Second Verse
Chapter 11 -- Xander's Punishment
"Aaahhhhgg," he screamed, his knees giving way as he headed straight for the sidewalk. Spike stood there, unmoving as Xander fell to the ground and held his upper body off the ground only by leaning on the base of the payphone.
"Told you to stay," Spike pointed out in such cold tones that Xander knew he wasn't facing the same snarky Brit with the strange sense of humor. Something primitive and instinctive drove this creature, and Xander could feel a part of himself respond.
"I just had to warn my friends," Xander began, but the low growl warned him that he had taken the wrong approach. "I'm sorry," he amended his response. The growl continued.
"I told you to stay." This time Spike stepped forward and now Xander could see the chain hanging from his hand.
"Spike?" Xander's eyes remained fixed on the chains as he realized how much damage the vampire could do without actually killing him. After all, as long as he was alive and smelt of Cassidy, it didn't really matter what kind of shape he was in. He could be lying in a coma in the backroom of a demon bar, and Spike's plan would still work. He could feel his heart beat faster as he tried to think of the words that would calm the angry vampire and prevent his possibly imminent mutilation.
"I didn't tell them anything about you. I didn't betray you," he began, but Spike remained unconvinced, his game face forward and a soft growl filling the night. "I shouldn't have done it," Xander tried again and the volume of the growls sharply increased. Suddenly a hand shot out and encircled his wrist in a painful grip. Xander didn't fight when Spike pulled him to his feet and quickly wrapped several lengths of chain around his hands before adding a padlock. Xander stayed quiet even though the individual links in the chain dug into his skin and he actually found himself wishing for the manacles from the lair. Hadn't Spike brought them? Of course, maybe the vampire used the chain because it caused more pain. Xander didn't know and he didn't stop to debate the point as Spike pulled him down the street toward the bike. Spike quickly swung on and then pulled at the chain so sharply that Xander nearly ended stomach down over the seat. He quickly threw a leg over the seat and settled himself without another word.
The ride home threatened to end Xander's life several times: when Spike played chicken with a truck, when he took a turn so sharply that Xander nearly slid off, and when the vampire pulled the chain sharply enough to throw Xander forward and cause the bike to take several sliding detours as Spike struggled to bring the bike under control. Xander tried not to make noise above the involuntary screams that periodically erupted when his life flashed before his eyes. When Spike finally pulled into the truck yard through a side gate, he found himself grateful to return to the relative safety of the lair. And yes, the irony of that statement did amuse him; he definitely needed therapy.
When Spike pulled him off the bike, Xander continued with the lamb to the slaughter routine, hoping to break through to the real Spike before the vampire did something that Xander would regret later, even if Spike didn't. Silently they passed the trucks and descended into Spike's home before Spike removed the chain without a word. Xander simply sat on the bottom step while Spike paced the concrete bunker, still showing his game face.
When Spike finally stopped pacing and turned to glare, Xander listened to the little voice in his head and dropped his gaze to the floor. He had disobeyed Spike on so many issues tonight that he couldn't believe that Spike could lose so much control over this one. At the first demon bar, he had tried to sit only to have Spike order him back up on his knees. At the first bar Spike had also told him to stop looking at the other demons, an order which Xander knew full well he had broken at least a dozen times. And then with snake-boy he had really screwed up, screwed up badly enough that Xander had thought Spike might let him die. Why the fury now?
"I've got to make a call," Spike finally announced, and Xander glanced up to see Spike's human face showing. He quickly dropped his eyes back down when a voice wailed in his own mind. Shit, if he had lived anywhere else he wouldn't have to deal with this whole pseudo-possession thing, but no, his parents just had to move to L.A. Why did the universe hate him?
"Get over here, Spike ordered as he walked toward the far end of the room where bare concrete and empty space remained only dark since the lights over this section had either burnt out or Spike had turned them off. Xander followed Spike into the shadows and sat where Spike pointed at the floor. Before he even heard the noise of the chain, Xander felt the cold of steel closing around his throat and then the vampire disappeared back up the stairs and out of the lair.
"Shit." Xander tried to stand so he could stretch out, but he soon discovered that the chain was only about twelve inches long and attached to the wall so that he could neither stand up nor lay down. Instead he sat waiting on the cold concrete until his ass hurt and the cold had soaked into his entire body. How long could a human last like this, he wondered, 'cause Spike had already shown him around the demon bars, so technically Spike could just leave him here forever. Water would probably be the first problem, but right now, he was more worried about the water that wanted to come out of him.
He tried to distract himself from the fullness of his bladder and the soreness of his butt where the hard concrete dug into his flesh. He tried counting. First he went for vampires. Numero uno had been Cassidy whose bite had nearly killed him. Two nights later he had seen a middle-aged man, or what looked like one anyway, jump Gunn. He had been following and had nearly died of panic, but the whole thing had been a set-up, and Luther merely staked the guy. Several nights after that, a vamp had jumped him while he followed Gunn and company. That led to his "demon magnet" reputation and one serious ass-chewing from Gunn. Then the night he'd seen Alonna walking alone, he almost caught up to her before two demons jumped her, and again, it had been a trap that Xander nearly ruined. This time Luther handled the ass-chewing. Two vamps in the park. The blonde girl vamp outside the theater. The big, black vamp behind the school. The two vamps Xander had seen the first time Gunn let him come along when raiding a nest. That was the first time he had been invited instead of simply following the rest of them around. After that the faces kind of blurred with one set of ridges and fangs looking like another. Xander couldn't remember whether the nerdy one was next or the really skanky girl-vamp with the Goth makeup.
Xander leaned his head back against the cold wall, feeling so alone that he couldn't stop his miserable thoughts from wandering to a new list: the people who'd abandoned him. His parents had been first, he realized. Even before they moved out of Sunnydale, they had been so busy fighting each other that their son got lost somewhere in the middle. He remembered trying to fix his own supper at seven because they couldn't stop blaming each other long enough to notice their hungry child. His mother had tried to make up for those early years, he really knew that. But she still didn't really see him or know him. After the divorce, his father had simply made the abandonment permanent. Jesse had been next. Wasn't really his fault, but Xander still felt the loss. He had just moved to L.A., and he still kept up his weekly calls to the only two people who had ever really loved him unconditionally: Jesse and Willow. He remembered the night that he had called only to have Willow tell him that Jesse had died in a house fire. He could hear her pain, and he wanted to say something to make it all better, but words had failed him. Unfortunately, words just kept failing him. He had tried to keep up his conversations with Willow, but she had simply stopped talking to him; he could hear it in her gaps, her pauses as she tried to figure out how to talk to him without telling him what she really thought. His last fight with Willow had sent him walking the night Cassidy had bitten him.
After that, the losses became easier. Tanisha had been his first girl-friend. He had done all the normal sappy crap like carrying her books and one quick grab at the chest, and she had insisted that she didn't want to go farther until she married; she insisted all the way up until the day he found her in the back of the science lab with Alberto Reyes' hand up her skirt. Yeah, that ended well. Gabi had been next with her pony tail and track shorts that clung to her legs until Xander thought he would die from lust. Obviously Xander Jr. had not yet sent the memo about liking guys. Either that or Xander Jr. had trouble telling Gabi's gender because that girl could out-lift, outrun, and outfight him. She had even worked with Gunn and his crew, ordering Xander around until Luther had started calling him "Gabi's white bitch." When he started putting down some limits about what she could say to him, especially in public, that ended that relationship. Pamee had been the last. She treated him more like a walking science model, exploring the male body whenever she felt like it. She had certainly brought him off a number of times, and she had allowed him, in returned, to do some naughty touching, but he hadn't even blinked when she walked up and announced they were over in the middle of the cafeteria. Yep, he handled abandonment well.
Let's see, that came to seven. He thought about his teachers for a moment, but none of them had even noticed him long enough to make an impression. He had been the below average student who sat in the back of the room and didn't cause trouble. His teachers returned the favor by ignoring him and passing him from one class to the next. His various bosses, and he remembered many, had never seen him as more than another pair of hands, so they couldn't be accused of abandonment either, at least until T; Xander remembered the conversation on the phone, and he felt a physical ache as he thought about how concerned the man had sounded. Of course, it now looked like it was his turn to do the abandoning, not that T would suffer in the long run since Xander had only worked there one night. Funny, but in one night Xander felt closer to T than he did to many people he'd known for months, maybe because the overheard conversation allowed him to know what the man really thought of Xander. Either way, the words he had overheard between T and Gunn meant a lot to him, and while T seemed to have a pretty unrealistic view of him, he liked that someone else might have stuck with him.
Only Gunn had stayed with him. He could always count on Gunn even if he really screwed up. Gunn's loyalty had taught Xander what it meant to be a man, which is why he couldn't disappear and leave Gunn and the guys in trouble. Oh wait. If vampires had clan leaders, they must follow one leader at a time, so trying to warn Gunn implied that he felt no loyalty to Spike, Xander suddenly realized. But that didn't make sense; even Spike said that the bond connected him to Cassidy, so why did Spike expect loyalty, and why did he get so angry at that phone call when he had already broken a dozen of Spike's other 'rules'?
Xander reconsidered the whole evening. When he hadn't stayed on his knees, he had disobeyed, but he had also leaned into Spike. At the time Xander did it to relieve the pain and help with the whole "infuriate Cassidy" plan, but he could see how Spike might have seen that as a declaration. Looking at other demons had certainly aggravated other demons on more than one occasion, but that didn't hurt Spike any, and during the whole adventure with snake-boy, he hadn't insulted or turned against Spike. So the demon felt like he had declared some sort of loyalty only to have it snatched back when he ran for the phone. Well shit, no wonder Spike had taken off; he was lucky the vampire hadn't beaten him senseless, not that he had that much sense to start with.
Xander felt better now that he had a plan; he would just wait up for Spike and then explain why Spike couldn't expect him to react like a vampire any more than he could expect Spike to act like a human. Easy. Xander sighed when he considered just how uneasy this could get.
By the time Spike appeared, Xander had given up the pee fight; his wet and smelly jeans stuck to his body, and the cold now had a direct line from the concrete into the skin of his legs. When the door opened, Xander waited patiently for Spike to come get him, but the vampire simply moved around the room as if he didn't have a wet, smelly, and badly cramping human chained to the far wall. First he shrugged the coat onto the chair, and then he took the heavy book from earlier and deposited it on the shelf under the stereo. With a flip, the small television jumped to life, and Xander could faintly hear the laughter of some sitcom as Spike got a bowl out of the cabinet, pulled out a cigarette, and lay out on the bed in his clothes.
Well fine, if that's the way Spike wanted to play, he could play that way too. Xander pulled up his knees to try and keep some warmth closer to his skin. What felt like decades later, Xander heard the familiar music of an early morning news show, and Spike stood up and flipped off the television. However, just when he thought Spike would come and unlock the chain, he simply unbuttoned his shirt and threw it over the chair as he pulled back the blanket. When the vampire made a disgusted noise and moved to the other side of the bed, Xander realized two things. First, son of a bitch was going to bed, leaving him chained for the remainder of the day. Second, they had never changed the sheets after yesterday's not-so-little deposit.
"Spike, come on," Xander whined. He knew he was whining, but manly pride only went so far when compared to the threat of spending a miserable night in pee-stained jeans chained to a wall. "Let me up and I'll change the sheets," he offered even though he had no idea whether Spike even owned clean sheets. For a long moment, Spike stood silent and unmoving. He only knew that Spike had heard because gold eyes flashed at him.
"Right then, you did make the mess." Spike walked over, pulling a key out of his pocket, and Xander almost cried in relief.
"Spike, I'm really sorry…" he began, but the growl returned, and Xander took that as a small hint to stop before he ended up being food. "Right, I'll just change the sheets."
"I'll get clean ones." Spike started walking for the door to the hall, presumably for one of the three locked doors since there certainly weren't clean sheets in the bathroom.
"Could you get me some jeans or shorts or something that's not, you know, wet and kinda stinky."
"No."
"What? Spike, in case you didn't notice, I'm kinda gross here." Xander took a step forward and quickly realized that he would also be exceptionally sore if he walked for any length of time. His wet, soft skin wouldn't survive the acidic urine and the rough denim.
"Get 'em off and drop 'em in the hall. Shirt too," Spike ordered as he continued walking.
For one second, Xander considered rebelling, but then he thought about his options. Option one, Spike could just kill him. Yeah, not of the good. Option two, he could stay dressed and Spike might ignore him. That just left his legs rubbed raw and a definite lack of sleep. Option three, he could stay dressed and Spike could pull the clothes off him. Okay, most of him really didn't like that idea, and he was rapidly wishing he could just vote Xander Jr. off the island. Okay, think unsexy thoughts until that problem went away. Option four, he might piss off Spike enough to end up chained to the wall again. That would be a 'no.' Option five, Spike could just beat him senseless. Okay, enough options, he obviously just had to strip.
He walked into the hallway, no sign of Spike, and slipped out of his clothes. Leaving the pile in the hall, he went into the bathroom to clean up and found a towel thrown across the sinks. Wondering who Spike had left it for, he grabbed it up and headed into the shower. After all, he could smell the stench himself, so he was simply saving the vampire from having to put up with human stink all day. Xander showered as quickly as possible and came out still wearing the towel around his hips. The clothes had disappeared. Spike stood leaning against the cabinet in the main room, the ever-present cigarette hanging from one hand and a stack of sheets sitting on the end of the bed.
"Toss the towel by that first door," Spike directed without moving, and he only hesitated a fraction of a second before he turned and opened the hallway door so he could toss the towel as instructed. Trying to concentrate on the task and not the fact he had to walk around naked, he quickly pulled the blanket off and dropped it on the floor before pulling the sheets loose so he could take them to the hall. As he tugged, the far corner refused to give, leaving him the choice of either crawling across the bed to pull at the corner or walking around the bed and passing within inches of a still unmoving Spike. Looking at the strangely motionless form, Xander decided that the lack of bounce meant he wasn't going to get hit, so he took a chance and slid by the vampire, turning his back so that Spike got as little of a view as possible.
What really got him angry, though, was the fact that Spike was doing this just to put him in his place. The vampire watched him, proving to him that he was weak and inferior and couldn't fight back, like he needed one more person showing him that. A feeling of helplessness and rage simmered just below the surface as Xander did his work.
The stripping done, he turned to making the bed. This time he had to walk within inches of Spike several times as he tucked elastic corners around the mattress before tucking in the top sheet. He even had to bend over with Spike mere centimeters away from his raised butt as he pushed the bottom end of the sheet and blanket between the mattress and box spring. Bed made, he stood awkwardly, not knowing how far to push this new Spike. He crossed his arms self consciously before switching to covering his genitals with his hands before switching back to a crossed arm stance after deciding the whole hiding his genitals thing probably looked pretty stupid considering Spike had touched every part of him, even parts that he himself had never touched.
"Um, Spike?"
"Up in bed, then." Xander quickly got in the bed and slipped under the covers. Okay, try to find a way to explain human loyalties to the vampire, that's all he had to do.
"Are you going to, you know," Xander asked as he gestured with his two wrists held out together in front of him. Was there a polite way to ask if a bed partner wanted to use the chains? Hey, there could be a whole new career in advice columns for him if he survived this. Spike simply looked back impassively, one eyebrow now raised in either surprise or confusion.
"You enjoy those, do ya'?" he asked, and Xander felt the immediate response in Xander Jr., who jerked to a sort of half-mast almost immediately. He watched as both Spike's eyebrows made a run for the hairline.
"Can't say I like what your last chain did." Xander fingered the tiny sore spots caused by the chain links digging into his wrists.
"Didn't mean ya' to enjoy it."
"Yeah, I got that." He watched as Spike walked over to the leather bag that he had just now noticed sitting by the wall. When Spike stood up again, the familiar manacles with the wide wrist cuffs hung from one hand. He never thought that he would be so happy to see manacles. Spike walked over, and he offered his wrists without complaint or looking up. The heavy cuff closed comfortably around his wrists and Spike locked the chain to the wall using the last link, so he would again have quite a bit of room to move.
"Smellin' nice there, luv." He groaned when he realized that Spike meant Xander Jr. who had reached full size. No matter how angry he was with the vampire, his body still reacted to the sight of that agile body moving with the grace of a cat.
"I wasn't this bad in high school. I mean, I used to joke about getting turned on by linoleum, but I didn’t really mean it."
"So I turn ya' on?" Spike walked to the other side of the bed and slipped in under the covers and leaned against the headboard.
"I think you know that."
"More than the wanker you called tonight?"
"T?" He looked over to Spike in surprise, ignoring the voice that demanded he drop his eyes. "I'm not really attracted to T at all. I mean he's nice, but the thought of the two of us in a bed…together? That's kinda yuck."
"How about that other git you mentioned then. Gunn innit?" Spike's eyes narrowed, and Xander saw his opening.
“Spike, I’m not a vampire.”
“Think I noticed that you git.”
“Are you sure? I mean, calling T didn’t mean the same thing to me that it would have meant to a vampire. I'm not trying to get out of our deal or trying to get away; I just had to tell them what I know. I had to warn them."
“Know that too. If I didn’t, I would’ve strung you up on that wall and stripped the skin off your back.” That made him stop and rethink his strategy. He decided to go with the pathetically honest approach
“Then why are you so angry?”
“I may understand, but that doesn’t stop my demon from wantin' to make ya' hurt.” That made him stop and worry. He couldn’t exactly explain his way out of this if Spike already understood.
“Spike?”
“What?”
“Damn it!” Now Xander felt the anger rise up. How dare Spike take away the feeling of security he’d felt. He knew he had no business feeling safe around a vampire, but he couldn’t deny the fact that he had, at least until Spike had refused to get over this. “If you’re so damn angry, do something and get it out of your system," he demanded as he pulled on the chain.
“Don’t tempt me”
“I mean it. I’d rather have you smack me around some and then put up with this pissy fit. I can’t take this.” Xander trembled from the effort of suppressing his tears. “I mean it, Spike,” he finished when he saw Spike’s look of confusion.
“Pet, don’t ever encourage my demon’s violence.” The words sounded like the old Spike, the one who laughed at him in the club and teased him after scaring the shit out him, but the tone still carried the coldness.
“Spike, it couldn’t hurt worse than this thing you’re doing now. Don’t shut me out.” Even Xander could hear the tremor in his voice, so he knew that vampire ears could hear the pain in his voice.
“If you hadn’t gone and disobeyed me, wouldn’t be an issue.”
“Damn it, I can’t undo that.”
“Would you?” Now Spike stared at him with such an intense gaze that he couldn’t help but feel pressured to give the answer Spike wanted; however, he knew if he did that he might as well sign over a deed to his life. He couldn't give up everything that made him Xander Harris without a fight; he couldn't become a creature who lived only to make Spike happy.
“I don’t know. I think I probably would still call,” Xander said quietly, and he could see the instant fury in the gold rings around Spike’s eyes. “I knew you’d be mad; I thought you might even hurt me, but I had to warn them.” After that announcement, Xander waited for Spike reaction. If Spike was going to hit him, this would be the time.
“Bloody hell,” Spike softly cursed.
“But I didn’t tell them about you,” Xander pointed out. “They would want to know. Hell, if they find out about you and then figure out that I had a chance to tell them and I didn’t, they’re going to be royally pissed off. They may never trust me again.” Xander whispered the last part, realizing the truth only as he said the words. Gunn and Luther would consider him a traitor, and he would definitely lose the job with T. If any of them found out about his feelings for Spike, he would be lucky if they limited themselves to just beating the shit out of him.
“That your choice then?” Spike asked, and he had to think about what the vampire meant.
“I won’t just let them get killed,” Xander protested, “but yeah, I made my choice.” Xander knew he was telling a half-truth, but he also knew that a certain part of him had chosen this sarcastic, pushy vampire. The rest of him, the parts not on hiatus from common sense, decided to simply remained silent.
“Can’t overlook my demon, pet.” The voice had returned. The voice that had humanity and humor and sarcasm and emotion in every syllable. Xander felt a thread of panic begin to unwind from around his heart.
“If you can’t get over it, I meant what I said before. I’d rather get hit than ignored, Spike. Been ignored long enough.” With those words, Xander knew he had just revealed more of himself than he had even done before. He felt naked and vulnerable. Okay, he actually was naked and vulnerable, but he felt emotionally naked and vulnerable. When he looked up at Spike, the vampire's eyes had calmed into a pure blue and the face had a look of…compassion? …understanding? Spike stood and dropped his jeans to the ground. After a moment he reached down, retrieved the key and unlocked one manacle. Xander simply watched as naked Spike then slipped back into position in the bed.
Spike held his arm out to one side, and before Xander realized what he was doing, he had slid into Spike's arms and rested his cheek against a thin shoulder. With superhuman ease, Xander felt Spike ease both of their bodies down onto the bed so that Spike lay on his back with Xander's free left arm and head resting on Spike's chest. For a moment, he lay uncomfortably on the unmoving chest, unsure what to do or how to feel. Then he felt the soft arms close in around his back, the hands joining in the small of his back as Spike settled in.
That morning, or maybe the previous morning, Xander had woken to a feeling of contentment and security. He had felt guilty and angry that a monster could stir feelings that even his own mother had failed to inspire for so long, but this time, he let himself admit what he felt: safe. Ironic that it came from a creature that ate humans, but Spike had fought his own nature to protect him. Spike had listened to him and his ideas. Spike wanted him and found him attractive. He had to admit that, so far, Spike had treated him better than most people ever did. No one, with the possible exception of Gunn, had ever taken so much time to look after him, and he let himself relax into that embrace.