Wilderness 3
 

Spike paced.

Harris shivered.

And Spike ruthlessly squashed the urge to turn up the heat, find another towel, another blanket, dry the wanker's hair for him.

*Comb it, brush it, braid it and tie it with a bow then, shall I? We'll have a bloody tea party after.*

He glared at Harris and turned up the heat.

But only because he was chilly himself and the Council was paying for it.

"Oh, give it here." He snatched the damp towel from Harris' hands and gave his hair a brisk rub. "You're dripping on the bed, you careless sod. I have to sleep there too, you know."

"I'm sorry."

"Too bloody right you are. The sorriest scrawny wet Scooby I've had the misfortune to lay eyes on." He tossed the towel over his shoulder and looked down into a glazed eye. "Gonna tell me why now the proverbial cat's coughed up your tongue?"

"No."

"Wanker." Spike kicked the towel into a corner and snatched up the phone, shuffling through an array of takeaway and delivery menus. "D'you like curry?"

"No."

"Right." Spike dialed. "H'lo, Ranjan. Double the usual. Two curries, extra naan. Got a guest." After a promise of curry in twenty five minutes and a hello from Ranjan's missus, Spike hung up the phone and stared at Harris. "Well?"

Harris gave him a blank look for his trouble.

"Gonna say something?"

"Why? It's your place."

"Too sodding right it is." Spike threw himself into a chair. There was something wrong with that last exchange but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. "I could throw you out on your arse."

"Okay."

Spike watched in amazement because this time, this time the apathetic reply came with action. Action in the form of trembling hands and shaking knees. A scrawny body levering itself off the mattress and standing dazed and nude in the center of the room. "What?" Spike lowered his voice an octave and tried again. "What?"

"I need clothes."

"Stupid git. I didn't say I was throwing you out on your arse."

"I'm not - " Harris stopped but Spike watched with narrow-eyed expectation. And not only because the boy was finally stringing together more than two words at a time and Spike would listen to him read the bloody television guide by now to hear another voice. Harris licked his lips, drew breath like he was surprised by the moisture in his own body and passed a hand over the concavity of his belly, gripping the opposite hipbone. "I'm not staying here so you can threaten me."

Spike rolled his eyes, up and out of the chair and tipping Harris back to the mattress with two fingertips. Harris bounced like a doll and Spike would know. Seen a lot of dolls bouncing on the bed in his years. Enough to give a bloke a complex when that flop-armed sprawl joined up to the 'sex' compartment of his psyche. Fortunately, Harris was about as sexy as an octogenarian: thanks but not that desperate yet. "No. You're staying here because you'll get yourself killed out there."

Harris stared back, puffing and wheezing breaths, tight-stretched skin hollowing in and out like a bellows, stuttering and -

Giggling?


"It's not funny, mate."

"You." Harris wheezed between silent giggles. "You are funny. Also? Really...stupid."

"Reconsidering tossing you out on your arse, Harris."

Harris continued - as if Spike hadn't spoken at all. And that was - all right, that was fine. That was...Harris. In that light, it was sodding welcome.

Spike picked up the easy chair, shook off its layer of crumbs and cigarette ash and carried it to the bed, dropping it on the side nearest Harris and sprawling in it. He'd wait out the madness. He'd sit through insane ramblings, ranting and bloody raving but he'd do it in comfort.

He lit a cigarette.

"Can I have one of those?"

Harris had flopped onto his side like a collapsed marionette and Spike considered the outflung hand before putting a cigarette into it, then deliberately tucked his lighter into his pocket and leaned back.

"Asshole."

"For your own good, mate. Convince me you're not gonna die and then maybe I'll give you a light. Throw you a party with champagne and bints who can blow smoke rings with their nether bits."

"Gross, Spike. Also unmixy."

"Think I deserve something, Harris. Got a stranger in my home, don't I? Bloke wearing the face of someone I - " Spike took a furious drag on his cigarette. Right. Not going there. "Thought was better than this."

"You thought I was better than this?"

"Said so, didn't I?"

Harris rolled over and gave Spike a knotted spine for company. His voice floated over his shoulder. "Boy were you reading the wrong script."

Spike blew smoke at the accusing shoulder. Told it silently to fuck itself - he had a talk to have with its owner. "Seem to remember a bloke who was ready to give up when he lost an eye in battle. Couldn't aim a crossbow. Slayer didn't want him around for the big battle anymore." Spike put his feet on the bed, felt the heat burning off Harris in his toes. If Harris rolled onto his back, he'd lie on them.

"And then a vampire petted his hair, kissed him, blew his dick and his fucking mind and in the afterglow, told him life was worth living, worth fighting for to keep the loved ones safe. Then he blew himself up in the Hellmouth. Happily fucking ever after."

Spike stared at the back of his head, stared daggers. Stomped on the niggle of guilt that came with the hollow-eyed boy and his abandonment issues.

Which hollow-eyed boy, well Spike wasn't thinking of that. "Seemed to like it at the time."

"It wasn't bad."

"Of course it wasn't. Tosser. Over a hundred years of experience, here."

"Thank you for your munificent gift, oh talented one. I would have sent a thank you card but you were dead. So should I have addressed that to you care of Hades, Charon or maybe Odin?"

"Wolfram and Hart."

"Figures."

The front door buzzer went off and Spike guiltily recalled an order for curry. Maybe Harris would like the naan. He could have both servings. Did he still have that bag of salt and vinegar crisps in the pantry?

Spike waited at the door for Ranjan's son, Remi - unless he was his nephew or grandson. Never could keep the whole family straight. All of them smelled like spices and sunshine and cooking grease - though where the sunshine came from in London was a fucking mystery to him. Maybe they imported it with the burlap bags of chana dhal and blocks of sticky tamarind.

Handed over the money (evil tips ten percent unless he can't be arsed to add it up and tells the boy to keep the change) and took his food. Closed the door with a hip and carried two beers from the kitchen and the paper sack to the bed.

He thrust beer at Harris. "Here."

Harris stared at the bottle like he'd never seen a beer before. Better actor than Spike thought then.

Spike shrugged and left Harris to figure out beer on his own and popped open a Styrofoam container, digging in.

His mouth was full of the spice and yellowy seeping warmth of curry by the time Harris sorted out his beer and deigned to speak again. "What's the point in saving the world if it's just gonna end again?"

"Dunno." Spike watched him pick tiredly at his naan and suck beer from the bottle like it held the meaning of life. "So we can enjoy living in it in the mean time, I suppose." He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully, picked an anonymous sprig of dried herb from between his teeth. Unless it was an over-dried raisin. He flicked it away.

"What if you don't?"

"Don't?"

"Enjoy it anymore."

"That what all this is about?"

Harris shrugged and ate another bite of naan. "I thought a lot in Africa."

"You thought," Spike said and told himself he was encouraging Harris to talk so he could have a break from it. Stuff his face with the curry while it was still good and hot. Let the pillock pull his own conversational weight. It wasn't because he wanted to know what Harris had to say.

"Marvel at the novelty," Harris said and took a drink, abandoning the naan to its paper wrapping. "Got any more of this?"

"No."

"Liar."

Spike shrugged. "Go on. What'd you think of?"

"Death. Love. Apocalypse." Harris stared at Spike. If he was waiting for a reply, Spike wasn't going to give him one. He stuffed his mouth with curry. "Come on, as a member of the undead goth club you should be proud of me."

Spike shrugged.

Harris picked at the label on his beer. "Met a demon in Namibia," he said at last.

Spike choked on a potato. "Hope you killed the sodding bastard."

Harris found the label of his beer very interesting and read the ingredients. Traced the blown glass numbers like Braille.

"You didn't kill him?"

"With what, Spike? My rapier wit?"

"Dunno. Big rock between the eyes might've done."

"And you know this how?"

"Been around," Spike mumbled. "Seen things." Got a soul and lived to tell the tale. Should've killed the two-faced bastard when he had the chance. Spike stabbed an innocent carrot until it was mush. "What'd he promise you?"

"That my loved ones would be protected." Harris ran out of label to pick off the bottle and switched to tearing strips of label into smaller strips.

Spike's gut clenched around the curry and he gripped the fork until it shattered in his palm. "That's not a small wish. What'd you promise him?"

Steady sssht sssht of ripping paper.

"My life."

"You're not dead, Harris," Spike said and regretted it as soon as Harris pinned him to his chair with a withering look.

"Kinda noticed, Spike." Xander downshifted his glare to the pile of metallic confetti on the comforter.

"He's not a welsher. Tricky bastard, well yeah. But he keeps his word."

"My word. I figured it out."

"Come again?"

"He keeps...my word. When I made the wish, I said I just want to see my friends happy. Safe. Just for once."

"Oh you stupid sod."

"So I guess...I'm gonna see them. Buffy, Willow, Giles, Dawn. Once. And they're gonna be happy."

"To see you home, you git!"

Harris nodded as if he hadn't heard Spike speak. Or wasn't listening. "And then I'm gonna be dead."