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Prawnverse part 13
Sitting on the rooftop opposite the diner, watching the blonde and the boyfriends smoke their way through a second pack of Salems, he has plenty of time to call himself an idiot. Unbelievably stupid to have just let the kid go like that, as if there were some law against opening the door and walking down the hall after him, talking to him, grabbing him even. He'd just stood there like a moron, hands at his sides, while Xander walked out of the building and disappeared. Could have done it anytime. Was going to do it eventually. But still.
He lights another cigarette of his own and watches the kids. The little brown-haired tart hasn't been there in two nights. Neither has Xander. The rest of them show up, run the regular routines, but they seem subdued. The weather's turned cold again, which must make it bad for business. All he has to do is go down there and ask. Buy a round of coffees for the table, settle in, work the charm. He looks like a movie star, after all. But if Xander doesn’t want to be found, they either won't know where he is or he'll have told them not to say. Spike imagines sitting there while the three of them close ranks against him, skinny hard faces all in a line, all of them thinking he's a bad, bad man. Which he is. But he can't go down there and take that right now. He's got enough to think about.
Like whether Xander's going to show up for work, for instance. Flinging himself from ledge to ledge on the way home, he thinks about how he said Xander was reliable. Not a risk to take on, even though he used to work for the Slayer. And now— If Xander's had enough, if he's gone back to Sunnydale or just made that phone call from some booth here in the city, Spike's not the only one who could be in for it. Texas, Bitte, everyone. He thinks about Bitte staked and bleeding, or imploded by the witch, and feels a surge of shock, like his finger in a socket. He's such an idiot. Darla was always right, forever and ever, amen.
He'll have to tell Texas, that's all. Tell him there's been a slight problem, he's working on finding the kid and bringing him back home, nothing to worry about. Lovers' quarrel, is all. He can imagine how Texas will take that. He's tolerant for an ogre, but he has his limits.
For the first time, it occurs to Spike that he might be out of a job.
That's a nasty thought, enough to occupy him for a few hours of drinking alone at the kitchen table, all the lights off and his elbows buried in old newspapers. Then, when he's done worrying about that, he slips into a darker vein, thinking about Harris. Replaying the shove, the sudden boil of fury that felt like an epiphany, like something he had no hand in. It's like self-flagellation, repeating it over and over—his body up against Xander's, crushing him to the wall, yanking down his jeans. Thinking he was owed that much. Which maybe he was, but still. He pours himself another drink and rubs his eyes. He hasn’t slept much since Xander left. Logistical worries, mainly. Logistical worries are plenty to think about, no need to spend time on that look on Xander's face, the sound of his feet disappearing.
God, he's an idiot.
He falls asleep on the couch, the bottle in reach, half a mug of blood there that he doesn't really want. Angel's smiling at him, and then the smile starts to creep down his chin and jaw, a black slit in his face like something you could post a letter into. Spike wakes up sitting up, blinking, reaching around him frantically to figure out where he is.
Xander's just closing the door. He glances back over his shoulder, looks at Spike for a second, but doesn’t say anything. Just flips the lock and walks away down the hall.
"Hey." He's not awake yet, he's not tracking. He gets up and glances around. The flat's still dim and stale and littered with mugs, papers, bottles. The oven clock reads 5:45. Down the hall, Xander closes the bathroom door.
Spike stands there a minute, then remembers whose flat it is in the first place, and goes down the hall. Opens the bathroom door without knocking first. Xander's standing in front of the sink, brushing his teeth. He glances at Spike and keeps brushing.
"Where were you?" It comes out sounding sharp, too proprietary. Or proprietary in the wrong way, in a womanish kind of way, as if he should be wearing a housecoat and curlers, brandishing a frying pan. Xander pauses, spits, and goes back to brushing. Not going to answer that, apparently.
"You can't just take off like that," Spike says, keeping his tone a little lower this time. "Can't just walk out whenever you feel like it." He's starting to work himself up to angry now, and it's good. Lot more satisfying than what he's been feeling the last couple of days.
Xander spits again, wipes his mouth, rinses his toothbrush. "I'm back," he says.
"I can see that. It's Wednesday, Harris. You left Sunday. Two bloody days without any word where you are, that's not bloody on."
Xander just stands there staring at him, and after a second Spike takes a closer look. He's wearing the same clothes he had on when he left, he smells like he's been in them the whole time. He's tired and drained, blue circles under his eyes. And he's got a look, a sort of bored dead look, that he hasn't had before. Like everything Spike's saying is just noise, and he's waiting it out in some private inner room until he's allowed to go.
It's not a good look. It's the kind of look that kids on street corners have, the kind he'd never mastered before. Spike pulls up short and they stare at each other.
"I have to piss," Xander says, reaching for the door handle. Spike steps back, out of the room, and Xander closes the door.
Back in the kitchen, Spike tries to decide whether he could smell any of her on him. That's where he must have gone, must have been with that little friend of his, and maybe she was more than a friend. But then why did he come back? Well, his things are here. But all he owns is a couple of changes of clothes, a razor, that cruddy old backpack. Maybe he just didn't want to start over. Or maybe he couldn't make a go of it on his own. It's still cold out there.
He's standing at the counter, worrying it over and over, when the bathroom door opens and Xander pads up the hall. He comes and stands in the kitchen doorway, his windbreaker in his hands, his eyes flat. He smells a bit off, come to think of it. Not just like streets, more like sickness.
"You going to bed?"
Spike just stands there a second, smelling, then realizes what Xander's said, and nods. "In a minute. I guess."
"I'll come with." He steps forward, and Spike's hand goes up automatically. Probably insulting, but it's all moving sort of fast and he's not sure he's keeping up.
"You should sleep."
"I'm fine."
"I'm going to sleep."
"We'll be quick." There's a grim set to Xander's jaw. He's never done this before. Never offered, never been the one to bring up sex. It made sense; it was rent to him, and if he could get away without paying rent, he would. Spike didn't blame him, didn't take it personally. He finds himself wanting to take a step back.
"Not today," he says lamely. "Tomorrow, maybe." It's weird, suddenly the last thing he wants to do is fuck Xander. It feels all wrong, like an imposition. "Not right now," he says again. Kid smells like he's getting sick.
Xander's eyes skim over him, take in the way he's retreating. "Okay," he says. "But soon."
"Soon what?"
"Soon I start paying rent again," Xander says sharply, almost angrily, as if Spike's just insulted him.
"Rent. Right."
"I pay rent to live here," Xander says slowly, as if he's talking to a child. "That's the way it works."
"Right."
"Unless you don't want it to work like that anymore." There's no way to tell what he means by that, what's the right thing to say in response. He's standing there with pink circles on his cheekbones, eyes bright and black and glassy, gripping his windbreaker like it's going to try to wrestle free. Smelling more and more like something curdling.
"You feeling all right?" Spike asks.
Xander stares at him for a second, then turns on his heel and goes back out, down the hall to his room. Closes the door. There's the sound of the cot springs settling under him.
Spike stands still, trying to sort out all the smells, trying to decide whether any of them are sex or anything like.
He's right about the sickness, at least. By noon the kid's in the toilet again, sweating and shivering and puking. By one he's in the cot with a thermometer in his mouth, eyes sunk down and half-closed, sweating through his sheets.
"A hundred and four," Spike says, reading the mercury line and then shaking it down. The room smells hot and sharp and awful, like something dirty burning. "What'd you do, sleep in the gutter?"
Xander says nothing. He hasn't said anything at all, not since the kitchen this morning after Spike turned him down. As soon as the thermometer's out of his mouth he rolls over and faces the wall, his back to Spike and the rest of the world. Spike drops the thermometer on the night table.
"Bloody idiot."
He calls a delivery service for aspirin, ice, a few pieces of fruit. He's got no idea what humans do when they get like this, but he's pretty sure they don't use leeches anymore. He orders soup from a Thai place, then wanders around at loose ends until he finally winds up sitting on the floor of Xander's room, going through the boxes of LPs. He has a lot of Tom Waits he should listen to more often.
"You didn't let her in."
He looks up at that; it's the first thing Xander's said in hours.
"Beg pardon?"
Nothing, just the slight squeak of the springs as Xander shivers. After a second or two he gets up and walks over to the bed. Xander's got every blanket there is on him, all bundled up and still shaking, his hair wet with sweat. Christ, maybe he should go to the hospital. Is a hundred and four dangerous?
"She came and you didn't let her in," he says clearly, without opening his eyes. He's talking about the little brown-haired tart, Spike realizes. Well, of course. She must have told him she'd tried to come see him, told him the mean blonde bouncer wouldn't let her in.
"Wouldn't let who in?" he asks anyway, because he's still got a little cagey left in him.
"To the bar," Xander says. "Jesus, I'm freezing."
"You're sick." He ponders for a second. "You want a cup of tea?"
Xander doesn't say anything. After a second he pulls the blankets a little higher, almost over his head, so Spike can't see much more than a few wet black curls. He reaches down, hesitates, then rests his hand on the back of Xander's head, through the covers. Xander flinches, and he takes his hand back quickly.
He gets a little aspirin between Xander's lips, chases it with a sip of tea, and sits back down to go through the albums. The springs squeak chronically, perpetually, like a mouse problem, and he tries not to pay any attention to it. Humans get like this, they get sick, they sweat it out. All perfectly natural. Doesn’t mean he's dying.
There are more albums than he remembers, more than he'll ever know what to do with. In some part of his mind, he knows he's never going to manage anything with them; they'll sit in their boxes for however long he keeps the flat, and when he goes he'll leave them behind. Not like he's got room in the car for this kind of crap. And it's stupid collecting it in the first place. The seventies are long gone.
Xander mutters something and throws the blankets back, and Spike glances over. He's in shirt and shorts, soaked through both of them, one hand over his eyes as if there's too much light in the dim little room. "My backpack," he says. Spike stands up quickly, Meat is Murder in one hand.
"What, you want something from your pack?" He glances around, can't see it, toes a pile of dirty clothes aside and catches a glimpse of the corner. Beat-up old army knapsack, the straps just barely holding on. "You...awake?"
Xander doesn't say anything, and Spike stands there for a few seconds, chewing his lip and wondering what he should do. Do doctors make house calls anymore? Probably, if you pay them enough. He's got some money stashed away, but he doesn't know who to call. Xander rolls his head into the pillow and mumbles something incomprehensible.
"Right, look." He stands there tapping Morrissey against his palm, trying to come up with a plan of action. "Maybe - " Without thinking, he steps forward and puts his palm against Xander's forehead. Xander tries to twist away, and Spike keeps his hand there firmly, trying to get a sense of how hot he is. Hot. Funny, how he doesn't trust the thermometer to tell him that. He had fevers once or twice when he was a boy, and he remembers his mother's cool hand against his forehead about as clearly as he remembers anything from those particular mists of time.
"Not my backpack," Xander says, and Spike takes his hand away, kicks the clothes to one side, and picks up the bag. It feels empty, but he opens it and looks inside anyway. Nothing. Kid might as well be saying ice cream, probably. But there's something small and heavy in the outside pocket, and he unbuckles it with one hand, his eyes already back on Xander, wondering what he'll do if this just keeps getting worse.
"You're a needy little bugger," he says out loud, sticking his hand into the pocket without looking. Then he yanks it out again fast, because it feels like something's bitten him. His fingers are all right, no holes. No blood. He blinks at them, then turns the bag upside down and shakes it. Something small falls out and hits the carpet with a thump.
Crouching down, he sees it's a little black stone on a string. No design on it, no sharp edges, just smooth and shiny and black, with a little drilled hole in one end. The string's just green twine, like garden twine. He stares at it for a few seconds, then puts out one finger and pokes it. It feels like it's vibrating, very slightly and very fast.
He looks back up at the bed, at the wet bony outline of Xander's shoulder through his shirt. "Huh."
He doesn't recognize it, but that doesn't mean anything. It's magic, he tries to keep clear of magic as much as possible, there's all kind of things he has no clue about. The bed springs are still squeaking, maybe a little louder now. Xander's hand falls down, gropes for the blankets, and pulls them awkwardly back up.
"Don't think you need this right now," Spike says, half to himself and half to Xander. He picks the stone up carefully by its string and drops it back in the pocket, then buckles it and puts the whole thing back in its corner.
"I used to know him back in Sunnydale," Xander says, and Spike straightens up sharply. "Then I met him again here, and now—"
There's nothing else, and after a few seconds Spike says, "Now...what?" in a prompting tone. Nothing. Xander's teeth have started to chatter. A cold finger goes down Spike's spine.
Bitte. He's stupid not to have thought of her before. He goes to the phone and dials her number, tells her it's an emergency. Yeah, he knows he owes her already. He'll pay her back. It's Xander. Piaf. The kid. He's sick.
She says she'll be there in ten minutes, and she is.
