Spike/Wes Fic

secondverse declared today 'Cough it Up' day. And seeing as I have so much writing on my harddrive that's never likely to see the light of day I thought it'd be a good chance to share one bit I actually like.

It's Spike/Wes, set in a Post-NFA world where Wesley survived being stabbed.

It was inspired by a prompt flaming_muse gave me awhile ago, so this is dedicated to her. The word was 'drizzle.' I've actually written more then what's here and I hope it might actually turn into a larger fic, but I make no promises.

Wesley watched as the heat of his breath hit the cool air and condensed into tiny droplets. It made him and everyone else outside look like they were exhaling smoke. He’d never taken to cigarettes but it’d always amused him as a boy to grab anything remotely cylindrical and pretend. He drew a pen from his jacket pocket, held it to his lips, inhaled and then exhaled, watching the mist curl away. If he was garnering strange looks from passers by he didn’t much care. It was a ridiculous bit of whimsy, harkening back to a childhood he really had no desire to revisit. But, it gave him something to focus on instead of why he was back home, if you could call it that, in England.

The chill was seeping through his too thin jacket and settling into his bones. He could have gone back inside and fetched something warmer, or just gone back and stayed there, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to care. Malaise was a terrible thing, but something Wesley had become so accustomed to he wasn’t sure he remembered how to exist any other way. Inertia, apathy, ennui, torpor...his mind was a veritable thesaurus of words that could describe his current state. It amused him sometimes to attempt to think up more.

He looked up at the washed out, grey sky and wished it would just pour already. The clouds had been threatening all day, teasing with random drops here or there, yet never letting loose anything more. Perhaps if it finally poured and his clothes were to soak through he’d finally feel something other then this inexorable despondency. And, there it went, his internal thesaurus striking yet again. At least he was able to keep one part of himself sharp . . . for the time being anyway. Given what he was to face that evening he would have thought he should have been feeling something else – nervousness, dread, loathing – and perhaps he would, the closer the hour got. But, at that moment there was nothing but his internal reflection of the dismal weather.

Wesley wasn’t really a believer in the idea that the weather could determine your mood. If that were true he would have spent the first twenty odd years of his life utterly depressed. Granted the first twenty odd years of his life hadn’t been what he would have called happy. However, that had been for reasons that had nothing to do with the near constant overcast skies and rain that England was so famous for. Though he certainly believed that if one’s mood was already inclined in one direction the weather could certainly make it better or worse. As it was right then.

It was the one incarnation of England’s weather that Wesley cared for the least. The rain that wasn’t quite rain and needed a name of it’s own – drizzle. It made everything wet, soggy and miserable. At least when it was raining full stop you could throw on a raincoat, grab an umbrella and remain largely unscathed. But drizzle hung in the air and permeated everything, raincoat or not. The temperature that accompanied it was always just chilled enough that one seemed to be wearing either too much clothing or not quite enough. Too hot or too cold but never just right.

He was over thinking everything right then. He knew this. Who gave this much attention to their own breath, their mood and how much the rain and ambient temperature were affecting it? But thinking was about all he did these days. Thinking or trying not to, depending.

A pair of scuffed boots entered his field of vision, stepping up beside him.

“Fuck Wes, what the hell are you doing out here in this chill? Told you to wait for me inside.”

“You did at that.” He didn’t bother to look up at Spike, knew the disapproving and frustrated expression that would be there.

“Just once, you could try listening to me.”

“I did. I have. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are at that,” Spike echoed his earlier words with a sigh. “Still, doesn’t mean you couldn’t have thrown on a warmer coat.” He sat down beside Wesley on the hard stone steps that led up to the bed and breakfast they were staying in. He took one of Wesley’s hands in his own.

“You’re skin is frigid. And if I can feel it...God Wes...I just...”

He did look over at Spike then, seeing the concern in his crystal blue eyes. The colour of the sky on a clear day. How he longed for that right then. Something to break up the dreariness.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for upsetting me, yeah. Sorry for sitting out here and catching pneumonia, no. What am I going to do with you, love?”

It was an old argument and they’d both known the words even before Spike had returned. Neither answered what was meant to be rhetorical and he heard Spike let out another sigh. It sounded long-suffering. He wondered sometimes why . . . no – that was one direction he’d not allow his thoughts to turn. They sat there in marked silence. Wesley was not likely to be the one to suggest they move.

“Give us a kiss, love?” Spike broke the silence, as Wesley knew he would. His expression was unfathomable right then and Wesley didn’t bother to try and figure it out. Instead, he gave Spike a slight nod and they leaned toward each other until their lips met.

There might have been a time when Wesley would have cared that they were in public and that others could see. Not because he was shamed to be with Spike or to show others that he was. He simply had so many lingering and equally absurd notions about propriety. Notions he’d garnered growing up in this place. It made him want to kiss Spike harder, to prove that he’d moved beyond such things, but he kept it gentle and chaste.

Spike was the one to pull away first and he rested his forehead against Wesley’s. This close Wesley could see that he was breathing and that his breath wasn’t warm enough to bead against the cold air. It’d make vampires rather self-apparent, he thought. Just look for the man or woman not creating their own fog and you had your target. Perhaps he could put the method to use some day. It wasn’t likely, but one never knew.

“You’re thinking too much.” Spike pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Can almost hear those cogs in your head turning.”

It didn’t sound accusatory, simply a statement of fact. It was true enough so Wesley shrugged.

“And a man of so many words.” Spike pressed one last kiss to his forehead and stood up, offering his own hand to Wesley who he pulled up alongside him.

“Let’s get you into something warmer and then...well, then we’ll be off.”

Wesley allowed Spike to pull him back inside and mother him into a warmer sweater and a warmer coat while he muttered at Wesley’s complete lack of anything resembling self-preservation. It was easier then arguing that he didn’t need Spike to do these things for him, to treat him like a charge. If he was perfectly fine with risking catching a cold, then Spike should just let it be.

He was a grown man after all.

Though Wesley wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to hold that thought without laughing.

“Ready then, pet?”

To see his parents again after all this time? No, he wasn’t sure he ever would be. He would have, in fact, been quite happy to never lay eyes on them again. But that wasn’t the response of a grown man was it?

“As I’ll ever be,” he said instead.

“Fair enough.”

Spike gave his hand a squeeze and helped him down to the waiting car. It was only when the car shot off in the direction of the Wyndham-Pryce estate that dread finally began to penetrate the feeling of malaise.
-----

Feedback would be lovely, thank you. :)