reality_bends | New beginnings.

New beginnings.

Continued from here.

New York City, 5 weeks later...

Wesley was sitting in a patch of sunshine on a small rug in the living room of their new apartment and sorting through a box of assorted things, none of which appeared to have any relation to the others. It was as if the moving crew that had ended up doing nearly all of their packing for them had walked randomly through the old flat, choosing one or two things from each room. He was now trying to sort them into piles based on where they ought to end up. Without looking, he reached into the box again, this time bringing out a handful of take-away menus that were clearly going to be of no use in New York.

"Were the movers completely mad?" he called to Spike.

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"Told you we shouldn't go with movers who worked for Wolfram and Hart," Spike called back from his perch on the sturdy wooden desk that was currently sitting in the middle of the spare bedroom of the flat. He opened a boxed helpfully marked 'office' in black marker and looked inside. Despite his comment to Wesley, he was still surprised to find the shower caddy sitting in amongst the neat stack of file folders. "Found the shampoo."

"I have to console myself with the thought that there was a method to their madness," Wesley said, reminding himself that he didn't need to raise his voice too much. They weren't that far apart, after all, and Spike did have very good hearing. "That they had a plan."

He flicked the handful of menus toward the nearest empty box and, rather predictably, missed. Well, one of them missed. Carefully, he shifted his weight and got up onto his knees, reaching for the piece of paper that hadn't gone where he'd intended it to. He didn't hurt, exactly, although it felt as if the threat of it was always there, and he still felt an occasional twinge. For the most part, though, he was healed.

Spike heard Wesley moving but clenched his jaw and forced himself to stay where he was. He was supposed to be worrying less about him, or at least showing it less, and Wesley obviously wasn't doing much.

Leaving the folders where they were, he set the caddy on the desk before bending down to investigate another box. "Maybe they were trying to drive us mad," he said, pulling out Wesley's tea kettle from where it rested on top of some books.

"Quite possibly," Wesley said. It seemed unfair to complain too much, considering Angel had organized a great deal of the move for them, including the new necro-tempered glass that had only been installed the day before.

He turned back to the box he'd been emptying and took out some hand towels that should have been packed with the bathroom things, not that he'd missed them yet. "Oh, I found part of the first aid kit," he called. "Although the other half is mysteriously missing."

"It's probably in the toaster, each bit of sticking plaster individually wrapped in that bubble stuff." Spike moved the box of books into the pile for Wesley to deal with later. If Spike had anything to say about it, it would be much later, when the weight of books wouldn't be a problem, which is why he had offered to unpack the office, even if everything in it was Wesley's.

Abandoning the rest of the current box, which seemed to contain loose papers that he could sort through later, Wesley turned to another box and tore the tape from the top of it, folding the long strip into a neat but not particularly round ball. "No, I used the toaster last night," he said. "When you were out. It doesn't contain anything but toast crumbs at this point."

"The microwave, then," Spike said, opening up the next box without much enthusiasm. "No, I've used that. We'll just have to keep out of harm's way until it turns up." Which means I'll have to hide it if I find it, he added silently.

"It must be here somewhere," Wesley said. "All of it must be. The old apartment was empty when we left, after all."

He opened the box he'd just untaped and discovered that it contained one very large blanket, and nothing else.

"Doesn't mean the movers didn't keep some of the boxes for themselves." A horrible thought occured to Spike, and he looked up from his unpacking. "You don't think they've got the other game controller, do you?"

"If they do, we'll buy another one," Wesley called, taking the blanket out of the box and tossing it onto the sofa. He got up and moved to a stack of boxes that was against the wall, grabbing onto the top one and then nearly dropping it when it was much heavier than he'd expected it to be. He swore under his breath.

At Wesley's pained mutter, Spike was up off of the desk and through the door like a shot. It was one thing to have to sit back and let Wesley move around with some discomfort in the name of giving him his independence, but it was another to hear him do something that obviously hurt him.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" he asked, automatically skirting the puddles of bright sunlight as he went to take the box from Wesley. "You want anything moved, you're supposed to ask me."

"It's just a box," Wesley said, a bit more sharply than he'd meant to. More gently, he said, "I'm fine." He did let Spike take the box from him, though, sighing.

"Where do you want it?" Spike asked, looking at the room and not at Wesley. Reminding himself that Wesley was probably more frustrated with the situation than he was with him didn't make Wesley's tone smart any less.

"On the table?" Wesley suggested. "I didn't realize how heavy it was. The last box I opened had nothing in it but a blanket." He took a deep but cautious breath, waiting for pain that didn't come. "Thank you."

Spike was firmly of the opinion that Wesley shouldn't be moving any boxes at all, no matter what they contained, but he stayed silent as he walked around the edge of the room to put it on the table. "You might think about looking inside before you try to shift the next one," he said. "Never know if they decided to pack up a load of bricks."

"We didn't have any bricks," Wesley said, following Spike. He felt awkward and frustrated - he knew that Spike had good reason to be over-protective, but it was still difficult to feel that he wasn't able to do anything without Spike jumping up to do it for him. "I'll be more careful."

"No, you won't," Spike said with a tight smile. "But if you hurt yourself you won't be able to stop me from putting all your books randomly onto the shelves instead of in categories."

"I'm not likely to seriously injure myself lifting a few boxes," Wesley said. He tried his best to sound reasonable about it.

"Depends on what's in them, doesn't it?" Spike took a step back from the box and tried to stop the argument before it started up again. He knew all too well that Wesley wanted to do things on his own, even if it wasn't wise. "Just look inside next time, all right?"

"I will," Wesley promised, moving closer to Spike and thinking about putting an arm around Spike's waist, but not quite ready to do it. At night, in the dark, he was more than comfortable wrapping himself around Spike as best he could, but during the daytime, it was different, somehow. He was too aware of his own potential fragility, of the fresh scar on his abdomen. He felt self-conscious and awkward.

"You didn't hurt yourself?" Spike asked more softly, taking an unconscious step toward Wesley and searching his eyes for the signs of pain he now knew intimately. He knew that Wesley wouldn't like the question, but he had to ask.

"No," Wesley said, shaking his head a little bit. "No, I'm fine." Spike sounded so concerned that he couldn't be anything but warmed by it.

"Good." Letting out a little sigh of relief, Spike glanced around the room to keep from acting even more like a worried mother. "How's the unpacking going in here?"

"Slowly. I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I really didn't think we had quite so many things?" Of course, most of them had been Wesley's originally, but as far as he was concerned, they were jointly owned now. Although he didn't think Spike thought of it that way.

"I only had the one bag of clothes and a couple of boxes of CDs," Spike pointed out. "You're the one who hoards books like libraries are going out of business."

"Some of them are very valuable!" Wesley protested, before he realized that Spike was probably just teasing him. "And they're most likely the ones we'll find packed at the bottom of boxes that are topped with opened bottles of cooking oil."

"Upside-down bottles," Spike agreed with a bit of a grin. He pushed his hand through his hair and looked at the chaos rather helplessly. "At least we haven't come across anything broken yet. Shows they had some skill with packing. Or a lot of blind luck."

"A great deal of blind luck," Wesley said. He sighed. "But we're making progress. I think."

A little scoffing laugh was Spike's immediate response. "How can you tell?"

Wesley looked around. "Well, anything else would just be too depressing to contemplate, wouldn't it? Besides, not five minutes ago I emptied an entire box by throwing a blanket onto the sofa." He gazed longingly at said sofa, where he and Spike had spent the better part of several days lounging around just after they'd moved in last week.

"Then you deserve a break after getting so much done." Spike reached out for Wesley's hand to lead him to the couch, currently his second favorite place in the apartment after the bed. "I'll join you."

"It's going to take us weeks to unpack, isn't it," Wesley said, going along willingly all the same.

"There's no hurry. We've got the bed, the TV, and the stereo. What else do we need?" There was a bright patch of sunlight on the floor just in front of the couch, and Spike couldn't help but brace himself he stepped into it.

Wesley felt that hesitation, and he reached out with his other hand to grasp Spike's upper arm gently, stopping him. "Wait," he said. "Just... wait. Here."

Spike stopped, although goosebumps were rising on his skin. "Wait for what?" he asked.

"I want to kiss you," Wesley said. "Here. If that's all right?" His voice was gentle, his touch soothing.

"Like I'm going to say no." Even if the sunlight had been burning him, Spike would've stayed in it for the chance to kiss Wesley; every little touch had become even more important after so many weeks filled with pain at the slightest wrong movement. Still, Spike stood a bit stiffly, both enchanted and mildly alarmed by the heat of the sun on his skin. "You don't want to sit?"

"I do," Wesley said, moving in closer, watching Spike's face as they both felt the mild heat of the sun warming them. "But first I want to kiss you."

Spike very carefully slipped his hand around Wesley's waist, barely touching him. "I'm all yours," he said softly. The light was making Wesley's eyes sparkle with a blue Spike had never seen before.

Wesley leaned in and kissed Spike slowly, a gentle movement of his lips over Spike's, although truth be told he was tired of being quite so gentle and careful all the time. He slid his hand up to the back of Spike's neck so that the kiss wouldn't end too soon.

Sighing into the kiss, Spike kept himself from pushing for more, although he ached to devour Wesley's mouth and hold him tightly. Although Wesley was better, Spike wouldn't risk hurting him, especially not after being there for the weeks of ups and downs of mortal healing. "So is it better, kissing me in the sun?" he asked.

"Different," Wesley said thoughtfully, brushing his lips over Spike's again. "But then, I always like kissing you. Everywhere." He smiled.

"Haven't found a part of you I don't like to kiss, either," Spike said with a smirk, and he chased Wesley's mouth for another soft kiss. The sunlight colored Wesley's skin with a healthy glow and brought out the highlights in his hair, which Spike found preferable to focus on than the fact that he was standing in the living room, in the sun, and wasn't on fire.

"It's difficult, isn't it?" Wesley asked, pressing himself against Spike. "But I'm sure you'll get used to it."

Continues here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/reality_bends/75457.html).

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New beginnings.

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