"Spike? Are you a Heretic? Er. An Heretic?" Xander paused, thinking. "An 'eretic?"

"All three, pet. What are you reading?" Spike leaned casually over the back of Xander's chair, and equally casually slid a hand down his shirt, finger-crawling across his chest in the direction of-

Xander slapped Spike's hand away and plucked it out of his shirt and away from the nipple piercing. "It's not healed yet."

"C'mon, luv. Looks healed. Don't smell any infection or fever, or-"

"The piercer said six to eight weeks. And besides," Xander added, placing Spike's hand firmly on his stomach instead, because there was no point in wasting a good grope, "it's your Christmas present. Not allowed until Christmas eve."

Spike sighed, dropping his chin to rest on top of Xander's hair instead and wrapping his arm around Xander's shoulders. "Right. Let's have it then. What's got you on your little heresy hunt?"

"It says here that all heretics practiced sodomy. Because everyone who practiced sodomy was a- an- one of those."

Spike snorted. "Well, yeah, cause at the time, that was the big evil y'know. Bad, bad stuff. Course, nearly everyone was doin' it..."

Xander reached up to grab a handful of Spike's hair and yank his head down into kissing range, grinning into Spike's muffled yelp, then eeping when Spike's groping hand caught the recliner lever, snapping Xander into a horizontal position.

"Now that's more like it."

"Gonna get heretical on my ass?"

"...yeah." Spike slid into the chair, straddling Xander and leaning down to nip a series of love bites into the skin of his throat.

"Ah. Mm. Okay, sodomy not so much a deterrent here. More like great big advertisement for Heresy Town. C'mon over! There's a party in our pants every night!"

Spike chuckled, sliding a hand down to cup Xander through his jeans. "That right then?"

"Oh yeah."

"So tell us more about this little story. To distract me from this lovely...little...Oh, all right," Spike grumbled as Xander snatched his hand away from the piercing again.

"It's an article about this medieval mural in Italy," Xander said, absently toying with the fingers of Spike's captured hand as he scanned the article. "With this tree, and on the tree, all the fruits are phalluses. 25 of them."

"Phalluses. Aren't we proper?"

"Just reading what it says here. I mean, you wouldn't really print cocks with balls attached in a family newspaper, would you?" Xander paused. "Okay, you probably would, but these guys want to stay in business. Anyway, the article goes on to say bla bla political poster smearing the rival local powers by branding them heretics. Because of the sodomy thing."

"That's logical."

"No it's not!"

"No?" Spike wriggled around until he could rest comfortably against Xander's side. And grind comfortably against his hip too, which Xander really really wasn't going to complain about, especially not once Spike's hand crept into his lap to toy with his zipper.

"You really are evil, aren't you?"

Zip.

"Don't you forget it. Go on reading. Or I'll stop. Cos now you've got me all curious where you're headed with this."

Xander let out a heart felt groan. "Bastard."

"'Course."

"Ha. Right. Well it doesn't make sense because how is a dick in a tree supposed to be committing sodomy? I mean, they're fluttering around up there like leaves."

"Just goes to show, I s'pose," Spike murmured, wrapping a leg around Xander's and easing him out of his boxers.

"Show what? And great gremlins, I hope you're not expecting me to keep reading while you're doing that twisty thing with your wrist, and you are double-jointed, aren't you?"

Spike chuckled, tonguing an incisor and resting his chin on Xander's shoulder. "It goes to show," he said again, "that when it comes to a good round of heretical sodomy, one dick in the hand-"

Xander groaned, seeing it coming, but way too late to stop it. "No, no, no!"

"-is worth 25 in a tree in bloody Italy."