The Sun Is Shinin' And I Wanna Go
Warnings: Language. Spike corrupting an innocent child (in a lighthearted way; it's not creepy or anything).
Timeline/Spoilers: Set post Not Fade Away for Ats; post-S3 AU for SPN.
ONE
One minute, it's war.
Screaming thunder, sparks of clashing steel in the blurry downpour, screeches, death cries, splashing, stomping, everything a confusing, violent mess, and then there's this roar, deafening and way too bleeding close.
He whirls and the brutal soundtrack of battle abruptly goes dull, a picket-fence of teeth tearing into his neck, viscous yellow slobber and the rancid heat of dragon breath as foul darkness swallows his head. His weapon clangs to the wet concrete, hands flailing upward to shove uselessly at the scaly snout. Tendons rip, bone crunches, cartilage snaps, blood spurts and fills his mouth, nose, eyes, and there's pain, pain, so much searing pain as his head tears off his body and, of all bloody things, Kansas is crooning away in the back of his mind. Dust In The Wind, and he's just waiting for that to apply to him, to float away on the stormy gales in particles and pieces into that final, blessed nothing...
The next minute, it's the sun.
Bright and everywhere, scalding and deadly, and there's no escaping it. No cover.
One arm sails up, inadequate hand splayed to fend off the rays as his other gropes for the collar of his duster to yank up over his flammable parts. Only he can't find the customary smoothness of the supple, worn-in leather. Ends up with a fistful of torn black tee that rides up his torso and exposes more than it covers.
"Bloody hell! What the—" He spins around as if the action will do anything useful, reveal his missing coat or perhaps trick the sun into not killing him for another few seconds. All it does is kick up a lot of dust, and it takes him long, long minutes to realize he is not on fire. Is showing no signs of catching fire anytime soon. "W-what?"
Spike blinks, lowers his hand to shield his eyes as he angles his head up a little. It's so blinding and warm. Ages since he felt that in a direct, non-fatal way, and even as confused as he is about the abrupt change in scenery, he takes a moment to bask. The last time he'd felt the sun it was burning him from the inside out, merging and tugging at his soul as the craggy earth caved in all around him.
It's not too much longer before his brain is plodding ahead to ruin his mild contentment, connecting the seconds and trying to work it out. He takes stock, checks himself and glances around.
He's on a gravel road, the bleached kind that leaves a chalky residue on his pantlegs and reflects the day in an unforgiving glare. There's a huge pit off to the side, heaps of reddish dirt piled along its edges, some abandoned construction project, and nothing but the burnt yellows and deep greens of summer grass for miles and miles. He's still undead as far as he can tell, no need for breath or a new thumping pulse beneath his skin, so no Shan-shu for him, thank the bloody Queen.
He recalls now that his duster got caught up in a sewer grate as he hit the ground at one point, and he'd had to twist himself free to avoid the giant foot descending on him, which is a load of bollocks. He loved that coat. Sodding Wolfram and Hart armies.
His fingers graze carefully along his neck, the phantom agony of the dragon's teeth taking its time fading out. His head is still attached, no jagged flaps of skin and gory strings, no gushing punctures, not even a scratch. Well, that's one for the relief column. Just because he could easily fill the monster role in a horror movie doesn't mean he wants to go around looking the part. Makes it a bit difficult to blend.
And blending is always a handy option to have, especially since he has no idea where the hell he is or what kind of natives he may run into.
The lack of fatal sunlight clues him in to the fact that he's leaped a rainbow or two. Angel's regaled him with too many wistful tales of his fleeting times in the sun for Spike not to put that together. Add in the dying—again—and he's quickly chalking this up to something that can be blamed on the Powers. It's either a spectacularly boring afterlife, an annoying accident, or it's some blinkered new mission the PTB have going on and he's drawn the short straw. They're always switching the playing field out from under a bloke mid-pass without so much as a by your bloody leave, can't even be arsed to provide a new play book.
He rules out the afterlife since he's fairly certain his would involve torment of some kind, and if it's an accident, well, that sucks. Better to just be irritated with those on-high and pretend there's a greater purpose until he's informed otherwise.
He frowns down at his tattered shirt and jeans. His injuries seem to have miraculously vanished but the evidence of his recent skirmish is still hanging from every torn, blood-soaked fiber. So much for not looking like a slasher.
Spike heaves an exasperated sigh, and the sweet tang of the summer air hits him. The static of it that's somehow... different. Wrong.
It's not wrong in a bad way, simply in a way that conveys he is a fish in the wrong pond. New water, different minerals, and it won't kill him, but it'll take some adjusting. It's not like being the square peg in a round hole is anything new, anyway. Spike's grown resigned to his splintered edges scoring grooves into the perfect roundness of everything, mostly tries to ignore the constant, uncomfortable grating and get on with whatever needs getting on with at the time.
Currently, he appears to have a road to conquer.
He doesn't know what's in store, what's left behind—if Peaches and Blue will actually survive the insurmountable odds—doesn't really want to think too hard about any of it because he's never done the brooding and he's not about to start now just because the designated brooder is absent.
No way to go but through, so he trudges ahead to see what arse-about-face destiny he's got to fulfill this time.
-:-
Gravel morphed into a two-lane blacktop ages ago. The sun is dipping low and burning the horizon in bleeding waves, indecipherable constructs just hedging up on a blur with the telltale stain of artificial light taking over for the night, when he finally stumbles onto a scrap of civilization.
Spike's face cracks into an appreciative grin when he sees the buzzing neon painting the filmed windows of the crooked, sagging structure. He's sore, tired and hot, and could really go for something cool and foaming. He may not produce any heat, but he still absorbs and suffers high temperatures, and his inability to sweat only adds to his problem. His body's got no way to cool itself down, and it's definitely not accustomed to prolonged hours of exertion beneath that burning fireball in the sky. Not that he'll get tired of non-deadly sunburns anytime soon, mind you.
The dirt lot is scattered with muddy semis, motorcycles, and other familiar motor vehicles, so he takes that as a sign that the resident lifeforms are similar to those on his home planet. His assumption is further confirmed as a pair of entangled human bodies stumble out of the bar, rattling glass door carelessly slapped open and bass spilling out from the interior to vibrate the ground beneath his boots as they hold each other up by sheer luck, falling into each other instead of away, and somehow managing forward momentum through it all.
Spike skirts around the couple too drunk to notice his homicidal maniac chic, and luck stays with him as he finds the inside of the bar weakly illuminated—colored lamps over the pool tables and more neon beer signs over the mirror-back bar, floating dust-motes clouding the view that much further. No one even looks up at him.
First things first. He locates the bathrooms and braves the backwoods idea of hygiene, washes all the rust-colored muck off as best he can. A wiry kid decked with ear studs and facial tattoos falls through the door to interrupt his sink bath, takes about two steps toward a urinal and faceplants, doesn't get back up. Spike eyes him for a moment, shrugs to himself and proceeds to strip the baggy, black hoodie from his person. It's got a godawful skull and crossbones distortion plastered across its front, but it covers what his ragged t-shirt won't. He's grateful he's an all black sort of bloke, because though his jeans are torn, they hide bloodstains pretty effectively.
Sauntering back toward the bar, he scans the room for his mark. The pool game looks a better prospect than picking pockets, so he makes his way over and hustles a few hundred dollars out of the until-now reigning champ. The pool-king trucker thankfully seems to be a very happy drunk. Spike's feeling magnanimous so he offers to only take half of what he earned if the guy agrees to buy a few rounds, mentions to the bartender that he might want to see to the comatose kid in the bathroom.
By the time he leaves again, he's a few steps further along the road to orientation. He's got a decent starter fund bulging in his pockets, and the locals were kind enough to inform him that he's skipped a few states, got thrown ahead in the timeline while he was at it—the nearest town is Lafayette, Indiana, and it's 2008.
The trucker gives him a lift to the closest motel. Spike plans ahead one step at a time. Any further than that and he'll lose track, or patience, end up turned around and back at the start. So after checking into the nondescript room that hasn't seen a duster in the last fifty years, he grabs a map from the lobby and heads to the nearest cemetery to see what bumps.
-:-
Nothing bumped. Bloody zilch.
Spike's been in his whole new world for weeks now, and there's nothing dazzling about it. No monsters, no magics, not even any munchkins or yellow brick roads (at least, none that he's found yet).
He is utterly and maddeningly bored out of his skull.
The sun is a lovely perk, don't get him wrong. But, as much as he didn't think it was possible after over a century in the dark, the novelty of it seems to be wearing off. He's been poolside, lakeside, and curbside, just soaking up the rays, gets lobster-red almost every time and fails to tan at all for some reason. It's been bloody ace, but clinging to surfaces like some solar-powered lizard at random moments is not enough to keep a vamp happy.
He needs a little action flung in the middle somewhere. He's always been a bit on the hyperactive side, he can admit, and being what he is, there's too much power trapped inside his unassuming form with nowhere to go. He needs to fucking hit something. Something that will have the courtesy to hit back and mean it.
Reluctant to venture too far from the spot he was unceremoniously poofed into re-existence, Spike's mostly been circling, pushing out his radius just a little further every day. Staying still on top of no decent violence is way too sodding much to ask, and when he wakes up all twisted and askew in the backseat of the beat-up '75 Dodge Charger he kindly relieved an overzealous mugger of on one of his less boring nights, a fairly obvious and annoying realization hits him.
Just because the Powers dropped him there doesn't mean anything. They don't possess that thing known as common sense a lot of the time, and it's stupid to assume whatever's going to happen won't smack him over the head when it finally rears its ugly head. That's usually the way of things, after all. No sense whatsoever in sticking to a place as plagued with unholy nothing as Indiana when there are casinos in Vegas just calling his name, or caves in Carlsbad he never got around to exploring. There's the bleeding Grand Canyon, too, and he just happens to be in a position to see it in all its magnificent sun-drenched glory.
He is a complete twit for taking so long to figure this out, but it's fine. Just a little lost time to make up for. As soon as he stretches out the kinks that have settled in over the course of his nap, Spike gets to it. The sky's gone slate grey, edges washed the faintest pink with the setting sun. He floors the pedal and zips onto the first freeway he sees, follows wherever it takes him.
-:-
It's coming up on the wrong side of morning when Spike finds his not-quite wish granted. Sort of.
He stops outside Indianapolis to fuel up, a dingy gas mart that's beyond ready to give up the ghost. He can imagine the creaking exterior actually panting in its desperate attempt to stay lit and keep its pumps flowing. The pasty clerk behind the counter looks just as ready to go down with his ship, barely keeps his eyes open long enough to take Spike's money.
This only cements his conclusion that the red-bird state is a soul-sucking void, and he feels an itch start beneath his skin, urging him to hurry this along and get back on the road.
Stalking quickly back to the Charger, the waterfall sounds of traffic on the nearby overpass are briefly drowned out by a garbled scream. Spike whirls toward the source of the noise, one high-pitched voice standing out among two deeper baritones. He charges for the shadowed opening between the gas station and the wire fence that fends off an expanse of roadside bramble.
"Stranger danger! Help! Geddoffame, you fucking crackhead!"
"Quit that, you little shit or I'll give you something to—OW! Son of a bitch!"
There's a small twinge of disappointment when he figures he'll be raining on another parade in the mundane world of human crime, but Spike dutifully slides up into the little alley and immediately picks out who needs saving. There are two burly silhouettes hunched low and scrambling over each other to get to the much smaller and faster form dancing around them.
"My dad's gonna tear you apart and make you wear your asses on your heads!" With that threat, the kid spins to avoid another grabby hand and strikes out at the same time, foot connecting solidly with a shin.
The man staggers back and trips over the detritus surrounding the overflowing dumpster, lands in a sprawl over a pile of leaking trash bags and curses to his partner to take his turn trying to wrangle the wily little beast.
Spike watches the struggle a bit longer, highly amused by the boy's spunk. He looks like a street rat at first glance, dirt-streaked face, sharp cheekbones that indicate meals are few and far between, but the little denim jacket and jeans are not exactly inexpensive cast-offs even if they are soiled. Light-up sneakers aren't readily available at most Salvation Army stores either, last he checked.
One of the men finally manages to snag the boy's ankle and holds him upside down, kicking and dangling and snarling, pissed as a wet cat.
"Lemme go! My dad's got a million guns and knives! He's gonna shoot you right in your ugly faces and spit in your mouths and pull your eyes out! Pedophiles! Freaks! Help! I'm being molested!"
"Too bad we're supposed to bring him in in one piece," the other man grumbles as he straightens himself out, glaring darkly at the twisting child. "Woulda been easier to just—" Spike's approach brings him up short, and he goes ramrod stiff. "You get one warning, guy. Fuck off, or die screaming."
Spike snorts at the hard stare that's meant to intimidate him, but he notes that neither man reaches for a weapon. The kid's crackhead assumption might not be far off, as they're both pretty scruffy-looking, stringy hair and mismatched, worn clothing that boasts at least a week's worth of accumulated body odor, but their eyes are far too clear for drug abuse to be a current factor. Homeless fragrance aside, there's something else about them that doesn't smell quite right, and they exude enough confidence in their ability to dispatch him bare-handed to keep him cautious.
Spike flashes a toothy grin, not quite fanged, but feral enough to make the man second-guess his automatic dismissal of him. "Lad seems to've gotten your knickers all in a knot." He flicks a glance at the boy, who's gone carefully quiet, doing his best from his inverted viewpoint to figure out what the new player means for his immediate fate. Spike tries not to wince, but the kid's coloring combined with that deeply serious frown reminds him way too much of Angel for a split second. He shakes it off. "Don't suppose you'd like to simplify things for all of us and hand him over?"
A beat, and the man holding the kid asks slowly, "What's your interest?"
Spike cocks his head, starting to think there's more here than a simple kidnapping. Not that it matters much. He's only mildly curious.
"He's the first thing I've seen with any personality since I got here," is Spike's automatic response, because it's true enough. He gives the boy a small smirk, but it doesn't seem to put him at ease so much as make him warier. "'Sides," he crams his hands into his pockets and glances around with a bored expression, "he doesn't seem too taken with his new playmates."
Another long pause as they consider him, the boy renews his struggles, brave face slashed through with fleeting terror, and Spike gets impatient.
Before anyone can blink, his knuckles have crushed the shorter man's windpipe, crumpling him to the dirty concrete to writhe around and gurgle in agony. That leaves him to face the one restraining the boy, and just as it occurs to him that holding a kid up like that, even a small one, should have set the guy's arm muscles to shaking by now, he gets an unpleasant surprise in the form of being propelled backward by an unseen force.
Suddenly pinned like a butterfly to the faded brickwork, Spike struggles and curses and generally wants to know what in the bleeding hell is going on. This wasn't in the manual (not that he ever got one of those, but he's pretty sure this wouldn't be in it if he had). The next surprise comes too fast for him to process much of the first, and he finds himself experiencing the beastly sensation of having his neck twisted round at an unnatural angle.
"Argh! Son of a filthy harlet!" Morphing into his game face without conscious thought, Spike cracks his head back into place to see the man's eyes have gone pitch black. He doesn't look altogether happy about the fact that Spike is not a lifeless corpse.
Well, at least he's not the only one on the receiving end of the surprises tonight, so that's something.
Kicking up his struggles, he starts a gradual shimmy down the wall while the other should-be-dead-but-isn't man gathers himself up off the ground, spitting blood and mucus everywhere and unable to vocalize the insults firing from his glare.
Trying to get off the wall expends no small amount of energy, so it doesn't take long for Spike to decide that since he doesn't really know what this new threat is, he's not going to be very effective in neutralizing it. Black magic was his initial thought, except it doesn't feel quite right. Willow always gave off a scent like ozone, and those workings of hers usually got his inanimate bloodstream crackling like static. These wankers have more of a rotten egg stench going on, and their power feels hot and weighted, like molten lead pressing itself into his pores.
Teeth clenched, Spike gives a great forward heave and peels himself from the wall, uses the one advantage he seems to have over them and surges forward faster than they can track him. He's streaking back toward his car with a screaming body thrown over his shoulder before they even realize they're short a victim, and the Charger is speeding up the on-ramp before they coordinate themselves enough to give chase.
Spike grins wickedly until he realizes how it must come off to the wide-eyed boy in the passenger's seat. He does his best to school his features as he zips in and out of lanes with reckless abandon, blaring horns and flashing brights in his wake. Even though he knows he's probably landed in some spectacular web of trouble, he can't help but be pleased with himself. It's about bloody time, really.
The lad's looking a little peaky, straining up against the opposite door and white-knuckling the edge of the seat.
"All right? No honkin' in the car," Spike says, watching the boy nervously. He doesn't want to be trapped in a box with that stench all day, thank you very much. "Need me to pull over?"
The boy hastily shakes his head, then cranes around to gape out the back window. Checking for black-eyed pillocks, Spike wagers. His numb shock seems to wear off then, and he whips his head back around, the most adorable little glare beaming right for Spike.
No, it's not bloody adorable. It's just... a tad ridiculous on that little face. In a really cute way. Spike frowns.
"They killed you," the kid speaks up, flat and annoyed and the tiniest tremor of fear beneath all that. "You shouldn't be driving."
Spike can't hold back the snort. "S'not like being under the influence, whelp. I'm sharp-headed, no worries."
The boy's only response is to glare some more, obviously unimpressed with Spike's heroic rescue and his sense of humor. Dark eyes, dark hair, still too serious, and there's no brief comparison about it. The kid is a miniature version of Peaches. It's right unsettling.
"Got a name or do I get to make one up?" Spike tries, pushing that thought away. He doesn't miss the poof. Really.
The boy doesn't look too thrilled at the idea of being nicknamed if his tight-lipped scowl is anything to go by, but it turns out he's just as stubborn as he is scrappy. "Where are you taking me?"
"Nowhere specific. Far away from the bad men. That not good enough for you? Shall I let his brassed-off majesty out here?" Spike's smirking again, but it's been a bit since he had a live person to talk to, never mind that he's four feet tall and a little on the scrawny side. Looks like he found his munchkin, after all.
"No!" he snaps instantly, takes a deep breath and scowls at himself. "Are you... what are you?" the boy hedges.
Spike huffs and figures he should take this more seriously. Young ones don't usually revel in this sort of chaos like he does. Hell, most adults don't either. It's pretty admirable that the kid's not screeching and panicking, though. There might be more to him, maybe a familiarity with what passes for weird in these parts.
"M'a bit different, is all. Nothin' for you to fret about. Won't hurt you." The kid flinches when Spike reaches across the dash to snatch up his cigarettes, so he figures he'll have to work on the convincing a little more as he cracks his window. "You said something about your dad, yeah? Want me to take you to him?"
"You're giving me lung cancer."
Spike quirks a brow, fag clenched between his lips. "Right." He puffs a stream of cancer-inducing smog out the window. "We can play it your way, I s'pose. You don't wanna give me a straight answer, m'just gonna hafta improvise. The bed's in the back, the grub's a bit dodgy, and I'm a very rude man. Make yourself at home, Bitty Peach."
He settles back in his seat for the long drive, but the kid doesn't bite, just throws his arms across his chest and slouches, glowering at the dashboard.
Not usually one for thinking too far ahead, Spike finds himself having to do just that. Because if the boy won't cooperate, he might just have to follow through on the whole ickle sidekick thing, and now there's a wave of panic crashing in and no, this is no good at all. He's the last person on Earth qualified to look after a young, impressionable child, but he can't very well leave him with the authorities if he's got yet-to-be-identified nasties on his tail. Spike may not know what they are, but he's in a better position to find out and fend them off than any copper who'll refuse to believe it in the first place.
Bugger.
The drive continues in silence for endless miles. Spike chain smokes while the boy does his best not to give in to his exhaustion, eyes drooping and snapping back open until he takes to fidgeting around to keep himself alert. Once he's put a good distance between themselves and the gas mart, Spike slows to the speed limit and takes the next off-ramp, opting for roads less traveled. Reflective green signs and the heavy haze of tail lights disappear in favor of tree-lined ditches and power lines, the sky lightening from purple to ash like a fading bruise. Spike engages in more and more sideways glances, trying to puzzle the kid out, trying to plot his next move.
He's pale, malnourished, clearly scared and angry about it, restless, like he should be doing something more than he is but doesn't have the means.
"Stop staring," the boy finally snaps, not even looking at Spike. His eyes are firmly glued to the passenger-side window, but whether he's actually seeing the monotonous flattened bronze of summertime's roadside landscape, or staring blankly at his own opaque reflection is anyone's guess.
"Sorry, Peach. Got this innate curiosity I can't seem to do much about." Spike smirks tiredly as the boy deigns to turn that dark gaze on him, and the loud gurgle of a tiny stomach announces his next immediate course loud and clear. Spike flicks his cigarette out the window and lights another. "What say we stop for a bite? Feelin' a bit peckish myself."
The constant scowl falters, and the boy gives a grudging nod. "I'm not a fruit," he says as Spike keeps on the lookout for a place to eat, and he's scrutinizing his rescuer openly now.
Spike shrugs, unrepentant. "S'what m'callin' you 'til you give me something else to go on."
"Those guys back there," he changes the subject again, bites his lip, reluctant and still watching Spike closely. "There was something wrong with them."
"Seems that way," Spike agrees. The boy's waiting for more, but Spike doesn't have it. "Honestly, I know as much as you. Maybe less."
More silence in which the kid fidgets around some more, a shaky sigh, and then, "There was something wrong with my mom."
It's barely a breath, like he doesn't want to admit it aloud because that will make it true, but Spike can tell the lad needs to tell someone about it. He's suffering a distinct lack of options here, as Spike is the only non-hostile ear around at the moment, and while he knows his intentions are shady from the boy's perspective, he hasn't blatantly tried to hurt him yet, has been as honest as he can be.
Spike keeps quiet and nods his encouragement, waiting to see if the rest will follow.
The boy turns his head back toward the window and goes on just as quietly, "Her eyes were black. She got real mean. She gets mad sometimes but... she's never been mean." He swallows audibly, little frame trembling with letting himself remember. Spike wants to make that stop, but really, really doesn't know how. It makes his fists itch, so he clenches his hand tighter around the wheel and puffs harder on his cigarette. "She was yelling and chasing me, and then she just stopped and started crying. She was shaking real bad, like something was hurting her. She told me to run away. I didn't wanna leave her but she just kept screaming for me to run over and over, and then her eyes turned black again."
The boy sniffles and wipes at his face, hiding it from Spike's view. "And then she was talking about my dad. I never knew who my dad was, but there was this man one time. Something was taking the kids in our neighborhood, pretending to be us, and he stopped it. He said they were monsters. I think... I think maybe a monster got inside my mom, and it said that man was my dad. It was pretty mad at him about something, and then it started telling me all the things it was gonna do to me to make him sorry. So I ran."
The boy is curled into himself at this point, face buried in his knees as he hugs them close, and he turns to peer across at Spike, all bright, miserable eyes and tear-sheened cheeks. A chest that's been still and vacant for the last hundred-odd years suddenly feels too full and active.
"I just left her there," he mutters wetly. "How could I do that?"
Spike clears his throat, which is harder than he'd like, but the effort pays off when his voice comes out mostly normal. "Nothin' you coulda done for her, Bit. If you'd stayed, she might well have killed you, and she wouldn't have been able to live with herself for that. Believe me when I say you saved her from a fate worse than death."
The boy chokes on a sob, but pulls himself together pretty quickly. At least enough to keep talking. Strong one, this runt, and he reminds Spike of Dawn now more than Angel. Dawn he knew how to handle, so that makes him feel a little less like he's floundering outside the space-time continuum. This kid's a little younger, but no less resilient.
"I went next door and told Miss Becca to call the police. Her eyes turned black too. Everyone started coming outside, but... they were all monsters. I don't know if it's true, if he's my dad, but he knows about that stuff and I thought maybe I should call him. So I ran back home and I got my mom's phone." He stops long enough to tug a small cell phone from his pocket, stares at it like it holds the secrets of the universe, and then reluctantly hands it over to Spike. "I think I broke it. I don't know the number," he admits self-depreciatively. "Mom made me memorize all these emergency numbers, but she never did it with his. Monsters are fucked up enough to be an emergency, right?" The boy sounds a little pissed at the woman, but it's understandable. Anger often mixes itself in with sorrow and fear, presents a handhold of the barest control if nothing else.
"I'd say so." Spike inspects the cracked screen, checks that all parts are in the right places, and determines the thing probably just needs a charge. It should at least work enough to give up the contacts stored inside. If not, he can swipe another one just like it and switch out the SIM card. "S'not all sixes and sevens yet, Peach. I'll find us a gadget store and see about this thing, yeah?"
"Ben."
"Whassat?"
"My name's Ben. Stop calling me fruity names. I'm not a little bitch."
Spike snickers as he hands the phone back, adding a little of Buffy into this kid's personality. It's Buffy, Spike. B-U-F-F-Y. Stop calling me pet names. I'm not furry.
Ben takes the cell reverently, carefully tucks it back into his filthy denim jacket. He's regarding Spike with less wariness now, and a little more hope. "You really wanna help me?"
Spike slides him a mildly patronizing look. "If I wanted to hurt you, I would've eaten you by now." He smiles warmly to nullify any fear that might otherwise induce. "'Sides, s'not like I've got anything better to do."
Ben breathes a sigh of relief, probably his first in days, weeks, or however long he's been beating the streets, and lets himself relax into the seat just as a battered sign indicates FOOD/GAS/LODGING will present itself in one and a quarter miles.
Spike decides this doesn't have to be quite as dramatic and terrifying as he first thought. He should be able to look after Ben long enough to find his dad who, from the sound of it, knows a lot more than either of them about this dimension's brand of weird. He figures he can pump the bloke for information in return for saving his kid from a pair of monsters and life in the gutter, which will go a long way toward alleviating his boredom in this world, and everyone can walk away happy.
The plan's not too long-term or detailed to get him in trouble, so he's feeling downright chipper by the time he pulls into a slot at the Sonic drive-in and orders something for the two of them. There are still a few minor things that need working out, like his next trip to a hospital and explaining his little blood-drinking habit to the lad, something distinctly less fragrant for Ben to wear and all that fluff, but he's sure he can manage it.
"All right, Ben. Got some things you're gonna need to know. M'a bit quirky, and I don't need you goin' barmy on me, so pay attention." Spike reclines to wait for their order, lights another cigarette and blows smoke at the roof. "We'll share and care, yeah? I talk, and then you tell me all about your dad in case that phone of yours doesn't pan out."
Ben angles himself around so that's he's leaning against the door and facing Spike, splays his hands, receptive. "Shoot."