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 Eight
“Give it back,” Spike laughed; slight irritation as he swiped his hands in the air and tried to grab the bottle.
“You’ve had enough of this,” Xander shook the bottle, sloshing warm liquid over his palms as he walked towards the yellowed tile of the bathroom.
“Fuck it, you only live once,” words crisp with desperation as he stumbled to his feet, grabbed the back of Xander’s shirt. They fucked on the floor and there was whiskey in Xander’s hair.
He always packs his bag on a Monday because Monday seems to be the most sensible day in the week. On the first day of every week, traces of the night before smeared across his skin, Xander decides to leave Spike. Every. Fucking. Monday.
He packs his bag when Spike is asleep; his ash white curls an unruly crown, black mascara clashing with deep red smudges across his lips, lipstick. Xander doesn’t wear lipstick, and neither does Spike.
He folds his pants and boxers first, puts them in the very bottom of the case with meticulous care. Then he gets bored and throws in his shirts, squashes in a pair of shoes and the trinkets he’s picked up along the way. A black plastic guitar pick, the word ‘Spike’s’ scratched into the surface.
Spike sat behind Xander, weight on his knees and his arms wrapped around Xander’s waist, eyes trained on long fingers tugging clumsily at the strings.
“Told you I couldn’t play guitar. I suck at all things musical,” Xander muttered, wincing at the strangled chords. Spike grinned, pressed his face into Xander’s hair - a blonde leathered limpet.
“Practice makes perfect,” he said, scrape of a laugh over a polished BBC accent, traces of William, brandy and books. “You can keep the pick and when you learn the song,” he nipped Xander’s ear and dragged his tongue down his neck, “I’ll give you the guitar and reward you for being such a good student.”
“Huh, says you. Mrs. Campbell in sixth grade made me solve math problems in detention every day for a month, and I still have to carry a calculator to the supermarket.”
“Stick with me, pet, we don’t have maths in my world.”
“This will take me forever to learn,” Xander groaned, messing up on the third chord again. Spike tightened his hold.
“Suits me.”
Xander always snorts as he wraps the gift in a sock and thinks about how pathetic it is that he can’t throw it away. A plastic rose, the petals painted black with nail polish.
“Super romantic. And not creepy at all,” Xander deadpanned, staring at the atrocity, still damp and tacky. Tacky on many levels. The flower could probably compete with Aunt Margie’s collection of porcelain bulldogs.
“Regular Shakespeare, me,” Spike crowed, holding out the plastic flower proudly, “Bloody well took me hours and I used up three bottles of ‘midnight velvet 26’.”
Xander, who had been doing a very good job of looking unimpressed until now, laughed. “Three? Woah – I’m honored.”
“As you should be, ungrateful sod,” Spike snapped indignantly, pulling Xander into a kiss. The rose fell to the floor forgotten, and was crushed beneath heavy boots and groans.
The pocket knife, small and scratched, was slipped into the back of his shoe. He liked the feeling of it, dulled metal his reassurance. Because when he had the knife, Spike didn’t.
“Found it when I was ten, in Blackpool,” Spike murmured, flicking the blade.
“Don’t do that here!” Xander hissed, pushing the knife between them, eyes moving frantically to see if anyone had spotted it.
“Why the fuck shouldn’t I?” his voice had risen, his slur more pronounced. The blood at the corner of his lip bubbled.
“Because you’ll get arrested, that’s why,” Xander couldn’t contain his own venom, resentment. Because he didn’t have to be here. Sitting at what, three in the morning? Sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair in the hospital’s emergency section, blood that isn’t his spilling over his shirt, Spike sitting to his left, cocky and uncaring of the slice in his forehead. He’d been here twice before, both times because Spike had one too many and decided that a fun and productive way to spend the evening was to kick the shit out of anyone in his way. He was a good fighter, seemed to revel in the violence and draw energy from it.
He recalled Spike’s words, that fighting was the closest he’d ever been to dancing. Xander didn’t understand, supposed he never would. On some level, he hated that. He should have been relieved really – because who would want to understand that primal urge, skirting as close to ‘inhuman’ as anyone can. But he does want it. He wants all of it. He wants to look in Spike’s eyes and get it. Understand it. “Sometimes I think you want to get arrested,” he muttered. Spike bristled.
“You’d like to be arrested too, yeah? Be my official bitch,” vicious precision, he smiled as Xander flinched. “Here, take it if you’re so worried,” he shoved the knife into Xander’s arm. Xander choked and threw a punch before he knew what was happening.
The next morning Spike kisses the cut, laughs that they’ll have matching stitches and tells Xander about Angel, Darla and Drusilla. The gang of four drawn together by an inherent need for something none of them could name. To create their own world of freedom, maybe. Xander suspected it may have just been their excuse to have sex and drink without being told not to.
Spike begs Xander not to leave him, he knows he was a wanker, couldn’t help it. In three minutes he had told Xander he loved him more times than Xander had been told that in the past 19 years.
Xander shouldn’t have accepted the apology, he knew that – but he did. He always did.
He walks to the door and contemplates leaving a note, tells himself that Spike would worry if he didn’t. Tells himself that if he left like this, sudden and no goodbyes, Spike would blame himself. And fall.
facedown in the bathtub, blood wisps through clear water dissolves into undignified orange – pale skin wrinkled and hair dull in flickering florescent light, a stillness in death he never had in life
Then it comes. The moment when Xander stands in the open doorway, a battered suitcase and a twist in his gut. He sets his bag down, kicks off his shoes and lies beside Spike.
He’ll resolve to give it some time. Maybe after the next gig. He could always leave next Monday.
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