Damage control [closed]

[erratic_hematic]

After his strange encounter with a masked figure in the park, Spike limps back to his apartment with a fractured leg. He knows that Sunshine is going to be angry at him for getting himself hurt, and that she'll want to see him, but it's still too early to disturb her.

He sleeps, and wakes up a few hours later - too late to have caught Sunshine before she leaves for the bake shop. So he makes himself breakfast (ostrich blood is surprisingly good) then props his leg up on the coffee table and starts reading the first trashy romance novel within reach.

He does want to tell Sunshine about the masked man. It's been one of the most unusual things that's happened to him here since satan punched a hole through his chest. It hadn't been nearly as challenging a fight as he'd have liked it to be, but if whoever that was is out there wandering around, maybe there's something worse that he can dig up.

Once he's sure Sunshine is home, he limps up and knocks at her door. When she answers, he smiles and shifts his weight onto his sturdier leg. "Hey. You've gotta hear about what I ran into last night. Or who. I'm pretty sure it was a who. Can I come in?" Maybe if he gets her interested she won't get mad about the leg.

Comments

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine wouldn't say that she was worried when Spike didn't show up for work that day. It's out of the ordinary, sure, but he's been doing so much better since he got a new blood supply lined up that it's hard to imagine that there's anything wrong with him. It doesn't feel like there's anything wrong with him - at least not anything deadly dire. He's probably fine.

Still, it's a relief when he knocks on her door not too long after her arrival back home. She opens the door and leans against the frame, smiling up at him as he infers that he was out most of the night. See, that explains the absence at the shop. He's just keeping more vampire-y hours. But as he offers a vague but telling description of his little encounter, her smile falters.

"'Pretty sure it was a who'?" she repeats, raising an eyebrow and stepping back to let him in. Spike's long past technically needing an invitation - she even made a point of wiping away all the extra wards she'd put up on her door, leaving nothing but the large Lucifer-be-gone in the middle - but it's good of him to ask.

She's nudging him over the threshold with a hand on his back when she notices the limp. Her brow furrows in sudden concern, and she frowns up at him. "Are you okay?" Speaking of relationship-related technicalities, she's long past the point of needing a verbal confirmation on that point. All she'd have to do is touch his bare skin and see what her affinity had to say about it. But if he can ask for admittance, she can ask if he needs a tune-up.

[erratic_hematic]

(tw ableism)

"Well he looked human once I got the mask off, but the face was all..." He waves a hand in front of his own face. "-blank." He smiles back at her as he slouches back into her couch. He's a little nervous about what her reaction is going to be to his injury, but it's definitely a story worth telling. This is the first time since they encountered the vampire from her universe that he actually thought he could fight something in this city. "I don't mean like a blank slate. He just didn't make any expressions. He was weird." He raises his eyebrows at her. "And strong. If I expected that I wouldn'ta let him get my leg." Probably best not to explain the severity of the injury, right? She'll find that out for herself later.

"Shit fighter, though! I gave him plenty of openings, but he came at me like he's charging into fucking battle." He chuckles. "What a tit. Probably some mental case gone loose wandering around thinking he's a bloody rhinoceros or something."

[rae_of_sun]

So, there's a mask-wearing maybe-human shambling around Manhattan and attacking people with gusto, if not finesse. Yeesh. Sunshine folds her arms and scrunches up her face dubiously. "Gone loose from a hospital, or gone loose from one of the ransacked faction bases?" she asks with a pointed lift of her eyebrows. He could have been a rifty. Which means that however bad the guy was at fighting, Spike might be lucky that 'unexpectedly strong' was the only card he had to play. As opposed to 'unexpectedly capable of shooting lightning from his fingers' or 'unexpectedly good at manipulating gravity.' Or just your garden variety 'unexpectedly good at dispatching vampires,' which she can personally attest to as a Thing that Exists.

She drops her arms with a faint sigh. "How bad is your leg?" Bad enough, she'd guess. Given his naturally accelerated healing abilities, it's safe to say that if it was just a sprain, he wouldn't still be limping on it the next afternoon. Lifting a hand, she adds, "May I?"

[erratic_hematic]

He stretches out his hand automatically, but hesitates for a moment and pulls it back. Despite the allure of immediate healing, Spike doesn't like the idea of her expending so much energy on his behalf.

He looks away and lifts up his leg to rest it on her coffee table. It's strange to him that she doesn't seem angry. She hadn't even raised her voice. She'd just asked to heal him like it would cost her nothing, but it's not nothing. He wants her to know what she's getting into.

"It's a fracture." It had probably been a full break last night, but he's healed some since then. "It'll heal in a couple days. So if you don't wanna do..." He gestures vaguely with his hands, and wiggles his fingers to indicate magic. "the whole 'laying on of hands' thing. I'll live."

[rae_of_sun]

Well, she's not pleased. "You've been limping around on a fracture since last night?" she asks, not angry so much as indignant and confused. Why the hell would he put himself through that when he knows her and Aziraphale? Gods, it's like the blood issue all over again.

And, okay, she gets not wanting to ask for help. This is the woman who kept doggedly taping gauze over a chest wound that refused to heal instead of dealing with it properly. But that was after regular doctors had failed her. It's not like she'd eschewed assistance from day one.

She reaches out, not for his hand, but his shoulder. "Of course I want to heal you. I kind of like having you in one piece, Spike." She gives his shoulder a little rub with her thumb and offers him a faint, baffled smile. "Is there any particular reason you wanted to gimp around for half a week? Do you think it builds character or something?"

[erratic_hematic]

Ah, there's the tone he'd been waiting for. She is angry with him- he just had to be more specific to bring it out. He dips his head forward and looks down at his hands. When Sunshine puts her hand on his shoulder he lets his shoulders relax and he tips his head back up to look at her in time to catch her smile.

He shrugs to her question, shrugging her hand off in the process. It's not really about what he wants. He doesn't want to be injured any longer than he has to be injured. Despite knowing that she cares about him, it's still difficult for him to accept that she means what she says when she says things like of course I want to heal you. His instincts are telling him not to trust the sentiment, or that she'll eventually get tired of helping him if he keeps taking advantage of her care.

He holds out a hand to her palm up, and raises his eyebrows. "Go ahead, then, if you want."

[rae_of_sun]

Oh, for fuck's sake. Sunshine draws her hand back after he shrugs it off, exasperated and a little bit stung. Is it her he's worried about? She doesn't have the best track record when it comes to controlling her healing power around him, but a fracture is a hell of a lot less work-intensive than a gaping hole through the chest. And it's not like she's been expending her power anywhere else, lately. She hasn't needed to, because he's been completely fine for the first time since she met him. They're both in pretty peak condition, here - does he not get that? Hell, now that he's worked out his dietary issues, it might turn out to be the easiest job she's ever done.

Or maybe this is less about what he thinks she can handle, and more about what he thinks he deserves.

She looks down at his hand, lips pursed and eyes narrowed in contemplation. Then she nudges his arm aside, out of the way, so she can shift closer to him.

It doesn't have to be a laying on of hands. Any kind of contact should work.

"C'mere," she murmurs, sliding her fingers through his hair and pulling him in for a slow, languid kiss.

[erratic_hematic]

It's a strange sensation, being healed with a kiss. It puts him in the mind of fairy tales and princesses revived by the power of love. He smiles into the kiss, amused at the thought. If that's the case here, that makes him the princess. As long as she's still kissing him, he finds, he doesn't mind the healing or if he actually deserves her efforts.

A book materializes behind him and bounces down onto the couch cushion, but he doesn't pay any attention to it.

He twists his body to meet her and leans into the kiss while her magic works away on his leg. The pain in his leg peaks as the bones knit themselves back together and he lets out a sharp gasp against her mouth, then pulls away long enough to rest his forehead against hers. He slowly brings his leg down off of the coffee table, then brings his hand to her jaw and dips his mouth back to hers.

[rae_of_sun]

See, this isn't so bad. A little weird, if only because she's not used to feeling her affinity move through him by way of her mouth, but not bad. And okay, maybe she shouldn't be blurring the line between okay-with-healing and okay-with-making-out, but if he was that adamant about her keeping her power to herself, he'd say so. As it is, he just manifests a book - she hears it drop, and since it sounds like a paperback, she elects not to worry about it. If he starts summoning hardcovers, she'll dial it back.

"Sorry," she breathes after he pulls back with a pained gasp. Is it supposed to hurt? She could never tell with Con; none of the healing jobs she had to do on him were that drastic, and he was professionally inscrutable, besides. But it's clear she gave Spike a twinge, and she rubs slow, apologetic circles into the nape of his neck as he eases his leg back onto the floor. Maybe that was the worst of it. Her affinity seems to be winding back to wherever it comes from, and when he kisses her again, it's just that - a kiss, nothing more. And nothing less.

And she's fine. A little tired, maybe, but in a satisfying sort of way. No worse than she would be after a particularly intense lunch rush or a not-very-strenuous hike. She breaks away from the kiss long enough to swing her leg over his and settle comfortably in his lap, her arms winding around his neck. "You know," she says as she leans in to brush her lips against his jaw, "you could kiss my neck again, if you wanted." He's been avoiding it for weeks, and while she appreciates the care he's taken with her, she's also found herself missing it - missing not being treated like a skittish forest creature.