gratuity:angst - installment 1 - PG15
Some things would just never be fair. He could give all he had, he could do all he was asked, he could lay down his life. And it wouldn't be enough. Things would never be more than this: insults and degradations in public, tempers released in private, fucks in the shadows. He hated it, wanted more, wanted to be needed, wanted, but he knew his place. He would take what he could get.
It might hurt, might be killing him, but he wouldn't let that show. He would hide his pain, take in Angel's, let it all flow through him. To do otherwise would be weakness, would make him out to be a pansy-arsed nancy, and he would never let that go.
Even if he thought he might burn from the inside, burst into flame from the thoughtless comments and the unprovoked attacks and the occasionally forced sex. It didn't matter what sort of hate leached from Angel into him, what kind of acid was spat at him.
He wasn't going to cry or argue or fight. He couldn't call Angel's attention to it, because that would ruin everything. Angel would push him out, chase him off, if he thought Spike was unhappy with their arrangement. If he knew Spike was feeling used and cheap. Because if Angel knew he made someone feel like that, he would get his bloody guilt on, and instead of making things better he would make them worse.
Angel would stop giving Spike the attention he did because he wouldn't be able to stand the realization that he was hurting someone, and that might break him more than what he was getting now. Because if he lost this contact, he might not be able to go on any longer. Because he needed people, longed for them, and Angel was the only one giving anything to him.
He might be bloody today, but he would pick himself up in just a minute and clean up. Then he would go down to the office and let Angel berate him, tear him down in front of their friends, and he would lap it up like the sick puppy he was, because it was all he could get.
And he needed it.