Chapter 6
“So…has Joyce ever mentioned if Buffy’s seeing anyone?” Spike stood in the doorway of the kitchen as Rupert fixed their dinner, trying to look casual as he folded his arms and awaited his uncle’s reply.
He might have been startled from the sound of his nephew’s voice had the boy not been standing there for almost five minutes before he worked up the nerve to say something.
Rupert smiled to himself and wiped his hands off on a towel before he turned to face him. He wanted to ask him about his hurtful comment earlier at the store, but Spike was trying to open up, via Buffy, and Rupert couldn’t find it in him to squander this rare opportunity to have a normal conversation.
“Why do you ask?”
Spike shrugged, walked a bit further into the kitchen, eyed the pot on the stove with a hint of approval in his pursed lips, and then said, “No reason. Just wondered.”
“Mmhm,” Rupert said, moving to the counter to finish mincing shallots. “You two seemed to be rather distant from one another before we closed up shop.”
To that, Spike’s mood darkened and he looked as if he might end the conversation. To Rupert’s surprise, he didn’t. He seemed to be pondering something very carefully, so Rupert remained silent, waiting for him to say what he needed.
“I’m not…scary, am I?”
Rupert barked a laugh then, unable to control it.
“Thanks a lot!” Spike scoffed in offense, but Rupert, still smiling, succeeded in keeping him in the kitchen for a bit longer.
“I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have laughed. I wasn’t expecting…never mind. I don’t think you’re scary, Spike. Not at all. Perhaps a bit abrasive because of all the metal and pointy things, but not scary.”
Spike didn’t seem so sure, his eyes darting to the ground as he leaned against the counter. Rupert couldn’t believe that he had stuck around this long, that he’d come to him. It hurt him to see the crestfallen expression on his nephew’s face. He felt a fool for laughing, but was grateful it hadn’t ended whatever progress they were making together.
“Spike, did Buffy say something about your appearance?”
“No…she just…I don’t know.” He picked up a tiny sliver of shallot and chewed on it. “She’s just different than girls back home. There, I’d only have to wink at a girl and she’d be up against me, all hot and bothered and begging for—sorry, too far,” he said, quickly remembering with whom he was speaking.
“Yes, quite,” Rupert said, laughing awkwardly. “Buffy is…” He sighed, then he laughed again, recalling a memory he didn’t think Spike was old enough to hear—especially since it had nothing to do with Buffy and everything to do with her mother.
“The Summers are on a completely different playing field than we are, Spike.”
“How do you mean?” Spike folded his arms, his head tilting to the side as he gave his uncle his undivided attention. If Rupert could capture it on film so that he could watch it again later, he still might not believe what he was seeing.
“Well, to be blunt, they’re bloody loaded.”
“Got that part sorted,” he said, smiling a bit. “But I’ve known rich birds like Buffy before. They’re all brassy and full of themselves and daddy issues. There’s just something…”
“Something different about her,” Rupert said softly, nodding with the knowledge of a man who could completely relate.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, dear.” If Spike wasn’t thoroughly enamored with Buffy, then Rupert had feathers growing out of his ass.
“What?”
Rupert took in a deep breath and tossed the minced shallots into the pot. “Run boy. Run while you can.”
Spike laughed with him, and it was a sentiment that gave Rupert some hope. This laughter hadn’t been fueled by an insult. It warmed him to see his nephew in this way, reminding him what potential lay just beneath the surface.
“I think she’s over me already.”
“Trust me, she’s not,” Rupert said with his eyebrows raised. “And you’d be wise to keep well enough alone unless you want your heart broken.”
“Because Joyce did that to you?”
Rupert’s hand stilled, right before he sliced into a tomato. “Where did you hear a thing like that?”
Spike seemed to be back to his old ways then, smiling pompously. There was something else there, too, something Rupert could not name. “Buffy told me Joyce was in love with you.”
Rupert exhaled a tiny noise of surprise, turning his face away from his nephew when he started feeling rather emotional. “She said that?”
“Didn’t get all the details, but yeah. You two have a torrid love affair?” Spike waggled his eyebrows playfully and Rupert was suddenly, and without much warning for his audience, very pissed off.
“That will be quite enough!” His voice almost echoed in the tiny kitchen.
“Knew she was your skirt of the month,” Spike said coolly. His defenses went up from the volume of Rupert’s voice in mere seconds. This child was all too familiar with being a target in shouting matches. “So what’s the problem? Gave her a good shag while her husband was away or something? Gotta keep quiet so he doesn’t find out? And why does she work there anyway if she’s so wealthy?”
Rupert’s agitation quickly intensified and it showed when he cut the tomato heavy handed, squishing out the seeds and juice everywhere. “Spike, leave it alone,” he said in warning.
“And come to think of it,” Spike said, standing taller, amused that he was on the cusp of one hell of a secret, “how’d you afford opening your own shop? You said she was your partner, right? Was that 50/50 going in or did you pay for your half in sexual favors?”
“Spike!” Rupert slammed the knife down hard on the cutting board as he shouted at him, every muscle in his jaw pulsing around his clenched teeth. Spike, thankfully, fell silent.
“You wouldn’t know the first thing about my life, or Joyce’s. Do not make assumptions based on things you’re pulling out of thin air! What I do in my spare time is none of your bloody business!”
Spike’s chin elongated from the heated sneer he gave him. He snorted, backed away from his uncle and said, “Sorry I bothered! But you’re awfully angry over something I ‘pulled out of thin air’, aren’t you, Rupes?”
“Go to your room!”
Spike was already waving him off and stomping up the stairs. When his door slammed shut from above, Rupert cursed and gripped the edge of the counter, trying to keep from pounding his head against the cabinet door in frustration. After several deep breaths and a pull from a bottle of scotch he kept hidden beneath the sink, he calmed down enough to continue cooking the dinner he would most likely be eating on his own.
While Spike had been tactless, it wasn’t his fault that Rupert’s life turned out to be so miserable. He immediately felt dreadful for the way he’d snapped at him, considering Spike had only been having a conversation with him. A conversation that Rupert would never get back, he was sure of it. All his worry, all his intentions to help his nephew had been completely forgotten in the wake of his own self-loathing. For years he’d buried the man he once had been, kept a stiff upper lip, and tried to forget about the things he could never have. To hear Spike speak of his past so flippantly, to make accusations so quickly, set him off in a flash and he wouldn’t be surprised if the boy never came to him again. He ruined the trust he was trying so hard to build by yelling at him needlessly.
Perhaps he still had some anger issues to work on, and thinking about that only served to anger him further. He took the bottle of scotch out again, turning it from side to side as he read the label errantly, and then decided to save it for another day, putting it back beneath the sink. Rupert had come far since his younger days and moving to the States had been a key factor for him to get his life in order. He needed to remind himself that he was more stable, stronger, and healthier now. Perhaps setting a better example than this was what Spike needed to see.
“You’ve made a fine mess of things,” he grumbled to himself, violently shaking a canister of parmesan cheese into the pot. He slammed the lid onto it, turned down the heat, and prepared himself to go upstairs and apologize for his behavior.
Every step he took as he ascended the stairs clued him in on the effort he would have to put forth to be heard. A disgruntled and irate war cry blared from Spike’s stereo and resonated down the hallway, accompanied by percussion that sounded more like a garbage truck falling down a cliff than drums and cymbals. Rupert pondered briefly if Spike would ever appreciate the atonal style of Penderecki, but he figured that to be wishful thinking.
He took another deep breath before he finally pounded his fist against the door.
“We both know it’s not locked so just come in!”
Rupert fully anticipated walking in on a most horrid sight. He imagined the room to be in disarray, underwear hanging over a lamp, chest of drawers in various stages of being opened and closed, spilled beverages on the floor, and Spike—with his boots on—standing on his beloved guest bed and jumping up and down on it like a monkey. He saw none of this when he pushed the door open. What he did see broke his heart.
Spike was sitting on the edge of his pristinely made bed with his body hunched forward, telephone in his hands, his eyes staring intently at the keypad.
Rupert walked over to the dresser and turned down the stereo to a reasonable volume and put his hands in his pockets, unsure of how to begin. “Who-um…who were you calling?”
Spike sniffled, and Rupert swallowed his nerves in order to comfort him. He couldn’t see if he was crying and he wasn’t going to ask. He didn’t have to, because Spike lifted his miserable face, his chin trembling, and he said, “I tried to call Mum but she wouldn’t—”
Rupert sat beside him and placed his hand on his nephew’s back, silently urging him to continue. Spike sniffed hard to compose himself, to suck it up, then he wiped his nose with the back of his hand and set the phone down on the cradle. “I don’t have any friends. Not even my own mother wants to talk to me.”
“It is three in the morning over there,” he tried to say lightheartedly.
It appeared that Spike did not hear him, or he just didn’t find it very amusing. “Doesn’t matter if it’s three in the afternoon. She won’t talk to me. You hate me, Joyce thinks I’m a pervert, Buffy thinks I’m a monster and I fucking hate this God damn lace!”
Spike jumped to his feet and started pacing the floor and Rupert thought about the best way to approach the situation. If he told him that he didn’t hate him, Spike would only deny the statement’s validity. He landed on another, more impulsive tactic. Rupert stood up and pulled the coverlet off the bed roughly, balling it up in his arms.
“What are you doing?” Spike asked, his eyebrows wrinkling when his pacing came to an abrupt halt.
“I hate this bloody comforter, too.” Rupert looked over at a now smiling Spike and said, “Don’t just stand there, get the damn pillow shams off and meet me downstairs.”
“What are you plotting, old man?” That sly smile of his was already filling Rupert with the hope he was positive he’d lost not moments ago.
He turned around in the doorway, hoisting the coverlet a bit higher as he pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at his watch. “Well, it’s seven o’clock now. I think we still have time to make it to the department store.”
“What about dinner?” Spike shook a pillow out of its casing.
“I believe humble pie is on the menu, don’t you?”
Spike’s smile softened and he looked away for a minute. “All right.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you. And I don’t hate you.” He left before Spike could throw it back in his face. Some things were better left simmering.
* * *
Spike was horribly confused about fucking everything!
Well, there were things he was certain about.
One, his mum was drinking again. This he’d only just discovered when he made a phone call to London, needing someone to say something kind to him after the day he had. He met another screaming fit, although this one took a bit longer to get to the point as she droned and moaned before she dropped the phone and forgot that he was still on the line.
Two, Rupert and Joyce once had a thing together. He almost respected the man for that, Joyce was a looker. But Rupert was still a half-wit and he hated his ever-living guts!
The current conundrum involved the man who just went down the stairs, taking with him the bedspread that Spike grew to hate more than he hated disco music. That man was not the Rupert Spike was used to seeing. At least, not in the past five years, and this was a scary yet overoptimistic topic to consider. He had some very logical questions that he pondered as he removed every last bit of lace he could spy in his bedroom. Why, being number one on the list. What was the point? Rupert had to have a motive behind this random act of kindness.
He was buying him out! That had to be it. “You’re trying to buy my love and affection, aren’t you?” he asked when he came downstairs, lacey, girly bits in tow.
Rupert snickered as he fetched his car keys that hung by the door. “Put those things on the couch with the blanket.”
“What are you gonna do with them?”
“I don’t really care. They never belonged to me.”
* * *
Rupert was relieved that Spike didn’t press him any further, that he merely nodded his consent. Spike dumped his load of curtains and shams haphazardly on top of the coverlet and grabbed his motorcycle jacket from the coat rack.
As he slid his arms into the sleeves he said, “If you think that buying me a new bed set is going to woo me into submission, you’re wrong. I’m no hooker.”
Snickers quickly turning into cackles, Rupert patted his nephew hard on the back, escorting him outside. “Oh, Spike. What makes you think I’m buying you anything?”
Spike’s mouth dropped open and he stumbled on the curb leading to the parking lot. “I don’t have any sodding money!”
“You’ve worked three days.” Rupert unlocked the door to his Volkswagen. He smiled at his nephew over the hood. “That’s more than enough to cover the cost. I’ll just dock your pay.”
Rupert started up the car, hiding his mirth when Spike huffed and grumbled, shutting the door behind him.
“Welcome to the real world, boy-o. It stinks something awful.”
“Fantastic.” Spike’s boot looked as if it was seconds away from stomping the glove box, but at the last moment, it moved, landing on the young man’s knee and it started to vibrate anxiously. A Zippo clicked and flicked, the fragrant smell of a freshly lit cigarette permeated the air and Spike’s boot stopped shaking after the first drag. Rupert couldn’t see any smoke in the car, and a quick glance to his right showed him that Spike had the window rolled down.
Rupert was wise not to mention that Spike did something courteous, that he’d considered his uncle’s feelings and that he’d possibly done it because deep down, he was a nice boy. He’d learned his lesson not to thank the short-fused teen for anything, at least not yet. Small as the act may have seemed, it was monumental to the man. He gave him an olive branch.
“Spike…we could go in 50/50, you know. You wouldn’t be a hooker then, but the eyeliner might cause confusion to strangers when I pay my half in sexual favors.”
Spike snorted, covering his mouth with the back of his hand, but it served to be a fruitless gesture when he started laughing loudly. Rupert easily joined in, and the two of them snickered and laughed, the release of their stress coming out with girlish tittering and deep, raucous guffaws that had them clutching their stomachs. Rupert didn’t even remember what had started it, too overjoyed and feeling lighter than he had in a long time to care.