FIC: The Sun Is Shinin' And I Wanna Go 2/?

[dollarformyname]

A/N: Thanks for the enthusiastic feedback! Also: for the purposes of this story, Buffy is not a TV show in the SPN 'verse. It would be pretty amusing, but unfortunately it's not where I'm going with this. Also2: I'm sorry I'm taking forever with everything. Somebody inject more hours in the day, please? Kthx.

Warning: Yeah, I guess I might need one of these for brief violence.

-:-

Ben has nothing to say to the vampire revelation.

Spike pauses for the blowout, but when the boy just keeps stuffing his face and looking at him like he's waiting to be dazzled, he moves on to the part about hailing from another world, exaggerating his glorious, heroic death and adventurous teleportation. The kid refuses to be impressed and it's right irritating, only a slight quirk of his brow to indicate his doubts as to Spike's death by dragon, like that's the most unbelievable thing about the whole sodding tale.

Spike's tapping his fingers against the wheel, huffing around his cigarette as he wraps it up, and then he's left in awkward silence only broken up by the crinkle of Sonic foil and the boy's obnoxious chewing for endless minutes.

Ben wads his fast food litter and tosses it on the floorboard, pats at his belly in satisfaction, looking as if all is right with the world now that greasy food a regular part of things again. “You don't have a cape, do you?”

“What?” Spike's indignant. Well, more indignant. “Do I look like a bloody poofter to you?”

Ben takes the time to look him up and down like it deserves serious consideration, shrugs. “M'not sure. What's a poofter?”

Spike opens his mouth, clacks it shut again. Probably not the best thing to be discussing with an eight-year-old. More important things to be getting on with, anyway. “Never mind, runt.”

He starts the car and pulls back onto the highway, grumbling to himself. Blasted kids and their kill-em-all movies and games and what-all. Generation's too sodding jaded for a scary bloke to get any actual scaring done. Not that he wants to scare the lad, really, but a small gasp would've been nice. Maybe a little quaking.

“Don't you have any sense of self-preservation?” he snaps several minutes later, slowing to take the next turn into a strip mall. “You're s'posed t'be screamin' and tryin' to claw my eyes out or summat.”

Ben shrugs again, mutters something about vampires being “lame and girly now 'cause of that one movie,” too distracted with watching the light jumble of cars and foot traffic as Spike finds a parking space. It's early yet, the morning sky leaden with bloated clouds and the air sticky with the promise of rain. Spike grumbles some more and shoves out, apparently having lost the little interest the kid had been affording him for share time.

When his brisk stride toward the Radio Shack isn't echoed by the pitter patter of annoying little feet, he stops and glances back.

Ben's still in the car, doesn't look too keen on emerging this century.

Oh, now he wants to be afraid. Bloody typical. Rolling his eyes heavenward, Spike stomps over and gestures impatiently for him to come on already.

“I look homeless,” is Ben's petulant excuse as he flaps a hand at his soiled clothes. “People're gonna think you're a terrible parent. What if someone calls social services on us?”

“I'll growl at 'em,” Spike drawls, cocking a brow. “Unlike you, most people know how to be terrified when a man grows a pair of fangs. Hop to, Peach, I don't have all bleeding day.”

Ben crosses his arms and presses himself as far into the seat as possible. “Yes, you do. You said you didn't have anything better to do.”

“Oh, bloody hell. Didn't anyone ever teach you to tune out the grown-ups when they're talking?”

“Nope.” He smirks, trying to enjoy getting on Spike's nerves but not quite accomplishing it, eyes ranging around anxiously at the people strolling in and out of stores.

“Look, Benny boy. M'not leavin' you here to get nabbed again, so you've got two choices. Come along with the big, bad vamp who'll protect you, or get conked over the head. Second option will make me cranky, by the by. Don't fancy carrying you around everywhere.”

Ben doesn't challenge Spike's ability to haul him around unconscious without arousing suspicion, and Spike would be grateful for that if it weren't for the boy breaking into a sweat and turning too green for his liking.

“What if they're all monsters? There were, like, a million people in my neighborhood,” he croaks, leg jittering. Ben's eyes get huge as he fumbles at his pocket, spilling the cell phone into his lap before clutching onto it for dear life, voice edging higher. “What if he won't come? I hafta help my mom, but I can't do it by myself!”

Spike sighs, annoyed that he can't stay annoyed, kneels onto the asphalt and waggles his fingers. Ben reluctantly hands over the phone. “Cheer up, bit. We'll take it as we go, yeah? He can't make it, we'll just hafta improvise. M'a brilliant strategist.” He grins brightly to sell the lie, looks around to make sure no one's paying him any special attention. “Got yourself a real, live superhero on the case already. Here.”

Digging through the floorboard miscellany, Spike comes up with the crowbar the car's previous owner had used to try and beat his head in for not giving up his wallet like a nice little victim (and probably to ascertain “ownership” of said car too, before Spike took it), holds it up for the lad's inspection, then proceeds to bend it into interesting shapes without the slightest hint of strain.

“Whoa,” Ben breathes, suitably amazed when Spike holds up the iron origami. It's a bird, or at least that's what he was going for. Smirking again now, Ben says, “You should totally get a cape.”

Spike scoffs, chunking the tool into the backseat. “M'not prancin' around in any capes. Let it go.” He dusts his pants off and straightens, regards the boy expectantly and not a little warily. “You gonna come along now, or do you need some more mollycoddling?”

Ben frowns hard, hops out of the car and slams the door, turns to glare up at his rescuer with his arms folded over his little chest. “You kinda suck at this, ya know.”

Spike shrugs. “Got you out of your cave, didn't I?”

Ben doesn't seem to have a response for that, and they head into the Radio Shack.

Still a little excitable, Ben latches onto Spike's hand and melds himself to his shadow, glancing around like a paranoid junkie on alert for five-o. It takes him a minute to realize just how hard he's clinging, and once he does he determinedly distances himself and glares at everyone that dares look in his general direction.

Spike is not endeared to the little brat's stubborn bravado in the least. It's not like he's keeping him, so there's no reason to find the bit more adorable. That way lies melancholy, and Spike's visited there often enough, thanks very much.

The sales clerk takes too much of an interest in the boy's tramp chic as they pretend to browse, eyeing Spike with marked disdain. When she starts muttering under her breath, Spike takes grand offense and tells her to get stuffed, he'll go shop someplace else, gives her a two-fingered salute for effect and ushers Ben back outside, new cell charger snug in his waistband.

A Target looms nearby, and they brave the early senior crowd. Spike pilfers a new kit for the boy, grabs a couple of things for himself as well. He can only go so long recycling two pairs of pants and three shirts anyway.

Things go awry as they pass a row of tables marked for clearance, women huddled all around and tittering, clogging up the aisle. Spike discovers just how frustrating it is to be short, as Ben is mostly unseen, elbowed and hip-checked and, on one occasion, nearly plowed right over with a shopping cart.

“Oi, twerp!” Spike doesn't hesitate to turn around and smack the pimple-faced sales clerk manning the high-speed basket upside the head. He's all glassy-eyed drone returning various items to their shelves until he realizes he's being assaulted, gets squeaky and apologetic in a hurry as Spike plucks an abused Ben from the floor and shelters him close. “That how you get your kicks? Traumatizing innocent children? Pull your head out of your arse!”

Ignoring the rest of the git's mortification as the guy keeps yammering on, he crouches down to make sure Ben's not bleeding profusely anywhere. “He clipped you a good one, didn't he?” he grumbles, seeing the nasty welt forming on the boy's side. “S'gonna bruise.”

Ben swats at him, frowning and red-faced and looking completely humiliated at the display, at which point Spike suddenly remembers he's a terrifying creature and not a mother hen, and straightens. Thinking fast, he offers to buy some candy, relieved that it's all so swiftly forgotten when Ben beams up at him.

Paying for as little as he can get away with so as not to look too criminal after his little outburst, Spike quickly scoots them back out to the car with a ruefully light wallet. He's going to need to come up with some more dosh soon.

“All right?” he asks once they're back on the road, and Ben nods. He's visibly more relaxed with the outside world blurring beyond their haven of glass and steel, a decidedly large bag of Skittles covering his lap as he crams handful after handful into his mouth.

Spike drives them further away from the city, and Ben takes his turn to share.

His maybe-dad's name is Dean Winchester, he's got a really cool car and a brother named Sam, who apparently descends from Andre the Giant because he's “seriously, like, a million feet tall.” Spike wonders if that's the only number the boy knows as he turns into a deserted rest stop off the highway. Ben's looking a little wilted, so he figures it's a good time to hit the showers and have a kip.

It's awkward at first, trying to avoid the grimy mirrors out of habit, before he rolls his eyes at himself and poses front and center, gesturing impatiently for Ben to get his fill of gawking and get it over with.

Again, the lad doesn't react the way a child hunted by monsters should, just grins and makes Spike lift him up so he can see himself floating in mid-air, remarks that it's kinda freaky but in a cool way, and goes on about his business.

The boy's tolerance is a bit unnatural, and when pressed, Ben simply says, “I thought the whole point of being honest was so I wouldn't spaz out.”

Brutal honesty hasn't always worked out for Spike's social life, though he never seems to be able to help himself, but in this case it certainly seems the best policy. Ben's a kid, not an idiot, and it's not like he doesn't possess a similarly afflicted of brain-to-mouth filter.

“Your hair is weird. Is that a vampire thing?”

They're back in the car, and the backseat really is the bed, at least for today. Ben's ensconced in half of the bedclothes Spike has accrued from various motels, shower-damp head poking out from his nest. Spike is stretched across the bench seat up front, reclining against the window with one arm slung behind his head, smoke billowing and dispersing along the roof.

“Your mouth is running. Is that a brat thing?” He absolutely does not pat surreptitiously at his wild curls. Hair product hasn't been the most pressing of his concerns of late, is all.

“Your face is a brat thing,” Ben gets out around a gaping yawn. He jerks at a particularly violent thunderclap.

The skies have finally opened up and let loose, water sluicing the windows and drumming rhythmically at the roof, and the crack and rumble of the storm is making the lad jumpy again. Spike keeps forgetting he's so young and terrified half out of his mind, but it's not like anyone can blame him given the kid's smart mouth and easy acceptance of the wrong things. Ben's tired, but he can't quite get himself relaxed enough to zonk out, hence keeping Spike awake with insults and inane babble.

Spike thinks better of stooping to 'your mom' jokes-it's a sensitive subject, and he has too much respect for the memory of his own mum to tolerate any backlash-and instead plucks the phone off the dash. It's been charging a while, comes on readily enough when he holds the button down.

Ben winds himself up that much tighter, sitting up stiffly and staring at the device in Spike's hand as if it's poised to bite him any moment.

“Might as well get it over with,” Spike suggests gently, offering the phone.

It's best all around if he knows what he's got to work with as soon as possible. If the bloke won't, or can't take Ben, that changes the game entirely. Ben's presence will be a tad more long-term, and that's going to require at least one case of the hard stuff and two or more days in which to panic.

Biting his lip, Ben takes a deep breath and nods. He stabs at the buttons hastily, like he'll lose the nerve if it doesn't happen within the next five seconds, smacks the thing against his ear as if to glue it there through sheer force, and his anxious, dark eyes never waver from Spike's as he listens to the ring.

Spike stabs out his cigarette and rolls up the barely cracked window to muffle the sound of rain.

It rings once, twice, a dozen times-or closer to a million, if you're Ben-before there's a static-laden click that could signal voice mail picking up, or-

“'Lo?”

The boy's eyes bug out of his skull, and he loses ten shades of color in a beat flat.

Spike gives an encouraging nod, coaches softly, “Just leave out the dad bit for now. Tell him what happened to your mum.” From what the lad told him, this Dean fellow ought to be suitably concerned for the lady, no need to drive him off his trolley from the get-go with the paternity revelation.

It occurs to him a second later to add, “And no need to get into who may or may not have a heartbeat. Don't fancy any righteous twits tryin' to shove unnecessary wood bits in me. That'll be our little secret, all right?”

Ben can't seem to make his big mouth work to acknowledge him one way or the other, teeth digging harshly into his bottom lip. Spike nudges his shoulder to snap him out of it.

“Hello?” the sleep-rough baritone prompts again, irritated. “Who the fuck is there?”

“D-Dean?” Ben squeaks, little fingers tight and bloodless around the phone.

The hostility's still present, but there's a cautious note to the drawl now. “Who's this?”

“It's me, um, it's Ben. Ben Braedon?”

Spike smirks his approval, and Ben breathes a little easier at the blatant worry pouring through the voice on the other end, even if there is a boatload of confusion to go with it. “Ben? What- is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. Everything pretty much sucks right now.” Ben visibly relaxes into whatever familiarity there is between them, slouches back into his pillows and fidgets with the blankets pooled around his waist. Spike would run off to the vending machine, or find something to occupy himself while granting the lad some privacy, except he's still too paranoid to leave him unsupervised. Besides that, he's nosy. He can admit it. “It's my mom. I don't know what to do.”

“Tell me what happened.” Dean gets right down to business, and Spike can picture some bulky, Angel-like fellow sitting up in bed, droopy brow tense with deciding his next heroic move, possibly reaching for something sharp and poky while he tugs on his tights and cape. Unlike Spike, Angel would have a cape, and it's too bad he can't introduce Ben to the ponce after gleefully sharing this fact.

Ben repeats the story he gave Spike, relief palpable when Dean stops him at certain points and presses for specific details. Dean clearly knows what he's dealing with, and even though Ben leaves out the more pertinent bits-like the reason these baddies seem to be after him in the first place-Dean doesn't hesitate for a second to list the proper defenses against what he insists are demons, at which point Spike is listening very closely and taking notes. Holy water isn't exactly his best friend, but he'll risk a little sizzle if it means the boy's safe, and salt is easy enough to come by.

Precautions given, Dean then demands to know where exactly Ben is.

“I'm not sure. Still in Indiana, I think.” Ben looks up, questioning.

“We're off I-65,” Spike provides. “'Bout a stone's throw from the Kentucky border.”

“Did you hear that?”

“Yeah, I got it.” Dean's tone is hostile again. “Who's with you, Ben?”

“He's helping me. There were these guys, er, I guess demons? They were trying to kidnap me, but Spike came and totally kicked their butts and he found a charger so I could call you 'cause I broke the phone and he has this car that goes like a million miles an hour, but it's not as cool as yours, and we got away and he said he'd take me to find you, so um... where are you?”

Spike snorts, wondering if Ben breathed through any of that. The butt-kicking part is a slight exaggeration, but it's not like Spike's going to dispute it. Doesn't sound as manly to admit he just ran away really fast.

“Why don't you let me talk to... Spike?” Dean suggests, audible disdain for the name.

“Okay, but.” Ben starts chewing his lip again, picking up on the uncertain animosity, and Spike nods when he looks askance. “Don't be a jerk to him. He's kind of obnoxious but he's pretty cool and, ya know, just remember my life is in his hands.” Ben tries for a reassuring smile as he hands off the phone, and Spike rolls his eyes.

“Way to win friends for me, Peach. Thanks ever so.”

Ben makes a disgusted face. “I told you not to call me that.”

Spike is of the mind that a man can never be too old to stick out his tongue and cross his eyes. Ben giggles and calls him a dork, the weight of his predicament slipping off his narrow little shoulders as he squirms back into his blanket-burrow and watches the vampire prepare himself for a lecture.

“Yeah,” he greets shortly. He can't help being slightly annoyed, his eavesdropping already giving him enough to go on to make him feel like a little kid on the waiting end of Daddy's wrath.

“You a hunter?” is Dean's immediate inquiry.

He gets the feeling the bloke's not talking about stalking Bambi through the woods. “Of a sort.”

The caginess seems expected, and Dean doesn't press. “I assume you've already got Ben surrounded in devil's traps and salt, then.” It's not a question, just a simple expectation, and the man sounds relieved to know this, even if Spike has no such thing in place. He makes a mental note to find out about these traps. “Tell me your side of it.”

Spike tells him, a quick rundown of the facts and no personal background information whatsoever, and when he's done, Dean can't be bothered to express anything other than impatience.

“I'll meet you in Oklahoma. There's a motel about twenty miles north of Fairfield, just off Route 59. I'm in Arizona, but I can be there in two days.”

He doesn't ask if Spike can be there in two days, an unspoken, 'I'll see you then and not a millisecond later, or else.'

He's a bossy prat, but Spike doesn't call him on it. He understands that people get unreasonably upset when it comes to little ones, his own bipolar behavior a perfect example. Decides to be grateful Dean is blissfully ignorant to his blood tie to the boy, as he's certain any scant reasoning abilities would fly right out the window.

“Right,” he agrees, plotting the course in his head. He can be there sooner, actually, with the way he drives, but he's not going to correct him, intimate experience with Murphy's law telling him to allow for unforeseen obstacles and possible demon roadblocks. “Two days, it is.”

There's a beat of silence, and then:

“Anything happens to that kid, I'll kill you.” Short and to the point, no need to get creative when the guy clearly means it and feels he has the means to accomplish it.

Spike glances over the seat, where Ben's tucked up in a bitty ball, snarky little mouth parted slightly and a dab of drool collecting in one corner. Another round of thunder tumbles across the night, and Ben twitches an inch or so closer to the seat, little hand flopping out toward Spike. He hesitates, but ultimately knows he's beaten and pats at it reassuringly. Ben settles.

Trust. It's been implicit from the moment Spike said he wanted to help, and it's bloody insane kid logic, but the boy seems to be judging him for what he does and not what he is. His subconscious resolve to not get too attached is in real trouble, he knows, but he hasn't been afforded that kind of respect in a long time.

There's that disconcerting squishy feeling in his chest again, and he finds himself saying, “Anything happens, I'll stand still for you.”

-:-

Spike doesn't need much sleep. He can easily run on a few hours a day, less if things are particularly riotous.

He wasn't planning on actually dozing much, figured he'd be keeping watch, sharpening his imaginary swords, and all that valiant bollocks-not thinking about the land from whence he came and if he has any chance in hell of ever returning, missed opportunities with a certain Slayer and what-have-you-but Ben woke up after about an hour thanks to a rather obnoxious swell in the storm, and he's bloody determined to wheedle his way under Spike's already shoddy defenses.

So Spike's decided he's right knackered and needs his beauty sleep. The fates of grandmothers and puppies depend on it.

Ben, however, is apparently unconcerned with old biddies and cute, furry creatures dying horribly. He keeps talking.

“Elvis, dude. I rest my case.”

“The Beatles,” Spike mumbles, eyes tightly shut even if he can't seem to resist talking back.

“I reopen my case.” Ben lapses into a moment of contemplative silence, yawns loudly.

Spike doesn't give him a chance to come back, shuts him down with, “Led Zeppelin.”

Ben groans, pained that one of his favorite bands are being used against him. “I don't care. America still wins. We freakin' invented rock and roll. What's more influential than that?”

“We took it and made it better, that's what.”

Spike doesn't know how an argument about classic rock versus punk rock evolved into which country had the most influence over rock music, but that seems to be happening a lot around Ben. The conversational roads are quite tangled with this twerp. Not to mention, he knows way too much about music for an eight-year-old. It's gotta be unhealthy.

“No way. Ramones, Misfits, all that crap you love so much. I mean, New York City's where punk rock got started.”

“Sex Pistols.”

“Suck,” Ben says with vehemence. “I'm willing to give you The Clash, though.”

Spike cracks an eye open, turns his head to see Ben curled up in the passenger's seat next to him, and just looks.

Ben cocks a brow, firm in his opinion, doesn't issue any retractions.

“You're dead to me.”

Ben throws his hands up and rolls his eyes at Spike's theatrics. “Oh, c'mon, seriously?”

“Dead,” he repeats, monotone, slashes his hand through the air and rolls onto his side with his back to the kid to emphasize Ben's untimely demise.

“You're such a drama queen.”

Spike ignores him, tries to get comfortable in his half-upright position with the steering wheel cramping his stretching range. The distended cloud cover has turned day to night, making visibility beyond his window pretty much nil, unless you count dark gray, more dark gray and buckets and buckets of water. He figures Ben would sleep better if they were on the move, but with the weather being a galling shade of uncooperative, he's not about to risk saving the runt from demons only to lose him through the windshield.

His lack of reflection on the rain-streaked glass gives him a clear view of Ben despite his attempts to pretend he doesn't exist, and the boy's mouth is all twisted up in frustration, dangerously close to pouting. He'd better not start crying, or Spike's really in for it.

Thunder cracks, Ben jumps, and Spike says, “I might be talked into a resurrection if you split it down the middle.”

Ben wobbles out a smirk. Spike mirrors it; can't help himself, bugger it all. “Well, I guess the whole British invasion didn't hurt anything.”

“Too bloody right.” Flipping back over, he tries for one of those stern, authoritative looks he's seen parents use on TV (or even the one Buffy tried that never really worked on Dawn). “S'bedtime now, Peach. Shut your gob and pass out already, would you? You look like the living dead, and m'not havin' your pop stake me for not looking after you properly.”

The fist curled against Ben's eye pretty much negates his mumbled, “M'not tired.”

Spike huffs, briefly considers pouring bourbon down the kid's throat, decides that would probably be more stake-worthy than letting him stay awake at all hours. “What's it gonna take?”

Ben shrugs, kicks at the dash. “This is kinda boring.”

Spike has to agree. It's not like it takes much to bore him, and this whole lot of nothing is really beginning to make his skin hum. Sleep is the best way to wile the hours until Noah's flood passes through, but again, he's stuck at the boy not cooperating.

He never had this much trouble with Dawn when he babysat, and she was a moody, grieving teenager at the time-the worst kind of kid, he's been told. On her really bad nights, she'd zombie-shamble downstairs while Spike was reading or staring blankly at the telly, just curl up at his hip and cry herself back to sleep.

Oh.

Bloody. Hell.

Another wary glance at Ben's persistent abuse of the dash with his socked little feet, boredom threatening take Spike's brain apart and piece it back together in some cockamamie manner, and he's got little choice.

He rearranges his neglected pillow and punches at it, propping it against the door before he swings his legs up and lightly kicks the boy to make room.

“Hey, watch it, buttface!” Ben slaps at the feet crowding him onto the floor, quickly realizes the futility of it as Spike just chuckles and keeps putting them back, then squirms around until he's laid parallel, back pressed up against Spike's legs and his face smushed into the seat. “M'telling my dad you have no respect for my personal boundaries,” he grumbles tiredly, even as he snuggles closer to black denim and shuts his eyes.

-:-

He has this dream sometimes-probably the closest thing he'll ever get to the absurd, fairy tale side of fantasizing-and in this dream a handsome devil with the most coveted coat in all the land does battle.

He fights fearlessly, tirelessly, and with a great noble purpose of some kind that no one really needs to examine too closely. Compact musculature is enhanced by the clinging of rain-soaked clothes as he brandishes swords and axes and other shiny, violent things (the ratio of hands to weapons is unimportant here), until he's overwhelmed by the rising tide of demons. It's understandable given the sheer numbers, but he's a former big bad in white knight's armor, and the brief glimpse of defeat enrages all his heroic sensibilities.

It's unacceptable.

This is where the inevitable comeback occurs, prematurely smug army hurled outward as he surges up with a defiant growl and proceeds to shred every last evildoer within range.

Angel, not to be forgotten, is moaning and groaning somewhere on the ground, Illyria has run off to conquer something or other, and so it's left to Spike to singlehandedly take out the remainder of the threat which, thanks to his renewed motivation, is easily done.

He lays waste to the alleyway and sets his sights on the dragon, leaps and bounds and then he's riding it, stabbing it, and oh hey, there's a certain blond being held captive in its claws, conveniently witnessing his brilliant slaying for once. It's no surprise that once he sends the dragon on a spiraling crash-course and whisks her free just in time to avoid the explosive landing, she expresses her undying love and insists on repaying him in sexual favors.

It's usually at this point, when Spike is lazily deciding whether or not Buffy deserves a second chance, and Angel is sheepishly admitting he's a stand-up guy after all, that he wakes up.

Admittedly, the dream's undergone a few alterations since his unpleasant little journey across worlds. Spike's painful, gallant death precedes a portal that sucks up the evildoers, and Buffy and Angel are grieving his mysterious disappearance for some unspecified amount of time-absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.

He's just gotten to the part where he rips his way back into the Hyperion's lobby, at which point aforementioned proposals and back-patting ensue, when he suddenly finds himself bolting upright.

“Never bleeding fails,” Spike grumbles, glancing around for any reason to be missing out on the most rewarding part of his rare dream.

Honestly, his slumber is usually riddled with more mundane situations, wherein someone actually acknowledges any one of his minor contributions for once, so he's not remotely thrilled at his rude awakening. Nothing jumps up and down to take the blame, though.

Ben is fast asleep and wrapped around Spike's legs like a miniature octopus, impeding his range of motion as he tries to twist around and get a decent look out each window. The rain has gone, a lightning storm left in its wake, and the rest stop is absent of any new visitors. It's worryingly quiet out there, actually, which might be why he's no longer in the blissful land of nod. He may be a scary, night-stalking thing, but the way the sky flickers soundlessly to bring every single, too-still blade of grass into bright relief is a bit unnerving.

“Right,” he decides, gently extricating his shins from Ben's grasp. “Time to go, then.”

Thankfully lacking a pair of heaving breasts, Spike will kindly pass up the role of Horror Victim Bimbo. He's not sticking around to wait for the ax murderer to pounce, not with the bit still so unprotected.

He quickly gets the engine roaring, tacking a grocery mart and church onto his short list of places to visit before they can officially get this road trip under way but, of course, before he can shift out of park, the driver's side window bursts inward and there are hands clawing at his face.

A fist in his hair and he's being hauled bodily outside, jagged glass shredding and stabbing into his flesh as he thrashes and curses wildly. “Arrrrgh! Gerroff, tosser! I'm gonna feed you your bloody teeth!”

“Spike!”

“Ben, get on the floo--umph!”

One of those hands smothers his nose and mouth, the concentrated scent of sulfur making him gag. Spike lobs an elbow back, rewarded with a sharp crack-and-give even as the smothering hand stays on his face like a starving leech.

Daft wanker. Not like he needs to breathe.

Purposely stuttering down like a dying engine, it's not long before the demon seems satisfied that he's well suffocated and eases off. He's rudely introduced to the pavement, landing on his hip at a bone-crunching angle. His temple connects harshly with the ground and sends spots of black across his vision.

The demon starts for the car.

Spike rolls and kicks out, scissors his legs to tangle them with its shins, and rolls again. There's a wet snap, the demon's knee torqued and cleanly dislocated in its spiraling descent, a cracking thud as the back of its skull crashes down.

Spike scrambles to his feet, a quick glance over his shoulder before he starts kicking at yet another demonic hobo to discourage it from getting back up. “What the bloody hell do you think you're doing? I told you to hide!”

Completing his shuffling exit from the car, Ben jogs up behind Spike and bashes the demon over the head with the warped crowbar. His face is white and twisted in a snarl, and the demon howls, curling in on itself to escape the dual assault as Ben winds up for another swing. It takes a few seconds for Spike to notice the welts on the filthy man's skin-burns from the strike of the crowbar. Iron is another of those repellents Dean mentioned, and he wonders if that's hindering its telekinetic defenses, or if maybe this git just doesn't have that ability at all.

Then Ben's kicking and snapping and smashing the demon's brains in like he's gone rabid, effectively diverting Spike's attention.

“Gimme that, whelp.” He snatches the weapon from the kid's grip, lifting him off the ground for a moment with Ben's determination to hang on and keep swinging, gives him a small shove to communicate his displeasure at being disobeyed. “Get back in the car and stay there, or I'll lock you in the boot for the rest of the trip. Go on, now.”

Ben doesn't go, just stands there trembling, little fists clenched tight, dark eyes locked on the monster before he skids a look over Spike's ripped shirt and raggedly gashed arms. Lightning strikes a pale, glaring line across his face, voice small and strained when he says, “You're bleeding.”

“M'fine, Peach,” Spike says, tone a degree softer. “Do as you're told. Don't need you watchin' this part.”

He hesitates a second longer, a lingering, questioning look at which Spike nods reassuringly, and then he climbs back into the Charger, slams the door to punctuate his upset. Spike will have a little chat with him soon enough.

For now, he refocuses on the demon, drops to his knees and angles himself so that his body's blocking the view from the car, and shoves the curved end of the crowbar beneath its chin. The demon grunts, its skin sizzling at the point of contact and its eyes rolling around, unfocused. Looks like Ben knocked a few screws loose, but Spike's not deterred.

“You're gonna tell me what you want with him.”

The demon manages a strangled laugh, blood-laden mucus spurting from its mouth and nose in sticky strings.

Spike pulls back to drive the crowbar through its shoulder. Howls shatter the creepy peace of the sodden, flashing night. He leaves the iron in place, smoke that reeks of burnt flesh and spent matches hissing up through the slow bubble of blood.

“Now, I can twist this round,” he gives a small demonstration, earning another scream, “nice and slow 'til you bleed to death. Can you bleed to death?” he wonders aloud, shrugs it off after a beat. “Well, I can twist it 'til you've gone round the bend, or I can take it out and be on my merry way. The decision's yours, and you've only got this once to make it. M'not askin' twice.”

He's not, and the demon would see this in his stony expression if it could get its spinning eyeballs under control, but he figures the flippant tone of his voice conveys his utter apathy toward the outcome. He can cheerily torment the wanker for putting that look on Ben's face, and he can easily leave it to drown in its own half-mad misery since he doesn't know of any way that will permanently dispose of it. There will be other demons to torture for information either way, he's almost certain of that unhappy fact.

“Dean Winchester!” it blurts when Spike takes its silence as an affirmative to go on with the twisting.

“Know as much. Lookin' for somethin' a bit more specific.” He keeps turning the iron, slow and steady, and the demon curses and spits and mewls, trying to wriggle away and only managing to exacerbate its own anguish.

“Fuck! Stop, I can't-gah!”

Spike interprets the volley of shrieks correctly and lets up. “If you're not talking, you're screamin'. Got it?”

It tries whimpering and talking at the same time just to keep Spike from getting twitchy, an incoherent string of babble that eventually levels out into speech. “The kid. S'posed to get the kid. Bring him in, call Daddy and let him listen to the screams. Tryin' to renege. No going back. Made a deal.”

The demon goes on repeating things in that same vein, not altogether helpful.

“What deal? Clear it up for me, twit. M'not in the mood for riddles tonight.” Spike reaffirms his grip on the crowbar to emphasize his rapidly dwindling patience.

“Wait! Just. I can. Fuck! Deal's come due and he ain't payin'! You can't just not pay! She don't let anybody out for nothin'! She's pissed, and I ain't goin' back there to tell her I failed, so you can go ahead and exorcise me! Rather go back to hell than deal with that crazy bitch!”

“Exorcism?” Spike squints critically, knows the demon's close to becoming useless with its busy eyes rolling into the back of its head. “That rubbish actually works? Wait, does that mean you're possessing some poor sod?!” His hand flies off the crowbar like it's been burned.

That just figures. He tries to do right by the boy and ends up tormenting an innocent not three yards from his curious little peepers. He doesn't have to turn around to know Ben's spying on him, can feel his eyes boring into his back.

“Bloody hell,” Spike mutters, a slow hand tugging through his hair as he tries to think.

It would've been nice if Dean had shared that little possession tidbit, though he supposes he can't blame him for not getting into it with Ben. He'd told him how to repel them in case he got boxed in, obviously not expecting the boy to willingly stay in the ring long enough to banish anything, much less inflict mortal damage. And Spike had lied, let the man think he knew all about it so he wouldn't worry about the lad being in inept hands, which gave him no reason to outline Demon 101.

Then there's this deal to consider. What kind of pillock goes around making deals with demons? It's bad business no matter what land you hail from. Spike's less and less assured that he's leading Ben closer to safety with his dad caught up in all this evil hullabaloo. Truth is, he has no real sense of the bloke, other than that he's plainly possessive, and Ben has a small case of hero worship going on. He's swiftly developing the same for Spike, though, former mass murderer, so that doesn't exactly help his credibility.

“Dead,” the demon rasps, losing steam, its head rolling loosely back and forth. “He's been dead a few hours. Just lemme go.”

That doesn't make Spike feel much better, but he's got no more use for the demon. “Don't have my Bible on me, sorry,” he grumbles, yanking the crowbar free.

It lets out another torn bellow, the tail end of which is choked off by a thick cloud hauling itself free of the broken body. The sulfuric stench gets stronger, slowly dissipates as the smoke shakes off the last of its flesh carcass and spirals off into the night.

Spike eyes the crowbar thoughtfully, can't figure out of the iron was keeping the demon pinned, or if maybe its brains had been too rattled to sort out that handy escape until just now. Something to file away for later testing.

As soon as he's safely behind the wheel again, Ben hovers in his personal space, grabby little paws carefully sweeping over the closing gashes on Spike's arms. “You shoulda just driven away,” he scolds shakily.

“Bit difficult to do from the ground.” Spike swats him off, starts the car again. He's a tad grumpy at losing surety in his course, too many serious thoughts bandying about, and he can't help the cold shoulder as Ben settles reluctantly back on his own side of the car. He pulls out into a severe lack of traffic, thanks to the late hour and location. “You should learn to listen. That demon could've snapped your little neck and then you'd really be out of sorts, wouldn't you?”

Ben scoffs, launches a spectacular pout and gets his new, favorite sport going: kicking at the dash. “They don't want me dead yet.”

“Oh, well that makes it all better, then.” Spike rolls his eyes.

“You're the one that coulda got killed!” Ben straightens and aims a fierce scowl at him, only its more adorable than it is intimidating. Spike's ruffled feathers are smoothing over without his permission. “They totally did snap your neck last time and what if they figure out how to make you die for real?”

Oh, hell. He's bringing out the quivering chin, eyes misting up, and Spike is bare centimeters from being completely done in.

“They don't even-” He sniffles, swipes angrily at his eyes. “They don't even hafta kill you. They could just get you! What if they get you?” He breaks off on a coarse whisper, throws himself back into his sulky slump.

Spike can't risk looking at him very long, eyes firmly on the road, but the harsh breathing tells him Ben's struggling to keep himself under control. That doesn't help him sort his doubts. Less than a day and he already appreciates the bit's company way too much, already has himself in too many knots over Ben's bitty, delicate feelings, and this...

This is how people get talked into adopting the filthy mongrel their kid sister found scrounging around in a dumpster, is what this is.

It's all, “Oh, it was so hungry and cute! I'm just gonna feed her and then we'll take her to the shelter, I totally swear.” And the next thing anyone knows there's a furry ball tucked up in a bloke's lap while he's trying to watch Passions and kid sis has got the camera and Buffy's declared the kitten the newest member of the family due to its innate ability to charm the big bad, and its future is suddenly in question because, ”What if she doesn't get picked and they put her down?” and the be-cuddled vampire finds himself doomed to suffer cat hair on his clothes for the next several months.

The whole thing is bad bloody news.

Spike sighs. “Cheer up, Peach. Already got a demon. Doesn't fancy visitors, and I'm not exactly fragile. Looks like I'm one of a kind round these parts, and m'not sharing my weaknesses anytime soon.”

“Pull over.”

“What?” He looks over sharply, Ben's hands balled into fists over his knees, breaths slow and measured as he stares at his lap to keep his face hidden from view.

“Pull over,” Ben grates, grudgingly tacks on a, “Please,” that sounds a bit too desperate.

Spike obliges, curiosity niggled with worry, and Ben's tumbling out into the dirt before the car's come to a full stop.

“Balls.” He scrambles out and around the car, a hurried knee-skate to the boy's side when he sees him hunched miserably on the ground, back shuddering as his insides hurl their way to freedom. Letting him eat his weight in sugar might have been a mistake, as most of what comes up is disgustingly colorful.

Spike pats awkwardly at his back for lack of anything more helpful. Ben heaves and wretches for what seems like ages before his arms finally give out, and Spike rescues him from a nap in the rank puddle, scoops him up and dumps him back into the passenger's seat. Ben looks up through hooded eyes that still manage to spark with irritation as he's being excessively swaddled in blankets, because the last thing Spike needs to deal with is a tiny sick person, even if he's fairly certain this is more of a case of stress overload.

Once more in the driver's seat, he asks, “Think that's the last of it, or should I wait a bit?”

Ben pointedly flops onto his side, face mashed up against the door, apparently content to punish him via the silent treatment, and that's all well and good.

Spike's got a lot more of that dreaded thinking to do, anyway, starting with his new reluctance to leave the lad in the care of a man on the wrong end of a demon deal.

-:-

A/N2: Spike and Ben's great music debate doesn't reflect my own tastes or opinions. I ran across a thread at random (don't remember where the hell I found it) and it inspired their little argument. :)

TBC...