Repeat Till Insane

Monday, 11:18pm

“Yeah, you wish.”

Spike glances again from the shifting crowds in the Bronze, to the waitress; manages to sneer half-heartedly at her, risking a brief flash of fang.

“Actually, wishing’s not my job, superfine. It’s yours. So, come on. Tell me what you wish.” The waitress is smiling again, that bright, too-knowing, somehow predatory smile. It reaches her round, brown eyes in a way most humans wouldn’t find amusing at all. Spike returns it fang for tooth.

“This is Sunnyhell, luv. Don’t do to say things like ‘I wish’ ‘less I’m prepared to deal with the consequences.”

“Hmm.” The waitress neither agrees nor disagrees. Despite her looks, Spike senses, knows, smells that this woman isn’t human.

But after the week he’s had, Spike feels more than ready to trade for whatever life is behind some probably-nonexistant door number two.

“I just wish - I could erase last few days and do 'em all over again,” he mumbles, peeling the label off his Stella. Spike suddenly knows he’s done a stupid thing, a wrong thing - and possibly not for the first time or even the fourth - when he finally places the hint of mean in her eyes and smile. But it’s too late; everything is soundless, red light.


Monday, 8:07pm

Spike crouches next to his bed, waiting for his first Childe to rise.

The pale skin already shines with an avid, sickly white glow; the influence of the demon can already be seen in a formerly sweet mouth, now more suited to sneers and cruel laughter.

Spike would wonder what the hell he’d done if it weren’t for the fact that he knows. He did this, he created this... thing. Killed then installed a demon in his Consort’s body. As far as Spike’s concerned, there’s really no hell-dimension deep enough to contain the guilt that weighs on the soul he doesn’t have.

In his hand is a stake. Well-crafted, perfectly balanced for his right hand. A gift from his Childe - no, from his Consort, one night or other, given with much stammering and blushing and babble. Spike had shown his thanks in the usual way.

Demons are capable of love. Spike had known love with Drusilla, even with Angelus, to a limited extent. Knew it even stronger that night, stroking the stake lovingly, long after he'd worn his Consort into unconsciousness.

If Spike wasn’t capable of love, he’d never have the strength to do what was necessary, what was... right.

When his Childe opens it’s dark, blankly adoring eyes, already searching for Sire, Spike smiles, kisses it gently, tasting none of his Consort in this... thing. Nothing of sweetness and humanity, only blood and death.

It’s an abomination. Like himself.

“Sire... Spike,” it sighs, nuzzling Spike’s neck impatiently, thirsty for Sire’s blood, for strength and security. Spike allows himself to be pulled on top of it, feels it’s erection pressing into his thigh.

“God.” Spike is trying not to sob. And failing miserably, if the questioning, disturbed sounds coming from his newly risen Childe are any judge. It's mewlings are repellant to Spike's ears, like fingernails down a chalkboard. It sounds nothing like his Consort, this thing. Which makes this so much easier -

Spike sits his trusting, amorous Childe up just enough to plunge the stake in it’s back, then collapses into the pile of dust that’s left behind.


Sunday, 8:35pm

“Pet.” Spike steps toward the hunched and somehow small figure tucked between the sink and the bathtub. If Spike’s heart wasn’t a lump of dead, withered flesh he would be in tears at the sight in front of him. As it is, he’s nauseous for the first time in over a century.

“Pet? Please, I -“ Is this creaking, cracking voice that of William, the Bloody? So low, so guilt-ridden, so filled with self loathing and - yes, fear? It can’t be, but somehow, it is. Spike reaches out a hand to touch, to comfort, to love. To reassure them both. But he thinks better and pulls away

The beloved and battered body tucks further into itself and into the wall, ashen under a normally bronzy complexion. Accusing eyes peer at him through wet, dark lashes and from even darker hollows. Sweaty, bedraggled hair lays half-hazardly in random clumps and tangles.

Bruised and bloodied; flat eyes staring, broken mouth delivering words Spike doesn’t want to hear.

“Ask me again.” The split, bloody lips work soundlessly for minutes after that horrible, whisper. An anemic pink tip of tongue darts out to reflexively to moisten quivering lips. “Ask me again, Spike, why I could never love you.”

Spike’s hand freezes where it was, a scant few inches away from smoothing back the hair, soothing the fevered brow. Those empty pools of nothing are thankfully shuttered by paper-thin lids and Spike lets the unsolicited hand drop to his leg. The air smells like semen and blood: sex and death, merged into one. In spite of himself, Spike is turned on.

“I - “ Spike tries to put some manly starch in his voice. “It’s not the first time I’ve taken you rough, luv. You’re just being a bloody priss about it. As-fucking-usual.”

The scent of sex-death is joined by another; that particular combination of salt and regret can only mean one thing.

Vampiric strength makes it easy to pry the trembling body away from the wall and into his arms; to cuddle and stroke and try his paltry best to reassure in gentle whispers.

Fresh tears and strange half-choked sounds burble out of his Consort. Spike realizes he’s kneeling them in a rapidly spreading pool of blood. His consort is suddenly laughing and sobbing. With each dry, hoarse, half-dead chuckle, the pool of blood spreads further.

“She’ll kill you, you know. You took so much blood and I’m losing more and more by the moment. When she finds out I’m dead, I think she’s gonna flay you. Congratulations, Master. You’ve killed us both.” The weak, dead chuckles are tapering off, now, as his Consort’s body cools and slows. Spike rocks them back and forth at a speed just shy of manic.

“Shh, pet. Consort or Childe, it’s all the same to me. You’re mine. And I keep what’s mine.”

Spike‘s fangs bite into his own lip until thick, still-warm blood is running down his chin. He leans down to kiss his Consort good-bye.


Sunday, 4:57pm

“Whaddaya want, Spike?” Xander opens the door, knowing who’s out there. Spike, of course, barges his way into the apartment, reeking of smokes and booze.

“Want you, pet. You know that. Plus, got something to tell you, don’t I?” He shrugs off the duster, putting his cigarette out on the fancy coffee table. Xander watches him with a mixture of disbelief, dismay and dislike; and something else, as well. It’s that ‘something else’ that’s the reason Spike’s come here.

The ‘something else’ has been driving him crazy since Angelus first offered the boy up like a gift basket four years ago.

“You fucked one of my best friends, like, five minutes after she got dumped at the altar, just to spite me. And lucky me, I got to see it happen over streaming video, along with all my friends. I think you’ve said everything that needs saying, oh, bleached one. So be a good little neutered vamp and fuck off, huh? I have stuff to do.”

Xander moves off toward the kitchen. Spike gets in his way, arms crossed. After a few half-hearted tries to get around him, Xander finally looks Spike in the eye and shoves him backwards. Hard. The vampire staggers, surprised, then with a growl, shoves Xander back. Keeps shoving until Xander's breath is knocked out of him by the livingroom wall.

“Said we have to talk. Love. You can shove me all you like. In fact, I love it when you do. But you want to remember I’ll shove you back just as hard,” Spike warns, resisting the urge to nuzzle his boy’s throat. For now.

“And I said ‘fuck off'. There’s nothing to talk about. How many ways can you misinterpret me punching you in the face?” Xander’s warm brown eyes are filled with rage and they shine so brightly Spike wonders if the tears will actually fall this time. They don’t. The air is awash with both their pheromones; they both know how they want this afternoon to end.

“Xander, listen to me -”

“No! God, Spike, just - get out. I don’t know why I didn’t have Willow do a disinvite spell, but note to self: call Willow as soon as the door hits Spike in the ass on the way out.” Xander tries to free himself from Spike’s grasp; after nearly a minute, Spike lets him go. For a moment Xander doesn’t know which way to go; he decides on the bathroom. Spike has an almost laughable fear of human bodily functions. He makes himself absent whenever Xander indicates the need for alone time with the potty.

Not so, this time.

“I love you, pet. I don’t love her. Don’t even like her, really. Not too fond of the repeated arse-kickings she’s seen fit to deliver over the years. But she was there. She was hurting. I was... you and I’d just had the big dust-up. It wasn’t about love, it was about two people finding comfort in each other.” Spike leans on the door frame, watching Xander pull random things out of the medicine cabinet, then put them back just as randomly. The pheromones are stronger, nearly overwhelming in such a small space.

Xander wants Spike so bad, he can barely distract himself. Spike knows this, feels it keenly, reciprocates it. “She knew she still loved Captain Cardboard and I knew I still loved you. I still love you. What happened was just - it happened.”

“With one of my best friends! If Willow and Tara had broken up, would you have slept with Willow, too?”

“Don’t think I’m her type, luv.” Spike smirks, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

“I mean - I know you’re evil, but how fucked up is that? I never got bent out of shape when you fucked random skanks you wouldn’t have even bothered to bite if you still had your bite, but you had to go after one of my friends when she was too fragile to tell you to go to hell?! I fuckin’ hate you!” Xander slams the medicine cabinet shut so hard the things inside rattle around and the mirror mounted on the cabinet door cracks.

“You love me. More than you can bear, that’s why you’re hurting so much.” Spike steps forward when Xander doesn’t reply, just leans on the sink, staring into the cracked mirror.

“I was a git to do what I did. See? An admission of guilt and regret from a vampire, luv. Mark this day, as it’ll never happen again.”

“I don’t want your apology, Spike, I want you gone.”

“Throw me out, then. Big strappin’ lad like you, fangless old vamp like me; shouldn’t be too hard to toss me out on my arse. Come on, then.” Spike holds his arms out invitingly. Xander finally looks at him like he’s insane.

“One phone call to the Slayer and you’ll be so much dust in the wind.” Xander's smile is the nastiest, least-human smile on a human Spike has ever seen. It fills his heart with pride.

Mine, he thinks, nearly salivating.

“Get the phone, then, shall I?” Spike replies, eyes roving over Xander as if he’s never seen his boy like this before. Neither of them moves until Spike is suddenly and instantly in Xander’s personal bubble, lips bare inches from a kiss that feels as inevitable as all the others.

“I want you. Darling. Love. Xander. I lost you because I wasn’t man enough to keep you, but I want you back, want to make you mine.” Spike whispers as humid, nervous breaths puff onto his lips. Then he closes the space between them, capturing that warm, human mouth with his own, cool one. He tastes chocolate, sugar and toothpaste. Xander-tastes. It’s like old times to slide his arms around the boy and squeeze him tight, one hand possessively clamped on that amazing arse, the other sliding under the worn t-shirt, up the muscled back. Spike is always at least half hard in Xander’s presence and he grinds his crotch into Xander’s impatiently.

“No, Spike.” Xander pulls out of the kiss and out of a very surprised Spike’s arms. The big, brown, doe-eyes are still filled with that ‘something else’ and something else besides that. Something Spike doesn’t like at all.

The boy takes a deep breath, no longer smelling of anger, just lust and sadness. “You’re not a man. You’re a thing; a soulless thing that’s incapable of real love or goodness. And I was stupid, I let myself forget what you are. But I remember, now. You don’t have a conscience, or feelings. You have a chip. So... you didn’t lose me, Spike. You never had me."

It’s old hat to swallow insults from his boy, and Spike does so instantly, instinctively, even though what passes for his heart is broken as surely as Cecily ever broke William’s.

“Every flat surface in this apartment and my crypt belies that, luv.” Spike plasters on his trademark leer; William was the one who'd known the appropriate face to wear for a suddenly broken heart, had taken that secret with him to his grave, so to speak.

Xander shake his head, pulling a resolve-face his witch would’ve been proud of. “It wasn’t love, Spike, just- loneliness and despair. I never loved you and never will. You never had me and you never will.

“You do, Xander. You love me. And I will have you.” Spike reinvades Xander’s personal space, grabbing the boy’s hips and pulling him close again. This game of insult-fight-fuck is a very well-trod path, an often-played game. One Spike has never hesitated to end the only way he knows how. He pushes his boy against the wall between the toilet and the window, re-mapping the sweetly familiar landscapes of mouth, face and neck.

“You.” Lick. ”Love.” Suck.” Me.” Grind. “Pet.” Kiss.

“Don’t, Spike - “ Xander’s trying to push him away again, but Spike’s having none of it, now.

“Do, Xan. You do. Get used to it.” Spike presses his erection against Xander’s, grinning at the resulting moan and body pushed flush into his own. “We’ve been through all this before, yeah? We shag, you feel guilty, we fall out, you storm off and I grovel to get you back. Repeat till insane. But it’s over, I’m done playing that game. I’m a Master Vampire, not some idiot fledgling in calf-love with a passing meal.”

Spike turns Xander to face the wall and starts dry-humping him. “Want you to suck me, pet. Wanna come in that warm, wet mouth of yours... Consort,” Spike breathes in his boy’s ear, just to feel the resulting shiver.

“Please, don’t, Spike - I’m breaking it off for good, this time. I can’t trust you and you can’t really love me.” Xander’s body is giving lie to his words, constantly shifting and squirming to get closer to Spike.

“I can, luv, I do, I swear - you feel so nice and bloody hot - I want you now, on your knees, against this wall - don’t care.” Spike doesn’t even make a pretense of fighting with Xander’s jeans, simply tears them down the back, then makes short work of the Tiny Toons boxers.

“Can’t...”

“You can trust me, I promise, I love you. I’ll take care of you, make you mine, and you won’t ever feel bad again. I’ll make you feel so good. Forever...” Spike is babbling, now, doesn’t care. He has his boy right where he wants him and everything is falling nicely into place.

“Gonna make you mine.” He nibbles on Xander’s ear while he opens his fly. Lets his cock brush fleetingly against Xander, who groans and pushes back into him.

“Spike.”

“Yes, lovely?” But Xander's just moaning now that Spike has worked his hand past the front of his ruined jeans. Spike wraps one cool hand around Xander’s erection, pushing his own slowly forward until the head barely breaches Xander’s opening. They both take a deep, steadying breath. “Think you can take me like this?”

A nervous swallow, but the pheromones are so thick Spike wonders that Xander isn’t choking on them. “We haven’t, um - in a long time. I d-don’t know if I can.”

“Just relax. Remember the last time... the burn and the friction... how hard you came? You felt so nice. I made you scream.” Long, slow strokes as he pushes forward into near-searing heat, trying not to thrust, not yet. “Gonna make you scream my name out when I Claim you, luv.”

“What?” Through gritted teeth as Xander makes himself relax, accept Spike. It hurts and burns and feels like every good thing he’s ever wanted and never been able to get.

“Gonna Claim you, make you mine for the whole world to know.” The thought of his Claim on Xander and the warm, slow-drowning feeling of sliding home after long weeks of celibacy is enough to make Spike slip into gameface with a relieved growl. He buries face in Xander’s neck, nipping and nuzzling, but Xander’s gone still.

“What?!”

“Wanna taste you... can I taste you? Got the chip disabled, luv. Was gonna mention it but we got side-tracked - been waiting so long for this.” Spike withdraws a little and pushes forward excruciatingly slowly, stroking and squeezing his boy. His suddenly wilting boy.

“You’re - the chip -“ Xander stutters, releasing fear and pheromones in equal quantity; his body tenses pleasantly around Spike.

“Yeah, yeah... like that, luv, just like that.”

“Wait, Spike - stop - the chip - how did - we can’t - oh, fuck, you’re chipless.”

“Damn right, luv. Bloody sexy, you are... gonna Claim you right now." Spike purrs. "Every vamp and demon in the world’ll know whose you are.”

“No, I don’t want -”

“Hush, pet. No more talking, now. Make you into a proper Consort, I will.” Spike pushes forward again. Xander’s flagging erection is making a valiant effort to stand at attention.

“Spike, please - “ and of course Spike has heard that a thousand times, always accompanied by thrusts back into his body and pleas for more, harder, faster. The fact that he doesn’t hear it this time is no deterrent. Spike barely notices. He's already in gameface, growling at the scent of blood and nuzzling his Consort’s neck. There's no stopping.

“Smell so good luv gonna taste so good let me taste been waiting for so long...” The rest is murmured against a rapidly throbbing pulse. Spike knows he’s losing control, knows it’s going to be brutal for his Consort, but that’s par for the course. No roses and romance in this act, no gentleness. This is about the demon at last Claiming it’s own.

“No, please don’t do this - I love you, Spike, please. Don’t -”

Then Spike's slamming repeatedly into that tight, bloody-freakin’-hot body. Into warmth and wet and life and precious blood, pulsing and fluttering around him. Soon, some of that blood drips freely from where their bodies are joined, but that’s only right, isn’t it? That their first union as Master and Consort begin with red and blood?

Xander’s tears are falling freely, now. He’s sobbing his soon-to-be Master’s name over and over against clammy tile. It’s music to the demon’s ears.

“Don’t cry, pet, I told you: I love you. Told you that when the day came, I’d prove it to you. Show you. And I am. The fucking chip is kaput and I can love you the way a Master Vampire is supposed to love his Consort. That’s what you are, and I don’t think you understand. You. Are. Mine. My own. My Consort. What we have is dark, it’s cruel, and it’s deepest damnation - but it’s ours. You belong to me.”

That first, hot sweet gush of red fills Spike until all he knows is the warmth that surrounds and invades him. He’s missed that feeling for two years; how it makes him feel stronger and weaker all at once. He can’t even hear bones creaking as his embrace tightens around his sobbing Consort.

Mine, mine.

In the end, Spike’s Consort tastes exactly as he’d imagined; like the heaven Spike will never see.


Monday, 11:17pm

Staring at his lack of reflection in a shiny surface at the Bronze, Spike knows that he lost; forever, this time. His chance to make everything right between them - if such a fabled thing had indeed ever existed - had been dashed and broken against the cool tiles of a bathroom wall. Was drowned out by cries he now recognized as pleas to stop hurting, stop forcing -

Stop.

If he could do the past few days over - erase the them - he’d do everything differently, do it better. Wouldn’t take up with Slutty no matter how many times Johnny Manmountain left her at the altar. Wouldn’t Claim his boy properly - wouldn’t disable the chip if this was the price he had to pay. That Xander had to pay. No, not if he could do it over again. He wished -

“Bring you another, honey?”

A waitress at his elbow is smiling at him, her brown eyes politely curious, but not really interested in his answer. She looks vaguely familiar and obviously wants to get at the empty bottle of Stella he’d been nursing till a few minutes ago.

“Yeah, sure, keep ‘em coming, er -” he glances at her nametag. “Hallie.” Spike moves his arm so she can take the bottle, watches her keenly. Wonders momentarily if he knew her in a past life, or some other pagan claptrap.

Hallie whisks the bottle away and smugly plonks down another. Spike almost smiles in surprise, but he’s really not surprised at all; not by anything that's happened, lately, and it shows in his blue eyes. The waitress smiles back, the professional glaze gone from her eyes as she looks Spike over appreciatively. Possessively.

“Waitin’ for someone, handsome? Me, perhaps?” His instinct and her too-knowing brown eyes say she’s mocking him, rather than trying to chat him up. Spike shivers, resolutely ignoring the deja vu that slithers its way up from the pit of his stomach.

He looks away from her, a little disturbed by the fact that she disturbs him so. He watches the shifting crowds with a bitter smile on his face.

“Yeah, you wish.”