Print page
Prawnverse part 3
Afterward, Spike reflects that he got a little carried away, probably shouldn't have let things go that far that fast, and when he thinks back on the kid's shaking hand, the choked protests, he feels the prick of conscience. His prick has no conscience of course, and it likes the whole scenario, even now. But for a week they just cohabit. They sleep in separate rooms, Xander awake during the day, Spike at night. He's out a lot anyway; at work, making money to pay for the things he used to take for free. He's a bouncer at a demon club and he makes a nice piece of change, ten hour nights Wednesday through Saturday. Plus, there's drinking to do after the place closes, people to see, women. He makes it home after daylight sometimes, via the sewers, and if the kid's in the kitchen silently drinking orange juice, Spike barely nods to him before stumbling back to the bedroom and faceplanting in the sheets.
Part of him expects Xander to find something else, some other arrangement; he'll come home one morning and Xander will be waiting nervously, his coat already on, maybe a token twenty bucks for utilities on the counter. What else does he spend his days on, if not trying to find something better? But that doesn't happen, and when he spares a few brain cells to think about it, he remembers that Xander was never much of a mover or a shaker; he was Bad Job Guy, and it took a stick of dynamite to get him to make a change.
So he's got Xander as long as he wants him, probably longer, and when the shower goes on while he's trying to sleep, or the flat smells like food when he's hung over, he feels little pulses of irritation. But mainly, he doesn't care. If the kid wants to stay and pay rent on his back, that's his business. Spike's not turning down free kink.
Still, he's got the soul. So he leaves grocery money out for the kid to buy pizza or whatever, and even clears a little room in the fridge for what he buys. And he half-regrets working the kid over like that, even as he knows he'll probably do it again as soon as he's past Saturday, his last shift.
And yeah, it's like clockwork, on Saturday night he finds himself starting to think about the kid at home. Stamping hands and paws, checking IDs, waving in a lamia but not her Clixor date, some part of his mind is counting the hours until he's off. Till he can go home and wake the kid up, early Sunday morning, and collect a little rent. The soul wants to kick up a fuss over that, but he's not prepared to let it. The kid can walk out any time he wants. Everyone involved is exercising free will. Fuck off, soul.
He doesn't get home until almost eight o'clock in the morning, and Xander's already up and around by then. Which sort of ruins his plan of a sleepy fuck in a darkened room, followed by sacking out in the kid's bed. Instead, he finds himself lingering in the kitchen like an idiot, still wearing his coat and boots, smelling cigarette smoke and cheap booze and bad perfume all over himself. He wants to just go to bed, wants to take the kid with him and not have to say so, have it just be understood that when he comes home like this, that's what they do. Doesn't work that way. Xander's wearing secondhand jeans and a faded plaid work shirt, barefoot. Frying an egg at the stove. He's just got out of the shower; his hair is wet, curling down over his collar and into his eyes. Clean-shaven. Clean.
"You want an egg?" He doesn't look at Spike when he asks. He looked up once, quickly, when Spike came in. Then down again before there was time for much eye contact. Now that Spike thinks about it, the kid hasn't been looking at him all week. Bugger.
"No." The smell of frying grease is disgusting, and he thinks of telling the kid to turn the fan on, or chuck the whole thing in the sink and eat toast instead. He doesn't want to taste grease in the kid's mouth. This whole morning is not going as planned. His fantasy of warm, quiet sex in the dark bedroom is pretty much deleted by now. "I'll take a mug, though."
It's like the kid hasn't heard at all; he just keeps staring down at the frying pan, watching the egg turn brown. After a few seconds Spike realizes he's trying to figure out what he's just been told, what he's supposed to do. He looks abstracted and tense.
"Heat up a pint," Spike says, and heaves to his feet. "I'm going to go wash up."
When he gets back, face and hands rinsed free of smoke, there's a mug of warm blood on the end of the counter. The kid's standing with his back to the sink, eating the egg off a plate in quick, choppy bites. Spike takes the mug and sits at the table with it, wondering when he got so wet. Working a job, keeping to a routine. An apartment, for Christ's sake. And now, when he should be exercising his rights as landlord, sitting around for a morning chat over a cuppa. Pathetic.
"How was work?" Xander asks, though he might be asking the stove because he's still facing it, still propped against the sink with his fork making annoying little grating sounds against the plate. His shoulders look like he's about to be shot in the back of the head. Spike gives them a sour look and sips his blood.
"Fantastic," he says. "Reminds me why I spent a hundred years killing people, 'stead of letting them into bars."
Xander nods to the wall. "People can be assholes," he says neutrally. Like he's just heard this might be true.
Spike pulls the morning paper - he gets the paper now, how fucking ridiculous is that? - toward him and skims the headlines. But most of his brain is thinking about what the kid's just said, and wondering what that's supposed to mean. What it means for Xander. They still haven't talked about why he's here, in the city, alone. Why he was hanging around on that street corner, where the cars slow down so the drivers can take a nice long look.
"If you're going to call the Slayer or the witch down on my head, I'd appreciate some notice." He says it without planning it, the way he says most things. Once it's out, he looks up and watches the kid's back carefully. Painfully stiff, like he's just stepped on something that's taken a chunk out of him. After a second he shakes his head and puts his plate carefully down on the counter.
"I'm not."
"Why not?"
Silence, and the smell of egg grease in the air is starting to get to him. He shouldn't have had those drinks after closing; it's putting him off his blood. Xander's still shaking his head slightly, though now it seems like a slightly different gesture.
"I'm not calling them," he says, and looks over his shoulder at Spike. He looks pale and resolute. "They don't know where I am."
"Maybe they should."
"Maybe they shouldn't."
They look at each other, and this time Xander doesn't look away. His lips tighten and he seems to sharpen all over, prickle up like a little wild animal with its back to the cave wall. His eyes are black and hard. Spike shrugs and tries some more blood.
"Right, your business. But if you want to stay here, we need to get a few things straight."
"I get the deal." He clamps his mouth shut and looks down at his fingers on the edge of the counter. "I know how it works."
"No, here's how it works. I'm out four nights a week. Saturday's the last one. When I come home Sunday morning, I don't want the place smelling like a bloody greasy spoon. Not any morning, actually. And I want it quiet when I'm sleeping. And wouldn't kill you to heat up a pint now and then." He doesn't really care about that last one, but he throws it in anyway, to round things out.
"Okay." Xander agrees right on the heels of the demand, his eyes rounder now and a little - what, scared? Five days ago he was standing on a street corner, he bloody ought to be scared. He wipes one hand down the side of his jeans, glances down and notices his plate sitting on the counter next to him. He picks it up, puts it in the sink, and runs a blast of water over it. "You want - you want some more blood?"
"No." He feels strangely grumpy now, ready to lash out. The things he's demanding are so stupidly petty. He's a fucking householder. He should be getting bended knees, blood in a silver cup, endless blowjobs. Instead he wants peace and quiet. "Turn on that fan. I'm going to bed." He gets up and starts for the bedroom, then turns back. "And when I say I'm going to bed in the morning, you come too."
The kid pauses, uncertain, one hand raised to turn the fan on. His eyes go sort of flat, internal, and he nods. Flicks the fan on and starts across the kitchen. Spike scowls.
"Not this morning. Go brush your teeth and... " He can't think of anything to tell Xander to do. "Do something quiet."
Xander stands frozen in the middle of the kitchen floor, his eyes fixed on Spike's face, clearly waiting for the rest. There is no rest. Spike takes his mug of blood into his bedroom, and shuts the door behind him.
