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Prawnverse part 19
Another couple of weeks slide by like that, business as usual, everything operating right on the edge of collapse. We're quitting that place, he'd said. Right. Because the circus pays so very bloody well.
Spike stops following Xander around on his nights off, because that's always the same anyway - the diner, the little hooker friends. Instead he finds himself standing on ledges five storeys up, staring down at lone stragglers heading home and running the plays in his head. Thinking without doing: across the street, into the alley, down the fire escape, corner, bite. Wallet. He wonders whether Angel ever thinks that kind of thing, watching the idiots he's supposed to protect. Maybe he does; maybe that's what gives him that fucking constipated expression.
There's really no other game in town, and at two o'clock Friday morning, sitting propped against the break room lockers with a cigarette burning down between his fingers, he wonders whether that's a sign. Whether it's time to leave this town. It's a strange thought. Only reason to do it is to find something else, some other place where he can…what? Support Xander in the style to which he is accustomed? Find him a good therapist who'll get him to bloody talk? Hope the sight of the Chrysler building wipes that blank look out of his eyes? Stupid. The whole situation's fucked, and he needs to get shut of it. He should just leave. On his own. Leave all this behind.
He's rolling the tip of the cigarette against the sole of his boot, lost in thought, when Bitte bangs in.
"That girl's here," she says, without preamble. "Again."
"Yeah." He doesn't look up. "I let her in."
"Stupid!" She goes to her locker, flings it open, and grabs a towel. It's hot in the bar tonight, she's sweating through her shirt. The nights keep shrinking, all that manic energy keeps getting packed tighter and tighter. "Why in God's name do you let her - "
"She's Xander's little friend," he says, taking a drag. "She's not hurting anything."
"She's a nuisance, sitting there all night. One Coke, she drinks."
"So charge her double." He has no idea why he's defending the tart, and he cranes his neck sideways and watches Bitte while she slugs water from the bottle in her locker. "Put on a few pounds, haven't you?"
She coughs, stares at him a second, then flicks the neck of the bottle around and hits him with a line of water. "Skinny little herring-fish of a man."
"Built big where it matters though, love."
"I wouldn't even feel you. A little tickle is all. Like a sneeze."
"Right, the kind of sneeze that leaves you walking bowlegged." He glances down and frowns. "You put my cigarette out."
She sits down and goes back to wiping her throat and neck while he relights the cigarette, and for a couple of minutes they sit in silence, listening to the thump of music through the door.
"You think I could get work somewhere else?" he asks after a bit, studying his cigarette. She looks over with an expression of faint surprise.
"Work like this," she says, "yes. Another kind of work?"
He waits.
"Your sire - "
"Not my sire," he says automatically.
"He could give you work, yes?"
"Not an option."
She accepts that, wipes her neck, studies the ceiling. "Maybe…a night job, somewhere. Security. The garbage - they collect it at night."
He keeps studying his fingers, and she falls silent.
"Right, well." He drags hard, then butts his cigarette out and stands up. "Just thinking out loud."
"I'll think about it, Spike."
"Yeah, thanks." He hauls the door open and lets in the blast of noise. "Charge the silly cow triple next time. Maybe that'll get rid of her."
Bitte shrugs and goes back to wiping her neck, and he lets the door fall closed and heads out into the noise.
The night takes forever to end. Feels like he's taking bills and stamping hands for ten more hours, and it's still only four o'clock when he has to call Vincent out so he can go down into the alley and break up a fight between a six-foot junior vamp and a couple of goblins. He gets clipped in the gut pretty well, which pisses him off, and after the goblins scatter he finds himself slamming the vamp's curly red head against the bricks, over and over. Past the point of deterrence, really. All he's aware of is the hard frenzied body under his hands, the stink of cold blood, the roar in his ears. When he finally lets go and staggers back, the vamp has to crawl before he can stand.
"Judas," the vamp spits, getting slowly to his hands and knees. "Faggot."
"Loser."
He walks back to the door, rolling the fury out of his shoulders. "Go okay?" Vincent asks mildly, glancing at the blood all over his hands and shirt. Spike grabs a kobold, wipes his hands on its shirt, and lights a cigarette. They keep taking money and stamping. After a while there's another fight inside, and Vin goes in to take care of it, and the night just drags on.
Finally it's five o'clock and he kicks everyone off the step. They're shoving them out the back door, too - closed by dawn, club policy. He can hear Bitte back there, haranguing some poor sod who's tried something dumb. Vincent never has to yell; he just looms. Takes half an hour to chuck everyone out, and then Foreigner's back on the sound system and they're cashing out, cleaning up, closing shop.
Xander ghosts past with a crate full of glasses, his face pale and tired. No sign of the tart; she must have left hours ago. Spike does another shot and goes back to counting his float out of his total. He could be a rubbish collector. Christ. He does another shot.
"What a fucking night," Bitte says, slamming trays into the rack. "If it's going to be like this, Texas needs more people."
"You tell him that," Spike says. "I'm going to change my shirt."
He's in the break room, shirtless, when Xander walks in. Doesn't look surprised, just nods and goes to his own locker, swings it open, and hooks his jacket. He moves like his shoulders hurt. Been a busy night for everyone.
Spike pulls a spare shirt on, stands for a minute fiddling with his keys, then says, "You know how I said we were going to quit this place."
Xander sits down heavily on the far end of the bench. His expression is dead tired, not really listening, not really interested. Spike studies him, swings the door of his locker back and forth absently, and then says, "What if we went - "
The door opens and Texas leans in. "You," he says, pointing at Spike. "Come with me. Now."
Spike stands there, eyebrows raised, mouth still open. Without thinking, he turns his head and looks at Xander. Who is looking back at him with a little more attention now, a slight frown. He starts to straighten up, and Texas shifts the finger to point at him.
"You stay put." He lets the door fall shut, and it opens again right away - Bitte. Her face is white and locked, her eyes stunned. The back of Spike's neck prickles up.
"What's - "
"Go," she snaps, not really looking at him. Xander starts to stand up and she shakes her head. "No, you stay here, Piaf."
There's a long second of silence, while Spike tries to read her face and can't. Out in the bar, someone cuts the sound system, and suddenly the place is very quiet. He swallows and looks back at Xander. "If there's something - "
"Texas wants you," she says, walking past him, still not looking at him.
He stares at Xander over the back of her head, sees his own confusion and trepidation reflected back, then thinks, Well, fuck it, and turns on his heel. Whatever it is, it can't be that bad.
"Where's Texas?" he asks the swamp crew, who are hanging around by the bar doing nothing. One of them nods to the back door. He heads back and sees that it's propped open. Texas is standing on the back step, staring down into the back alley. A few people are down there, standing around looking useless. Vincent's leaning against the wall.
"What the hell is going on?" He says it just as one of the swampers steps aside and he sees the skinny white arm flung out across the pavement. His stomach drops. "What - ?"
Nobody bothers to answer, and he shuts up. It's Xander's little brown-haired tart, of course, half-buried under a pile of rubbish bags, most of her throat gone missing. Her purse still around her wrist, a look of bewilderment on her face.
"What do we do with it?" someone says. "We can't just leave it here."
"She," Spike says automatically. Texas gives him a sideways look.
"You know her," he says.
Spike blinks, pulls his eyes away, and straightens his shoulders. Not like he's never seen a dead girl before, no reason to go all wobbly. "Sure," he says. "Yeah, she was Harris's friend."
Texas gives a long low breath, almost but not quite a sigh. "Friend," he repeats.
"Friend," Spike says sharply.
"Name?"
Spike shrugs. One of the swampers leans down, plucks delicately at her purse, and comes up with a card. "Angeline Suarez?" Spike shrugs again, under Texas's eye.
"I didn't bloody know her, I just let her in."
"You let her in," Texas says thoughtfully, watching the swampers start to move the bags off the body. Spike feels his shoulders go up an inch.
"I didn't do this - "
"No. You just let her in."
"I just - " He stands there open-mouthed, staring at Texas, who stares evenly back at him. Then there's commotion behind them, someone's being shoved, and before he has time to react, Xander's standing on the step. Oh, fucking hell.
There's a long, long second while he just stands there, his face white, his lips open, his hands cupped at his sides as if he's going to put them to his mouth and yell. His eyes are fixed on the girl, completely blank. Like he's waiting for the next slide to fall into place, the new reality to take over from this one. Behind him, Bitte appears and makes a grab at his shoulder. He doesn't notice.
"Xander - " Too late, Spike realizes he should do something about this, should stop this from happening. He puts a hand out to pushes Xander back a step, herd him back into the bar. "Come on - "
Without any warning, Xander suddenly starts fighting him. With his knees and fists, his whole body, everything all at once. His knuckles catch Spike's temple, his knee gets the nerve inside Spike's thigh, and then he's shoving past, back to the step. Spike grabs for him, but he keeps going.
"Vincent - "
He's there already, all seven feet of him, solid as a wall. Filling the door, letting Xander get a few punches in before he wraps his big hands around Xander's forearms and pushes him back, off his balance. Thank God for Vincent. His expression is sorrowful and disturbed.
"I'm sorry," he says, lifting Xander off his feet an inch and carrying him back into the bar. "I'm really sorry, Xander."
Spike stays where he is, beside the door, one hand on his temple. Bitte stands opposite him, biting her lip. Outside, the swampers are doing something with the body - shifting it, carrying it somewhere.
The doorway blackens and Texas steps in between them. "LeRoy'll bring you a stake," he says to Spike as he passes. "Don’t come in to work tomorrow. Or the kid, either."
It takes a second for that to sink in. Texas is halfway across the bar, heading for his office, when Spike thinks to call after him. "I'm fired?"
"Don't come in to work for a while," Texas says over his shoulder, and disappears into his office.
Vincent's got Xander over at the bar, sitting down on a stool now. Spike starts to head that way, but suddenly LeRoy's there, holding up a stake.
"Texas said give this to you."
He takes it with a ginger hand, as if it might bite him. Bitte's still standing beside him. Her face is pinched and closed.
"I didn't mean to - " he starts.
She walks away to the bar, sits down next to Xander, and signals to the bartender for a bottle.
Xander's dead drunk by the time they leave, and Spike tells himself that's why he's like this. Dazed, glassy-eyed, stumbling instead of walking. Hasn't said a single word, and doesn't say anything when Spike tries to draw him out, asks him if he's all right, if his arms are all right, did Vincent hurt him, stupid things like that. He just sits slumped in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead while Spike breaks laws getting them home because it's practically light already. He's got the girl's blood under his fingernails. She hadn't been turned, she was just dead.
In the flat, Spike leaves Xander in the kitchen and goes down to the toilet to wash up. He wants a proper shower, but it's not the right time, he should make sure Xander's all right. He has to use the brush to get his nails clean.
When he goes back into the kitchen, Xander's still standing by the doorway, wavering slightly on his feet as if he's just waiting to fall down. Doesn't look as if he's moved. Spike pauses.
"You all right?"
No response, and he frowns, walks forward, and touches Xander's shoulder. Xander sways slightly, turns his head, and looks at Spike. Like Spike's a mild curiosity, something he's heard about, something he's withholding judgment on. The smell of alcohol rolls off him in waves.
"Come on," Spike says, slipping a hand inside Xander's jacket, along his shoulder. "Get this kit off you."
Xander doesn't put up any kind of fight, just stands there with limp arms while Spike slides his jacket off and chucks it onto the sofa. Keeps standing there while Spike takes his own coat off, toes off his boots, and then can't think what to do next. Stupidly, he finds himself wishing Bitte were here. She'd have a soup for this.
"All right, come on." He tries to sound like he knows what he's doing. For some reason that seems important. "Let's get you to bed. Or - you hungry?" Xander just stares at him, fumey and addled, and after a few seconds he nods. "Okay, bed then."
He starts for his bedroom, realizes halfway there that Xander's not following, and turns back. Xander hasn't moved. Spike frowns.
"Just bed," he says after a second. "Just sleep."
That takes a second or two to penetrate, and then Xander starts obediently across the room toward him.
In the bedroom, he pulls his shirt off and is working on his jeans when he notices that Xander's just standing again. Jesus Christ. Drunk, he reminds himself.
"You sleeping, or not?" Xander glances at him, and his eyelids lower slightly, as if he's suddenly been hit with a wave of fatigue. He sits heavily down on the edge of the bed, pulls his shirt halfway off over his head, and gets stuck. Spike reaches across and yanks it off him. "Christ, you're hammered."
Xander nods woozily, prying at the button of his jeans. Spike lets him do that bit, but helps pull them off his legs. He's already half asleep, or maybe half passed out, his head rolling back on his neck as he tries to thumb his waistband down.
"Take it easy," Spike says inanely, folding the sheets over him. "Just…just go to sleep."
Xander nods and closes his eyes, and in no more than a minute or two, he's gone. Sunk straight to the bottom like a rock dropped overboard.
Spike stays awake a while, thinking of Bitte's face, the thin arm outflung, the nail brush bristles turning brown, then yellow.
Xander sleeps ten hours straight without moving. Eyes closed like they're stitched that way, mouth open, deep belly breaths. It would look restful if it didn’t look dead. Spike stands in the bedroom doorway with a mug of blood, just watching. He can't sleep much, himself - it's thrown him off, knowing he's not going in to work. Knowing he's fired, or something like it. Knowing that sooner or later Xander's got to wake up, and not knowing what's going to happen when he does.
It's not much of an event, as it happens. He's given up watching and is sitting on the sofa with a book open in his lap, staring at the carpet, when he hears movement in the bedroom. Waking-up sounds, and he's on his feet and halfway back there when Xander appears in the bedroom doorway. His hair's flat and tangled, and he looks puffy, confused, a little sour. He braces one hand on the doorframe, rubs the other down his jaw, and says, "I feel like shit."
"Yeah?" Cat's got his brain as well as his tongue, apparently; he can't even quite make the quip he should, here. Look like it, too… He just stands there, holding the book open at his side, as if he's expecting Xander to order a pot of coffee and a couple of eggs sunny. Xander nods, rubs his forehead, and then realizes Spike's still standing there. He gives him a funny look.
"What?"
Spike shakes his head, steps back, and drops the book onto the sofa. Maybe this isn't going to be the fiasco he thought. Maybe the kid's dealt already. Maybe -
"Shitty dreams," Xander mutters, and starts for the fridge.
Spike just stands there waiting, while Xander plucks at the refrigerator door with clumsy, hungover hands. He can't seem to get it open, and after a couple of seconds of watching him try, Spike realizes that he knows they weren't dreams. Isn't awake yet, but knows. He's just giving Spike and the rest of the world a chance to take him up on that theory. Dream, yeah, sure, it was all a really bad dream. Next time don't drink that shit Bitte pours down your throat.
Xander's fingers latch onto the refrigerator handle and he jerks it open, rattling the bottles inside. Digs around a second and comes up with a bottle of orange juice. "Really fucking shitty." He uncaps the bottle, leans on the open refrigerator door, and starts to drink without turning around. Spike listens to his throat work and work until he has to stop, put the bottle down, and take a long, shaky breath. He wipes his eyes, then wipes his hand on the back of his shorts. Wet.
"I'm gonna shower," he says to the cupboards, and closes the refrigerator door. He takes the juice with him. Spike stays where he is.
The thing about being so fucking acute all the time is, he can hear Xander crying even over the running shower. For what seems like an hour. The practical part of his mind notes that the water must be cold by then. The rest of him is…distracted. Wants to sit and think, wants to do things. Heat up soup, change the sheets, call for takeaway. Call for Bitte. Because God knows he doesn't know what to do.
It's his flat, it's his bathroom. If he wants to go in there, he's got every right.
He sits at the kitchen table and reads the job ads. Night watchman, corner shop clerk, cleaner at the morgue. That last one seems almost possible. When the shower shuts off he sits bolt upright, then eases back in his chair and looks around for his cigarettes. It's afternoon, almost evening, and he hasn't smoked a one yet. No wonder he's on edge.
He hears Xander go down the hall to his room, hears him root around in there and find his clothes, and then he's coming back down the hall to the kitchen. When he appears in the doorway he looks wrung-out. His eyes are red and tired. He's dangling the half-empty juice bottle in one hand, and he stands in the doorway and looks around the room as if he's just seeing it for the first time.
Spike rubs his mouth and says, "You want…a coffee?"
Xander doesn't respond for a second, until he's done looking around the room, or until the question filters into his brain. Then he raises the juice bottle and shakes his head slightly. He's barefoot, wet-headed, dressed in jeans and a cruddy old shirt. The way he always is. He looks different, though.
"You hungry?"
Xander turns his head and looks at Spike. Calm deep tired look, and when he's done looking he shuffles across the linoleum and sits down in the chair opposite Spike. Studies the paper Spike's reading, upside-down, and then looks over his empty blood mug, his cigarettes and lighter, as if all this is new too.
"Nah," he says. "I'm still a little hung over."
His voice is quiet and raw, and he clears his throat with a look of irritation, then reaches out and drags Spike's cigarettes toward him.
"You don’t smoke," Spike says automatically.
"I know." He separates a cigarette carefully from the packet, draws it out, and studies it. "I feel like one right now, though."
Spike takes it from him, puts it between his own lips, lights it, and hands it back.
"Thanks." He takes a small drag and frowns. "Fuck."
"You sure you don’t want something to eat?"
He sits back in his chair, the cigarette out in front of him with the tip straight up, the smoke drawing a line toward the ceiling. "Did you get fired?"
Spike just sits there, staring at the red tracks in Xander's eyes. Like something's scratched him. Miserable. "Don't know," he says finally. "Maybe."
"Did I?"
"Why would you be fired?"
"I wanted her there. I'm the one - " His voice hitches and he stops short, studies the burning tip of his cigarette intently, then tries another short drag. "This is fucking disgusting."
"It grows on you. And you're not fired."
"Was she - " He stops again, and this time he can't quite pick it up. He just sits there, staring at his cigarette and blinking, his throat working like a bird's. Spike looks away.
"Wasn’t turned. I took care of it." He checked, is what he means; he doesn't know what the swampers did with the body. Better not to ask too many questions about Texas's methods.
Xander nods, still staring at his cigarette. "Okay," he says, after a couple of minutes. "Okay, thanks."
Now is not the time to say No problem or You're welcome, and thank God he has the soul to tell him that. So he just sits there feeling increasingly bad, increasingly uncomfortable, while Xander tries a couple more drags of his cigarette and finally leans over to drop it into the empty mug. There's a sizzle and a quick niff of burnt blood.
"Look," Spike says, lowering his head and studying one thumbnail. "I know there isn't anything I can - "
"I'm going back to bed," Xander says, standing up and scraping his chair back. "I think I need to sleep some more."
Spike sits there with his mouth still open while Xander walks back across the kitchen and disappears into his bedroom. Not the little spare room with the cot; Spike's room. As if it's his now, as if he belongs there. Spike hears him set the juice down on the night table and fall heavily onto the mattress. It gives him a quick, completely unlooked-for shock of pleasure.
