All Over But The Shouting
Spike's used to that look of self-loathing in the person he's fucking; saw it on Buffy's face often enough, the year after she came back. On Wesley it takes on an edge of silent desperation, and that amuses and angers Spike, because it means Wes is still holding out for the cavalry to arrive.
"They're all gone," he says, when the human's rolled off him and he's searching through his coat for tobacco and papers. "Just you and me now." Broken record, he is, and he can't even remember if Wesley's too young to remember vinyl LPs.
Wesley pulls on his tattered jeans and shirt, grabs his gun, and stalks out without a word. Not much of a talker, during the act or after it. Surviving a slit throat twice before the age of forty'll do that to a person.
Spike doesn't shout after him to be careful. He's a big boy. He'll look after himself, or he won't.
Either way makes little difference.
He doesn't waste time on fretting over why they were the two to survive. They were luckier, that was all. Managed to fight until that was pointless, and then they were both still strong enough to run and keep running. Two days after that there was nowhere left to run to, so they hid. Went to ground in a fetid downtown tenement and started planning how to get food. Weapons. News of survivors.
The last still proves elusive.
Wesley's hardly the company he'd have chosen for himself, not that he imagines it makes a damn bit of difference what he wants. They're stuck with each other now, because with two they can keep watch in shifts and protect each other's back.
With two there's company, however cold.
Wes comes back before dawn, or what would be dawn if the sun ever came up any more. He tosses a package onto the floor, beside the mattress. Spike reaches for it, pokes through the meagre contents. Some food for Wesley, blood for him. Both are getting scarce. The vampires who had such a whale of a time six months ago are slaughtering one another in the streets for a few mouthfuls of secondhand blood. If they caught Wesley's scent, if the protective magic around the building failed, he'd be ripped to shreds.
He locks the door and kicks off shoes and jeans, letting them drop to the floor. The shirt's grey with vampire dust; he lets it fall, too.
"Makin' the place untidy," Spike remarks mildly. "Typical, you invite a fella back to your hovel·"
"Shut up," Wesley says as he kneels down on the makeshift bed.
Spike tilts his head, flicking his gaze between Wes's face and his cock. Already half at attention and they haven't so much as touched yet. Downright Freudian how blasting things with his big gun makes Wesley hot for it.
He pushes himself to his knees. Puts them face to face, but he doesn't bother trying to kiss him. Learned from experience that there're some things Wesley won't tolerate. Maybe kissing shatters the illusion that he's Fred or some similar sweet, sugary little girl. Wraps his hand around Wes's cock instead, pumping slowly as his mouth finds the jugular. He doesn't bite. Just catches the sensitive skin above the scar lightly between his teeth, and the slightest pressure makes Wesley hiss and arch into his hand.
Wesley doesn't touch him much. Keeps hands clenched by his side till he says, "stop". Spike rocks back on his knees, but doesn't lie down. He waits for Wesley to push him. If he's feeling bolshy or in the mood for rougher than usual recreation he resists until the man gets angry and shoves him down. It's playacting, either way. He may be hobbled by the soul and the ties to a human, but he's still a vampire. He could kill Wesley without putting himself to any trouble. Amused himself one whole afternoon by tallying the ways he could do it. Turning him's always an option, except he knows now what a twisted little fuck Wes can be as a common-or-garden human. As a vampire he'd be - well. He'd be Angelus.
Some days, that's reason enough to consider it.
Because half time when he's flat out or face down on this rancid mattress, listening to the cockroaches of the walls and the too-fast breathing of the man fucking him hard enough to draw blood, Spike's remembering the old days with something like nostalgia. Never knew he had it so good, back then, when there was Angelus and Dru and always plenty of people to eat without feeling like the guilt could crush him. The sun was off limits, but it was there.
Wes comes with a jolt and a shuddering gasp. Pulls out, and after a moment he crawls down the bed and brings Spike off with his mouth. An apology.
Afterwards Wesley cadges a cigarette and they sit side by side, making their respective meals last as long as they can. It's almost companionable.
"We have to move again," Wesley says. "I cleaned out a nest a street away, but I think a survivor followed me." His voice is scratchy. It makes him sound like he looks, about a decade older than he should.
Spike squeezes the last drop of blood from the bag, and he's still hungry, so hungry. "Right. Tonight, then. Sick of this place, anyway. Location's terrible."
Miracle of miracles, that nearly raises a smile.
Odd thought, but he suddenly realizes he doesn't call Wesley anything. He stopped calling him Percy the night he saw him gut a demon twice his size without changing expression, and words he used habitually for others don't fit. Hard to see Wesley as a pet or a love.
"Wesley," he says, just to try it for size. It feels odd and wrong-shaped in his mouth.
"What?"
He shrugs, waves it away. Nothing.
Wes looks at the empty blood bag. He stands up, crosses the room in a few quick strides. When he comes back he's holding a knife.
"Don't," Spike says, but he's already sliced it across his forearm, and if Spike had a heartbeat it'd be racing at the sight and the smell of that red line across the pale skin.
"You need it."
He turns his head away, snarling a denial.
This is the one power game between them that's serious ö deadly serious. And he always loses.
It's another day and night before they can move. The new hiding place, if anything, is worse than the last.
Wesley has lost too much blood recently. He's pale as a vampire himself, and Spike's soul won't stop fucking boohooing over how it, but the hunger's stronger. And he never drinks unless he's invited.
One day that hunger will be stronger than his strength to resist it. He tries over and over to warn Wes of this.
He has the terrible feeling that Wes knows already.
He's scared he might be counting on it.