nasty shrew
NC-17 Spike/Xander
Xander's known Spike three days when he quits his job as a courier to go on tour with the band.
Warnings for drug use
See Disclaimer of Ownership here
Chapter Ten
Berlin. Berlin as in the capital of Germany, city once divided by that big wall his history teacher would draw on the white board at the front of the class - uneven bricks scrawled in red. Xander had stared at the diagram with his mind elsewhere - stripping a cheerleader maybe, flash of panic when she turned into a stripping football player. Xander blamed his sexuality crisis for his abysmal history grade – though it may not have been a legitimate excuse for his abysmal grades in math, geography, bio, chemistry ... well hey, points for the correct use of the word ‘abysmal’.
“First time to Germany?” she asked from the seat next to him, heavy brown curls, mauve eyeshadow and violently pink nails.
“First time on a plane,” his words tripping out of his mouth, a sharp wince following them. He might as well have acquired a mullet and bought a trailer because this admission had prompted Cordelia to give him a look even more unimpressed than the last.
“You’re lucky Spike invited you to come with us then – he usually leaves his strays where he found them and then you’d die never having had flown … anywhere,” she said sweetly, toss of her head and a sip of bubbling champagne. Xander looked away, realised he had nothing to do with his hands – he’d spilled his drink in the turbulence.
“Hate the Krauts like any self respecting Brit – but fuck, they know how to decorate,” said with a laugh as he cranes his neck around, gaze sliding down the velvet panels with nightmarish figures scratched into the material. Xander snapped out of his thoughts, pulled his lips into a smile.
“I guess,” he offered haltingly, dragging a palm across the surface of the bar – black rubber, dips in the surface the shape of nails (and teeth?) and wow Berlin was weird, among other things. Berlin is also recycled plastic and warm beer, guttural scrapes of a language Xander can’t fathom and rock clubs with shrines to Tim Burton. Berlin is infuriating efficiency and culture quirks. Berlin is … not America.
“Stumble in, pretty grin,
Tell her I don’t drink no more.
Lick her skin, slip right in,
Swear devotion, forevermore,” the words muffled around the cigarette, Spike’s hands moving up and down the guitar as ash was flicked from his lips, swept into the snap of wind.
“You need to get some sleep before the rehearsal – Buffy’ll rip you a new one if you’re late again,” Xander observed.
“All the better to fuck you with, my dear,” Spike mumbled, falling silent when he found a chord he liked.
Xander shrugged, lay back. He wouldn’t push the point – he was just grateful Spike had agreed to a night in … because when Xander was in a little hotel room with the door locked and Spike smoking by the window, he could pretend he was home.
They’re walking outside, and this catches Xander off guard. He hadn’t even realised they were moving. He’s thinking too much. It can’t be healthy. Probably frying something in his cerebral cortex (only part of the brain he could name because it was so often featured in comics). Spike suddenly stopped walking – pulled him under the shelter of a green bamboo roof, courtesy of a Chinese restaurant perched on the edge of the street.
“Hey,” Spike pushing his forehead against Xander’s, insistent, familiar. They could be anyone in that moment – men with love for one another, undefined, uncontested.
“Hey,” Xander replied, snort of laughter when Spike went cross-eyed trying to focus on his mouth. The eyes flicked back up, pupils like ink sloshing just under the surface of his flesh.
“Coming to the gig tonight?” he whispers, unblinking. It’s a question that he needn’t ask. He knows the answer. He asks anyway because Xander’ll be pissed if he assumes. He was touchy about that lately.
“I’m not your possession, Spike! Look I don’t – I’m sorry. Just … ask me next time, okay?”
“Okay okay okay …” mantra of agreement, gently mocking but there’s an apology there too. Spike distracts Xander with something hot, something that glimmers. It’s beautifully easy and he never has time to feel things like remorse.
“For the first set. I have to get some sleep so I’ll need to leave for the hotel early – but yeah, I’ll come,” Xander sighed, smiling when Spike’s hands ran up his back, fingers pushing through his hair.
“Try not to come right now – I’m sure the locals couldn’t appreciate your spunk all over the window of their panda express,” crass and cheeky, releasing Xander so suddenly the cold felt like a third party to their conversation, pushing it’s spindly little fingers down his throat and solidifying his lungs. The snatch of calm lost, Spike standing three feet away staring at a line of recycling bins. “Bin for plastics, bin for glass, bin for paper, bin for whatever the fuck else you could possibly have. It’s cruel to label the rubbish like that. What if a glass bottle fancies a cardboard box? Or a plastic carton wants to try his chances with a paper bag? They’re them denying that right!” he muttered, gleam in his eye that was all too familiar.
“Spike,” exasperated isn’t a strong enough word, “you can’t have sex with an inanimate object,” and Spike was now looking as though he wanted to prove that indeed they could … “I mean, they can’t have sex with each other,” clarified.
“I’m talking in a metaphorical sense, Xan, not a literal one,” Spike said slowly, laughter creeping up his words and staining his serious expression. “I don’t believe in putting people in boxes and labeling them. So I think I should stand up for my beliefs and …”
“No. Just no,” Xander said firmly. Very firmly. With a steely glare.
Spike grinned and kicked over the recycling bins.
They fell one by one, rapid movement that was so fluid it looked like Spike was dancing with the concrete wall behind them. As they ran, Spike called out something along the lines of “Be free! Frolic with the paper bags and fuck the plastic cartons!”
Xander knew he’d never look at a recycling bin the same way again.
____
He supposed that if when if it ended, he would realise how Spike had seeped into his subconscious. How he couldn’t look at a bus without thinking of them kissing on top of one. How he couldn’t look at a bottle of Jack without thinking of how it smelled when it was thrown back up. How he couldn’t look at a guitar without feeling the frets against his fingers, the warmth of Spike’s body against his back.
Xander had known for a while that Spike was crazy and some days hoursminutesseconds, everything was so damn unpredictable recently it was really bad. Sometimes there was sobbing and puke and Spike’s unreasonable fury slicing through the world.
But other times … Xander thought it was cool to have a free pass into a world that only Spike could let him in to, one that nobody else could see. Spike would give him tastes of how it could be, though maybe not how it should be.
Life; feasted on, ravaged, ripped apart and pulled back together until your heart stops and your eyes flatten.
____
“Stop thinking,” voice by his ear, soft and insistent. Not Spike’s.
“I can’t do this,” Xander shuddered pulling back, pushing the warmth off him. She looked wounded, though only for a second.
“Whatever. Your choice if you want to be made to look like his pathetic bitch,” she spat, pulling her skirt up and stuffing a roll of money into her bra.
“What?” and there it is, that odd sense of dread pawing at his stomach.
“You don’t want to fool around with me because what? You two are ‘exclusive’? Xan, baby, everybody knows!” and she knew where to plunge the knife, knew how to twist it in deep.
“Knows what?” he wondered why he was asking, why he was asking this question when he already knew the answer.
“That he’ll fuck anything that moves. That while you’re here playing Stepford wife, he’s got Greta or Lea or Buffy to suck …”
“Stop it,” shit he doesn’t want to know, he doesn’t want to hear this – this was all a mistake. Leaving early, accepting the ride back to the hotel, going up to her room, all wrong wrong …
“… what, the truth hurts too much? Is he killing you softly?” sarcasm to thick it stung, burned at his skin and behind his eyes. He didn’t even remember what he’d said by the time he’d stumbled out the room, though he hadn’t forgotten a word she’d said. Not a word. Anya had a talent for picking the ones that hurt the most.
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