Title: Matching Tattoos
Author: Forsaken2003
Pairing: S/X
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own none, all belong to Joss Whedon
Comments: Always welcomed!
Summary: Spike and Xander decide to get matching tattoos.
Warnings/Spoilers: Season 5
Beta'd by: Unbeta'd

Prompt #484 from tamingthemuse- Ankh

Note: From now on most of my tamingthemuse stories will be named as the challenge.

Note 2: I have no idea if vampires can heal from tattoos but in my story they don't.

"How the hell did you convince me to do this?" Spike griped from where he sat. Which was in a tattoo parlor chair.

Xander was standing next to him a bandage wrapped around his right wrist where his tattoo was. "Because you liked the thought of us branded together."

"Exactly branded!" Spike exclaimed as he watched the tattoo artist put the stencil of an ankh on his left wrist. "If I had known you meant a tattoo I would have said no!"

"It's going to be fine. It hardly hurt," Xander reassured.

The tattoo artist watched as Spike wiggled uncomfortably in the chair. He'd seen this a hundred times. People wanted a tattoo but when it was actually time they wussed out. "Yo, is your boy going to be able to handle this? Once I start I ain't stopping."

"I can handle it!" Spike hissed but both Xander and the guy could tell he was a mess.

"Can you give us a minute?" Xander asked.

The artist grunted. "I'll be in the alley having a smoke. Make your he makes up his mind before I get back." He turned and stormed away.

"He's lucky I can't bloody bite him," Spike said glared at where the man disappeared. He could go for a smoke right about now.

Xander placed a hand on Spike's neck. "Babe, if you don't want to do this you don't have to."

"I want to, I just don't completely understand why you wanted this specifically considering it means eternal life. In case you forgot I'm not actually alive," Spike explained. "I may also have a slight fear of needles."

"One day I won't be actually alive either. I don't see it like that. I see it as us another way of us being bound together for eternity," Xander clarified. The rest of what Spike said entered his mind. "Wait you have a fear of needles? But you're a vampire with very sharp teeth that when you bite into someone it feels like you are being bit by big sharp needles."

Spike glared at Xander jealously clearly covered his face. "How would you know what it feels like to get bit by a bloody vampire?"

"I don't!" Xander saw that Spike didn't believe him. "I don't! One night Buffy and Willow were talking about the times they were bitten and that was how they both explained it."

Spike looked Xander's face over for his poker face. He didn't find it because Xander's poker face consisted of Xander sweating profusely which a nervous tick in this left eye. He smiled. The only teeth that would ever get to pierce Xander's flesh were his whenever he could get the damn chip out of his head. "Good."

"Do you want to leave?" Xander asked.

Spike looked at Xander and saw that he was trying to hide the disappointment if Spike did back out. The last thing he ever wanted to do was disappoint his boy. "No."

"Really?" Xander asked looking so happy.

"Really," Spike said. "Just do me a favor, yeah?"

Xander's head bobbed up and down. "Anything."

"Hold my hand while he does it?" Spike asked. He knew he probably looked and sounded pitiful.

A warm hand wrapped around a cold one. "Sure, as long as you don't mind me never letting go."

"I'd be pissed if you did," Spike confessed.

Five minutes later the tattoo artist came back.

Ten minutes later there were people fleeing from the streets when a loud howling noise came from a nearby building.

The End