ETA!!!
The Song Of The Treadmill!

It's part three of the a five-ish part WIP, by one of my favorite authors, tabaqui. Scroll up a tick for the links to parts one and two. Read it now, though if I'd known how hard I'd be wanting more, I'd have waited till the whole thing was posted, lol.

So if you like SPN fic--and hell, if you don't, this'll convert you--mosey on over, have a look-see and, as always, show your love in comment form.

Prose. To. Die. For, and that's no faint praise coming from the bug who normally skims prose for all she's worth.

On the heels of pimpage--here's some fic.


Life Is Good . . . Cue The Ominous Music
Author: _beetle_
Fandom: It's a Xover.
Pairing: My characters don't kiss and tell.
Rating: Hard R for sexual situations.
Disclaimer: Not mine at all, woe is me. Console me with concrit/feedback.
Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: None, actually. How weird is that?
Summary: I'm really bad at summaries, but hey! There's smoochies and banter. Do you really care, beyond that?



"Good Lord, you're not wearing that, are you? It's nightmarish!"


A look of wounded offense plastered on his face, Xander pauses mid model-spin and brushes purely imaginary lint off his lucky shirt.


Three years ago, this same shirt had literally appeared on his sleeping bag with a brief note tucked into the pocket.


Happpy New Year! the eye-watering pink cocktail napkin had proclaimed in a shaky version of Willow's normally precise cursive.


(It had also proclaimed: Girl Groove! Where Girls Groove! but in a much steadier purple typeface.)


Xander had puzzled over napkin and shirt for a few moments--it wasn't New Years, not even close--before stashing the note with his passport. The shirt--which no less than seven kaleidoscopes must've thrown up on--he kept in his backpack, never managing to ship it to Giles for safe keeping until his reassignment.


Eventually he'd started wearing it, and it'd become sort of a luck talisman; almost as inseparable from him as the tattoos on his skin and the string of fetishes around his neck.


"I'll have you know,” Xander begins, as stately and dignified as the Titanic, “that this shirt is a classic."


Adam gives him one of those looks--that includes a very raised, very British eyebrow. It reminds him nostalgically of Giles--and even of Spike in an oh-thank-God-I-don't-have-to-share-living-space-with-that-primadonna-anymore sort of way.


"I'm almost certain that you and I have different meanings for the word 'classic', in that case," Adam murmurs, standing up and strolling around the couch, eying him intently. When he's close enough to haul Xander in by the lapels of the admittedly loud shirt, he frowns critically at it, then aims a wry smile at Xander. "You know, it's amazing. . . ."


"What?" Xander demands, prepared to defend tipsy!Willow's taste in shirts to the death. But Adam's hazel eyes are sparkling with laughter, and something else that makes Xander's heart skip random beats.


"Even this hideously-patterned monstrosity looks good on you."


Mollified, Xander blushes and preens. "All part of the Xander Harris entirely figurative mojo." And possibly the Willow Rosenberg quite literal mojo, but there's really no need to get into that. Not until he absolutely has to.


Say . . . when he's in his nineties and via Ouija board. . . .


"Not that you wouldn't look much better out of it." Adam's long fingers are already unbuttoning the shirt as he crowds Xander towards the counter that separates the living room from the kitchen. He has the shirt halfway unbuttoned when Xander jumps away wearing his resolve-face.


Adam pulls a look of his own: that of chastised puppy. Of both looks, Adam's is easily the stronger. But Xander's hip to this game. He's not falling for it.


He's also having a lot of trouble rebuttoning the goddamn shirt.


Adam sidles closer, wearing that Cheshire cat grin Xander used to hate--and still finds exasperating in moments like these. "You, my darling, must learn how to take a compliment."


"Oh, I can take plenty of compliments. Except when they're a ruse to distract me from meeting the boyfriend's friends."


"Yes, because that's the only reason 'the boyfriend' wants to see you out of that shirt. Not to mention the rest of your clothes." In a low, amused voice that makes Xander body think it's sixteen again for a number of reasons. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather stay home, drink some imported beer and pretend it's our first date all over again?"


"Sir, are you implying that I'm easy?"


That British-guy eyebrow and an ironic twist to lips that, depsite himself, Xander wants to kiss. "Implying?"


Xander crosses his arms in a way he hopes says absolutely no nookie for you. Not that that's ever stopped Adam from using every weapon in his distressingly large arsenal of naughtiness.


And speaking of Adam not stopping--Xander smacks a sneaky, far too clever hand away from his belt. As always, there's an almost visible spark between them at the skin-to- skin contact. It's a more tangible version of the visceral reaction/Adam-sense Xander's had since day one. Even with his eyes closed and fresh out of a dead sleep he can always tell where in the apartment Adam is--or if he's in it at all. He can feel it in his bones and in his blood; in the flutter in the pit of his stomach and the buzz in the back of his brain.


Suffice it to say the man's never been able to sneak up on him.


“Hey!” Xander smacks at Adam's hand again--hands, because the one not tugging Xander close again by the same belt loop is sliding into Xander's back pocket. "Hands--hands, Mister!"


But it's not just hands, now, it's lips, and heated kisses and heated words whispered almost reverently against Xander's lips. There's more groin-to-groin contact now than skin-to-skin, and that, of course, brings its own special tingle and buzz.


Somehow, Xander's still surprised when, a few minutes later, he's holding up the living room wall--trying to catch his breath while Adam is slithering gracefully down his body. Taking Xander's jeans with him.


“. . . think we should just stay home tonight. You can meet them some other time.” Adam murmurs on his stomach, warm and tickley.


“Oh, no you don't!” Xander grabs his jeans and yanks them back up, stumbling away till he hits the back of the couch and slides down onto it. He bounces to his feet quickly, managing to bash only one ankle on the coffee table. “It's almost five-thirty, Adam. We're supposed to get there for seven. Seacouver's ninety minutes away by car. So. We're going into the bedroom--”


“Naturally,” Adam says, grinning and still crouched exactly where Xander had left him. His head is cocked at that angle, the one that means he is, right now, finding Xander endlessly interesting and surprising.


Like many things about Adam, this is both endearing and annoying in nearly equal measures.


“Going to the bedroom to get changed. In fact--I'm going in there alone and when I'm done, you--eep!”


Still as a pond one moment, vaulting over the back of the couch to land next to Xander the next, Adam has him before he can do more than eep and half-turn toward their bedroom.


Xander struggles reluctantly against the hugging and nuzzling. "C'mon, babe, we so don't have time for this, so qui--okay, this isn't funny, put me down! I mean it, Adam! Put me--ow!"


(This is another endearing/annoying thing about Adam. Not the fact that he's currently got Xander slung over his shoulder like a duffel bag full of laundry. That's actually kind of hot. No, the endearing/annoying bit is that Adam--who tends to look spindly and delicate in his customary black and grey, but is actually all coiled, wiry strength--is so able to easily and completely overpower him. Not in a threatening way, granted. But it's a bit of a blow to the ego of a burly, muscle-y, damn manly carpentry man, who just happens to do carpentry and tote around ginormous slabs of wood all day, to have his physically smaller boyfriend carry him around.


Sometimes it's also enough to make him wonder if his boyfriend is entirely human.)


"Oh, stop moaning and flailing." Adam smacks Xander's ass again, but a bit more gently. And without breaking his stride toward their bedroom. “We've got plenty of time.”


“Only if you're not looking at a clock,” Xander huffs. "Haven't you heard 'no' means no?"


"Except when it means yes." The world spins and stops with a bounce when Adam dumps Xander on the bed.


“I told you I hate it when you do this, right?" he groans, throwing an arm over his face to block out the spinning room and the three boyfriends grinning down at him.


"You have--" Adam's tugging Xander's jeans back down. There's a truncated jingle as they hit the dresser belt buckle first "--but I just don't believe you."


"Adam. . . .” the sigh of the long-suffering Xander, as Adam pushes his legs apart and kneels between them. He efficiently unbuttons the lucky shirt and pushes it as far down Xander's shoulders as he can with Xander refusing to budge.


“You could lend a hand, you know.” This suggestion is kissed dead center onto Xander's sternum. He inhales sharply, but doesn't move either arm.


“Yeah. Cuz I'm gonna help you make us late-er.”


"Joe and Mac are surprised to see me at all--let alone on time.” Adam folds his arms and makes himself comfortable on Xander's chest. “In any case, when I say seven, they know not before nine, maybe ten. Joe'll jam with whatever unsung blues hero is playing tonight and Mac'll unwittingly steal the hearts of several pretty young things. Thus our absence will go unnoticed for quite some time."


"But when we do show up, they're gonna notice that we're covered in hickies and I'm walking funny."


For a few seconds Adam's shaking with silent, full-body laughter and Xander uncovers his eye just to glare. Adam only laughs harder, using the moment of relaxed vigilance to slip Xander's left arm out of it's sleeve. The right arm is a bit of a struggle.


"Well, we'll wear turtlenecks and I'll push you along in a wheelchair, how's that for subterfuge?"


Xander rolls his eyes, but helps Adam tug the shirt free. It goes sailing off in the direction of his pants. "What's really scary is that I'm the adult in this relationship."


"Mm, a truly frightening thought, now that you mention it." Adam's grin slips into a warm smile. The one Xander can't help but return, even though he's wound up and nervous and still a bit pissed off at the purposely crap timing of this seduction.


When Adam leans up to kiss him, though, Xander doesn't turn away--doesn't hold back a moan at the unexpected sweetness of it.


"Pretty, pretty please," Adam murmurs in a voice that's pure, shameless sex and really, who does Xander think he's kidding?


No one in this apartment, that's for sure. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with being love's bitch as long as you keep up the gameface.


Sound advice despite it's origins.


“Alright. But make it quick,” Xander says between kisses, all fake reluctance and magnanimity.


“Hmm . . . and when have you ever known me to be quick?”


Xander's eyebrows shoot up. “Does the night we met ring any bells?”


Adam actually blushes, the first time in nearly a year of their strange permutation of fucking/friendship/dating/serial monogamy. “I was pissed, if you'll recall. And when I embarked on my delightful evening of alcohol poisoning, I didn't really expect I'd be called upon to tumble anyone that night.”


“Excuses, excuses.” Xander tries to wrap his arms around Adam's neck, but Adam catches his wrists and kisses them before bearing them down to the bed in a gentle hold.


“Once you stopped avoiding me, I redeemed myself, though. Over and over and--” Xander's breathing stutters then speeds up when Adam's hands on his wrists clamp down enough to be restraining and he swoops in for another kiss that's more teeth than tenderness “--over.”


“Fuck, we're--gonna be sooo late for--for the--the thing we had to go to at--the place--"


“Run away with me,” Adam stops kissing him just long enough to say. Then he's pulling Xander's arms around his neck and rolling them to their sides, tangling their legs together.


“Huh? What?” Active listening is really tricky, what with his attention evenly divided between kissing and trying to pull off a shapeless, threadbare sweater of the type that seems to be a staple of Adam's wardrobe.


“Have you ever been to Rangoon?”


“Like Crab Rangoon?” Which reminds Xander he's been too nervous to eat all day. And his hands keep getting sidetracked by all the warm skin and sleek muscle underneath the sweater.


“What about Bora Bora?” Adam shrugs out of the sweater in one fluid movement, then sits up--despite Xander's pout--to unzip his jeans and shove them down.


He grins at the appreciative glazing of Xander's eye.


“Samoa,” he purrs, and Xander really hasn't been listening, because huh?


“Samoa? Weren't we talking about Chinese take-out?” he begins, but Adam's sprawling on top of him again for intensive groinal grinding. The proper word, Xander now knows, is frottage. Which is definitely not also the French word for cheese.


"Anywhere in the Society Islands is simply gorgeous, if you like the tropics.”


"And I do, mosquitoes notwithstanding,” Xander confirms, even though Adam lost him somewhere between Crab Rangoon and frottage. “Sweetheart, is this onset Alzheimer's? Cuz . . . you're only thirty-nine."


“Tahiti!” Adam declares his eyes lighting up in that impassioned way that means he's not being facetious with these questions. “We could disappear in the most beautiful place on earth. Gauguin was a bloody genius, but even he didn't do the place justice--you'll go crazy when you see it. We'll live out the rest of our lives in style and anonymity.”


"Tahiti? Fuck, never mind. Tell me later, Professor.” Adam's pulled Xander's right leg around his waist and is attacking his left ear again with sharp, playful teeth. Such changes and mixes of mood are, to Xander, classic Adam Pierson: the man who can wax pedantic about the Whig Party circa 1830, whilst binding his desperately horny boyfriend wrist and ankle to the bed.


Adam doesn't just live fully in a moment, he lives fully in many of them, all at the same time, and that will always fascinate Xander.


Though it is, on occasion, exasperating.


“You know, keeping up with you will kill me well before I'm thirty-nine," he murmurs, using his leg to pull Adam closer, and just--right--there, and yeah, sooner or later one of them are going to have to pull it together for long enough to grab the lube out of the night table.


But Xander must've somehow put his foot in it because all naughtiness has stopped and Adam is rolling onto his back, covering his face with a sigh.


"No worries on that count. You're going to live a very, very long life, Xander Harris," he says, sounding less than resoundingly joyful about it.


A less mature Xander might feel like his heart's been ripped out and watusied on. A Xander who's less than certain that he somehow knows Adam on a level that runs even deeper than instinct might curl up and die.


But this Xander turns over, spooning Adam's unusually rigid body. After watching his pale profile and squinched-shut eyes, he nuzzles Adam's shoulder and soothes his hand up and down his chest.


“I'm gonna live a long life, huh? I take it that means you're no longer planning to poison me so you can inherit all my millions?”


Adam snorts, almost smiling, and looks over at Xander. His eyes, always so much older than the rest of him, seem weary and unhappy, as well.


This is nothing Xander hasn't seen before, but he's been seeing it more and more, lately. Something too intense and rooted in the present to be brooding.


“Listen, my Adam-sense has been tingling for awhile, now. There's something you're not telling me. And I get that--whatever it is, you'll tell me in your own time because . . . whatever it is, isn't the easiest thing to say.” Xander forges ahead before Adam can protest. They don't lie to each, as far as Xander knows, and he'd rather they didn't start. “But--whatever it is, it's not gonna change the way I feel about you, if that's what you're worried about.”


This time, Adam actually rolls away from him and sits up, swinging his feet to the floor. "There are . . . . certain things you don't know about me, Xander--about us. Things that . . . well. There may come a time when you regret you ever met me." Adam's tone suggests that time may not be too far into the future.


"Never gonna happen.” He means it, would never say it if he didn't. But he also knows he'd say anything and mean it just to have back the banter and lust of--God, was it only a minute or two ago? Had he only been worried about meeting Adam's friends just a few minutes before that?


He lays his hand on Adam's back, pathetically grateful when he doesn't pull away.


“I really didn't intend to fall so quickly, or so deeply, you understand,” Adam says, low and soft--not exactly a sweeping declaration of love, but then he isn't that type. “You took me completely by surprise.”


For all that he seems like an open book, the only thing Adam Pierson guards more fanatically than his past is his heart. So to Xander, that quiet little statement means nothing short of everything. “I'll take that as a compliment.”


“That's how I meant it.” There's a definite smile in Adam's voice.


Xander sits up and wraps his arms around Adam's waist, resting his chin one prominent shoulder blade. “Then the feeling is mutual.”


Adam leans back in his embrace with another sigh, this one somewhat less discontented. "It really is important to me that you meet Joe and Mac. You and Joe'll get on like a house on fire and MacLeod . . . well, you and he have a great deal in common."


Ah, and there's that nervousness from before. As changes of subject go, it's fairly effective.


"Please tell me that 'a great deal' doesn't include you?" Xander's intent is to lighten the mood some, but from the little he knows about Duncan Macleod, if the guy's carrying a torch for Adam. . . . "I mean, one-eyed carpentry guy versus the Scotsman who teaches martial arts and owns his own barge? Them're Vegas odds, and not in my favor."


"Xander," Adam's voice turns gentle in the way that it only does for Xander. Which isn't to say that it hadn't for Duncan MacLeod, at some point, but Xander tries not to dwell on this kind of thought. "MacLeod grew on me--sort of like a barnacle, or a really persistent rash. And I'll admit he can be very . . . charismatic. But I'm not in love with him, and I never have been. You, however, are another story."


Oh. "Oh." The muscles in Xander's face feel like they're straining, trying to stretch his smile from ear to ear.


“To be honest, I've never met a man as doggedly heterosexual as MacLeod. I doubt he's ever even been curious. Which is suspicious, in and of itself. . . .”


While it's all well and good that Adam and his best friend aren't carrying mutual torches for each other, Xander still doesn't like the idea of his boyfriend speculating about the guy's sexual preferences. "Yeah, great, hey--how 'bout those Supersonics!"


Adam chuckles. "You're adorable when you're jealous and insecure."


"Then I must be adorable all the time."


"You are. And no matter what happens, no matter how things go, I want you to know that all I've ever wanted for you is safety and happiness." Adam's voice is suddenly serious, and wearier and guiltier than Spike or Angel had ever sounded.


"Babe? Seriously? You're starting to freak me out.” Xander hugs him tighter for a moment, worried and directionless with it. “What the hell do you think is gonna happen tonight?"


"I think . . . we're going to have a few drinks and dinner with Joe and Mac, then a nice long chat. Afterwards . . . is entirely up to you."


"That isn't some kinda polite euphemism for a Xander-in-the-middle gang-bang, is it?"


"No!” Adam leans his head back far enough so he can see Xander. That Cheshire cat look is back, warring with amused horror. “My libertine days are quite far behind me, thank you.”


"Alright, then. Stop making me worry.” Xander kisses Adam's short, spiky hair and runs his hands down Adam's chest. “This is just me meeting your friends. Friends that you were in no way romantically involved with, and who will have no reason, whatsoever, to hate me or judo-chop me."


"Hate you?” Adam snorts again, but it's wry, rather than rueful. "Xander, you're noble, honest, funny and unbelievably sweet. If anything, they'll love you."


"But not as much as you love me." It slips out before Xander can stop it. Just because Adam's admitted it once doesn't mean he wants to be saying it every five seconds. . . .


"Well, that'd be impossible.” Adam turns and pushes Xander back down on the bed. “And considering that you've already taken my heart, it'd be terribly gauche of you to take theirs, as well.”


“True.” If hearing this is going to make his heart beat this fast and hard every time, Adam's eventually going to hear it for himself. “So, there's no chance--and I'm just spit-ballin', here--these friends of yours . . . are, say, vampires?”


”What?”


“Or, you know, some kinda--less-than-law-abiding guys of the non-human variety?” Adam's watching him with wide eyes, seemingly rendered speechless for once. “And they haven't ever tried to, um . . . destroy the world?”


Finally, Adam blinks, lays down and says: “No . . . but I'm suddenly a lot more nervous about meeting your friends.”


Xander laughs a little, tucking his face into the hollow between Adam's neck and shoulder. It's certainly noteworthy that he hadn't said: vampires? Demons? Why, Xander, those things aren't real?


There are probably many talks they need to have down the line, not the least of which are extremely candid recountings of their pasts. But he's suddenly sure that when that time comes, Adam may not be as shocked by Xander's past as previously feared.


Though he's not naïve enough to believe the reverse is likely to be true, Xander's also not cynical enough to believe they can't weather whatever lurks in Adam's past together.


“I think you should get the lube, since you love me so much and you're closer to the night table,” Xander announces, scraping his nails down Adam's chest just for the purring rumble it causes.


“Engaging in carnal activities won't make us any earlier for dinner, Xander,” Adam tsks, but obediently reaches for the drawer. When he turns back to Xander, triumphant, he waggles the tube before flicking the cap up and squirting a pretty spare amount onto Xander's stomach to warm.


When Xander raises an questioning eyebrow, Adam mirrors it. “What? I've already covered you in hickies. Just taking care of the rest.”


“That'll teach me to be careful what I wish for.”


A possessive, promising smile. “Indeed.”


Then there's no more conversation for awhile just touch; just changes in their breathing and desperate moans, most of which are Xander's.


Finally, just a long string of swears from Adam in a language Xander doesn't even recognize, but is flattered by nonetheless. Though he does grow concerned when a few minutes have passed and Adam still hasn't started moving. His face is flushed and deceptively serene, his prominent bone structure softened by the fading twilight.


Utterly still, but for the pulse at his temple.


“Hey,” Xander ventures, smiling when Adam opens his eyes. “Hi there, handsome. You okay?”


Adam rests his head against Xander's left knee briefly, but doesn't return the smile. “Hold on,” he says tightly.


Xander's hands have barely closed on the headboard--which has seen its own share of abuse in the past six months--before Adam pulls out almost completely, then surges forward. Xander cries out, is seeing stars; seeing electricity arcing even after he opens his eyes again. Sees it in Adam's eyes, and crawling all over their skin and glowing like a blue nimbus.


Random Saint Elmo's Fire when they fuck? Should freak Xander out, but it doesn't. Never has, and never will.


When his right leg slips off Adam's shoulder a little while later, he doesn't really notice or care, but for Adam pushing the leg out to the side and keeping it out of the way.


They don't break eye contact, even while kissing each other breathless.


It's always like this. It will always be like this, if Xander gets a say.


Soon, the headboard is actually starting to creak under his grip and he can feel an intense, slow-building orgasm pooling in the pit of his stomach and coiling at the base of his spine.


“Love you, Adam,” he gasps, unaware he's doing so. “Love you so much--”


They're going to be spectacularly late for meeting the boyfriend's friends, but who can worry as far ahead as tonight? Now is so very good, and the foreseeable future's shaping up to be the same.


End


This is basically a build on a few snippets of dialogue and a *gasp* concept that popped into my head last January. I wrote it and forgot about it until I stumbled across it recently, while trying to sort out all the stuff on my back-up disk. I didn't think anything'd actually come of it, and therefore said "what the hell" and inflicted my writer's block on it.

But now it's a ficlet! I'm so proud! If it doesn't totally tank, maybe that means I'm clawing my way out of the pit.

Dentist appointment before work tomorrow. Hold me.