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Prawnverse part 7
Patience has never been his strong point, but he manages to let the whole thing go for a full week, just in case Xander's got wind of anything. If he has, he doesn't show it. It's a week of everything the same, crap movies and Chinese takeout and sex that half-wrecks the headboard but doesn't dent the force field between them. It's a challenge, Spike tells himself. He's got the kid's body, now he's just trying to get into his head. That's all it is. Because who knew Xander Harris could be stoic?
Thursday night he stops at a pay phone on his way to work and calls in sick. Sick, Texas repeats. There's a pause, while Spike studies the whores' adverts stuck to the walls of the booth and reminds himself why he has a job. Fucking soul. Hung over? Texas asks. Texas likes things to be clear. Spike says no, sick. He can hear Texas thinking that over, because they both know vampires don't get sick. Okay, Texas says finally. Don't be sick tomorrow, Spike. He says no, he won't, and surprises himself by not demolishing the phone when he hangs it up.
He circles back home, parks the DeSoto around the block, and hops up onto the alley Dumpster. It's not even midnight yet. There's still a light on up there, and once he sees Xander walk past the window. Turning the television off. Then the light goes out, and a minute or two later he's coming out the front door of the building, wearing that cruddy old windbreaker that couldn't keep a Samoan warm, his hands jammed in the pockets of his crappy old jeans. He looks cold and taut and wired-up, even from across the street. Looks like the kid Spike picked up on a corner months ago. He lets the door fall closed behind him, tests the handle automatically, then heads down the steps and up the street. Walking fast, long strides, head down.
This is the kind of thing Spike used to do best. Rooftops, lurking. It's a bit of a rush, really, scrambling up the brick and onto the tarred gravel, walking the edge so he can keep an eye on the kid six storeys down. Time was, he'd do a little herding, spook that little figure into darker and narrower alleys, till he got tired of playing and dropped down for a bite. He jumps the gap between buildings and realizes he's grinning. He's missed rooftops. If he had someone to do this with, it might be different, but there's no way he's turning vamp shamus like the poof, and who else can play this game without eating the rabbit?
That gives him a funny pang, and he frowns. One more reason the kid's an idiot to go wandering around alone at night; anyone could be up here, looking for breakfast. Just because it's not the Hellmouth doesn't mean there aren't tigers in the city. He should know; he kicks them out of the bar when they play too rough.
Xander turns left, crosses the street, and Spike has to take a running jump to make it across and follow him. He's out of practice, he misjudges and has to huddle down when he sees Xander pause, prickle, look around. So maybe he's not completely stupid. But still. No Slayer around to pull him out of harm's way, no Red to give him a magic protection bubble, or whatever. Just him, walking fast and alone down the row of streetlights, and if someone steps out of the next alley with a knife or a gun or a big set of teeth, what's he going to do about it? Bleed and bounce.
They head east, then southeast, and the buildings get smaller and older and crappier, the streets get dirtier, there's garbage and halfway houses ("No Guns, No Alcohol") and little caged parks full of syringes. On one rooftop he skirts a plastic shanty with someone asleep inside; on another, there's a bloody rabbit hutch and a pile of emptied purses. Xander doesn't stop, doesn't look around, just keeps walking. A few times he passes people - groups of young men, gangling derelicts - and he just steps off the curb into the street and goes right around them, as if they're not even there. He doesn't get hassled. Spike realizes his shoulders have gone tight, and shakes them out.
They hit a main street, the commercial zone, and Xander takes a right and heads down the sidewalk past the closed Sudanese grocery, the tiny pizza joint, the strip club with the guy out front listlessly proffering leaflets. It's the neighbourhood he was in when Spike found him; the corner he was standing on is just up ahead. Somehow, Spike's not surprised. Confused still, but not surprised.
There are cars on the street here, cruising, and people on the sidewalks. Young people mostly, boys and girls both, standing around with their backs to telephone poles and shop fronts. Xander keeps walking, and Spike waits to see him stop, pick a corner, and start standing. Amazing he hasn't smelled this on the kid before. And why the hell does it bother him that this is how Xander spends his off hours? He should applaud the kid for his ambition, working two jobs like this, putting something away for his retirement. Must have a roll under his mattress by now. Good for him.
Xander pauses, looks both ways, then runs across the street between cars. There's no good place to jump to and there are too many people around anyway, so Spike just hunkers down. No point hanging around, now that he knows what's going on. He should go home, go out, have some drinks. Kill something. He could rip the head off just about anything right now. Must be the chase that's got his blood up.
He's biting his thumbnail, considering his options, when Xander opens the door of an all-night diner on the far side of the street and slips in. Not the one Spike fed him breakfast in, all those months ago. A different one, big windows in front and big booths in them, full of malnourished kids in wifebeaters and quilted jackets, messed-up hair, plates of half-eaten eggs, pagers. As he watches, Xander walks around to one of the booths in the window and slips into it, next to a little whore with straight brown hair and no tits to speak of. She puts an arm around his neck and hugs him. The other kids at the table - two boys, another girl - smile and push their plates across for him to pick at.
He's grinning. Keyed-up, happy-looking, and it's too far to hear what they're saying, but they're all talking, flicking eggs at each other, smoking cigarettes, making lewd gestures. Watching people walk past the window and critiquing. One of the boys checks his pager and leaves, rubbing his hand over Xander's head. After a while a girl comes in and takes his place. Forty-five minutes later he's back again, grinning, sitting in the girl's lap, fanning bills over the table. High-fives and teasing.
Over the course of the next three hours, most of them get up and go out at least once, then reappear with money for more coffee, more eggs, the jukebox. Xander doesn't get up. He adds a little money to the pile on the table, the running tab, pulling it out of his back pocket and shrugging when the others laugh and point. The little brown-haired whore's pager goes off and she gets up, collects her purse and cigarettes, pats Xander's head, and goes out. He watches her go, and for a few minutes after she's gone he seems a little withdrawn, abstracted. Then someone else comes in and everyone has to move down a seat, and one of the boys puts his arm around Xander's waist and blows cigarette smoke in his ear. The waitress brings burritos. They all start melting straws into the ashtray.
Spike watches without much of a sense of the time, his hands flat on the roof ledge, his chin on top. It's like the television with the sound off, except it's Xander. Smiling, talking. No cold film over his eyes, no rigid set in his shoulders. Eating crap diner food with someone else's dirty fork, taking a drag off a cigarette, sitting half in another boy's lap. Watching everything, sure, still got the big dark eyes and he doesn't talk as much as some of them, but looser and calmer than Spike's seen him in, well... ever. Doesn't seem to mind anyone's hands on him. Seems to like it.
Spike's eyes are sore, and when he lifts his hands to rub them, there are little stones sunk in his palms. He's been squatting here hours. It's late.
And it's as though somehow Xander has the same thought at the same moment, because he suddenly lifts his arm and checks his watch - cheap little watch, bought it a while ago with leftover grocery money, and Spike didn't give it a second thought - and his face is shocked. He sits up straight and says something, and everyone looks at him, eyebrows raised. The boy beside him grins and goes to grab Xander's crotch, and Xander swats him off, tries to stand up, but he's can't, he's trapped in the middle of the booth. The others are laughing, won't get up for him. Finally they make him stand up on the seat and step out over them. The little brown-haired whore is back by then, smiling too, but gently. He gets out, yanks his windbreaker closed, and hugs her fast. Everyone's waving mockingly, applauding. He gives them the finger and slams out the door.
Then it's a long cold walk home, double-speed, not running because it's stupid to run in the city at night, it only attracts bad things. Good to know he's learned some lessons. Spike follows automatically, hardly noticing the route, hardly noticing his own jumps and landings, it's all old habit, like riding a bike. He's not thinking about much, really. He has a vague, unexplored sense that he should see Xander home, make sure he gets there all right, and then - He's not sure what he'll do then. He's got a few hours till dawn. He has a feeling he wants to stretch his legs a little.
Xander makes it home all right, up the steps, into the flat. There's the faint reflected glow of the bathroom light; he must be showering. Takes more showers, that one. And the clothes he was wearing; he must stow them somewhere Spike can't smell them. None of it's surprising, really. Lived with the kid for weeks in that basement, in that house; he got a sense then of just how furtive Xander could be.
He stands on the rooftop across the street watching the faint yellow light in his flat, thumbing first one palm and then the other. He's feeling the cold a bit. Maybe a drink. A drink and a walk to clear his head. He feels strangely jolted, off-balance. Sad, even. That's ridiculous. It's none of his business anyway.
