Backup, Chapter 13
Title: Backup: the Won’t Back Down sequel
Author: Mel (btvslover82)
Pairing: Spangel
Rating: NC-17 slash, some het elements but no more than PG-13
Summary: teen human AU sequel to WBD, the boys learn how to be men and face the world together. Um, some less pretty things are gonna happen here. I’m just sayin’.
Disclaimer: the characters belong to Joss and ME...alas, alack.
Feedback: please :)
Won’t Back Down and related ficlets are here
This fic was nom’d at the SunnyD Awards. Thanks to whoever did that!
Previously:
“You’re going back to rehab. I’m calling your dad in the morning, and he’s going to take you, right away.” His tone brooked no argument, and it was unspoken: this is how it was going to be, if Spike wanted him.
…
He slid under the covers fully dressed, turned out the light, and wrapped Spike up tight in his arms. Safe. Secure. With him.
Held on tight. Thirty-four days. It felt like a lifetime.
Later, Spike’s body started to twitch and fidget in his embrace. Shuddering. Angel thought maybe he was crying, but he was so quiet, it was impossible to tell.
He kissed him on the back of the neck and wrapped him tighter, just in case.
Chapter 13
Spike wrote letters.
It was the only thing he was allowed to do in here, really, aside from being shuffled from activity to activity-bored, hungry, tired, restless, not as tweaky as he had been the first time, of course, but no less cranky, some days.
They wanted him to give up booze.
Completely.
Forever.
Fucking wankers.
He missed Angel like a hole inside him. He wasn’t allowed to call him, he wasn’t allowed to get mail. He hadn’t even packed a bleedin’ picture of that ugly mug-didn’t have one to pack anyway, because that wasn’t the sort of thing that blokes did, was it? Moon over a photo when the prat was in bed beside him to wake up to every morning.
Except for a few very very bad weeks, where he hadn’t been. That only made this separation harder. Hadn’t even thought to grab a quick grope before his dad had whisked him away in uncomfortable silence.
Not that he was certain Liam would have let him fondle the goods anyway. Wasn’t even sure they were his to fondle anymore, all spooning aside.
So, Spike wrote letters. Not just to Angel, of course. He had a month’s worth of sins to atone for, and while they weren’t so voluminous as last time he was in rehab, this time the people counted. He didn’t know how they were received. That was the hard part. Because it wasn’t about you, getting reassured that you’d be let back into the fold. It was about them, hearing the words they needed to hear, getting closure, all that bollocks. And somehow that doubled back and helped you. He wasn’t clear on the math behind that, but he was assured it worked out.
He had no fucking cigarettes.
He wrote letters.
He wrote a short one to Oz, who he didn’t think would get all that worked up, as long as he wrote to Willow.
He wrote a long one to Willow that took six tries and a lot of smudgy ink, even though he knew she would forgive him on the spot, if she hadn’t already. It was hard to write regardless, because he felt like a git for worrying her. She was the best friend he’d ever had.
Faith’s was short. Said what he needed to say, to express some level of atonement for what he spottily recollected was truly atrocious behavior, that night. He figured she might never forgive him. Might make life difficult, if Liam stuck by him, but he’d deal.
Xander would probably forgive, but his was short too, because Spike was embarrassed. That was the other point of these things, he thought, secretly. Embarrass the piss out of you so that you knew if you fucked up again, you’d be right here all over again, ashamed and ink-stained. Fucking Sisyphus, with no nicotine.
His letter to his father was more frank than he liked to dwell on, because otherwise he’d think about how wide-open he’d left himself. You were supposed to make amends, but you were also supposed to be honest, and Spike wasn’t sure which one he’d done, because he wasn’t sure he could do both. He mailed it as soon as he’d lifted the pen, because otherwise he’d have ripped it to little pieces and burned them all to ash. He mailed it, rather than burned it, because he’d told Angel he was going to do this thing right.
He really, really wanted to stay sober, this time.
And of course, he wrote to Angel. He wrote a lot to Angel. All of his free time, spent alone in his room, writing to Angel.
He wrote honest things. Not just honest in the sense of not telling a lie. Honest, without the sins of omission. Every day, he mailed off words and thoughts that he’d have died before pushing past his lips. Really, really poncy things. But true things.
Poncy, true things like how very much Spike had missed him during that horrible month. How he’d felt like a hollow man, a walking skeleton of a pathetic human being. How terrified he was that stubborn pride had made him bugger up the best thing that had ever happened to him.
He wrote all of the reasons why he loved the git. He wrote about proud backs and strong souls and tender hearts. He wrote about the stupid little wrinkles Angel got between his caveman brows when he was confused or worried or contemplative, and the way Angel drove him round the bend with his bloody awful taste in music, and how weird it was that he couldn’t rest till he’d found a toothpick after his meal. He wrote about how much Angel underestimated himself-and how that had to stop. He wrote about his hands. Angel had really good hands. He wrote about parents and mistakes and breaking the mold.
He wrote about how no one had ever, ever, ever wanted to hug him when he had fucked everything so badly. Hold him, when it was the last thing he deserved. How that was the biggest reason of all. The biggest, best reason, that was still a little unfathomable to him.
In other words, he laid himself bare as a real twat. But when Spike fucked up, he fucked up spectacularly, and for once in his life, he’d like to make that run in reverse.
Especially since he didn’t know whether Angel intended on taking him back. They hadn’t spoken of it, and now…Spike wouldn’t know, until he had told all of his secrets. If Angel turned him away, he was going to have to move to Hong Kong after all, just to outrun his mortification.
But he never was a man of caution.
And while he was going for broke, and to make up a little for his utter self-emasculation, Spike wrote pages and pages and pages of hot smutty sex. Things they’d done that he’d liked. Things they’d done that he really wanted to do again. Things they hadn’t gotten around to yet, but that Spike was very very hopeful they someday might. Plain things, kinky things, rough things, soft things. Vivid, hot fantasies that overtook his brain in the quiet hours of the night, dug in and wouldn’t let go. It wasn’t enough just to wank off to them. He had to let Liam know that he was in Spike’s every thought, even and especially the dirty ones.
Spike knew his outgoing mail was screened by the staff before it was sent. Had to make sure he wasn’t sending out any naughty and illicit requests-no privacy to be had, here. But these were naughty requests of a whole different stripe. They got a fucking eyeful. He wondered what they thought of them. Not that he cared.
He wondered if Angel even read his letters. That, he did care about.
Ten weeks. It seemed like a bit of overkill now, proportionally, but when he checked himself in, all he wanted was to show how fucking sorry he was. He supposed it had been good for him.
Ten weeks. He vomited his guts out the night before it was his day to check out.
He wondered what Liam was going to say. If he was still there at all.
~*~*~*~
Spike had expected it to be his dad that would bust him out-legal minor, and all that-but he’d hoped that Angel would be standing next to him.
That didn’t pan out.
It was déjà vu all over again-sitting in uncomfortable silence with Thomas on the drive from the rehab center to Sunnydale, wondering what life would be like from here on out, while Thomas thought…well, whatever the bloody hell he thought about. Quarterly reports, probably.
It was just like the last time, last January. Except this time, there was Angel. Maybe.
Much as he loathed talking to Thomas about anything, Spike couldn’t wait three more seconds without knowing. “Don’t suppose Angel-”
“He’s at home.” Spike felt his dad looking at him, so he gave a small nod to the window.
Another long silence. Spike’s skin was crawling with impatience to know. “Don’t suppose you know if-”
“I don’t meddle in your personal affairs, Will.” The wry humor in the tone forced Spike to turn and look at the man, who truly looked amused by the whole situation. The bastard.
“Stupid of me, you’re right. Not like you to take an interest.” Pissed at himself for being pissed off, he turned back to the window.
“Come now, be fair. That’s not true.” There was too much politeness in the voice, even though there was censure. Spike was fed up with polite, proper Thomas.
He exploded, fist slamming into the armrest. “What am I to you?”
Thomas jumped and recoiled a bit, throwing him the wary glance of someone confronted with a wild, rabid animal. “What do you mean, what are-”
“I mean, why the bloody hell did you have children, if you really want nothing to do with me. Was it for show, or inheritance, or sodding…posterity? Because if that was it, you forgot you were creating a fucking human being, not just something you could…trot out at charity events and then power off until the next public-”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Your mother and I had you because we were very much in love and-”
“Oh, yes, I can see how very much in love you are. You, and mum, and your whole bloody cast of extras in between.”
His father shot him a sharp look. Talking about mum, or all of the other people crawling in and out of the nonexistent marital bed, wasn’t permitted. Ever. “Things have changed. But we were, then, and it was the happiest day of my life when you were-”
Spike scoffed. “Now see, that’s just horseshit. You were probably too busy in a meeting to even come down to the hospital-wouldn’t have been the last time you didn’t allow me to inconvenience you. Because I think that’s what I am to you, isn’t it, just one long bloody string of-”
“Enough!” his father shouted, and the sound was sharp in the small space, slicing through Spike’s near-hysteria and surprising him to silence. When Thomas slammed on the brakes and swerved to a stop in the suicide lane, Spike was shocked.
He thought, for a moment, that he was getting kicked out of the car. He was trying to formulate some kind of cool exit line to cover his hurt at the prospect when his dad turned in his seat.
“I’ve bollocksed it all up. Does it make you feel better to hear that?” It wasn’t sarcastic. Just…quiet, and regretful, and tired. Spike couldn’t look at him, so he studied the floorboard between his feet.
It did make him feel better, but he wasn’t going to admit that.
“I knew I’d made mistakes, the obvious ones, but I didn’t realize how thoroughly I’d fucked it until I got your letter. For you not to realize that you’ve always been one of the best things in my life-actually, for you to believe the exact opposite-I can’t believe how badly I’ve bollocksed up the whole thing. And I’m a coward, aren’t I, when it comes to dealing with things I don’t understand. And I really, really don’t understand how to make this right. But I want to.”
The silence was thick, and Spike could see from the corner of his eye that Thomas looking at him expectantly. But…he didn’t know how to respond to the blunt honesty and the slight tremble to his father’s voice. Thomas had never, never spoken to him that way before, and in a way…in a way, it was frightening. The only way Spike could think to deal with it was to dig at the exposed weakness, but he didn’t want to, for once.
So he just sat there, and hoped that eventually Thomas would put the car in gear, and take him home.
“I’m proud of you, you know.”
That made Spike frown and spare a glance at the man before averting his eyes again. His father’s face was too open. “You were doing so well, for a minute-no need to start lying now,” he said finally.
“Not a lie. For you to turn yourself over for more help so quickly after you’d slipped-I’m really proud of you.”
Spike’s frown deepened, but he didn’t look up from his feet. “Didn’t give myself over soon enough, did I?”
“Oh, I think you did.” A cool, dry hand rested for a moment on the top of his head, then squeezed the back of his neck before his father turned back to the steering wheel, fastened his seatbelt and pulled back into traffic.
The quiet confession had pulled the rug out from under everything Spike knew about his father. Sure, Spike knew his dad had behaved like a wanker, but he’d never expected to hear as much from the man himself. He felt…he didn’t know how he felt, other than utterly disoriented. It might take him a while to get this sorted.
Luckily, Thomas seemed content to let the rest of the ride home pass in silence. Spike didn’t know what he would have done if he’d pushed the matter. Probably turned mean.
His nerves were already raw, but the closer they got to Sunnydale, the sicker he felt. He needed a smoke, but he didn’t have any, of course.
When they pulled up at the mansion, Spike didn’t move. He just stared up at the big edifice from the passenger’s seat, as though it would give up its secrets.
Spike turned at the hand on his arm.
“I’m going to leave you boys to yourselves this weekend, since it’s Thursday already. But I’ll be home for the next, alright?”
Spike felt like he should say something nice, to make up for not responding to his dad earlier. “That’ll be good,” he offered. He didn’t really know if he meant it or not. But it made Thomas smile.
When he still didn’t get out of the car, his dad sighed. “Sitting here isn’t going to make it any easier, you know. Get on with it.”
Spike thought he might truly be sick on his way up the walk. But he refused to be pathetic. So he took a deep breath, and pushed through the front door.
~*~*~*~
I may be a tease, but lucky for you, the next part is written
Author: Mel (btvslover82)
Pairing: Spangel
Rating: NC-17 slash, some het elements but no more than PG-13
Summary: teen human AU sequel to WBD, the boys learn how to be men and face the world together. Um, some less pretty things are gonna happen here. I’m just sayin’.
Disclaimer: the characters belong to Joss and ME...alas, alack.
Feedback: please :)
Won’t Back Down and related ficlets are here
This fic was nom’d at the SunnyD Awards. Thanks to whoever did that!
Previously:
“You’re going back to rehab. I’m calling your dad in the morning, and he’s going to take you, right away.” His tone brooked no argument, and it was unspoken: this is how it was going to be, if Spike wanted him.
…
He slid under the covers fully dressed, turned out the light, and wrapped Spike up tight in his arms. Safe. Secure. With him.
Held on tight. Thirty-four days. It felt like a lifetime.
Later, Spike’s body started to twitch and fidget in his embrace. Shuddering. Angel thought maybe he was crying, but he was so quiet, it was impossible to tell.
He kissed him on the back of the neck and wrapped him tighter, just in case.
Chapter 13
Spike wrote letters.
It was the only thing he was allowed to do in here, really, aside from being shuffled from activity to activity-bored, hungry, tired, restless, not as tweaky as he had been the first time, of course, but no less cranky, some days.
They wanted him to give up booze.
Completely.
Forever.
Fucking wankers.
He missed Angel like a hole inside him. He wasn’t allowed to call him, he wasn’t allowed to get mail. He hadn’t even packed a bleedin’ picture of that ugly mug-didn’t have one to pack anyway, because that wasn’t the sort of thing that blokes did, was it? Moon over a photo when the prat was in bed beside him to wake up to every morning.
Except for a few very very bad weeks, where he hadn’t been. That only made this separation harder. Hadn’t even thought to grab a quick grope before his dad had whisked him away in uncomfortable silence.
Not that he was certain Liam would have let him fondle the goods anyway. Wasn’t even sure they were his to fondle anymore, all spooning aside.
So, Spike wrote letters. Not just to Angel, of course. He had a month’s worth of sins to atone for, and while they weren’t so voluminous as last time he was in rehab, this time the people counted. He didn’t know how they were received. That was the hard part. Because it wasn’t about you, getting reassured that you’d be let back into the fold. It was about them, hearing the words they needed to hear, getting closure, all that bollocks. And somehow that doubled back and helped you. He wasn’t clear on the math behind that, but he was assured it worked out.
He had no fucking cigarettes.
He wrote letters.
He wrote a short one to Oz, who he didn’t think would get all that worked up, as long as he wrote to Willow.
He wrote a long one to Willow that took six tries and a lot of smudgy ink, even though he knew she would forgive him on the spot, if she hadn’t already. It was hard to write regardless, because he felt like a git for worrying her. She was the best friend he’d ever had.
Faith’s was short. Said what he needed to say, to express some level of atonement for what he spottily recollected was truly atrocious behavior, that night. He figured she might never forgive him. Might make life difficult, if Liam stuck by him, but he’d deal.
Xander would probably forgive, but his was short too, because Spike was embarrassed. That was the other point of these things, he thought, secretly. Embarrass the piss out of you so that you knew if you fucked up again, you’d be right here all over again, ashamed and ink-stained. Fucking Sisyphus, with no nicotine.
His letter to his father was more frank than he liked to dwell on, because otherwise he’d think about how wide-open he’d left himself. You were supposed to make amends, but you were also supposed to be honest, and Spike wasn’t sure which one he’d done, because he wasn’t sure he could do both. He mailed it as soon as he’d lifted the pen, because otherwise he’d have ripped it to little pieces and burned them all to ash. He mailed it, rather than burned it, because he’d told Angel he was going to do this thing right.
He really, really wanted to stay sober, this time.
And of course, he wrote to Angel. He wrote a lot to Angel. All of his free time, spent alone in his room, writing to Angel.
He wrote honest things. Not just honest in the sense of not telling a lie. Honest, without the sins of omission. Every day, he mailed off words and thoughts that he’d have died before pushing past his lips. Really, really poncy things. But true things.
Poncy, true things like how very much Spike had missed him during that horrible month. How he’d felt like a hollow man, a walking skeleton of a pathetic human being. How terrified he was that stubborn pride had made him bugger up the best thing that had ever happened to him.
He wrote all of the reasons why he loved the git. He wrote about proud backs and strong souls and tender hearts. He wrote about the stupid little wrinkles Angel got between his caveman brows when he was confused or worried or contemplative, and the way Angel drove him round the bend with his bloody awful taste in music, and how weird it was that he couldn’t rest till he’d found a toothpick after his meal. He wrote about how much Angel underestimated himself-and how that had to stop. He wrote about his hands. Angel had really good hands. He wrote about parents and mistakes and breaking the mold.
He wrote about how no one had ever, ever, ever wanted to hug him when he had fucked everything so badly. Hold him, when it was the last thing he deserved. How that was the biggest reason of all. The biggest, best reason, that was still a little unfathomable to him.
In other words, he laid himself bare as a real twat. But when Spike fucked up, he fucked up spectacularly, and for once in his life, he’d like to make that run in reverse.
Especially since he didn’t know whether Angel intended on taking him back. They hadn’t spoken of it, and now…Spike wouldn’t know, until he had told all of his secrets. If Angel turned him away, he was going to have to move to Hong Kong after all, just to outrun his mortification.
But he never was a man of caution.
And while he was going for broke, and to make up a little for his utter self-emasculation, Spike wrote pages and pages and pages of hot smutty sex. Things they’d done that he’d liked. Things they’d done that he really wanted to do again. Things they hadn’t gotten around to yet, but that Spike was very very hopeful they someday might. Plain things, kinky things, rough things, soft things. Vivid, hot fantasies that overtook his brain in the quiet hours of the night, dug in and wouldn’t let go. It wasn’t enough just to wank off to them. He had to let Liam know that he was in Spike’s every thought, even and especially the dirty ones.
Spike knew his outgoing mail was screened by the staff before it was sent. Had to make sure he wasn’t sending out any naughty and illicit requests-no privacy to be had, here. But these were naughty requests of a whole different stripe. They got a fucking eyeful. He wondered what they thought of them. Not that he cared.
He wondered if Angel even read his letters. That, he did care about.
Ten weeks. It seemed like a bit of overkill now, proportionally, but when he checked himself in, all he wanted was to show how fucking sorry he was. He supposed it had been good for him.
Ten weeks. He vomited his guts out the night before it was his day to check out.
He wondered what Liam was going to say. If he was still there at all.
~*~*~*~
Spike had expected it to be his dad that would bust him out-legal minor, and all that-but he’d hoped that Angel would be standing next to him.
That didn’t pan out.
It was déjà vu all over again-sitting in uncomfortable silence with Thomas on the drive from the rehab center to Sunnydale, wondering what life would be like from here on out, while Thomas thought…well, whatever the bloody hell he thought about. Quarterly reports, probably.
It was just like the last time, last January. Except this time, there was Angel. Maybe.
Much as he loathed talking to Thomas about anything, Spike couldn’t wait three more seconds without knowing. “Don’t suppose Angel-”
“He’s at home.” Spike felt his dad looking at him, so he gave a small nod to the window.
Another long silence. Spike’s skin was crawling with impatience to know. “Don’t suppose you know if-”
“I don’t meddle in your personal affairs, Will.” The wry humor in the tone forced Spike to turn and look at the man, who truly looked amused by the whole situation. The bastard.
“Stupid of me, you’re right. Not like you to take an interest.” Pissed at himself for being pissed off, he turned back to the window.
“Come now, be fair. That’s not true.” There was too much politeness in the voice, even though there was censure. Spike was fed up with polite, proper Thomas.
He exploded, fist slamming into the armrest. “What am I to you?”
Thomas jumped and recoiled a bit, throwing him the wary glance of someone confronted with a wild, rabid animal. “What do you mean, what are-”
“I mean, why the bloody hell did you have children, if you really want nothing to do with me. Was it for show, or inheritance, or sodding…posterity? Because if that was it, you forgot you were creating a fucking human being, not just something you could…trot out at charity events and then power off until the next public-”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Your mother and I had you because we were very much in love and-”
“Oh, yes, I can see how very much in love you are. You, and mum, and your whole bloody cast of extras in between.”
His father shot him a sharp look. Talking about mum, or all of the other people crawling in and out of the nonexistent marital bed, wasn’t permitted. Ever. “Things have changed. But we were, then, and it was the happiest day of my life when you were-”
Spike scoffed. “Now see, that’s just horseshit. You were probably too busy in a meeting to even come down to the hospital-wouldn’t have been the last time you didn’t allow me to inconvenience you. Because I think that’s what I am to you, isn’t it, just one long bloody string of-”
“Enough!” his father shouted, and the sound was sharp in the small space, slicing through Spike’s near-hysteria and surprising him to silence. When Thomas slammed on the brakes and swerved to a stop in the suicide lane, Spike was shocked.
He thought, for a moment, that he was getting kicked out of the car. He was trying to formulate some kind of cool exit line to cover his hurt at the prospect when his dad turned in his seat.
“I’ve bollocksed it all up. Does it make you feel better to hear that?” It wasn’t sarcastic. Just…quiet, and regretful, and tired. Spike couldn’t look at him, so he studied the floorboard between his feet.
It did make him feel better, but he wasn’t going to admit that.
“I knew I’d made mistakes, the obvious ones, but I didn’t realize how thoroughly I’d fucked it until I got your letter. For you not to realize that you’ve always been one of the best things in my life-actually, for you to believe the exact opposite-I can’t believe how badly I’ve bollocksed up the whole thing. And I’m a coward, aren’t I, when it comes to dealing with things I don’t understand. And I really, really don’t understand how to make this right. But I want to.”
The silence was thick, and Spike could see from the corner of his eye that Thomas looking at him expectantly. But…he didn’t know how to respond to the blunt honesty and the slight tremble to his father’s voice. Thomas had never, never spoken to him that way before, and in a way…in a way, it was frightening. The only way Spike could think to deal with it was to dig at the exposed weakness, but he didn’t want to, for once.
So he just sat there, and hoped that eventually Thomas would put the car in gear, and take him home.
“I’m proud of you, you know.”
That made Spike frown and spare a glance at the man before averting his eyes again. His father’s face was too open. “You were doing so well, for a minute-no need to start lying now,” he said finally.
“Not a lie. For you to turn yourself over for more help so quickly after you’d slipped-I’m really proud of you.”
Spike’s frown deepened, but he didn’t look up from his feet. “Didn’t give myself over soon enough, did I?”
“Oh, I think you did.” A cool, dry hand rested for a moment on the top of his head, then squeezed the back of his neck before his father turned back to the steering wheel, fastened his seatbelt and pulled back into traffic.
The quiet confession had pulled the rug out from under everything Spike knew about his father. Sure, Spike knew his dad had behaved like a wanker, but he’d never expected to hear as much from the man himself. He felt…he didn’t know how he felt, other than utterly disoriented. It might take him a while to get this sorted.
Luckily, Thomas seemed content to let the rest of the ride home pass in silence. Spike didn’t know what he would have done if he’d pushed the matter. Probably turned mean.
His nerves were already raw, but the closer they got to Sunnydale, the sicker he felt. He needed a smoke, but he didn’t have any, of course.
When they pulled up at the mansion, Spike didn’t move. He just stared up at the big edifice from the passenger’s seat, as though it would give up its secrets.
Spike turned at the hand on his arm.
“I’m going to leave you boys to yourselves this weekend, since it’s Thursday already. But I’ll be home for the next, alright?”
Spike felt like he should say something nice, to make up for not responding to his dad earlier. “That’ll be good,” he offered. He didn’t really know if he meant it or not. But it made Thomas smile.
When he still didn’t get out of the car, his dad sighed. “Sitting here isn’t going to make it any easier, you know. Get on with it.”
Spike thought he might truly be sick on his way up the walk. But he refused to be pathetic. So he took a deep breath, and pushed through the front door.
~*~*~*~
I may be a tease, but lucky for you, the next part is written