The bright sunlight streaming through the large window and coming to rest on his face was what woke Xander up the next morning. He blinked at the dazzling glow, then turned his head slightly into the thick pillow to hide from the intruding light. The young man couldn't help the enormous grin form breaking out over his face when he spied the brunette head nestled into the pillow next to him.
For a minute all he did was watch the peaceful face as the older man slept on, oblivious to his audience. The slayerette let his eyes trace over the handsome features, lingering on the thin, kissable lips. His sight them traveled down the other man's body slowly, finally stopping on the long, pale fingers which rested on the Irishman's stomach. Xander hesitantly brought his own fingers out to gently stroke the digits, hoping as he did so that the soft pressure wasn't enough to wake the half-demon. This hope was quickly dashed as he watched the brilliant green eyes blink open and quickly focus on him.
"Hi," Doyle whispered, smiling sleepily at his bedmate.
"Hi," Xander replied, smiling tenderly in return.
The teenager leaned forward and placed a light kiss on the lips he had been contemplating earlier. Or, he meant it to be a light kiss. Soon, though, it had grown into a full-fledged dueling of tongues, but even as his hands reached out to hold the other man, he felt Doyle begin to pull away.
"What's wrong?" the teenager asked, wondering briefly why he seemed to ask that a lot around the Irishman.
"Nothing's wrong, exactly. I just thought we should talk a little, maybe."
Xander's dark eyes widened in confusion and sudden fear. Having a 'talk' right after sex is never, ever good. He swallowed nervously and began fiddling with the corner of the pillowcase nearest his hands. "Okay," he squeaked out, then cleared his throat. "What did you want to talk about?"
Doyle, sensing his distress, rushed to reassure him. "Nothing bad. Not *that* kind of talk. I just thought we could talk about our relationship a bit."
Xander raised an eyebrow at him. "Are we in a relationship?"
"I hope so."
There was a slight pause. "Yeah, me too."
The two men smiled shyly at each other, then quickly looked away.
The slayerette's fingers continued playing with the stitched fabric. "Okay, so we are then. Good."
Without looking up, Doyle nodded.
"How's this gonna work?" The teen asked, keeping his eyes on his fingers.
"Well, I guess we do the long distance thing."
"And it's not really that long a distance, either," Xander added.
"Right. We could probably manage to see each other every week or so."
"Yeah, assuming the necessary slayage of demons doesn't interfere."
Doyle grinned at the brown-eyed man. "Because *that* never happens."
"Right." This time, it was Doyle who leaned over and placed a chaste kiss on the warm, luscious mouth before him. Then the half-demon pulled back with a slightly concerned look on his face.
"What now?" Xander demanded with a sigh.
"I just...I need to get this outta the way before we go any further. You do know I'm half demon, right?"
Xander's relief was apparent not only on his face, but in the way his body slumped out of its rigid posture as well. "Is that all? Yeah, I do know that. I think Cordy told me. You can change, right? Go all Grrr like Angel?"
"Yeah, sort of. It's not a blood lust thing, though."
"You can do it whenever you want to? Like now?"
Doyle turned to fully meet the dark eyes that were boring into him, then swallowed the last of his anxiety and allowed his demon self to come forth.
"Whoa." Xander reached a tentative hand forward and slowly fingered one of the many spikes that suddenly adorned his lover's body. "Sexy."
The teen could read the surprise mixed in with faint nervousness in the red eyes. "Yeah?" the Irishman asked uncertainly.
"Yeah," Xander confirmed, leaning forward *very* carefully and placing a delicate kiss on Doyle's mouth. When he opened his eyes and leaned back again, Doyle's human face was back in place.
"So," said the green-eyed man, taking a shaky, relieved breath, "any deep dark secrets you want to share with the class?"
Immediately, Xander's eyes refused to meet his own. "Nah. What you see is what you get with me."
The former teacher knew a lie when he heard it, and this one was a whopper. But he decided to let it go. If Xander wasn't comfortable discussing whatever it was, no amount of badgering was going to help. Instead, he rolled over until he was practically lying on the other man, then bent his head and placed a very *not* chaste kiss on the slightly open mouth. As the kiss grew more frenzied, soon neither man was capable of talking.