Thick-Headed

NOTES: Donna did this to me. She asked me if there would be a Spike sequel. Injected a rabid plot bunny into my head and let it chew on my brain. But can Spike be angsty? Not in *my* world. Not like Angel, anyway. Reasonably short. And I *still* owe James Walkswithwind, hence Spike's 'somebody else'. Not that I have that pairing on the brain, or anything.

He doesn't get it. Bloody great moron never has, and he never will. Least not on his own, and damn if *I'm* gonna tell him. Not so long as I can wind him up over it, so I'm thinkin' another few centuries, at least. Then I'll have to start seriously looking for something new to pick at. Like the way his coat blows in the wind when he walks, like he's fuckin' Wyatt Earp. Ninety degrees in this town on a Monday night, not a breath of air movin' on the street, and here comes the Dark Avenger, stridin' down the pavement with those coattails flapping like angel wings. Where the hell is that wind coming from? I'd say bad Mexican food, but the bugger doesn't eat.

He's moved again, into a comfy little rathole in a truly stinking neighborhood; somebody blew up his old place. I wasn't that keen on the interior decorating myself, but I would've gone with arson, not high explosives. To each his own, I guess. Of course he's gone and filled the new flat with the same poncy shit. Why expect anything different? Rimbaud, Matisse, great honking sculpture of Perseus and the Medusa. Bloody red satin sheets so he can show off his "I'm a finely-sculpted marble god" body to best advantage. To who? Me? Please. As if I didn't know by now he's a huge, brainless, amazingly shaggable Irish potato... Who else is he expecting? His little blonde tart? (The one that isn't me, I mean. The one with the bad root job.) She's a bit busy at the moment, ridin' the soldier-boy into the ground.

Found him the easy way--let my fingers do the walkin'. Honestly. You'd think after two-hundred-odd years he'd have grown a cerebral cortex or something, and not let his little secretary chickadee fix him up with a *listed* phone. How many people in L.A. *officially* go by "Angel," no-last-name? Two, actually, but the other one was a transvestite down on Fourth Street, with five-o-clock shadow and damned impressive legs. So I picked the poof's sorry excuse for a deadbolt, let myself in, and started lookin' around for the good stuff. He has this unbelievable collection of Victorian porn. Not the trash they were selling down behind the chip shop when I was an impressionable young lad, but the real thing. The sort of tasty, extra-crispy stuff Oscar Wilde and his chums were tradin' round in their glory days. Got bored looking for it, though, and started watchin' out the window.

And there he was, coattails flying, weight of the bloody world on his shoulders. Hair only a mother could love, and that soddin' soul just sitting there, riding behind his eyes like a big black cloud of kick-me-when-I'm-down. Ponce. Guilty, soulful, basset hound of an excuse for a vamp. Mine. Wouldn't do to let him see me watching, though, so I shucked down to nothing, and crawled into his friggin' Lestat-show of a bed. Did my best to fake sleep. With him around? Ha. Not bloody likely.

He saw me the minute he walked in the door. He always does, and he's never surprised. One day I'll do something that really blows his tiny mind, like bring 'im roses and valentine candy. Anything for a laugh. But he needs predictability, and, for now, I give him what he needs. He gives me what I need. We never talk about it. What, honesty? Between the two of us? Why break a century-old tradition? But something. He always needs something, to tell him I need him. Make his little hero-gig complete. So I gave him words. Just a few. As if they mean more than me being here in the first place.

"Fucked up again." And I did, didn't I. Thought I'd throw in with the gigantic patchwork pillock, who said he'd get this piece of American-made cyber-trash out of my head if I helped him do over the Slayer. Always up for that. Only, see, in all the fun of messing with her friends' heads to get 'em separated from her, I forgot that just like the big old slab of meat next to me, when somebody loves her, they do it up right. The kids followed her down into that mad-scientist's wet dream, and almost didn't come out. And that wasn't the plan. Not for the boy, anyway. So now he hates me, not 'cos I almost got him killed, not 'cos I saved his human-puppy hide three times on the way back out of there, but because he thought I was playin' with his heart. Where the hell have I heard *that* before? So, fucked up again.

Let the fairy-queen crawl into bed with me. Pushed my face up against his Sherman tank of a chest and just... stayed there. Sometimes I need that. Need him. Need somebody bigger and stronger and *not* tryin' to kick my arse all over the ring, sure, but just need *him*, mostly. My Sire. To be his boy again. He knows, the great Saint Angelus, vampiric martyr, and he *lives* for it. As much as a dead bugger can live, anyway. He's big and strong and he can put his arms round me and make it all go away for a while, and he loves it.

He can't take that I'm so much like those warm-blooded cattle on the street below. That I kick against the pricks, that I could wipe the floor with him at Street Fighter even if he can tear bloody hell out of me in the real world. That I eat fast food and watch "Passions." It's all too human for him, and he doesn't think he deserves that. That's what it's all about, really. Doesn't think he deserves any of it. Can't ever be simple with him: eat because it tastes good, show up in his bed because I still love him. Can't wrap his stone-age mind around it all.

So, for now, I give him what he needs: to know that I need him, and not be allowed to crow about it. I leave in the morning, every so often, though I'd love to stay, make him breakfast, just to cram some toast and sausage down his throat and remind him that he's still whatever passes for alive in this twisted-up world. I leave in the night, most times, 'cos I can't face watching him watch me go.

Dunno when I realized he needs me to protect him. From himself, most of all. He thinks 'cos he's got shoulders the size of Galway that he can take it all on. Just pile on the guilt, and the honor, and the oh- God-what-have-I-done bollocks until he's kneeling on the ground, and then maybe it'll make up for everything he's done to the whole great wide world. Angel did everything. Angel sold out Christ for thirty pieces of silver, Angel fucked the Slayer and took Dru from me, Angel called the networks and got 'em to cancel 'My So-Called Life." He wallows in "sorry," but forgiveness? Scarpers off in the opposite direction with his coat over his head, if anybody ever tries to tell him he should bloody get over it. He's an infant the size of a rugby player, and he needs somebody to take care of, so he doesn't have to admit he needs somebody to take care of *him*.

And I need somebody to take care of me. It's bloody easy to admit, but it would make him too happy. Then the *really* twisted-up bugger might come back, and somehow I've found I *like* this version. Tortured dark soul and all. Because he loves me. For him, I don't tell him I love him back. To feed his need to be hated, I scratch and howl and have pissin'-at-the-moon contests with him when we meet in public. To feed his need to be loved, I snuggled up to him on a Monday night in May, and let him hold me. Went a little wild and begged him to take me like the daft child I was when we first met, begged with my hands, begged with my mouth, but never with my eyes. Because he could always read me, and it would shatter his little black-clad world if he knew how much I bloody care about him.

I gave him what I could, in the dark. It wasn't everything. He's not my soddin'everything, and it's the only way I can walk through the night without stopping to pound my head against every tombstone I come across. Look at Dru-- she let the bastard be her everything, and she's off chasing anything that'll beat and scratch at her enough to make her believe it's him. The other him. I've got somebody else. Found me a boy of my own, with worse dress-sense than Angel's, and come Tuesday morning, I knew I'd be off back to the 'dale, to see if I could pick up the pieces and fix it all. Found somebody *I* can take care of, who, when he isn't laughing at *my* limited wardrobe, or hating my undead guts, makes me feel like it might all be worthwhile, after all. If it makes me as poncy as my Sire, so be it. At least I don't keep Vidal Sassoon in business.

The sod thought I fell asleep, when we were done. He's always believed I can't hear him. When he tells me he's sorry. That he loves me. That he'd give anything not to have done what he's done. That he doesn't deserve me. Moron. Hell, it's the best time I have with him. Better than throwin' down in the street, better than takin' the piss on his hair or his clothes or his do-gooding human friends. Just him and me, feeling his words on my neck.

He's never understood that I still want him, even in the morning. That you're still allowed to love, when you're dead, and it's more sweet than sin, if you love more than one. Someday I'll tell him, when he's just brassed-off enough that it won't send him over the edge into Happydale. 'Til then, I get the dark and the sheets and him wrapped around me, and he gets to believe that I hate him. He's a thick-headed git, that way, but he's mine.


	The Adventures of Captain Peroxide and Deadboy The Angel/Spike Zone of the BtVS Writer's Guild Home Updates Stories Resources Extras News Music Forum Contact Guestbook Links Full Version Fiction by: Title Author Pairing Rating TITLE: Thick-Headed AUTHOR: The Mad Poetess ([email protected]) SEQUEL TO: "Dangerously Thin" PAIRING: A/S (S/X strongly implied. So sue me.) RATING: R-ish. Still more angst than smut, but less angst than its predecessor. SETTING: After "Restless" and "To Shanshu", before the new season (which started last night, yippee) SPOILERS: "Primeval" , general S4/S1 DISTRIBUTION: Sure. Take it, if you're crazy enough. MY ARCHIVE: http://members.tripod.com/forged/stakes.html FEEDBACK: Also sure. DISCLAIMER: Spike, Angel, et al are the property of Joss & Co. I am a mere mortal who needs to get her roots re-done. Badly. NOTES: Donna did this to me. She asked me if there would be a Spike sequel. Injected a rabid plot bunny into my head and let it chew on my brain. But can Spike be angsty? Not in my world. Not like Angel, anyway. Reasonably short. And I still owe James Walkswithwind, hence Spike's 'somebody else'. Not that I have that pairing on the brain, or anything. SUMMARY: Spike gives Angel the only thing Angel will allow him to give, and waits for the Irish Git to get a clue. *********************************************** He doesn't get it. Bloody great moron never has, and he never will. Least not on his own, and damn if I'm gonna tell him. Not so long as I can wind him up over it, so I'm thinkin' another few centuries, at least. Then I'll have to start seriously looking for something new to pick at. Like the way his coat blows in the wind when he walks, like he's fuckin' Wyatt Earp. Ninety degrees in this town on a Monday night, not a breath of air movin' on the street, and here comes the Dark Avenger, stridin' down the pavement with those coattails flapping like angel wings. Where the hell is that wind coming from? I'd say bad Mexican food, but the bugger doesn't eat. He's moved again, into a comfy little rathole in a truly stinking neighborhood; somebody blew up his old place. I wasn't that keen on the interior decorating myself, but I would've gone with arson, not high explosives. To each his own, I guess. Of course he's gone and filled the new flat with the same poncy shit. Why expect anything different? Rimbaud, Matisse, great honking sculpture of Perseus and the Medusa. Bloody red satin sheets so he can show off his "I'm a finely-sculpted marble god" body to best advantage. To who? Me? Please. As if I didn't know by now he's a huge, brainless, amazingly shaggable Irish potato... Who else is he expecting? His little blonde tart? (The one that isn't me, I mean. The one with the bad root job.) She's a bit busy at the moment, ridin' the soldier-boy into the ground. Found him the easy way--let my fingers do the walkin'. Honestly. You'd think after two-hundred-odd years he'd have grown a cerebral cortex or something, and not let his little secretary chickadee fix him up with a listed phone. How many people in L.A. officially go by "Angel," no-last-name? Two, actually, but the other one was a transvestite down on Fourth Street, with five-o-clock shadow and damned impressive legs. So I picked the poof's sorry excuse for a deadbolt, let myself in, and started lookin' around for the good stuff. He has this unbelievable collection of Victorian porn. Not the trash they were selling down behind the chip shop when I was an impressionable young lad, but the real thing. The sort of tasty, extra-crispy stuff Oscar Wilde and his chums were tradin' round in their glory days. Got bored looking for it, though, and started watchin' out the window. And there he was, coattails flying, weight of the bloody world on his shoulders. Hair only a mother could love, and that soddin' soul just sitting there, riding behind his eyes like a big black cloud of kick-me-when-I'm-down. Ponce. Guilty, soulful, basset hound of an excuse for a vamp. Mine. Wouldn't do to let him see me watching, though, so I shucked down to nothing, and crawled into his friggin' Lestat-show of a bed. Did my best to fake sleep. With him around? Ha. Not bloody likely. He saw me the minute he walked in the door. He always does, and he's never surprised. One day I'll do something that really blows his tiny mind, like bring 'im roses and valentine candy. Anything for a laugh. But he needs predictability, and, for now, I give him what he needs. He gives me what I need. We never talk about it. What, honesty? Between the two of us? Why break a century-old tradition? But something. He always needs something, to tell him I need him. Make his little hero-gig complete. So I gave him words. Just a few. As if they mean more than me being here in the first place. "Fucked up again." And I did, didn't I. Thought I'd throw in with the gigantic patchwork pillock, who said he'd get this piece of American-made cyber-trash out of my head if I helped him do over the Slayer. Always up for that. Only, see, in all the fun of messing with her friends' heads to get 'em separated from her, I forgot that just like the big old slab of meat next to me, when somebody loves her, they do it up right. The kids followed her down into that mad-scientist's wet dream, and almost didn't come out. And that wasn't the plan. Not for the boy, anyway. So now he hates me, not 'cos I almost got him killed, not 'cos I saved his human-puppy hide three times on the way back out of there, but because he thought I was playin' with his heart. Where the hell have I heard that before? So, fucked up again. Let the fairy-queen crawl into bed with me. Pushed my face up against his Sherman tank of a chest and just... stayed there. Sometimes I need that. Need him. Need somebody bigger and stronger and not tryin' to kick my arse all over the ring, sure, but just need him, mostly. My Sire. To be his boy again. He knows, the great Saint Angelus, vampiric martyr, and he lives for it. As much as a dead bugger can live, anyway. He's big and strong and he can put his arms round me and make it all go away for a while, and he loves it. He can't take that I'm so much like those warm-blooded cattle on the street below. That I kick against the pricks, that I could wipe the floor with him at Street Fighter even if he can tear bloody hell out of me in the real world. That I eat fast food and watch "Passions." It's all too human for him, and he doesn't think he deserves that. That's what it's all about, really. Doesn't think he deserves any of it. Can't ever be simple with him: eat because it tastes good, show up in his bed because I still love him. Can't wrap his stone-age mind around it all. So, for now, I give him what he needs: to know that I need him, and not be allowed to crow about it. I leave in the morning, every so often, though I'd love to stay, make him breakfast, just to cram some toast and sausage down his throat and remind him that he's still whatever passes for alive in this twisted-up world. I leave in the night, most times, 'cos I can't face watching him watch me go. Dunno when I realized he needs me to protect him. From himself, most of all. He thinks 'cos he's got shoulders the size of Galway that he can take it all on. Just pile on the guilt, and the honor, and the oh- God-what-have-I-done bollocks until he's kneeling on the ground, and then maybe it'll make up for everything he's done to the whole great wide world. Angel did everything. Angel sold out Christ for thirty pieces of silver, Angel fucked the Slayer and took Dru from me, Angel called the networks and got 'em to cancel 'My So-Called Life." He wallows in "sorry," but forgiveness? Scarpers off in the opposite direction with his coat over his head, if anybody ever tries to tell him he should bloody get over it. He's an infant the size of a rugby player, and he needs somebody to take care of, so he doesn't have to admit he needs somebody to take care of him. And I need somebody to take care of me. It's bloody easy to admit, but it would make him too happy. Then the really twisted-up bugger might come back, and somehow I've found I like this version. Tortured dark soul and all. Because he loves me. For him, I don't tell him I love him back. To feed his need to be hated, I scratch and howl and have pissin'-at-the-moon contests with him when we meet in public. To feed his need to be loved, I snuggled up to him on a Monday night in May, and let him hold me. Went a little wild and begged him to take me like the daft child I was when we first met, begged with my hands, begged with my mouth, but never with my eyes. Because he could always read me, and it would shatter his little black-clad world if he knew how much I bloody care about him. I gave him what I could, in the dark. It wasn't everything. He's not my soddin'everything, and it's the only way I can walk through the night without stopping to pound my head against every tombstone I come across. Look at Dru-- she let the bastard be her everything, and she's off chasing anything that'll beat and scratch at her enough to make her believe it's him. The other him. I've got somebody else. Found me a boy of my own, with worse dress-sense than Angel's, and come Tuesday morning, I knew I'd be off back to the 'dale, to see if I could pick up the pieces and fix it all. Found somebody I can take care of, who, when he isn't laughing at my limited wardrobe, or hating my undead guts, makes me feel like it might all be worthwhile, after all. If it makes me as poncy as my Sire, so be it. At least I don't keep Vidal Sassoon in business. The sod thought I fell asleep, when we were done. He's always believed I can't hear him. When he tells me he's sorry. That he loves me. That he'd give anything not to have done what he's done. That he doesn't deserve me. Moron. Hell, it's the best time I have with him. Better than throwin' down in the street, better than takin' the piss on his hair or his clothes or his do-gooding human friends. Just him and me, feeling his words on my neck. He's never understood that I still want him, even in the morning. That you're still allowed to love, when you're dead, and it's more sweet than sin, if you love more than one. Someday I'll tell him, when he's just brassed-off enough that it won't send him over the edge into Happydale. 'Til then, I get the dark and the sheets and him wrapped around me, and he gets to believe that I hate him. He's a thick-headed git, that way, but he's mine.