Archive of Our Own

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Alternate Reality Bites (1/8)

Title: Alternate Reality Bites 
Chapter: 1 of 8
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I'm not Joss
Summary: Xander begins to have some disturbing dreams about a less successful life.
A/N: This fic is complete and I'll be posting it over the next 3 days. It takes place in the Biteverse, but can be read on its own right even if you haven't read the rest of the 'verse. For spring_with_xan .
Credits: I'm grateful to sentine  for the wonderful banner and to silk_labyrinth  for the fantastic beta work!

Alternate Reality Bites

One

It was a total rip-off. At times like this, you were supposed to see your life flashing before your eyes, but all Xander saw was the past day. And it hadn’t even been an interesting one.

He got to work hungover and eight minutes late, and his dick of a boss—who liked to hover around the time clock—warned him that if he was late once more he was fired. Then Xander had spent the next bunch of hours trying to skulk as inconspicuously as possible in the most obscure corners of the store. When he heard a customer coming his way, he’d scurry into the next aisle. Inevitably, however, he’d be caught, and then some middle-aged guy with a mullet and three whiny kids would need help finding a toggle switch, WD-40, an air compressor, and something to kill the snails that were munching on his vegetables. By the time Xander was finished with him, he’d have a whole line of people waiting, looking for strange items, wanting advice on recaulking sinks or repairing fences, needing him to cut lengths of wood.

When it was finally time to hang up his orange vest, his feet ached and his temper was lost. He trudged across the parking lot to El Pollo Loco and ate an Ultimate Burrito. Then he trudged back again—narrowly avoiding getting flattened by a lady in a minivan who was talking on her cell and eating a Big Mac as she flew across the lot—and found his Cavalier. Someone had ripped off the radio months ago, which wasn’t a mean feat in auto burglary because the passenger side window was actually duct-taped plastic sheeting. So Xander sang instead, old country tunes of the girlfriend-cheated-on-me-and-stole-my-pickup-truck variety.

He’d intended to drive to his shitty apartment and maybe put his feet up in front of an SG-1 marathon. But he got stopped at a red light in front of JT’s and realized it was dollar beer night.

He spent a fair number of dollars.

He got back in his car and drove toward home. It was only a couple miles. He was being careful. And then the road zigged and he zagged, or maybe it was the other way around. He pulled hard on the steering wheel and overcorrected, and then he was skidding sideways and an impressive-looking light pole was heading his way, and all he could do was think about how shitty his life was.

***

Xander woke up with a corpse half-draped over him. He shifted a little under the weight and the corpse clutched at him and mumbled a sleepy complaint. Xander patted the corpse’s firm and very shapely ass. “Lemme up. Gotta piss.” Grumbling, the corpse shifted over enough that Xander could get up.

After Xander emptied his bladder, he washed his hands and headed back into the bedroom of his suite at the Hyperion. But now Spike was reclining on his side, looking up at Xander expectantly. “’S early, pet. Come back to bed.”

Xander glanced at the bedside clock. One p.m. Well, that was early for this household, which kept vampire hours. But that dream had unsettled him, and he didn’t feel sleepy. “I’m gonna get up. I’m hungry.”

Spike looked at him incredulously. “You ate half a bloody cow less than eight hours ago. You can’t possibly be hungry again.”

“One, it was just a steak. A really big steak, but still just a steak.” He remembered the taste of the raw meat, the feel of the flesh ripping under his teeth, and he licked his lips. “And two, it’s a full moon. I get…peckish.”

Spike smiled lewdly at him. “Come over here and I’ll give you some lovely meat to put in your mouth, boy.”

“I thought you were tired.”

“I have my priorities.”

Xander spent a moment thinking about his options. He really was kind of hungry, and he was pretty sure there was some leftover pizza in the fridge. But eventually the gorgeous vampire with the already-hardening cock won out, and Xander leapt back onto the mattress.

Xander wasn’t sure what was responsible for his libido, which had exceeded the previous records set during his teenaged years. Maybe it was part of the werewolf package. He did always feel extra frisky when it was his time of the month. Or maybe it was because he got to spend his days and nights with the world’s sexiest vampire, a vampire who could make an erotic show out of washing dishes. Maybe it was the dangerous life they led. Whenever they returned mostly in one piece from the latest almost-getting-chomped-by-a-demon episode, their continuing existence on the planet was cause for celebration. Maybe there was something in the air—Angel and Kyna seemed to spend a lot of time getting groiny, too, although in Angel’s case he was probably making up for a century of celibacy. Xander guessed the cause of his increased sex drive wasn’t really important, because really, what on earth was there to complain about in having mind-blowing sex once or twice or three times every day?

There was certainly no complaining now, as Xander and Spike lay face to thigh on the bed, each of them stroking the other’s cock. Xander buried his nose in his alpha’s soft pubic hair, drawing the unique scent of him deeply into his lungs as if that might make Spike more a part of Xander than he was already. Xander licked along the crease where Spike’s upper leg joined his torso, and when Spike responded by bending that knee, further exposing himself, Xander licked again and then nibbled slightly on the skin of Spike’s inner thigh. Spike responded by taking one of Xander’s balls into his mouth and sucking gently on it.

Xander moistened his index finger with the shining liquid that was beading on Spike’s cock. He placed the finger atop the soft, wrinkled flesh of Spike’s sphincter and traced around the edge of it, wondering slightly at how something so small could give them both so much pleasure. But Xander didn’t really have the cognitive ability to ponder things too deeply at the moment, not when Spike was wiggling his ass in an appreciative manner and, almost simultaneously, swallowing Xander’s cock to the root.

“Oh god,” Xander groaned into the hollow of Spike’s hip. Spike wiggled again. So Xander once more used Spike’s precome to dampen his fingertip and then he inserted that finger into Spike’s tight, clenching hole. At the same time—because, hey! he could multitask—he took the head of Spike’s cock in his mouth and allowed his teeth to press very gently against the sensitive bit just between the retracted foreskin and the crown. Spike sucked on Xander and moved his hands around so each palm was cupping one of Xander’s ass-cheeks, kneading the muscles, drawing him impossibly deeper down Spike’s throat.

Xander wasn’t going to last long like this, not when he was at the mercy of Spike’s talented throat. So he pushed his finger a bit further inside and found the little nub of tissue. Spike’s hips jerked, the muscles of his thighs quivered, and he made a choked howling sound as he spilled himself into Xander’s mouth. A moment later, bright lights sparkled behind Xander’s closed eyelid and he, too, was climaxing.

The two of them spent several minutes floating on their happy post-orgasmic clouds, trying to catch their breaths and, in Xander’s case, get his heart rate down into its more normal range. Eventually, Xander kissed the shaft of Spike’s flaccid cock. He liked Spike’s cock when it was soft and sweet like that, but of course if he started playing with it, it never stayed that way for long. He rolled off the bed and stretched. “I’m gonna go slap some paint in 219,” he announced.

Spike groaned. “Come back to bed, love. The painting can wait.”

“Yeah, but I want to finish it while there’s still daylight. Get your beauty sleep. I’ll come get you when I’m finished and maybe we can head up to the park tonight.”

“Fancy a hunt, pet?”

“Maybe. We haven’t sunk our teeth into anything good for a while. Except each other.”

Spike yawned. “Fine. Wake me when you’re ready.”

“Will do, Mr. Unlife of Leisure.”

Spike pulled the blankets over himself and rolled onto his belly. Xander couldn’t resist the urge to kiss him, just once, right at the crook of his neck. Then Xander threw on his most paint-friendly clothing—including his orange Spongebob shirt, which Spike had “accidentally” used to wipe up some wayward caulk—and he left the suite, shutting the door gently behind him.

He walked down the steps quietly. The elevators hadn’t worked right since Wolfram & Hart had tried to blow up the hotel, and repairing them properly was a little beyond Xander’s skill-set. They’d been talking about hiring someone, but there was really no hurry. Two vampires, a Slayer, and a werewolf could manage just fine with stairs.

Xander had been converting several of the smallish rooms on the second floor into larger suites. It kept him busy, he enjoyed it, and it made sense, because they seemed to have a fairly constant stream of visitors. Willow and Gemma had stayed for over a week the previous month. They’d been in the States to pick up some spell ingredients that were hard to find in England, but also because Gemma had never been to the U.S. and Willow wanted to play tour guide. Xander had liked Gem very much, and Spike had warmed up to her quickly as well. She had a clever, slightly naughty sense of humor and she knew the lyrics to everything The Clash had ever sung. She and Will looked really happy together. Not long after the witches left, Kyna’s parents arrived. They knew she was a Slayer and didn’t seem to mind that, but they were more than ready to disapprove of her vampire boyfriend. Spike had been endlessly amused by the major case of nerves Angel was suffering when they arrived. But Angel somehow managed to pull out his rusty brogue and his antique Old Country manners, and they’d been won over, especially when he started telling them tales of life in Galway, circa 1750. They’d figured out that Angel was some sort of distant cousin on Kyna’s mother’s side, and that sealed the deal.

Room 219 was just as he’d left it: walls freshly drywalled and taped and sanded, all ready for the pale green paint. It wasn’t his color choice, but rather Kyna’s. They each got to decorate a suite. Kyna’s was going to be sort of Laura Ashley-esque. Ugh, but that’s what the lady wanted. Angel was going for a spare, 1950s modern vibe. Spike’s choices were slightly goth, with a lot of black and red, but not too overdone. Xander was thinking he’d decorate his suite in Mission style, which would give him the chance to try his hand at furniture making.

As Xander rolled the paint onto the walls, he thought about the dream he’d had that morning. It had been unsettlingly vivid. He could taste that Ultimate Burrito and the beer chasers, feel the wheels of the car sliding underneath him. What the hell was his subconscious trying to tell him? Not to drink and drive? He’d figured that one out when he was about six, holding on to the upholstery in their Pontiac for dear life as Tony careened around corners and swerved all over the road. Maybe that was it—the dream was some sort of Oedipal thing. But Xander didn’t think he had unresolved conflicts concerning his parents. He hardly ever thought of them at all, and when he did, he was emotionally blank. He’d long since figured out who his real family was.

He had the room almost three-quarters done when he heard Spike approach. The vampire stood silently in the doorway, just watching. “Thought you were going to sleep in,” Xander said without turning around.

“Did for a time. Decided I didn’t want to miss the chance to watch you work.”

“You could pick up a brush and help out. The sun’s not shining into the room much now.”

Spike snorted. “’M a vampire, love, not a handyman.”

“Demons can’t do home improvement work?”

“No. It’s in our contract.”

Xander scratched at his cheek, probably leaving a stripe of green. “Man, us werewolves have gotta get us a better union.”

Chapter Two