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"Jerry said we could have the cabin for the whole week, Spike, just the two of us. Imagine it, up there, by ourselves, not a soul around for miles, apart from mine." Xander grinned and snuggled closer. "You can make me scream as loud as you want to, and there'll be no-one to call the cops on us this time." Spike growled and Xander knew he'd won the argument.

"Great! I'll call Jerry and ask him to bring the keys with him to work tomorrow. You can do the packing while I'm on the site, and we can set off for the mountains as soon as I get home and you load the SUV up. This is gonna be fun!"

+++

And it was fun. They spent most of the first three days in bed, and by the third evening Xander was wondering if he'd have any voice left at all by the time they had to go back to Sunnydale, but he was enjoying himself too much to care.

On the fourth day the weather changed, and they spent the evening curled together on the sofa in front of a huge log fire that Spike had built under protest before stepping back to allow Xander to set it alight.

On the fifth day it snowed.

Xander didn't wake until mid-afternoon, and at first didn't notice anything different about the day. He wriggled free of Spike's hold and swung his feet out of bed. The screech he let out when his toes made contact with the bare woodwork had Spike rolling out of bed into a fighting stance before his eyes were even open.

"What the...? Xan, what's wrong? What happened? Are you...?" Belatedly, he noticed the embarrassed expression on his lover's face. "Xander? Why did you scream?"

"Um... the floor's cold?"

"What?"

"The floor's freezing, Spike! I wasn't expecting it, and when I put my feet down, I..."

"You screamed, Pet. Like a girl. Loud enough to wake the undead, weren't you? I didn't realise you had that much noise left in you. Want to crawl back under the covers and see what we can do about that?"

Xander was dragging on a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt and unearthing a pair of thick socks even as Spike asked, so he figured he wasn't going to get to make his boy scream and beg again quite yet. Resigned, Spike slipped into a pair of jeans while Xander used the bathroom, and then followed him out into the open-plan area of the cabin that served as both family room and kitchen.

The room was dim, only a faint glow managing to filter through the thick blackout curtains they had put up that first night after they had arrived, so it wasn't until Xander opened the back door to fetch more split logs in off the porch that he realised why it was so cold.

"Spike!"

Spike set down the bowl of eggs he'd been beating for an omelette and crossed to stand beside Xander. The younger man hadn't moved, possibly hadn't even blinked, and might have remained standing there indefinitely, half in and half out of the cabin door, if Spike hadn't nudged him out of his stupor.

"Spike, it's snowing!"

"That it is, Pet. You act like you've never seen..." Spike's voice tailed off as Xander turned a wide-eyed gaze on him.

"Once, but that doesn't count." Xander shrugged at Spike's puzzled frown. "It snowed the once, on Christmas. I was sleeping in the garden to avoid the annual Harris family celebrations, and I woke up when something landed on my face. Later Buffy told me Angel had tried to dust himself in the dawn and the snow had fallen to block out all the sunlight." A look of understanding passed between them, and Xander draped an arm around Spike's shoulders, pulling him in for a loose hug. "This is the first real snow I've seen as far as I'm concerned, Spike, and I get to share it with you. It's beautiful."

"Gonna go out and play in it then?"

Xander's eyes widened again, and then he put on his version of the Rosenberg resolve face and shook his head. "Nope. Not going out there until you can come too. We'll have breakfast and rebuild the fire. The sun should be down by then. D'you think there's enough to build a snowman?"

Spike looked from the slow-falling flakes to the couple of inches of light powder on the floor and sighed inwardly.

"Maybe just a little one, Pet."

+++

The snowman stood just under one foot tall, and for his eyes he sported two tiny lumps of charcoal, rescued from the remains of last night's fire. His nose was a plastic cap off a bottle of soda, and when they had failed to find something suitable for his mouth, Spike had sacrificed a cigarette to the cause. Xander thought it might be the cutest thing he had ever seen, except for Spike when he wakes up all fluffy haired and squinting.

His fingers and nose were practically numb, but Xander had one more thing he had to do to make this day complete. Bending down, he scraped together a meagre handful of snow and carefully compacted it, keeping a wary eye on his oblivious companion.

"Hey, Spike? Before we go in and thaw out, there's just one more thing..." Spike turned to face him, eyebrow cocked in question, and Xander let his missile fly. "Snowball fight!"

The ball hit Spike's shoulder and disintegrated without leaving much of a mark, but Spike growled and ran for the nearest patch of snow. His aim was true and he caught Xander in the centre of his back as he raced to disappear behind the corner of the cabin.

Grinning madly, Spike picked his way around the other side of the building, collecting ammunition as he went.

By the time he rounded the corner and saw Xander, back towards him, peering around the woodpile to see if he was being stalked, Spike had three impressive-looking snowballs in hand. The first one exploded against the back of Xander's head, eliciting a loud shriek when particles slid down under his collar and melted to trickle down his back. Xander spun round, and was drawing back his arm ready to throw his own weapon when the second ball hit him full in the face. Shock had him dropping his ball and gasping, hands raised to wipe the quickly melting slush from his face, and Spike took the opportunity to pounce.

Xander let himself be wrestled to the ground, enjoying the feel of his lover squirming around on top of him.

Finally, Spike had Xander pinned to his satisfaction, and sat back, kneeling astride his captive. He held the final snowball aloft and let his eyes flicker between blue and gold.

"Got you," he crooned softly; revelling in the hunger he could see growing in Xander's eyes.

"Yeah." Xander's tongue flicked out and moistened his lips, eyes moving from Spike to the snowball and back. "What you gonna do with me?"

Spike swooped down and licked the already moistened lips that were pouting at him so prettily, and then pressed inside for a ravenous kiss that left them both breathless.

"I think naughty boys who start fights they can't hope to win should be punished." And with an evil grin, Spike shoved the last remaining snowball down the front of Xander's jeans.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!"



A/N: Kitty Poker asked if Xander never having seen snow before was canon. The truth is, I wrote this and then remembered he'd been sleeping in the garden on Christmas Eve when it snowed to save Angel in the S3 episode Amends so I added the reference to him having seen it once but that he decided it didn't count.

Why only the once? Well, Xander's California born and bred and (having just run to Google!) I know that the temperature on average doesn't get below 9C/49F (in LA, anyway) and his parents don't seem the ski-trip holiday type, so I decided that he'd only seen it snow that once. I'm the author, I get to make these kinds of proclamations. ;o)

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