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Prawnverse part 12
He's tired all weekend, and he tells himself it's just the healing but he knows there's more to it than that. He feels strangely passive, almost depressed. Nothing ever goes the way he wants it to. Not like Angelus, who'd have broken your hand before he let you touch his game face without asking. But then, look what happened to Angelus.
Spike's starting to feel some sympathy for Angel. This really is depressing.
He spends his days quietly, sleeping and reading and watching television with half an eye, taking a couple of long solitary showers that end with him sitting down half-asleep under the spray. He lets Xander take the stitches out of his face, inch by bloody inch. By the time they're done, Xander looks pale and his hands are shaking, but he wipes up the mess on the counter efficiently enough, and gives Spike a clean towel for blotting. He doesn't try to offer Tylenol again. Things haven't got that bad, at least.
Nights, Spike says he's going out drinking and follows along on the rooftops like a bloody superhero while Xander trots across town to the diner and his friends. After a couple of trips, Spike starts to recognize the core members of the group. There's the little brown-haired tart, a blonde, and a couple of boys who seem to be a matched set. They come and go together, turn up with home dye jobs at the same time, always sit next to each other, practically in each other's laps. When Xander's sitting with them they're like ducks in a row, three skinny white boys with too much black hair and eyes too big for their faces. Xander's the best-looking, Spike decides. Not that he gives a damn.
When Xander puts money on the table the first night, the rest of them make a big deal about it, picking the bills up and checking them over, poking him, crowing for more eggs they won't eat. Spike can see him explaining about the job, can see the reception that gets. Sort of quiet. The little brown-haired one grins at him, though. Got a smile a bit like Red's.
When she goes out for a date a little later, he argues with himself for a few seconds, then follows along. More interesting than watching the rest of them loosen the tops on the salt shakers, is all. And he only sticks around till he sees her get into a car that's waiting at the curb a few blocks up, because once he's seen that the driver has a reflection, it's her lookout.
On his way back, he wonders whether Xander's warned them about things that go bump in the night. Or whether they'd even care. Maybe he's not the only monster whose currency has been devalued. It's a bizarrely comforting thought.
He sees Xander home, goes back out and wanders around a bit, resisting the urge to scratch his healing face. When he can't stand city views anymore, he goes back to the flat and creeps off to bed like a good boy, like an unmarried daughter, like someone who doesn't have anything better to do or any reason to hate himself for not doing it.
It's another week before he sees the little brown-haired tart in the line to get into the bar. He's taking money, stamping, smoking a cigarette with one hand and keeping an eye on a couple of Luftmenschen pushing each other back and forth on the sidewalk, working themselves up to scrap. He's not paying attention, and then suddenly there she is. Holding up a tenner in two fingers and staring up at him with big grey eyes like he's going to ferry her to the promised land. Can't weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. And wearing a duffel coat over a sneeze and a prayer, by the look of it. He stands there frozen, stamp in hand, staring down at her.
"I have I.D." That's a mistake, talking first. Someone ought to tell her that. It gives him a chance to snap out of it, blink, and pretend she's nobody. He shakes his head and waves her off. The Clixor behind her presses forward and she stumbles, then catches herself. "Wait - I can pay..." She's fiddling with her purse now. Jesus Christ.
"No slags," he says, and takes the Clixor's money, stamps its mucous pod, lets it through. The Luftmenschen are heating up; there's foul language now. Misbegotten adoptee of an unlicensed distillery franchiser. Villainous misuser of public beachfront, frogspawn hide of a twice-flayed actuary. In a minute he's going to have go to down there and put a stop to it.
"Please." She's still there, holding up twenty now, trying to get him to meet her eyes. He won't. "Please, I just want to get in - "
"You don't want to get in here," he says. "Not your kind of place, love."
"I just want to see a friend - "
"You don't have friends here," he says, and pushes her gently but firmly out of the line, then chains the door and goes down to sort out the Luftmenschen.
She's persistent. She turns up the next night, and the next, then skips a night and turns up the Saturday with a black eye. Holding up fifty now. He stares at her, standing there in her cheap knee-high boots and her tiny skirt, hair uncombed, bruises around her mouth. Holding up the single bill, folded the same way Harris folded his fifty, might even be the same bill except he knows it's not because he's still got the one Harris gave him. The one he had to pull out of his jeans. It's sitting on top of his dresser at home, like a letter he hasn't found time to read yet.
"What happened to you?" He says it before he can stop himself, before he can even think. It's busy, wild, there are people drinking and singing in line; he's distracted. And he's so used to seeing her now, he almost feels like he knows her.
She doesn't say anything. Just keeps holding up the fifty, staring at him with hard eyes and a hard mouth. Red could look like that, too. Like if you said another word she was going to Latinate you into a fireplug and walk right around you to get where she wanted to go.
He stares at her a second or two longer, then shakes his head. "Can't, love."
"Why not?"
"Policy." He's making a mistake, talking to her so much instead of just telling her to fuck off. He has a bad feeling he's getting himself into more trouble here, and he drops his head to count the bills in his hand, even though he knows perfectly well what's there. If he doesn't have to look at her, maybe he won't bend.
"What's the policy?" she asks.
"No slags," he says automatically. "Sorry, not my rule. Can't have you doing business in there."
"I'm not here to do business," she says. "I'm here to see a friend."
"And I told you, you don't have friends here."
"I do so."
"Look, love." He gives her a long, steady look, willing himself not to blink. Maybe this time it'll stick. "This is not a good place for you to be. These are not your kind of people."
"I know what kind of place this is." She shoves the fifty toward him, and he holds his hands away from it. "Look, I just want to go in and say hi to my friend. Ten minutes. That's all I - "
"Not your kind of place," he says again, turning away from her to the next creature in line. "Bugger off home now, love, that's a good girl."
He takes money and stamps hands and turns the other night's Luftmensch away, and when he looks up again she's finally gone.
Sunday night, he stays home and watches telly with his feet on the couch, flicking rapidly and irritably through the channels. Xander sits on the floor by his feet, hugging his knees in silence. The clock on the stove ticks over, eleven o'clock and then midnight. There's fuck all on. Xander doesn't say a word, but he checks the time and sends quick glances in Spike's direction.
"This bloody country," Spike says finally, and tosses the remote onto the coffee table. Xander sits up straighter, ears perked. Spike feels a twist of something sharp in his chest. Xander's hardly said a word all night, hardly said a word all week. They don't see each other at work, and they sleep separately. He rubs a hand over his cheek, the healed one. That's when all this started going so wrong, when he took the glass in his cheek. Or maybe before then. He can't remember now.
"Right," he says. "Guess I'll take a nap, then." Xander's face falls. Actually falls, like his battleship's just been sunk. Then he seals it over fast and just nods, but it's too late, it's fucking obnoxious is what it is. Before he even thinks about it, Spike reaches out a foot and shoves him in the shoulder. Hard. Knocks him sprawling sideways, half into the couch, head on the carpet.
He scrambles upright again immediately, swallows, and sits looking sideways at Spike. His heart's going a mile a minute. Spike lies still, not sure what to say or do. Can't pretend it was a love tap; too hard, and besides, they're not in love. But he can't very well say what it was, either. That he's - what, jealous? That's fucking stupid.
"Come here," he says, realizing as he says it that he's half-hard. So maybe it is just all about sex, in the end. Maybe he's kidding himself, thinking it's anything else.
Xander sits still, just staring at him, his heart hammering. His face is flushing, he's sweating a little. Spike frowns.
"I said, come here."
Xander stares at him a few more seconds, then very slowly gets to his feet, turns his back, and starts to walk out of the room.
For once Spike knows exactly how Angelus must have felt, all those times he was disobeyed. It's a strange thing, it's like a license. Xander knows what he wants, knows what he is. Might not know how frail a leash the soul is, but he's had plenty of clues about that so far, so there's really no excuse. Might not know exactly what's filling Spike's chest and head right now, the heat and bleed of it, but that's too bad, that's what he's going to find out.
Takes less than a couple of seconds to get behind him, slam him up against the wall and pin him there. He makes a high breathy sound as the wind's knocked out of him, and it's so familiar that Spike has to stop himself from the automatic sequence, the bite. His head's burning. Got his face in the kid's shoulder, his neck, breathing in hard while his hips jolt against the kid's ass.
"Spike - "
"You didn't do what I said," he says into Xander's skin. "Why didn't you do what I said?"
"I didn't mean to, I didn't - "
He puts one hand over the kid's mouth and starts with his other to work at the fly of the kid's jeans. He feels drunk, senseless, furious and hot. Just like that first night, the only night he really did what he meant to do, really did anything right. He's hard, he wants to fuck. Wants to smell blood and fear and come, wants silver cups and bended knees and rooftops, everything he's owed. Wants to just take, for once. Xander should give this to him, should want to give it.
There's a little strangled whimper behind his hand, and he realizes Xander's fighting. Twisting, trying to push Spike's hand away with both of his. He pauses. Xander tries to turn his head but can't. Spike leans back onto his heels and for a minute just stands there holding him, looking at him. His jeans half off and his shirt rucked up, his ribs showing white under his skin when he heaves for breath. Sweet curve of his ass, tight line of his neck. Spike puts a finger out and touches the knobs of his spine, one two three four and so on up to where it disappears under his shirt. He's still breathing hard, but he's stopped struggling. Waiting.
Spike leans in again, breathes beside Xander's ear, close enough that his cock presses Xander's ass through his jeans. Both of them with closed eyes, just standing still like that. Xander's heart slows down. After a while he gives a low, quiet moan through Spike's fingers. He's getting hard. Spike buttons him back up, pulls his shirt down, and steps away.
"Sorry." He's not sure what he's doing, not sure what he's supposed to say or whether what he just did was a disaster or a blip. His head's buzzing, he has to test with his fingers to make sure he's in human face. Xander stands facing the wall, breathing in short shuddery gasps. Slowly tucking his shirt back in. When he turns around, there's a red spot on his cheek and forehead where he must have hit the wall. His eyes are glossy, black, a little blind. His mouth is wet.
"I - " Spike says, and Xander blinks at him like an addict. Then he turns and walks slowly out, down the hall to his room. Spike stays where he is, trying to think of what to say next. When Xander comes back down the hall, he says, "Look, I didn't mean to - "
But Xander's got his coat on, and it's as if he doesn't hear a word of it. He just walks straight to the door and out, closing it quietly behind him without a backward look.
