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Prawnverse part 6
It continues to piss him off. Even the fact that he's getting grumpy makes him grumpier, because what the hell is he doing, giving a damn about Harris's precious sensitive feelings? It's rent. Full stop. He comes home scowling, is barely vocal, drinks blood, stomps off to bed with Xander padding quietly along in tow. He smells of apprehension. Supposed to be a good smell, that. Mornings are the worst, because now when he gets home he can't help but notice the faint scent of night sweat and laundered sheets still in the air. Xander's always freshly showered, no trace on him, and for some reason that drives Spike crazy too. He doesn't know what to do about it, doesn't know how it's supposed to fit into the mornings he's sketched out in his mind. Which basically go: blood, extremely good no-strings sex, oblivion. Nowhere in his plan is there space for Xander to have just come out of dreams that scare him to tears, or for Spike to give a damn about that. But there it is, and now when he takes the kid to bed in the morning he's not sure, half the time, what he should be doing. Sometimes he runs up one side of him and down the other, rent with interest, until Xander's wet and gasping and shaking with muscle fatigue. Sometimes he just pulls him down into the sheets and sleeps with him. He can't decide which one seems to have a better effect. Xander doesn't offer an opinion.
It's all profoundly annoying, and it seeps into his life in ways he only recognizes and resents after the fact. At work, he slips up and mentions Xander in conversation. Watching television with Xander sitting on the carpet, he flips away from Deliverance and American Gigolo. Little things, irritating things. He finds himself wondering what ever happened to Red, and why she hasn't tracked Xander down yet. Didn't she have locator spells, or some nonsense like that? Not that he wants to find her on his doorstep with a fistful of vengeful dick-shrinking powder, but it would be nice to get a little more backstory, know what he's dealing with.
He tries. Next morning, in bed with the kid, he sits him up against the headboard and asks a few pointed questions. Trying to ignore the increasing smell of pissed-off fear in the air.
"What happened, exactly?"
Xander just stares at him, his face set and still. Not going to be interrogated. He's sitting cross-legged, hands braced into the mattress on either side of him. Still got his shirt and shorts on. Spike presses his hands into the kid's knees, pushes them down into the mattress, and doesn't break his gaze. The silence just draws out and out, until finally he loses patience and falls back into the sheets.
"I'll guess then," he says, staring at the ceiling. "Somebody died." Nothing. He raises his head and eyes Xander, who's just sitting there, staring at him. "Warm? Let's see. Watcher still alive?" Something occurs to him, and he props himself up on his elbows. "Your folks still kicking?"
Xander doesn't say anything, and they stare at each other, Spike trying to remember exactly what the Harrises Senior looked like. He remembers vague outlines and a lot of bad language. Overall, not the sort of loss liable to drive a son to hustling. Then he thinks of something else. Could be the reason Red hasn't tracked him down is that she's the one dead. Best friend, first love - that would be enough to put him in a tailspin like this. Would explain a lot, really.
"What about Re - "
Xander leans forward, catches his weight on his palms on either side of Spike's waist, and presses his mouth to Spike's cock, through his jeans. It's a sudden movement; Spike jerks in surprise and automatically snaps a hand down to grab his hair. Not a good place to be bitten, no matter how fast you heal. But Xander's not biting, he's just mouthing, breathing heat through the fabric, diligent and devoted and a lot better at it than he was a few weeks ago. He smells angry, afraid, a little desperate. He doesn't even seem to notice Spike's hand knotted in his hair.
"Stop it," Spike says, tugging. "Cut that out, we're talking."
Xander shakes his head minutely, eyes closed, hands working around under Spike's back now, pressing into the muscles. Spike's getting hard, getting pissed off. He yanks a little harder. "I said, cut it out." Part of his mind is wondering what the hell he's doing - blow job first, talk second - but it's common sense really, if he lets Xander get him off, there'll be no talk later. He's used the same tactic himself enough times, he ought to know. "Stop it, Xander." He never uses Xander's name, so it's serious. He yanks again, for good measure.
Xander gives him a quick, flickering black gaze up over his tented fly and his belly, then turns his head and suddenly, without warning, bites him. Fucking bites him in the thigh, the soft skin inside his leg. Hard. It feels like he's gone through the jeans and into the skin, feels for a second like a bigger, stronger man's come back to play. Smelling of rage and blood, biting him where he's tender.
He doesn't even think; he just gets both hands around Xander's head and wrenches him off, then snaps him to the side and clear off the bed. There's a complicated thump of limbs hitting the floor, the baseboard, base of the wall. The pain in Spike's thigh is fading already, and he's sitting up, feeling the spot with panicky fingers. Spit, no blood. Not as bad as he'd thought; it was just the surprise. Jesus Christ. When's the last time someone hurt him?
Then there's a tiny noise from the floor, and he realizes what he's just done and wonders if he's killed the kid. You could break someone's neck like that, no problem. Fucking Christ. He swallows hard and looks. Xander's on his side on the floor, wide dazed eyes staring at nothing, gasping for breath. Wind knocked out of him, is all. That's what Spike tells himself so he can get up off the bed and go over, crouch down, and hover like an idiot.
"You all right?" Stupid thing to ask, and Harris's eyes just roll over him without showing an answer. His lips are wet, he can't get his breath. Spike puts a hand on his side, tentatively, expecting him to shudder it off. He doesn't. "You're okay, just... breathe. In, out." He demonstrates, and after another couple of bad seconds the kid's diaphragm unseals and he's breathing in great whooping gasps. Not bleeding anywhere, and his arms and legs all seem to work. So maybe he's all right.
"You're all right," Spike says firmly, and stays there with his hand on Xander's side, the magic touch to make it all true.
He is all right, just dazed and bruised. Black all up and down one side when Spike wakes up in the evening. He'd been dreaming of old times, Sunnydale, Xander getting swatted around by big monsters and never falling down. Never staying down, anyway.
They watch television in silence, not touching, very polite. Spike doesn't ask any more questions.
Things are a little different after that. Xander's both more distant and more aware, as though the wall knocked a few memories back into place. Reminded him how much stronger Spike is, and that he used to be, right, yeah, a monster. A kid raised on the Hellmouth can maybe be forgiven for forgetting that from time to time, even when he's the one who heats up the mugs.
But now Xander's remembered, and he's a little less casual about it all. He watches everything, all the time. And says very little. Does what he's told and then goes off and watches television with the sound too low to hear, tracking the screen intently. The bruises fade slowly. He never relaxes in bed.
It turns into a thing. Spike can't let go of it, can't stop coming back and coming back and worrying at whatever little bit of the kid he can get hold of, trying to make him... what? He doesn't know. The first few days after the fight, he finds himself posturing ridiculously, acting the Big Bad, trying mutely to convince both of them that it's Xander's fault for putting himself in harm's way. He smokes a lot, digs out the thumb ring, sits with his legs spread farther than usual, like some insecure kid in the back of the city bus. Xander gives him a wide berth. Just once while the bruises are still there, he works himself up to fuck the kid. Tries to do a decent, vigorous, Big Bad job of it and fails miserably the moment he puts his hand on Xander's hip and feels him wince. Ends up sitting up in bed reading Spin and rubbing the back of the kid's neck. Explain that one to the house of Aurelius.
Once he's finished being that flavor of idiot, he starts trying to surprise Xander into being himself, somehow. Not consciously, not intentionally. At least not at first. But it's as if both of them hit the wall, got cracked over the head, and remembered what things used to be like. Xander used to be fucking annoying, loud-mouthed, unthinking, funny. He used to be fun to bait, and he gave as good as he got. Spike keeps remembering little things Xander used to say and do, most of them pathetic, but now strangely appealing. He's suddenly desperate to have some of them back again.
Saturday morning he stays up after work and watches morning cartoons with the kid, hoping for some flicker of life out of it. They don't show the old, good ones anymore, though, and when he glances sideways he can see that Xander's not really into it either. Just watching the screen because it's ritual, it's Saturday morning, it's something to do. So that fizzles. He goes to bed and lies there feeling more depressed than he has since he first got the soul. Picking Xander Harris up off that street corner was the stupidest thing he's done in years. He was perfectly happy before all this started.
He brings home a bag of donuts, a pizza, DVDs. Anything he can think of that he associates with the old Xander, which isn't much. It occurs to him that he doesn't really know much about Xander's old life, what it was like, apart from a string of crap jobs and Christmas on the lawn. Xander doesn't eat much these days, and he watches whatever goes into the player, no discrimination. Spike starts renting increasingly shitty movies, just trying to get a reaction. "That was all right, then, wasn't it?" he asks idly after Hook, and Xander just shrugs and says yeah. Spike goes to bed and broods.
There's a burst water main at work and he comes home at two am, just a few hours after he left. Lets himself into the silent flat, goes to the toilet to wash, comes out and flicks on the television. Volume low, so he won't wake up Harris. There's exactly nothing on at two am, and he's only got Steel Magnolias and Monkeybone rented, so he ends up turning the damn thing off and wandering the little flat, too keyed up to sleep. It's been a while since he read properly; he should read. He doesn't feel like reading. He could go back out, go have a drink, find some conversation, but he doesn't feel like seeing anyone. He stands drumming his fingers on the kitchen counter, then sighs, rolls his neck, and starts down the hall to Xander's room.
Just outside the door he stops and secondguesses. He can't hear anything bad going on, which must mean the kid's sleeping decently for once, which means he should probably leave well enough alone. Xander's been looking tired recently, even though he has all day and night to himself when Spike's at work. He needs sleep.
Spike thinks of Xander asleep - properly asleep, smooth face and untroubled brow and pearly moonlight, all that - and something in his belly softens a little. He'll let the kid sleep. But he opens the door quietly anyway, just for a look.
The blinds are up, there's pearly moonlight. But the cot is empty. The boxes of LPs are lined up neatly against the wall by the closet, and the leftover junk is all there on top of them. Except the travel alarm clock, which is on the stand by the head of the cot. Spike stands there for a second, staring, then opens the door wider and steps inside. He already knows the room is empty, but he looks around it anyway, as if Xander might be hiding behind the door or possibly wedged inside the closet. Stupid. He steps back into the hall and stands still, testing. The flat's empty. How did he not notice that, as soon as he got home?
For a minute he doesn't know what to do, can't even quite process the facts. Xander's always here. Well, he must go out for things, groceries and things, he has a key. Not a prisoner, after all. But he's always here, on the couch or in the shower or standing by the sink, when Spike gets home. He's always sleeping just down the hall when Spike wakes up at night. It's a certainty. Has been for weeks, months now.
His first thought is that Xander's finally scarpered. Done what Spike used to expect every morning when he came home; just upped and disappeared, back to Sunnydale or the street or wherever. Would be the sensible thing to do. But he wouldn't do it like this, just gone, middle of the night. Would he?
Spike goes back into the kitchen and looks around. Checks the counter, the table, the coffee table in the living room. There's no note. Xander owns a few more things by now; his own razor, for one thing. That's still in the bathroom. His clothes are still in his bedroom. So he's not gone, not really. Just... out for a walk.
Spike sits at the kitchen table with his boots planted, his hands dangling, thinking about it. The nights he works, he's never home until early morning, even if he gets off shift early. He doesn't check up; it's never occurred to him. Never caught a whiff of anything to check up on. So maybe this is a one-time thing, maybe Xander just went out to pick up a pizza or make a phone call -
He sits there mulling that thought over and over, a phone call to Sunnydale, and what that would mean. Could mean. He doesn't know yet. Doesn't know anything. Could all be entirely innocent, could be nothing. Xander has to come back at some point, and he'll get answers then. Then he thinks about the last time he tried to get answers, and flinches away from that route. If Xander doesn't want to say, he won't say. So...
He gets up, grabs his coat, and walks out. Goes down to the street and sits on the Dumpster in the alley opposite, smoking and waiting. Sort of thing he used to do all the time, almost nostalgic. After about an hour and a half, he's rolling the tip of his cigarette against the brick and thinking what he'll say if the Slayer gets into this, and Xander walks quickly up the far sidewalk. He's skinny in his windbreaker, hunched against the cold. No looking around, no dawdling, just straight home. He runs up the building steps, fiddles with the key for a second, then lets himself in and disappears.
Spike gives it ten minutes, then tosses his cigarette, slides down off the Dumpster, and goes up. The flat's silent, dark. He gets his boots and coat off, pulls a bag of blood out of the fridge, and starts it warming. Taps on Xander's door on the way back from rinsing his face and hands.
Xander comes out blinking, heart running a little fast, not as warm and cowlicked as someone who's been asleep five hours. He's in shirt and shorts, though, barefoot. If you didn't know anything, you wouldn't think twice about the look on his face. Spike's home early, after all; he might have just been woken up, wondering what's going on.
"Pipe burst," Spike says, drinking his blood. "It'll be fixed tomorrow."
Xander nods, his expression tamping down a little, his heart slowing. This part's familiar, it makes sense. He's propped against the side of the refrigerator, arms crossed over his chest, just waiting. Spike finishes his blood, drops the mug in the sink, and turns to him. They just stand there, staring at each other, until Xander drops his eyes to the floor.
"Come on then," Spike says, and leads the way to his bedroom.
