You're Welcome
Author: Mkatsi
Rating: PG
Pairings: None
Feedback: Yes Please
Disclaimer: The boy's aint mine.
Distribution: Please ask and let me know where it's going.
Summary: Xander and his new girlfriend have a fight about Spike, the vampire overhears.
"It's not like I want him here is it? I cant help him being in the way but y'know, he lives here-"
"No, Xander he doesn't live here, he lodges here and we never get any time on our own, you'd think that he'd go out at some point but he just stays in there and I cant deal with it-"
"So you think this is my fault now? I already told you, It's not my greatest dream him being around all the time and-"
With this Xander and the blonde girl he was seeing that month winced as they heard the front door bang to. The brunette man shot the girl a shocked look, then quickly jumped off the bed from where he had been sitting, and flung open his bedroom door "Spike?" he walked quickly around the apartment checking for the peroxide vamp who had been Xander's roommate for the last few years, ever since he got his soul back.
"You knew, you knew he would hear or that he was awake or something, you did that on purpose"
"Yeah, so? I knew it would get rid of him, I just wanted some time on our own Alex, is that so much to ask?"
"No, but, you cant just play people like that-"
"You said it yourself that you don't like him being here, just ask him to move out-"
"Oh, God, I have to find him,"
"What the hell are you on we just got rid of him"
"You knew that saying that would make him leave so you've obviously observed that Spike isnt the most stable of people ok, he doesn't have anywhere else to go or anyone else to turn to- look I have to go, let yourself out"
"If I go now I'm not coming back Alex"
"What?"
"You're paying more attention to your neurotic roommate than to me and I'm the one you're supposed to be falling in love with so you leave now and I go I'm not coming back"
Xander made a disbelieving snort
"Fine, that's just fine 'honey' don't let the door hit your ego on the way out'
"what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, nothing, goodbye Cassie"
With that Xander walked through the door of his own apartment and left his latest side order in there to make her own way out, no need for him to be a gentleman now was there? It had been the same for the last year or so, once he'd gotten over Anya, or at least put her away in a special place in his heart that he realised no one else could touch, he'd had a string of girlfriends, all of them left for one of two reasons, Xander's 'immaturity' which was actually his fear of commitment, and his insecurities and his responsibilities towards the scoobies, or because of Spike, because they didn't like it that Xander had to spend time with the less than secure vampire, that he was always in during the daytime and wouldn't go out at night.
Xander thought about this, how odd it was that over the space of the years Xander had come to care what was going on with Spike, thought how odd it was also that Spike went out so rarely any more, most of the time, and to the casual eye the vampire was the same guy he had always been, snarky and British with a love of hot chocolate and bad soap operas but Xander had been there through it all. The way the Vampire would try not to go out any more, apart from Patrol and Scooby meetings, it wasn't like he had a lot of places to go Xander guessed. Spike had tried over the first year after his return to Sunnydale but clubs made him remember the things that he had done in fits of madness once the soul was back and the chip had stopped working, he had explained to Xander that he couldn't hear himself think on a dance floor anymore over the raging blood lust which just brought fear and guilt upon him. Other than that all Spike ever used to do was play poker or drink, Since Clem left, Spike hadn't had much to do with demons, he was bad news between them before the soul and now he was scum. And drinking, god they had discovered very early on that if Spike drunk, he would begin to remember, things that he had tried so hard to repress or kept locked in a separate part of his brain marked 'William the Bloody' or 'the demon years', it all bled together and the platinum blonde couldn't see through the haze of alcohol what it was that he had done or was doing or would do, it drive him right back to straight up crazy and suicidal.
So, since they had all learnt these valuable lessons, Spike stayed in, and Xander tried to create a place for him, he knew what it was like feeling lost but overwhelmed and now the vamp had a soul there was no real reason to turn him away, in fact there were lots of reasons for him to stay, Spike had been a real help the last six or seven years or so, and without him the scoobies would undoubtedly all be dead a few times over, so he stayed and Xander made him feel welcome. Most of the time. Shit.