Author's Notes: Had problems with this one. Started writing it under the influence again (friends don't let friends drink alone), then went back and read it the next day and was like "where in the hell is this going" because Spike had a creepy ass dream and just ended up really mentally unstable and I said to myself "THIS WILL NOT DO" so I went back and revised everything but the first few paragraphs, though I did keep the original chapter saved for future nostalgic purposes. I'm not sure why I just shared all of that, but hey…this chapter sucks. Maybe the next will be better. You'll probably also note that its a tad bit more slashy than it was in the beginning. To those of you who dislike, sorry sorry. It's hard to control when its focused around two hot vampires and you just want them to touch eachother all over. Mmmm.
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Chapter Nine
I have a foggy head. It happens after crying- like the mist after a downpour. Makes it hard to see straight and touch things and feel anything besides the great big bloody lump in my throat. I'm numb.
My head on his chest, my hand on his stomach, the rippling purr under his cold skin. Can't live without it. Can't stay away from him. My sire exists to teach me that emptiness is surprisingly vast and that I am empty without him.
"Precious?" his sleepy voice murmurs for me, and his long arm snakes around my middle. It's pins and needles, it is. His nails running down my back – it's the tingling after the numbness. I watch him as his eyes flutter open and slowly focus on my face and I feel more complete than I have in hours.
It still hurts, though. Still hurts.
"Yeah?" I finally answered.
He blinks at me, moans, presses me tighter into his side and mumbles, "Go back to sleep." Within a second, he's out again and everything is left unresolved. An enigma.
Always liked that word: enigma. I'd say it all the time if I had good reason.
I like to think that I'm an enigma. Like to think that people have a hard time figuring me out, but I know that's all just a barrel full of rubbish. I wear my bloody heart on my sleeve and that's why I get trampled on. It's why I'm easily controlled.
They always know just the button to push, just the wrong way to rub…and that's how I end up ankle-entangled with grandpappy, neutered, and starving for homicide. I was a bleedin' pup in his prime living large only to be cut short by a trip to the vet's, that's what I am. Free the puppies indeed. Free me.
Except I don't want to go. Not completely, at any rate. I didn't need him before this. Maybe for a little while, but I could've gone off on my own and been alright. He's conditioned me. He's gotten me addicted.
If I left right now, I'd go into withdrawal. Couple of hours I'd be crying and cold, shaking and screaming for him. Then I'd curl up in a dark alley and wait for sunrise, cause it's better to burst into flame and burn all the way to Hell than live without him. My sire's like heroin: instantaneously, a beautiful trip; but in the long run, he's fatal. Killin' me on the inside.
I heard the cheerleader and the watcher banging around upstairs and decided it was time to go up and socialize. Sitting around, watching Peaches sleep was driving me insane…not that I wasn't already. Vampires like pain, its true…but to get so very attached to those who insist on hurting me to the point where it's degrading? Mental health flag slipping slowly down the pole. I can see it now…waving so meekly in the air. Bloody sanity. Why can't you just stay put?
I managed to wriggle out of his death grip, but not without waking him up.
"Where're you goin'?" he demanded, his voice weak from sleep.
Slipping on my jeans from the day before, I scathingly replied, "To play with Auntie Cordy and Uncle Wes, Daddy. Unless you were planning on spanking me again for being so very naughty yesterday." Ah yes, that felt good. Even better was the expression on his face: kinda a mixture of guilt and anger.
"Maybe I will if you continue to take that tone with me," he shot back. I raised my eyebrows, crossed my arms, and waited. His muddled stare started to take on a shaky edge and eventually, guilt won over. "I'm sorry about that…I just got carried away."
I snorted. "'Course you did. You're a beast under all that human skin." I sifted through the shopping bags that I had carelessly dumped in the corner of the bedroom the previous day and finally settled on one of the few black long-sleeved shirts Cordelia had graciously purchased for me.
"Do you want me to come up with you?"
"'M a big boy," I deadpanned. "I can go upstairs by myself."
"Well, I don't know. Wesley and Cordelia can be very scary in their own right. Maybe I should-"
"SIRE." I raised my voice just enough that it tread the line of a shout. "I assure you, I'm perfectly capable of existing one floor above you. So why don't you just go back to sleep, dream your poofy dreams, and leave me the hell alone for a spell, okay?"
I knew this behavior would only lead to him coddling me more in the long run, but part of me was aiming for that. The other part of me was just getting a kick out of hurting him back.
Without another word, I raced up the stairs to find Cordelia and Wesley engaged in a name-calling competition. The cheerleader, icy and cool as always, pointed her finger at Wesley's face, saying that if there was a name for people who boned books she would be calling him that at that very moment. The bumbling lil' Watcher, surprisingly calmly and intelligently replied that at least there would be an exchange of information involved in such an act, rather than the genital warts Cordelia must have obtained from having slept with half of the Sunnydale High population.
After hearing that, I regrettably halted their little spat with a bit of applause.
"If we were at a pub, I'd buy you a drink," I told him, patting him on the shoulder. "Well…I'd actually threaten a beer out of the bartender an' give it to you, but all's good in love and alcohol."
Cordelia glared at me.
"And she doesn't have genital warts," I added, holding up my hands defensively. "I'd be able to smell them."
"Ew!"
I shrugged. "Jus' tryin' to help you out, pet."
She huffed. "Of course. That's all you ever do."
"Damn straight, love." I looked to Wesley. "'M sorry for runnin' out on you last night, Percy. Surprising revelation came about, though." I told him the entire story involving Penn, adding a few things in to make myself seem more bad arse and heroic-like…like say, that Penn had gotten Peaches into a fatal hold until I valiantly separated them with a well-aimed jab here and there and before I put the wanker to his rest…
Angel's POV
"…so I held the point of the stake against his dead, cold, wannabe artist heart and said, 'I'll show you original, you unimaginative sod!', and then I sliced him up all over and he screamed and begged for me just to end it all and I stopped for a moment, givin' the bugger some false hope, y'know? But then I just started up again and just let him scream some more…"
I listened to his muffled, half-fabricated story from my bed, yearning to be up there with them all…him sitting on my lap giving me his sulky eyes and his petulant pout. My boy doesn't want me right now, though. I've angered him, demeaned him. Just like I use to.
I care. I do care. I care a lot.
But I don't care at all.
It doesn't make sense, I know. Everything I feel about my little Will is conflicted and everything I do to him seems so nice and so good and so right, but it's all so very cruel and so very bad and so very wrong. It all comes with being a vampire, I suppose. Treading the line between the living and the dead. You see, my William is a railroad spike jammed into my ribcage. I can't decide whether just to leave him there to fill me up and endure a long, drawn-out end, or yank him out and set him free and live alone and empty and starving.
It's a tough decision, but I'm going with the former. I love him. I love my Will. Unconditionally, I think.
Unconditionally…for now.
Conflicted. Always conflicted. Goddamn oxymoron.
There's always a condition, isn't there? Say he gains his wits about him again, gets whatever's in his head out of his head. Say he does that. Say he goes off on a massive rampage, slaughters half of L.A. then goes back to Sunnydale and sucks Buffy dry.
Buffy.
I haven't thought of her in quite some time. Was that unconditional? No, there's always a condition. Unconditional doesn't exist.
I lay, pondering in my bed for at least an hour, zoning in and out of the conversations and laughter of my friends and childe upstairs. I was interrupted when the latter came barreling down and launched himself on top of me.
"What're you still doing down here, y'poof? It's three in the afternoon. Sunset is only a few hours away."
He straddled my stomach, unconsciously bouncing, resting his pretty pale hands on my chest.
"Thought you wanted to be left alone."
He waved his hand dismissively – I think he's been spending too much time with Cordelia. "That was an eternity ago, Sire. When the sun goes down, we can have some fun. Kill a few things. You know? Like old times…only with demons. We'll bond and rejoice. We'll laugh, we'll cry. It'll be an experience worthy of a hallmark card. Wes can come with us, too."
Now he was just being strange. "Uh…huh. And what about Cordelia?"
"Silly bint's got a date. We don't need her anyway. I'd say its more of a male bonding session than anything else."
"Are you sure Wesley-"
"Bloke was a rogue demon hunter," he sharply interrupted. "I think he can hold his own." The amount of defense stored in his voice fully indicated that he was doubtful of Wesley's ability to hold his own, but he'd never admit that to me. He'll probably never admit a lot of things to me.
"Okay," I agreed softly. I reached a hand up and scratched his belly. I felt him melt, felt the defensive barriers go down, heard his purr.
He tilted off of me, rolled, and curled up into my side.
"You really are a mean sod, you know," he whispered, burying his nose into the crook of my neck. "You're an oblivious, obsessive, possessive control freak who can't see under his big bloody Neanderthal brow."
I grunted.
"'S true," he continued. "You know it's true. You know as well as I do. You're anal retentive, barbaric, embarrassing in the worst way-"
I growled, whipped out a hand and pushed him down, maneuvered myself so I was straddling him this time. He was overstepping his bounds and he knew it. I also didn't like hard truths, not from him.
"Did I mention control freak?" he asked, not looking at all frightened, nervous, or chastised. "Can't take it for a minute, can you? Your impertinent childe dressin' you down. It's not right, is it, Sire? What're you gonna do? Slap me around a bit and tell me not to disrespect my elders?" He bucked his hips and unhinged me. Fortunately, I regained myself before toppling off. "Do it, you old bloomin' sod. Just bloody well do it."
He's my boy. My favorite boy. My little street urchin. His blue eyes are glittering with malice and defiance and challenge. His lips, so pale and pink, are parted and giving contrast to his milky white skin. His long lashes flutter coyly, patronizingly, begging and pleading for me just to ball up my fist and beat the brazenness out of his pretty, peroxide head. My impish little prince.
I clenched my fist, simultaneously cracking my large knuckles. He closed his eyes, awaiting the blows. I leaned down and kissed his forehead.
"You can't always get what you want, my precious Will," I chided gently, sliding off of his little torso. "I'm going to take a shower. Be a good boy for Sire and help Cordelia with the filing will you?" I turned my back, slid off the bed, and headed straight for the shower. I heard his indignant growl, but I didn't turn to reply. I couldn't.
Sometimes showers are just too important.
Spike's POV
"'Ey, Cheerleader," I glumly addressed Cordelia, jumping up onto her desk. "Need any help filin'?" She looked up from a slightly outdated issue of Vogue and snorted. "'Course not. Don't know what I was thinkin'."
"I have a date tonight," she said proudly, and also for the third time that day. "A date. Can you believe it?"
Of course I couldn't believe it.
"Sure hope he's a nice shag."
She threw the mag at my head, but I, being me, artfully dodged the attack. Instead, it hit Wesley, who had just stepped into the office, knocking off the poor bloke's glasses.
The cheerleader let loose a dainty little squeak and apologized.
"It's quite alright," the Watcher assured her.
"Cheerleader's gonna get laid tonight," I sang. "Cheerleader's gonna get laid tonight."
"Shut. Up."
"Cheerleader's gonna get laid tonight," I taunted, and after a few more, good ol' Wes joined in.
"Wesley!" she exclaimed in both surprise and dismay.
He flushed and shrugged, explaining that it was "a catchy tune." I like the bloke. He reminds me of me before the evil.
"I don't care how catchy it is. You're both worse than Xander frickin' Harris! Well, Spike I expect it from…but you, Wesley!" She then tilted her head to the side in a moment on contemplation and conceded, "Well, I guess you already had the dorkus maximus stuff already down and this little display of immaturity was just another shove in a very wrong dire-"
That's when she clutched her head and fell down.
Poor little bint and her visions.
TBC...
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