Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me

Part Five

Xander woke slowly, clinging to the last dregs of unconsciousness almost desperately. He remembered Larry and his gang having yet another fun night of beating him silly, as if he didn’t get enough of that at home.

He also remembered Spike rescuing him, even though it seemed like a weird dream. Spike, a vampire, helping him, a meal.

He knew he was alive, if he had woken up undead he doubt if he would hurt this much. Added to that was the pounding of his pulse in his head. He was alive, even if he wished it was otherwise.

He opened his eyes slowly, finding a dim room with an unfamiliar ceiling. He had vague memories of Spike shaking him awake at different points during the night and hoped he hadn’t said something stupid.

“Oh god, my head.”

“There’s pain pills on the table there beside the bed.”

Xander jumped at hearing Spike’s voice so close in the room. Things still weren’t focusing too well so he hadn’t noticed the man in the corner. He didn’t even bother with swearing about getting the shit scared out of him. He knew it wouldn’t mean a thing.

Two small blue pills and a glass of water were laid out, just where Spike had said they would be. He didn’t hesitate, he gulped them down quickly. If Spike wanted to kill him the vampire had better ways than poison. He could have killed him in his sleep, for instance.

“Thanks.” Xander fought the urge to squirm under Spike’s gaze. He looked down and realized he was only wearing his boxers and blushed. Then he blushed again after realizing that Spike could probably smell his embarrassment. A cycle of panic started in the back of his brain.

“Calm down, will you? S’not like you've got anything I haven’t seen before. In fact, you have a nice bit of tackle for a kid. Should be all proud in the locker room.” Spike was sitting in an armchair on the other side of the bed, an ashtray with two cigarettes going beside him.

Xander took a few deep breaths and winced when his ribs gave off sharp pains. They were wrapped and he could feel traces of some sort of ointment on the cuts and bruises. “Thanks. For the helping me, and fixing me up. And, well, for the, umm, tackle comment. Not that I’ve ever noticed, you know, if my bait is bigger than any one else’s. And…I think I’d better stop now before I embarrass myself with any bad trout comparisons.”

Spike chuckled at the comment and Xander couldn’t help but smile. The vampire had a great laugh.

“That might be best. So…how often do the town bullies take you to task for breathing?” Spike was wearing only his jeans and his hair was all fluffy. It was hard to remember that this man was a killer. Especially since he looked so…human sitting there, half awake.

Xander wasn’t even going to wonder where Spike had slept.

“Larry and his goon squad? Whenever they feel like it. During school maybe once or twice a month unless I manage to piss them off or embarrass them by proving that their IQ’s are lower than their shoe sizes.”

“Somehow, lad, I don’t think that would be hard to do.” Spike ran his hand through his hair as if trying to wake up and Xander averted his eyes from the sight of his muscled chest. “They the ones that gave you that nice set of scars on your legs?”

“Scars? Oh, those. They’re in the back so I forget. No, that was my Dad’s idea of discipline when I disobeyed him and ran in a store one day when I was little.”

“Switch?”

“Wire hangers. Joan Crawford has nothing on my Dad.” Why he was telling this to Spike of all people when he couldn’t tell Willow he didn’t know. Maybe it was because Spike didn’t act all shocked and horrified. He acted like he had seen it all before. Hell, he probably had.

“Got in trouble once outside of Paris, seems the locals didn’t like to be called jumped-up froggies. Angelus didn’t like it, used holy water in a fountain pen to write ‘Don’t play with your food’ on my back a hundred times.”

Xander winced in sympathy. “Okay, you win the My Father Figure is the Biggest Bastard Award.”

Spike snorted. “Nah. He’s a vampire; by nature we’re supposed to be sadistic bastards, even to our own kin to a certain degree. Humans aren’t supposed to be like that.”

Xander just shrugged and looked at his hands in his lap. Oh, look, hangnails. He should take care of that.

*****

Spike looked at the human that shared his room. Xander was staring at his hands as if they held the answers to all the questions of the universe. He could smell shame and embarrassment.

He wondered just how much he should tell Xander. In the end he decided he’d tell only if Xander asked. He didn’t need to know how Spike went through his pockets to find his address and drop him off at home.

How his Da didn’t even care that he’d been hurt, how no one offered to help him. They were just going to dump him down in that basement till he came to and could do for himself.

In the end he’d brought the boy home with him, bathed him and made sure he wasn’t slipping into a coma and patched him up. Let Xander sleep in his bed even. He wished he could say it was a simple case of paying back the good deed done for him, but it was more than that.

He actually sympathized with the lad. Xander had many qualities Spike had while he was human, right down to the bullies kicking the shite out of him for their own fun and amusement.

Then there were the damned dreams. He had managed to fall asleep about an hour after dawn when he was sure Xander was going to be able to wake up. Dru had come to him in his dreams, telling him to feed the kitten plenty of cream and how to put butter on the pads of his feet so he wouldn’t run off.

“Little kitten has the heart of a lion, he does, but the others don’t like that and try to stick him in burlap and drown his courage in the bottle. You can’t let that happen, my Spike, for the kitten will keep you warm on those cool winter days. Must tame him, make him want you before you take him home to cuddle. You can’t follow where I’ve gone, my lovely boy, so you must stay and warm the milk.”

So it looked like his Princess wanted him to keep Xander for his own. He’d never thought about having a childe, he’d had all he wanted in Drusilla. But if she wanted him to keep living and to take the boy...well, he’d think about it. Not that he was going to do it, but if he was to make a childe Xander was a good choice.

He shook his head. Either way, he decided nothing would be happening now. If he did keep the boy he’d want him to get his full growth before turning him. Let the muscles fill in a bit more and grow into his gangly body. For now he could wait, didn’t like it but he could do it.

“So there’s no telly and I think your head is hurting too much for listening to punk right now. Ever play poker?”

Xander jumped and Spike hid a smirk. It was fun watching him, Spike had to admit that. “Poker? Nope, I can’t lie so I’ve never tried it.”

Xander sounded amazed that Spike had changed the topic of discussion but happy for it. No wonder; he bet things like abuse were talked about nowadays as much as they had been when he was a boy.

He also sounded amazed that anyone would offer to teach him anything. Spike stubbed out the last of his smoke and reached for a deck of cards in the drawer on the end table. “It’s not too hard, just distractions. Once you learn what your tells are, well, you can fake them and throw people off.”

He looked at Xander as he shuffled the cards. The human was focused entirely on him, listening to his every word and trying to learn.

Spike could get used to that.

*****