Alexander

That was Spike’s idea of olive branching? Screw this. I’m off. Are you coming? “Yeah, I’m coming,” he said, his chest congested and his heart banging in his ears. He shouldered his backpack, seething.

 

Spike flicked his half-smoked cigarette onto the floor, crushed it under his boot and lit another cigarette. “Indi, she twisted it up. It’s not how it sounded.”

 

He put the rucksack back on the bed and rubbed his thighs, blotting his sweaty palms on his pants. “That shapeshifting Groza…Al crawled all over me Spike, he…how could you not let me in on something like this?”

 

Spike braced his foot on the doorframe, leg a barrier across the doorway. He struck a match on the doorpost and raised it to the lit cigarette between his lips. Xander watched that hand sneak the matchbook back into the jeans front pocket and a prickly-heat rash flared up all over his back. His control slipped with every breath he failed to take. He paced closer to Spike.

 

“Is that where you’ve got the bracelet hid – close to you?”

 

“I never hid how I felt about her and you bloody well know it.”

 

Yeah he’d bloody well known it. Everyday he’d warned himself to not get too hooked on Buffy’s boy. But he hadn’t known that Spike had used him, was using him. Spike was using him and it made him want to tear his hair out. With both hands, he swept the hair back off his forehead and held it smoothed down on top of his head. His hands shook so bad the hair escaped his fingers, tumbling back onto his brow.

 

“Do you even see me? When you’re fucking me, do you see m-me?”

 

Twin streams of smoke rushed out of Spike’s nose. “That’s daft, that.”

 

“It is?” Xander paced away. “You’re cumming in my ass and you call me pet, luv, boy. Never Xander not once,” bitter fact. Sharp turn in time to catch Spike’s narrow-eyed irritation.

 

“Pet, luv, what does it matter when I’m doing the understudy?”

 

Xander stopped pacing. “Understudy,” wooden sound from numb lips, breaking the hollow silence that had followed Spike’s worst truth of the day.

 

“No. No Xander you’re not…I’m,” Spike blew smoke over his DMs, “sorry. Let’s start this conversation, this whole morning, let’s start it over?”

 

He clamped his hands under his armpits to stop them shaking, was not going to let Spike see him breaking down. “F-find some other shmuck to fuck. The understudy resigns. I’m done, Spike.”

 

“Please Xander,” more exhalations, more smoke fumes, less air in the room.

 

His legs felt stiff, like he was a clock-work tin soldier, marching on legs that couldn’t bend. Bee-lining for the door.  “I can’t…I’ve got to…Spike please move.”

 

Spike moved, but towards not away from him, blocking him from going out. The room shrunk; its walls and ceiling closed in. Xander fisted his hands.

 

“Seriously Spike,” he gasped, “let me out.”

 

Spike gripped his elbows, talked in his face, suffocated him. He saw Spike’s lips move, saw a last curl of smoke waft out from between them. But he couldn’t hear the words over the white noise in his ears. He was warm, hot. So fucking hot, his face, his hands. His blood was hot, his lips were cold. He shivered and burned. And Spike yakked away, not listening to him say he needed to breathe. His vision tunnelled, pin-point of focus on Spike’s too close up face as everything went quiet inside him.

 

No white noise, no head babble. He was a feather floating down, and striking the ground like a canon ball. Blasting denial open. Let loose, the years of terror and of being put down, torn up, thrown into confusion, disillusioned, ignored, targeted and substituted caught up with Xander in an explosion of fury, all consuming napalm.

 

He hit Spike, knocked him out the door, out of the way. Sprawled on the flagstones and staring at him in defenceless shock, growling and tensed for retaliation, Spike was every incongruity Xander had ever loved and was everyone who had caused him pain. Spike was both of them.

 

Xander went for him.

 

*    *    *    *

 

Gobsmacked, jaw aching; perversely pleased smile and infuriated snarls daring the boy to complete the kick his foot was drawn back for, Spike had fallen onto the ground and into old habits. Xander followed through, the force of his boot bucking Spike’s body up off the ground.

 

Spike laughed. He loved it, violence. Because flowers didn’t say it like a boot in the ribs. Didn’t say I want you, need you, like being hauled up by the hair and taking a volley of body punches. He’d raise his hat to Harris after this was over. Congratulate him on his mean right jab and devastating left hook.

 

Habit - being martyr for instance. Arms floppy, head lolling, feet hobbled by masochistic pleasure and lips gasping with intimate chuckles, he’d played martyr for Buffy and Dru. Once for Harmony, only the once mind, and never for Angelus. His Sire staked martyrs.

 

Oh, there went a rib, and another, “Shit Harris,” he protested, not lifting a finger in self-protection.

 

“Shut up, bitch. Bitch,” Xander landed a blow to his kidneys.

 

Bitch? Since when? He stopped enjoying the assault long enough to realize that all Xander’s blows and kicks were below the neckline and above the hemline. Frenzied as the attack was, Xander was specific about hitting him where the bruises wouldn’t show. He shoved Xander from him, frowned into his face. His boy’s eyes twitched with awake dreaming…and the penny dropped.

 

Bitch, fucking bitch, worthless bitch – he didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times he’d heard Harris senior shout bitch to the missus. Looked like he wasn’t playing martyr after all. He was playing beaten wife, sending Xander deeper into the nightmare by having him mime walloping a woman. Better to kick the shit out of Xander than let him go through that.

 

He blocked Xander’s next punch, smacked him one on the jaw. Xander flew at him, eyes blazing. They over-balanced into the fire-pit, grappled in spent firewood, Xander whacking Spike’s ear with a chunk of wood when he straddled the boy.

 

“Fucking hell Harris, stop,” Spike roared, ears ringing. Inner ear damage knowing his luck.

 

Xander didn’t stop. He skinned his knuckles on Spike’s teeth. Spike raised his fist, close to losing it himself. “Stop,” he thundered his fist into the ground by Xander’s temple, throwing up clouds of ash.

 

“Make me stop y-you’re so s-strong.”

 

Actually, Xander was stronger than the stammers hinted at. Bucked him off, reeled onto his feet, dove at him and they were fracasing their way out of the pit as Xander spat out allegations about things Spike had done to him. He re-set his effort level from low to medium to ward off Xander’s hard raining blows, staggered at the accusations, the revelations. Pillows, palms, pills, water in the kitchen sink, in the bath-tub, towels around his throat, too drunk to finish the job or stopped by the other boozed-up fuck.

 

Untiring, a blitz of jabs, words and roundhouse kicks, sent falling by Spike’s punch to his chest, up again, came back. The man wouldn’t quit. Three times he dropped Xander, four times, five…Xander got up seven times, his cheekbones and temples scuffed by the flagstones, his knuckles raw, his nose bleeding, his teeth red.

 

Stay down, Spike prayed when Xander floundered at the tree’s base, his elbows refusing to lock as he went to push up. “Xander please…”

 

He shouldn’t have spoken.

 

Xander measured him with hate-filled eyes and came back. Another bout of bash Harris around the courtyard, Spike afraid he’d crack his boy’s skull, manslaughter. Xander bouncing off the hammock and butcher’s block and returning angrier than each time before. Talking more too, fast words and slurred, strangled pauses. Stutters.

 

“…Cass…Cassandra died, the wr-wrong one lived and they never forgave me for it…”

 

“Stuck…same routine…wrong one’s here…you won’t f-forgive me for it…”

 

“…not baby pet pumpkin boy sonny sweetie luv…have a fucking name, I have a name…”

 

Spike’s aching transcended the physical. He despaired of controlling Xander, pushed him away frantic to hold him close. Xander crashed into the tree trunk, his hand knocking into the outdoor broom leaning there. He grabbed it, broke its stick on his knee as he stalked forward.

 

“…the ones in your house you can’t slay them, you go out, slay the jerk-offs you don’t give a damn about…”

 

Recognizing that he wasn’t looking at a face contorted in idle threat, Spike back peddled, but Xander kept on stalking.

 

“…why I’m out axing…when good boys are asleep…’cause I can dust m-monsters that don’t live in my house…”

 

“You don’t live in my house,” Xander lunged at him with the stake aimed true.

 

He clamped Xander’s wrist, applied enough pressure for the bones to groan and the fingers to drop the stake. “Listen to me Xander…Xander,” he pulled Xander into an untidy hug. “Listen I’m not your par-”

 

Xander drove his head down, connecting with Spike’s brow in a head-butt that shook his fangs into elongation. He’d had enough. He swung Xander round and twisted his arm behind his back, rushing him forward and pinning him face-down over the butcher’s block.

 

“Bleeding hell Xander, stop it!”

 

“Take your shit hands off me…bastard, bastard, going to kill you, stake your dead ass,” Xander reared his head back and his crown clouted Spike’s chin causing fangs to slice through lips.

 

Spike grunted, howling when Xander’s head thwacked the bridge of his nose sending stars to come go off in his eyes. “Jesus Christ, boy!”

 

“Get off me, get the fuck off me!” Xander thrashed, forehead banging on the marble surface. “Let go!”

 

He shot his hand into Xander’s hair, holding his brow still against the worktop, “I’m not letting go.”

 

“No, no, you let me go!”

 

“Not letting go until you calm down.”

 

“Please, please Spike, let me up, I’m calm, I’m good Spike please,” nowhere near calm.

 

He strapped his arms around Xander’s arms and chest, held on even as Xander renewed his bucking. “We’re going to stay like this a minute, just for a minute, yeah?”

 

“No,” Xander bit out.

 

They stayed that way. Xander’s gasps fogging up the butcher’s block, Spike’s brow bent to Xander’s nape, both men wiped out.

 

*    *    *    *

 

“Okay?” He asked when the hitches in Xander’s breath had smoothed out.

 

Xander nodded and Spike got off him.

 

Xander staggered to the bathroom, feet criss-crossing on an unseen white line, punch drunk. The door closed, the shower didn’t come on. Spike’s injuries itched with healing, his centre felt skinned raw as Xander’s cheeks. He knocked lightly on the door, called out when he got no answering signs of life.

 

“Xander?”

 

“Yes,” subdued.

 

Spike tried to swallow, but a lump was wedged in his throat. He went in. Xander, head in his hands and elbows on his knees, was sitting naked on a rusty metal stool in the shower cubicle. Same stool he had put in the stall for Spike to shower on many weeks ago when his legs hadn’t been up to standing.

 

Xander turned his head, looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot. “I’m not okay,” he said. “I’m not okay Spike.”

 

Past speaking, Spike slid his jeans off, stepped into the stall and turned the shower on. Xander sat rigid under the warm sluicing. Rivulets of grey water streaked off his hair and an infestation of coal fragments stuck to it. After what had just happened, it seemed such a petty thing to be upset about, a bit of ash, but it upset Spike. He reached for the shampoo on the stall’s glass shelves. 

 

Tangy sandalwood scented the air as he smoothed shampoo onto his palms. He stood behind Xander and touched the dark head, hesitant. Watching his step. Xander tipped his head back, nudging into Spike hand, his eyes closed. Spike lathered and rinsed Xander’s hair. Lathered and aided by the shampoo’s glide, searched for grit. Finding plenty, he turned the taps off, squeezed more shampoo onto his palms and went at it with gentle care, upset easing as his fingers sighed through hair strands.

 

Xander bit on his lips.

 

It buggered him up, did watching Xander tear at his lip. He bent and touched his lips to Xander’s, sweeping slick palms down his chest. Xander left off maiming his lip, his mouth passive under the light kiss. He’d have rather Xander pushed him off than sat in silent distress. Water back on, Xander’s hair rinsed clean, Spike turned to the shelves, looking for shower gel and twice picking up the same tube of face wash.

 

Carefully setting the tube onto the shelf he asked, “Where’s the shower gel?”

 

“Top shelf, left.”

 

Stretched for the gel too quickly, ruthless tug on his ribs. He put his hand to his side, put the shower gel out of his mind when Xander’s hand covered his.

 

“I’m inexcusable,” Xander said, hushed and croaky. He sank his hand to Spike’s hip.

 

“No Xander, your parents are inexcusable,” he blindly turned round and sat astride Xander’s lap, pulled there by desperation and Xander’s hand.

 

Under by the shower’s fine spray and surrounded by Xander’s suffering, Spike took a candid look at himself. What he saw mortified him. If the parents were inexcusable then so was he, for playing their mind wrecking games. Wrapped up in himself, neglecting Xander and expecting him to like it or lump it. Inexcusable for comparing Xander to others, for branding him inadequate from the start. For pushing too hard and giving too little. That he hadn’t set out to mind-fuck Xander was irrelevant. He’d done it, and he’d best get grovelling if he didn’t want Xander to finish with him – which he sorely didn’t.

 

Careful, he rubbed a fingertip on that place between Xander’s second and third ribs. “Here, you have a birth mark. Same colour as a raspberry, shaped like a teeny watermelon slice,” he said.

 

Xander’s thighs rippled with tension under him.

 

He cupped his other hand to Xander’s crown. “You’ve a scar here,” he delved his thumb under hair, unerringly found the scar tissue, stroked it. “Old scar, older than Nibblet. Three quarters of an inch maybe an inch long.”

 

Sharp in-breath from Xander, shoulders brittle from holding the out-breath in.

 

“This one is always happier to see me,” he rotated a knuckle on Xander’s perky right nipple, “than this one,” he lightly pinched the left nipple, rolling it between thumb and forefinger.

 

Xander shivered as his nipple reluctantly budded. He stole his arms around Spike’s waist when Spike licked the path of goosebumps from base of neck to Xander’s stubble roughened jaw.

 

“These,” he looked into Xander’s eyes, kissed each eyelid closed, smiling when Xander sprung them open as soon as the feather-light kisses ended, “They’re so dark sometimes. Not hardly brown at all, black almost and the darker they get the more I can’t not look.”

 

Xander let the out-breath out and Spike picked up the accelerated thread of his breathing. Their lips separated by a sheen of water, he exhaled when Xander inhaled, inhaled when Xander exhaled, could not look away from the almost black eyes. “When I call you boy, in my head it starts with my. My Boy - Mine. To protect and to care for, mine.”

 

Xander blinked at the tears flooding his eyes, rapid blinking in vain as they brimmed over his lashes and spilt onto his cheeks, invoked stinging in Spike’s eyeballs.

 

“I care and I do say your name when I’m in you…not out loud it’s true, but inside I never stop saying it,” he drifted his thumb on the purpling under Xander’s eye, caught a tear. “I see you. Xander.”

 

Xander bowed his head. His tears snaked over Spike’s collarbone, hot and fast in contrast to the shower’s luke-warm drizzle, his abdomen taut with imprisoning the sob Spike could feel kicking under his boy’s skin.

 

“I see you,” he nuzzled behind Xander’s ear, “Xander.”

 

“Xander,” he kissed Xander’s earlobe, “Xander.”

 

Xander pushed his face into Spike, flattened his palms on Spike’s shoulder blades and pulled him closer, strangled, choking on his breaths and the sound went right through Spike, struck him deep. He wrapped his arms around Xander’s head and rocked him, swayed forward and back in barely there motion.

 

“Xander,” he said, tears in his whisper, “Alexander.” 

 

Shaking all over, rattling, Xander gripped harder and his words tumbled out, quick, as though they wouldn’t get said if they weren’t said now. "They messed me up and l loved them because I was trying to be their son, I wanted to be their son Spike, and a son’s supposed to do that, he’s s’posed to love his, his…”

 

Xander’s voice cracked with the first of the sobs that ripped him up.