Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

didn’t wanna find another reason why i stay alive, alive
thought that i could be alone in peace until the day i died, i died 
didn’t wanna find another reason why i stay alive, alive
i was just tryna have a good time 
then you crossed lines 
now you’re   i n s i d e 

Spike can blame the chill in the air for the color in his cheeks when he alludes to the consequences of his shameless enthusiasm the night before, and of course this feverish sickness must be contributing to it too. Even the way his heart throbs hard to hear his partner’s laughter might be explained away by it, just another flu symptom.

But the rare tone in the snake’s voice, almost fond, paired with the same vulgarity from the night before makes the wolf laugh too, not even bothering to continue to try to play it cool, and definitely not denying it. Especially not while he feels so warm, not just in his face but everywhere, that weird jitter of his heart again, briefly dizzy, eyes starfilled. All he can do is nudge the other boy, a press of his shoulder against the other one’s that isn’t sharp but isn’t quite gentle either, casual contact that speaks to their familiarity as two feral boys if anyone happens to be watching them, nothing more than that.

Spike can read his partner’s expression in response to his reasoning for coming home with him clearly, even just out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t call him out on it or continue to try to convince him that it’s a good reason, that it will be worth it for Vicious to stay with Spike for a while as opposed to whatever else he does at night, the important things to do alone that this wolf’s increased presence has inhibited for the past several days. Why should I care, Spike reminds himself, even as his heart pounds, that red thread pulls him toward the other. It’s too late for that, even if he can’t admit it to himself. He already does.

Feels crazy to invite him up, a wild dog indeed - especially to do it as casually as he does, with so much confidence. It doesn’t read as though he doesn’t care one way or the other what Vicious chooses, seems like he already knows, somehow, what he’ll do. The snake likes to be unpredictable, finds value in that, but he’s caught an illness. He can’t be successful all the time. And besides, it seems lately that there are ways the wolf knows him in an almost uncanny way, can see right through him, white-orchid heart.

Alright, Vicious says, follows Spike in, and his red wolf-heart leaps. The other boy won’t be able to see it, behind him on their way into the building, but he smiles anyway, one that takes him a few seconds to wipe from his face, clearing his throat. 

The lobby is nothing much to speak of, a small block of mailboxes set into one wall, a fake potted plant with a thin layer of dust in one corner, yellowish linoleum that’s starting to peel in places. The elevator is blocked by yellow tape that reads CAUTION in black in several different languages. “Third floor… Sorry, the elevator’s out,” pushing the access door next to the elevator open, leading to a concrete stairwell, chipped white paint on the walls, dim fluorescent lighting that flickers occasionally.

Starting up the stairs, glancing back over his shoulder at the other boy - doesn’t seem concerned exactly, but there’s something assessing in his gaze, as brief as it is before he faces front again. “So you’re really feeling sick, huh? Like… sore throat, fever? Are you dizzy? I think I have the same thing,” though instead of sounding upset about it, he sounds amused. For someone who calls his partner weird as often as he does, Spike certainly is being weird himself right now. A mad dog indeed. “I wonder where we caught it,” musing, rounding the corner at the top of the first long flight to start up the second. “I bet they spit in our food last night…”

The young snake seems unbothered by the stairs, hands dug in his pockets, hunched into his scarf like a cowl against the irritating chill he feels. He does, however, go to the lip of the elevator shaft, glancing up and down it curiously. If he threw someone – say, his partner – down it, it would probably not be a certain death, but it would be a good way to maim anyone who might come up after them. He’s always attentive to things like that. 

“Why?” Blank-faced and flippant at Spike’s inquiry of his symptoms, shaking his head. “You a doctor now? Damn, you’re ingratiating tonight.” 

He’s just being recalcitrant, not really annoyed, because at the suggestion their food had been tampered with, he shrugs one shoulder, replies with his version of humor, dark as it is: “Let’s go back there tomorrow and work them until someone confesses to it.”

At least it seems like humor, though his deep scowl suggests that if there were someone to blame for his illness, he’d be happy to torture them. As it is, Vicious knows that a virus is like any other animal; it just wants to survive, and survival is a victimless crime, or at least it is in his worldview. The last time he was here he’d sat cross-legged on Spike’s floor and paged through his library book from Earth about medicinal plants, glancing studiously over every page before he’d put it back. 

Did the young wolf sense something amiss in his room that day, an uneasy feeling or a different scent? Maybe. He would now, to be sure, the same way he knows the other one’s presence without being sure why.

“You know, for someone about to have the best congee of his life, you are being really ungrateful,” in response to Vicious giving Spike shit about asking for details of his illness, but it’s clear that the young wolf isn’t actually annoyed either, even if there is an edge fo his voice. These two beasts growl and snap at each other often with varying degrees of violence, sometimes play and sometimes not; this is somewhere in the middle.

As to the snake’s dark humor, Spike doesn’t respond except for a quiet, wry huff of a laugh. But there is a strange feeling in his blood anyway, a buzz under his skin, a little tug of that red thread, like even now Vicious can wind it around his fingers and pull. It won’t be long now. Soon they’ll be extracting confessions, working together, more nights than not.

The pair comes to the top of the second flight of stairs, but Spike doesn’t push the door open to exit the stairwell. Instead, he turns to face the other boy, expression unreadable, except for the look in his eyes - a wolf-hungry glow, bright and fevered but somehow still tender, warm. Space is endless and unknowable, so cold, but every star is impossibly hot.

“You’ve done a lot for me lately,” low-throated murmur, soft enough that it doesn’t even echo in the stairwell. The wolf steps forward, intends to guide the young snake back a step, angled so he’ll be backed up against the wall. “I’ve been so sick,” lifting a hand to place it at the center of the other boy’s chest, avoiding his broken rib. It might seem like he does it just to push him back more firmly, but it’s more to seek out his warmth, or the feel of his snake-heart. “You helped me feel better. Just like I asked you to.”

Unflinching, solemn-eyed young wolf, close, he doesn’t move for one breath, two - but then he smiles, the solemnity easing, even if there is still a strange weight to his tone, present even under the hoarseness that sounds worse now than it had earlier in the night. “I just want to return the favor. To be a useful animal.” The last, softer, but no less intense. Patting him on the shoulder, grin going lopsided, he turns away, opens up the door to exit the stairwell into the residential hallway. “C’mon, you snake.”

“Maybe you still haven’t learned what my gratitude looks like,” Vicious replies, languorous and a little rough-throated, though he allows himself to be guided, loose as a thread of incense-smoke on the air, smirking a little from the soft lilac cowl of his fine scarf. He doesn’t seem to mind having his back to the wall, doesn’t even take his hands from his pockets – the way his gray eyes briefly shift over Spike’s shoulder toward the stairwell makes it eminently clear what he’s thinking, though: fuck him, I’ll throw him down the stairs.

“But you’re a sucker for punishment, aren’t you, wolf.” Quiet intensity of his own, gliding after Spike through the open door like a breath at his nape. He can get so close so quietly it’s almost unsettling. But the day they’d reunited in that firefight after several weeks’ estrangement, his sudden nearness, sensed before it was actually felt, had been a blessing, and it wouldn’t be the last time. 

“...Do you like pain?” Maybe it’s humor, maybe it’s a real question, asked so casually at the door to Spike’s place, his shrewd snake-eyes watching what key does what, not that it mattered to him before.

It’s only lately that Spike has realized the ways Vicious is always, always looking for opportunity in his surroundings, for ways to have an advantage, for escape. Not that the wolf isn’t aware of these things to some degree as well, skilled at improvisation in whatever environment he finds himself in, but the snake is calculating, focused in a way Spike isn’t. It’s something he has started to take more note of recently, an influence of the other one.

When it comes to learning his partner’s gratitude, Spike doesn’t weigh in one way or the other - tempted to remind the other boy again that he’s thick, but he doesn’t say it, doesn’t have to. The quality of his smile changes though, quirks crookedly as he glances away briefly, shrugging a little. Maybe.

Spike had felt less of that hot confusion he’s only felt around the other boy tonight, maybe in part because they’ve had to behave (at least in ways) in front of their boss and in public, and maybe because he’s in his own living space, someplace familiar. But he feels the beginnings of it again now, the snake’s quiet assessment of his preferences, something Spike hasn’t done much consideration of himself, unable to look it in the eye.

If Vicious weren’t behind him, Spike might’ve scowled for being called a sucker for punishment - but since the other boy can’t see his face, he doesn’t spend the extra energy to hide his reaction, a look of surprise, something that edges on panic for the short moment it takes them to go down the hall to his door, only five units total on this floor. 

He doesn’t answer, but maybe he should have - maybe then Vicious wouldn’t have asked the even more direct question about liking pain. Spike can’t tell if it’s serious or not, but it gets under his skin either way. The snake will know it from the way he freezes for a heartbeat in the process of unlocking his door. Probably he can hear his stupid wolf-heart pound louder too, caught in his throat as he finds the right key - other than the one he’d used earlier to get into the building and the one he uses now, there are only two others, and one is the one Vicious had left for him this morning.

“Sometimes,” covering his affinity for both punishment and pain, pushing the door open and heading inside, willing his voice to sound just as casual as his partner’s when he’d asked. What the fuck are you doing, inviting a snake inside, wanting him to come home with him, what the fuck have you done–

Spike’s apartment is a world away from Vicious’ cold, bare loft. A coat closet is just inside the door, where he ditches his coat (and slips the new gold tassels into his coat pocket in the process) and shoes; the space opens up into the living room and adjoining kitchen. Looks lived in when he turns on the light, cluttered in spots but not messy, taken care of: dishes drying in the rack next to the sink, a little pile of racing magazines and an ashtray with just a couple of cigarettes in it on the wooden and slightly scratched coffee table in front of the plush couch. Some kind of low maintenance houseplant on the windowsill next to the couch, a smallish television across from it along with a short bookcase part filled with books, part with vinyl records, record player set up on top of it.

The wall behind the couch is exposed brick, the floors are scratched hardwood in the living room and yellowing linoleum in the cramped kitchen, but it’s warm even though it’s chilly outside, and the windows that overlook the street and the bar across it let in a nice amount of light during the day, a touch of streetlight and cityglow filtering in through them now.

“Maybe I just like risk and pain comes with that sometimes,” which is part of it, something easier to admit to. Adrenaline seeking, drawn to danger, or at least a lack of self-preservation at times, willing to trade safety for something more - those are all true about him, and nothing Vicious doesn’t already know, shades of the same colors present in the snake, too.

But as Spike moves into the kitchen to fill up the kettle before starting to heat it on the stove, he thinks about it still. The other boy’s knife at his throat, or his hands there too. I told you: pinning the wolf down or slapping him, like he really is thick, slow to learn, or just slow to obey. How many times has he told the snake no, I won’t always - is it to keep a measure of his own independence, or is it like Vicious had said, that he likes to be punished? Why would he like such a thing, what has he done that is so bad he deserves it? We’re fucking bad, the message he’d left in the form of an executed Apollo Xhang–

“If I do like it, that’s new,” is as much as he’ll admit, though that isn’t even completely true. The first time he’d met Vicious they’d come away from each other bloody and black-eyed, missing teeth and barely conscious - but smiling, ecstatic, finally finding something they’d both been craving. He thinks about that now but doesn’t correct himself, biting his bottom lip out of habit, looking for the sting of it, or for blood, but messing with that near-healed injury doesn’t give him either this time.

Slipping his hands into his pockets, leaning back against the kitchen counter, watching the other boy. Spike tries to keep his expression unreadable and is successful on the surface, but his heart is so loud, hungry. Pink in the cheeks, star-eyed and dizzy - but he’s just sick, just like Vicious. That’s all. “Bathroom’s down the hall if you need it,” a little lift of his chin to indicate the very short hallway opposite the couch and runs along the wall with the window; it leads to the bathroom and bedroom. “You can grab something of mine from my closet if you want. I’m just gonna get food going since I lured you here with it. You’ll eat if I make something, right?”

Inexplicably nervous now, to have this snake in his home - of course he’ll eat something, what a dumb question. Isn’t that why he’d come here at all?

It’s true that the young snake’s eyes are always subtly taking in details of his environment: Exits, advantages, opportunities. So perhaps it’s surprising – or telling – that when he crosses the threshold into his partner’s living space, he doesn’t seem to look around much at all. Practically disinterested, as if he’d been there before, maybe even more than once. 

Pausing in the threshold, he hangs his long, high-collared wool coat on the coatrack too, methodically removing the cashmere scarf, running it through his long, slim fingers to fold it lengthwise and hang it, just the way he would in his own barren arsenal of a home. Something he doesn’t do at home, though: Slipping out of his polished dress shoes, he leaves them neatly by the entrance before stepping inside, laying his suit jacket over the arm of the couch before sitting bonelessly on it, one ankle flung across his knee, loosening his dark blue tie a little with one finger, drawing a cigarette from the pack of Silk Cut Silvers in the breast pocket of his pale gray dress shirt. He doesn’t ask if it’s okay to light it – there are cigarettes in the ash tray on the coffee table, so it must be. 

Soft murmur of acknowledgment at the idea that pain is sometimes payment for the thrill of risk, although Spike can feel those snake-eyes at the back of his neck, hear the sound of paper burning at the same time, Vicious’ hungry breath. 

“It’s just another sensation, isn’t it?” Apparently this is what passes for casual conversation; the young snake leans forward a little to flick through the inscrutable racing magazine, idle behavior in contrast to the sensuous murmur of his voice, the hot rasp of smoke and sickness. “You can choose whether or not you like it, most of the time.” 

The racing magazine mostly includes pictures of ships and beautiful girls posing on their wings, plus a few profiles on star racers. A journalistic essay catches the young snake’s eye briefly: It argues for abolishing the ‘barbaric’ practice whereby debtors race the rims of black holes to certain death, earning a little prize money for their desperate families. Vicious scowls, closing the magazine and pushing it away from him. Let people do what they want for money.

“The rest of the time it’s a lesson, and you seem to enjoy learning.” Mild, neutral in tone – but not in its meaning, of course, not while Spike can still feel Vicious watching him in the kitchen.

“Something of yours, huh?” He lets this one hang in the air, distinctly amused, letting his head rest on the sofa back, blowing smoke up toward the ceiling, though he’s apparently disinterested in anything from Spike’s bedroom for the moment. It’s like the fucking snake can taste wolf-nerves on the air, like that makes him hungrier than the smell of food. 

“I could eat,” he says coolly, a shrug, which must in fact mean he’s very hungry. “If you don’t put any strange herbs in it. I don’t believe in that.” 

What did Spike really expect, asking Vicious to come home with him? That if he did something normal, acted normal, that his partner would suddenly be normal? That Spike’s feelings toward him would level out, be normal too? Stupid. Even in his own home, doing normal things he’d do if starting to feel under the weather like making himself tea and an easy dinner, he feels abnormal - hunted, like prey. While getting the kettle going, he rubs the back of his neck, though that doesn’t alleviate the prickling sensation he feels there under the turned-up collar of his shirt.

“Most of the time, yeah,” agreeing easily, actually with a vague sense of relief, because Vicious makes this sound normal, the ability to engage with pain in that way, the choice to make it pleasurable, or satisfying, or at least interesting. There have been days he pushes himself training so hard that he can barely even get out of bed the next day, but that just means he’s getting stronger. It’s the same thing when he fights with the other boy, even when those fights get bad, mean, waking up from the pain of throbbing contusions, blood in his throat. Interesting. I see you didn’t die, the first thing Vicious had said to him after they’d lost consciousness after surviving their shared punishment. There have been times he’s said the same thing to himself.

You seem to enjoy learning, Vicious observes, and Spike can feel the snake watching him for his reaction, so he controls what he can, a little slouch in his posture when he leans against the edge of the counter so he’s able to see his partner, little quirk of his mouth like he’s thoughtful. But one thing he can’t control is his blood: the throb of his heart, the heat in his face, the hot-taut tug he can feel low in his belly.

“I do,” only a little bit of caution in his tone, like it’s something he shouldn’t admit, a door he shouldn’t open. But it seems silly to resist it - he’s already let the other boy inside, again and again. The only one to cross this particular threshold, but that isn’t a surprise, even if it’s still unsettling to confront. It’s only because of Vicious that Spike knows about this part of himself to begin with. Heart in his throat, beating like a caught bird, “You seem to enjoy teaching me.”

Clearing his throat, he waves off the challenge of his offer to change clothes, starts going through his cabinets to gather what he needs to make this late-night meal. “Just in case you wanted to be more comfortable. I have some of your stuff but I haven’t done laundry yet,” which he makes a mental note to do tomorrow. Or whenever he’s feeling better. Vicious must want his things back is all, a couple pairs of pants and a t-shirt he’d acquired over the first couple of nights he’d spent at the snake’s loft. There’s no reason Spike should want to hang onto them. He’s sure he doesn’t.

“What makes you think I’d do that? I’m not putting anything weird in this.” Looking back over his shoulder at his partner while he works in the kitchen, faintly bemused, though it’s hard to say if he’s more annoyed about his claim of this one recipe being cooked well being challenged or just unsettled that Vicious knows somehow that he does dabble in strange herbs. “And define strange.” Though it doesn’t really matter - the only fragrant thing Spike dices up for the congee is a little ginger, which goes into his pressure cooker along with water, rice, a little rice wine, and chicken thighs he rescues from his freezer.

Of course, he does put strange herbs in his tea - that’s all it is in the pot he brings over to the couch, really, chrysanthemum and honeysuckle, a little more ginger, jar of honey with a spoon set down next to it on the coffee table. Two plain white mugs, too, a kind commonly found in diners that he’s probably stolen, one with a chip near the rim. “Lucky for you, it works whether you believe in it or not.” Sitting down next to the snake, slipping out of his suit jacket and tossing it haphazardly over the other boy’s where it lays, loosening his tie a little further. The tea needs longer to steep but his head is buzzing, his blood too. He needs something to do with his hands, so he gestures to his partner for his cigarette, little crook of two fingers.

“You’ll make a good wife,” the snake says mockingly, about Spike making him comfortable, washing his things. There’s a touch of something dangerously intimate in it though, a little heat – maybe it’s just the soft rasp of his growing sore throat, the temperature under his skin. Or the dangerousness of his being here at all, like a friend, or something even more than that. On its face it makes sense, just as Mao said, for the two of them to know each other well, to become friends now that they’ll be working together even more. 

But something definitely feels different between them now, since they’d killed together, killed again. Impossible to entangle whether Spike had taken such pleasure in shedding Xhang’s blood because Vicious had been so willing to take him, to touch him, to make him new with his pale hands. Or if the young snake had, once christened in blood, become open to a new form of intimacy. You’ll make me sick too, he’d sighed resignedly, but where had they caught it? In the room with them, the presence of a new desire, a decidedly mutual one, to see and to know more, as uneasy as it makes them both. 

It should be easier for Spike in his own territory, in his own space, it really should. By following the snake home, hasn’t he been seeking the comfort of darkness, the safety of one who should know, should understand why sleep has stopped coming so easily these days? It’s not so crazy, then, to hope that he might be able to show Vicious something else. Yet it feels more like letting a large predator bird into the apartment, one that gets its claws into the fabric, spreads the shadows of its wings unpredictably, sheds its large dark feathers everywhere. 

This despite the fact the pale young snake, relaxing in his loosened tie, shoes carefully laid by the door, is practically polite, in his way, giving him no more shit than usual – what makes you think I’d do that, the only response a fey shrug. There’s a slight furrow in his brow at the scent of chrysanthemum, but even the bratty little snake has enough manners not to complain. He even glances to Spike in a steady, patient way, as if he’d let him pour the tea for them both. It’d be unmannerly to help oneself. 

Just that touch of heat in his voice, in his gray eyes. Like he knows what Spike really wants, what he always wants, is to be close, closer. “They say the best way to learn is to teach,” he says, in an austere way, and then smirks, unserious, and for all the world a little flirtatious as he passes Spike the cigarette:  “Or some shit like that.”  

Spike’s phone buzzes briefly from wherever he’s left it: The girl Selene again: if you liked the front then you gotta try the back xxx, the chime that indicates a downloadable attachment. Vicious doesn’t give any particular reaction at all. Spike’s phone goes off from time to time when they’re together, but his own never does.

Spike just sighs and rolls his eyes when his partner keeps ribbing him about his (probably unexpected) domestic skills, doesn’t bother to bite back. Besides, this is about the extent of it - and he is maybe being a bit over the top tonight. Isn’t he? Or is this what he would do for any other boy he’s close to? Spike isn’t sure now, like some quality of his grey-eyed partner makes him uncertain of himself, his own motivations.

It doesn’t help that he doesn’t have any real friendships to decide what normal might be. There were other Syndicate boys he was friendly enough with, sometimes joined in if he’d see a group of them when he’s out in the evenings (and without Vicious), but no one he really considered a friend. And even if there were, he wasn’t friends with Vicious, no matter what Mao said - wasn’t friends with him, but also was something more than that, so much more, close. 

This world isn’t made for us, we’ll just have to make our own–

Even though Vicious had been really offended when Spike had asked him to pour tea, Spike does it now for the both of them without thinking twice when the snake looks at him somewhat expectantly - it’s fragrant, floral-scented, but it’s really good for their shared sickness, the fever, the sore throats, even the headache Spike isn’t sure is from his hangover or this illness. He stirs a liberal amount of honey into both cups too, even though he’s not sure if the snake will like it sweet. He hadn’t had anything for it at his own home, but that could just be Vicious’ lack of attention to comfort, not a preference.

The best way to learn is to teach, the other boy says, and Spike does an okay job continuing to play unaffected, though a touch of pink in his cheeks remains. “Oh, is that so?” Taking the cigarette from the snake, he lifts it to his mouth, but just before he puts his lips around it, he gives Vicious a sidelong look, low-lidded, smiling too, a little sly, can’t help himself. “So what have you been learning?”

Still watching his partner, he takes a long, indulgent drag from the cigarette, only breaking eye contact when he tips his head back to exhale the smoke upward, offering the cigarette back without looking. The bruising on his throat is mottled in all kinds of colors now, the marks from Vicious’ fingers starting to fade to sickly blue-greens and yellows, but those bruises from his mouth he’d given the night before are in full bloom, reddened violets, a gift.

Only because he’s pretending to be disinterested does he even reach for his phone when it buzzes, still in the pocket of his suit jacket. He doesn’t actually check the message yet though, putting his phone down on the coffee table with his untouched tea, too interested in hearing what his partner might be learning, if he even gives a real answer - about himself, or about the wolf, didn’t matter. Spike wants to know more about both of those things, and lately, it’s through the other boy that he’s been learning best.

Spike might rarely if ever have friends over, but maybe the occasional girl his own age, at least a couple late nights when bravado gets one home with him. Confusingly, this feels more like that, those liquor-buzzed initial moments when a girl from some bar ends up sitting on his couch, sharing one more beer to overcome the slight awkwardness on the way to the bedroom, where they both want it to go. 

The young beast coiled on Spike’s sofa, one leg tucked, one arm partially embracing himself, looks paler than usual tonight. The shadows under his eyes are bruise-violet, like some unkind god had pressed its thumbs into his face, and his slow heart ticks out a bluish rhythm in the long, silk-skinned column of his throat. But it makes him almost pretty in a strange way, like wan light through stained glass, delicate and unreal. So subtle, the ways in which he lowers his guard tonight, lifting the teacup to his rose-pale mouth with an uncanny grace.

How sick, how illicit to see him as pretty, to think forbidden thoughts of his youthsome work. But Vicious knows he is what he is; if he’s aware of how he might appear to Spike in his vulnerable condition, glass-eyed and a little soft, it doesn’t seem to bother him. His flat asphalt gaze is impassive as ever, dark and magnetic as a field in outer space. 

“Too sweet,” he remarks, sipping the tea, but his expression is only rueful, venomless. When he was little he once burned his hand picking up a coal from a censer, and some woman had put royal jelly on it, so maybe drinking honey when sick was such similar nonsense. Even then he’d been curious about pain, hot, hot, can’t you understand, the woman had despaired impatiently, and though he didn’t speak at that age, of course he understood, and it was the woman who couldn’t understand him. Spike understands him, though, so he persists with the tea for a few more sips before setting it down. The silly mongrel had put so much effort into it for some reason, so it’s only fair. 

“I learned that a beast with two heads is more dangerous than one,” Vicious replies, and then, slowly but decisively, he shifts forward, slim serpent body closing the distance between the two of them, seeking the wolf’s endless eyes through his unexpectedly dark lashes, lowered almost coquettishly, prettily in contrast with the honeyed growl of his low, low voice. 

Caging Spike with one arm on the sofa cushion, his pale hair, still cold from the outside world, incidentally brushes the other boy’s bruised throat as he leans in close, lips to his ear, gently flicking the lobe of it with his hot tongue. Chrysanthemum breath, the deliberately caressing whisper of a snake: “And I learned how to handle a sick, sick dog.” 

So near, so quick, there’s even a ripple of laughter in Vicious’ voice as he reaches like a striking viper past Spike for his phone on the table like he just fucking knows it’s a personal message, wrestling briefly if need be, wriggling away with it, the little fucking snake, the screen illuminating his haunted, pretty fucking face: “What have we here, huh?”

Spike had hoped that by doing unconfusing, normal things with his partner tonight, it would make his feelings normal again too. That this sickness would leave him, leave them both. But instead, bringing Vicious home with him has only made him feel that strange yank on that red cord inside even more violently, something that feels much more difficult to dismiss due to alcohol or need for regulation tonight, their previous few nights at the snake’s loft more easily explained away as two beasts who simply know each other, know how to take care of each other, to do what the other needs.

No, right now it feels much more complex than that when Spike suddenly finds his partner really just pretty like this, vulnerable in a way that activates him in a way he hasn’t ever really felt before. It makes Spike nervous, because it feels good, this odd appetite he suddenly has to do something to Vicious, but it feels bad, too: to think even briefly about taking advantage, or to find him so attractive like this, an uncannily beautiful young creature. An angel, for real.

“It’s good for you,” quiet protest when Vicious notes that the tea is too sweet, but the young wolf smiles when he says it.  There are much worse things his partner could have said or done, and he doesn’t put it down right away, so he must not hate it. Spike’s stomach lurches when he realizes how much he cares what the snake thinks of it at all, how bad-good that feels too. He’s sick, really sick, delusional. Must be, to be flirting with the other boy like this, for it to feel as good as it does, even if his heart pounds so fast and so hard he thinks it might kill him.

It really might kill him, throbbing even harder when Vicious comes in close, closer, Spike’s dark eyes going wide in surprise - closer, just like Spike has been wanting, even if he feels like he shouldn’t want that at all. Still he laughs quietly, meeting the other boy’s eyes but leaning away just slightly, though it’s not out of nerves, no matter how electric it feels between them right now. No, the way he looks at the snake, desirous and hungry, Spike just wants to see if he’ll follow, even only an inch. Like sometimes he wants to play with his food too.

Closer still, and Spike is caught, lets his eyes close most of the way, breath coming shallowly. A soft catch of his breath when the other boy’s tongue flicks his ear, tremor in his breathing after when the snake whispers, how to handle a sick, sick dog–

What does it mean to trust a snake, to trust this one, who has done whatever he needed to to survive, who will continue to do just that, will do whatever he has to to get what he wants, what he needs. What the both of them need, what is best for them both, whether Spike knows it or not. Spike will learn this again and again during the years they will know each other. Is learning it over and over even now.

It’s not a big deal, laughter in Spike’s voice too, even if he does put up a little bit of a fight to get his phone back when that fucking snake steals it, wait, no, no, not fair - but it is, too, a really big deal. There are moments with Vicious that feel too-real and impossible all at once, like he really is an angel or something. Like they both are. Like calling to like, calling him home, which doesn’t have to be a place. Like it strikes him to find it, makes him do things he’s never wanted to do before, a vast unknowable something else that comes over him. Do you understand–

Spike might’ve had a chance to wrestle his phone back if only the cigarette they were sharing didn’t get fumbled while the two feral boys are fighting. “Fuck,” laughing still, though, snatching up the cigarette from where it had fallen between the couch cushions to put it out hastily in the ashtray, immediate disaster averted, though a different kind might be on the way. “That was not fair,” reiterating, grabbing the other boy’s wrist, though it’s not to try to get the phone away this time, only to make sure he doesn’t try to move away again, willing to manhandle Vicious if he needs to so he can get close enough to be cheek to cheek with him. It’s just so he can see the screen too.

“Oh no,” dismayed when he reads the message, bordering on horrified, and Vicious hasn’t even opened the attachment yet. Spike knows there’s no point in telling him not to, will probably just make things worse somehow, so he doesn’t even bother. “See? What am I even supposed to say to that? Sometimes girls just get the wrong idea,” mournful, ducking his head a little and massaging his temples briefly like his headache is getting worse - but then all of a sudden he laughs again, like this time it’s really funny.

“At least this means you don’t have to kill her. She must not suspect anything.” Not necessarily true, but Spike wants to find a bright side to this situation, and it doesn’t seem completely unreasonable to assume that if the blonde thought the two boys were really more into each other than into her, she wouldn’t bother reaching out to him, the situation too complicated to get involved with.

If Spike is pink in the cheeks again, it’s not from thinking about the reasons she should be suspecting, the profane doublespeak the two had engaged in with each other while Selene and the girl from Tijuana sucked them off. Do it good for me, you like that, don’t you - no, it’s just from roughhousing with the other boy just now, or from this fever, this sickness. That’s all.

The young snake is pale but uncharacteristically hot-skinned, a little pink-cheeked himself, tumbling out of the corridors of the wolf’s deep and wild eyes and falling back onto the sofa. He lets Spike get his hand around the slim cord of his wrist, though he pulls his arm overhead so they tangle together, two boys making a leggy bundle at one end of the couch, half-lying with their faces pressed together in the halo of the screen. 

Vicious smirks a little, eyeing Spike with some amusement, skepticism, as he reads the message, scoffing: “What’s the matter, Spike? It’s not a fucking marriage proposal… Damn.”

Hard to tell if he’s cussing Spike’s recalcitrance or the image itself, which of course it would be fruitless to try to stop him from seeing: A close-up on a blushed, juicy little peach of an ass, the girl’s hands lifting it up to tease just a little scrap of downy pink. Vicious has the nerve to study the image with luminous interest, even zooming in a little on the bits he finds interesting, tilting his head, with a soft hmmm, a dilation of his pupils that seems to suggest genuine attraction. Or maybe he’s just playing it up, turned on by Spike’s discomfiture more than anything. 

“This was taken in daylight,” Vicious concludes pointedly, his temple resting against the other boy’s. “She probably sends this to lots of men. What are you supposed to say? How about, ‘sorry, I’d rather beg like a dog to take big, hard snake dick up my ass, because I’m such a fucking homo…'” 

Unsettling how casually vulgar the imperious brat can be when he wants to – or maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise. His body language is utterly relaxed, the mean-eyed little serpent entertaining himself. How many times has Spike idly wished that his weird, cold partner were even a little bit like a normal guy, the kind you could shoot the shit with about girls, and now? Even more horrifying, Vicious begins to languidly tap out a reply using Spike’s phone, sorry i can’t fuck bc i am a homo… 

“I can still kill her if you want,” Vicious shrugs as he keeps typing out the entire slur, then patiently deletes it to make room for an even worse one. And there’s really no way to know – his expression is flat, infuriatingly bored if not for the sparks in his eyes. Maybe he would send the entire text to amuse himself, then make those gold ringlets run red just for fun. He wouldn’t be that excessive, would he? He’s strange, but he’s not a psychopath, is he? Probably even if he got the entire message through, it would be easy to play it off, two 19 year-olds from a violent, masculine underworld regularly hazing each other, still boys at the end of the day: sorry my partner got my phone, he’s such a prick, when are you free. Maybe for once it’s the young wolf acting too serious, like sex is life and death? 

Luckily Spike is already close enough to take his wrist again, the two are already close, and Vicious doesn’t put up any resistance if Spike tries to snatch his device back, his brief laughter soundless and laced with his sickness. But he watches the young wolf’s face closely, like he can read every drop of blood in his blush.

For at least a moment, they could almost be two normal, average teenage boys, teasing over girls. Even the casual physicality is almost something they have done in the past, if not for the way they end up together, long legs tangled, one of Spike’s hands resting on the other boy’s chest after he lets go of his slender wrist. Hard to say which of them is more fevered, the press of their cheeks together so warm, but it would be hard for Spike to see what Vicious is doing with his phone otherwise.

Normal, too, for two teenage boys to fall quiet to study something like this, because for all Spike’s griping, he stops complaining when he actually sees the picture Selene has sent. Eyes glued to the screen, no further protest for a moment, not even when Vicious shamelessly zooms in - in fact, the wolf cocks his head too, quiet little oh, mirror of the other one.

Laughing, though, part amusement and part disbelief, when his partner informs him of his findings based on the lighting. He’s about to tease the snake about that, but he’s abruptly derailed when Vicious makes such an unexpectedly vulgar suggestion, so bold. Spike blushes practically crimson, giving the other boy a shove that isn’t meant to actually move him, only to communicate his upset. “No, fuck you, I’m not– Oh my god, don’t,” panic slipping into his voice when Vicious starts to write the text, but all Spike does at first is cover his face, still laughing, though there’s a nervous edge to it now, and he curls into the other boy a little more, one thigh nudging between both of his - not to threaten, only to get closer.

“No, I don’t want you to kill her,” emphatic, though the suggestion makes him look to see if Vicious had actually sent anything or not. “But thanks for the offer I guess?” Still blushing hot, the faintest shiver of nerves in his voice, grabbing the snake’s wrist with one hand and swiping his phone back with the other, just to toss it carelessly on the coffee table without looking. It bumps into his still-full mug of tea; a little sloshes out, spills.

But even after the threat of an unfortunate text being sent is over, Spike doesn’t let go of the other boy’s wrist - in fact, he grabs the other one, pins them both down by his sides, half mounting Vicious, straddling one of his thighs. Leaning in close, really close, nose to nose, able to catch the honeyed floral scent from the tea on his partner’s breath, cigarettes on his own. Watching the bright hazeline in his impenetrable grey eyes, the look in his own luminous, rich and warm and hungry.

“I already told you I’m not gay,” low-voiced and throaty, no hint of irony or humor in his voice or expression, not even when he tilts his head a little, even closer now, about to bring his mouth to the other boy’s - but he diverts at the last possible second, something like a kiss dragged along the snake’s jaw on the way to tucking his face in against his warm throat instead. Mouth against Vicious’ pulse, eyes closed, a murmur against his pale throat, the skin like silk, “Don’t start rumors.” Spike feels so dizzy and warm now, but he doesn’t shift off of Vicious even after letting go of his wrists, trying to slip his arms around the other boy in an embrace if he’s allowed to. It feels so good to be close, and not bad, not even a little. That’s all.

Just a bratty serpent’s taunt, in the end. Vicious lifts his chin proudly, his arrogant little smirk broadening to see Spike briefly nervous. He’d never had any intention of sending any text, that much is clear, and he lets the phone be snatched away without resistance. Hungry predator gaze ticks assessingly over the other one’s face, sparking with dark triumph at the way his partner can’t seem to help but get closer to him, whatever words he says. 

The snake’s lithe body arches back into the sofa, willing to be held down and mounted, though the long, young-muscled whip of his body grows firm, challenging as the wolf brings his face so near to his, denies his partner’s vulgar accusations.

“That’s for the best,” Vicious nods, as if he accepts the answer as truthful. Then, a low-mocking growl, seductive, or maybe it’s just the heat in his throat tonight, the sickness of a snake: “There are kinds of pain I don’t think one like you could handle.” 

His body becomes too rigid and alert to embrace, stiffening when Spike brings his lips to his throat, the skin a little too warm. His slow pulse flutters wildly against the other one’s mouth, but his breath all but stops. Then what does he want, what the fuck is he doing. Spike can practically hear it in the silence, feel the calculations in Vicious’ body language: I’ll punch him in the face, knee him in the balls, I’ll put my knife between his ribs, he can sleep in the infirmary again tonight, they fucking love him there.

Vicious writhes like an anaconda, making an irritated sound, though his graceful fingers steal almost fondly into Spike’s thick, wild hair, something like a caress before he fists it more roughly, pulling the sick dog away from his throat, seeking his eyes. Falling into them again like those idiots who race black holes, but it’s their right, isn’t it? Unbelievable sick mongrel.

“Send her back a picture of your dick,” Vicious… suggests? It sounds more like a command the way he puts it. As if Spike would be hopeless without this fey, smirking brat to tell him what to do. Ghost of that crooked smile again, because he’s kidding, he has to be, right?  “Or send her mine. See if she can tell the difference.”

It feels truthful when he says it - but then why does he feel a strange relief when the snake seems to accept it so easily, doesn’t taunt Spike with any of the decidedly gay things he’s done with the other boy in just the last week? Or with the way he’s acting right now, obvious, a breath away from kissing him? This doesn’t count, somehow, whatever it is that has suddenly developed between them something that defies conventional explanation.

Of course, it doesn’t really matter what Spike admits to or denies to Vicious. Even when the wolf is able to be a little less obvious, a little less interested, it doesn’t last, drawn back to the young snake for reasons he can’t describe, can’t even comprehend. He hates Vicious, truly, this brat-mouthed, arrogant viper, violent and mean and weird. And yet–

Whatever Spike is or isn’t, Vicious knows him anyway. Maybe it’s the seduction in his partner’s voice, or maybe it’s his own curious nature. Maybe it’s because of the conversation about pain they’d had tonight, interest already piqued - or maybe he just likes to be defiant. It could be any of those things, could be all of them.

And though he means to leave it there, to tell Vicious you’re probably right, because he shouldn’t want to be hurt, doesn’t want to be, but when he closes his eyes, he sees a flash of silver, like the bright-shine of his partner’s weapon. Face hidden against the warm, soft-skinned crook of the other boy’s throat, what comes out of his mouth instead is, “Don’t tempt me with another lesson,” a hot whisper against the snake’s wild-beating pulse.

What is he doing, the poor, sick wolf, mouthing that tender spot under his partner’s jaw where his life leaps one more time as Vicious gets his hands into Spike’s hair. Confusing, to be touched like that, to want like this, for it to feel good when the other boy moves under him, soft sound of pleasure even though Vicious sounds annoyed - and then a quiet little pained noise when he gets pulled back by the hair, though he doesn’t fight it. Meets the other boy’s eyes, his own gaze endless, dark, starfilled. He’s sick - delirious. That must be it.

But Spike practically chokes when Vicious suggests that he send something vulgar to Selene in return, eyes briefly wide. If he wasn’t already so fevered, he’d feel hot all over again. Staring down at Vicious for a breath, expression unreadable - seems like he must be taking it serious, because he’s not laughing, no amusement in his eyes, just the same starving heat.

Shifting back to get off of his partner and sit on the couch again, pushing at one of his arms to get him to release the grip he has on his hair, Spike grabs his phone, tosses it lightly the snake’s way. He doesn’t look at him when he unknots his tie, slips it free of his collar, discards it where he’d left his jacket earlier, playing aloof when telling him, “Send one then. I bet she can’t.” But his heart pounds so loud, he’s sure the fucking snake can hear it.

What is Spike doing, embracing a venomous snake? Like a fucking woman, wanting to hold and be held? And why does it quicken Vicious’ slow, cold heart, like when there’s real danger, time to kill? Who is tempting whom, the whispering cobra who makes pain seem so alluring? Or the lamp-eyed young wolf all by himself, tracking hot blood in the snow? 

“Spike…” The fingers of a young killer tighten in the other boy’s hair. Otherwise he’s so still, barely breathing, his low voice oddly soft. “Do you really think that’s something I…”

A silence falls, during which the young snake wanders the constellations of plaster, the nicotine-stain nebulae of the apartment’s high ceiling. Sometimes his mind still goes somewhere else, whether he sends it or not. Who knows how the sentence intended to finish, something I can teach, something I do, something I like? Something I’d do to you? 

“There are many more like Xhang out there,” Vicious finishes, sullen and derisive again as he always is, though he’s uncommonly flushed by the effort, just sick, that’s all. “I can sell ‘em your ass if you really wanna try it. Money has no orientation.” 

Wrenches the sentimental fucking hound off of him by the hair, shoved off of him in turn, twisting his body a little to catch Spike’s phone like a baseball in two cupped hands. Embracing, then erupting into brawls, just the way of two immature beasts still learning to use their senses, occasionally overwhelmed by them. Vicious seems annoyed – or at least heated in some way, pink in the face, pale and glassy, somehow delicate, and maybe that’s what bothers him, not Spike and his doglike need to cuddle and kiss and god only knows what else. But it doesn’t affect his determination any. Anger and arousal are intertwined, after all, different shades of instinct.

Decisively, Vicious arranges his long, finely-dressed young body lengthwise on Spike’s sofa, brow still furrowed, flicking his pale hair away from his face arrogantly as he rests his head back on the sofa’s arm. With a fingertip he undoes his own tie, leaving it draped under his pinned collar, and with the same hand, he opens his belt and his zipper, too. He holds Spike’s phone in the other, gray gaze shifting to its screen, to the picture of a girl’s ass and everything else it promises up close, as he gets his dick out, shameless, efficient. 

He’s a little hard already, so it only takes a couple rough squeezes, long strokes to bring himself to his full length, to make it twitch a little when he rubs the base. Thoughtless sound, a hot sigh, determinedly studying Selene’s picture as he pumps his cock, careless, arrogant display. 

“I think your hair’s darker, and you have more of it,” Vicious speculates, finally shifting his glazed serpent gaze to where Spike sits, no interruption in how he plays with himself, acting interested in how to make the photo convincing. As if he hasn’t already seen, noticed. When the snake was young he was whippet-slim and hairless, with skin like a pearl, an ass like a girl’s. Now, his lower abdomen is a hungry, lean-knit canyon laced with scars, rude muscle jutting at the base of his dick, but his hair is still so pale there, like an angel’s halo. Breathless demand, entitled: “Don’t you? Let’s see.”

Sometimes, it’s moments like this that feel the most foreign, the most dangerous. Their newfound physical closeness feels strange in ways but natural in others, something right about it, much of Spike’s confusion about it because it feels right and not wrong like part of him thinks it should. But when his partner says his name like that, voice soft, trails off, it triggers a strange feeling - like adrenaline, or something else that puts a buzz in his blood, odd warmth in his chest that doesn’t feel bad, but it doesn’t have a name Spike knows, either, which is concerning. Maybe he’d broken a rib somehow too, sometime in the fray after executing Xhang, and it has just gone unnoticed until now.

Whatever that unsettled feeling is, it makes him sort of grateful that Vicious is sour with him in the end, familiar. It makes Spike glad for the space they both seem to suddenly want, too. Sometimes it feels like he can’t think straight if he’s too close to his partner, some other weird thing inside him taking over, instinct. What makes it difficult is that his instincts rarely steer him wrong, and trying to ignore them when it comes to Vicious doesn’t seem to be possible, but letting them guide him completely doesn’t often work either - though he has no other explanation for what he’d done last night with the snake, on his knees for the other boy, only driven by want, by more, by devotion. Doesn’t regret it, even now.

Spike seems annoyed too when he breaks away from the other one and tosses him his phone, standoffish and a little on edge, though the irritability fades quickly enough, leaves him quiet, introspective. He only watches Vicious in his periphery, the long, lean snake settling on his couch while the wolf occupies himself by unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way. “I don’t really think you’d… hurt me like that, no. And I don’t really want to be.” Not looking at Vicious at all now, slipping his shirt off to add it to their little pile of discarded clothing on the sofa’s other armrest. The white ribbed undershirt beneath is clean, new. Most of the others he owns have blood on them.

“Besides, there’s other–” Glancing at Vicious turns into a doubletake, cutting off abruptly, struck when he sees the other boy playing with himself the way he is. As if Spike’s dare for Vicious to send a picture of his own would have really been resolved that simply. As if he wasn’t secretly hoping for something more than that anyway.

“Oh…” Quiet, trying to sound contemplative as he watches his shameless partner, blood-hard dick, the fair hair at the base of it. Of course Spike has noticed too. Hard not to, as close as he’s been, even knows intimately how that pale hair feels, mouth pressed up against it for an infinite moment last night.

“Yeah, but I bet she won’t notice,” pulling off his belt, opening up his pants, already breathtakingly hard when he gets his dick out, has been since he pinned Vicious down a moment ago, half-hard since before they even got into his apartment. Brief little curl of his lip when he gives himself a couple of strokes, like it feels really good to touch himself while the other boy does the same, but then he lies down next to his partner, between his long serpent body and the back of the sofa. It’s just so they can more easily compare, that’s all. So they can send the most convincing photo to this girl.

“It is kind of a big difference,” admitting quietly, temple resting against the other boy’s, not bothering to pretend to be interested in the photo on his phone’s screen while he works his dick, firm grip, lazy pace. It’s his partner’s cock that he’s watching, taking advantage of the pretense of fooling Selene. Vicious is right, of course, the hair at the base of Spike’s cock dark, a thick little nest of it, softly curled. Even their lower abdomens are a little different, though still much the same, hard muscle that isn’t quite so hungry on the wolf, lean and defined without any scars, really beautiful.

“You might be a little bigger than I am,” something in his tone approaching petulance, but his voice is still low, throaty, dick twitching a little in his hand as he pumps it. Pink-cheeked and hot-skinned, he must not care all that much about it, the difference slight if even real. It hadn’t felt different from his own when he’d gotten Vicious off with his hand in the shower. “What do you think?”

There’s other –

Vicious makes a distracting display of himself, the snake-faced little show-off: pale taut belly and lean hips, sharp pelvic bones, stiff rutting dick in his fist somehow all the more obscene for the ways they’re framed by his untucked dress shirt and dark wool pants, the flat, gold-stitched waistband of his black boxer briefs. Curled lip, half-lidded eyes lit by the phone screen, the kind of unmasked, breathy animal groans he might make if he were alone.

But his silver gaze flashes like a knife’s blade, pupils dilated, one brow lifted, keen attention to Spike’s sentence – Vicious will let it go unfinished for now, but his patience never, never means mercy. Snakes are dangerous not because of their fangs, but for the way their venom works slowly through the blood long after the pain of the bite is gone.

Maybe it’s dangerous, then, the way Vicious just watches luminously, cold strange gaze on his partner’s dick in his hand, and then shifts a little on the couch to let Spike lie alongside him. Lets him close, allows their heads to touch, their long legs to tangle together incidentally. So dangerous, when Vicious pauses in stroking himself only to thread his arm through his partner’s, so they can fit together more tightly on the couch, feel each other’s rhythm. 

He glances away from the material on Spike’s phone with an air of disinterest, only comparing the two of them, that’s all. But his pupils dilate, his breath quickens, and the way he works himself shifts to match the other boy’s. Low, soft groan at their synchronicity, how similar they really do look. Why should it feel so good?

“Maybe right now,” he concurs, heated murmur, about being bigger, more engorged, more needful. He pauses to hold himself against his belly, pulling up the hem of his shirt a little to show off his length and girth in contrast with his lean frame, playing the underside with his fingers demonstratively. Watching Spike’s face now, where his eyes go, how they settle on him, and he throbs for the attention, a clear bead of his pre-cum blossoming in the slit at his plump violet head. 

“But you got real big last night when it was in her mouth,” caressing whisper like praise, even reverence. He angles the photo again so they can both see it, coaxing in his rough and breathless way, obviously getting off on talking: “You still want to fuck her, don’t you, dog? How about her ass? Do you like it like that with women?” 

With women, a qualifier that might be unnecessary in any other context, and Vicious knows it, that little smirk reappearing on his pale, crooked mouth as he works his dick a little harder. Arching his body into it, just the same as he’d done when Spike had climbed on top of him. He’d felt the sick dog get hard then; they both know that.

“Fuck,” low-throated, indulgent groan, giving his cock a squeeze, milking another over-eager little dribble out of it. The silk-rippled skin of his balls, just glimpsed below his fist, tightens a little in anticipation, putting on a show for the other boy. Then, Vicious opens the device camera on the phone, angling his dick with his hand – but he passes the phone back to Spike then, cheek to cheek, a serpent urging him on with a poison-throated laugh: “C’mon. Make it look good.”

It does feel dangerous to be this close - but is it because of the confusing newness of getting off with another boy, something Spike has never thought about until this unexpected escalation had begun in the dark of Vicious’ loft only a few nights ago? Or is it the snake in particular that feels dangerous, knowing what he knows about him, what he has seen himself? What does it really mean, to trust a snake, or even more, what if–

Spike’s breath catches softly when Vicious hooks his arm through the wolf’s, a pleased little hum in his exhale after. Is it really dangerous, to play around like this with a mean, pretty little serpent? How can it be bad when it feels so good, so easy, the rhythm they find together just what they both need, what feels best to them both. Those two are different in some ways, but so uncannily the same in others. How can that possibly be bad?

A quiet sound of acknowledgment when Vicious agrees with him at first, mhm that is part croon, part sigh, but right after, a rough-voiced ohh that barely escapes his mouth, throaty, something that might be felt more as a vibration in his chest than a real vocalization. Makes him throb hard to watch his partner show off like this, obvious twitch of his cock in his fist when Vicious lays his own dick flat against his abdomen, breath hitching, pupils dilating, dark eyes glazed. Distantly, he wonders if Vicious looks bigger in comparison because he’s a little leaner than Spike, slimmer in the hips, even more tight-knit at the waist.

But he laughs a little when the other boy mentions how big he’d been last night, the sound of it warm, a little cocky, but still soft. The dog really does love to be praised. Still stroking his own dick, he swipes the pad of his thumb over the swollen head of his cock to gather up the pre-cum beading there, the slicker sensation when he keeps playing with himself making him a little breathless too, dropping his head from where it leans against the other boy’s to rest his cheek on his shoulder instead.

“She’s pretty cute,” he admits, glancing at the photo again as if he needs the reminder - and he might, as focused as he’s been on Vicious, barely even looking at the girl’s pretty, plump ass that they’re both pretending to get off to. “I could fuck her, sure. You want me to?” The question slips out before he even realizes he’s thinking it, doesn’t even know why he asks, why it matters to him.

Luckily, adding with women to the question about Spike’s preference makes it easy for him to move on from the strange implications of his own question; he muffles another soft huff of a laugh into his partner’s shoulder, shifting to end up cheek to cheek with him once more, voice a low murmur: “Mm, only ever tried a few times like that, but I do really like it… Think she’d let me?”

The question may as well be rhetorical though, completely disinterested in what Vicious thinks Spike’s chances are to fuck the blonde’s ass if they do eventually meet up again, suddenly far too distracted by the shameless way the other boy gets into it, the writhe of his snake-body, how indulgent he sounds, the way he handles his dick so like the way Spike would if he were feeling really good.

Quiet moan in response, obvious appreciation in it, and he pumps his dick a little harder, forgetting himself, what they’re pretending to do. For a second, Spike even looks confused when Vicious passes him his phone, but then he laughs too, sly and warm. “Fuck,” breathless, rubbing his cheek against the other boy’s just for a second, then dropping his head to do the same to his shoulder, animal overwhelm, animal affection. “I don’t have to make it look good,” throaty little croon, the obvious implication that it already looks good, snapping one illicit picture of the two of them together first, hands on their dicks, tight-knit lower abdomens side by side, long-long legs tangled together in the background.

Sitting up just a little to make it easier to get a good angle, Spike takes a few pictures, close-up enough to make it impossible to tell there’s someone right next to him, a couple timed when his partner’s hand is at the base of his cock, obscuring the soft little halo of pale hair. He takes it seriously enough that the way he strokes his own dick slows, though he never stops completely, even hisses a sharp inhale at one point, like it feels too good, or maybe the subject of his photo looks too good.

Passing his phone back to Vicious, he settles down next to him again, head on his shoulder, eyes low-lidded - looks a little blissed already, must be close, breath shallow, cock twitching, oversensitive and messy with pre-cum. “She’s not gonna know the difference. Pick one and send it,” faint tension in his voice, soft strain in his expression. Close, which is why he can’t stop himself from saying, “And then come with me. I need it.”

The darkening hollows, the glassy fever make Vicious’ eyes look hungrier than ever. Only visible in certain light, there’s that aquamarine halo too, like a Martian sunset, a little bit eerie. His mouth waters almost audibly, throat working as he looks from Spike’s dick to the girl’s picture like he really is imagining it. Getting off because he does want to see, to know what it would be like for him. 

“‘Course I want you to,” rough, a little disdainful, like it’s stupid to ask. Squeezing his dick to slow the rush of blood to his head, slowing the way he pumps himself, he meets Spike’s eyes, curling his lip, his poison-throated voice laced with an edge of cruelty, a knife-sharp laugh that feels so, so good to him, good as anything.

The poor dog, poor sick dog, hot venom inside him, too late now: “It’s not like you can fuck me, Spike.”

“Get it out of your thick head…” sick coo, actually rubbing his cheek against the other boy’s in a mockery of his affection. Maybe even Vicious can’t tell one from the other, cruelty from seduction, and maybe it’s all the same to a damnable snake. Not even his own blood had wanted him, and almost no one has ever touched him except to do him harm. Born under a dark, unlucky star? Or made of it? 

“Let you?” Another snow-soft laugh, half a pleasured groan, like the only reason he’d allowed Spike so near him was so that he could torment him for his own pleasure: “She sucked you off in public about an hour after you met her, and you didn’t even have to ask. Do you always have to be such a good boy?” 

His breath shortens, trembles, jerking himself quick and rough now. It obviously gets him off to remember what he’d seen through his carefully-parted lashes, and maybe a big, big part of it is that Spike is, in his view, such a good boy, one who really cares, who’d never known sex to be selfishness, cruelty, domination, transaction in the ways a young snake started learning early. Maybe Vicious likes unhinging his jaw to swallow that bright star, to corrupt that kind of goodness. Maybe he resents Spike, and this is a kind of punishment. Or maybe, like last night when he’d pointed a knife at the other boy’s throat as he pushed his cock into it, he just wants his partner to know exactly who he is. Even the body of a mendacious serpent can speak a language that doesn’t lie. 

Audacious, maybe even dangerous for the young wolf to tell him his dick looks good, to photograph the two of them together. A hiss, a roll of his eyes: “You’re disgusting,” Vicious tells him, but somehow he makes it sound fond, like dirty talk, displaying himself rudely for the camera, watching the other one’s face as he takes pictures. And for whatever reason, when he takes the phone back to send the most convincing picture of his glistening, eager prick to Selene, the screenlight illuminates a pinkish blush in his oddly pretty, sick face. 

Quick quick, he flicks through the images, deleting them as he goes, especially the one of the two of them, which he makes sure to use the permanent deletion feature on, scowling with prejudice. Doesn’t the dumb dog know their phones are monitored? Stupid, sentimental, perverted, sick fucking mongrel, Vicious thinks, each hateful thought pushing him closer and closer to the edge, almost like he might even blow without meaning to. When he’s sent one – no message, just the picture, but the girl should be used to that kind of thing from boys their age – he lets the phone fall harmlessly out of his hand onto the floor. 

I need it, and this animates him all of a sudden. Anyone who needs something from you is vulnerable to your control, after all. Decisively, roughly, Vicious shifts away from Spike, but it’s only so he can get on his knees, straddling his thigh in much the same way the other boy had mounted him just before, flicking his hair away arrogantly. His aching dick is already beginning to shoot messily even before he starts stroking it again, and when he does, he ruts it deliberately against Spike’s abdomen, fucking the taut canyon between his hip and the base of his cock, pleasuring himself with the texture of the hair there, rubbing his head in it, spasm after messy spasm. 

Long shots of superheated snake venom all over his partner’s belly, all over the base of his cock, giving him plenty to play with. Aching, shuddering lip-bitten groans, raw and thoughtless pleasure, and then something worse at the parting shot: A soft little moan that breaks in his throat, a sound like a girl’s on purpose, the fucking tease, grinning. 

I want you. To come with me – 

“Yeah, come with me, you sick fucking hound,” chin lifted, arrogant demand, demeaning. But it’s obvious he loves it, the little fucking snake. 

It had been a stupid question, and if Spike had been in his right mind, he wouldn’t have asked it. Why should I care, why would he care, and hadn’t Vicious said it the first night Spike had followed him home? You think I care if you fuck women? It’s good for animals to do that. Of course, that had been before certain lines had been crossed, ones that could not be uncrossed, a bell that couldn’t be unrung. Hot venom already inside of him.

Too late: It’s not like you can fuck me, Spike. The uncanny, endless corridors of Spike’s eyes hold the reflection of the pale, venomous snake, a ribbon of silver in something rich and deep, a shooting star in the infinite of space. Does the snake see himself the way the wolf does? A soft catch of his breath, dark eyes fever-bright, maybe Spike can’t tell the difference between a snake’s desire and a snake’s hatred anymore, because he only seems to like the disdain in his partner’s voice, closing his eyes when the other boy nuzzles up against his cheek. Doesn’t matter if he doesn’t actually mean the affection. After all, Vicious had encouraged Spike to decide for himself what things mean, hadn’t he?

“It’s not in my head,” little bit of a growl in the low-throated protest, and it’s not a lie, but it’s not true, either. Spike hasn’t quite thought about fucking his partner, not explicitly, but he’s thought about how much he wants the other boy, the sick-hot feeling inside of him, the undeniable tension, like the snake’s pale fingers have reached right inside of the young wolf, tugged expertly on that tangle of red until they were both wrapped up in it, caught. He’s thought about wanting more without knowing what that could mean, and about violence, how sharp and bright love can feel.

But it doesn’t really matter whether it had been in Spike’s head before now or not - because it’s there now. What does it mean to trust a snake? Vicious only would’ve put it so bluntly if he’d wanted Spike to think about it. What would it feel like to fuck his partner? Do you always have to be such a good boy? “Not always,” part sigh, hint of croon to it - Vicious doesn’t have to know that he’s being not-good right now, thinking exactly what he was told not to think. It’s easy enough to pretend for the moment that he’s just thinking about fucking Selene, the same way Vicious is imagining about him.

Still, Spike can only pretend for so long, doesn’t care that he’s obvious once Vicious hands his phone over to take pictures - really, he seems to like that it bothers his partner, quiet laughter when he calls Spike disgusting, pausing in the way he strokes himself to give his dick an extra hard squeeze, like he risks getting off before he’s ready to if he doesn’t allow himself a breath or two to step back from the edge.

Watching Vicious flip through the pictures, sort of curious which one he’ll choose, Spike makes a disappointed sound when he deletes the one of them together, but he’s sort of smiling, too - like he knows it annoys Vicious, maybe even makes him angry, and like he knows that makes it good for him. Something Spike has been learning: there’s more than one way to be a good dog, to be a useful animal.

But even though he suspects that Vicious is close too, Spike isn’t expecting him to move so suddenly, to get on top of the wolf the way he does. A quiet grunt of surprise, and then a sharp little ah, abrupt and a little violent, the other boy’s hard, throbbing prick stroking against his body, the mess he makes of the wolf. Jerking himself faster now, not shy about using some of that hot, sticky venom to make it slicker, make it better, low groans that echo his partner - at least until Vicious sounds different, soft and almost pretty little moan, the fucking snake.

Wide-eyed surprise for a split second, something in his eyes that almost looks like confusion, and then a little like fury - how dare he - and Spike starts to come before the emotion can resolve, confusing mix of pleasure and anger and low-grade distress that only makes it better. How fucking dare he.

“Fuck, oh fuck,” shiver in his voice, trembling a little, glassy-eyed and glaring up at Vicious, wolf-milk all over his hand, shooting hot up onto his belly where it mixes with the other boy’s venom. “Fuck you, fucking snake,” sharp whine in it - and then for a moment, all he can do is groan, head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut, bruised throat exposed, long body arching up off of the couch a little, working his twitching cock slower now, rougher, determined to milk out every last shot he can. When his free hand comes to his partner’s warm-skinned lower abdomen, it’s not to push him away - it’s just to try to steady himself. The damn dog reaches for him still, even when cursing him, when his eyes had just been filled with something like rage. It’s obvious he loves it too.

After the peak passes and the bliss ebbs away, Spike feels utterly spent. Lets go of his dick to wipe the mess off of his hand on his undershirt, opens his eyes, breathing hard, looking up at the other boy, cheeks flushed pink, dizzy, ghosts of stars in his periphery slowly fading. He feels like he should say something; he doesn’t know what to say.

So instead of saying anything at all, he sits up a little, moves his hand up from where he’d pressed it low on the snake’s hungry torso - just to pull his cigarettes from the breast pocket of his shirt. The lamp-eyed wolf, still unsteady in his breathing, taps out a cigarette, sets it between his lips, as entitled as ever.

What does the snake see in the wolf’s eyes? An endless field of hot, bright stars, twin Gates that only go one way, the accretion disk of a black hole, this is the only place I can take you. A ribbon of silver, a flash of gold, a sea of rain-soaked graves. By the time an angel gets this close, it’s too late. 

It’s not in my head – 

Brief intrusion behind one eye, an ache, something red like a rose petal, like blood, like love, a yank on that cord. A sea of graves, and suddenly Julia is there too, either among them or inside them, inside them both – the snake shakes his head sharply, dismissing the hateful premonition with a scowl that easily dissolves into the rest of his adoring-offensive expressions of pleasure. 

Not always, his partner won’t always be good, come when he’s called, do what Vicious wants. Or he will always be good, something good, yes you will, yes you will, and it’ll kill them both.

But what about now, right now? Spike curses him and Vicious grins bright as a blade. He curses him and he comes for him anyway, like he can’t even help it, handsome and wild and called as if by some ancient instinct. Animals can’t understand time the way that people do. They know when it’s time to hunt and to rest, and they sense when it’s time to store food, but otherwise they know only hunger and now-now-now. 

“That’s right, come on,” softer, pitching his own voice low so that he can still hear every detail of that mongrel writhing and whining for him, his pupils dilating to pinpricks as his gravestone eyes fix on Spike playing with his cobra-milk. When Spike begins to come, Vicious’ long-fingered, elegant hands take hold of Spike’s hips and waist, still rubbing against him in a mockery of how he might screw a girl if she were underneath him like this. 

You fucking snake – that grin broadens, proud, arrogant, riding Spike’s body like a whip for a few beats, blatant. The movement comes so naturally to him, the obscene roll of his whippet waist and lean hips, that it’s startling in contrast with his scar-lined, hungry muscle, pale cruel face, the Syndicate finery he’s still mostly wearing. He’s still not done playing, using that soft-throated, delicate voice to twist the knife, then breaking into a rough laugh: “Do you like that, baby? Yeah, I know.” 

I know, like he’ll always know somehow what’s in Spike’s head any way he turns, whether he says it or not.

When the dog is finally finished, Vicious remains straddling him, though he turns his face away with that opaque, vaguely sullen expression he wears almost all the time. The only clue to his overwhelm is the way his breath still trembles, his dress shirt fluttering with the pounding of his heart in the cage of his ribs. Supposed to be cold, but he’s much too hot now, sweat-sheened, gathering the hem of his shirt in his fist to keep it from getting damned animal seed on it when his partner sits up to take one of his cigarettes. Spike’s undershirt won’t be so lucky. That’s something, at least. Fucking dog, always making him lose precious control.

Perhaps it’s surprising how he doesn’t hurry to get off of Spike’s leg, only unbuttoning his shirt and stripping to his own pristine sleeveless undershirt, his eyes still looking at something else off to the side, maybe at nothing, palming his damp hair off his face. After a pause he reaches for the cigarette too, stewing on it while their breath slows, sickness stirring in his belly as the two stay close.

“You better fuck that girl, or I’ll think there’s something wrong with you,” he has the gall to announce, at last shifting off the other one, at last meeting his eyes. “And you promised me food.”

Some of the things the two boys do together feel thoughtlessly right, natural, things two beasts might do - to coregulate, to feel close. To be seen, known. It’s our nature. A way to understand each other and to be understood, when so much of this world feels not made for them.

Getting off with each other can feel like that, that physical act something animal - feels good, or sometimes even needed. The first time Vicious had called Spike to come, the older boy had gone without a second thought. Like a dog, an animal, one who belonged to the grey-eyed snake, in this life and the ones before.

But both boys aren’t content with only that - of course they aren’t, of course they both want more. Sometimes more feels good too - get it, that’s right, come on. Do it good for me. Like strange, unexpected worship: I want to touch you, a rare embrace, a real kiss. Or when Spike can trust his partner so completely it does something to them both. Spike had seen stars when Vicious put his hands around his throat, come new. And he knows somehow, knows, that last night, bruised throat full of the other boy, that Vicious had felt something just like that too.

Of course, they’re only boys, young animals still, and not every time Spike seeks out closeness with his snake-hearted partner will it hold something sacred alongside the profane. They like to play rough, after all. For all their talk of teaching and learning, wild creatures really learn best by doing. 

Feels good at first, even as it still feels bad - Spike is confused and borderline furious when Vicious moans like a fucking girl and it gets him off, but his soft coaxing that’s right, come on feels so good, like praising a dog. Even the way he holds Spike’s hips and ruts in the valley of his hipbone feels good, unable to overthink it at the height of orgasm, just enjoying being touched, held, a useful animal.

Unguarded, coming hard, unable to access the part of him that should find this wrong or humiliating, the fluid, sensual movement of his snake-hipped, sinuous partner just gets Spike off even harder. If it were only that, he might have been unsettled about it later, privately confused or maybe even curious about himself, about this sickness.

But Vicious doesn’t leave it at that, soft-voiced and almost pretty: do you like that, baby, I know. Blushing hot, still pumping out the last few pulses of thick wolf-seed with one hand, Spike throws his other arm over his face, hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow, the sound of his groans suddenly sharper, tight-voiced, like the snake really had slipped a knife between his ribs.

I know, he tells the wolf, laughing, and it feels true, feels real, and for some reason, that feels bad, which also feels good. They’re both only boys, only boys, not angels or beasts or anything, not wolves who swallow snakes or snakes who swallow stars - so how can it really be true, that the gravestone-eyed serpent could coil up inside of the wolf this way, get inside his head, wrap his long snake-body around his heart?

It shouldn’t be possible - it isn’t possible. But somehow, Spike knows that it is. There is nowhere in the world for boys like them, for beasts like them, but in each other, they can create a new kind of world, one only for them. That can’t be bad - can it? It can only be good, good, good.

What could he possibly say? No wonder Spike is at a loss for words, even after studying his partner’s pink-flushed profile for a moment, feeling the tremor in the other boy’s breathing under the hand he’s pressed gently against his low ribs. No wonder he steals one of his cigarettes. Vicious has already stolen so much from Spike - though then again, can one steal things that are offered so freely?

Spike expects his partner to break away from him much sooner than he does; it’s somehow equal parts soothing and unsettling that he doesn’t, craving the other boy’s closeness like the sentimental hound he is, but it’s been so unlike Vicious to linger long at all most times they’ve explored this kind of intimacy together, seeming almost physically unable to stay close any longer than a moment after they both got off, like he’s unsettled or overwhelmed or even annoyed with Spike.

Spike realizes that that unsettled feeling is actually the stirring of something else, something that feels like want but is purer and more fragile, something he doesn’t dare put a name to. In order to allow it to live as long as it can, he doesn’t make any kind of smart-mouthed remark, doesn’t curse his partner again, doesn’t even antagonize the other boy by joking about kissing and cuddling. He just averts his eyes from Vicious after a short moment to look up at the ceiling instead, content to share the cigarette, enjoying being close.

Finally, Vicious moves off of him, and of course it comes with rude commentary. Spike rolls his eyes, sits up, laughing a little - it sounds sort of off, and the snake will be able to pick out disbelief in the tone of it, but there’s something else in it too. Like maybe he really is losing it, has already lost it. Maybe he really did die in the chamber. It would explain a lot. “Well we can’t have that,” replying to Vicious’ threat that he’ll think there’s something wrong with Spike if he doesn’t pursue Selene. He hasn’t noticed his phone buzzing for a reply from her yet, but maybe it’s just late and she hasn’t seen it. Or maybe she could tell the difference after all.

Peeling off his undershirt, using it to perfunctorily wipe off his dick and then clean the mess from his abdomen. The bruising on his ribs from the hits Vicious had let him take from Xhang’s goons the other night is healing slowly, but it’s superficial. He balls up his shirt before lobbing it in the direction of his bedroom, then picks up his phone from the floor to check the time, putting it on the coffee table after, avoiding the little spill of tea on its scratched wooden surface.

“Goddamn, you’re demanding. ‘Spike, you promised me food. Spike, fuck that girl, Spike, take pictures of my dick.’” Sighing sharply, playing annoyed, though he can’t completely keep the little smirk from his mouth, insouciant. “Remind me why I invited you over again?”

Reaching to take the cigarette from Vicious for just one drag before returning it to him, and then he sits back, drops his head back against the back of the couch, closes his eyes. “It’ll be ready in like five minutes. Can’t I have five minutes? You’re lucky I didn’t just fall asleep and leave you to fend for yourself.”

Still feverish, glassy, shadows under his pale skin and in his blood, Vicious looks sidelong at Spike with an unreadable expression. Then, quick-darting snake hand snatches the other boy’s messy undershirt before he tosses it, using it to wipe himself, too. He has the nerve to make it look elegant, chin gracefully inclined, cleaning his dick in a couple smooth strokes, like wiping blood from a sword. 

Only then is there the faintest smirk, acknowledgment that indeed, he’s been a little demanding. Maybe he hadn’t even realized himself quite how much, in the heat of his urgency. Why did the wolf invite him here? They both know the real answer, but the hoarse reply is glib, even laced with a soft laugh: “Because you’re a sucker for punishment, like I said.” 

“And I’m not lucky for shit,” head tilting back over the sofa, blowing a long, draconian plume of smoke out of both of his nostrils. “When you insist on saying stupid things, it just makes me want to hurt you more.” 

Smiling a little though, rare contentment settling over him. Nurses Spike’s cigarette as he tucks his dick back into his clothes, closing the button and zipper but not the belt. Privately, Vicious tries to remember the last time he’s been in anyone else’s house. There’s only Julia and the place he’d worked so hard to get for her to live in. He told himself it was just a return favor; one day she’d passed him some bandages through the iron gate of her schoolyard, and another day, a bathroom key attached to a big wooden block that said WOMEN so he could break into the convent and use the shower while everyone else slept. So a couple years later, when he was seventeen, he’d proudly given her the wooden block back, with the key to a little old apartment attached to it. Most Syndicate women have to wait a long time before they get a home from a man, and they have to put out too. He’d told her as much, and she’d just laughed: I’m not your woman yet. 

How irksome, to imagine Julia more jealous of someone else cooking for him than she’d be of the other things he’d done tonight, or last night. He’s pretty sure that’s how she’d feel if she knew, at least. She won’t find out about any of it. She’s well-trained now. 

The phone does buzz eventually. It’s a short message: 3 hearts and when????? A moment later, Vicious sneezes quietly; how irksome. 

One of the ways those two are different yet the same - the snake makes nearly everything look beautiful, elegant, even the obscene. There is a certain beauty in the wolf, too, but something animal-raw, unrefined but fluid and powerful. They compliment each other well, something many enemies will discover intimately very soon. Rumors of it have already begun.

Spike laughs too, slightly hoarse-throated - he really hadn’t been expecting his partner to be in such a good mood or to take his teasing so well. It must be this illness that makes him feel so feverish still, sets his heart pounding in his ears for a moment, a surge of buzzing in his hot wolf-blood. “I guess you’re right,” sighing, admitting his preference for punishment begrudgingly, even though it’s faked. His own smile gives him away, even if he’s not looking at the other boy. He knows they both know the real reason, and he knows neither of them want to discuss it. Don’t need to - what is there to say?

Miraculously, he leaves the comment about luck alone, in a good mood too, but he gives a little hum of acknowledgement when Vicious bemoans the consequences of Spike’s inability to not say stupid things. Eyes closed, head still tilted back, he finally makes himself decent again, zips up his pants. “Well… sometimes I just can’t stop myself, it seems. Maybe that makes you unlucky,” musing quietly, smile growing. “I won’t hold it against you, though. You said yourself that I’m thick… Who knows, maybe I just need to be kicked around a little to get things through my head.”

Letting a comfortable silence fall, though he does reach without looking for the cigarette they’re sharing one more time. He doesn’t even check his phone right away when it buzzes, disinterested. It’s not until his phone’s timer goes off a few minutes later that he snags up his phone - turns off the alarm, checks the text. No wonder his partner had sneezed. A wry little huff of laughter himself, typing out a quick reply (you like? maybe tmrw, i’ll lyk, work a little busy) before getting up to go to the kitchen, leaving his phone behind on the coffee table. Maybe Vicious had just sneezed because of sickness, though, the superstition only that, because Spike sneezes too now, twice.

“Anytime,” Vicious replies immediately, wry, to Spike’s suggestion that kicking him around might finally get it through his head: The snake finds the concept of luck soft-headed in itself, resents his partner’s apparent belief in it. Even as a boy wandering around little casinos and parlors, he’d despised the vacant look of washed-up men and old ladies watching balls pinging around Pachinko machines or roulette wheels, whispering incantations to them. Needing to believe in magic, the slim possibility of unearned reward in their pointless lives. 

He’d ended up hearing all about Spike’s luck and how it had got him picked up by goons, and had availed himself of the same kind of luck on the night Apollo Xhang was unfortunately killed in self-defense. Just a card game gone wrong, happens all the time. It’s fine for others to believe in such things. Even Mao says things like how unlucky, or bad weather, even when he knows better.

Vicious prefers to believe that one has agency in the craft of their own destiny. If pressed, though, he might admit to a casual interest in the idea of destiny, that all his living days are a beginning, their end already written and unavoidable. How else to explain ending up with Spike over and over again, whether he wanted it or not, one so much the same?