Promise - Angel/Xander/Spike - PG13
“Is he okay?”
Spike looked up from the cigarette twirling between his fingers, unlit. Bloody nurses would have his balls if he were to light up. He watched his Grandsire hurrying down the hospital hall towards him. The tendons of his neck were bulging a bit, his arms swinging, and he was moving in what Spike was tempted to label a worried lope, all of it making him think of a wild animal looking for its young before tearing apart the threat.
“He’ll live,” Spike murmured as the older vampire as he came to a halt.
“Good,” he sighed.
“But he’s not okay.”
“What happened? No one will tell me anything, Spike!”
“Angel…” He looked up into those dark eyes and felt his own watering. “It was horrible. This priest, he… He put out Xan’s eye.” He broke a little, voice hitching on the final word. Angel’s arms wrapped around him, leaning them both against the wall. “I froze up. I could have saved him, but…”
“Shh… He’s alive, he’ll make it.” Angel pressed a gentle kiss to Spike’s neck.
“I should have done more, done it sooner,” Spike whispered into the broad shoulder, ignoring the wetness on his face.
“Childe, you can’t blame yourself for this. It wasn’t your fault…” They stood in the hall, holding each other and pretending not to cry for some time before Angel spoke again. “Can I see him?”
“Yeah,” Spike said, wiping away the last of the water onto Angel’s shirt. Turning, the slender blond opened the hospital room and they stepped in. “Xan?”
The human was lying in the bed on his side, hiding the bandages. “Xander?” He didn’t answer, pretending to sleep. Angel stepped nearer to the bed, knowing he was faking and desperate to see how bad it all was. It couldn’t possibly be as bad as he was imagining. “Xander, please, can I-?” As his hand touched the exposed shoulder, Xander turned further over, burrowing into the blankets.
“Go away, Angel.”
The vampire blinked, surprised at how much that quiet demand stung. “But-”
“Just go away, okay?”
“Xan, he just wants to be sure you’re okay-”
“Go. Away. Both of you.”
“Xander…”
Talking into the pillows muffled his voice, but both vampires made out what was being said as he spoke again.
“I appreciate the sympathy or whatever and the attempt to comfort or reassure, but please. I don’t need any more lying in my life.”
“Lying?” Angel whispered, glancing at Spike. The blond shrugged slightly, concern furrowing his brow.
“Yes. Lying.”
“Xander, what would we lie about?”
A quiet, wrong-sounding laugh came from the bed then. “Everything.” The vampires stood silently, shocked. “I know I’m a liability, a hassle, just fodder or baggage or whatever. I know I’m not good enough. Not in anyway, so just go. Don’t lie to me right now because you think I need it. Spike could’ve gotten hurt covering me when I should have pulled my own weight out there, and neither of you needs a one-eyed tagalong to get in the way.”
Pain was ripping Spike’s heart to pieces. How could Xander believe…any of that? What had he done wrong? When had he put it into Xan’s mind that that was true?
Angel was experiencing a similar pain, knowing he hadn’t proven to Xander how much he was coming to care for him and regretting it.
Xander shivered when a large palm touched his back. “Xander, how could you think all that? Don’t you know how much you matter to Spike? …To me?” A soft cry came through the pillows. “Xander, Spike has been sitting outside your room for hours, and I came as soon as I heard. We… We would be devastated if you weren’t there for us. How can you not know that?”
Spike sat on the other side of the bed, his hand joining Angel’s. “Pet, I’m so sorry. How can I make it clearer to you? I’ve fallen for you, luv. Hard and soppishly. I’m not just gonna let you kick me out of your life, and I don’t think Angel wants to let you either.”
Carefully, Xander rolled back over and struggled to a sitting position. “But…”
“No ‘buts’, Xander,” Angel murmured, leaning forward to kiss him. “You’re not a liability or fodder or anything like that. You’ve grown into this life and handle it beautifully.”
“Xan, you barely made it out of there alive,” Spike added. “I should be afraid you won’t forgive me for not acting sooner, not the other way around.”
Xander stared at them with a single wounded, liquid brown eye. Both vampires knew that they would forever miss that eye’s companion, but the puppy eye might just be more effective than if it were still plural, simply because it made him look that bit more pathetic.
“My eye’s gone, though. I’m not… And it’s all…” Even as he trailed off, the older men knew what he was thinking. “How could you still want me like this? All…broken?”
The vampires hugged him then, whispering how wonderful he truly was.
“You’re so much more than an eye.”
“Wounds can heal.”
“Your soul is beautiful enough for the rest of you.”
“’Sides, scars can be dead sexy.”
“They hurt you because you were a threat.”
“He said you can see.”
“You saw us both.”
“Showed us so much.”
“Can’t imagine losing you anymore.”
“We’ll fix you, promise.”
“Promise.”