CHANGE OF SPACE

8 By Annie

Summary: Lex and Spike - together again Rated: R Disclaimer: Told ya, not mine Feedback: crehnert@ptd.net



I thought Smallville was weird. The meteorite freaks had never given me an eyeful like the one I'd had tonight. I knew, somehow, I had witnessed the salvation of the entire world, possibly more worlds than ours. The only problem was the price - one Slayer. The problem was more Spike's than mine, but it had become mine by default.

I had to practically drag him to my room, trying to avoid being seen as much as possible. Here, like in Smallville, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I managed to get us into the room, securely locking the door. I was hesitant to put Spike in the bed just yet, although my anxious libido was screaming for me to do so. I could see he needed other attention first, and opted for the long couch. Obtaining the only hotel suite in Sunnydale had just come in handy. Spike resisted a bit, as I pushed him down onto one of the little corner pillows, but I was gently insistent, and he finally gave in, resting back against the pillow, eyes closed against the soft light in the room seeing, I knew, the fallen Slayer, replaying over and over in his head.

He needed some medical attention, not that any of those bleeding wounds would kill him, since he was already, technically, dead, but I couldn't bear to see him like that, bloodied and crushed, holding the anguish inside with obvious heart-rending effort. I went to the bathroom quickly and started the shower running, just hot enough to warm the room with steam. I headed for the bar next, pouring a generous amount of 12- year-old scotch into a tall glass, smooth balm to the pain I knew he felt inside.

I stood over him on the couch, and just took him in. This was strange, this feeling of wanting to help. I wondered briefly if I would be able to take him in this condition, he seemed so much more vulnerable than he had before, but that thought was banished quickly as he opened his eyes and bolted into an upright position, capturing the glass in my hand in a swift fluid motion that both surprised and, inexplicably, terrified me.

He threw his head back and downed half the scotch at once, then looked up at me, glaring. "Why are you still here?" he demanded roughly. "I thought I threw you out."

"You did. I came back. We have unfinished business." I replied matter- of-factly.

He raised the glass. "This is our only business," he told me, and proceeded to empty the glass totally. "And now it's finished." He stood as if to go, but he swayed slightly on his feet, and I could see the blinding pain on his face as the sight passed across his memory again.

"You need help, Spike. You need.."

He moved closer to me, threateningly, and even though I knew he still had that chip, I was afraid. More than being afraid, I wanted him. Badly.

"We did need help. We don't need it anymore, and especially from you. Or your cronies down on the farm."

He almost stumbled over to the bar, abandoning the glass in favor of the bottle itself, taking another healthy swig. At this rate, he'd never even make it out the door, whatever his intentions were.

"All you had to do was ask," I said. "You wouldn't tell me anything."

He picked up a small vase from a shelf on the wall behind the bar. He stared at it hatefully, and the thing suddenly shattered in his hand, opening more wounds, letting precious blood he needed flow from him. I flinched inwardly, feeling the pain he was obviously too far gone to feel himself.

"You couldn't help. She was the only one who could..I tried, dammit. I try and try and Nothing. Ever. Helps.." He picked up the bar stool and flung it angrily across the room, sending it crashing into a large decorative mirror. The check-out bill was racking up unbidden in the back of my mind. "Nothing ever works.!" The other stool flew now, careening across the room to land on top of the glass coffee table, smashing it into smithereens.

"Why are you still here?" he shouted at me, taking another drink, stalking toward me dangerously. "I don't want you here. I don't want you anywhere."

"We can talk about it later," I remarked. "You need to get cleaned up, get some rest. Tomorrow, we'll go wherever you need to go, finish things up here, pay off any debts you might need cleared up, and then we'll leave. There's nothing for you here." I think I was babbling at that point, but his coming even closer to me was so terrifying, and yet made my blood sing with the need for him. I wanted, insanely, to reach up and tear my own throat open for him to drink, wanted him to stop hurting, stop being angry. Wanted him to forget about her. I wanted him in me, teeth and cock, and I stood my ground against the burning anguish I could see in front of me.

"I don't want to be clean," he said, very quietly. "I don't want to be gone. I don't even want to exist. I don't want to go with you. And I don't want to fuck you, Lex, no matter how much I see it in your eyes." Another drink to punctuate his statements. "No, don't want to fuck you. Want to kill you.just.can't." He broke, I could see it in the pain on his face. "Can't kill you, can't kill some old man who only has a bloody little knife, can't do anything. I'm just worthless Spike, the hired help who doesn't get paid or laid. What do I get?"

He took another deep drink, and by now the bottle was almost empty. He was beginning to sway on his feet, and I wasn't sure if it was the scotch or the agony doing it to him. He answered his own question. "I get fucked, and not the nice way either. I get to be alone. I get to drink this really good scotch, and I think I may get to be unconscious for the rest of forever if I can drink enough. How many more of these do you have? Because I don't ever want to wake up again."

It was the agony, no question, because he started to crumble before my eyes, and I knew he wasn't drunk enough to do that just yet. I leaned in and put my arm around his waist, steering his bleary self toward the bathroom and the warmth there. He was so cold. (So dead, I had to keep reminding myself, thinking I must be losing my mind to be in a situation like this. And not making any money off of it.)

I leaned him against the steam-damp wall of the bathroom, and he stayed there unsteadily while I undressed him. I did it slowly, I had to because my hands were shaking so badly with the hunger. I was surprised at the trembling; that was something I usually only had to hide when Clark came around, with his honed body and his fuck-me mouth. Spike resisted when I tried to take the bottle from him so I could remove his coat and shirt, but then he just drained it and threw it into a corner of the bathroom, thankfully away from the shower, where he would soon be walking barefooted. I eased the clothes from him, marveling at the cold marble feel of him, aching to press myself against him and let him steal all my warmth. I touched him softly, everywhere, and he was almost oblivious to my hands, he was in such a hurtful state of mind. He was beautifully put together, and I had a raging hard-on by the time he was naked. Of course, the only way to get him into the shower would be to get in there with him, so I stripped myself a bit more quickly than I had him, regretting the fact that he never even cracked his eyes open to look at me.

"Come on, Spike," I urged him, steering him toward the big tub and through the open shower doors into the hot stream of water. Bless hotels, and their seemingly endless hot water supply.

He looked at me then, opening his eyes as the hot stream hit him squarely on the back. "What?" he sneered. "Think you're going to seduce me in the shower, all naked and horny? I don't give a bloody damn if your cock turns to stone, Luthor. What did you do with that bottle?"

I pushed him a little further back into the cascading water, firmly, trying not to let my eyes linger on the heavy cock right in front of my stomach. It took all my considerable willpower not to just reach down and hold onto him, but I was afraid I'd end up with my head through the wall, chip or no chip. I took hold of his shoulders and turned him around gently. He sighed, throwing his head back and letting the soothing heat pound on his cool skin, warming him slowly. I moved a bit closer to his back, carefully. He needed to relax a bit first, try to come down from the furious grief reigning inside.

He just stood there, like he was trying to drown himself, and I picked up the bar of soap and reached around him cautiously, lathering him slowly, across his chest and around to his back, which I could see at this close inspection still bore the marks of whatever it was the Hellgod had put him through. He hadn't moved a muscle since I started, and I put the soap back on its' little shelf. There was enough now to spread around with just my hands, and I went back to work on his back, closing my eyes so I could just feel the touch of my skin on his. I ran my hands up and down, kneaded firmly against the tense muscles I found in his shoulders and the back of his neck. He remained rigid, and my impatience and need were becoming too much for me to control. I smoothed my hands slowly from the small of his back, around the fine muscle of his waist and abdomen, pulling myself in closer to him so I could reach down, splay the fingers of one hand down across his stomach and into the wet nest of curls there.

I leaned up to speak softly in his ear, ignoring the flood of water coming down around us. "Come home with me, Spike. You know what I can do for you."

Without warning, he whirled around and I found myself slammed up against the wall, his fingers deep in my throat. He let go an instant later, grabbing his head in agony. He opened the shower door and stumbled out, dripping water, uncaring. I got out too, and ran over to stop him before he could get out of the room.

"Was it worth it?" I asked. "You told me the pain is blinding. I know you're in pain, Spike, and if you come with me it'll all be over. You can feed whenever you want, you can get that chip out. No more pain, Spike. All you have to do is drink. I'm right here."

He knew he couldn't push me out of the way without risking another stab of pain, and he snarled in frustration. If I couldn't use his need, then I'd use his anger. Any means necessary; the Luthor way.

I pushed him further into the room, my hand almost skirting off his slick chest. "What's the matter, Spike? Lost a fight with an old man, did you? Lost your favorite toy? Got beat up for nothing? Need a drink?"

"Luthor. I'm warning you," he started, but I wouldn't let him finish. If the chip wouldn't allow him to beat me to a pulp, then he would have to take his frustration out on me the only other way left to him. And he knew the chip wouldn't go off then, because I was the one who wanted it.

"What are you going to do? Beat me up? Steal my scotch?" I pushed him again, and he was almost across to the other wall now and would have nowhere to go. "Yea. You're bad all right.."

I didn't even have the sentence out when he rushed me with an enraged roar and pinned me to the wall near the door, face buried in my still-damp neck. The weight against me was intoxicating, the feel of the shower-slick skin brushing mine. I could sense the change as he turned to vamp face and before I could even react his teeth had invaded my tender skin savagely. I moaned and almost came right then, but he pulled away suddenly, tearing tiny pieces of flesh. He looked into my face and I thought he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

He was infuriated, lost and heartbroken. He wanted to take it out of my flesh one heartrending second at a time, and I was perfectly willing to let him.

"Drink, touch me, whatever, do something," I urged him anxiously. He growled again, deep in his dead throat, and the sound thrilled me, sent a jolt of fire to my groin and made my cock jump pleadingly.

"I'll drink you. I'll touch you," he replied threateningly. He leaned in again, gripping my shoulders almost painfully, and I tensed for another attack on my throat, but he headed downward instead. He bit around my collarbone, hard, sucking the blood that seeped out. I thought I would go flat out insane any minute. His head moved minutely, and he sank his teeth into the skin halfway from collarbone to nipple. Sucking again, flashes of heat going to my brain and my weeping cock. He's going to kill me anyway, I thought, murder me with pleasure and he won't even get a slight headache while he does it because I am so into it I might just explode. Even then, I wouldn't have been able to stop him. It was pure addiction, I was spellbound by a vampire and I would have willingly cut off an arm to give him a steady flow of hot blood.

He bit my nipple and I muffled a scream and closed my hand around my cock without even thinking about it. My other hand was buried in his damp hair and I pushed his face harder against my chest, silently begging him to take every drop, bite every inch. Below the nipple now, inching his way down toward where my hand was beating my cock rhythmically, mindlessly, totally driven now by the feel of the teeth invading my flesh, pulling the life blood from the wounds he left behind. He was hard, too, I could tell when the cool tip of steel brushed against my leg. His hands had somehow ended up behind me, holding onto my ass tightly, keeping me as close to him as possible. His fingers were digging into the muscle, sending even more bursts of pleasure to my groin, although I don't think that was what he intended.

Spike had reached my abdomen now, tracking his way down, leaving a trail of small bloody holes behind to mark his progress. I moaned as he bypassed my cock, which I was still pounding, mercilessly now, and buried his face on the inside of my thigh. I could feel him there, inhaling deeply, something I knew he didn't need to do. He was smelling the artery there, in my thigh. I moaned in frustrated anticipation as he pulled my hips forward. He licked the hot pulse lightly, just once, then buried his fangs into my thigh, sucking greedily.

I couldn't hold it anymore, didn't even want to, and I came screaming all over the bathroom floor while the vampire drained the blood from me.

The vampire came, as well, stifling a hurtful moan against my skin, cool fingers digging into my hips painfully to pull me even closer.

He moved away suddenly, and stood, backing away to the other side of the room.

"No," he said, as if to himself. "This isn't it. This isn't what's going to be. I'm bloody well out of here." He brushed past me, collecting his clothes on the way, and I was too weak to stop him, leaning against the wall and trying to catch my breath, calm my pounding heart. Wondering how much blood I had lost this time. Trying to figure out, already, how much I could lose without dying.

I finally peeled myself away from the wall and walked slowly into the other room, where Spike was in the process of donning his leather duster. He walked around behind the bar and checked out the supply, gathering a few bottles that he obviously intended to take along with him.

"Spike, come to Kansas."

"Never happen, Luthor." He told me determinedly. "Don't ever come back here. This will never happen again."

He was heading for the door, and I knew he wouldn't ever come back if he left right now. "What's here for you? I can give you so much. You have no idea."

He paused, a hand on the doorknob, and his head drooped slightly, I could feel the waves of grief returning in spades. "I can't go. I promised."

I opened my mouth to continue my argument, but then I looked into his eyes and knew I had come up against something that could even defeat the Luthor powers of persuasion. And although they were nothing remotely alike, something about the resolve, the steadfastness in his face, reminded me of Clark. Chalk up a defeat for Lex Luthor. I knew it was a lost cause, and I steeled myself against a sense of loss I would not allow myself to feel.

"If you change your mind, you know where to find me." I told him evenly. "The 'position' will stay open...but not forever."

He turned to look at me again, then, some strange glint of amusement in his eyes. "If you ever find out what's on that museum tape, let me know. It's been bloody real, Lex."

With that, he went out the door. And out of my life. I ground my molars in frustration. Already I wanted more of him, and I began to question how I would be able to just go back to Smallville and forget.