Ashes to Ashes, 19/30
May. 23rd, 2010 03:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sevendeadlyfunPairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. After Buffy dies, grief and a kind of madness take Spike and Xander places they aren't sure they can bear to go.
A/N: Written for prompt #7-nature vs. nurture-on my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
psych_30 table. This was definitely a hard one to illustrate while still keeping (somewhat) plot relevant. Hopefully I haven't strayed too far on either count. And thanks so much to everyone who has kept reading this story, despite my sadly slow updates.
Previous chapters can be found in reverse order in my tags or start from the beginning.
Spike kicks out a leg, shoving aside the crumpled bedclothes. After his tilt with Xander in the cemetery, he’s been restless. It’s almost dawn and he can feel the approaching sunrise as an itch under his skin. Even when he can’t see the light, he can feel it. Seems like that applies all around these days.
Staying on the shady side of good takes all his energy. He fights for the good guys, escorts teenage girls and clumsy carpenters home at night, and only steals what won’t be missed. Just that – these tiny, fumbling steps towards not so evil – exhaust him.
Sodding do-gooders! Spike scowls, reaches across the bed to fumble for a cigarette. He lies back, enjoying the sharp burn of that first ragged drag. Even without the low buzz of nicotine, smoking keeps him focused. The mechanics of smoking give him something to do, keep his hands and his mind occupied for a few minutes. He recalls his first cigarette, a thin, flat cheroot that felt awkward in his untried hands. The thick smoke from the smooth Turkish tobacco had warmed his cold lungs.
He snorts, remembering the thrill of breaking one more strand that tied him to the useless prat he’d been. William never smoked. Never drank. Never lived.
Spike stubs out the half-smoked cigarette. That’s the sensation he doesn’t know how to explain to them – the overwhelming rush and clamor of his demon. Maybe the Slayer understood, at least a bit. She had her own demons tugging at her. The Watcher, Spike knows, understood demons only too well.
But the others? Not a bloody nuance between them. Evil was evil and they do their self-righteous best to keep the morons of Sunnydale safe as houses.
And he helps them. Fulfilling a half-made promise to a girl who’d only tolerated him on the best of days. Because he wanted to show her –to show all of them, really – that he could be a kind of man.
He isn’t, though. Not any kind of a man. Spike isn’t sure if the kiddies thought he was reformed or just tamed. He isn’t either. He is what he’d been since the night he’d crawled from his grave.
He’s a monster in man’s clothing and underneath the veneer of good deeds, he always feels the desperate hunger of his demon. He feasts on remembered cruelties – the too few years at Angelus’ side, fighting and fucking; the pile of bodies he and Dru’d left in their wake; the humiliations of Sunnydale from both Buffy and Angelus.
When those memories aren’t enough to satisfy, there was always Xander. His very own Boy Blunder.
Spike closes his eyes, letting the arousal wash over him as he replays the sharp pain in Xander’s eyes, the hiss of indrawn breath when he pressed too firmly on the bruises blossoming across Xander’s chest and back. Spike strokes his cock lightly, his mind finally slowing and settling as he lets his desire take over.
Spike knows he won’t get Xander’s love, but he’s more than willing to settle for his pain.
Chapter 20
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. After Buffy dies, grief and a kind of madness take Spike and Xander places they aren't sure they can bear to go.
A/N: Written for prompt #7-nature vs. nurture-on my
psych_30 table. This was definitely a hard one to illustrate while still keeping (somewhat) plot relevant. Hopefully I haven't strayed too far on either count. And thanks so much to everyone who has kept reading this story, despite my sadly slow updates. Previous chapters can be found in reverse order in my tags or start from the beginning.
Spike kicks out a leg, shoving aside the crumpled bedclothes. After his tilt with Xander in the cemetery, he’s been restless. It’s almost dawn and he can feel the approaching sunrise as an itch under his skin. Even when he can’t see the light, he can feel it. Seems like that applies all around these days.
Staying on the shady side of good takes all his energy. He fights for the good guys, escorts teenage girls and clumsy carpenters home at night, and only steals what won’t be missed. Just that – these tiny, fumbling steps towards not so evil – exhaust him.
Sodding do-gooders! Spike scowls, reaches across the bed to fumble for a cigarette. He lies back, enjoying the sharp burn of that first ragged drag. Even without the low buzz of nicotine, smoking keeps him focused. The mechanics of smoking give him something to do, keep his hands and his mind occupied for a few minutes. He recalls his first cigarette, a thin, flat cheroot that felt awkward in his untried hands. The thick smoke from the smooth Turkish tobacco had warmed his cold lungs.
He snorts, remembering the thrill of breaking one more strand that tied him to the useless prat he’d been. William never smoked. Never drank. Never lived.
Spike stubs out the half-smoked cigarette. That’s the sensation he doesn’t know how to explain to them – the overwhelming rush and clamor of his demon. Maybe the Slayer understood, at least a bit. She had her own demons tugging at her. The Watcher, Spike knows, understood demons only too well.
But the others? Not a bloody nuance between them. Evil was evil and they do their self-righteous best to keep the morons of Sunnydale safe as houses.
And he helps them. Fulfilling a half-made promise to a girl who’d only tolerated him on the best of days. Because he wanted to show her –to show all of them, really – that he could be a kind of man.
He isn’t, though. Not any kind of a man. Spike isn’t sure if the kiddies thought he was reformed or just tamed. He isn’t either. He is what he’d been since the night he’d crawled from his grave.
He’s a monster in man’s clothing and underneath the veneer of good deeds, he always feels the desperate hunger of his demon. He feasts on remembered cruelties – the too few years at Angelus’ side, fighting and fucking; the pile of bodies he and Dru’d left in their wake; the humiliations of Sunnydale from both Buffy and Angelus.
When those memories aren’t enough to satisfy, there was always Xander. His very own Boy Blunder.
Spike closes his eyes, letting the arousal wash over him as he replays the sharp pain in Xander’s eyes, the hiss of indrawn breath when he pressed too firmly on the bruises blossoming across Xander’s chest and back. Spike strokes his cock lightly, his mind finally slowing and settling as he lets his desire take over.
Spike knows he won’t get Xander’s love, but he’s more than willing to settle for his pain.
Chapter 20