Chapter 6

They looked at each other for a long time, small, frozen snow figures, until Giles suddenly shuddered - not a shiver, but a deep, body-raking, bone-wrenching, shudder. His teeth slammed together, and then shot apart. He opened his eyes wide and became aware, for the first time since leaving the house, of sodden clothes, snow in underpants and human frailty. He saw bronchitis, flu and death, only a sneeze away and tried to move. He was so cold and so tired that he could hardly move at all, the snow now piling up into deep mantraps.

Spike shook his head and hefted the human effortlessly over his shoulder. He began to stride toward the house. 'Please, put me down. This is undignified.'

'Yeah. Like stickin' yer cock in me arse ain't, I suppose? Shut up, poof.'

Spike carried Giles all the way up to the bedroom, but by the time they got there, they were laughing so much he had to drop him in a heap by the fire. Winded slightly, Giles winced, and Spike fell to his knees, clutching his head. Giles grimaced but gave the vampire some privacy by beginning to strip out of his soaking clothes.

It was almost tropical in the room. Giles stretched to the heat and began to feel he'd cheated death.

He felt naked arms slip around his waist and something hard press into his backside.

'You need warmth, Human, just like I do. Everything needs to be warm. Don't stay 'ere, Luv. You'll… catch a cold or summat; I'll worry.'

His fake concern for human illness made them both chuckle. Spike turned him by the shoulders. Both naked, they stood toe to toe in front of the fire. Giles glanced down. Spike nodded. 'Yeah. I want you again. I wanna do it slow, this time. It was so new, so quick, last time - couldn't take it all in.'

Giles blinked slowly and sank to his knees on the old fireside rug. 'Here. So we can both feel the warmth.'

Spike lowered gracefully to his knees and captured Giles' face, running his hands around on the warming skin, diving to his mouth, opening him up, probing with his tongue. Giles moaned softly at the feel of Spike's erection as it left a cool trail of pre-cum on his belly where it swayed between them. He reached down, unseeing and caught it in one hand, just brushing the pad of his thumb over the soaking tip. He brought his thumb up and pressed it to Spike's lips, then his own, and they kissed again on the shared taste.

Giles sat back on his heels and glanced shyly up at Spike. 'Can I… explore a little?'

Spike actually appeared to blush, but Giles allowed that it could have been the amber light from the fire warming the preternatural flesh.

He slipped a hand between Spike's legs and hefted his balls in one palm. He used both hands to probe them slightly then stretched them up and watched the wrinkled skin smooth. Spike bent double and put his forehead to the floor for a moment. 'Bloody hell.'

'Sit up again? Please?'

Spike did and watched with flattered amusement as Giles took his erection tentatively in his hand. The human took a deep breath then bent and, even more hesitantly, touched the tip of his tongue to the bubbling precum - as if testing particularly hot soup from a spoon.

Again, Spike murmured, 'Bloody hell,' but, this time, leant back on his arms; the position was favourable for explorations, and he knew it. Emboldened by the taste of the salty cool fluid, attracted by the almost edible look of the smooth red cockhead, Giles licked experimentally across the whole tip. He was rewarded by a new surge of precum, and he lingered over its source, probing and nuzzling into the tiny slit. Spike began to moan and pushed him away gently. 'I wanna be in you when I come. Enough already.'

'Just look then?'

'Bloody hell. Bit embarrassing?'

Giles ignored him and softly lifted the erection even further so he could see its underside; then he began to ease the foreskin up, as if wanting to see that, too. Spike chuckled and held his hand still. 'Lie down now, Watcher. Watching's over.'

He went to the bed and retrieved the oil. He stood over Giles, oiling his erection up and down languidly. Lying on his back under him, Giles felt his anus begin to throb. He smiled. 'It's now confirmed: this is a spell. Snow on Christmas Day, and I'm throbbing in anticipation in places that can't physically do that.'

Once more, Spike was all grace, all fluid movement, as he sank to his knees between Giles' legs. He slid his oiled hands down the warm thighs and cupped them under Giles' knees, easing them off the floor, pushing them up and over, spreading the human wide.

Giles made a faint sound he meant as encouragement but that sounded, even to him, more like fear. Spike blinked slowly. 'Don't be scared, Pet. I'll get you ready.' Using one arm to hold the thighs back, Spike used his other to spread oil all around Giles' perineum and anus. When all was glistening, he used a finger to ease more oil into him. The penetration was so minute that Giles hardly felt it at all. Before he could protest, Spike pulled his finger out and began deep, oily palm rubs over his whole groin covering his flaccid penis, stiff wiry curls and soft, wobbly sac. It felt so good; Giles spread his arms to the delightful sensations. As soon as Spike sensed this relaxation, the finger was replaced; all was now soft, warm and ready. He played some more, easing oil in and out, in and out, until two fingers were as easy to push in as one.

Giles thought nothing could feel more erotic until Spike tipped the bottle, took a mouthful and bent. He placed his lips to the glistening hole and probed in with his tongue. When Giles parted to the insistent push, Spike tongued the oil into him. Giles tensed with automatic distaste, but Spike suddenly seemed to lose his cool, almost professional, control. He groaned; he grabbed Giles' thighs tighter and pushed his tongue frantically into him. He lifted the hapless human off the ground, eating into him with desperate fury. He touched Giles' sensitive spot with his tongue, and sharp jolts of pleasure made Giles cry out.

Once more, all control left them both. Spike took his penis in his hand and tried to push it into Giles. Giles tried to pull his legs higher and lower himself more toward Spike at the same time, desperate now for the penetration. Then Spike was in. He began to slide in and out. Giles couldn't hold his legs up, and they fell heavily to the floor. Spike put a hand to either side of Giles and braced himself as if doing push-ups, and then their eyes met. Giles panted out as best he could, 'Slow. Please, slow, so I'll remember.' With deep sadness in his eyes at the import of this ragged request, Spike nodded.

He dipped at the waist, and his penis eased in slowly. He braced his arms and slid out. It was so slow, so delicate. Every tiny ridge or vein on Spike's erection stimulated the fragile nerve endings around Giles' rectum. It began to throb deeply. He let his knees just fall open to the side, completely entranced by the sensation, and then Spike hit that exquisite place once again. Spike saw it in the human's face. Giles tipped his head back with a deep, grateful sigh and began to whisper, 'Oh, yess. Oh, yess,' over and over again each time the slow, deep thrusts worked him. His penis rose to the stimulation. His balls began their pre-orgasmic tightening. Spike slowed even more.

It was something Giles had never experienced: someone else controlling the timing of his orgasm, someone else dictating the pace. This simple thought, flitting across a brain almost devoid of other thought, made him open his eyes in wonder to the man braced above him. He looked at the strong, muscled arms. He looked at the tendons standing proud on a graceful neck. He looked at the flat, broad chest and dark flush of nipples, and he realised fully, for the first time, that Spike was a man. He separated the personality from the body. Another man was entering him; another man was bringing him to orgasm. It was almost too entirely out of character for him to contemplate. It only increased his sense of being trapped in some kind of spell: he was making love with another man.

Love. Giles' non-functioning brain continued to function. Love. This - this slow penetration, this joining of bodies, this eye contact, this soft murmuring, this pleasure - was nothing less than love.

So, Giles was thinking about love when Spike's slow movements began to speed up. He was thinking about love when the vampire started soft grunting. He was thinking about love when Spike swore loudly and shook against him, as if powerful currents sparked through his body. Cold fluid in his rectum made him think of love as well, but he thought about it most when Spike, having come to his own long, shuddering climax, bent to him and took his hardening penis in his mouth.

Giles entwined his fingers into Spike's long, mussed hair and held on as the vampire took him neatly to the back of his throat. When his hot tip grazed down the long, cool throat, Giles realised that his thoughts had moved on from love: he was hearing the jingle of a shop bell in his head and the swelling music of opening credits. As he pumped a long string of warm sperm into Spike's willing mouth, Giles was thinking that he wanted to be part of the show again.

Spike swallowed and eased himself up Giles' body until he lay on him completely. He cupped Giles chin and gently squeezed his cheeks. As the soft mouth opened, a cooler one came to it, and fluid passed between them. Spike tongued Giles' sperm back to him as he had earlier tongued the oil: so many subtle flavours, so much stimulation and so many thoughts.

Giles felt himself drifting away: intense physical activity all evening, the warmth, and his orgasm all united to send him into a deep, almost coma-like sleep. The last thing he remembered was the feel of Spike on top of him: hard, flat chest to hard, flat chest, swollen nipple to swollen nipple and flaccid cock to flaccid cock. His last conscious thought was that all this should anchor him to some important decision he had just made, the one that had come to him on that blissful climax.

When Giles woke later, Spike was no longer lying on top of him, and Giles could not remember what it was he knew he had to remember. It was all a blur.

He heard Spike moving around near the bed and turned his head. The vampire was fully dressed. When he sensed Giles was awake, he came over and straddled the naked body. He put a hand carefully on each side of Giles and leant down an inch from his face. A pair of stunningly intense eyes fixed him. 'Are you going to pack?' The voice was so soft that, even from this distance, Giles read the lips more than heard the words.

He held Spike's gaze for a long time, and the vampire had his answer. Slowly, Spike laid his forehead onto Giles'. He cupped a hand to the back of the human's neck and tipped him up for a long kiss. Giles felt the vampire nod fractionally into the kiss. He sat up straight and looked once more at body beneath him. 'I have to go now. It's a few hours until daybreak, and then I'll hole up somewhere.'

His tone was soft and sad, almost wistful, but as he made to get off Giles, he sank back down again and whispered, 'You'll regret this all your life if you don't come back with me.'

Giles reared up and caught Spike's face. 'You'll have endless lifetimes to regret this, Spike, if you don't stay!'

Spike shook his head, dislodging Giles' hands. With only one sharp, unreadable glance back over his shoulder, Spike swirled out of the dark room.

***************************

Giles lost the next three days just as effectively as if he had, yet again, drunk them away. Not a drop of alcohol passed his lips, however. He did vomit a few times but, again, this had nothing to do with alcohol.

He had listened to Spike running down the stairs, had heard the door open and close. Only when the cottage fell silent, only when the creaking, shifting and settling that always occurred were all there was to be heard, did he remember that he had considered returning to Sunnydale: that during that intense, loving climax, he had intended to tell Spike that he would return.

He flung himself up from the fireplace; he tore down the stairs; he raced out into the cold, starlit, snowy wilderness, and he caught hold of the vampire and stopped him leaving with an impassioned declaration of love - that's what he'd done in his imagination and his heart, anyway. In reality, in his rational life, he got up, took a very long bath, went back to bed and misplaced three days, grieving for a lost chance: something undefined, nearly taken, but utterly impossible.

On the fourth day, still ill, still grieving, a letter arrived. He was too confused at the speed of its arrival to open it at first, until he saw the postmark: Heathrow. Spike had posted it on the twenty-seventh, apparently whilst waiting for a plane. Giles ripped it open.

Rupert,
I'm a stupid pillock. I know it. What the fuck am I doing here when I could be there? I was gonna stay - just at the end there, when I was in you, I realised it was the only real warmth I need. But, shit, unless this is a spell or something - and I don't think that it is - then it just can't be the Giles and Spike show, can it? You know that too, don't you? Or am I totally fucking insane here? Can you really see us living out your life all cosy together in that cottage? Cus make no mistake, that's what would happen: there'd be no fun little Giles-induced Hellmouth. I'd probably turn into a sort of undead version of me before I got turned, and believe me, you wouldn't want that.
So, tell me I did the right thing. And yes, take that as a hint for a letter, if you want.
More than a hint then.
I had a bloody awful trip here, before you ask, and I'm anticipating a bloody awful one back. An' you know? I've not seen one sodding demon since I've been here - England that is, not Heathrow, cus this is a right funny place and even I can't tell here. So, anyway, that makes me feel somewhat better, yeah? No little demons for Spike to go out and play with. You wouldn't want that for me, would you?
Oh, fuck it. I do know I'd rather be there than here.
Me