Addictive Personalities

It had been a week. Spike had gone out countless times to feed on the general populace, but he never managed to kill his victims. Something always stopped him from finishing the job. He was under no misconception that the half drained humans would have lived once he left them outside, alone, and bleeding in a vamp infested town, but he hadn't killed them himself. Before dawn, he always slipped back into the hospital and sat with the Ksani boy, waiting for him to wake up. He hadn't fed since the day of the accident, not on the boy. It felt wrong, and Spike had never let that stop him before, but this was different.

He didn't know why.

Xander had begun to twitch in his sleep. His fingers would move, or his eyes beneath their lids. His lips would tremble and press together, but he didn't open his eyes.

//Bloody well looks like a baby wantin' a bottle, way his lips are workin'.// Spike paused and the grinned, "Oh, so that's it."

He locked the door and stripped, straddling the boy's chest until his cock was touching the trembling lips. They instantly latched on and began to suckle at the vampire. //Don't know why I didn't think of this before. the boy 'll gain imortality from drinkin' me down, why not conciousness?// "S'at what you've been waitin' for? Bloody cheek, makin' the happy meals all flustered because you couldn't have your treat. Naughty pet."

The lips nibbled and suckled and sucked and Spike found himself on the edge in no time. He pumped forward over and over, fucking the sleeping boy's mouth until he could feel the pressure building, starting at the base of his spine and sreading down to his toes and up to his mouth, wringing a choaked moan from him as he flooded the Ksani's throat with his essence. Finished, he pulled himself up to sit back on the boy's stomach and waited. It didn't take long. Xander's eyes fluttered a bit and opened tiredly, as if he was still half asleep. "Alright there?"

"'M I in Hell?" He wrasped.

Spike grinned broadly, "Nice compliment an' all but nah, pet, yer still alive." Spike leaned over to breath across the lips that had so recently brought him off. "An' you know what?"

He trembled at the low voice, "What?"

"Chip's gone, lovely."

Xander sat straight up, almost tossing Spike to the floor, and instantly fell backwith a whimper. "Oh God! Willow, Giles,Tara, Buffy. . . Spike you didn't. . ."

"Hm?" He teased, secretly rejoicing at having his pet back to bait like this.

"Are my friends still alive?" He whispered.

Spike climbed off of him and pulled his clothes on, the went to unlock the door. "They don' even know it's gone."

"Thank God."

"Oi! 'm the one who didn't kill 'em, should be thankin' me!"

Xander fought to breath normally, and wiped the tears out of his eyes. "I thought. . . you said you'd. . ."

"Glinda's a bit of alright, and the watcher's not boring at least. Thought I'd keep 'em round." He shrugged, "Kill one of you lot an I'd have to kill all o' you. Bloody waist of time."

The hopeful look in Xander's eyes must have been too much for Spike, because he turned away and began stalking about the room, "Spike. . . Thank you."

He half sighed, half growled, "Gotta give ya some kind of prezzie don't I. That white knight bit took knackers."

Xander didn't respond.

Spike hadn't really expected him to. "Gonna call the meals down, tell 'em yer up an' all." The moment he was in the hall, Spike felt his legs give out and slid soundlessly to sit against the wall. //He's alright. He's alive, he's still the same goofy welp, he c'n move, he's alright.// He could feel moisture on his face and quickly hid it in his hands, conceiling tears of releif that he hadn't expected to shed. //Whelp's messin' with my mind. Some kind of reaction, vamp to ksani? Never heard of somethin' like this afore. . . only known one pair though, an' they were shaggin happy together.//

He put the call through to Giles and went back to standing outside the door to the hospital room. His mind was still too jumbled to face the brat. He had to take a moment, clear his head, right himself.

"Spike!"

He motioned to the door and the humans practically tore it down to see for themselves that their boy was in one piece. Spike could hear Xander trying to reasure them between boughts of either Buffy or Willow alternately smacking him upside the head and hugging him so tight his ribs threatened to break. The vampire stood outside and refused to do anything but listen. He locked his jaw and stared at the wall in front of him.

"So, when did his. . . fluids. . . make the chip. . . s. . . stop?"

He almost jumped at Tara's soft, frightened voice and cursed himself for a fool. Of course Glinda would put two and two together. "Just the other week." Spike mumbled and pulled out his smokes. He didn't light it, just sucked on the end. Before all of this, Xander used to tease him about oral fixations. That brought a wicked grin to his face, who was orally fixated now?

"You haven't k. . . killed us."

"Nah. I'll get to it eventually."

"And Xander?"

Spike shrugged, "Ya know what he is."

"You don't know."

That got his attention.

Tara handed him an aged book with bright blue markers set in the pages. "It tells. . . about Ksani. You should probably. . . read it."

He glanced at her and skimmed through the book. "Thought there wasn't much written 'bought them after the watchers did the whole genocide bit on 'em."

She nodded. "Spike?"

"Hm?"

"Please. . . don't hurt him anymore."

"Or what pet." He snarrled, going into game face.

Tara shocked him by standing her ground, but her words almost floored him, "Or I. . . I'll have Willow beat you to dust with a s. . . shovel."
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"Visitors too much for ya, luv?" Spike grinned once the Scoobies had leftand Xander flopped back in the hospital bed.

"A little." He admitted.

"Sleep then, got things ta do m'self. . ."

"Don't go."

He froze, the Welp sounded terrified.

Xander blushed, "I. . . never mind."

Spike sat back down and took out the book Tara had handed him. "Go ta sleep."

Xander didn't say thank you, didn't say anything. He didn't want to push it, when Spike was acting so. . . nice. He did however, fall asleep very quickly.

When the half breed's breathing evened out, Spike turned his full attention to the book. The marked pages were the beginnings of the chapters about Ksani, so he didn't have to flip around at all. He went over the things he already knew, read about the addiction and the gifts the exchange bestowed on the pair. It wasn't until the last chapter that he came across something new.

'Ksani are pack animals with no pack, it is one way they are driven to find a partner. Unfortunately this also leaves them very open to possession. A Ksani can be possessed by any number of creatures, though usually animals and aggressive spirits are the most likely. If a Ksani has been possessed more than once, the results are extremely confusing for the demon. It will become clumsy and a bit flighty, prone to deep, but sporatic thought. The different entities never fully leave and integration into the Ksani's self takes time. Most notable though will be it's need to be near it's chosen. The Ksani will not act first, and may not even know when the chosen mate is near, however, it will try to become closer to the chosen through gifts and at times, through aggressive insults. Anything for the attention of it's intended. Because Ksani mate for life, once the chosen is found, if it regects the Ksani, the demon will do anything it can to keep the chosen close. In half breeds this gets more complicated because of human hang ups with gender and because for the most part, half breeds are unaware of their demon side and therefor do not tend to understand what their bodies are telling them. This is a delicate time for Ksani and if the emotional connection with the mate is unstable, it will result in depresstion, confusion, mental blackouts, trance like behavior, and finally either maddness or death.'

Spike stared at the book like it might bite him. "Oh bloody Hell."

He hated it when things he didn't want to acknowledge fell into place and started making sense.

The wheetabix and cigarrettes, the endless babble of insults, the tired look in Xander's eyes the day Spike'd found out what the boy was. The exhaustion, walking home in a daze. The fact that he was breaking much too fast for a human. //Not a bloody human is he.// Spike thought and turned to stare at the boy in the small, white hospital bed. He had deep rings under his eyes and he face was drawn and more gaunt than it had been even when Spike had first seen him. He should have been getting stronger through the exchange, but instead he was getting more and more fragile.

The vampire looked back at the pages he'd just read and something clicked in his head. The thing he'd missed before. //The boy choose me. Before I even suspected what he was, he'd already chosen me. By forcing something he would have given freely, I broke trust. Even though I started a bond, broken trust was a rejection. He's breaking too fast because he was already broken. The first bloody day he was broken. I just didn't know it.//

Spike threw the book at the wall and then stalked over to it to pick it up and threw it again for good measure.

He really hated when life got ironic on him.