Everything ached and the light hurt his eyes as he slid open the glass door, stepped outside. Spike had his back turned, cigarette in his hand, staring at the cars below. He told Xander he liked watching the people in cars because they forgot people could see them - like moving art exhibits. Only they were on the fourth floor, and you couldn't see people anymore. Xander wondered what he was watching, what he saw when he looked out into the world. Remembered he'd had the exact same thought the night before and shuddered in the cold.

"Plum velvet laughs within her stare,
Curls 'round her neck, farce of care.
She let's it push me far away,
Beneath her skin,
It's crawling.

My dark darling,
My true love,
Lost to the lure,
Plum velvet," he screams lyrics with carnal eloquence. The people on the floor writhe in response, all moving in unholy worship of the man before them, hungry for something new to follow. Xander watches from the side of the stage, hidden by a moth eaten curtain.

"Amazing, isn't he?" a girl to his left shouts in his ear, her breath thick with cheap drinks, bought with money earned from an enticing look followed by a dirty fuck in the alley. She looks like she's having the time of her life and Xander can't help but feel sorry for her. She's a child, a little girl with something to prove and lipstick smeared across her mouth.

"Buffy will kill you if she finds out you've been doing this again," he says, faint smell of strawberry shampoo when she steps closer, though it's quickly stamped out when the heavy stink of alcohol washes over him again.

"I don't care," Dawn replies, practiced indifference ruined when she nearly falls over. Xander catches her in his arms, pulls her to him and lets her put her head on his shoulder. "Buffy thinks she can tell me what to do now mom's gone and acts like this princess who's never done anything wrong before. Just because she's the band's roadie, she thinks she's so special," she says, sounding every bit the teenage girl. Xander wants to find the man who took her into the alley. Wants to kill him. "Lemme go," she mumbles, trying to move away, back to the floor. Xander doesn't let her. He knows he wouldn't feel right if he lets her wander back into the pack of wolves. Dawn stops struggling after a moment, remains quiet. "He's something else," she says after a beat. It takes Xander a moment to realise where she is in her head and casts his eyes to the stage, to Spike - eyes shut, hips rolling in obscenely tight trousers, head thrown back as he sings as though in religious ecstasy. Hypnotizing. Beautiful. Fucking dangerous.

"I wonder where he goes," he mutters, pulling Dawn up when she starts to slide to the floor.

"To Drusilla, probably," Dawn says, easy smile that's just a little too wide, "this song is about her, you know. She was Spike's muse or something. He loved her, even though she was insane. She ... she got him, you know?" she says, unaware of Xander's muscles tensing against her, eyes too unfocused to see Xander's face move into a frown. Because he doesn't. Get Spike, that is. He doesn't understand half the things Spike does, doesn't think he ever will.

"Hey, Xander! You sure you don't want in on some of this? It's good shit! Come on, man, drop the skank and try it," Doyle calls from the couch behind them, holding up a small plastic bag. Doyle is the driver and mechanic for the band - one who always happens to have some drug in his pocket, a bottle of whiskey in his bag and at least two people chasing him due to gambling debts. Spike says they hired him because it made life more interesting. Xander wants to be interesting.

Xander casts his eyes back to the stage, to Spike, looking more exposed and comfortable than Xander's ever seen him as he sings the song he wrote for his lost girlfriend.

"My dark darling,
My true love,
Lost to the lure,
Plum velvet," he sings, voice raw and powerful, probably picturing her - Drusilla kissing him, touching him, knowing him.

"Sure, I'll try," he says to Doyle, setting Dawn on a chair. "I want to see what he sees," he added, sitting on the couch, watching white powder on a mirror. "I want to see."

"I'm sorry about last night," Xander said to Spike's back, arms wrapped around himself as he shivered in the cold snap of the wind around him.

"Yeah," came the reply. Spike didn't turn around. Just stood looking out to the sun hidden behind low grey clouds, leaning against the balcony railing as grey smoke curled above his head as though the clouds were falling.

"I didn't mean what I said," he continued, scuffing his feet, looking everywhere else, anywhere else. "I guess I'll be going," and with that he turned away, sliding the glass door open as he stepped back inside. Cheap blue carpet, one window, mundane scenic paintings that you could buy in bulk hanging on beige walls. Reality. The dream was over.

The world glittered, sounds coursed through his veins, Spike's shirt was changing colour and Xander couldn't remember what Willow looked like. "What does Willow look like?" he asked Spike, who's shirt was now ... pink? No, that was skin. Oh. Naked Spike. That was nice. "That's nice," words seemed to leak from his mouth and was kind of funny, so Xander laughed.

"Willow looks like ... a tree. And m'not nice," Spike replied, easy smile and shiny white teeth like a wolf in moonlight. Or maybe a fox.

"You're foxy," Xander said, grin now as he rolled over and pressed his lips to Spike's chest, smooth and cool like marble floor against Xander's head - too hot, feverish, he needed to get his clothes off.

"That I am. You're high," came the mumbled reply, slight hitch of his breath as Xander's hands slipped lower.

"So are you," he reasoned. Colours swirled beneath Spike's skin, like a rivers of worlds hidden just under the surface. Moving, churning, white life and promise, eternal flame that was blue and roaring so loud Xander could hear it.

"Not really. Got a higher tolerance than you," words echoing in Xander's head, voice like the scrape of a match against leather, deeper, richer as Xander's ventured further still.

"You have worlds here. In your skin. Want to be inside them. Wanna be inside you," he whispered, worried his voice wouldn't be heard over the roar of the rivers and the pounding of his body, every cell dancing to it's own tune as the world whistled in crystal. Spike was turning to crystal too, stiffening, moving back, moving away.

"No," a word Xander didn't want to hear, hadn't heard from Spike's lips in the past week and a half because Spike never said no. He said yes, give me, harder, faster, more. So this wasn't Spike. Couldn't be. So he moved forward, felt the air brush against him like a third party, teasing, kissing so softly it nearly hurt.

"You always get to be part of me, Spike. I want to feel your worlds, the ones you inside of you, the ones you let nobody see," Xander said, laughing when Spike moved back again, reaching out to catch his wrist.

"I don't bottom," Spike said, shoving Xander backwards, pulling on his clothes. Xander watched him leave, felt anger, frustration, slick heat and no one to sate the pressure in his stomach, in his mind.

"Fine! Fucking coward! Go then, run to faceless groupies who'll let you fuck them, lie to them like you lie to me," screamed words to Spike, to his face that was tight his narrowed eyes.

"Why should I run anywhere? I have a tweaked out groupie right here," words and sharp, intended to slice. Silence was thick and Xander couldn't speak.

"Get the fuck out," he said, more words ready because this was ground Xander was familiar with - flinging hateful black shots of words until the sting of tears hit his eyes and no more could be said. But Spike didn't reply. Xander didn't even have to time to move before the door slammed shut.

Xander flopped down onto the sheets of the hotel bed, smoke in the air, powder on the table, listening to the crystal shatter.

"I didn't mean what I said either," hand on his shoulder pulling him around to face the man who seemed to live more every second than Xander did in years. "You were high. I'm a bastard. Never a good combination," Spike said, flash of a grin, all forgiven. Xander didn't have time to reply because he was being assaulted with lips crushed against his, hands sliding up his shirt, roaring thunder in the air and drops of the sky making his shirt wet, making Spike's hair curl in his fingers.

"It's raining, we should go back inside," he said, ever the voice of reason, the ex-courier, the tax payer who got high once and never would again.

"So?" Spike rasped. They were leaning on the railing of the balcony now, black gravel shifting beneath their feet. One wrong move would mean falling, tumbling, hurtling towards the ground faster than the blink of an eye, momentary flash of weightlessness, of freedom, then the End.

Xander's feet were on the ground, fingers in Spike's hair, tongue in his mouth. He felt like he was falling.

Note: the lyrics were written by the fic's author and the song's name is "Plum Velvet"

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