Disclaimers: But I treat them so *well*...

Spoilers: None

Summary: Promises.

Ratings Note: Say an R.

Author's Note: Rae and Iain both told me beautiful things about the
weather in Chicago the other day... This happened. Sequel to the
Post-Grads, a few weeks later. I recommend reading those first, but
I don't think it's strictly necessary.

Acknowlegments: To Spike and Dawn Sharon for fine audiencing, and to
Rae, of course, because it's her birthday and I love her.

*

These days, sometimes Xander forgets to be uncomfortable. He's not
sure when he noticed the heat wave, only remembers that it was two
nights ago when he came to himself to the shiver and shiver of Spike
lapping the sweat from his chest, his face...

Crouched over him impossibly but still in human form. More disturbing
for that fact, definitely. When Xander moved under him Spike would
obligingly shift to whatever part was now best offered to him.

All this done in silence, so that Xander remembers the slow, jumping
shudder at the sound of a helicopter passing overhead. It was a hot
sound, and suddenly Xander could see how it would look, shimmering a
little in the last hazy light of day.

Chopping the air to damp, warm slices that would fall from the sky and
land heavily on the bodies of those people who did not have their very
own Spike-shaped air conditioner.

He'd smiled at the thought and brought his hands up to slide through
the ragged spikes of his lover's hair, pushing it back into a clumsy,
sweaty approximation of slick.

"You're here with me now..." Neither question nor statement. More an
acknowledgment of... something. Xander had wanted to ask what it meant
but by then his cut-offs had been sliding down off his hips and God but
it was so damned good.

Down here on the floor, writhing, giving away every heated dream,
wish, moan...

And so he'd only said "yes," and promised himself vaguely to go into
the sun when next he had the opportunity -- if only to melt himself
back down into something Spike could reform with chill hands and
tongue.

And he almost made it today, the weight of sleep a paradoxical goad
to wake up and face *something*. Spike at his side, flung loosely as
a human. Xander had placed his lips against the pale, narrow chest
and waited for two slow, slow beats before rising.

Cut-off sweatpants and a t-shirt, straight to the roof and the wind --
right off the lake -- had done its damnedest to blow him right back
inside.

The sun was already gone, a memory greying the air. The sky itself was
a bruised thing, colors that made him think of the random facts and
speculations about nuclear war that had made it down to his ears as
a child -- through Willow, of course.

Sometimes he wondered if the terror that made her cling to him damp
and sweet in a fort's summer darkness was the same force that drove
her into witchcraft.

In his mind he could always see her reaching out into the nothing and
trying so hard to *twist* it right.

Xander walked out to the center of the roof and raised his arms a
little, let his head fall back, let the wind swirl his and Spike's
scents around him and into the air.

Breathed in rain so sharp and clear that when the first drops finally
came they weren't even a surprise.

And then closed his eyes, stood there, and waited. Told himself not to
be disappointed if he found himself soaked before --

And didn't have time to finish the thought before water fell on him in
a knee-buckling *wall*.

He stayed down for long moments, head bent to the surface of the
roof, edge a lot closer than he remembered. Chuckled to himself and
whispered "oops" around the streams of water running over him to
puddle around his knees.

Minutes pass and he's still down and the rain is still... falling.
Xander was being needled, pounded, drummed, yes, but none of those
words had anything remotely to do with the vast wash of water, a flat
solid *thing* reminiscent of the uncurved beginnings of a wave.

Xander grinned to himself and shook like a dog, once, only succeeding
in shaking the water further into his skin. Stood up slow and careful,
backed away from the edge and slowly, slowly, tilted his face back up
into the deluge.

Barely remembered not to gasp even as he wondered what it would be
like to drown standing straight up without even any monsters wrapped
around your ankles.

Spike would be *pissed*.

And then he can't help but laugh, snorting water and burning his
sinuses a little but laughing just the same.

Pictured Spike reaching down and down through Xander's wave to grab
him by the scruff of the neck and *yank*.

"I *said* one bloody month!"

He'd probably call him Alex, too.

Brief sobering and Xander wondered just how long he could make one
month last. Asked himself quietly what day it was and found himself
entirely, entirely free of a clue.

Spike would know, of course, but if Xander... If Xander asked him
to stop knowing that could be the end of it right there. The end
of absolutely everything and the rain showed no sign of stopping,
slowing, even easing a little.

A resolute fall, perfectly oblivious to one man on a rooftop.

And oh, God, could it be this easy?

Spike, he thought, I'm yours. Yours.

And when the arms came up around him and the leg hooked around his
own and the hard face slipped into the hollow between his neck and
shoulder he leaned into the touch with everything he was.

Resolute.

(end)

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