Sins Series

Title: Sloth (1/2)
Authored by: Tisienne
Series: Sins (#6)
Rating: NC-17 for… the usual. LOL
Disclaimer: I am still not Joss Whedon. I still own no characters from B:tVS or A:tS. No money made.
Summary: Emotional baggage is opened, but will it be claimed or simply go around and around forever?
P.O.V.: Xander again.
Notes: This part decided to be kinda long so I’ve split it for ease. Hope nobody minds. :)

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Part 1
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I don’t know what I’m doing.

I just don’t.

How can I be… enjoying this? Enjoying Spike? And… why does he want me to?

I know what I am. I know what I’ve done. I know how evil I’ve become, how… unforgiven.

And that’s fine. I don’t deserve forgiveness. But Spike…

Fuck, it’s like he thinks he can… fuck the monster out of me or something, and God knows I’m letting him try, but it’s not gonna work. It can’t.

He doesn’t get it. Doesn’t see, and I don’t know what he does see when he looks at me, but it can’t be the truth.

Jesus-fuck, I wish I could just… show him. Maybe if I did he’d stop trying to save me. Stop wasting his time and energy on making me moan, making me scream his name. And I want him to stop. I want him to stop before it’s too late.

Too late for him, I mean, because I’m already past the point of saving and I know it.

I just… can’t make myself say the words. Can’t tell him to stop touching me, to give up.

Hell, I think Spike’s looking at me as some bizarre personal challenge to his vampirey-goodness, and I never thought those words together would cross my mind, but there they are, just dripping with truth and substance, and why can’t I tell him to stop?

Hell, it might be because of the way his cock is sliding hard against my prostate, or his fingers, cool and tight around me… it probably is. ‘Stop’ isn’t something I can say right now. I don’t think I could say anything right now. But neither can he so I guess it can wait…

God, please don’t let me make him like me. I haven’t fucked him even once, and not because I don’t want to, God, but because… I can’t let what I am inside him, so… Please! Keep Spike safe. Protect him from me!

* * * * *

Okay. Okay. Breathing. Coming down from the too-high heights he always drives me to.

I don’t deserve to feel so light, so… good. Not even close.

But I can’t tell him that. I know how he gets when I try. ‘If I say ya deserve it, then ya do, Xan,’ he always says, and… I wish I could believe that but I don’t.

So I lie here, long, cool arms still wrapped around my body, his cock twitching inside me while his lips move slowly over the nape of my neck and down my spine to bite the skin between my shoulder blades, and… I shudder. “Th-thanks, Spike,” I try to say, but it comes out as more of a whisper than anything else and I cringe. ‘Way to hide the deep thoughts, moron,’ I tell myself. Spike’s been fucking me for long enough to know what whispering after means.

Okay, color me shocked and ready to search for the pod when his lips twist into an obvious smile against my skin and he bites a little harder.

“Goin’ ta order in some brekkie from th’ diner down th’ way, pet,” he says, still holding me as he slowly—so slowly it almost hurts—pulls his less-than-hard dick out of my ass. “Go have yourself a shower. It’ll be here by th’ time you’re done, yah?”

I can’t help sighing in relief when he lets go of me and rolls from the bed. He’d usually spend a good hour trying to find out what I was thinking about so hard, but I guess he’s got other things on his mind, so… I lucked out this time. Not sure why that disappoints me, but it does.

I never said I made sense, did I? Yeah, didn’t think so.

My knees shake a little when I stand, but that’s okay. It isn’t far to the bathroom and I’d be hobbling anyway, considering how tender my ass is right now. Note to self: Three times when I wake up, after four times before sleeping, makes for a very achy Xander.

Need to remember that one.

The hot water feels good. Almost too good. But the lye soap doesn’t work right with cold water, so I leave the temperature alone as I scrub myself as clean as I can get.

Too bad they don’t make soap for the soul. That’s something I could really use.

It takes longer than usual to get myself lathered and rinsed, mostly because I have to sneak up on my anus with the soapy cloth. It seems to know what’s coming, and God, that was a really bad pun.

Finally, though, it’s done. I’m done. Teeth brushed, hair still wet but pushed back out of my eyes… I grab a pair of sweatpants from the bedroom floor and head into the small kitchen area, and I’m so glad we moved out of the hotel last month. It must have been costing a fortune, but Spike never complained. He just said something about being tired of the maids bursting in whenever they felt like it.

I think it has more to do with the one time when I was in the bathroom and the young woman who showed up to clean found a ‘dead body’ in the bed and called the police. Jesus fuck, it took some fast talking to keep the EMS guys from checking Spike’s vitals, and that would have been fucking funny, but… whatever. Didn’t end up happening, so…

And yeah, Spike was right. The food is here.

I have no idea of how he manages to get them to deliver. They don’t do that. But I guess they do for Spike, and… wait. Never mind. That explains it right there.

So I give him the best smile I can and dig into the rare burger and side of mashed potatoes. Because mashed potatoes are so much healthier than fries, according to the undead nutritionist, which just shows how much he doesn’t know. All that butter, alone… not to mention the cream… or in the case of the diner, probably milk, but that’s not the point.

Kinda used to having burgers and stuff for breakfast, these days. Makes sense, what with ‘morning’ coming around two in the afternoon for us; sometimes later. Pancakes and waffles we usually stop for on the way home after we patrol. You know, unless we’re in too much of a hurry, so I guess ‘usually’ isn’t really the right word, but whatever.

It’s a good thing we do patrol, because the way Spike feeds me? I’d be like… two hundred pounds in a week without the exercise.

It’s not until I’ve eaten pretty much everything and I’m pushing the leftover potatoes around in the styrofoam container that I realize… Spike isn’t looking at me.

It’s a weird feeling. I’m used to the weight of his eyes on me whenever we’re in the same room. Hell, sometimes I think I feel him watching me when we’re sleeping, and how fucked up is it that not having a vampire staring at me is freaking me out?

But maybe he’s just realized what I am. Maybe he had some sort of epiphany while I was in the shower and now he wants to let me down easy.

Yeah… that’s probably it.

And fuck! I should be happy! This is what I wanted, right? For him not to become any more sullied by me… for him to stop wanting me so he’ll be safe. Right? Right?

It’s kinda scary that I didn’t even notice feeling less dark until knowing that I’m actually getting what I thought I wanted has the coldness rising again.

What the fuck? I… he’s… and I’ve gotten so… and now I can’t… I can’t…

“I can’t go back!”

I nearly shout it.

“I can’t go back!”

Make that I do shout it.

“I can’t, Spike, I just can’t, and I know you don’t want this now, don’t want me anymore, and I never should have let it start but I did and now I’m screwed because I started to feel again, you bastard, and it’s all your fault and I know I’m dirty and disgusting and evil, I know I’m not good enough, not clean enough, not anything like what you deserve, but I still want you and I want to be that good and I know I can’t and now you’re gonna go away and I thought I wanted that but I don’t and God, why didn’t you just let me die to begin with if you were just gonna turn around and walk away after you did those things to me and made me care and I don’t want to care, I don’t want to love you but you made it happen and what am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to live or die when I feel all these things I shouldn’t be feeling, and when I tried to save you, to keep you clean and you still are but God help me, I want to make you dirty now so you’ll stay!”

I’m shaking. I know I am. I… maybe it’s from lack of oxygen, because I don’t think I’ve ever said that many words on one breath; not even back in Sunnydale. Or maybe it’s because I’m fighting the urge to puke my burger right back into the container. I don’t know. I just… I don’t even know where all of that came from, all the words. Hell, I don’t know if they even made sense. And God, I can’t look at Spike to find out because I just told him I love him and I can’t stand to see him when he shrugs it off.

And he will shrug it off. He has to. There’s nothing good or pure or noble in me now, if there ever was, and the gang knew it as soon as I told them what happened, so why shouldn’t Spike know it too? He’s got all those dandy vampire senses and stuff, so maybe it took a while but he must smell the rotten stench of evil on me. I guess not even the lye soap could cover it up for long.

How ironic is it that when he found me, all I wanted to do was die… and now that he knows he should have let me, I don’t want to anymore?

Then again, I don’t want to live, either. I… need him. And he’s done with me.

It’s true what they say. We get what we deserve.

* * * * *

I don’t know when he got up. I don’t even know when I ended up on the kitchen floor.

Hell, I have no idea of how long I’ve been between his legs, his arms around me as he rocks me, mumbling something into my ear over and over.

I can’t process it. Any of it. I can’t understand why he’s still here.

He should be gone, should have just left—the way he should have done when he found me to begin with.

But he didn’t.

He isn’t.

And I almost want to hope.

But then I make out his words and I know… I can’t hope. Not now. Not like this.

Not when he’s only sticking around because he wants to see me break.

“Tell me,” he murmurs again, his hands rubbing up and down my spine to fool me, to make me think he cares. “Tell me, Xan. Tell me. Tell me ‘bout Waverly Fontaine an’ Shayna Bradley.”

The names alone make me shake, and bastard that Spike is, he pretends to soothe me.

I love him. I can admit it now. After all these weeks, these months… after all the time we’ve spent together, I… fuck! I love him, and… if seeing me, hearing me, feeling me shatter is what will make him happy, then fine. I’ll give him that.

I’ll give him that because it’s all I can do.

I’ll show him the ugliness that’s hiding inside me and when he leaves, I’ll… I don’t know. I guess I’ll live. Or die. It doesn’t matter which. Not anymore.

Tbc… in pt 2.
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(A/N: Many thanks to Josie (thanks so much, hon', even though I've been very remiss in my reading of YOUR fic of late. when I have the time to read, you will have much, MUCH lovely FB! *g*), nulinka, delmi, gact & Christine for the reviews. You guys who take the time to comment are why I (and others) keep writing, so... *HUGS*)