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 Twelve
Their First Saturday
Xander blinked sleepily and rolled over. Blinked again. Felt warm skin behind his (naked!) ass.
What happened?
I need to pee.
Who’s in my bed?
Did we use protection?
What if I flew to Canada and married a fat trucker called Chuck?
I really need to pee.
“Uhh …”
And it turned out that speech was detrimental to his brain. He shut his eyes, breathed. Images started to flit behind his eyes – hazy sketches of pale skin slicing down black sheets, a face made of edges, tongue dragging across feverish skin …
“Name’s Spike. Yours?” Hot breath huffed at his ear, arms sliding around his waist with an ease that usually grew out of familiarity. It was like … deja vou. Sort of. But not really. No, more like – getting a glimpse of what’s to come and knowing for sure that things were going to be okay. For a while at least. Jesus, he sounded insane. He knew should pull himself out of there, find his trousers and hail a cab. He didn’t know this guy and didn’t want to (liar). What kind of guy picked up strangers at clubs? … uh. Well, he did. But this was the first time he’d ever done it, first time he’d dragged himself out of his nine to five, pay per view, tv dinner existence and thrown himself into something so very foreign. Though not uncomfortably so.
Oh, fuck it.
“Xander.”
Their Last Saturday
“Great gig, wasn’t it? Blew that place apart!”
Xander was tugged down the stairs so quickly he felt like his legs would fly over his head and he’d slump to the floor, neck cracking and snapping. Jesus, what a way to go. He’d hate to die down here in the subway, with the dark grime and skitter of rats. Oh. Sorry, that’s a ‘Yank’ expression. It’s The Tube in England, or The Underground. The subway is ‘the tube’, gas is petrol, Walmart is Asda and baseball is rounders. Before London Xander had thought he spoke English. How very wrong he’d been.
“You’re going love it, promise. You’ll want to fuck this city when I’ve showed it to you – you’ll want to run your lips down the buildings, lick the bloody rooftops and hug the trees,” mid rant, Spike paused, slash of a smile across his face, “But if you do hug trees I’ll smack you one. Can’t stand those stupid Greenpeace ‘save the sticks’ buggers.”
Xander grinned on cue. Spike was really … on today. It heaved the energy out of you, dealing with him on a day like today. Wouldn’t be long before Xander felt the need to collapse - he felt dead on his feet as it was.
“Which stop is it, again?” he asked, squinting at the colour coded map just above the hissing automatic doors. The colours rocked into one another as the train did, startlingly bright against the backdrop of black. Spike pushed a little closer to him than necessary, wrapped an arm around his hips to steady him as the train rocked back and forth, clattering incessantly.
“Leister square, dearest,” humour swirling through his voice, eyes crisp blue with a focus that was increasingly rare.
“What’ll we do there?” dubious now, because Spike looked positively gleeful and that was never a good indication.
“Sit on one of the benches in the park at the center,” lips pressed at his neck, shameless, putting on a show for whomever happened to be watching and fuck ‘em if they didn’t like it. Xander felt exposed – he hated when Spike did this, but he didn’t get a vote. “Make the pigeons fear for their lives. If there’s a premier going on there’ll be cameras and celebrities, so we could take a stand and protest for something. The legalization of public indecency, maybe.”
Xander smiled, pulled away as the train jerked to a halt. Spike grabbed his arm and twisted sharply (he didn’t mean for it to hurt – he never meant for it to hurt).
“Not yet – three more stops ‘till Leister square.”
Xander wrenched his arm back at the exact moment the train started to move again and crashed onto a vacant seat.
Their First Sunday
“I’m going to die,” Xander mumbled, arm slung over his eyes, lips twisting around his smile.
“Little deaths,” Spike muttered, insistently tugging at the sheets, “bloody invigorating lovely little deaths. Fancy another one?”
Xander didn’t move. Couldn’t, though he wanted to. “More little deaths will lead to one big Xander death.”
A laugh, his arm was pulled to his side and he discovered Spike’s face inches away from his own, staring at him as though there was a book scribbled across his face. It was … unnerving. But kind of cool. Nobody looked at Xander with that amount of scrutiny, of interest. Nobody had any reason to.
Xander was sure he was going cross eyed by the time Spike pulled away, sat on bed-sheets curling around him like burning paper. “I’m going to write a song about this,” he said as he lit a cigarette.
“Xander’s Lack of Stamina? Catchy,” Xander said wryly. He didn’t say anything when ash was flicked onto the carpet – after all, the carpet was already stained with everything from nail varnish Willow to stale beer Jesse.
“Thinking more along the lines of Death Bed,” he said, grinning.
“Yours works too,” Xander conceded as he heaved himself up – he’d pulled muscles he hadn’t even known he’d had. Which was a Good Thing. Spike cocked his head to one side, gaze flickering up and down his body as he stood.
“Going to write a lot of songs about you,” he said.
Their Last Sunday
“Strip, thin, grey,
Black gunk, white spunk,
Licks across the surface.
He’ll rub it clean,
Silver gleam,
Light the tail and watch it burn.”
He fell asleep for the first time in days with his head under a pillow, balanced on the edge of Spike’s bunk. It was easy enough – he was exhausted and he could ignore the muffled strikes of music around him. He’d grown used to the dull roar of the road beneath them, to the haphazard jerks the bus was prone to. The impromptu rehearsals weren’t too noisy – tapping on plastic, the moan of Spike’s voice and the twang of wooden guitars wasn’t enough to shove Xander out of his doze.
“Let’s go over the chorus again.”
“Spike, we’ve been through …”
“Dirty magnesium,
Crushed under rock.
Dirty magnesium,
Earth’ll cleanse you, we’ll outlast the clock. There’s something wrong with that line.”
“Too many syllables?”
Xander was dreaming, his face twitching as he slept.
Burning burning - he’s screaming for Xander to come help him, put it out put it out make it stop, and so Xander wanders closer and closer and it hurts, smoldering flesh but he keeps walking and his face is melting but…
“Earth’ll cleanse you, outlast the clock –that sounds a bit better. Jesus wept, Faith, keep in time!”
“Go fuck yourself, Spike.”
“I have plenty of volunteers to fuck me, thanks. As do you. Liam was certainly up for it last night, wasn’t he?”
… he keeps walking because that’s what he has to do but FUCK it hurts his skin and the ground is falling away, crumbling to dust beneath his sneakers and suddenly he’s cold and …
“That’s such bullshit!”
“Guys stop it, there’s something wrong with …”
“Angel? What does he mean?”
“Nothing. He doesn’t mean anything. Spike’s just causing trouble because he knows we hate his piece of shit song.”
… sweating and shivering, falling and flailing and drowning in boiling water that pushed up his nose and behind his eyes, falling falling …
“You shut your mouth, Faith, you don’t know …”
… until he crashed.
“Xander!”
“What happened to …”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s not waking up!”
“Oh sweet Jesus, he’s fucking boiling!”
“Xander! Xand!”
Their First Monday
He didn’t know where his pants were. He should know. It’s his apartment, after all. He should have some idea of which drawer he kept his own pants in. Only, it turned out that lots and lots of sex (with intervals for showering and eating) lead to losing lots and lots of brain cells. That was his theory and it was proving to be true.
Okay Harris, take a moment. He took a deep breath, shut his eyes and tried to collect his thoughts. So, to recap.
Saturday: he’d succumbed to temptation and visited Hole, the new club three blocks over. By some freak of nature, the bouncer let him in. After an hour of drinking and feeling utterly out of place, he was hit on by a really … direct sort of guy. He took aforementioned guy to his place and fornication ensued.
Sunday: turned out the guy’s name was Spike and he was a gorgeous bisexual rock singer. Score. After about ten minutes of small talk and a few more hours of fornication, they started talking and kind of hit it off. Ordered some pizza, didn’t get time to eat much of it. Spike slept over again.
Monday: Spike still at Xander’s apartment and the Moment of Awkwardness still hadn’t arrived. Odd. Incredibly cool, too. Xander wanted to keep going with the whole ‘Love Shack’ thing but unfortunately, he had a job he didn’t want to get fired from. So. Here he was. Trying to remember where his pants were.
“Second drawer,” he said triumphantly.
“I don’t see why you have to go,” said a voice from within the bathroom.
And as Xander’s eyes were drawn to the open doorway and traveled up the length of the (very naked) man in his shower’s body, he wasn’t quite sure why he had to go either.
Their Last Monday
“Flu, exhaustion and dehydration. When it rains it bloody pours, doesn’t it?” Spike murmured, soft scratches of fear just under his tongue, not looking up from Xander’s hand.
“Yeah. Turns out a diet of cigarettes, coffee and beer isn’t as nutritious as we’d thought,” Xander replied, watching Spike smear black across his nails and fingers. He was usually good at applying nail polish but his hands were shaking – if Xander was feeling romantic he’d say it was because Spike was still terrified at the prospect of Xander being ill. If he was feeling realistic he’d say it was because Spike hadn’t had his fix yet. Addiction did funny things to your body.
Spike stood and, having given up on Xander’s nails, started pacing back and forth, watching Xander’s face when he shut his eyes. He wasn’t the boy Spike had met – all colour and noise, strong hands and a broad smile. This man looked … spent. God.
The Low pulled – it was close. He needed an upper. Something to keep him going.
“I’ll fix you – I will. I just need to … I need to be better,” he said.
He kissed Xander’s cheek, left him asleep in the hospital. Xander’s eyes fluttered open just as the door swung shut.
Their First Tuesday
“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Xander marveled as he threw his suitcase into the belly of the bus.
“Why not? The handsome, shy young carpenter …”
“Courier.”
“… the jaded rock star …”
“Rock star, huh?”
“Git. Fine, rock singer but soon to be rock star, alright? So, their eyes meet in a crowded club and they drift towards one another and the rock singer whispers sweet nothings …”
“Since when did ‘want to fuck you now’ qualify as a sweet nothing?”
“… and they fall madly in love. Then they run off for a madcap adventure wherein they drink, have mind blowing sex, listen to amazing music, fuck with the clergy and perform various acts of deviance.”
“With the clergy? What the hell do you have planned?”
“You. Have. No. Idea.”
Xander didn’t know what they’d actually be doing over the next month or so. But making out against a bus with people snapping up and down the sidewalk in heels and business suits was one hell of a way to start off the trip.
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