of thoughtful and intriguing little gifts: a new whetstone, an insulated cooler pack to hold his snack blood, a DVD containing lots of gore and explosions, and a steel, laser-cut thumb ring. The presents in his lap, however, occupied only a small part of his attention.

The rest was surreptitiously focused on Xander, who was blushing and squirming more and more with each squishy, spiky, knobbly, brightly colored, or unusually shaped object he removed from his own stocking.

Spike masked a grin. His trip to Willy’s cousin’s Adult Pleasure Emporium had been very productive.

Broken & Repaired

Happy birthday to darkhavens!

She's a talented author - her drabbles in particular just blow me away - but I really owe her for her amazing community bloodclaim. After finding my way onto LJ, it didn't take long for me to find the place which delighted my Spander-obsessed heart. Nearly everything I've read or written since then, friends I've made, etc., can be traced back to bloodclaim somehow.
This is just a little something in her honour - S/X of course! 'Cause... you know they're doing it ™.*g*
Double drabble, rated PG-13, standard disclaimers apply. Thanks to cordelianne for last-minute reading and helpful suggestions.

Broken

It’s not the damn plate. It’s…

It is the plate. Spike’s broken his plate. Spike’s broken his friendships, his car, his favourite mug, his job.

He also broke the bed the other night, but Xander won’t think about that.

“Get out.” He keeps his voice low and steady. Doesn’t look at Spike. That way lies madness.

Spike gets out.

Xander mends the friendships, fixes the car, glues the plate. Nails the bed frame back together. Lies on their bed and jerks off, coming in a rush of salt, sweat and disobedient tears.

Spike’s gone, and Xander is broken beyond repair.

Repaired

At night he dreams up one plan after another. By daylight, they all seem wrong.

He’s a builder, not an architect. He can bring ideas out of the shadowy world of blueprints into the solidity of wood and steel, but he cannot draw the plans himself.

He throws himself into repair work: demon-smashed windows, splintered weapons, collapsing shelves. He finally gets the door to hang evenly, perfectly level. He smoothes a finger along its sanded edge and swings it open soundlessly. Spike is standing there.

Hope blossoms.

Maybe Spike’s got a plan.

And Xander’s the make-it-so guy.

The End