Modus Vivendi
By wiseacress

 

Chapter 1

Well, it's a big city, and he's a Sunnydale lad, born and raised.  As much as he's joked about the one-Starbucks thing, he's always kind of liked the little town, and L.A. hasn't so much sung a siren song as hunkered like a big smoggy glow on the horizon, somewhere to get to, or just talk about getting to, when the Sunny-D got a little too much.  When something happened to push him that way, because he'd never just up and go.

Sunnydale was comfortable, and that was a sentence he'd never imagined constructing.  Sure, it was on a Hellmouth and it wasn't waterfront, but get your own place and a sweet strange oversexed girlfriend, toss in some thick-and-thin Scooby friends, it wasn't so bad.  There was excitement in the occasional narrowly-averted apocalypse, the wacky life-threatening results of spells gone wrong, the absence of zippers running up the back of the Monster of the Week.  It gave a guy stories for his grandkids.  So L.A. could chill.  Xander had a nice gig in Sunnydale, and who'd ever have believed Xander would get a nice gig anywhere?

Didn't last.

Anya left, the apartment was empty.  If he dropped a quarter on the floor he could hear the echoes for half an hour.  She went east, wanted to see the country in a blue Buick coupe and didn't want him with her.  He'd thought she was joking at first, like the time she'd said if she was rich she'd buy an antelope.  But she wasn't, and when he thought back later he remembered she hadn't been joking about the antelope either.  She realized halfway through that she was hurting him, and he watched the understanding spread over her face, thinking Ok, good, here's the part where she says sorry, didn't get that, you come too Xander.  But she didn't say that.  She looked horrified and sick and said she'd just realized what she was doing.

What are you doing, he'd asked heavily, sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands hanging down between his knees.

Breaking up with you, she'd said, and put her fingers over her mouth as if she'd screamed.

She bought the coupe and drove jerkily away in it, and he spun quarters on the floor and listened to the echo.  Drank half a bottle of JD and smoked twelve cigarettes, and woke up the next morning before it was light, to puke and stand in a lukewarm shower and wish he was either smarter or dead.

Willow and Tara took him to a movie, made him play mini golf, tried to teach him to levitate a pencil.  Buffy sat with him on the glider on her mom's back porch, and they talked a little about how love bit the big one, and then they just sat for an hour, gliding. 

He had good friends.  He loved them a lot.  But Sunnydale was suddenly hell on earth, and not just in the literal sense.

So, L.A.  It was the next logical step, and without thinking about it very much at all he woke up one morning knowing that it was where he wanted to go.  Where else?  He asked a few guys at the site if there was construction work there, and of course there was.  Jeff, the foreman, knew a guy who knew a guy.  Jeff would give him a call and tell him Xander was on his way.

He told Willow first, because she deserved to know.  They sat in the swings in the park across from her house, the park where they used to dig tunnels in the sandbox, aiming them so they'd meet up and be able to shake hands underground.  She clung to the chains and twisted slightly from side to side as she listened to him say it wasn't a big deal, he just wanted to try it out, he'd probably be back in a few months.  Both of them knowing that wasn't true.  He wished he'd had the guts to just say it that way, plain and simple.

"I don't understand," she'd said finally.  "Is it—is it that bad, Anya leaving?"

He ran his shoes through the sand and didn't answer for a minute.  What should he say—yes?  It was that bad.  But, no.  It wasn't just Anya.  It was a lot of things.  It was everything.  While Anya was there, Sunnydale was comfortable and he was a comfortable guy.  He had work, he had friends, he had love.  When she left, love took a header and he started thinking more about how much else he had.  Work was a construction job—he paid the rent by pounding nails, occasionally thumbs.  His friends—he loved them, would always love them, but he was a fifth wheel.  The Zeppo, as Cordelia had said.  The girls kicked ass.  Tara and Willow had the magic arsenal, and Buffy had everything else.  He had...the amazing ability to get whupped.  It was endearing, but not useful.

"I just need a change," he'd said at last.  Lamely.  He smiled at her, and she smiled back with visible effort.

"Okay," she said.  "So, you'll be the L.A. correspondent.  We'll get a satellite link.  It'll be cool."

"Sure," he said.  "I'll send you regular updates on Luke Perry's doings."

She looked at him.

"I don't know," he said.  "I couldn't think of any other celebrities just then."

She stood up and held out her hand, and he took it to pull himself out of the swing.

"Does it strike you," he said, straightening his trousers, "that these things were more fun when we were eight?"

"It does," she said.  "I think it has something to do with adult butts.  When you turn twenty, your butt morphs and you can't swing anymore."

"Butt-morphing," he said, putting his arm around her and starting to walk.  "Lovely.  You read this in a book?"

"Darkest Buttcromicon," she said.  They walked a minute in silence, and then she said, "Xander, I'm worried about you.  As a friend.  You know, not a mom or other parental stand-in."

"Don't be worried," he said.  "Not till after I tell Buffy."

And it was true, he didn't want her to worry, he wanted Willow to live forever in a perfect bubble of calm and happiness, but some part of him nodded in agreement when she spoke and thought, yeah, worry is good.  Because everything was not okay just now, and he might need someone with actual brains looking after him for the next little while.

He was standing on the edge of something very tall, looking down into blackness, wondering how it would feel to just let himself lean forward a little bit more.  Just that littlest bit.  Feel the wind beneath his wings.

That, and Buffy was going to kick his ass when he signed out of the Scooby crew.

But it was okay.  They told Buffy and the others together, and he was so glad to have Will there just then, nodding and looking calm while Buffy's eyes went wide and Giles polished his glasses over and over, like a stage trick.  Again he said no big deal, just testing the waters, probably back in a few months.  Nobody wig.  And they nodded and pretended to accept that, but all of them knew it was more. It was exit stage left for Xander.

And so strange, so funny almost, that it was Anya who'd set it off.  Who was she anyway?  Some moments he felt like he could turn around and see her right there, wearing her usual frantic expression, trying to keep up.  And some moments he felt like he hadn't seen her in years.  Couldn’t remember her face.   

She wasn't even one of the originals.  He half-smiled when he thought that; as if they were a TV cast and she was a third-season add-on who turned out to carry the plot.  He was a true child of the eighties.

"What about patrolling?" Buffy asked first, and he forced down a laugh.

"You'll manage without me," he said.

"L.A.," Tara said.  "Wow, Xander.  That's a big move."

"Not that far," he said.  "Few hours' drive.  We'll have a housewarming shindig, soon as I have a house to warm.  Or a shin to dig."

"Work?" Buffy said.  "You'll have to work, Xander.  How are you going to get a job?"

"Look," he said, "if you consult your sources, you'll find that this 'moving' phenomenon isn't wholly unheard-of.  People do this.  It's doable."

Buffy stared at him for a second.  "Not my people," she said after a moment.  She was making tiny tears around the edges of a bookmark she'd picked up from beside the till.  They all watched her do it in silence.

"Buff," he said gently, "you moved here from L.A. a few years ago, right?  I'm just reversing the process.  This is not matter for an aneurysm."

She looked down at the bookmark, and he felt instantly wretched.  "Look, guys, I'm sorry.  It isn't anything to do with you, or patrolling, or being a Scooby, or anything.  I just need a change.  Jeff knows a guy who'll give me work, and I'll find a nice dry cardboard box by the freeway, and just...see, you know?"

There was a brief silence, and then Willow took a breath.

"I think it's a great idea," she said, too loudly.  Everyone looked at her, and Xander was deeply in love with her for that moment—good Willow, sweet Willow, what the hell was he thinking all those years while she was still straight?  She stared back at them uncomfortably, her chin set.                

Then Giles took the hint, cleared his throat and put his glasses back on.  "Of course," he said.  "Willow's right, it's a fine idea.  Xander, if you feel you need to do this, you should do so, of course.  We'll support you however we can."

"Thanks, Giles."

"I know a guy with an apartment building," Tara said quietly.  "I can call him up, if you want, see if there are any vacancies."

"That would be...great.  Thanks, Tara."

Buffy was still staring at the bookmark in her hands.  She'd torn the edges to fringe.

"Buffster?" Xander said, going to lean on the counter next to her.  "Come on, Buff, give me your blessing on this."

"No," she said.  "I know I'm supposed to be mature here, but no.  I mean, come on, Xander, Anya leaves and you're going to up and move to L.A.?  I lost Angel, I lost Riley, I'm still here.  It's not like, when your heart gets stomped, you get a 'move away free' card."

He laughed shakily and held onto the edge of the counter.  "Yeah, I know.  No card here."

She stared at her hands a minute more, then looked at him.  "Sorry."

"'S okay."

She sighed and ripped the bookmark in half.  "Okay, you have my blessing.  Fly, be free."

He put his hand on her back.  Once, in another lifetime, he would have killed to do that, just touch her back.  Now she was warm and she smelled like soap, shampoo, girl stuff,  and she was one of his dearest friends, and he didn't feel a thing except sad and guilty and grateful.

"Thanks, Buff," he said.  "Don't worry, I'll probably get mugged inside a week and you can come pick me up in the G-mobile."

"Don't even joke about that," she said, hitting him lightly in the arm.  "Be careful.  It's not Sunnydale out there."



No, it wasn't.  It wasn't Sunnydale at all, and there was deep irony in the fact that in Sunnydale, on the hairy upper lip of the Hellmouth, he felt safer than he did walking around his neighbourhood in L.A.  It was an eye-opener, living the working-class-stiff life in the city.  A whole different ballgame.

In Sunnydale everyone was more or less the same, more or less white, more or less middle-class.  He'd never thought about it much.  He could find his way home from anywhere in Sunnydale; he knew all the street names, all the landmarks. 

In L.A., he got lost looking for a gas station, and then again looking for the site, and then again trying to get home.  He almost ended up in the Malibu Hills, which sounded nice, and in Watts, which he knew was not nice at all.

It was strange and scary and at the same time kind of exhilarating, bouncing around the big concrete city like a ping pong ball.  And it was just him, Xander Harris—not the Scooby crew, with Giles to fold the maps and Buffy to punch out the bad guys.  When he drove through a bad neighbourhood, or what he thought was a bad neighbourhood, he locked the doors and tapped the steering wheel nervously and didn't meet the eyes of the black men who wandered out into the street at stop lights, and it was just him.  And somehow he didn't get carjacked, and he didn't get mugged, and he started to learn how not to look at people when he walked to the corner store.  Or anywhere.



The whole gang came out for the housewarming after a month, after he'd moved out of the firetrap Tara's friend owned.  He'd found a little place in Echo Park, cheap and dirty and not very safe.  The car stereo had been stolen already, and the car itself was crap, so parking was okay.

For furniture he had just what he'd brought from the Sunnydale apartment—the bed, the ratty sofa, the folding kitchen table and chairs.  The television and a couple of lamps.  He kept his clothes in a tangled mess between the bed and the wall, washing things only when they were so stiff with sweat and plaster dust that he could prop them up against the baseboard.

There were roaches, he was sure.  He was never there except to shower and fall into bed.  He didn't cook.  The refrigerator held half a liter of milk, an unopened jar of jam that Joyce had given him when he'd left, a packet of processed cheese slices.

Chateau Harris, welcome to it.

They went out for cheap Mexican food and then came back and sat around on the folding chairs drinking sodas and acting like Xander in L.A. was a good thing, like it made some kind of sense.  There was no air conditioning, and the windows were open to the car alarms and Spanish cussing in the streets.  Willow sat with six inches between her back and the chair, shotgunned her Pepsis, and talked in a high-pitched voice about classes, college, the weather, spells.  Tara didn't drink at all, just watched Willow and smiled quietly at Xander whenever their eyes met.  Together, they gave him a tacky bead curtain for the doorway between the kitchen and his bedroom.

"That," he said when it slid out of the paper, "is truly hideous.  Many thanks."  They put it up with a couple of nails he'd lifted from the site, and sat admiring it from a safe distance.

Giles gave him a guidebook to the city—thanks, Giles.  By that time he knew his way around a little better, but it was a nice thought.  Also an envelope that turned out to hold an AAA membership.  For some reason that made him tear up—it was so perfectly the kind of thing a dad should do—and he had to bob his head for a minute as if he couldn't figure out what it was he was looking at, blinking like an idiot. 

"Thanks, Giles."  When he looked up they were all looking at him, and Giles was smiling oddly and was he insane, or was Giles close to the salt-eye, himself?  With all the British in the way it was hard to tell.  And he didn't want to think about it too much. 

Buffy gave him a key ring from the Sunnydale Amoco, and he laughed and jingled it for a minute before realizing there was a little mace canister on it, and that was probably the point.  Perfect Buffy gift—overtones of Slayer, undertones of emasculation.

"Great," he said.  "Goes with my rape whistle."

"Don't mock the mace," Willow said.  "That stuff can knock a grizzly bear back at twenty paces.  It's not just for the ladies."

"I'll remember that," he said, "when I'm mugged by the Russian circus.  Thanks, Buff."

"Promise you'll carry it," she said.

He smiled and put it in his pocket.

"I'm serious," she said.  "Think of it as a little Buffy in your pocket.  For use in case of emergency."

"Whoah," he said.  "There's a slogan.  Put a little Buffy in your pocket.  Not so catchy without the context, but once you understand the whole Slayer thing, it's really—"

"Xander," she said.  "Come on, be a sport.  We're worried about you."

"Worried?" he asked.  "Why?"

Something like a gunshot—probably a gunshot—went off in the distance, and they all flinched.

"Are you sure this is right?" Giles asked.  "You're happy here, you feel...safe?"

"I'm fine," he said.  "Guys, come on—Hellmouth, remember?  I'm the one who should be up nights worrying.  Here in the Park we got our drug deals, gang violence, racial turmoil...but you've got, you know, Hell.  And okay, yeah, maybe it's not such a big difference, but-"

"You're alone here," Buffy said.  "In Sunnydale we're a team."

"A posse," Willow said, nodding.  " We run with Buff Daddy, no-one can touch us."

He didn't bother reminding her of how untrue that was.  "Yeah, well, think of me as the inaugural member of the L.A. extension, posse-wise.  I'm scouring the streets for new recruits.  Free stake and Wendo lesson with membership."

Buffy stared at him and Will smiled weakly.

"Well, if you're sure," Giles said, and Tara closed her eyes.

They drove back that same night—the girls had tests, or studying, or something collegiate.  He sat at the kitchen table for a while, drinking a soda and listening to a fight in the parking lot beside the building.  The bead curtain was truly horrendous.

After a while he got up and went out, down to the bodega on the corner for a tallboy and a bottle of Canadian Club.  They didn't ask him for ID; they never did.  He was looking older now, thinner and wearier, and he didn't know if that was a good thing or not.  It let him buy booze.

Good enough.



Weeks passed, then months, and he talked to Will at first every other day, then once a week or so, then less and less often.  She had school, he had work.  The new job was fine, an office building that went up and up and never seemed to quit.  He hauled I beams from eight to five, ate tacos or noodles or pizza for dinner, and stumbled home to shower and sleep.  Sometimes he saw a movie; it didn't matter which one.

He started to make a habit of stopping for a drink on his way home.  He'd drive until he couldn't take the traffic anymore, then realize he'd started looking for a bar to stop off at, and there was always a bar.  Sooner or later.  It was a way of getting to know the city, he told himself.  He had to get to know at least a few hotspots, in case Luke Perry called up and wanted to go for a Cosmopolitan. 

He liked little places, preferably cheap and ugly.  If there was a mirror facing the bar he sat facing away from it, so he wouldn't see the guy looking back at him.  Dark hair that needed to be cut, skin baked brown by too much sun at thirty storeys.  Shoulders a little rawboned under the T-shirt—if you took it off, you'd see pink stars on the skin over the bones, where carrying beams had worn permanent marks.  Most of all, big ghosty black eyes and mouth way too wide, especially now that the cheeks had worn down.  He didn't like looking himself in the face; it gave him a strange sad desperate feeling, as if he were already old and looking back on his youth, wondering what the hell went wrong.

In late August, coming home from work, he stopped for a drink in a dive called The Summer Place, just because he liked the name.  It turned out to be the Platonic Ideal:  ugly and small, just half a dozen tables and a bar, a television showing baseball with the sound turned down.  There was a mirror behind the bar, so he sat sideways and watched the game, drinking CC on ice.  The bartender was a little Vietnamese matron who called him love.

"Don't see you here before," she said, whipping a cloth over the bar around his elbows.

"Haven't been here," he said, lifting his glass so she could wipe beneath it.

"You live here?"

"Echo Park," he said.  She scowled.

"Bad neighbourhood," she said.  "Not safe.  My nephew got mugged there, twice."  She held two fingers up in front of his face.  "Twice.  They don't like Vietnamese there, I think."

He frowned and put his glass down carefully.  "I'm sorry about your nephew," he said.

"Of course you are, love," she said, and patted his elbow.  "You're sweet boy."

"Rosie has a boyfriend," someone observed from the table behind Xander.  Xander looked around at the guy, took in the expansive gut, the Lakers hat perched on top of a fuzz of grey hair, the pink alcoholic meshwork over the nose and cheeks.  The guy grinned and raised his glass, and Xander smiled automatically.

"He's not my boyfriend," Rosie said delightedly, and wiped the counter around Xander's elbows again.  "He lives in Echo Park."

"They don't like Vietnamese much there," the guy said immediately, and winked at Xander.

Xander nodded and turned back to the game.  He didn't want a conversation.  He didn't want to think about the fact that he was here by choice, in a dirty little bar full of alcoholics who looked like his own father would, fifteen years and a couple of layoffs down the line.  He spun a beer mat with his thumb and watched the game.

Orioles and Braves, and Rocker was pitching.  Clearly you didn't need a brain or a conscience to pitch like a son of a bitch, because that's exactly what Rocker was doing.  He raised his glass to drink and found it was almost empty.

"Again, please," he said, and Rosie grabbed a glass and polished it professionally before plunging it into the ice.  "Man, this guy can throw."

She gave the screen a brief, disinterested look.  "Not like Ty Cobb," she said.  "Ty Cobb was the greatest."

He accepted the drink she put in front of him, and considered pointing out that Cobb wasn't a pitcher, but she had moved away down the bar already and was wiping around the elbows of an old guy in a Coors T-shirt.

He didn't mean to, but he sat through all nine innings.  Rosie kept putting the Club in front of him, and he kept putting it away.  It was hard to keep track of how much he'd had, since she took the empty glasses away and he couldn't see the bottle.  When the Braves finished spreading the Orioles all over the outfield, he realized he had to use the head. He pushed his stool back to stand up, and the room tipped.  He had to grab the bar to keep from falling.

"Watch out, Romeo," someone said.  It was the old guy at the back, the one in the Lakers ball cap.  He'd been joined by a wizened-up black guy with a pure white moustache.  Xander waved loosely, waited for the room to straighten out, and made for the head.

When he got there he spent a minute fumbling with his fly, then leaned his forehead against the wall and closed his eyes while he pissed.  Fuck.  He hadn't meant to get so drunk.  Where was the car?  He couldn't drive it.  He'd have to walk or take a cab, and pick the car up tomorrow morning.  Early, so it wouldn't get towed.  He sighed, shook off, zipped up.

Washing his hands, he glanced quickly at himself in the mirror and saw red eyes, flushed cheeks.  The Harris face, the same one he'd seen so often on his dad when he was a kid.  He filled his hands with cold water and splashed his face; he remembered his dad doing that, too.  Heredity was an evil bitch.

"Take that, Lamarck," he said, leaning on the sink as he dried his hands.

The bill for the whiskey was close to thirty dollars, and that cleaned out his wallet.  He smiled ruefully at Rosie as he laid it down on the bar.

"You want a cab, love?" she asked.  Her tone was so sweet, her face so open and friendly that he had a brief vision of leaning over and asking her to marry him.  He could move into The Summer Place, be the janitor.  Drink his wages.  It could be good.

"No thanks," he said.  "I'll be okay."

"Long way," she said.  "Not good to walk there."

"Don't worry," he said.  "I have a friend around the corner, I'll stay there."

She smiled broadly and wagged the cloth at him.

"Lady friend, yeah?"

"Lady friend, yeah."

"Ooh, lucky her.  Have fun, love."

He smiled and started carefully for the door.

Outside, it was dark and hot, and the air smelled of cars.  He stood on the sidewalk in front of the bar, watching tail lights streak past in the street.

Talking with Rosie had been the longest conversation he'd had in days, since talking to Willow over the weekend.  Today was...Friday.  Weekend again tomorrow, and that was good.  Very good.  The car was around the corner.  He could still catch a bus, or find a bank machine and take out some money for a cab.  Or he could walk.  It was a nice night.  No work tomorrow.  He could just walk until he found a bank machine, then hail a cab.  Home was...that way.

He swung in the general direction of home and started to walk.  Nobody walked in L.A., that was the problem.  In Sunnydale you could walk from one end of town to the other in twenty minutes.  Less, if you weren't on crutches.

He checked his watch—ten thirty.  He'd been in the bar four hours.  In Sunnydale, the girls were probably doing something Friday-ish, watching a movie or staking some early-rising vampire, or maybe having a cherry Coke at the Bronze.  He could call them if he saw a pay phone, just say hi, catch up.  Was it strange that all his friends were girls?

He dug his wallet out of his pocket and started to rifle it for change, walking with his head bent.  When something knocked him half off his feet he was too shocked to think for a second, and then he thought he must finally be getting mugged.  Of course, and his own fault too.  Walking with his wallet out, what a Zeppo.

He pushed off the sidewalk with his right fist and spun around as quickly as he could, then blinked as the Club went for another half revolution and took him with it.  His wallet was in his left hand, loose and open, and if someone wanted to snag it, well, silver platter.  Shit, his AAA card was in there.

But nobody grabbed him, and after a second he found his feet and shook his head and grinned.  He couldn't help it.  It was kind of funny, in a loopy way.

"Sorry," he said.  "My fault."  He'd bumped into someone, that was all.  Happened all the time.  "Sorry, sorry."  Then he looked at the guy, who was just standing there looking at him in silence.

It was Spike.

Standing staring at him on the sidewalk outside of The Summer Place.  In black jeans and black T-shirt and a black leather jacket, the same damn thing he'd worn for years in Sunnydale, and his hair was still bottle blonde, and he still looked like the Billy Idol of vampires, but a little off balance at the moment because Xander had walked into him as if he were a turnstile.  The look on Spike's face was half surprise, half annoyance.  Then he started to look interested.

"Xander."  It was weird, a little chilly, to hear his voice again.  Xander remembered that he was still holding his wallet out open in his hand, and flipped it closed.  He tucked it back into his pocket and nodded.

"Indeed," he said.  "How's death, Spike?"

"Lovely, thanks.  And you?"

"Well, it's been nice talking."  He turned on his heel and started to walk quickly away, correcting a little as he veered to the left.  Spike.  Of all the friendly folks to run into in L.A.  It couldn't be a Crip, or a crackhead serial murderer, or Luke Perry.  No, it had to be Spike.  He had to remember to cancel his Russian roulette lessons.

He could hear Spike catching up to him, then falling into step beside him.  He walked faster, knowing it was stupid.

"Where's the rest of the Bloodhound Gang?" Spike asked.

"Lying in wait just up the block.  Come on, let's go see 'em."

"You're here alone, then."

"Yeah.  No, wait, there’s this dumbass vampire following me."

"Oh, that's not friendly."

"I've decided to reserve 'friendly' for people I like."

They walked for a moment in silence, while Xander tried to think what to do.  His brain had seized.  He'd forgotten that Spike was here now, and seeing him so suddenly put a weird taste in his mouth, nervous and slippery.  It made him feel like he was back in Sunnydale again, eighteen years old.  Down in the basement, lying awake at two am listening to the shouting and banging upstairs.

Knowing that Spike was sitting up in the lounger on the other side of the room, listening to it too.

"What're you doing in L.A., Xander?"  His tone was amused, interested.  Not going anywhere.

"Nothing," Xander said automatically.

"Wait—are you bait?  You're often bait.  Is that it?"

Xander stopped short and raised his hands to keep his balance.

"I'm not bait—" he started.

"You're arseholed," Spike said, sniffing.  "On...cheap whiskey.  Always pegged you for a beer man.  Or else those fucking awful mix drinks, what do they call them?  Put the whole bottom shelf in, drink 'em through three feet of surgical tubing."

Xander swayed for a moment, staring.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said.

"Oh, you do," said Spike.  "See it on MTV all the time.  Spring break."

"Spike," Xander said, "I am not bait.  I am not anything.  I am going home.  Again, I've enjoyed our little chat."

"Home?" Spike said.  "What, back to Sunnyhell at this late hour?"

"No," Xander said.  The pavement under his feet was starting to tip a little, and he took a step back to compensate.  Then another.  "Back to here.  I live here."

Spike's eyes widened.  "You're joking," he said.

"No joke," Xander said, still stepping backward.  The sound of cars passing in the street—wheels, engine, thumping stereos—was disorienting.  It was pulling him off his feet.  "Why is this such a bizarre concept?  Is there some natural law they forgot to tell me about?  The stasis of Xanders?"

"So just you, then.  Not the whole lot."  Spike was regarding him narrowly, standing still while Xander stepped slowly away.  He was right under a streetlight, and it lit his hair up pure white.  He still had the cheekbones from hell.  Evil bastard.

"Just me, Spike.  Hellmouth's still in Sunnydale, Buffy's still slaying away.  I'm the L.A. branch of Slayer, Inc."  He laughed a little at that.

Spike relaxed visibly, and walked toward him with a smile.  "Well, that's all right then.  The thought of you lot turning up on my doorstep, that gave me a turn.  Last thing I need in my life right now is the bloody Slayer."

Xander stood up as straight as he could and scowled.  "Why's that?" he asked.  "You getting up to your old hijinks, Spike?"

Spike sneered.  "Chip, idiot.  If I could get up to hijinks, I'd have yanked your lungs out through your navel when you bashed into me just now."

"Yeah, that's the Spike I know and ignore."  He fished in his pocket for his keys, turned, and started walking back the way he'd come.

He wasn't going to get away from Spike on foot; he'd have to drive after all.  He wasn't that drunk.  And he came from a long line of proudly drunk drivers.  For years, it wasn't a Sunday afternoon in the Harris household unless he and Mom were trapped in the Nova, careening helplessly between lanes while Dad tuned the radio with one hand and nursed a bottle with the other.  Until he was twelve, Xander thought all dads steered with their knees.

"Wrong way."  Spike was walking with him again, of course.  Xander raised the  keys without looking up.

"What, you're going to drive home?  Oh, this I have to see."

"Spike, don't you have an ambulance to chase or something?"

"In a few minutes, I expect."

They made it to the corner and turned.  The Nova was just a few spaces up, he'd left it between a new Volkswagen bug and a decrepit pickup truck.  Both of those were gone now, and the Nova was alone on the curb.  Alone except for the little white car with flashing lights pulled up beside it, and the woman in the tan uniform standing next to the driver's door, writing something out.

"Oh shit, that's—"  He broke off and ran the last few paces to the car.  "Hey, excuse me, could you—"

The woman stopped writing and looked at him without raising her head.  She was black, slightly built, with bleached braids under her uniform cap.  She looked at him with deep skepticism.

"That's my car," he said, waving the keys.

She raised her head slowly and continued to look at him without speaking.

"I'll move it," he said quickly, taking in the two tickets already tucked under the windshield wiper.  "I didn't even see that—I didn't know I couldn't park here, sorry, I'll move it now."

She tipped her head even farther back and looked at him through narrowed eyes, tapping her pen against the pad she held.

"Yeah, okay, I'll take that one too," he said, reaching out for the ticket she'd written.  "And I'm sorry, and okay, that's actually a full pound of flesh, right there."  He half-turned to put the key into the driver's side door lock.

"Noooo," she said.  He paused, took the key out of the lock, and turned back to face her.

"You must love L.A.," she said.

"Great town," he said.

"Because not only are you going to pay several hundred dollars' worth of parking tickets tonight, but you're about to get into that vehicle while under the influence, which means I'm going to call LAPD, and they're going to pull you over in about thirty yards, and you'll get to pay a whole other set of fines tonight, sir.  Plus a night in jail free."

He stared at her for a moment.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it free," he said numbly.  She smiled slightly and pursed her lips.

"Tell you what," she said.  "I'm feeling tender.  You've got two choices.  You let the car stay where it is, I won't ticket it any more tonight.  I'll call the tow truck right now, tell you which company, you pick your car up tomorrow and pay the fines.  'Cause I could keep ticketing you till five, then tow you.  Save you a couple hundred bucks right there."

"Ri-ight," he said.  "And my second choice is...?"

"You got someone can come get you, drive you home?" she asked.  "Someone who wasn't drinking with you tonight?"

His brain was just too slow, too drunk.  It was only an instant before he found the words to say, "Tow me," but it was too late.

"I'll drive him."

Spike's arm reached around and jerked the keys from his hand.

"Hey!"  He whirled around, but Spike had stepped back and was holding the keys behind his back.  He was looking at the woman with his chin down and his brows drawn together, probably trying to look stern and respectable.  He looked vaguely threatening.

The woman gestured at Xander without taking her eyes off Spike.

"This guy your friend?" she asked.

Xander closed his eyes and leaned on the side of the car.

"We go way back," Spike said, smiling.

The woman stared at Spike a moment longer, then looked quickly at Xander.  "He's sober?" she asked.

"Yes," Xander said, staring at the ground.  "But—"

"Sorry for the inconvenience, officer," Spike said, his accent suddenly clean and posh.  "I'll see he gets home all right."

The woman hesitated a moment longer, then tore the ticket from her pad and leaned forward to tuck it under the wiper.  "Okay," she said, flipping the pad shut with a slap.  "You boys have a nice night."

"I will," Spike said, moving to the driver's side door.

Wait a minute, Xander's brain protested.  How had this happened?  Half an hour ago, he'd been sitting in The Summer Place, drinking his final whiskey, watching the post-game and thinking he had to go to the head.  He'd been thinking about his dad, about the Canadian Club bottle behind the bar, about the guy sitting behind him with the pink bruises of alcoholism on his face. 

And somehow...it had added up to this.  Standing here, with the handle of his car door pressing into his butt, while Spike lifted his car keys and sweet-talked an L.A. meter maid.  Spike.

He needed to find the auxiliary engines, because the main thrusters were still shorted out.

"Shove over," Spike said.

The woman was getting back into her car, fussing with something inside, talking on a radio, checking her mirrors.  Spike pushed him and he stumbled slightly, away from the car.  The woman put her signal on and started to pull out.

Stop, his brain called out.  Tow me.  Give me a free night in jail.  Sign me up.  Come on, this is ridiculous. 

In all of L.A., why Spike? 

Spike opened the driver's side door and slid in.  The car started, and Xander felt a little thrill of shock at the familiar sound of the engine, the slight slip in the belts; he never heard that sound unless he was in the driver's seat.  He scowled through the windshield at Spike, and Spike smiled back.  After a moment he rolled down the window and put his head through.

"Come on, then."

Xander turned to look at the woman's retreating tail lights.  She'd already merged into the traffic and while he watched, she went from going to gone.  Come back, he thought.  His eyes felt heavy and swollen, his mouth was dry.  Tow me.

Spike bipped the horn and he jumped.  For a moment he tipped his head back and looked up—looking for the stars, or the moon, or something to guide him.  There was only the weird pink haze of the night sky, a million lights reflected through the smog.

"You bastard," he said, and he was talking to Spike, himself, everyone.  The world. 

He turned and started to walk slowly around to the passenger side of the car.

 

---

Chapter 2

He sat slumped low, watching the streetlights pass over the hood and the windshield, watching the bars of light travel across his arms and legs. It was strange to be a passenger in his own car.  He never had been before.  Spike laughed at his address.

"Lovely," he said.  "I've always mean to see that patch of underbelly."

Staring out the window, watching the liquor stores and gas stations speed by, Xander suddenly felt desperately lonely for Anya.  Where was she?  What was she looking at right now?  Part of his brain told him that she was in the east, it was later there, she was probably asleep.  But another part insisted that she was awake, driving somewhere, looking at parked cars and vacant lots just like him, and he hoped she was happy, he hoped she would find whatever she was looking for.  He wished she was with him now.

He closed his eyes and thought hard, Anya, I miss you, I love you, come home.

"You gonna puke?"

He opened his eyes and turned to glare at Spike.  Fucker was driving with a single finger on the wheel, leaning one elbow out the window, foot through the floor.  They were going to get pulled over, and then they'd see whether Spike could produce an actual driver's license.  It was a lovely thought, but it would be complicated, would probably mean the car would get towed.  He needed the car.

"Slow down."

Spike raised his foot a millimeter and they shot through an aging yellow light.  "So what brings you to L.A.?" he asked, reaching for the radio and realizing it was gone.  "Fuck, no soundtrack."

"Got ripped off," Xander said, closing his eyes again and turning away.

"Shouldn't wonder, flash car like this."

Xander said nothing.  

"Slayer kick you out?"

He didn't reply.  The secret with Spike was just to ignore him.  He didn't say anything worth replying to anyway.

"Bird ditched you?"

Fuck off, he thought, but somehow managed not to say.  It was just knee-jerk anyway.  He was an adult, he didn't need to leap up with his fists out at the mere mention of his girlfriend.  Ex-girlfriend.

"No—I know.  Harrises senior finally killed each other, house got repo-ed, and you're here to drown your pain in Bell's finest."

He stopped staring out the window and looked instead at his feet, sprawled in a midden of fast food wrappers.  He really needed to clean the Nova.  Maybe take it to a gas station, vacuum it out.  Run it through the brushless car wash. 

"You're a bloody LaToya tonight, aren't you?  Shut up a minute and let a bloke think." 

Xander said nothing.  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes and maybe he fell asleep or just went off for a bit, but when he looked around again they were in his neighborhood.  They were passing the bodega where he bought booze, cereal, milk.  His bodega, he thought of it.  It was strange how seeing something so crappy could make him feel at home.

"There," he said, pointing to the space along the curb ahead.

Spike said nothing, but pulled into the spot.  Xander opened the door and got out as soon as the engine died.  The air smelled like garbage, spices, fried meat.  Someone was playing a Spanish radio station, lots of fast excited talking and electronic sound effects.

Spike got out and slammed his door, looking around with an expression of distaste.  "Oh, this is nice," he muttered.

"Keys," Xander said.  Spike rolled his eyes and threw them across the hood. Somehow, he managed to field them.  With the other hand he reached over and picked the parking tickets out from under the wiper.  He folded them and stuffed them in the back pocket of his jeans.

"Night," he said, turning away and starting to walk up the steps of his building.

"Hey!"

Xander stopped and turned back.  Spike was still standing by the car, looking annoyed.

"What?"

"What do you mean, what?  I'm not going to turn into mist and seep home."

Xander leaned against the banister, exhausted.  "I can't drive you, Spike.  Obviously."

Spike raised his hands and glared at the sky.  "Yeah, Special Ed," he said.  "And that's why God made taxi cabs."

"And public transit," Xander said, turning back around.

"I'm not taking the fucking bus," Spike said.

"There's a phone down at the bodega," Xander said.  "They're nice folks."  The steps were too steep.  He had to haul himself up along the railing.

Spike came up the stairs fast, grabbed his arm and yanked, and there was a moment where Xander was sure they were both going to pitch headfirst down the steps.  He seized the railing and Spike's shoulder and waited with interest to see whether he was going to break both of their necks.  Spike wrenched away and Xander's hip bashed into the railing, and then he was solidly back on the step again.  Spike’s face was inches from his.  He smelled like cigarettes, and his eyes were bright.

"Listen, you sad punter.  I am not hanging about in your scabby neighborhood, waiting for a band of wandering Crips to riddle me with small-weapons fire.  I am calling a taxi, and getting the hell out of here."

Xander took his keys from his pocket and sorted through them with his head down.

"Okay," he said.  He was tired.  Somewhere down the block, a woman was cursing in Spanish and English, and a baby was crying.

There was a pause, then Spike stepped back.

"Okay," he repeated, and Xander heard the disappointment clearly in his voice.  Spike wanted a fight.  Not tonight, Spike.  No fighting, just get inside and sleep.  His eyes were grainy, heavy, sore.  He wanted to fall into bed and never get out.

He opened the front door and led the way down the hall.  His place was the last one on the left.  The hallway smelled of cooking and diapers, and there were bits of trash all along the hall, noodle buckets and candy wrappers and cans.  He stepped over and through them; he was used to it.  He'd cleaned it up for the gang's visit, but it hadn't lasted a day. Behind him, Spike cursed and kicked something.

"What's that fucking awful smell?"

Xander reached his door and squinted to fit the key in the lock.  "Poverty," he said, opening the door.  "And beans."

He walked in, leaving the door open.  Tomorrow it would probably bug him that Spike had seen the complete crapulence of his new life in L.A., but right now he didn't care.  He needed sleep like he'd need Excedrin and Coke in about six hours.  He went to the kitchen and stood stupidly in the middle of the room, trying to remember where the phone was.

"Nice if you'd ask me in.  If only for a change of disgusting."

He turned and looked back at Spike, who was standing at the door to the apartment, looking annoyed.

"Nah," he said.  "I don't think we've reached that stage in our relationship yet, Spike."  He found the phone under a pile of newspapers on the kitchen table, and tossed it through the entryway to Spike.

"Have we reached the stage yet where I hire a large Russian to separate your vertebrae?"  Spike dialed a number and stood tapping his knuckles on the doorframe.

Xander turned and went back to the kitchen.  Hosanna of hosannas; there was orange juice in the fridge.  He was desperately thirsty, and drank a glass too fast, then had to stand holding the sink, waiting for the cold clutching in his belly to let up.  In the entryway, Spike asked for a cab, gave the address, paused, then swore.

He heard the phone dial again.  Carefully, he poured another glass of juice.  Slower, this time.  His mouth felt clumsy.  The sink was full of dirty plates, a bowl with milk and a few flakes of cereal, and a roach perched on the edge, feelers quivering.  Well.  That answered the roach question.  He leaned against the fridge and drank the juice.  When he was done he fished a spoon out of the cutlery drawer and flicked the roach carefully onto the counter.  He brought the glass down on it hard—too hard, because it broke in his hand.

Smash.

Spike peered around the doorframe.  "Hang on a sec, I'll just run and get a length of pipe from the alley.  We can trash the place together."

Xander held his hand up in front of his face, looking for cuts.  None.  What was it they said—God took care of children and drunkards?  Like the time his dad fell down the basement stairs, lay on the concrete pad for a second or two, then got slowly up and brushed himself off.  Walked back upstairs without a second look at Xander, who was sitting on the couch watching cartoons.  He was maybe eight at the time.

He left the broken glass on the counter and went out to the entryway, where Spike was holding the phone to his ear, jerking his head with annoyance.

"Slight hitch," Spike said.  "Taxis won't come to your neighborhood."

Xander laughed.  "That's ridiculous."

Spike put his head to one side and pursed his lips, staring at him.  "I've called three now."  He gave a sudden sneer of impatience and tossed the phone at Xander.  "Right, plan B.  Keys." 

"Keys?"  Xander clutched the phone against his belly awkwardly, knees bent, off balance.  After a moment he understood that Spike was asking for the car.  "Uh, no.  No way.  And, no."

Spike put his hands on the doorframe and leaned as far into the apartment as he could.  "Come on, Xander," he said mildly.  "I'm a white hat, here.  I drove you home, kept you from plowing wantonly into innocent pedestrians, saved you from the menacing meter maid."

"No," Xander said.

"Oh, grow up.  I don't want your crappy car, Harris.  I want to get out of this open sore you call home, and that crumpled heap of epoxy is my ride.  I'll bring it back."

"And monkeys will fly out my butt," Xander said tiredly, reaching for the door.  "Walk, Spike."

"Not keen on that plan," Spike said.  "Not 'round here."

"I walk around here all the time," Xander said, which wasn't strictly true.  He walked to the bodega, the laundromat, his car.

"Hope you'll keep doing it," Spike said.  "But I'm not going to start.  Come on, give 'em here."

"Spike," said Xander, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the door.  "What you fail to understand is, no.  And I don't fucking care."

He expected a quick reply, but there wasn't one.  After a moment he opened his eyes and saw that Spike was just watching him.  They looked at each other for a long moment.

"Oh, fuck," Xander said.  He drew a deep breath and fished the keys out of his pocket.  "Give me your jacket."

Spike's eyes widened.  "Not bloody likely," he said.

"No jacket, no keys.  I want my car back, evil dead.  With gas in the tank.  Give me your jacket before I raise the ante to shoes."

Spike stared a moment longer, then shrugged and pulled his jacket off.  He handed it through the door to Xander, and Xander gave him the keys.

"I want it back tomorrow," he said.  "First thing, your time.  Sunset's about eight thirty, be here by nine.  You don't show, the jacket gets it."

"Better make it nine thirty," Spike said, turning away with a sneer.  "I'll want a chance to troll for the ladies in my boss new sled."

Xander stood watching the back of Spike’s head retreat down the dim hallway.  The coat was heavy in his hands—leather, stinking of cigarette smoke.  He'd just lent his car to Spike.  He was an idiot.  He was exhausted.  He was drunk.

The outside door opened and a big Hispanic guy with a ponytail walked in, shouldering Spike aside.  Spike stopped and looked after him, his face deeply pissed, but the guy didn't notice.  His eyes flicked over Xander without interest, and he continued on up the stairs, kicking an abandoned soda can down behind him.

"Fucking tip," Spike said clearly, casting a last look down the hallway at Xander.  He caught the closing door and slipped out.

Xander stood in the doorway with Spike's jacket in his hands, listening to the sound of the guy's footsteps mounting the stairs, a rhythmic stomping all the way up the flights.  That was one thing to be glad of—he didn't have to climb any more stairs tonight.



He woke up—it was dark, the pillow was foul, his head pulsed.  Where was he?  His hands were dry, his whole body parched and hot.  For a moment everything was spun the wrong way, he couldn't find the night table or the luminous face of the clock, couldn't think which way the door was.  He listened for the deep quiet of Sunnydale, the overhead footfalls of his parents, the slow rhythm of Anya's breath beside him.  Why was he awake?

Someone knocked on the door and he jerked reflexively.  Suddenly he could hear city sounds outside the window; cars, a radio, a man laughing hoarsely down the block.  L.A.  He was in L.A. now, he lived here.  Someone was at his door.

He fumbled for the lamp on the night table, almost knocked it down, grabbed it and flicked it on.  It was midnight.  After Spike had left he'd dropped the coat in a chair, pulled his shoes and shirt off, and fallen into bed.  Ceased all radio communication.  From the look of the bed, he hadn't moved in the last hour and a half.

He sat up carefully.  He was still drunk, in the vilest possible way.  He felt raw, nauseated, dizzy.

Whoever was at the door knocked again, a couple of light taps.  He put his head in his hands and stood up.

"One of the pleasures of life in the big city," he said aloud, weaving toward the door, "is the all-hours excitement.  It's non-stop, and that's how we like it.  We city mice.  Thrill seekers."

In the kitchen, he couldn't help seeing the broken glass, the leggy brown smear beneath.  He had to stop and take a couple of deep breaths.  More taps on the front door.

"Yeah, I'll be right with you," he muttered.  "Soon as I finish reflecting on the many, many ways I hate my life."

He made it to the door and checked the peephole.  Somehow he'd expected it to be Spike, back with some lame complaint about the Nova.  Instead, it was a guy he didn't know.  Tall, Hispanic, long hair, bony nose.  After a second he recognized him as the guy who'd come in as Spike was leaving.  The one who'd passed him by and gone upstairs.  He was staring away down the hall, looking bored and about to leave.

"Hi," Xander said through the door.  "Uh...what can I do for you?"

The guy looked up at the sound of his voice.  "Yeah, your friend told me to give this to you," he said.

"My friend?" Xander said, and realized he must mean Spike.  "Give me what?"

The guy shrugged, looked down at something he was holding in his hands.  "Fuck, I don't know," he said.  "I just fucking bring it here, he gave me twenty bucks, said you'd give me twenty too."

Xander rested his forehead against the door and closed his eyes.  If it was the transmission, he was going to beat Spike in the head with a claw hammer.  He undid the chain and the deadbolts, and opened the door.

"I'm afraid to ask," he said, and the guy smiled at him.

"No, man," he said.  "You're not afraid.  Not yet."

Xander stared at him, then looked down at his hands to see what he was holding.  It was a strip of duct tape, sticky side up.

"Actually, I'm over the adhesive phobia—" he said, and the guy stepped forward and pushed the tape over his mouth.

Xander stumbled back and the guy caught him, stepped around behind him, and wrenched his arms behind his back.  Xander yelled through the tape, and a second guy walked quickly through the door and punched him in the face.  His head snapped back and something in his neck cracked.

He lost track of things, and when he came back he was being dragged over to the sofa.  A third guy had come through the door and was closing it carefully behind him, then deliberately setting the deadbolts and the chain.  He and the second guy were dressed in baggy eighties jeans and crappy T-shirts, but they looked like they could bench-press the Nova.  The second guy was fake-tanned, with a couple thin gold chains around his neck and a little gold hoop in his left ear.  He was wearing a black leather Village People-type vest over his T-shirt, and he took it off calmly and laid it over the back of a chair. 

"That's real leather," he said, catching Xander's eye and pointing at the vest.  "Notice me taking it off, the better to beat you without messing it up."

"That's a good idea," the third guy said.  "I always forget that kind of shit."  He carefully unfastened the silver chain he was wearing around his left wrist, and dropped it into his pocket.

The sofa came up to meet Xander very fast, because Bony Nose had kicked his legs out from under him.  

"Tape."  Xander kicked out desperately and tried to roll off the sofa, and Bony Nose kicked him hard in the ribs.  His side exploded and everything slowed down.  He ground himself into the back of the sofa, trying to get away from the pain, and at the same time saw the third guy—bullet head, stubby fingers, neck like a tree trunk—toss a roll of duct tape across the room toward him.  Out of sight, Bony Nose caught it.

"Hold his arms."  Tan came forward with a smile and grabbed Xander's wrists, yanked them behind his back again, pushed so hard that his face was crushed into the sofa and he couldn't breathe.

There was a ripping sound and the tape went around his wrists.  He yelled into the sofa cushion.  The taping paused.

"You keep yelling, you're going to choke," Bony said.  His tone was calm, maybe a little bored.  Xander twisted his head to the side and jerked in some quick breaths.  Black spots fluttered across his eyes.

He felt a knee in his back, felt one of them grab his bound wrists and yank up.  Something in his right shoulder gave way.  It was pure white, hot, sharp as a razor.  He screamed into the tape.

"Man, he's a baby," someone said.

"Stand him up," someone else said.

He was standing, Bullet holding one side and Tan the other, with Bony in front of him.  Bony was looking at him with curiosity and sober patience.  Xander's shoulder thumped and screamed.  The sound of his breathing—fast, ragged, high—filled the room.

After a moment, Bony stopped looking at him and gazed around the apartment.

"Man," he said.  "What is that?  A bead curtain?  That's really...pathetic."

Bullet laughed, and Xander staggered as the movement sawed his shoulder.

"Okay," Bony said.  "So, here's the score.  This is a message for Spike."  He pulled his right leg back like a star kicker and slammed his boot into Xander's left knee.

Screaming.  Again with the screaming.  He buckled and Tan and Bullet yanked him up again, and his arm seemed to tear a little further from his body, and he screamed some more. The tape kept most of it from coming out.

"You think you can remember that?" Bony asked.  Xander nodded, feeling tears and sweat on his face.

"I'm not so sure," Bony said.  He drew his leg back and kicked Xander in the right knee.

Xander caved again and hung for a moment from Tan and Bullet's arms, the pain in his legs worse even than the pain in his shoulder.  He couldn't get enough air.  His chest had seized.  Finally Tan and Bullet pulled him up again.  Bony had stepped back and was looking at him with the same bemused expression

"Man, he's like a little girl," Bullet said, from somewhere far away.  "Wah, wah, wah."

"Come on," Bony said.  "Don't crap out on me yet."

Buffy.  Buffy was going to bust through the door in a second, rescue him, wipe the floor with these cheap fucks.  Maybe throw in a little extra Slay-fu and egg rolls for the little girl comment.  Buffy always knew where the trouble was.  Buffy was the Slayer.  These guys were Alpo.

Bony stepped forward and Xander flinched before he could help it.

"Little more to that message," Bony said, and punched Xander in the neck.

His head went sideways into Bullet's shoulder, and Bullet went, "Hey," and punched him in the kidney.  Tan said, "Oh, does that mean we can—?" and Bony shrugged, and Tan grinned and switched hands on Xander's shoulder to punch him in the stomach.  His head went down and someone kneed him in the chin, and there was blood on the floor, and he couldn't breathe.  Bullet and Tan weren't holding him up anymore, so he fell down, and they started kicking him.

Buffy was in Sunnydale.

He was in L.A.

City mouse.



"Take the tape off his mouth."

"He'll fucking scream."

"He's got a message to deliver.  Can't do that if he suffocates."

"Man, he's going to fucking scream his ass off."

"Take the tape off.  Don't close that all the way.  Just—yeah, just leave it like that."



The light was halfway gone, and his father was pacing in the kitchen upstairs, which meant his mother was out and there was nobody to yell at.  Which meant it was best to just lie low.  Yeah, lie low.  Don't move a muscle, just watch the light go halfway across the room and shhh. 

He was floating.  He could breathe.  Not much, but some.  It was so sweet.  He wanted to tell someone about it, tell Willow, breathing is the best, you have to try it, but Willow wasn't there.  His father's steps went across the ceiling and back.

The square of light that came down the steps when the door at the top opened, he hated that.

The silence that descended when the footsteps stopped.



The basement door opened with a creak, and the light was all gone now.  He wasn't floating anymore.  He was stuck to the floor, heavy and dark, a crushed insect.  His hands were still taped behind his back, he was wearing only his jeans.  He was cold.  He couldn't feel.

"Fucking Christ."

British.  Giles.  Giles was here, he wasn't in the basement, he was in L.A., he was on the floor of his apartment, it was dark.  Giles—Buffy, Willow, they were here.

"Ask me in."

He tried to lift his head but his neck didn't work.  When he worked his mouth he found it was crusted and salty.

"Ask me in, Xander."

Bad time to be British, Giles.  Just fucking let yourself in, I'm a little tied up here.  Taped up.  Half-dead.  Whatever.

"Come on in," he said, and his voice was weird, cracked, the voice of some crazed wooden ventriloquist's dummy.  He cleared his throat and tried to lift his head again.

Giles came in and put a hand on his shoulder.  Cold hand.  "Fucking Christ," he said again.  Xander smiled.

"G-man," he said.  "Sound like a sailor."

Giles stood up and walked into the kitchen, rummaged in a drawer, then came back.  He knelt down behind Xander and started to cut the tape on his wrists.  Xander's shoulder shrieked, and he doubled up and yelled into the floor.

"Shit, sorry.  Look, can you get up?"

Xander closed his eyes and pressed his cheek to the floor.  "Nah," he said.  "Just—I'm just gonna lie here a bit."

The tape came off his wrists, boring another molten hole in his shoulder.  He writhed and knocked his forehead against the floor.

"Upsa-daisy," Giles said, and lifted him.

It was strange to be carried.  Giles was a lot stronger than he looked; apparently, shelving books all day built a guy up.  He smelled like cigarettes. 

"What a fucking mess," Giles said, putting him down on the sofa.

"Whoah," Xander said.  "Hey, don't—this is going to stain.  It's not Scotchguarded."

There was a pause.  Giles seemed to have moved away a few steps.  "Sorry," he said.  "Kind of a moot point."

The light clicked on, and Xander winced.  Suddenly his face felt hot and stiff, his eyes were crushed almost shut.  He couldn't breathe through his nose, and there was blood in his mouth.  He blinked and ducked his head from the brightness.  His chest and stomach were dark and swollen, and his jeans were bloody.  The floor was smeared with drying blood, pulled in loops and arcs where feet had moved through it.

"Wow," he said.  "That's really...before was better.  Without the seeing."  His mouth was bleeding, it was hot at the corners and he could taste blood.  He could feel it running down his chin and neck.

There was a snapping sound, and he looked over to see Spike standing by the door, lighting a cigarette.  He was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, and there was blood down the front of both.  Xander's blood, he realized after a second.

"Thought you were Giles," he said softly.  No Giles, that meant no Buffy, no Willow.  Just...Spike.  Putting his lighter back into his pocket.  Dragging on his cigarette and looking at him through narrowed eyes.

"Flatterer," Spike said.

Xander let his head fall back on the sofa and closed his eyes.  He was floating again, and that was good, it was vastly preferable to being battered and crushed and bloody.  His body felt hot and light, transparent.  Like he could lift off the sofa and zoom away to wherever he chose.  Sunnydale.  Go see Buffy and Will, spend some time rehashing the glory days, maybe put a movie in the VCR.  Casablanca.  Everyone said it was a classic, and he still hadn't seen it.  And hey, you guys, the weirdest fucking thing happened to me in L.A.  You'll never guess who I ran into, and what happened next.

"Friends of yours?"

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.  There was blood on it.  For a second he thought his eyes were deceiving him, and then he focused, and he was right; there was a fine spray of blood up there, a little Gothic airbrushing.  Just to open the place up a bit.  He started to laugh, his chest hitching.

"They take anything?"

He rolled his head to the side and looked at Spike, who was still standing by the door, smoking and staring at him.  Something was strange—Spike seemed anxious.  He had the look he got when he knew something, and was trying to pretend he didn't.  When he lifted the cigarette to his lips, his hand shook a little.

"Friends of yours, actually," Xander said.  "There was a message—something about a message for you."

"Yeah?  What was it?"

"I forget.  Oh yeah, beating.  That was the gist, I think.  No wait, that was all of it.  Just the beating."

Spike pulled on his cigarette until it sparked, staring at him.  Xander met his eyes for a moment, then rolled his head back and stared at the ceiling.  It was blurry.  He tried to lift his hand to wipe his eyes, but neither of his arms would work.  Deadwood.  He gave up and closed his eyes, ground his teeth, felt blackness rise up through him.

"Right, come on."  He opened his eyes—Spike was standing over him, holding his leather coat.  He stared at it stupidly, astonished that Tan and Bullet hadn't taken it on their way out.  Probably too small.  Spike was a wiry little devil.  Why was he thinking about the coat?

Spike sighed and put an arm around his shoulders, pulled him gently forward and then to his feet.  His legs buckled and Spike caught him.

"Jesus Christ—"

The pain in his legs was furious, nauseating, all the way up to his belly.  

"Knees, huh?" Spike said.  "Simple, effective.  Maybe a bit derivative."

Xander waited for the bright dots to stop swimming through his vision.  "Thanks.  So much.  For the audio tour."

The coat was around his shoulders and Spike had his left wrist in a tight grip, holding him up with an arm crooked around his waist and under his left elbow.  With Spike taking his weight, they made it to the door.  Spike flicked off the light and they were out in the hall, the door swinging closed behind them.  Xander flinched as it slammed.  The sound was final, like the closing of a book for the last time.

"Where we going?"

Spike was still smoking with his free hand; he dragged hard on the cigarette and blew the smoke off to the side in a jet.

"My place," he said.

They were out the door, into the hot dark stinking night, down the stairs in a second.  Spike tossed the cigarette away, looked left and right, fished the keys out of his pocket and opened the passenger door of the Nova.  Xander realized dimly that he wasn't wearing shoes.  It didn't matter; Spike was holding him up.  His feet hardly touched the pavement.

"Watchyerhead," Spike said, leaning down and folding him into the Nova's front seat.  The car smelled like cigarettes, maybe blood.  But that could just be him.

Spike slammed the door and walked around the front of the car.  At the driver's side he paused.  Xander could just see his bloodied T-shirt, his hand resting on the door handle, the slight backward turn in his body.  He looked like he was listening for something, or smelling the air. 

Slowly, Xander closed his eyes.  He was light again, and sleepy, and everything hurt.  His mouth had started bleeding again, and he swallowed the blood with a vague feeling of disgust.

The car door slammed and Spike was sitting next to him, scowling, jamming the key into the ignition.  The Nova started with a shudder.

Xander raised his left arm and fished painfully in the air over his right shoulder as Spike pulled out.  After a moment, Spike looked over with his eyebrows raised.

"What are you doing?"

"Seat belt," Xander said.

There was silence.  "Sure," Spike said at last.  He reached over, pulled the belt across Xander's chest, and clicked it closed.

Lightly, Xander fell backward into nothing.

 

---

Chapter 3

The door opened beside him and he jerked awake with a gasp, leaning away from the punch.  But it wasn't a punch, it was hands reaching in and pulling him upright, then grabbing him under his arms and hauling him out of the car.  He gave an involuntary yelp, then set his jaw against the pain.

"Come on," Spike said.

They were parked in a warehouse of some kind, grey cement walls and floor, old oil stains and abandoned garbage, stacks of spare tires, the smell of dust and transmission fluid and rats.  That was what L.A. had taught him so far—what rats smelled like.

Spike pulled Xander's left arm around over his shoulder and grabbed Xander's waist.  He kicked the car door closed and started walking quickly toward a door in the wall in front of them.

Xander turned his head to spit blood, and caught a glimpse of the DeSoto parked off against the wall.  Oddly, it filled him with nostalgia.  He wanted to call out to it—hi, DeSoto!  Evil vampire conveyance.  Catch you later, we're going in.  Its left rear tire was flat, and it was canted at a sad, disused angle.  Next to it was parked another car, sleek and black, with the smug look of an interloper.

As they reached the door, Spike looked up and said, "It's me."  There was a slight click, and Spike pushed the door open with his free arm, taking them through to a cement staircase.  They started up.

"Warehouse," Xander said thickly, as they tackled a second flight of stairs.  "Nice.  I can't believe you dissed my place."

"Shut up, pillock," Spike said, taking them up a third flight of stairs.  Xander's feet hit a riser and pain shot through both his legs.  He cried out, trying to pull them up.  Spike shifted his grip and lifted Xander higher.

They came to the top of the flight and crossed a small cement landing.  There was a door in the far wall, and Spike pushed through it without pausing.

It was a loft.  Sort of.  Still a cement floor, cement walls painted clean white, big windows with dark curtains.  Spike was carrying him through it fast.  A television, a sofa, a coffee table.  Spike had a coffee table.  Xander craned his head to look back, saw a framed print hung on the wall from a piece of wire.  He couldn't see what it was.  Spike had art.

They passed a fridge, stove, and sink.  A heavy bag, speed bag, some mats.  A bed.  A bathtub in the middle of the room, with pipes running down through open space from the ceiling, thirty feet above.  There wasn't much light, just a few standing lamps, and Spike hadn't slowed down.  He walked straight to the bathtub and scooped Xander up in both arms without pausing.

"Hey," Xander said weakly.

Spike laid him down in the tub and pulled the coat out from under his shoulders.  He stepped back and shook the coat out at arm's length, inspecting it critically.  After a minute he sneered, bundled it in his hand, and hurled it across the room.  It hit something with a thump.

"It's always warehouses with you people," Xander said, resting his face against the cool enamel of the tub.  He was so hot.  He could feel sweat running down the small of his back, and from under his arms.  The tub felt good against his ribs.

"Well, that's a mess," Spike said conversationally.  "Do a good deed, what do you get?  Dry cleaning bills."  Xander lay still, trying to think of something smart to say in response.  Then he realized that Spike wasn't talking to him.

He was still staring in the direction he'd thrown his coat.  Xander braced his good elbow and tried to sit up again.

After a moment, a woman appeared in Xander's view, holding the coat Spike had thrown.  Dark hair and eyes.  Shit, it was Drusilla.  Xander's heart jerked, and he lost his breath.  No, it wasn't.  Not Dru.  Someone else.  He'd never seen her before.  She looked down into the tub.

"Sweet Jesus," she said.  "What is that?"

She was about the same height as Spike, with straight dark brown hair in a ponytail at the base of her neck.  Tan skin, dark eyes.  Kind of thin.  A wide jaw and a bit of a widow's peak.  Like Willow, he thought dazedly.  She was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, and that was kind of funny, her standing next to Spike in the exact opposite of what he was wearing.  About three seconds’ worth of funny.

There was a smudge of blood on her bicep where the coat had hit her.  She was holding it cradled in her arms, and her face was pissed.

"Not a what, love," Spike said in a mildly chastising tone.  He sat down on the edge of the tub and fished his cigarettes out of his jeans.  "A who."

She glanced at Spike, then back down at Xander.  "Looks like it's had the who kicked out of it," she said.

Spike smiled slightly and bent his head to light his cigarette.

"And you brought him here...why?"  Her voice was cold.  Xander began to push his left palm against the base of the tub, trying to lever himself up.

"Good question," he croaked.  "Spike?  Plan?"

Spike blew smoke out and shrugged.

When Xander said Spike's name, the woman turned sharply and stared at him.  He saw her hands close hard on the coat.  Now she looked more startled than angry—or maybe not startled, exactly.  More like scared.  And young.    

"You know each other?" she said tightly.

"We were at Eton together," Spike said.  "He's from last night.  Someone dropped by his place after I left and turned him into a Post-it note."

The woman took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  "Someone," she said, in a tone that Xander couldn't read.

Spike nodded, squinting up at her through the smoke.  "Yeah," he said.

She looked down at the coat she was still holding, then pulled one hand free and examined the palm.  It was smeared with blood.

Xander let out a long shaky breath and they both looked at him.

"Okay," the woman said.  "So.  What do you want to do with him?"

Spike stood up and started to walk away.  "Fix him up," he said.

She glanced down at Xander.  Her lip curled and she gave an angry laugh.  "Fix him up?" she said.  "What, find him a nice girl who shares his interests?  You've got to be kidding."

Spike came back and peered down at Xander through a halo of smoke.

"Take a couple stitches," he said.  "He'll bounce back."

 She shook her head disbelievingly.  "You idiot.  He's—"

"Hey."  Spike’s head whipped around and they stared at each other.  The muscles in her neck and jaw worked.  Spike was completely still, his face cold.

After a moment she looked down, stepped away and laid the coat carefully on the edge of the tub.

"I can't fix him," she said quietly.  "He needs to go to the hospital.  He needs X-rays, maybe surgery."

"Whoa," Xander said softly.  "Hey, whoa."  He was feeling light again, the tub wasn't cold anymore under his back.  It felt soft and warm and buoyant.  He felt like he could lie there forever.

Spike glanced down at him and shrugged.  "So take him," he said.

She dropped her head and stared down at Xander.  At that angle he saw that she had dark circles under her eyes.  She was rubbing at the blood on her palm with the thumb of her other hand.

"Bring him back tonight," Spike said, then reached out and turned her wrist to look at her watch.  "Or tomorrow.  When he's fixed.  I want to talk to him."

She didn't react when Spike took her wrist, just kept staring down at Xander.  "Sure," she said after a moment.  Spike turned away, pulling his bloody T-shirt out of his jeans.

"Take his car," he said over his shoulder.  "And put some clothes on him."

She rolled her eyes up.  "Oh please," she whispered.

"I can hear you, pet," Spike called mildly from somewhere behind Xander's head.  She and Xander looked at each other.  He tried to smile, and she closed her eyes and pressed her lips together.

"Man, I know what that's like," he said, and laughed.  She opened her eyes and looked at him without expression.

"Don't run off," she said, and walked away.

He lay staring at the ceiling, at the pipes that ran up into darkness, listening to the sound of her footsteps heading to the back of the loft.  It sounded like quite a distance.  He was shivering, which was strange.  He felt hot.  If he could lift his arm and work his hand, he could turn the faucet on and lie under the cold water, and that would be the absolute best.  He'd have to remember to suggest it when she came back.

Something banged, and footsteps started to come back toward him.  Water was running somewhere, and he heard Spike cursing quietly, sounding pissed.

She appeared to his right, wearing a black coat over her T-shirt, holding a long-sleeved shirt in one hand and a pair of running shoes in the other.  She leaned forward and hooked a hand around the back of his neck.

"Up," she said, and pulled.  He sat up, gasping at the pain in his stomach.  She slid one sleeve up his left arm and slipped the shirt around his back, pulled it across his right arm without bothering with the sleeve.  That was good.  He realized dizzily that if she'd tried to move that arm, he probably would have thrown up.

She laid him back down and slid the shoes onto his feet.  They felt tight, and the pressure up his legs made his knees explode.  He pressed his face into the tub and tried to count, tried not to make any noise.

"All right," she said.  She put one hand on the side of the tub, and held the other out to him.  He reached for it, but it wavered out of his reach and his hand fell back and rapped the side of the tub.  She grimaced.

"Sorry," he said.  "I'm a little—"

"No shit," she said, and grabbed his hand.  She raised her leg and put one foot inside the tub, on top of his toes.  She pressed with her foot and pulled his arm, and he found himself levered clumsily up toward her.  His knees shrieked and he wondered if vomiting was on the agenda after all, even while part of him thought, Hey—neat trick.  She slung his arm around her neck and grabbed him around the waist, just as Spike had done.

"Okay, Nova," she said.  "Let' s go."

She pulled and he lifted his legs somehow, and he was out of the tub and half-dangling from her shoulder, while she shifted her hip to take his weight.  He was taller than she was, and probably outweighed her by fifty pounds.  Maybe forty.  He'd lost weight in the last few weeks.

"Need a hand?"  They both looked up—Spike was standing by the sink, shirtless, smoking and watching them with amusement.  There was blood on his stomach.  "Oh hell, what am I thinking?  I should just give you one."  He put his cigarette in his mouth and clapped, grinning.

"Yeah, come a little closer and try that," Xander said.  "Comedy boy."

"I'll call," she said.  She swung around and Xander had a strange sensation of complete weightlessness.  Her turn was smooth and quick, the way Buffy would do it when she was working the judo mojo.  Which made this girl pretty strong.

For a moment he wondered if she was a vamp too, but her hands were warm, and he could feel her working to support his weight.  She wasn't anywhere near as strong as Spike.  When they made it to the door, she had to hold him up briefly with one arm, and she shook.  She pushed the door open and they started down the stairs.

Behind them, Spike must have turned a stereo on, because the Sex Pistols started to chant about anarchy in the UK.

"Déjà vu," he said.  The stairs went a little faster on the way down, but by the bottom she was breathing hard.  They paused while she adjusted her grip on his arm and hoisted him higher.  He tried to take his weight on his own feet, and the pain made him double over, yanking her with him.

"Fucking hell."  She yanked on his arm and shot him a vicious look.

"Sorry," he gasped.  "Trying to—help out, here."

She kept an arm around his waist and waited for him to straighten up.  "Don't," she said.

She kicked the last door open and they were back in the garage, the smell of stale motor oil and dust in the air.  The DeSoto was still in its corner, next to the shiny new thing, which he saw now was a Jag.  Spike had a Jag.

She opened the Nova's passenger door and maneuvered him, not as smoothly as Spike had done, into the seat.  He clipped the top of his head on the frame and jerked in pain.  He felt her press a hand over the spot.

"Sorry."

Before he could look up, her hand was gone and she was walking around to the driver's side.  She jerked the door open and slid in, slammed it closed after her.  Spike had left the keys in the ignition and he expected her to start the engine right away, but she sat without moving.

He let the silence go, partly because he didn't know what to say, partly because he was melting into the roar inside his skull.  She glanced over at him, then looked away again.  Come on, he wanted to say.  Time's wasting.  Let's go get X-rays.

"What's your name?" she asked, reaching for the ignition key.  He was surprised, and couldn't think for a moment.

"Xander," he said at last.  She raised her eyebrows.

"Xander," she repeated.  She turned the key and the engine struggled to life.  For a moment she was distracted, and frowned.

"Timing's off," she said.

"Always has been," he said, and licked his lips.  The thirst was swelling in his mouth.  He was exhausted, his eyelids were grainy and heavy.  He could still hear the Pistols booming faintly through the walls.

"I’m Liv," she said.  She started to say something else, but stopped.  She put the car into reverse and they peeled out backwards in a tight curve, the tires screaming.  He jammed his good hand against the dash and braced as the nose of the car was slung sideways.

"Hey, whoa—"

The car came to a stop pointed in the opposite direction, and she sat silently, staring straight ahead, both hands on the wheel.

"Liv," he said after a moment.  "Okay, hi.  Nice to meet you."  The shirt she'd put on him had fallen half off, exposing his bruised chest and stomach.  He pulled it back over him, feeling the cold wet spots where he'd bled into it.  How much had he bled so far?  He raised his left hand, looked at the rust-colored scrapes and smears on the white skin, watched it tremble.

She pursed her lips, glanced at him, then looked back through the windshield and tapped the gas.  They eased forward slowly, toward a garage door that was starting to open in the wall in front of them.

"Hey, very Bat-cave," he said.  "Very cool."

"It's an electronic eye," she said absently.  "You can get them at Home Depot."

"But still, cool."

"If I asked you to close your eyes, and keep them closed, would you do it?"

He laughed shakily.  "That depends.  Is it for a lovely surprise, or am I going to wake up minus a kidney?"

"I'd rather you didn't know how to find us."

He watched the garage door open to darkness.

Us. 

That was weird.  Was she Spike's girlfriend?  Spike wouldn't date a human.  Well, okay, Spike would do just about anything, if memory served, and there was the chip to consider.  Back in Sunnydale, other vamps made fun of him, wouldn't let him join in all their vampire games.  Maybe he was slumming.

He glanced sideways at her, trying not to be obvious.  There were no bite marks on her neck, but Spike couldn't bite anyway.  And now that he was looking, he saw she had a tattoo on the side of her neck, high up, on the skin below and almost behind her ear.  He couldn't make out what it was, but it bothered him.

She looked at him.  "Or you could ride in the trunk."

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back.  "Wake me up when we get there."

He felt the car pull forward sharply and take a left turn, and streetlights started to strobe across his lids.  He'd meant it as a joke, but hot darkness came swarming up again and he hardly had a minute to himself before his grip slipped and he was gone.



The door opened again and he flinched—it was like a routine, the hands grabbing him, the awkward haul, shoulder and knees screaming for mercy.  But this time his skin was on fire, he felt crushed and swollen, the white lights cut into his eyes and tears ran down his cheeks.  Sounds came through thick and molten, and he watched from somewhere far off as a man in a white uniform walked toward him, saying something slow and garbled.  He must be the Walrus.

He was floating forward easily, weightlessly, and he looked to his left and saw the woman, Spike's girlfriend, struggling with his arm around her neck.  She was saying something to the man in white in the same Wavy Gravy voice.  He caught his own name, a bunch of stuff that made no sense.  He didn't even have a sister.  The man in white walked off down the hall, then came back with a wheelchair.

The spokes flickered in the light as the wheels turned. 

Entrancing.

He was sitting in the chair, shuttling along the hallway past gurneys and carts and people in pastel scrubs.  His head fell back and he watched the fluorescent lights zoom past.  It was like that movie, the one with Tim Robbins, where they wheeled him into an operating room from hell.  For a moment he picked his head up and tried to track, to make sure they weren't taking him anywhere with body parts swept into the corners.  Everything was clean and painfully white, and for some reason he thought of Rosie, at The Summer Place.  Rosie seemed like years ago.

They banged through a set of doors and stopped at what looked like a table with sheets.  Hands pulled him up and onto it, and then someone counted to three.  He laughed.  Good job, guys.  Next time, warn me.

Someone was shining a light into his eyes, and cutting his jeans off from the ankles up, and the scissors made a neato zipping sound, like a torpedo.  He was cooler without the jeans, and his knees hurt less.  Someone asked him what was funny, in a deep basso warble that made him laugh harder.  They were washing him off with little cotton swabs, and that was hilarious.  He was so hot.  He could feel sweat running down his ribs.

Someone touched his right knee and for a moment everything came clear and bright and up to speed.  The faces over him, two black women and a white man.  Their voices calm and normal, through the rush of pain in his ears.

"Looks partially detached.  Yeah, it's floating.  Look at that.  See the edema?"  One of the women, the older one, was looking down at his knee and the man was looking over her shoulder, nodding solemnly.  "Do we have a history?  Somebody brought him in?"

The man opened his mouth and Xander closed his eyes.  Everything slowed down again, and he felt a hot pinch inside his left elbow, and when he looked over a sweet-faced Asian girl was patting a bandage over the tube she'd just put there, smiling at him.  He smiled back.  Someone clicked a light on over his head, then off, then on again a minute later, and he wanted to open his eyes and tell them enough already, but he couldn't think how to begin. 



They banged him into every wall in the building, and he lay dazed in the hall for hours, staring at the ceiling, thirsty and thinking he heard familiar voices.  He'd start to fall smoothly backward into darkness, and then Willow would say, "Here's a nice case of inferior dislocation, with surrounding soft tissue damage," and pull down the shoulder of his gown, and he'd slowly open his eyes to find a group of people in pastel scrubs staring down at him.  Down the hall, Buffy was telling someone to pick her up a coffee and one of those bagels with the cheese on top.  If they were going out, that is.  Otherwise, don't bother.



There was a bright light in his eyes, and a beeping noise, and a woman smiled down at him from behind a blue surgery mask.

"You're doing fine, Xander," she said.  "They're almost finished."

He opened his mouth and closed it again.  From somewhere far away, he could hear a man talking about turf.

"So we tore it all out and got the Kentucky Bluegrass.  It's the best.  Disease resistant, deep roots, gorgeous color.  We love it.  Suction."

There was a sucking noise, and Xander blinked at the ceiling.  The woman patted his forehead with a little cotton square.

"Vast improvement over the fescue," the man said, and Xander closed his eyes.



He woke up in a bed without enough blankets, cold and nauseated.  A thin curtain was pulled halfway around the bed, but he could see an empty bed to his left, and hear a television blaring Bob Barker, the sepia-toned old bastard.  The window was bright with sun.

It felt like years since he'd seen daylight.

He lifted his head and looked down at himself.  He had a strange half-memory of disinfectant, a hand moving past his face in a latex glove stained dark red, banks of fluorescent lights gliding.  He was covered in sheets, but when he wiggled them down from his chin he found his right arm tied snugly against his chest in a sling, and a tube inside his left elbow.  His face felt hot and stiff, and he had bandages over his left eye, on his cheek.

He couldn't feel his feet.

Dear God.

They'd cut his legs off.

He yanked at the blanket and his legs were still there.  They looked like shit.  The right one was wrapped in bandages; the left was black with bruises and swollen grotesquely.  Carefully, he moved his toes.  They worked.  He'd never write a sonnet with them, but they worked.

He eased his head back and took a deep breath.  He was in the hospital.  Had Spike brought him here?  Spike had come to his apartment, taken him...  A warehouse, some kind of warehouse.  With a coffee table.

And now he was in hospital, and his heart was going insane, it was doing the tarantella.  He couldn't breathe.  He was hit with a crashing wave of fear and panic, the certainty that he was going to die.  He was having a heart attack.  He was going to be sick.

He scrabbled for the little kidney-shaped basin propped against the bedrail beside him, and puked.  It was just bile and foam, and it hurt like hell.  He gasped and coughed, tears running down his face.  Jesus Christ.  When it was over he pushed the basin away weakly and wiped his mouth on a corner of the sheet.

The curtain around the bed was raked back and he jumped, tried to cover up.  A chubby middle-aged woman in pink scrubs walked up and put her hand on his forehead.

"It's okay, hon," she said.  "It's just the drugs.  Happens to everyone."

He stared at her while she picked up the basin and set it on the table by his bed.  She took his left wrist and pressed her fingers over the vein, staring at her watch.  On the television, Bob Barker laughed and leaned into the camera.   

"That's good," she said, and tucked his arm back down beside him.  "You're doing just great.  How do you feel?"

He opened his mouth and a high cracked wheeze came out.  "Feel--thirsty," he whispered.

She smiled and stroked his hair, and he closed his eyes for a second, no shame, just feeling her fingers move gently on his scalp.  It felt fine.

"I'll get you some water," she said, and walked out.

He woke up a second later with a straw against his lips, and she was smiling at him, pale blue eyes and round pink cheeks and cool fingers on his forearm.

"Sorry for the wait," she said.  He sucked on the straw and the water was tepid, sweet, better even than breathing.  He drank half the cup in two gulps and she pulled the straw away.  "Better take it slow for now."

She put the cup on the bedside table, and he noticed that she'd taken the basin away at some point.  There was a new one, empty, at his elbow, but he didn't plan to use it.  Hadn't planned to use the first one, come to think of it.

She was fiddling with the television remote, trying to turn the volume down.  "This man," she said, gesturing at Barker.  "He gets under my skin."

"I hear you."  His voice was thin and papery, but the water was seeping into his throat and he could swear he felt stronger for it.  He reached out for the cup, but his hand was shaking too much to grab it.

"Let me get that," she said.  "You'll be pretty knocked out for a bit.  It's the surgery."

He drank the rest of the water while she held the cup for him.  "Surgery," he said, when the water was gone.  "What was surgered, exactly?"

"Just the knee," she said. "The right one.  The left one wasn't too bad, so they're letting it go."

He blinked.  His eyelids were heavy again—he'd just woken up, he couldn't be sleepy again.  But he was, and he didn't seem to have any say in it.

"What happened to the knee?" he asked weakly.  "I mean, what was wrong with it?"

"Detached patella," she said, smiling gently.  "That's the kneecap.  They just sew it right back on, it's a local.  I think your relative signed the release."

"My relative?"

She went to the end of his bed and picked up a metal clipboard.  "Your sister," she said after a moment.  "She signed for the surgery."

"I don't—"  He stopped.  Spike's girlfriend.  The girl who'd brought him in, he remembered now.  She'd authorized surgery for him?  Didn't they at least ask for a driver's license first?  The room was getting fuzzy.  He had to call Willow, Buffy, Giles.  Had to tell them he was—in hospital, being fitted for a plastic hip.  Tell them he'd been attacked.  Beaten up.  Put in hospital.  He should have kept a little Buffy in his pocket.

She'd picked up the remote again and was aiming it at Bob Barker.  "She said she'd be back this afternoon," she said.  "You should get some sleep until then."

He should call Willow, but he could hardly turn his head to see the phone on the table beside him.  His eyes slipped closed and he shook his head to open them.  "Want to call someone," he said, but his mouth was too thick and it came out blurred.  She pushed a button and the TV clicked off, taking Bob with it.  She smiled.

"Finally."



The curtain raked back and he jerked awake.  A small dark Asian-looking woman in peach scrubs checked the clipboard at the foot of his bed, then inspected the tube leading from his left arm to the IV drip beside him.  He lay silent while she fiddled with the feed on the bag.  When she was done she turned on her heel and walked away again, her eyes flicking over him without stopping.

"It was good for me too," he said.  There was a cup of water on the bedside table, and when he reached for it his hand didn't shake too much.  He drank half of it and then forced himself to pause.  While he was waiting he plucked the kidney basin from beside his elbow and dropped it beneath the bed.  Few things were eviler than a kidney-shaped vomit basin.  Unless you really, really needed one.

He drank the rest of the water and put the cup shakily back on the table—drinking was hard work, practically nap-worthy—and when he looked up Spike's girlfriend was just walking around the curtain.

She was wearing the same black coat and jeans, with a white T-shirt underneath.  Her hair was in a ponytail at the back of her neck.  Her eyes flickered over him quickly and then around the room.  She looked nervous and tired and about nineteen years old.

"Hi, Nova."

He just sat there.  Not to prove a point, just—he couldn't think what to say.  He couldn't remember whether he was supposed to be angry at her, or afraid of her, or happy to see her again.  Surgery did that to a guy.  Beatings, too.

She came around the side of the bed and stood looking down at him.  She didn't come too close, not close enough for him to reach out and grab her unless he was really fast.  Which he wasn't.

"You look..." she said, and paused.  "Fairly bad."

"Thanks.  They said that after the swelling goes down, I'll look just like Cher."

She looked away again.  "How are your legs?"  Before he could react she leaned forward and lifted the sheets over his knees.  He stiffened and she stared for a moment with pursed lips, then dropped the sheet.  "Uh-huh."

"See, I like that you're not all encouraging and optimistic right now.  Wait—no, I don't."

"You're not walking anytime soon," she said.  "And you're probably not getting out of here for a day or two."

"Not if the sponge baths are all they're rumored to be."

"I'd like to get you out tonight."

He lay back on the pillow and looked at her.  "Tell me, do you get the crack in your own neighborhood, or do you have to take a trip?  I'm not going anywhere."

Her face hardened, and he thought—mad.  That's Spike's lady, looking mad and stubborn.  I hope she doesn't play poker.  

She put the calm face back on in an instant, and he smiled.  His face hurt.  "Will you pass me the phone?  I want to make a call."

She didn't move, but her eyes shot quickly to the phone, to the window, back to him.  He waited, but she didn't say anything.

"If you don't want to, I'll just ask the nurse," he said, and raised the buzzer.  The calm face slipped again and her jaw worked.  After a moment she turned, picked up the phone, and held it out to him.

He dialed the Sunnydale area code, glancing out the window at the late afternoon sunshine.  It was maybe five o'clock; Buff and Will would be stopping off in their room after class, dropping off their books, talking about nail polish, boys, campaign finance reform.  Perfect time to catch them, tell them to get here and not dilly-dally.  He wanted to present Buffy with a reasonable facsimile of the Gleesome Threesome, so she could go out and detach some patellas all the way to Fresno.

"I'd rather you didn't."

He paused and looked up at her.  Her name came back to him suddenly—Liv.  Like Liv Tyler, only not.  Why couldn't Spike be dating Liv Tyler?  That would have made things interesting.

"Didn't what?"

"Call anyone."

"It's a little early in our relationship to get so grabby, don't you think?"  He started to dial, but the tone cut in after the first digits.  He'd forgotten to dial out.  He pressed the pins down and waited for the line to disconnect.

"It's not safe," she said again.  He laughed and hit the nine.

"It will be when my friends get here," he said.

He was sort of expecting her to grab the phone out of his hands—it was what Spike would have done.  She didn't.  When he thought about it for a minute, he realized that she couldn't, really.  They were in a hospital, and she was supposed to be his concerned sister, not his overbearing warden.  He dialed the girls' dorm room and she watched in silence.

After four rings the machine picked up, and Willow's voice came on.  "Buffy and Willow can't come to the phone right now," she said, "but we'll call you back as soon as we can.  Come to the phone, that is."  There was a scuffling sound, and then she added, "Thanks for calling!"  Beep.  She could reconfigure her hard drive in the time it took him to make raisin bran, but the answering machine would never be her servant.

The tape was recording, and he wasn't speaking.  He started to talk in a hurry, suddenly hyper-aware of Liv standing three feet away.

"Hi guys, it's me.  Xander.  In L.A., yeah, you know that.  Sorry I missed you, kind of thought you'd be around right now, but I guess not.  Anyway, yeah.  Just wanted to, uh, say hi and see how you guys are doing.  Classes and stuff.  Things here are..."  He paused. 

He wasn't exactly looking at Liv, but he could see her in his peripheral vision, and her face was hard and...well, unhappy.  Her hands were clasped behind her back, and she was breathing a little fast.  Her chin was set, her brows were pinched, and she looked frustrated.  And scared.  Scared of what?  Not Spike, he couldn’t hurt her.    

He was leaving an awfully long pause on the machine.

"Things here are fine," he said.  "Not that—not that I don't miss me some Scooby gang," he added, looking up at Liv.  She was watching him intently.  "Because I do.  And you guys have to come visit sometime soon.  I mean that."  He looked at Liv for emphasis.  "I mean, it's good knowing you guys are out there, you know?  Makes me feel safe.  Like I could call you up anytime, if anything bad happened, and you'd drop your knapsacks and come running."

He inclined his head meaningfully at Liv.  She looked away.

"Okay, anyway, just wanted to say hi, hope everything's cool with you, it's all good here."  He paused.  "Sorry about that 'it's all good' thing.  I'm going to get it looked at right away.  Okay.  Love you guys.  Bye."

He hung up and stared at the phone for a minute.  Why had he done that?  Because of her.  Spike's girlfriend looked pouty, and he caved.  To be—what, a gentleman?  He was an idiot.  An idiot and a gentleman. 

And okay, just possibly it was the fact that leaving a message telling Buffy that he was in the Rodney King wing of L.A. General was…humiliating.  He could already see the gang packing his futon into the Citroen and hauling him and his patella back to Sunnydale.  So maybe the call for help could just wait a while.  Until he sorted things out a bit on his own.  Until some of the swelling went down.

"You're quite an orator," she said, taking the phone from him and putting it back on the table.

"And you're quite a pain in the ass," he said.  "Does Spike give actual lessons in that, or does it just rub off?"

"I'm a quick study," she said.  She was smiling, just a bit.  Sure she was.  She'd got what she wanted.  Still, he had an impulse to smile back.  Spike's girlfriend, he reminded himself.  That brought on a few visuals he really didn't want to have.

"Don't get all happy," he said.  "The phone lines are still functioning, and while I may not actually be walking, my fingers still can."

"You made the right choice."

"Thanks, Wilford.  Of course, it's the choice you wanted me to make, so forgive me if I think, Not.  Now here's what I want.  I want to stay here until the doctor—the guy with the diploma on his wall—tells me to go home.  I want plenty of painkillers and lots of sleeping.  And more blankets.  And the remote."

She frowned and opened her mouth to speak.

"No, see, that's the other thing I want.  No more discussion about whether it's 'safe' for me to be here.  Actually, no more discussion at all.  I hear discussion, I call home.  Is that clear?"

She closed her mouth and nodded.  He settled back into the pillows.

"Good.  Remote."  He held out one hand.

She hesitated a moment, then walked around the end of the bed and picked the remote off the far table.  She came back and passed it to him, and he clicked the TV on.

"You realize this makes things much more complicated," she said, and he shrugged.

"Cope and deal.  And I hope that's not discussing I hear.  Cause my dialing finger's getting itchy."

Laverne and Shirley was on.  Schlemiel, schlemozzle.  What the hell did that mean?  Maybe if he was lucky there'd be a Bosom Buddies rerun, and he'd have a quiet aneurysm, and this whole mess would be solved.

Liv checked her watch and glanced at the window.

"I need to make a call," she said.  "If the police show up, try not to say anything until I get back."

"The Police?  Oh man, they broke up ages ago," he said, trying to find the channel buttons.  He was getting sleepy again, and his fingers were thick and clumsy.  His legs ached.  Ah, good.  A nature program.  Meerkats.  They got up to the darndest things.

She had turned to go, but she paused at the foot of his bed and turned back.  "You're very lucky, you know."

He let the remote drop into his lap and looked at her.  "Lucky."

"No lasting damage.  And you're alive."

"The day is young."

She shook her head.  "You'll be all right.  They won’t get another go at you."

"Observe me scoffing."

She tilted her head and met his eyes squarely.  Her face was calm, and this time he couldn't see signs of anything else beneath the calm.  It looked real; she looked certain.

"You'll be all right."

She walked around the curtain and disappeared.

He sat holding the remote, watching the curtain waver slightly after her.  It was strange, the feeling he had.  Hot.  Tight in the chest.  Skin prickling.  He pressed his lips together and stared out the window, at the blue California sky, while meerkats chattered busily to each other. 



He woke up with the police at the foot of his bed, and Liv at his side.

"Xander," she said.  "They want to ask some questions.  Can you do this now?"

He licked his lips and tried to remember where he was, what was going on.  There were two of them, both men, one tall and thin and black, the other heavyset and redheaded.  They were in LAPD uniforms, and some far-flung part of his mind thought about the parking tickets he owed, which he hadn't paid yet.  But it hadn't been that long, just a couple of days.  It seemed like weeks.

"Do you want some water?" Liv asked.  Her voice was softer and warmer than it had been before, and he remembered she was supposed to be his sister.  She had her hand on his shoulder.  He nodded, and she helped him sit up, then held the cup for him to drink from.  The water was...damn fine.  He'd have to write a letter to the city, thanking them for the superior quality of Los Angeles tap water.

"Okay?"  Liv was taking the cup away, and he nodded.

"Thanks."  His voice was squeaky and too quiet, and he coughed.

"Appreciate it, Mr. Phillips.  This won't take too long."  The white cop flipped open a pad and pulled a pen from his pocket.

Mr. Phillips?  She'd made a name up.  Well, she hadn't known his last name when she'd checked him in, so that made sense.  But what else was going to get made up, and what was he supposed to say to the questions they were going to ask?  He looked at her quickly, sideways, and she smiled in a sisterly, encouraging way.

"Mr. Phillips, your sister's already told us what she knows, and we know you're tired, but just a few questions-"

It turned out she'd told them the truth, more or less.  More than one guy—she didn’t know how many.  His apartment.  Beating.  In her version, though, he opened the door because they were drinking in the hallway, whooping it up.  He tried to tell them to shut up and move along, and they turned on him.  Beat him unconscious and left him for the roaches.  And that part was pretty much true.

In her version, the Spike-free version, she'd found him.  Came to check up after he didn't answer his phone all day on a Saturday.  Scraped him off the floor and brought him in.

"I told you that neighbourhood isn't safe," she said softly at one point, and he looked up and saw that she was wearing an expression of pain and dismay that made him cringe.  Made him think of Willow.  Just for a second.

The police wanted to know what the three men had looked like.

"One Hispanic," he said, and saw Bony Nose standing in front of him, his right foot pulled back, his whole body tensed for the kick.

You think you can remember that?   

His grandchildren would be born remembering it. 

"Two white," he said, and saw Tan take off his gayboy vest and lay it neatly over the back of the chair.  Bullet tossed the roll of tape through the air behind him.

Oh, does that mean we can-? 

He had a good memory.  He could see Tan's scalp through his hair, it was cut so close.  Bullet had a tattoo on his neck, some kind of snake.  He remembered that now, although he couldn't remember seeing it at the time.

He told them what he could remember, and they thanked him and then asked him the same questions over and he said all the same stuff again.  Then they went through Liv's story again, and she told it quietly, looking worried and strained.  Finally the notebook was closed.

"Thanks for your help, Mr. Phillips.  We'll be in touch."

"Sure."

The black one smiled ruefully, tapped his fingers on the rail along the bottom of the bed, and then they were both gone.  Disappeared to the other side of the curtain.  Xander lay feeling light and hollow and cold, wondering what he'd done.  Lied to the cops.  Thrown his lot in with Spike and Liv.  And it felt—strangely, it felt all right.  Almost good.

Liv was holding the cup of water up to his lips again, and he drank without thinking, loving the coolness over his tongue and throat.  His face hurt.  His shoulder hurt, and his legs.  Well, it all hurt.  He closed his eyes and dropped his head back into the pillow.

Liv still had her hand on his shoulder, he realized.  He opened his eyes and looked fuzzily up at her.

"So?  Ten points from the American judge, seven from the surly Czech?"

She didn't say anything, just looked at him with an unreadable expression.  He swallowed and tried to smile.  After a moment she looked away, toward the window.  He followed her gaze and saw that it was almost dark outside.

"You should sleep."

"Okay."  He closed his eyes again, but she didn't move.

"Xander, it really isn't safe for you to be here."

"Pass me the phone."

"I just want you to think about it.  That's all."

He didn't say anything, and after a moment her hand went away.  He heard her walk to the far side of the room and pull a chair up to the bed.

"I'll stay here tonight," she said.  "Tomorrow, we'll...  We'll talk more about this."

"Uh-huh."

He was tilting and sliding, he was gone.

 

---

Chapter 4

Spike was there, standing over him, and a nurse was fiddling with the tube in his arm, and Spike looked pissed.  The nurse went away and Liv appeared at Spike's side.  She wasn't wearing her coat, just the T-shirt, and her hair was looking kind of straggly and messed up.  She was holding a styrofoam coffee cup.  Spike was in full Big Bad regalia, black T and red silk shirt and leather overtop.

It was dim in the room.  Night time.  That would explain why Spike could be there.  Should he be touched that Spike had come to visit him in hospital?

"I said bring him home," Spike said.  "Fix him and bring him back, not set him up on a weekly plan."

"I know what you said," Liv said.  Her voice was low and edging on irritated.  "He needed surgery.  They wouldn't let him just walk out."

"So pack him into a wheelchair and roll him out."

"While he yells bloody murder, yes.  Good idea."

Spike scowled and pulled a package of cigarettes out of his jacket.  Liv watched in silence as he lit one and dragged on it.

"Bring him back tomorrow," he said finally.  " I need you around right now.  And it's stupid for him to be here."

Pass me the phone, he tried to say, but his mouth wouldn't work.  He smiled instead.

Spike narrowed his eyes and stared at him.

"Is he awake?"



It was bright morning, and he was hungry.  His face was still stiff, but he didn't hurt as much, and he could feel his feet.  He could move his left leg a little bit.  He could sit up in bed.  He did.

Liv was asleep in the chair at the foot of his bed, slumped low with her head tipped back against the back of the chair, her mouth slightly open.  She'd taken her hair out of the ponytail at some point, and it was spread half over her face.  A styrofoam coffee cup was tipped at a perilous angle in her hand.

Some bodyguard.

But when he saw her there, he did feel a little safer.  Strange.  Because he hadn't realized he was feeling unsafe before.

He shifted and she opened her eyes and looked straight at him, which was eerie.  Then she blinked and closed her mouth and sat up, looking around.  She checked her watch.

"Morning," he said.

She stared at him, and he smiled.  She looked down at the cup in her hand, swirled it experimentally, then shrugged and bolted it.

"Mm," he said.  "That's good coffee."

She was pulling her hair back into its ponytail.  "Quiet night," she said.  "You're still lucky."

"I'm thinking of driving out to the casinos tonight, actually."

"They'll bring breakfast soon," she said.  "You think you can eat?"

"Only if they have horse."

"That's good.  You're feeling better."

He wiggled his toes under the blanket and raised his eyebrows.  "It's a dull roar in here, yeah.  The miracle of modern medicine."

She turned her head as an orderly wheeled a cart behind her and pulled it between the beds.  He flipped up the table on Xander's bed and put down a tray of food.  Toast, scrambled eggs the color of mustard, a bowl of oatmeal.  Milk and juice.  Xander's stomach bellowed and he seized the fork awkwardly with his left hand.

"I'll be back in a minute."  She was pulling her jacket on and pushing the chair back to the wall, and he waved the fork absently, already chewing.  The eggs were rubbery.  Mmm, good. 

He finished the breakfast in five minutes, even the oatmeal, chewing carefully to avoid the sore spots in his mouth.  Then he piled the cutlery and napkins on the tray, stacked all the plastic lids in a pile, and lay back again.  Closed his eyes.  Started to tilt.

Outside in the hall there was a clicking sound, like dog nails on linoleum.  He listened to it for a minute without thinking, and then his mind slowly rolled over and started to wonder what a dog was doing in the hospital.

"Excuse me."

That would be the orderly, back for the tray.  Xander opened his eyes.  Bony Nose stood at the foot of the bed, wearing a grey button-down shirt and clean blue jeans.  Staring at him.  Smiling.

Xander grabbed the nurse buzzer and pressed it.  Hard.  A lot.

Bony Nose smiled and leaned forward over the foot of the bed.  "I'd like to leave a message for your friend," he said.  "I'm not sure he got the last one."

He leaned a little farther forward, glanced down at Xander's legs beneath the blanket.  Xander looked wildly around for something to use as a weapon.  There was nothing.  He was pinned under the table and tray, and Bony Nose lifted his right hand in a fist, swung it down onto Xander's right knee, and everything exploded into white light and agony. 



He sat up gasping, sweating, and Liv jerked awake in the chair at the foot of the bed, her eyes wide, her right hand going to her waist.  She was holding a styrofoam cup of coffee, and it went all over her, all over the floor.  She and Xander stared at each other.

It was still dark in the room, but the window was deep blue.  Almost sunrise.  He tried to catch his breath.  His heart was hammering through the top of his head.  Jesus.  Christ.  He wanted to lean over the side of the bed and check underneath, make sure Bony Nose wasn't coiled under there in the darkness.

"Fuck."  He shook his head and tried to laugh.  It came out like a whimper.  "Sorry.  Sorry, I just—"

She blinked and looked down at herself, the coffee cup still spinning on the ground by her feet, the wet spray across her shirt and jeans.  Her expression was sour.

"Sure," she said.  Her hair was still in the ponytail, he noticed with relief.  His heart was slowing down.  She bent over and picked up the coffee cup, held it for a moment, then set it upright on the floor by the leg of her chair.  She checked her watch.

"They'll bring breakfast soon," she said.  "You think you can eat?"

He swallowed hard.  Didn't say anything, and after a couple of beats she looked at him.

"What' s wrong?"

"Nothing.  I—"  I'm being an idiot.  I've just realized I'm being an idiot.  Buffy, Willow, Giles, my apologies for all previous idiocies.  There have been many, I know.  "Let's get me out of here, shall we?"

She stared at him, then nodded.  "Okay.  Good.  Let me clean this up.  I'll be back in a minute."

He forced himself to breathe normally.  "Sure.  Okay.  Just—okay."

Just fast, his mind whispered, but he didn't say it.  Just be fast.



They didn't want to let him go.  He asked the nurse on duty to take the tube out of his arm and she looked at him disapprovingly and called the doctor on shift.  He was a little Indian man with a brisk walk and a curling moustache and light, cool fingers.  He stood beside Xander's bed shaking his head.

"Mr. Phillips, you're not ready to be discharged.  You need several more days of bedrest, and your incision needs to be cleaned and treated properly—"

"I'm a nurse," Liv said quietly.  She was standing on the other side of Xander's bed, mostly staying out of it.  He tried not to look surprised when she spoke up.  "I can take care of it, if he's determined to go."

The doctor looked at Liv, still shaking his head.  "He won't be walking for a week," he said.  "Not even with crutches.  That shoulder is still—frankly, it's a mess.  And he's going to be uncomfortable.  Very uncomfortable."

"I have to go," Xander said.  "My daughter's flying in this afternoon."

"Your daughter can come and see you here," the doctor said, still shaking.  "I strongly recommend—"

"She's four," Xander said.  "I don't want her to see me here.  And my ex-wife will kill me if I'm not at the airport."

"Mr. Phillips, I really don't think you should—"

"She's been suing for full custody," Xander said, a little wildly.  "A screwup like this, and I won't see Mindy again until she graduates from vocational college." 

"Again, I just can't recommend—"

"I'm going," Xander said, and lifted his left arm up to the nurse.  She hesitated, looking at the doctor.

"Maybe you could give us a prescription," Liv said, sounding hesitant and tired.  She was good at the sister routine.  "Demerol and antibiotics, and I'll keep an eye on the incision.  And you are not going to the airport, Xander."

He gave her a surly, we'll-see kind of look, and she glared back.  It was kind of fun.  In a fucked-up way.

The doctor kept shaking his head, but lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

"If you really want to go, Mr. Phillips, I can't stop you.  I can advise you very strongly that it's not in your best interest to do so, but I can't stop you."

The nurse untaped the needle and slid it out of Xander's arm, pressing a cotton ball over the tiny drop of blood that followed.

"I'll let the front desk know," the doctor said, and gave Xander a final despairing look.  "If that knee gets infected, you'll be back in hospital in a week, and you'll wish you'd stayed put."  He disappeared behind the curtain.

The nurse bustled for a minute or two, then left.  Xander turned to Liv.

"Are you really a nurse?"

"No."

He was silent for a second.  "Infection is an ugly word."

"Don't worry.  You'll be fine."

"You keep saying that."

"Because it's true."

It'll be the first time then, he thought, but didn't say.  Because that was just pathetic. 



He was in a hospital johnny, of course, which amounted to a big cotton bib.  Fine for watching meerkats, but if he was going to face the world he wanted a little more layering.  Still, he wasn't expecting Liv to come back into the room and dump his own duffel bag on the chair beside his bed.

"Either we have very similar taste, or that's my stuff."

"I wouldn't call it taste," she said, unzipping the bag and pulling out a pair of khakis and a T-shirt.  "The orderly can get you dressed.  I'm going to make a call."

"You went to my place?"

She was already walking away, but she looked back over her shoulder at him.  "No.  I've been here.  With you."

"Yeah, sorry for cramping your style so hard.  So who—?"

She rolled her eyes and walked away without answering.  He stared at the duffel.  Spike.  Spike had gone back and got his clothes.  That was...weird.  Weird to think of Spike walking around his place, looking at his things.  Stealing change.  Laughing at Willow's bead curtain.  Maybe licking a little blood off the walls.  That was...disgusting.

Spike had got his clothes for him, and that was a humane and considerate and deeply disturbing thing for him to have done.  Because he hadn't got just a couple of shirts, he'd got everything.

Either Spike had been dead long enough to forget how many clothes a person actually needed for a few days, or he expected Xander to stay longer than that.

Well, he could expect away.  Xander would be upright in a week, according to the good doctor, and then he'd be putting on some Nancy Sinatra and making for the door.  These uneasy truces were all well and good, but sooner or later you had to remember whose side you were supposed to be keeping up.

A guy in pink scrubs—somewhere a scrub farmer was making millions—came around the curtain and said, "Mr. Phillips, right?  We getting you dressed?"  Xander paused, then nodded, and they both looked at the shirt Liv had pulled out of the bag.  It was bright orange, with Scooby Doo on the front.  Willow had given it to him years ago, kind of as a joke.  It was two sizes too small.

"Let me just find something a little less—"

"Sure," the guy said immediately.  "Take your time."



Together they got him into the khakis and an old white button-down that the orderly pulled closed over his right arm and the sling.  It was fairly quick and painful, and he didn't have much chance to feel weird about having a guy pull his boxers on and zip his fly for him.  He'd save that for another time, when he had the leisure to really wallow in the awkward and humiliating.  They got him into a wheelchair, and the orderly pushed him out to the front desk, where Liv was wrangling with a steely-looking woman wearing a headset.

"I'll just park him over here," the orderly said, and Liv glanced over and nodded.  Xander sat with his head propped on his hand, his eyes closed.  He was tired again, or still.  And he was sore.  The tube in his arm had been a wonderful thing.  He could feel an ominous low heat starting up in his shoulder and his legs, an itchy kind of precursor to pain.  Finally, she came and got him.

They rolled out through the white maze of hallways and she left him waiting edgily by the check-in desk while she pulled the car around.  The Nova.  Too bad.  Would have been nice to ride out in style, in the Jag.

Another orderly helped her maneuver him into the passenger seat, and the whole experience left him gasping and woozy.  He wasn't exactly bouncing back in true Scooby style.  But he'd never been trashed quite so badly before, either.  Just the regular Sunnydale trashings, and this was L.A. style.

He closed his eyes without waiting for her to ask—and maybe she wouldn't ask, but he wasn't going to bet on it—and slept.

He woke up when she cut the engine, and found that they were back in the underground garage.

"Oh good.  I think I dropped my wallet last time I was here."

She got out, leaving the keys in the ignition, and walked around to his door.  He started to shift sideways, gritting his teeth in anticipation of the awkwardness and pain.

"Hang on a second."

She didn't move to grab him, just propped her arm against the roof of the car and waited.  After a minute the door in the far wall opened and Spike came out.

"About bloody time," he said.  He got to the car and leaned over to look in at Xander.  "Hello, ducks."

"Spike.  You’re looking evil as always. "

Liv was already walking toward the door, and Spike reached in and pulled Xander smoothly out of the car.  Easy to forget how strong he was.  Thank God for the chip factor.

"Come on, little mermaid."  Spike shifted his grip and swept Xander’s legs up, kicked the car door closed, and started carrying him.  The way grooms carried brides over thresholds.  The way butchers carried pigs to the slaughter, more likely.

His knees were heating up fast, and his shoulder was crushed painfully against Spike's.  He bit his tongue and tried not to show it.  But Spike could hear his pulse, couldn't he?  Fuck Spike.  It hurt.  He was sweating.

"'s all right," Spike said quietly, and Xander jerked his head up.  Spike was looking at him oddly, intently.  His face was very close to Xander's.  Even through his shirt, his skin felt cold.

Xander tried to think of something snappy to say, but his mind was blank.  Jesus, it fucking hurt.  He looked away and shut his eyes.  Spike made some kind of noise, like a soft low growl, or maybe Xander imagined it, maybe it was just the sound of his own blood in his ears.

Somehow, they got up all three flights of stairs, and into the loft, and Spike was walking fast all the way to the back.  It was a very big loft.  It took about an hour to get all the way to wherever they were going, and by the time they got there Xander was gasping.

Spike leaned over and put him down on something soft, and he lay without moving, his eyes squeezed shut, his shirt cold and wet against his back.

Next time he'd have to tell Spike to just leave him by the door with the empty milk bottles.  He could sleep on the boot mat.  That would be just fine.

"Take these."

He was on some kind of cot, lying on top of a scratchy blanket, and Liv was kneeling down beside him.  She was holding out some pills in her palm, and he tried to grab them, but his hand was shaking like a topless dancer and he stared at it in amazement and humiliation.  Liv put her palm up to his mouth and tipped the pills in, then held a glass to his lips.  He drank.  He was very thirsty.

It was dark in the loft.  Of course, it was daytime.  Spike would have the curtains drawn.  The darkness felt good.  He wanted to swan-dive into it.  For the first time, he could see the appeal of a really dark, quiet crypt.

"Down for the count," Liv said, from somewhere near the ceiling.

"You lot are so fucking fragile," Spike said.  The click of his lighter, the smell of smoke.  "Hard to see how you beat out lemurs, really."



He woke up because he had to piss.

At first he couldn't even figure that out—he was still swimming through a soft black film, and the pain in his belly was just another pain, part of the package deal.  But something kept nagging him, and he pushed wearily up through the layers until he was lying on his back on a scratchy blanket, staring at the ceiling.  Not a familiar ceiling.  High and dirty and covered in flaking grey paint.  Pipes running across it.  Fascinating.  Why was he awake?

Oh.  Right.  Time for a trip to the head.  If he was lucky it might be as nice as the one at Rosie's, and he could read a little poetry off the walls.  He sat up, and a ball of pain bloomed in his stomach.  He sat for a second, considering it.  It was strange; he could feel pain, but it didn't matter so much.  Everything was muted.  His body felt soft and warm, and the pain seemed to just lie on the surface of his skin.

He moved his feet experimentally, and that didn't hurt badly, so he edged to the corner of the cot and put his feet down on the floor.  So far so good.  He looked around.  He was surrounded by a folding screen, rice paper and wood, maybe six or seven feet tall.  The kind of thing Anya had wanted to put in the apartment, for no purpose he could understand.  Here, it made a little room around the cot he'd been lying on.

The cot was covered with a grey blanket, a white pillow at the end where his head had been.  There was a small dresser against the wall beside him, just two drawers, and a steel gooseneck lamp on top.  Nothing else.

Was this Spike's idea of a guestroom?

He wiped his mouth slowly and looked down at his feet.  He was doing everything slowly, because his brain was soaking in a hot bath, and didn't feel much like picking up the phone.  That was okay.  It made his body feel a whole lot better.  Just...slower.

His mind drifted back to the pain in his belly and he sighed.  Time to find the john.  He braced his hands on the edge of the bed and pushed up, and he was standing.  His legs were hot, okay, searing, begging for mercy, but it didn't matter so much.  When you gotta go.

He pushed his right leg forward and that went okay, but then the left one had to come along too.  He put his weight on his right foot, and suddenly there was nothing between him and the floor, and down he went.  He landed on his right hip and since his right arm was still tied to his chest inside his shirt, he really went sprawling.  His shoulder hit the floor and he saw stars.  Head, too.  Made a sound like a coconut.

He lay there, feeling the teeth in his shoulder and knee, and thinking how interesting it was to feel that without caring.  The clonk of his head on the floor was deeply amusing.  He started to laugh.

Footsteps were coming for him.  Sweet Jesus, save him from the disembodied feet.  He laughed harder, couldn't breathe, kept laughing.

Spike came around the end of the screen and stood staring at him.  Oh Jesus, Spike.  What a fucking mess this was.

He laughed harder, hugging his stomach with his good arm, tears running down his face.  Fuck.  No good.  He had to stop.  Couldn't, though.

"Right, come on."  And wasn't that exactly what he'd said once already, back in Xander's apartment, when he'd helped him off the floor the first time?  Spike was starting a career out of scraping Xander off the linoleum.  Well, at least there was a future in it.

He giggled helplessly as Spike lifted him up and put him back on the bed.  Scratchy fucking blanket.  Hilarious.

"Stay put.  Go to sleep."

Spike's hand was on his forehead.  It felt cool.  Of course it did.  Spike was dead.

It felt good.

The laughing stopped and he just breathed, his eyes closed.  Strange, how he didn't feel strange.  He knew he should.

After a minute Spike's hand went away and Xander remembered the pain in his belly.  It was worse now.  He opened his eyes and saw that Spike was leaving.

"Shit.  Wait, I have to—"

His face was hot and he knew he was blushing.  Partly because he had to ask for help to the john.  Partly because speaking made Spike real, not just a cool hand on his head.

And that was truly weird, the hand on his head, and his letting it happen.  But if he just let his brain sink a little deeper into the bath, he didn't have to think about it.  Shouldn't think about it, anyway.  Bury it.

Spike looked at him with his eyebrows raised and Xander sat up slowly.

"I need the head," he said.  No pun intended.

Spike shrugged and came back.  "Let's go," he said.

He pulled Xander's left arm around his neck and grabbed him around the waist, and they were walking out around the screen.  Well, Spike was walking.  Xander was getting a free ride, and no complaints.  The loft was dim and silent.  The curtains were pulled across the windows, pure black rectangles.  No sign of Liv.

There was a door in the wall to their left, and Spike opened it with his free hand, reached around and flicked a light switch.  Inside was a long white room with a cement floor and peeling cement walls.  There was a bank of urinals against one wall, and a couple of stalls further down.  Sinks opposite, and at the back, a pair of showers without curtains.  The sound of dripping water.

"Nice.  Very Better Homes and Sewers."

"Oh, I'm wounded."

"I wish."  He said it absently, because Spike was walking toward the urinals, and how was this going to work?  Letting an orderly pull his khakis up was one thing.  Letting Spike's hand stay on his head was—buried.  But standing there like an innocent bystander while Spike took him out and held him, shook him off and put him back again—that wasn't going to happen.  Not.  Going.  To happen.

They reached the urinals and Xander let his feet hit the floor.  More yammering from his knees.  Fuck his knees.  Time to earn their keep.

"I can take it from here."

Spike snorted.  "Like hell," he said.  "I'm not fishing you out of this thing when you do another swoon, thanks very much."

"Spike, you just dragged me into a room with urinals in it.  That's about as much trauma as I can take for the day."

"Don't be so bloody soft."

"Spike, get out.  I'll...call when I'm done."

"I'll just listen for the sound of your skull smacking the floor, shall I?"

The pain in his belly was getting serious, filtering through the soft layers and jabbing at him.  If he didn't piss now, he was going to leave a pool.

"Spike.  Get.  The fuck.  Out."

Spike sighed and shrugged.  "Right.  Be lovely to see you topple."

He unslung Xander's arm from around his neck, and Xander grabbed for the top of the urinal.  More weight on his knees, and they started cussing him in low regular backwoods tones, but he could take it.  He bent his head and clung to the urinal.  Spike was standing next to him, not going anywhere.

"This is the part where you leave," Xander said.   After a moment, Spike turned and walked out.  He pulled the door to, but didn't close it completely.

Xander took a deep breath.  He took his hand off of the urinal, and when he was sure his legs would hold he unzipped in a hurry, pulled himself out, and—merciful Minerva—let go.  The pain was worse for the first few seconds, and then it ebbed and he started to breathe normally again.  Jesus.  If he'd had to wait another five minutes he would have pissed down his leg.

Finally he was done.  He shook off and put himself away, then grabbed the urinal for support again while he flushed.  He turned his head and looked toward the door.  No sign of Spike.

If he put his weight on his left leg and ignored the white flare it sent up, he could turn himself around, toward the sinks.  There was a sign by the door, he noticed:  Employees must wash hands before returning to work.  Funny.  But not so funny he had to laugh.  Because there was a long mirror along the far wall, over the sinks. 

And there he was.

Skinny cheeks, big sunken eyes, dark stubble over his cheeks and chin and jaw.  Under the stubble, paler than he'd been in months.  Shit, he was thin.  But what really got his attention was the Gleesome Threesome's handiwork.

They did quality work, those guys.

Bruises around both eyes, his left cheek swollen all the way up to his temple, green and purple with a black spider of stitches over the bone.  He couldn't remember when the bandage had come off.  More stitches in his forehead, over his right eye.  Black bruise along his jaw, his neck, disappearing down into his shirt.  And the shirt tented out over his right arm, tied to his neck with a neat white knot nestled in the hollow of his collarbone.  Quite a hollow, that.  How much weight had he lost?

His eyes looked wrong.  Glassy and black and strange.  His lips were purple and cut.  He looked dead.  Shouldn't he be dead, looking like this?  Maybe he was.  Maybe he was a zombie, or a ghost.

Except zombies and ghosts didn't need to piss.

He was still staring at himself, clinging to the urinal behind him with a shaking hand, when Spike opened the door and put his head in.

"All done, Lady Di?"

He looked down quickly.  "Yeah."

Spike paused, then came in and took hold of him again.  Xander's head came up and he glanced in the mirror again without meaning to.  No Spike there, of course.  Just himself, looking awkward and bent out of shape.  Weird.

"Come on then."

Spike lifted him and walked out of the bathroom, across the loft, back behind the screen.  Turned and lowered him back onto the bed.  Xander closed his eyes immediately and willed himself to sleep.  Thought for a split second about a cool hand on his forehead, then kicked that thought in the gut and just thought, sleep.

 

---

Chapter 5

When he woke up next, his legs were on fire and his shoulder was telling him all its troubles.  He was thirsty and cold.

It was still dark in the loft, but the gooseneck lamp on the dresser was turned on.  The neck was bent so that the light faced the wall, dimming it, and beneath it was a glass of water and two white pills.  An invitation if he'd ever seen one.

He sat up, and the pain didn't stay on the surface this time.  It grabbed hold and dug in, and he gasped.  His stomach felt like it had been...beaten.  Punched and kicked by, say, three big ugly guys.  His stomach had a firm grip on reality.

He reached for the glass, trying to keep his hand from shaking.  Spilled water over the blanket but managed to get it to his mouth.  Drank half the glass and remembered the pills.  He had to put the glass back down to pick the pills up, and almost swiped them off the dresser to the floor.  He crammed them into his mouth and washed them down with the rest of the water.

Then he lay back and waited.

His right knee felt as if someone were cutting into it with a circular saw.  He stared at the ceiling, the crisscross of the pipes, and thought, for some reason, about that time he was nine.

When he was nine they went back east to Wisconsin to visit Granny Harris and her third husband, Glenn.  Granny and Glenn had a little house on a few spare acres, way out on a numbered rural route.  Glenn made scrap art.  He was a fiend for scrap, spent his weekends at the dump and touring estate sales for old farm equipment and machinery.  Once he took Xander with him, and let him chuck rocks out the pickup window at passing road signs.  Let Xander light cigarettes for him with the bright pink coil that came out of the dashboard.

Not a bad guy, Glenn.  A teetotaler.

One day on that trip, Xander climbed up onto one of the piles of scrap in the side yard.  It looked solid until it fell through, and then he had something like a machete stuck three inches into his leg.  In hindsight, probably a lawn mower blade.  It was sunk in the outside of his thigh, just above his knee.  At first he thought it was an illusion, a trick of the light.  Then he started to bleed, and the blood was thick and black against his skin, and he nearly fainted with fear.

He pulled it out and went to find his parents, who were sitting in the back yard with Granny, drinking Pepsi and rum.  Glenn was out in the pickup, looking for scrap.  It was around four or five o'clock, and they'd started drinking just after lunch.  He could hear them all the way around the house, laughing and talking.

His mother screamed when she saw him.  His father stood up and knocked over the little table with the ice bucket and the Pepsi.  He remembered watching the Pepsi fizz away into the grass, thinking they should pick the bottle up and save what was left, because soda was a treat.

The nearest hospital was thirty miles away, and they were all hammered.  Granny made him lie down with his legs up on a lawn chair, while she knelt by his head and rubbed his hair.  Blood coursed up his leg, started to fill his shorts and creep up the back of his shirt.  His mother ran into the house to call an ambulance, and his father yelled that she was being an idiot, he'd drive them in.  He couldn't find the keys.  Granny lit a cigarette nervously and some of the ash fell on Xander's face.  She didn't notice.  Her hands were shaking in his hair.

Xander lay on his back staring at the sky, at his weeping grandmother, at the flakes of ash falling down on him.  He was cold and his leg ached.

Before, they'd been happy and laughing, and he'd been quietly looking forward to when Glenn would come home and show him some new scrap, and there would have been some kind of dinner, probably Glenn would heat up a chicken pot pie from the supermarket.  And everything would have been fine.

Now he was lying on the lawn in a pool of blood, while his grandmother cried and his father called his mother a stupid bitch, and kicked a lawn chair over and threw something against the house.  His father was demanding to know how he'd cut himself.  He tried to answer but his mother came out of the house and said the ambulance was on its way, and his grandmother said thank God, and his father said, way to go, genius, how are we going to pay for that?  And where were his fucking keys?  And why couldn't they ever have a normal fucking holiday, why was it always a fucking crisis, were they trying to drive him insane?

His mother knelt by his head and brushed the ash away and said, shh, honey, it's okay.  Her hands were cold and damp, and she smelled like perfume and rum.  Mom smells.

He tried to smile at her but he started to cry instead, because he should have learned by now that there were really only two rules in life.  One:  you're going to get hurt.  And, two:  whining makes it worse.

Glenn came home and his mother and father and he all piled into the pickup and started for the hospital.  On the way, they passed the ambulance his mother had called, speeding out to Granny's place.  Xander's father insisted that they turn around and follow it until they could flag it down, since they didn't need it anymore.  While Glenn and Xander and his mother sat in the pickup, Xander's father stood on the shoulder and remonstrated with the ambulance driver.  His face went red and he started to lean forward on the balls of his feet.  They watched in silence.  Finally he turned and walked quickly back to the pickup, got in, and slammed the door without a word.

Glenn drove with an iron foot all the way.  Xander needed twenty stitches, and he still had the scar.

A few years later, he realized that his father had been arguing about money.  About whether they had to pay for the ambulance, since they hadn't needed it in the end. 



He must have fallen asleep again, because here he was awake, and there were lights on elsewhere in the loft.  Someone was moving around, making dish sounds, and there was the smell of food.  Something greasy and spicy.  And suddenly he was very, very hungry.

He sat up carefully, and God bless the little white pills, because the pain was all on the surface again, and he wasn't cold, or maybe he was but it didn't matter.  He'd been lying here thinking about the time with the lawn mower blade.  It was kind of funny, him laid out on the lawn, bleeding like a soldier, while Granny Harris smoked Vantage 100's into his face.  He smiled, which made his lip hurt.  Poor Granny Harris.  Died in an oxygen tent.

Not funny, but he couldn't stop smiling.  God bless the little white pills.

He heard footsteps coming back toward him, and turned sideways.  After a moment, Liv came around the screen.  She was wearing blue jeans and a dark green sweatshirt.  With her hair in the ponytail, she looked like a college sophomore.

"Hey," he said, his voice cracking.  "You're not wearing black."  He started to giggle.

She looked at him for a moment, then down at herself.  "No," she said.

"How does evil know you're on its team, then?"

She started to say something, then stopped.  She held up two Chinese takeout buckets, slightly grease-stained.  "Are you hungry?"

He started to laugh again.  "Oh, yeah.  Yeah, I'm hungry."  Christ, it was hilarious.  Even though he knew it actually wasn't.  Well, he was stoned.  And that was pretty funny, too.

She stepped around him and put the buckets on the dresser, put a plate next to them and started scooping food out.  Rice and some kind of brown, meaty chunks that shone with fat and sauce.  Sweet Jesus.  It smelled fantastic.  Like...food to a starving man.  No other way to describe it, really.

She picked up the plate, turned, and held a fork out to him.

"You think you can use that okay?"

"Yeah, sure.  'Fire', right?  No, wait, that's the hot one."

The giggles were gone; apparently, hunger had focused his mind.  He knew he was staring at the plate, and that it was probably greedy and unseemly and idiotic, but he couldn't look away.

She put the plate carefully on his legs and stepped back, and he dove in.  It was beef, or maybe dog or rat, whatever, it was hot and greasy and meaty and his mouth was actually watering for it, no kidding around, he had to stop and swallow drool.  Another time, he'd consider the aesthetics.  He crammed another mouthful in and chewed as fast as he could.  Sweet Jesus, again.  His hand was still shaking and he'd dropped rice on the floor.  Save it for later.  God bless the Chinese.  All four billion souls.

He cleaned the plate in a minute, and looked to see if there was more in the buckets.  Liv stepped forward and took the plate and fork away from him.

"Take it easy.  You can have more later."

"Or, now."

"You haven't eaten solid food in a while now.  You'll just get sick."

"You clearly haven't heard about the patented Xander Harris cast iron stomach.  Guaranteed not to refund your deposit."  Well, except for half a bottle of JD at a sitting, but who was keeping that score?

"You can have more in a little while."  She handed him a napkin.  "You need this."

He wiped his face and she folded the buckets closed, took the crumpled napkin, and picked up the plate and fork.  "I'll come back later," she said.

"Who are you, Jenny Craig?  No fortune cookie, even?"

She stepped around him and started for the opening in the screen.  "When I come back we'll take a look at your leg," she said.  "And you can eat more.  For now, just don't throw up."

"What ever happened to, 'thank you for your patronage, please dine with us again?’”

She walked out without looking back.

He sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the food settle hot and heavy in his stomach, considering the few grains of rice scattered on the floor in front of him, and whether he could reach them if he really stretched.  Probably not.  He lay back on the pillow and thought about hamburgers, onion rings, French fries.  Apple pie, mashed potatoes.  Ice cream.  His stomach made a baffled, angry noise.

"Tell it to the Chow Mein Nazi."

He could hear water running, the sound of plates and cutlery and the rustling of a plastic bag.  Homey sounds.  If he closed his eyes he could imagine himself lying on the couch at Buffy's, dozing after a big Scooby feed, listening to Joyce or Giles puttering in the kitchen.  Except there was no Buffy complaining about having to go out on patrol. No Willow and Tara taking turns reading out loud from something magical.  Not even any Giles and Joyce talking quietly about...whatever old folks talked about.

It struck him, in a dreamy, quiet way, that he was alone. 

The door opened, and boots walked in.  It was a quick, long stride and there was a rustle and a soft thump and Liv said mildly, "Wouldn't kill you to hang your shit up once in a while."

"Might just.  How's Sleeping Beauty?"

"Probably sleeping.  He ate."

The sound of running water, while Spike's footsteps went across the loft and then fell silent.  After a moment, Liv spoke again.

"Any luck with Kinbote?"

There was a pause.

"No," Spike said finally.  "He was a bit...scattered when I got there."

"Scattered."

"Yeah.  All over the floor."

Another pause.  The water stopped, and there was the unmistakable sound of a sponge being wrung into the sink.

"I see," Liv said.

"Nothing to worry about," Spike said.  "Probably unrelated.  Kinbote had a few bad habits, any one of them could have finally upped and bitten him in the ass.  Long overdue, really."

"And inconvenient.”

"Yeah.  It is."

There was another pause, and Xander stared up at the pipes and tried to think.  He didn't know the name Kinbote.  Didn't even know for sure what Spike and Liv were talking about, but he'd bet one slightly used patella that it had something to do with the Gleesome Threesome.  Someone had wanted to send a message to Spike, and it hadn't been welcome to the neighborhood.

He had a strange feeling in his stomach, a bit like excitement.  After a moment's thought, he realized it was fear.

"About that other thing," Spike said, and let it hang.

"Yes?" Liv said after a moment, and her tone had tightened.

"You set it up?"

"Yeah.  I booked a flight."

"Good.  Be nice if something actually came of it, this time."

"I don’t think I should go."

"You said that already, pet.  It’s in the minutes."  His steps went across the floor and the television clicked on.  Channels started to blip past.

Liv walked to the middle of the room and stopped.  "Do you want to ask Nova about the guys?"

"His name's Xander," Spike said.  "Sure.  Why don't we ask him now?"

"You want me to wake him up?"

"He's not asleep," Spike said.

Xander froze.

"That goosed him," Spike said, and Xander could hear the smirk in his voice. 

"I'll do his leg, then," Liv said.  Her steps started coming back toward the screen.  She didn't sound surprised by Spike's comment, but she still sounded terse.  A moment later she pushed the screen aside and looked in at Xander.

"Come on, Nova," she said.  "Time to talk."

She came in and held a hand out to him, and he took it slowly.  When she pulled him upright his knees sparked, but she took most of his weight and the pills were doing their thing.  She turned and walked him out into the loft.

Spike was lying on the couch, one arm propped behind his head, watching a soccer match.  His coat was lying in the middle of the floor.  Liv walked around it and steered Xander to one of the armchairs beside the couch.  They were all black, and they matched.  Spike had modular furniture.

Liv dropped Xander into the chair and walked away. He watched her go to the kitchen on the far side of the loft and open a cupboard.  She took out a grey tackle box and opened it, then pulled a pair of long, bright scissors out of it.  He looked away.

"Oh, bloody offside.  Get a sighted ref, you punters."

Xander turned to the television and tried to make himself track.  The ball was going back and forth.  Yeah, he'd heard it did that.  He looked away again.

There was a stereo next to the television, and a little cabinet full of CDs.  He looked up at the wall.  The picture he'd noticed before was an anatomical sketch, a human torso with the skin pulled away and the muscles bared.  The muscles were red and ropy, coiled hard as if in agony.  Charming.  He looked back at the television.

Liv walked back across the loft and Xander kept himself from looking at her until she stepped in front of him and dropped a pile of stuff onto the coffee table.  He looked at the pile.  A lot of gauze, a bottle of antiseptic, a roll of tape.  And the scissors.  He cleared his throat.

"So—who's Kinbote?"

Liv tightened her lips and knelt in front of him.  "Take your trousers down," she said, turning to rummage through the pile.

Xander didn't move.  Spike looked over and grinned.

"Go on," he said.  "She doesn't say that to just anybody."

"Shut up," he said, and realized a second after he'd said it that she'd said it too.  Stereo.  She paused, but didn't look up from the pile.

Spike looked amused.  "Oh, I've been told," he said, and turned back to the television.

Xander still didn't move, and Liv looked up with an annoyed expression.  "You take them down or I cut them off. "

He stared at her for a minute, then slowly undid his fly and wiggled them down.

And he was sitting in Spike's armchair in his boxers, his pants around his ankles, while an angry girl with scissors knelt between his legs.  And Spike watched soccer.

His life sucked.

Liv picked the scissors up and he flinched.  She rolled her eyes and cut the tape holding the dressing over his right knee.  She put the scissors back on the table and started to unwind the gauze.  He watched nervously.

"So...Kinbote's dead, huh?  Man, that's too bad.  Who the hell was he, anyway?"

Liv said nothing.  Spike shrugged, his eyes on the television.

"Nobody important."

"You think he had a visit from the Creatine brothers?"

Liv stopped unwinding and looked over her shoulder at Spike.  He glanced at her, then looked back at the television.

"Doubt it."

Liv picked up the scissors, snipped the length of bandage off, and started unwinding again.  Xander looked at his leg around the bandage.  It was black and green.

"Okay, Spike.  You want to tell me what's going on?  Because, yeah, okay, I'm drugged and pantsless and your girlfriend's inches from making me sing soprano, but that doesn't mean-"

He stopped.  Spike and Liv were both looking at him.  Liv looked appalled.  Spike looked surprised and even more amused.

"What?"

Liv turned her head and stared at Spike, and he raised his eyebrows at her, grinning.  She turned back to Xander.

"I'm not Spike's girlfriend," she said. She looked furious.  Spike laughed.

Xander opened his mouth and closed it again.  "Oh," he said.  Liv was glaring at him, and there was colour in her cheeks.  She was still holding the scissors.

"Oh," he said again.  "Sorry."

She looked him in the eye for a second, then cut another length of the bandage off with a vicious snap.  She slapped the scissors back down on the table and started unwinding again, faster and less gently.

"Oh, fucking foul, you blind tosser."

There was a strange, slightly nauseating tugging sensation as the gauze came away from around Xander's  knee.  He tried to ignore it.

"Spike.  What.  Is going.  On."

Liv pulled the last layer of gauze away and he flinched.  She tossed it away onto the floor and lifted the gauze pad over the incision.  He couldn't help looking down.

His knee was black and green, swollen like a grapefruit, with a weeping three-inch mouth cut under his kneecap.  Jesus Christ.  For a second he was nine again, looking down at the machete stuck in his leg, terrified at what he'd allowed to happen to his body.

He wasn't aware that he was gasping until Liv looked up and said, "Breathe, Nova.  Watch the game."  Her voice was just a little less cold.

He took a deep breath and looked at the television.  Spike was leaning up on his elbow, gazing at Xander’s knee with interest.

"Ooh, that's a nice job.  Professional."

Liv didn't reply.  She was doing something to Xander's leg, and while it didn't hurt, exactly, it sort of...pulled.  He swallowed hard and watched the ball go back and forth.

"You should pay attention, pet," Spike said, turning his attention back to the television.  "You could learn something."

Xander blinked in confusion.  "Okay, I really need some explaining to happen."

Spike held one hand up in a hang-on gesture, watching the screen intently while the players hassled each other around the net.  At last the ball squirted free and he sighed and tossed the remote onto the coffee table.

"Well, hell.  Right.  Tell us about the plug uglies, Xander."

Xander stared.  "The—?  Oh.  What about them?  I already did this, at the hospital.  She was there."  He gestured at Liv, careful not to look at whatever she was doing to his knee.

"Yeah, we got all that.  Did you invite them in?"

Xander laughed.  "Oh, right, I forgot to mention that.  It was kind of a struggle, too, considering that my mouth was duct-taped."  He leaned back, wincing as his stomach flashed pain.  "They weren't vampires.  I think they were just...guys.  Humans."

"Not demons."

"I don't know.  Neckless, steroid-sucking non-vampire type demons, maybe.  Or just, you know, guys."

"They have any tattoos?"

"Yeah, sure, Policeman Spike.  They were carnies.  I already did this."

"Do it again."  Spike was leaning forward on the arm of the couch, staring at him.

He sighed and closed his eyes.  Thought about hanging off Bullet and Tan's arms while Bony Nose leaned back for the second kick.  Bony's whole body was corded up, his face intent, and when he pulled his chin just a little higher, he showed a dark blue squiggle on the side of his neck.

"Bony Nose had a snake."

Liv's hands stopped moving and when he opened his eyes, she was looking up at him, frowning.  "You didn't mention that before," she said.

"Sure I did."

She shook her head.  "You said Bullet had the snake tattoo, not Bony."

He paused and thought about it.  After the kick, and some more screaming, hanging limp in mid-air with his shoulder pulling slowly out of its socket.  Looking dazedly to the right and seeing Bullet's thick neck and the snake coiling just below his ear.

"Yeah," he said.  "He had one too."

"Where?" Spike asked.

"On his neck.  Both of them.  Under the ear."

Liv sat back and looked around at Spike.  "Snake," she said quietly. 

"What about the other one?" Spike asked, ignoring Liv.  "He have the same thing?"

Xander tried to think, but all he could remember about Tan was the cruddy vest, and a couple of quick and personal glimpses of his knuckles.  And there was something else bothering him, distracting him.  His brain fidgeted uncomfortably in the bath.

"I don't remember," he said slowly, and Spike looked disappointed.

"Well, thanks for coming out," he said, and turned back to the television.  Liv rolled her eyes.

"Can you draw it?" she asked, facing Xander again.  He shrugged and she stood up.

"Snake is a snake is a snake," Xander said, and looked down at his leg.  Christ.  Was it supposed to be green like that?  "Long, icky, sharp at one end.  Shouldn't we be...covering this up?"

Liv was walking back to him with a piece of paper and a stubby pencil.  She held them out.

"Draw it."

He took them, and she knelt at his feet again.  For a moment he searched for somewhere to put the paper down flat, then finally laid it along the arm of the chair.  It started to slide and he stabbed at it with the pencil.  The point of the pencil went through the paper and into the chair.  Spike glared.

"Did I perforate that disgusting Barcalounger you trapped me in?  No, I did not."

"Because I would have punched you in the brain," Xander said absently, fumbling to hold onto the pencil.

He grabbed the paper and straightened it, then tried to sketch the snake.  He could see it clearly:  about three inches long, a simple dark blue outline with a flat head and a forked tongue.  It was drawn with its head up and two bends in its body.  Not such a scary tattoo, really—more like cave art.  Sort of a weird choice for the muscle gang.

His hand wouldn't hold the pencil, and he wasn't left-handed anyway, so all he could make were a couple of shaky lines.  After a minute he stopped trying.

"I can't do this.  Sorry.  It was—you know, a snake.  It didn't have legs."

Liv put the cold wet cotton on his knee and he jumped.  Spike changed channels.

"Right.  The kind of snake without legs.  Well, you’ve been a good investment."

"Hey, I didn't realize there'd be a post-beating quiz, okay?  And can we pause for a moment to consider the fact that the only reason there was a beating in the first place is that you dropped by?  So, thanks.  And fuck off."

Liv did something that made his knee flare, and he yelled.  Spike smirked.

"Careful," he said.  "She's a stickler for foul language."  Liv calmly cut a square of gauze from the roll.

Xander clung to the arm of the chair, his heart pounding in his ears.

For the first time, it struck him that he was incredibly, stupidly vulnerable here.  That he'd signed onto the Spike-and-Liv show without the faintest clue what it entailed.  He'd got used to the chipped Spike back in Sunnydale, the Spike who was posturing and obnoxious and, yeah, evil, but not really bad, or at least couldn’t act like it.  He was beginning to think that maybe things had changed a bit.

Because even if Spike couldn't hurt him, Liv could.

In the hospital, he could put in a call to Buffy Central any time.  Somehow, he didn't think Spike and Liv would be quite so happy to help him dial that extension.

Liv put a fresh square of cotton over his knee and began to wind more gauze carefully around it.  He watched the purple bruises disappear beneath layers of white.

What had he done to get here?  How had he ended up half-crippled and a hostage to Spike?  As a solo Scooby, he wasn't doing so well.  Not that anyone in the studio audience was too surprised by that.

Spike landed on an old movie and hesitated, then let the remote fall.  Xander glanced at the screen and was surprised, then oddly pleased, to see that it was Casablanca.  He recognized the little guy in the bar.

"Hey, I've been meaning to see this," he said, without thinking.

"'s all right till the end," Spike said.  "The end's crap."

Xander laughed, then wondered if he was going insane.  A second ago he'd been worrying about whether Spike and Liv had really kidnapped him, whether they might hurt him, maybe kill him.  Now it struck him as funny that Spike didn't like the end of Casablanca.

Liv finished wrapping his knee and taped it firmly; it felt warm, and throbbed oddly.  She pulled his trousers up to his knees and then started piling up the stuff she'd dumped on the coffee table.  He got them up the rest of the way, after some uncomfortable shifting.  It took a few tries to get zipped and buttoned, but he managed.  Neither Spike nor Liv paid any attention.

After a minute Liv stood up and carried her pile of stuff back to the tackle box, and he had just a second to wonder about why she had such an extensive supply of ER props, when she was back with another glass of water and a couple of capsules in her hand.  Yellow and red.

"Take these," she said.  He hesitated, and she sighed.  "They're antibiotics, Nova.  Take them."

"Xander," he said, reaching out and taking the pills.  "Just like 'Nova,' but 'Xander.'"  

He swallowed the pills and drank all the water, and she took the glass away.  He didn't watch her go; he was getting tired again.  His eyes were heavy and he was having trouble focusing on the television.  Back to soccer.  When had they left Casablanca?  His leg felt hot and tight, but it didn't hurt, exactly.  Spike glanced at him and raised an eyebrow, then went back to the television.

She was back, a plate of rice in her hand, and that woke him up fast.  He reached for it and she frowned with annoyance.

"You're too stoned to eat."

"Oh, lady, I'm not.  I assure you.  I'm...hungry."  He reached again and she turned to put the plate on the coffee table and then he saw it.  The thing that made his brain sit up straight in the bath and grab for a towel.  Why hadn't he noticed it before?

She had a tattoo on her neck; he'd noticed it sometime before, he couldn't remember when.  At the time he hadn't seen it properly, couldn't tell what it was.  Now, when she turned her head away, he saw it perfectly clearly.  It was a nail.  A good long flathead nail, maybe two or three inches, in outline.  Nice.

Except somehow he knew it wasn't a nail.

It was a spike.

Suddenly he wasn't hungry or sleepy anymore; he was very much awake, very much on edge.  A spike.  In the same spot where Bullet and Bony had a snake.  Spike had been so curious about those tattoos, and interested in where they were.  And was that just a coincidence?

Something with a lot of legs crawled quickly up his spine, and he held himself tense so he wouldn't shiver.

She turned and looked at him, and he knew right away from her expression that he wasn't looking too suave.  Okay, a bit late for that.  Maybe try for some answers instead.  He swallowed and tried to smile.

"I'm just noticing your tattoo.  Nice work."

She stared at him for a second, and her expression was a little surprised, he thought.  Surprised that he'd noticed, or that he'd come right out and mentioned it?  Didn't matter; she snorted and stood up, taking the plate with her.

"What is that, a three-penny nail?"

"Sure."  She started to step around him.  Spike hadn't moved, hadn't acknowledged either of them.

"Because it kind of looks like a spike."

She paused and looked down at him.  He reached for the plate again.

"If you look at it the right way," he said.  "Kind of like a little, tiny spike.  Which is sort of funny, don't you think?"

Her eyes flickered to Spike, who still hadn't moved.  She looked back to Xander, and she was so clearly trying to stonewall, it was almost endearing.

"Because, you know," he said, pushing it just a little bit farther and nodding at the couch.  "Spike."

She glanced at Spike again—she obviously expected him to start steering, but he wasn't taking the wheel, and after a second she looked back at Xander and raised her eyebrows.

"Nah," she said.  "It's just a nail."  She started to turn away.

Spike turned the television off and sat up.

"Is it now," he said.

Xander watched Spike.  He was sitting on the edge of the couch, examining his boots, one thumb working absently at the fabric of the cushion.  After a moment he looked up.

"Give him the plate, luv."

Liv turned back and put the plate down on the table in front of Xander.  She didn't look at him.

He paused just a moment, then gave in to his stomach and grabbed the fork.  Started to shovel rice into his mouth as fast as he could, not caring if it went onto the floor and the chair as well.  Fuck Spike's modular furniture.  His belly wanted to leap up into his throat to get at the food faster.  Down, boy.

Spike stood up and walked away, and he swallowed and let the fork fall.  Oh, good job.  Let them distract you with food.  Why was he sure this never happened to Buffy?

"Sure, Spike, walk away from the crippled guy.  Because he can't get up and come after you.  To give you the bitch-slapping you so richly merit."

Liv shifted beside him and he shot her a sideways glare. 

"Right, you don't like it when I’m mean to him.  I get it, already.  Cancel the memo."

Spike was walking back to the couch, carrying a glass and a bottle.  Automatically, Xander checked the label.  Jim Beam.

"You know that stuff'll kill you."  Actually, it sounded kind of good just now.

Spike poured himself a healthy two fingers and sprawled back on the couch.  "She works for me," he said simply.

Xander blinked, then glanced reflexively over his shoulder at Liv.  She was standing still, her arms crossed over her stomach, looking slightly sick.  He guessed that she hadn't been expecting Spike to say that.

"Uh, okay.  She's like...a butler?"  Part of his mind was whirling madly over what else she might be.  Escort service?  Procurer?  Was there a French maid outfit around here anywhere?  Now he was feeling sick.

"A butler," Spike repeated.  He leaned his head back and smiled at Liv; slow evil handsome smile.  "Sure, like a butler."

Liv was breathing oddly, and Xander pushed the plate of rice away.  His hands were clammy.

"So, I'm having an SAT moment here.  That nifty tattoo—if that makes her your...butler, and the Creatine brothers had tattoos in the same place, then they're...butlers for—"  He paused.  "Someone else."

Spike sipped his drink and looked at Xander.  Long, quiet, considering look.  Was it him, or was Spike a little scarier these days?

"You're not as stupid as you look," he said. 

"Thanks.  I'll take 'People who ordered Xander's ass beaten into the ground' for a thousand."  He paused, and when Spike just stared at him, said, "I'm dominating the round here, Spike.  The question is:  'Who is that special someone?'"

Spike looked at Liv and smiled slightly.  "Good question," he said.  Liv swallowed hard; Xander heard her throat click.  She was white and her lips were pressed together hard.  "Any thoughts, Liv?"

"Sure," she said.  "I think I want a raise."

Spike tilted his head to the side as if considering.  "No," he said after a minute, and tipped the rest of the bourbon down his throat.

Xander stared at his plate of rice and tried to ignore the heat in his knees.  Spike poured himself another, and it smelled good.  It felt like ages since he'd had a drink.  Jim Beam was basically paint thinner, but—what the hell.  Without thinking too hard about it, he leaned forward and took the glass out of Spike's hand.

"Hey—"  Spike's voice was startled and annoyed, and that made Xander smile.  That was more like the Spike he remembered.  He closed his eyes and tried not to breathe in as he lifted the glass.  Shot it down fast and dropped the glass back on the table.

"Okay."  He had to blink hard to keep tears out of his eyes, and his throat felt burnt.  For a second he thought the patented Xander Harris cast iron stomach was going to kick back.  Then the burn scaled down and opened two big wings of warmth in his chest and back, and that was just fine.

"Okay.  So, she's your butler.  This must be an LA thing.  Because I don't remember ever hearing about humans…butlering for vampires before."  He was sinking back into the armchair, but a thought struck him suddenly and made him sit up.  "Hey—she knows you're a vampire, right?"

Spike picked up the glass and filled it again, holding it well away from Xander.  "Can't recall.  Liv, did I mention that bit?"

"You mentioned it."

Xander turned to look up at her.  The warmth in his chest had spread up to his face now, and either Spike was drinking gasohol or he was even weaker than he'd thought, because he was buzzing.  Liv looked down at him, clearly pissed off.  Well, if he worked for Spike he'd probably have issues too.

"Man, I thought my job sucked," he said, and laughed.

"I'm sure it does," she said.

"You're aware, aren't you, that vampires eat humans?  Eat them.  Us.  You might want to check and see if your job description has 'human resources' anywhere in the title."

"You finished with that?"  She pointed at the plate in front of him, and he looked at it.  Cold, greasy rice.  Yeah, he was finished.  He was warm all over, and light, and didn't care that she was changing the subject.  She was Spike's butler, okay.  Whatever.  He nodded, and she scooped the plate up and walked away.

"So, does she do windows?"  He watched Spike swirl the bourbon in his glass.  Another drink would be nice, actually.  And if Spike weren't such a low-class prick, he'd offer.  "I'm just asking, because it looks like she's not too keen on picking up your shit, so I'm wondering...you know, what her actual job is."

Spike glanced at him, then leaned up on his elbow and looked over the back of the couch.  His coat was still lying in the middle of the floor where he'd dropped it.  Liv was at the sink, rinsing Xander's plate.

"Liv, hang up that bloody coat.  Fucking tip in here."

She was standing with her back to them, and she didn't move for a minute.  Then she turned and walked across the room, wiping her hands on her jeans.  She picked up the coat, carried it to a hook on the far wall, and hung it up.  She didn't look at Spike or Xander as she walked back to the sink.

Spike settled back into the couch and lifted one boot onto the coffee table.  It made a loud, proprietary thump.  "Her actual job," he said, smiling at Xander, "is whatever I tell her to do."

Xander stared at him.

It was stupid, totally stupid, but some part of his brain half expected Spike to split in half and then out would pop his father, one foot up on the coffee table, boozy fume in the air, snarling that he hadn't married the woman so she could sit around the house reading Family Circle all day.  She was a wife, she had a job.  And you know what it was?  It was whatever he fucking told her it was.

Another bug went up his spine, and this time he shivered.  Just a bit, but enough for Spike to see.  They looked at each other for a minute, and then Spike's mouth tightened and he looked at his boot.

"She does a job, is all."  He said it loud enough for Xander to hear, but probably not Liv.    His tone was...what?  Conciliatory?  Apologetic?  Those words weren't in Spike's vocabulary, as far as Xander knew.  And if he knew he was creeping Xander out, shouldn't he be gloating?

Things were getting weirder by the minute.

It was too fucking complicated.  Worse, he was tired.  The booze was pulling his eyes closed, pushing his brain deeper into the bath, and he thought absently about all the pills he'd taken in the last few hours, and wondered when the idiot train would stop so he could get off.  Maybe he'd die a rock star death in Spike's guest room.  Would Liv's actual job include disposing of his body?  Probably.  Seemed like the kind of thing she'd enjoy.

"Okay," he said, struggling to sit upright.  "So, you're moving up in the world, Spike.  You're a vampire of means.  You've got staff.  Congratulations.  Can we talk a little more about the dinks who broke my knees?"

"Nothing to talk about."

"I kind of disagree.  Who are they butlering for?"

Spike swirled his glass.

"You don't know.  But you don't seem too surprised about any of this, either."

Spike did the evil smile.  "Nothing surprises me, pet."

"I surprised you when I took your drink away, Spike.  I bet Liv surprised you when she picked up your coat.  You're eminently surprise-able."

Spike scowled.  Again, a flash of the old Spike, and maybe he wasn't so far beneath the surface of this new, slightly icier, more together model.  In his little black heart, Spike still loved cheap shots and flash.  And it just took the Amazing Xander Harris to bring it out in him.  Thank you.  Thank you very much.

"Why'd they pick me?"  He was starting to lose track of his thoughts; everything felt fluid and soft and he knew he was slumping back in the chair.  Fuck.

"Dunno.  Probably thought you were a friend."

"Why would they—I'm not.  We don't...hang, Spike."

"They saw me drive you home, I imagine."

He laughed at that.  It all went back to The Summer Place, and too many whiskeys, and Rocker on the mound.  And how stupid was his life?

Spike was smiling a little, too.  "Wrong place, wrong time.  Sorry 'bout that."

Was he serious?  With the apology?  Too weird.

"Should've let her tow me," he said, but he was mumbling now, and his eyes were closed.  He felt as if he were being pressed backward slowly, then with increasing speed.

Someone reached into his shirt and started pressing the fingers of his right hand, and he opened his eyes to see Liv there, looking critically at his fingernails.  He was still in the armchair, but Spike was nowhere around.  The bottle and his empty glass were still on the table.

"Come on," she said after a minute, and pulled him to his feet.  "Back to bed."

He knew time had passed, but his brain was in denial, still working on the conversation he'd been having a minute—hours?—before.

"Why not you?" he asked, hanging loosely off her shoulder, letting her shift his weight onto her hip.

"What?"

"Why'd they bust on me?  I hardly know him now.  You're his live-in."

She glanced at him and gave a little snort of laughter.  "Your mouth never gets tired, does it?"

"I'm just saying."

"I don't open doors to strangers in the middle of the night."  They were halfway back to his room, and no sign of Spike anywhere in the apartment.  Silent and dark.  He nodded.  They got to the screen and she pushed past and turned and dropped him onto the bed.  It would have hurt if he'd cared about pain.  She reached over and clicked off the gooseneck.

"Night, Nova."

Then she was gone, and he lay awake on top of the covers for maybe ten seconds before the roaring came up in his ears and he was gone.

 

---

Chapter 6

"It was the strangest thing," he said.  "He just leaned over and kissed me.  On the mouth."

"Is he a good kisser?"  Willow was drinking a coffee and she had a plate of pancakes in front of her.  He picked up a fork and started in on them.  Man, he was hungry.

"That's so totally not the point, Will."  He put pancake into his mouth and started to chew. It tasted rubbery and weird.

Eat it, his mind told him.  Doesn't matter what it tastes like.  You need food.

"I think it's important," she said, and reached out and stroked his cheek.

He closed his eyes and dropped the fork and pressed his face into her hand.  It felt so good.  So much what he craved.  And that was a weird thought, needy and lame, but fuck, it felt good to be touched.  Touched by someone who loved him.  It was electric, made him feel like grinning and shaking and maybe crying.

Christ, pathetic, some part of him muttered, and he ignored it and rubbed his cheek over her hand.  Her skin was smooth and cool and pale.  Willow loved him.  Jesus, he loved her back.

"I'm hungry," he said, hoping she'd understand what he really meant.  Because he didn't, but it had something to do with her hand on his face and him needing food and having to eat trash, and Spike having kissed him.

That's what he'd been telling her, he remembered.  Spike had kissed him, and it was good, it wasn't weird at all, it was soft and warm and Spike had blue eyes.  He'd never kissed anyone with blue eyes before.  It had been sweet.  Spike had held his jaw and shoulder and kissed his mouth, and he hadn't felt surprised at all.  Just happy.  Loved.

He ate pancakes for a while, alone in the booth, and they got more and more rubbery, and started to taste like burnt plastic.  He had to get through the stack, and it was taking forever.  Half a pancake to go.  His stomach needed it.  He laid the knife and fork down in the syrup and sat back for a breather.

Beside his plate was a glass of water and two pills, yellow and red.  Tetracycline, probably.  Or penicillin.  He took the pills and drank the water.

Spike reached out and crumpled up his napkin, dropped it in the center of his plate, on top of the hacked pancake.  Because he had many childhood issues.

"Thanks, Spike.  I was eating that."

Spike rolled his eyes.  "Oh, please.  The Goodyear special?"

"I haven't eaten in three days, dipshit.  I take what I can get."

"So take this."  Spike leaned across the table toward him, evil smile, pure intent, and it was the cheesiest, stupidest, most cringe-worthy moment, and he loved it.  He grinned and leaned forward too, and they kissed midway.  Spike's mouth was warm and sweet.  Just like before.  Or maybe it was now.  Spike's tongue pushed past his lips and Xander grinned wider, and they gnashed teeth gently.  God, amazing.  He loved it.  Spike loved him.

Then Spike pulled away suddenly and he was left for a second feeling stupid before he could put his face back together and open his eyes.  Spike was looking past his shoulder, at something behind him.

"What's—"

He didn't get to say anything else, because someone grabbed the back of his neck and yanked him around.  He was standing beside the table, and his shoulder was screaming, and his arm was trapped in gauze against his chest, and there was blood all over his jeans.  He was barefoot, bare-chested.

"Little more to that message," Bony Nose said, and punched him in the face.

He fell back into the booth.  Bony reached in, grabbed him by the waistband of his jeans, and pulled him back out.  He flailed but couldn't get purchase on the vinyl.  There was blood everywhere.

"Fuck, Spike—"

Bony hauled him up and wheeled him around, right off his feet, sent him skittering across the floor.  Coffee went flying.  He tried to pick himself up and run, but his legs were broken.  Blood soaking through his jeans, and he was lying on the floor heaving for breath, looking down at his crushed legs.  Bony was walking up slowly.

"You're a friend of his, right?"

Blood was running down out of his hair, into his eyes.  His legs were on fire.  He propped himself up on his good arm and started to drag himself away.  Spike—where was Spike?

Bony caught up with him and stepped on his right foot.  It cracked, and the world went white.

"You be sure to give him the message," Bony said.  "Make sure you remember to tell him."

Spike wasn't there.  Because Bony was human, and Spike couldn't hurt him, so he'd got out while the getting was good.  Couldn't blame him.  But it really was too bad.

Bony stepped to the side and knelt down by his head.  For a second they looked at each other, and Bony smiled.  Then he reached around and pulled something from the back of his jeans.

A gun.

The muzzle pressed cold against his temple.

He lay silent, trembling, his eyes wide and wet.  Tasted absolute terror in his mouth.

Dream it’s a dream it’s a dream wake up wake UP

"Tell him about this, okay?" Bony said.

A brown dog watched solemnly from the corner of the room.

He tried to nod and from the corner of his eye, he saw the tendons in Bony's forearm shift, then unbearable pressure, red black explosion in his skull. 



He jerked upright and couldn't breathe.  Or was breathing too much, he couldn't tell.  No difference.  No air.  His chest was heaving and there was no air in his lungs, he was choking.  Jesus Christ.  His left hand was knotted in the blanket.  He was soaked in sweat.

It was pitch black in the loft, and footsteps were coming toward him, a long quick stride.  He gasped, ducked his head, tried to let go of the blankets.  His fingers were cramped and locked.  It hurt to uncurl them.

Someone came around the screen, and stopped.  He didn't bother to look around.  Couldn't see a thing, couldn't reach the gooseneck, didn't want to turn it on anyway.  Didn't matter which of them it was, really.  The only person he could imagine facing right now was Willow, and she wasn't here.

"Sorry.  Go back—I'm fine, sorry.  Sorry."

Silence.  He wiped sweat off his face and rubbed his hand on the blanket.  He was shaking.  The blanket was rough, and it felt good against his palm.  He was cold.  He waited another minute, and still no sound of movement.

"I'm going back to sleep now."  He pulled the blanket back, shifted to get it out from under his legs, then folded it back over himself.  The sheets were chilly and he shivered.  They'd warm up.

He wanted to turn on his side, but couldn't think of a way to do it without hurting.  Bony.  He'd been dreaming about Bony Nose, and being thrown across a room, and his foot broken.  The memory—a few quick clear flashes, like movie stills—dropped a cold stone into his belly.  He curled his left arm across his chest and closed his eyes.

Something else, too.  Some good, sweet feeling that was also strangely shameful.  He couldn't pin it down and he didn't want to.  Or maybe he did, but not now.  The sheets were warming up, and he was dissolving.  Spike, Liv, whoever it was, must have gone back out without his hearing.

Then he heard a little noise by his head, and realized that he was wrong, there was still someone there.  Right there.  He turned his head and opened his mouth to speak.

A cool hand came down lightly on his forehead, and he jerked.  The hand didn't move.  He closed his mouth, then opened it again.  He could smell bourbon and cigarettes.  He could hear his own heart beating too fast.

If he wanted to, he could push the hand away.  He still had one good arm, after all.  He could turn his head, shake the hand off.  Or he could curse the hand out.  Evil hand, begone.  Back to your lair.

He lay absolutely still for what felt like an eternity, trying to think.  While he was thinking, his heart stopped racing and slowed to a walk.  He was warm now, and the coolness on his forehead felt good.  Strange, but good.

He should do something about it, though.  There were appearances to keep up, not to mention reality.  He just couldn't think too well right now.

He was warm, dissolving, there was a roaring in his ears, and the terrible sharp dream clips—a gun, there'd been a gun against his head, Jesus Christ—were fading.  He should do something about it before he fell asleep.  Appearances.

He raised his left arm slowly, through a thick heavy haze, and batted at the hand.  It didn't move, and he fastened onto the wrist and pulled weakly.  It came away at last.  Good.  He let his hand fall, but didn't bother letting go.  He was dissolving.  Warm darkness and roar.  He toppled into it gladly.

When the wrist started gently to pull away, he held on.

Because, well, it was something to hold onto. 



He woke up hungry, in pain, needing to piss.  For a minute he just lay staring into the dimness, wondering how long this would go on.  Xander takes his drugs, Xander begs for food.  Xander sleeps.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Again, he had a sinking sensation in his stomach.  What had he gotten himself into?

He sighed, pushed the blanket back, and sat up slowly.  The gooseneck was lit again, and the glass and pills were waiting there.  Thanks, Liv.  He reached for the pills and noticed that his hand still shook, but not as much.

His knees were still cooking, but his shoulder wasn’t as hot, and the rest of him felt better.  Stronger.  He took the pills and swung his legs out over the side of the bed.  He sat for a moment looking at his bare feet.

He’d had strange dreams.  Willow had been in them, and Bony Nose.  The thought of Willow made him smile, but Bony cancelled it out fast.  Bony had broken his foot, he remembered that.  And punched him in the face, and basically wiped the floor with him.

Even in his dreams, he was a crappy fighter.

He pushed his toes against the ground to test them, and was about to try some more pressure on his left foot when something else struggled up from the cesspool of his unconscious.  It put a cold hand around his throat and choked his breath for just a second.

Spike had kissed him.

In his dream.  Or he’d kissed Spike.  Or something.  There had been kissing, and it had felt good, better than kissing anyone ever had, and he’d felt happy and loved and—

He pushed his right foot down hard and his knee shrieked.  Good.  That was good.  What was it the Marines said—pain is weakness leaving the body?  Well, pain was ushering disgust and self-loathing out, stage left.  Thank you very much, pain.  It’s nice to see a professional at work.

Spike.  Jesus fucking Christ.  It all had some totally unrelated Freudian significance, it spoke volumes about his toilet training, he knew that.  Didn’t mean he had the hots for Spike, or anything suicide-inducing like that.  Nothing to get worked up about.

It had made him feel so happy.

Fuck.  He’d be walking in a few more days, and then he was dusting this place.  Back to his apartment, do a little tidying up, see if he could get the bloodstains out of the sofa.  What did Buffy say—club soda?  Maybe baking soda.  Maybe just a lot of throw pillows.

Then figure out what he was going to do about work.  He’d probably lose the construction job.  He’d missed at least a day already, maybe more, and he wouldn’t be able to work again until his knees were healed.  And what was he going to do for money in the meantime?  No fucking clue.  He had a little socked away, but not enough.  Never enough.  And what was he going to do about a new job?  He couldn’t imagine where he could work, racked up like this.  He wouldn’t even make a decent whore—his knees were ruined.

The thought of money was sobering enough to take up his whole attention, and he was grateful for that.  He sat staring at his feet, absently testing weight on first one, then the other.  If he lost the construction job, it would be tough to get another one.  He knew half a dozen guys with more skills and experience than he had, all going begging for work.  The construction market wasn’t what it used to be.

“Are you hungry?”

He jumped half an inch and almost fell off the edge of the bed.  Liv was standing at the edge of the screen, looking at him.

“Fucking hell—don’t do that!”  He put his hand over his chest and felt the hammering through his skin.  He was shaking.

“Sorry.”

He sucked in a huge breath and paused, then let it out.  She was wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and her feet were bare.  Still, he was surprised he hadn’t heard her walking back toward him.  How long had she been standing there?  He had a momentary flush of guilt—he’d been thinking about the dream, about Spike.  What if he’d…betrayed himself somehow?

But he hadn’t.  He was sure.  He took another deep breath.

“Yeah.  I’m hungry.  But I also—I kind of need the washroom.”  That made him blush, and he hoped it was dim enough that she couldn’t see it.  He was such a sissy.

She nodded without surprise, came forward and pulled him up by his good arm, and they started the good old-fashioned Xander Harris Haul.  Maybe she was getting better at it, or maybe he was just wasting away, but it didn’t seem to take as much effort and awkwardness this time. 

He had time to notice what she smelled like—soap and warm skin and something else, something sort of greasy and metallic.  After a minute he recognized it as gun oil.  Glenn had an old .22 for shooting rats in the scrap piles, and when he cleaned it he smelled the same way.

He remembered waking up in the hospital, and Liv spilling coffee all over herself as she woke up too, and her right hand going to her waist.

Huh.

They were walking quickly through the loft, and her bare feet made almost no sound, and he made only the slightest sort of dragging and scuffling sounds as he paddled along beside her.  His shirt was half-unbuttoned and flapping, and the pills were starting to kick in.  God bless them.  His neck felt warm and loose, and his knees were getting quieter.  Maybe if he had enough drugs, he could go back to work before the end of the week.  Sure, no heavy artillery, but he could still drive a hammer.

“What day is it today?”

She frowned and whispered, “Tuesday,” and he smiled.  Whispering was pretty funny.  Why was she whispering?

He glanced to the right and saw that they were passing the bed, which he hadn’t paid much attention to before.  It was just a regular bed, kind of big, with white sheets and a couple of white pillows thrown onto the floor beside it.

Except Spike was in it.

Lying on his stomach with his head turned to the side, his eyes closed, his arms spread out.  No shirt—that was crumpled in a pile on the floor by the pillows.  His skin just a little less pale than the sheet rucked up to the small of his back. 

The cold hand grabbed Xander’s throat again, and he made a little choking noise.  Stupid.  That was stupid.  He made his face neutral and looked away.  Spike was asleep.  For a second, he’d thought Spike was lying there looking at him, but he was just being an idiot.

Spike was asleep because it was probably the middle of the day, which was the middle of the night for him, and he’d seen Spike asleep plenty of times in the basement, and it wasn’t anything to write home about.  He snored when he was drunk.  End of story.

Before he could think about that anymore, they were in the bathroom.  He looked at the two open showers at the back of the room and wondered absently whether Liv showered in here, and if so, how she got any privacy.

She helped him to the urinals and he steadied himself and stood upright.

“Thanks, I—“

“Call when you’re done.”  She turned and walked out without another word.  Unlike Spike, she closed the door completely.

He pissed, then turned and looked at the bank of sinks along the far wall.  He might be able to make it.  Or he might take a header into the tile, knock out a couple teeth, and concuss himself.  That would be interesting—he could just keep injuring himself in new and inventive ways, and never get out of here.

He turned slowly, still holding onto the urinal behind him, and put his weight carefully on his right foot.  The whole leg shook, and his knee yammered, but it all held together.  Good.  Now, the left.  Left was better.  It hurt, but it didn’t feel liable to take vacation days without notice.

Slowly, carefully, he made his way across the floor to the sinks.  There was a scary moment in no-man’s-land, nothing to grab onto, the right knee shaking like a palsy and cussing a blue streak.  He briefly considered just sitting down and waiting for Liv to come and get him.  But that was for guys without Demerol.

When he got to the sinks he was breathing hard and sweating a little, and he had to lean against the enamel to rest.  In the mirror, he was still skinny and unshaven and pale, but he didn’t look quite as dead.  His eyes weren’t so glassy, and he had a little more colour.  Sure, a lot of it was purple and green and yellow, but some of it was the rosy flush of youth and returning health.

Or something like that.

He turned the cold water tap on and cupped his hand under it, then splashed himself in the face.  It felt good.  He hadn’t washed in days.  He drank a little out of his hand, then splashed himself again.  He rubbed water over his neck and chest, as far as he could reach.  His skin sucked it up and screamed for more.

He drank, splashed himself, drank again.  Then he just let the water run and stared at himself in the mirror.  He had a beard, kind of.  He’d never had one before.  He rubbed his fingers through it, feeling how the hairs were soft and bristly, how they wanted to lie a certain way along his skin.  It was…strange.  It itched.

He was just clean enough now to feel how dirty he really was, and he glanced back at the showers again.  He probably couldn’t make it that far, and even if he could, he probably couldn’t undress himself.  Or get dressed again afterward, which was more important.  And the thought of being naked, and therefore totally defenseless, was not appealing.  He was already crippled, drugged, probably a prisoner.  There was no need to dig any deeper.

And somehow that raised the thought of Spike again, and he stared at himself harder, trying to see something different in his own eyes.  Was he going insane?  Was it Stockholm syndrome?  The drugs?  Whatever it was, it was—

A quick glimpse of Spike asleep, his arms spread out and his head turned to the side, pressed into the bed.  Looking pale and absorbed.  Unexpected.  And yes, there’d been the cold fist in Xander’s throat, but at the same time something else, something sweet and good, in his belly and along his thighs.

—it was fucking insane, is what it was.  And dirty and wrong, and Jesus Christ, what was the matter with him?  He had a dream, that was all.  Like the dream he had once about Mrs. Parmenter from eighth-grade bio, and that was a source of continuing shame and revulsion, just as this would be.  He had a dream, and it spun him, and the drugs weren’t helping him shake it off.  He needed to shake it off.

He needed to get clean.

The bathroom door opened and Liv walked in.  She didn’t seem surprised to see him soaking wet, on the far side of the room from where she’d left him.

“I need a razor,” he said.  “And a shower.  Seriously.”

She reached out and took his left hand, and he started to raise his arm so she could sling it around her neck and start hauling.  But she just held his hand up in the air.  After a moment she sniffed under his arm and smiled.

“You know, I was just going to suggest that.”



A shower was out, because he had to keep his right knee dry.  Later he could use the bath.  Not now.

He didn’t ask why he couldn’t use the bath now, because he knew why.  Spike was asleep.

He also didn’t ask how he was supposed to take a bath in the middle of the apartment, with Spike watching Manchester United and Liv…doing whatever it was she did.  Dusting the fixtures, maybe.

He had a feeling that he wouldn’t like the answer to that question, and that was why he didn’t ask it.

He could shave, though.  Liv brought a chair into the bathroom and set him up in front of one of the sinks with a can of Barbasol and a Gillette.  Both were brand new, and he supposed she’d bought them for him, since Spike didn’t need to shave.  Yet another advantage to being dead.  No razor burn.

She left without a word and he sat for a second, staring at the can and the razor, wondering how he was going to do this.  It was amazing, how many things took two hands to do right.  And reasonably good hand-eye coordination, of the non-drugged kind.

Sitting in the chair, he was too low to see his face in the mirror.  He ran his fingers over his cheeks and chin, trying to feel where he had stitches, bruises, healing cuts.  Just about everywhere.  So that would add to the fun.

He lathered his right cheek and drew the razor down it.  It only went a few inches before the blade filled up and stopped catching.  When he held it under the tap to clear it, he noticed that his hand was still shaking.  Great.  He was going to come out of this looking like that guy from Airplane.

The bathroom door opened and Liv walked in with a couple of white towels over her arm.  She raised her eyebrows when she saw him.

“I guess you’re all right on your own.”  She dropped the towels on the sink beside him and started to turn around.

“Actually, I—“  She turned back and he shook the razor clean and laid it on the basin.  “It’s kind of hard, doing this without seeing myself.”

She gave him a little smile, just the mouth.  Her eyes stayed flat.  She turned on the hot water tap beside her and held her hand under the water.  When it started to steam the mirror, she put one of the towels under it.

“Put this on your face.”  She handed it to him and he held it gingerly over his cheek.  It was too hot for a few seconds, but once it cooled down it felt good.

He heard her walk around behind him, and then the chair tipped and jerked backwards a couple of feet.  He dropped the towel into his lap, but she was already walking back around him.  She picked up the razor and sat on the edge of the sink, facing him.

“Turn this way.”  She held his chin in her hand and tipped his head to the left.  Before he could think too much about it, she’d drawn the razor neatly down his cheek and was rinsing it under the tap.  He started to turn his head back and she held his chin.

It was strange to be touched like this, her hands on his face, gentle and firm and impersonal.  Like the nurses in the hospital.  It felt good.  It made him want to close his eyes and just be still.

He stared at the far wall, the closed door, the sign that said Employees must wash hands.  He wasn’t going to close his eyes.  It was the drugs.  Things were getting out of hand, and he needed to assert himself.

“So.  You work for Spike.”

She drew the razor down his cheek again, pressing firmly, then ran her thumb down the stripe of bare skin.  It felt intimate, and he turned his head slightly to glance at her.  She was frowning.  While he watched, she rubbed lightly at his cheek with her index finger, and he realized that she was considering how to work around the bruises and cuts. 

He wasn’t really expecting her to answer him, but she did.  In an absent tone, as if this were last month’s topic.

“Yeah.  I work for Spike.”

“Vampire butler.  That’s an interesting profession.  What’s the Meyers-Briggs profile for that?”

She let go of his chin, sprayed some shaving cream onto her fingers, and rubbed it into his cheek.  He turned his head again when she brought the razor up, and felt the blade move smoothly down his skin.

“You get benefits?”

She rinsed the razor without saying anything.

“I’m thinking there must at least be dental.”

She looked at him for a minute, still holding the razor under the tap.  Then she reached out and pushed his chin to the side again, but he still saw her smile.  Half-smile.  Maybe three-quarters.

“It has its benefits,” she said.  

The razor pulled evenly over his cheek, making a whispering sound.  He felt her get close to a welt on his jaw and tensed, but she stopped short and took a few tiny careful strokes that felt, again, strangely intimate.  He swallowed and stared at the door.

“So how’d you guys hook up?  Personals ad?”

She didn’t say anything.  He had a feeling that direct questions were the wrong approach.  Too bad, because direct questions were all he could think of right now.

“I bet you could have killer raves in this place.”

She tipped his chin up and rubbed shaving cream along his throat.  He stared at the ceiling and this time, when the blade pulled smoothly up his skin, he did close his eyes.

Her fingertips were cool on the skin of his throat.  A soft warmth was spreading out from his stomach and spine.  The taps dripped.

He wondered if this was what victims felt like, just before the teeth went in.

“It used to be a garment factory.”

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.  ‘Garment’ was a strange and amusing word right now.  Liv took the razor away but kept her thumb under his chin so he couldn’t lower his head.  He heard the razor under the tap.

“They made coats, mostly.  Just after the war, up until the sixties.”  The razor tapped against the sink and came back to his neck.  “Then other clothes.  The parent company folded in ’73.  Diversified too fast.”

He laughed, almost choked, and she took the razor away and let him lower his head.

“What’s funny?”

“’Diversified?’  What are you, the Wealthy Barber?”

For a second she looked offended, and that too was amusing.  He struggled not to laugh more.  She shook her head and he saw that she didn’t know what he was talking about again.

“Head back.”  She pushed his chin up, a little less gently, and he closed his eyes.  Willow said you could do that with kittens, up to a certain age; you flipped them over and they went comatose.  It was a survival instinct.  Willow knew the weirdest things.

She finished his throat quickly and in silence, and he began to realize that he might actually have offended her.  She was still careful around his injuries, but she seemed more removed.  Her face was concentrated and blank.

Well done.  Alienate the girl with the razor.  Again, he couldn’t imagine Buffy getting into this situation.  And if she did, she wouldn’t worry about hurting anyone’s precious sensitive feelings.  She’d use her one good arm to knock Liv into a wall, stake Spike, and call a cab.

It was a good thing he wasn’t the Slayer.

“Garments, huh?  That’s really…interesting.”  Nice save, Xander.  Liv gave him a skeptical look and pushed his head to the right.

“No, it really is.  I like garments.  Garments are good.  Maybe not as good as raiments, which is a whole different class of vestment, but for your everyday needs, garments are the go-to…ment.”

It was definitely the drugs, or maybe somehow he was channeling Willow.  Liv seemed to pause and consider him, and he shot a quick glance sideways.  She wasn’t smiling, exactly, but she seemed amused.  Or maybe bemused.  He looked away and she started on his left cheek.

“Garments.  So how come employees had to wash their hands?”

“What?”  At least she was talking again.  Her thumb ran down his cheek and he closed his eyes for just a second.

“That sign.  They must have been way ahead of their time in the field of kosher clothing.”

She paused.

“Oh,” she said.  “Actually, I put that up.”

“You put it up?”

“I don’t know why.  It seemed funny at the time.”

Funny?  He looked at her, and she was smiling in a private way, as if she didn’t know what her face was doing.  It was weird—Spike’s girl had a sense of humor about her job—but he smiled back, and for a second they were almost friendly.

“Turn,” she said, and pushed his chin to the right.  He turned.  She pulled the razor down his cheek and trailed it with her thumb.

“So why am I here, exactly?”  And now he was actually trying to be smooth, trying to ferret out a little useful information while her guard was down, and maybe that was kind of cheap but fuck it.  He’d send her an FTD from Sunnydale.  

She didn’t say anything, and he stared at the wall, counted to five, then tried again.

“I mean, we’ve done show and tell, right?  We’ve established my uselessness.  So…maybe it’s time for Xander to make like a tree.”

Silence except for the taps.  She let his chin go to clean the razor, and he hazarded a glance at her.  The expression on her face was set and neutral, as if he hadn’t said a word.  Apparently question period was over.  Well, damn.

He stewed for a few minutes, but the pills wouldn’t let him keep that up, and he found himself slowly relaxing.  He was warm and light.  He thought of the nurse’s hand moving gently in his hair, how good that had felt.

She finished his cheek and he floated with his eyes half-open, listening to the drip of the taps.  When she was done she pushed his head to the side to do his jaw, and he snuck a sideways look.  She was rinsing the razor under the tap behind her, and gazing at his neck with a critical expression.  It was a little like being looked over by a vamp.  A vamp with all the time in the world.

He could see the spike tattoo on her neck.  She had two, actually.  One on each side, up almost behind the ear, and they were neat and crisp, as if she hadn’t had them very long.  What if she ever wanted to quit her day job?

She brought the razor back around and pulled it carefully over a couple of spots on his face, cleaning up.  He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again she was staring at his neck.  That was strange.  He knew it was probably just because she was a conscientious worker, but her expression was so focused, and she had a razor in her hand, after all.

If she was a good little butler for Spike, would he find a way to turn her?  Was that what she meant by benefits?

“You’re done.”

She sat back and rinsed the razor a last time, and he straightened up in the chair, a little embarrassed, afraid that he’d looked like he was enjoying it.  He blinked and touched his face lightly.  His skin was tight and damp and smooth.  There were a few rough spots around the stitches on his cheek and the worst bruises on his jaw, but it was pretty good.

“Thanks.”

She turned away, picked up the damp towel, and handed it to him.  Again he noticed the circles under her eyes, the tattoo behind her ear.  Between the two of them, this was no beauty pageant.

“Here.  I’ll go see about some food.”

She collected the razor and shaving cream and went out.  He touched the towel gently to his face and winced as it pressed against the stitches.  There were a couple of tiny spots of blood on it when he took it away.

Food sounded good, in a theoretical way.  He didn’t feel hungry, but he knew he was.  Like knowing the gas gauge was on empty even though you weren’t actually sitting in the car at the time.

He sat for a minute with his eyes closed, feeling weak and light and fine.  The stitches throbbed, but it wasn’t pain exactly—more like warmth.  He could sit here forever, just being quiet and still, feeling his body expand and contract in the chair.

Buffy would be dismantling the U-bend to make a bazooka.  Come on, Xander.  Some ambition.

He opened his eyes and leaned forward, grabbed for the sink, and hauled himself upright.  Somewhere down in the valley, his knees hollered, and he sighed.  The whole patella thing was getting old.

Funny—shaving made him look worse.  Skinnier and more beat-up, because now his bones poked through more, and every bruise showed.  He stared at the thin empty face in the mirror, the eyes glassy again because Lady Demerol was holding court in his pitiful cranium, the lips dry and split.  He touched the stitches on his cheek gently.  He’d always hated stitches.

“Watch it, pet.  Vanity’s a deadly sin.”

Low smooth voice right behind him, practically in his ear, and he turned too fast.  His right leg vanished completely and he collapsed at an angle, catching himself with his left elbow against the sink.  White flash of pain, and dreamy panic as he scrambled to find his feet again.

For a second, he was on the floor with broken legs, Bony on his foot.

Then Spike was hauling him up by his good arm, and his legs were back under him, and he was upright.  He didn’t think.  Just reached out and grabbed Spike’s throat, feeling for a moment cool skin, muscles, bones under his hand.  He shoved hard.

Spike stumbled backward, and Xander grabbed the sink and hung on.

“Fuck off, Spike,” he said, as soon as he could speak.  His heart was hammering, and he couldn’t catch his breath.

Spike straightened up slowly and touched his throat.  He was wearing jeans and holding a white T-shirt in one hand, and his hair looked like he’d just woken up.  His face registered Deeply Pissed.  Good.  Fuck him.

“Oh, that’s nice.  You are a guest here, tosser.”

He laughed sharply, and it hurt his chest.  “Yeah, it’s been great of you to let me crash here, Spike, since I don’t have anywhere else to stay.  Oh, wait—yes I do.  My apartment.  So, I’ll just call a cab.”

Spike said nothing, but a familiar look went across his face before he smothered it.  The look of Spike with something to hide.

“Yeah, I thought so.  What’s the evil plan this time, Spike?  Why am I here?”

“Liv’s been nagging us for a pet.”  He pulled his shirt on quickly and touched his throat again.  “Remind me, if I ever lose the chip, I have to rip your larynx out and make squeaky noises with it.”

“Why am I here?”

Spike went to the sinks and turned the cold tap on full.  He leaned over and splashed his face.

“You didn’t have to get me from the hospital in the first place, Spike.  Or even take me there.  Why did you?”

Why hadn’t he thought about that until now?  Buffy would have—  He wasn’t Buffy.  Obviously.

Which dredged up another thought.  How long had Spike been standing watching him?  He could have been there the whole time, watching the razor and Xander’s throat, watching him close his eyes and drift.  He wouldn’t have showed in the mirror, and Xander hadn’t looked around. 

He felt sick and hot, and also, God, a little sweet.  It was back to the dream again, the feeling of warm lips, an evil smile, cool hands on his jaw and shoulder.  Oh, fuck.  Fuck.  Fucker.  He wanted to kill something.  Or be killed.

Spike pushed his head under the tap, then turned the water off.  He reached a hand out toward Xander.

“Give us a towel, then.”

Xander looked at the one he was holding.  The pinpoints of his blood on it.  “It’s…wet.”

“Doesn’t matter, give it.”

“Tell me why I’m here.”

Spike sighed, then shook his head sharply, spraying water.  He stood up and walked over to Xander.  He was soaked, and his hair was sticking out in little white chunks.  Water ran down his neck and soaked the front of his shirt.

“Come on, puppy.  Give us the bleedin’ towel.”

Xander put it behind his back, and Spike rolled his eyes.

“Oh, I’ve been bested.  You’re here because I wanted to know about the plug uglies.  All right?”

“And now you know.  So again, cab.”

Spike reached around and he turned his body to keep the towel away, but Spike had already gone round the other side and snagged it out of his hand.  Go, Latrell.  But it was okay, it got Spike away from him.  He really didn’t want Spike getting close and personal right now.  His dream, and the hand on his head—fuck, get him out of here.  How much could Spike smell on him?

“Thanks, luv.”  He scrubbed the towel over his head and smiled.  “It’s a big bad world out there, Xander.  You’re staying here where it’s safe.”

“I’m touched.  But you know what would make me feel even safer?  This friend of mine, I’ll call her ‘Buffy.’  She’s a superhero, she loves this stuff.”

“Well, that’s just it.  I let you go, you scamper off and call the Slayer, and the next thing you know, there’s Slayer in LA.  Nothing brings property values down faster.”

He opened his mouth—So I’m kidnapped, huh?  And we can deep-six all the ‘guest’ shit?—but didn’t get a chance to speak.

“Slayer?  What the hell—?”

They both turned and looked at the door.  Liv was standing there, staring at them.  She looked appalled.  Like someone had just told her the new black was plaid.

Xander turned and looked at Spike, and he’d be damned if that wasn’t an “oops” expression on Spike’s face.  Just for a second, before he found his feet again and smiled.

“Nothing, pet.  Just being lads.  Get us another towel, will you?  This one smells like puppy.”

She took a step into the room.  “He’s with the Slayer?”  She stared at Xander, then at Spike.  “When were you going to tell me this?”

Spike looked at the floor, his lip curling.  “Thought you knew.”

“No, I didn’t know, Spike.”

Spike rolled his eyes and sighed.  “Okay, right, well now you do.  He’s pals with the Slayer.  Now, towel.”

She didn’t move.  Her face was pale and she was trembling slightly.  She opened her mouth, then closed it, and made a visible effort at control.  When she spoke, her voice was low and tight. 

“He’s friends with the Slayer, and you brought him here.  How do you think this will—“  She broke off and started again.  “I don’t understand, Spike.  You have to explain this to me, because the only way I see this playing out is with you getting dusted and me getting beaten to death.”

“Don’t be soft,” Spike said.  He was starting to sound annoyed.  “It’s just a Slayer.  I’ll make her my hat trick.”

“You and who else, Spike?  You’re chipped, and ‘Slayer’ is on the list of things I can’t help you with.”

“Don’t need your help, luv.  You just do what you’re told.”

“Sure.  I’ll keep doing whatever dipshit things you tell me to do, and we’ll both be dead by the weekend.”

There was a pause.

“Shut up, Liv.”  Spike’s voice was cold.

“I’ve been shutting up a lot lately, and every time I shut up, you do something stupid.”

“I said, shut up.”

“How long do you think we’ve got before the cavalry arrives, Spike?  She could be on her way right now.  All she has to do is ask around for the suicidal dipshit—“

He crossed the room in three strides, stood toe to toe with her and yelled. 

“Shut up!”

She stared at him.

“Or what, Spike?  You can’t hurt me—I’m human.  Like the Slayer.”

They stood there for a moment, and then she reached up and flicked him in the forehead. 

He went to game face, grabbed her throat, and dropped with a thud.  She stood watching silently as he writhed and clutched his head.

“My point, Spike.”

There was blood on the floor by his face—his nose was bleeding.  She turned and walked out without another word.

Xander hadn’t moved since she’d come into the room; he stood clinging awkwardly to the sink behind him, his shoulders pulled up, almost on tiptoe.  He was breathing in little gasps.  For some reason he felt sure that she’d be back in a second, and that she’d bring a gun, and that Xander-friend-of-Slayer would cease to be a thorn in her side a second after that.

Spike was gasping, too.  Or making gaspy sounds, at least, as if he’d forgotten he didn’t have breath to catch.  He was curled on his knees with his forehead smack against the floor, pressing against the tile with the heels of his hands.  The muscles in his neck and back were rigid.  His toes were curled.  Blood was starting to pool by his head.

The chip was working overtime.  Back in Sunnydale, it was mostly dramatic-head-grab kind of stuff, and it never knocked him down or made him bleed.  This was different.  This looked…wretched.  His fingers were digging into the tile, his whole body was shaking, and for some reason Xander thought of the framed print in the loft.  The skinned torso.  He’d assumed it was Spike celebrating sadism, but maybe it was something else as well.  Maybe Spike considering his own situation.

Well, if he didn’t try to put the bad on anyone, it wouldn’t happen.

That was a righteous and unsatisfying thought.

Spike tried to lift his hand, and it shook worse than Xander’s had been doing lately.  He dropped it again and his breathing went on in rapid gasps.  For some reason that was the worst, the creepiest.  He was still in game face.  His mouth was moving silently, talking to the floor.

Xander pushed carefully off from the sink and took a step forward.  He didn’t know exactly what he was doing yet, but standing around all “eek” by the wall wasn’t going to help him.  If Liv came back loaded for bear, he might as well be standing close to Spike, and then maybe she wouldn’t open fire.

Although she didn’t seem too fond of Spike just now, either.

He gimped across the floor to where Spike was lying, and then stopped.  He didn’t have the limbs to haul Spike up, and he didn’t even know if it was a good idea to try.  Spike had stopped breathing, which must mean he was either dying or getting better.  Either way, it was a relief not to have to hear it.

Though it meant Xander could hear a little of what Spike was telling the floor.  Later on, he’d have to recommend a thorough mouth-soaping.

He stood wavering for a moment, and then gravity and injury and maybe a little free will took over, and he just folded.  His right leg buckled and seemed to disappear, and the left one let him down a little more slowly, and he caught the rest of his weight on his left palm and his butt.  To the untrained eye, it might even have looked planned.

Spike hadn’t noticed, or didn’t care.  The groveling, cussing, and bleeding looked like a full-time job.  He’d dropped the towel, and Xander reached out and picked it up.

“Come on, bleachboy.  Save the drama for your mama.”  He held the towel out and poked Spike in the shoulder with it.  His voice was supposed to sound brusque and jokey, but it came out soft.  Why the hell was he down on his butt on the bathroom tile in the first place?  What was wrong with walking away from an evil vampire bastard who’d kick dirt over him if he were in the same position?

Except.  The hand on his forehead.

Spike raised his hand again, and it still shook, but he managed to wipe his face.  Lot of blood on his fingers.  He hacked and spat, and that was bloody too.  Xander winced and drew the towel back.

“You must have been intending something very extra bad just now,” he said, to fill the silence.  “Because I don’t recall this kind of Peckinpah action back in Sunnydale.”

Spike curled his shoulders up, pressed his forehead to the floor a last time, then made an obvious effort and flipped over.  He moved awkwardly, painfully, and almost overbalanced and ended up on his face again.  The game face was gone, and his eyes were blue and wide and dizzy-looking, the pupils huge.  His face was a bloody mask.

For a minute they sat in silence.  Blood ran down Spike’s neck and soaked into his shirt.  He sat with his elbows resting on his knees, his arms loose and his head bent.  His hands were still shaking.

Xander raised the towel again and this time Spike took it. He wiped his face and neck, looked at the towel, and sneered slightly.

“It’s getting worse?” Xander said.

Spike wiped his face some more.  There was blood on his forehead.

“I—I need a fag,” he said after a moment.  His voice was weak, defiant, angry.

“Cigarette,” Xander said.  “Here in America, we call them cigarettes.  Avoids silly confusion.”

Spike looked over his shoulder at the pool of blood spreading on the tile, and the hand he was using to wipe his face stopped moving.

“She kind of has a point,” Xander said.

Spike looked back at him, scowled, and blew his nose into the towel.

“Sooner or later Buffy’s going to come looking for me,” Xander said.  “And she’ll find me, because Buffy always finds what she’s looking for.”

“’cept a fashion sense.”

“And it’s exactly that sort of comment that’ll get your ass kicked with steel cleats when she arrives, Spike.  That, and the fact that you’re holding me prisoner.”

Spike swallowed and looked disgusted at the taste.  He started to push himself up off the ground, but his arm shook and he only made it a couple of inches.  He tried out the evil smirk.  It was weak.

“Leave the Slayer to me, pet.  I’m not—not worried.”

Xander leaned over and took the towel out of Spike’s hand.

“You’ve got some right here,” he said, and wiped blood off Spike’s temple.

Spike started to jerk his head away, winced, and held still.  He closed his eyes, and Xander found a clean spot on the towel and wiped a little more blood off Spike’s forehead.

It was strange.  Spike’s eyelids were trembling, and he’d laced his fingers together between his knees, and they were trembling too.  

Strange to see him like this, and to be sitting so close, wiping his face.  Xander’s heart was beating too fast, and he knew he should stop and move away, because Spike could probably hear it.  But he didn’t stop.  It was something to do with the dream, some lost combination of blood and warmth and Spike’s closed eyes, and where the hell was he going to go, anyway?  He couldn’t stand up.

But he could change the subject, and hope Spike was too busy clotting to listen to Xander’s pulse.

“How’d you piss this special someone off so much, Spike?”

A pause, while Spike gathered his resources, or came back from wherever he was murdering Liv.

“No idea.”

“Deprive any Mafia daughters of their virtue lately?”

“Oh right, yeah.  That Corleone bird, I knew she was trouble.”

A thin line of blood was still running from Spike’s nose, and Xander stared at it a second, then wiped it away without thinking.  Spike’s head tipped woozily sideways, as if he didn’t have strength in his neck to hold it straight.  The towel was a mess.

“So this Kinbote guy, he was supposed to help you find the mystery player, right?  But he got—“

“Kacked,” Spike said, and opened his eyes.

“Okay, don’t get all bumpy on me, Spike, but maybe you should consider getting a little help with this.”

Spike pressed the heel of his hand to the side of his head and looked at him.  His eyes were bloodshot.

“A little help,” he said.  “That’s an idea, mate.  Except I already have a little help, a VERY LITTLE HELP—“ he tipped his head back and shouted the words hoarsely, “—and that’s quite enough assistance for the moment, THANKS VERY MUCH.”

They sat for a moment.  There was no sound from the loft.

“Maybe she didn’t hear you,” Xander said.

“Stupid bint.”

“Or maybe she’s too busy picking your clothes up off the floor to answer.”

“You fuck off.”

“I’m just saying.”

Xander tossed the towel over the pool of blood behind them.  He sat for a moment watching the red soak through.

“Maybe Buffy could help,” he said.

Spike snorted.  “If by ‘help’ you mean ‘try to drive a stake through my heart,’ then I’m sure you’re right.”

“No, really.  I can explain about…why I look like this, and it’s not your fault really, and you did take me to the hospital.  Well, Liv did.  It’s not as bad as it looks.  And Willow’s queen witch of Eastwick these days, man, she’ll just consult the karmic yellow pages—“

Spike was staring at him.

“What?”

Spike shook his head slowly.  “Congratulations, Harris.  You continue to amaze me.”

“With my ruthlessly perceptive mind,” Xander said, but he had a familiar sinking feeling, and he heard the words come out flat.  Stupid idea.  This wasn’t Sunnydale, they weren’t a gang, Spike wasn’t a pal.  Stupid.

“With your endless naiveté,” Spike said, and stood up.  He wobbled for just a second, then tensed and stood straight.  When he spoke, his voice was hard.  “It’s charming, really.  I mean that.”

Xander stared at the floor and said nothing.  His face was hot.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Spike said.  “I need to have a chat with the help.”  He turned and took a step, then turned back.  Xander didn’t look up.

Spike’s hand came down on his head and he jumped.  His heart surged—so stupid, all of it, get him out of here, get him home.  Spike tipped his head back.  Xander forced himself to look up into Spike’s face.  To look angry.

Spike looked exhausted and bloodshot and weirdly dazed.  He still had the slight, sardonic smile, the one he wore when he was going to say something cruel and usual.  But then the smile disappeared.  The cruel look went away and was replaced by something else.  Surprise.  And…

Spike leaning across the table toward him, evil bastard, smiling, eyes bright.  So take this.

The fist was back in Xander’s throat, and he stopped breathing but didn’t look away.  Fuck off.  He was shaking, just the slightest bit.  He wanted to groan.  Enough.  He’d had enough.  He didn’t look away.

They stared at each other until Xander’s eyes watered, and he blinked and looked away.  His face was hot, the skin on fire.  He didn’t want Spike to think he’d started to cry.

Spike ran the back of his hand down Xander’s jaw.  Cool hand.

So take this.

Xander jerked his head away.

“Pretty clean,” Spike said after a second.  His voice was light.  “She can open up a barbershop, after I fire her.”

Xander stared at the floor.  His heart was racing, he was breathing hard.  Spike must smell it on him.  Fuck, Liv could probably smell it in the next room.  What was he supposed to do now?  He might as well wear a sandwich board.

He waited for Spike to say something, get in his face, start to laugh.  Nothing.

I want to go home.

The silence went on.  Almost like Spike was waiting for him to say something.  Or just giving him a chance.

He stared at the floor and said nothing.  What did Emily Post say about awkward silences like this?  He’d have to remember to look that up.

I want to go home.

Spike shifted, seemed to hesitate, then walked out without a word.  He closed the door behind him.

Funny, how that gave him a lonely.

He sat there for a minute, until he started to hear low voices in the other room.  Liv’s angry, Spike’s cold.  He couldn’t hear words.  He closed his eyes and lay back on the tile.  It was kind of like being in the basement, listening to the arguments upstairs.

He cried a little bit, only because he was sure he’d be alone for a while.  He was right.  By the time the door opened and Liv came in, his eyes were dry and he was breathing fine.

 

---

Chapter 7

Chinese again, and maybe that meant they were near Chinatown, but somehow he doubted it.  Whatever, he polished it off and did his Oliver Twist routine, and this time it got him a second helping.  He polished that off, too.

Then he sat in the chair with his trousers down again, while Liv changed the dressing on his knee.  The bruises didn’t look quite as bad this time.  Maybe he was just getting used to them.

Spike had changed into a different shirt, one that wasn’t soaked in blood, and he lay on the couch watching television with the sound turned off.  Well, not watching, precisely.  His eyes were glassy and sunken, and frankly closed a lot of the time.  His mouth was tight.

Neither he nor Liv had said more than ten words since Xander had come out of the bathroom.

Liv taped the gauze around Xander’s knee and carried the tackle box back to the kitchen.  When she came back she had his antibiotics in one hand, and a glass of tomato juice in the other.

No.  Not tomato juice.  He hadn’t spent twenty years on the Hellmouth for nothing.  She put it on the table in front of Spike, and he opened his eyes.

“Fuck, take that away,” he said, looking revolted.

She paused, then picked it up and made it disappear.  Xander swallowed his pills and stared at the little red half-moon the glass had left behind on the tabletop.

Funny, he hadn’t thought about it yet, but what exactly was Spike eating these days?  It was possible that he was sticking to the Slayer-approved pig’s blood diet.  Possible, yeah.

Sure.

Thinking about that would have made him jumpy if he hadn’t been riding the best part of the Demerol high.  He was floating an inch above the chair, everything coming in smooth warm waves.  The scene in the bathroom seemed almost funny now.

Almost.

The silence was starting to get to him.

“So, what do you guys do for kicks, anyway?”

Liv had her back turned, and Spike didn’t open his eyes.  Neither said anything.

“Wanna play wink murder?”

Spike opened one eye and stared at him.

“Yeah, shutting up.”

Spike closed his eye.

Xander turned to face the television.  There was something entrancing about the images without sound, and before he knew it he was caught up.  Commercials for SUVs, for toothpaste, for life insurance.  Somewhere out there, people were leading lives in which these things were important.  In which they were everything.

Funny, how none of the Scoobies had ever thought to take out life insurance.

The commercials ended and a program came on, something with a man and a woman talking in a bedroom.  He didn’t recognize it.  He watched dully for a minute or two, and then the camera angle changed and there was a lamp in the background, the same lamp he’d had in his apartment in Sunnydale.  Anya had ordered it from a catalogue.   

And suddenly, bizarrely, he was jolted by a full sensory memory of Anya.  Her smell, the feel of her skin, the taste of her mouth.  The sound of her voice.  It was as if she were sitting in his lap, warm and solid, smiling at him.

It was wonderful and awful.  The pit of his stomach ached.  Half of him wanted to say her name out loud, just start talking to her as if she were actually there.  Delightful, beautiful.  All the things he used to say quietly, to the back of her neck, while she was asleep.  Love you, An.  

The other half was horrified.  Wanted to push her off because he was so dirty now, he had no business thinking about her or wanting her.  Not just because the shower he wanted to take had been pushed back again into who knows when.  That kind of dirty sucked, but at least it washed off.

How long had it been since he’d even thought about her?  Why hadn’t he thought of her?

He looked over the arm of the couch and saw the top of Spike’s head, the damp bleached hair against the black cushion.  He felt a wave of disgust and anger.  When he woke up at night, the hand on his head should be Anya’s.  It should smell like tea rose, not cigarettes.  It should be warm.

He thought of Spike’s hand running down his cheek and his stomach turned over.  He was disgusting.  Not just for letting it happen in the first place, but for the way he felt now, which wasn’t just repulsed, but also turned on.

It turned him on.

He hadn’t meant to think that.

He clenched his left hand into a fist and shoved it against the arm of the chair.  It felt stupid and dense, but it helped him breathe better and get his body under control.  He swallowed a couple of times and blinked.  Stared at the television.  Bounty was the quicker picker-upper.

If he could walk, he’d get out.  If he had a stake, he’d use it.  He’d dust Spike in a second, and that would be a mercy to all God’s creatures, and Liv could take it up with management.  As long as he got to see Spike blowing in the wind.

It was a satisfying train of thought, and he smiled and looked back at Spike.

Who was looking at him.

It gave him a little shock, and he lost the smile.  Spike was paler than Xander had ever seen him, practically white.  His face was thin and tired, the skin stretched taut across his cheekbones.  His eyes were bright blue and bloodshot and watchful.  He looked sick.  No.  For once, he looked like what he was.  Half-dead.

They looked at each other for a long second, and Xander’s stomach did a tuck roll.

Not again.  Not doing this shit again.

He smiled tightly and spoke in a low voice.

“You should get your colors done, Spike.  I’m thinking, you know, a nice neutral dust.”

Spike didn’t say anything.  After a moment, he closed his eyes.

On the other side of the loft, Liv started putting dishes away in a cupboard.

Fight back, dammit. 

It wasn’t fair.  There was something hard and hot in his chest, and his skin crawled, and he was disgusting and foul and he hated himself.  He wanted to be good again.  Clean.  But behind that, he wanted to apologize, and he wanted to touch Spike’s hair.

Jesus Christ.  

He looked back at the television.  The man and woman were laughing.

Anya was gone.  That was a good thing, because he was dirty, and he didn’t want to get any on her. 



He woke up in the chair sometime later.  There was a glass of water on the table in front of him, and the two white pills.

The loft was silent and dim.  He felt raw—his mind.  It ached.  Silence was good.

Spike was still on the sofa, asleep.  He looked as if he hadn’t moved at all, but there was an empty blood glass on the table in front of him.  Next to it, another glass with a half-inch of amber liquid.  No bottle.

It could be midnight, or three in the afternoon.

Xander leaned forward and hooked Spike’s bourbon glass with his index finger.  For a second he wondered whether it was weird to drink from Spike’s glass, or weird to wonder about it, or weird that he didn’t really care.  He took the pills and drank the bourbon slowly, and for once he liked the foul, varnishy taste.  If the bottle had been there he would have finished it, and maybe, with luck, it would kill him.

He dropped his head back against the chair and waited to fall asleep again.  He was exhausted.  Everything felt flat and distant.

There was a shifting noise and he opened his eyes slowly, more out of habit than curiosity.  Spike hadn’t moved.  He didn’t feel anything, looking at Spike.  He didn’t feel anything about anything.  He was inert.

He looked to the right and saw Liv curled up on the foot of Spike’s bed.  She was asleep.  Her jeans and T-shirt were folded neatly on the floor and she was wearing a man’s flannel shirt and a pair of wool socks.  Curled up on her side in fetal pose.  Willow pose.

He stared at her for a while, then turned his head again and looked at Spike.  Still there, still dead.  Planted face down in the cushion as if he’d dropped there from a height.

Xander let his head fall back and closed his eyes, and wondered what Willow was doing right now.  He missed her.  Never should have—what was it he never should have done?  He couldn’t remember.  For a brief instant he saw her face clearly, tilted and half-smiling, and then it was like the world revolved and dropped him into sleep.



He wasn’t ready to wake up yet, there were layers and layers between him and the surface, but there was the sound of punching and he panicked.  A dream—he was dreaming, it wasn’t real.  Like Bony Nose standing on his foot. Wake up.

He sat up abruptly and this time the curtains were open, there was a night sky outside, and lamps lit.  It took him a second to get his bearings.  Spike wasn’t on the sofa anymore, and Liv wasn’t on the bed.  Liv was nowhere to be seen.

Spike, on the other hand, was across the room, industriously beating the crap out of the heavy bag.  He was wearing his old red shirt and a pair of jeans, and the sound of his fists landing made Xander grit his teeth and swallow hard.  There were sounds you wanted to be familiar with—lawnmowers and ocean and whiskey over ice—and then there was this.  And he’d heard a lot of it in his life.

Spike paused and looked around, reaching out absently with one hand to steady the bag.  Eerie, how he could tell when a person woke up.  Xander raised his left fingers slightly off the arm of the chair, and Spike smirked and went back to the bag.

Xander took stock.  He wasn’t going back to sleep, not with the upbeat rhythms of Whaling the Bejeesus filtering in from across the room.  He was tired, a little dopey, but not in much pain for a change.  That was nice.  He felt a bit like he sometimes used to feel after a long, hard night of Scoobying, when he’d sustained a few minors but no majors, and was melting into the sofabed with a glass of the Harris household’s finest.  It wasn’t such a bad feeling, if you left it unexamined.

His gaze drifted back to Spike, who was bouncing on the balls of his feet, slamming his fists and elbows and knees—anything handy, really—into the bag.  He’d worked around to one side of it now, and his face was…happy.  And angry.  He looked mad and gleeful and he was hurling himself at the bag like he was going to rip it open with his teeth.  While Xander watched, he whipped around and kicked it with a sound like a baseball bat in someone’s gut.  And that, disturbingly, was also a sound Xander was familiar with.

It was awful and sickening, and he could feel himself pulling his head down into his shoulders as he watched, but he couldn’t look away.

He looked away.

He took a quick visual tour of the loft and saw there was a light coming from behind him.  He turned, wincing, and saw that along the same wall as the door down to the garage, there was a door he hadn’t noticed before.  It was standing open to a small room, occupied by a desk with a computer on top, a printer, scanner, some stuff he couldn’t identify right off.  Liv was sitting at the desk with her back to him.  He couldn’t see what was on the monitor.

Mounted on the wall above the desk were what looked like four television sets.  Three of them showed different sets of pictures on rotation.  The inside of the garage.  The downstairs door, from the inside and outside.  The landing.  The outside of the door to the loft.  A few other shots that must have been outside the garage door and another entrance.

The screen that didn’t rotate was green instead of grey, and showed what looked like the inside of a sewer tunnel.

So, Spike had a home security system.  That was nice.  He’d have to remember to decide whether it made him feel safer or more of a prisoner.

As he stared, Liv turned in her chair and he had a spooky moment of wondering whether she’d felt him watching her.  Was he the only one in the world without ESP?  But no, she was just turning to pick up some papers from the desk.  She sat leafing through them for a minute or two, frowning, and then she did glance up and see him looking at her.  The frown deepened.  He raised his fingers again—hi, Liv—and she squared the papers on the desk, stood up, and came out of the little room.  Closed the door behind her with a solid click.

Spike looked around at that, and grinned when he saw her walking to the kitchen.

“C’mere, luv,” he said, stepping away from the bag and holding his fists up in mock-kangaroo punching style.  Liv ignored him.  “Come on, come and have a go.”

She was rummaging in the fridge, and for a moment there was nothing but the clink of bottles.  After a moment she stood up with a bag of Chinese in her hand.

“You hungry, Nova?” she asked, opening the bag and peering into it.

Not really, but he knew deflection when he saw it.  And food was probably a good idea.  It was probably even the kind of thing they gave you in hospital.

“Sure.  Wanna hit Spago?”

She put the cartons on the counter, then started searching the cabinets.  Spike took a few steps forward, then spun around and kicked the bag again.  It swung wide and he nailed it again with his other foot.  The chain creaked in protest.

“Come on, Liv,” he said, turning back and raising his fists in front of his face, exaggerating the bounce on his toes.  “Come take a stab.”

She muttered something that Xander couldn’t hear, and Spike laughed.  “Right, now you have to,” he said cheerfully.  “Talking to me like that.”

She didn’t move, and he stopped bouncing and dropped his tone a notch.  “I’ve told you, now.  Come on.”

She paused a moment longer, then banged a plate on the counter and closed the cabinet door with a bang.

“Don’t break the place up,” Spike said, as she walked over to him.  He was smiling again.  “Right, fists up.”

Xander watched as she put her fists up lamely in front of her face, thinking automatically, That’s too close, she’s going to get bopped in the nose with her own—

Spike sighed, dropped his fists, and carefully adjusted hers.  “Like that,” he said.  “Come on, that’s your guard, not a bloody valentine.  Now—“  He gave her a slow, careful punch and she backed away and dropped her hands.

“Spike—“

“Come on, properly now.”

“Spike, I have work to do.”

He punched at her belly, pulled it before it touched her, and sent another toward her face when she flinched downward.  He pulled that one too, and tapped her lightly on the forehead.  “Look at that, two in one go.  You haven’t had a single one in yet.”

“I don’t want one, Spike.  I want to go back to work.”

“Yeah, well, this is work.  Put your bloody hands up, at least.”

“Spike—“  He darted a hand in and stopped it just in front of her face, and she flinched, scowled, and tried to slap him.  He caught her hand easily and she tried again with the other.  He caught that one too, and laughed.

“Oh, brilliant.  You give the guy your hands like that, he’ll reel you in and take your throat out.”

“Not if I kick him in the balls.”  She actually tried it, to Xander’s amazement, and he sidestepped and swept her feet.  Then she was hanging from his grip by her wrists, her lips pressed furiously together, staring at the far wall while he laughed and bounced her slightly up and down.

“Not fast enough, luv.  And predictable.  If a vamp ever gets you like that, you bash him in the mouth with your head, right?  Break a couple fangs off, give him something to think about.”

She kept staring at the wall for a second, then said tightly, “Can I get up now?”

He pulled her to her feet and made an elaborate show of dusting her down.  “Right, try again,” he said, kangarooing.

She walked away, back to the kitchen, and started spooning cold Chinese onto a plate.  He watched her for a second, then shrugged and turned toward Xander.

It was weird, how fine he looked.  While Xander stared at him, he grinned and shadow-boxed a little, did a quick little Ali thing with his feet, and there was no sign that he’d recently been a wet mess on the bathroom floor, that he’d been sick and bloody and too fucked-up to snark.

Apparently that was all ancient history, because he looked as lively as a dead guy could look.  Well, livelier than most, actually.  He was rolling his neck and pulling at his shoulders, flexing his fingers.  Buffy did that when she worked out.  It always looked so cool.

“Be a love, Liv, put some music on.”

Liv was putting the plate of Chinese into the microwave; she turned and looked at Spike, then at the stereo, which was closer to him than to her.  He smiled and went back to the bag, and she stabbed the microwave into action and walked to the stereo.  That put her close enough to Xander that he automatically sniffed for gun oil.  Nada.

“Looks like your boss is feeling better,” he said.

“Looks like.”

“I don’t get it,” Xander said.  She didn’t look away from the CDs.

“Get what?”

“He just tried to hit you.  How come he didn’t go all nosebleedy?”

She pulled out another jewel case and studied it.

“I thought you knew Spike.  I thought you guys went back.”

“To my unending dismay, we go back many years.”

“Then you know about the chip.  It’s intentional.”  She put a CD in the spinner and dropped the case on the cabinet.  “If he’s not really out to get me, no zap.”

Xander watched her run her finger down the stack of CDs, looking for a title.  “Right, okay.  And, uh, he seems like he’s fully recovered.”

She smiled grimly.  “Sure,” she said.  “Getting zapped riles him up.  He always wants to either fight something or fuck something.”

Xander just sat there.  Fight something or…  He cleared his throat and fiddled with the loose end of his bandage.

“Put the Pistols in,” Spike called.  She was just taking Never Mind the Bollocks out of the machine; Xander recognized the label.  She quickly slipped it between a couple of jewel cases.

“Can’t find it,” she said.  “Sorry.”

So he wasn’t the only one sick of Sid.  Well, living with Spike would do it to you.  He grinned and tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look at him.

“So…he’s training you up, then.  So you can, what, pick bar fights for him?”

“Sure.” 

“Looks like you’re still at the wax-on, wax-off stage.”

She held up one finger.  “Wax this, Nova.”

“I’m just saying, you don’t exactly look ready for the cage match yet.”

“Yeah, well.”  She picked up a CD and examined the label.  “Maybe you can give me some tips when you’re all better.  I hear you fetch a mean donut.”

“It’s a calling.”  He kept his face blank.  “And actually, I was thinking Buffy could do the tutoring.  You know, show you how to take a punch.  Or a kick in the head.”  It was the donut comment; he was pissed and it came through in his voice.  Nasty voice.

Shut up, Xander.  Don’t aggravate Demerol Lass.

He should smooth it over with a joke, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.  She was still staring at the CD cases, her face tight and angry.  Then she raised her hand to take a case out, and he saw that her fingers were shaking.  She was scared.  Of what?

His brain took a second to cough up the answer.  Buffy.  She was scared of Buffy.

Oh.

“Not going to be any of that,” Spike said quietly, from the other side of the room. 

Of course Spike had heard them—Spike could hear grass grow.  Liv flushed and stared hard at the case in her hands.  He turned away from the bag, left it swinging, and regarded them with a smile.

“Bit of a non-starter in a scrap, I’ll give you that, but she’s a whiz with the ledgers.  Aren’t you, poppet?”  He dropped the smile.  “What the hell are we listening to?”

“Nothing,” Xander said.

“Exactly.”

Liv hit play and walked quickly over to the microwave.  He watched her hands tremble at her sides and forgave the donut comment.

Someone cracked a pair of drumsticks together, counted to four, and they were off.  Loud, raucous, and fast, guitar and drums and hoarse shouting English voices.  A train wreck set to music, if you could call it that.

Spike grinned and went back to the bag.  Started throwing punches, hard and fast.  The look on his face was pure evil bastard, pure bad happiness.  Demon static.  That look was the last thing on earth a lot of people had seen, definitely.  But right now he was just hitting a bag, and that was all he could hit, and Xander couldn’t help watching.

She said Spike always got like this after he was zapped.  Wanted to fight something, or fuck something.  Wanted to rip the head off something, by the look of it, but he was grinning, too, and it was coming off him in waves.  The air around him should be rippling with it.  He looked stoned and insane and totally…

Xander looked away.  Then back.  His chest was tight, and his belly.  His thighs felt hot.

His cock moved.

Jesus Christ.

He looked away.

The microwave beeped and Liv took the plate out, slammed the door, and stuck a fork in the food.  She marched it over to Xander, dropped it on the table in front of him without a word or glance, then went back to the little room she’d come out of.  She didn’t quite slam that door—not quite.

Xander sat staring at the plate in front of him, feeling no hunger at all.  After a minute he looked up and saw that Spike had stopped beating the bag and was staring at the closed door, a frown on his face.  For a second Xander was sure he was going to head over, and there was going to be another shouting match, and it was all getting kind of old and miserable—but then Spike shrugged and went back to the bag.  He hit it lightly a couple of times.  Left, right, left, right.  Lazily, smoothly.  It looked easy.  His lips moved to the music.

Something about that made Xander’s chest tight.  He shifted in the chair.

Spike turned and looked at him.  His expression was vacant, then suddenly focused, as if he’d just remembered who Xander was.

He smiled.

Xander’s heart struggled, and he pressed his left hand into the side of his knee.  Pain, that was good.  That took his mind off the heat in his groin.  Sort of.

Spike stepped away from the bag, shook his hands out, and just studied him.  Xander knuckled his knee and stared back.  The important thing was not to look guilty.  Or interested.  Or anything.  He would have traded his one working limb for a Steve McQueen thousand-yard stare.

It went on way too long, and he was just about to open his mouth, choose a smart comment at random and let fly, when Spike started walking over to him.  Still staring.  Cracking his knuckles absently, left hand and then right, and there was a weird familiar look on his face, and Xander’s brain was worn smooth as porcelain.  On some level, somewhere, he was panicking; he could hear himself thinking Fuck fuck fuck in a mindless, shrill kind of way.

Spike came around the couch and for a moment he just stood there, a few feet in front of Xander’s chair, staring.  His expression was hard and purposeful and his eyes were brilliant.  Xander opened his mouth, but for once the words didn’t come.

Then Spike took another couple of steps forward, put one hand on each arm of Xander’s chair, and leaned in.  His shirt hung open.  His chest was pale.  There was a fine line of brown hair below his navel, disappearing into the waist of his jeans.

Xander pressed harder against his knee.

Spike leaned down closer, evil bastard smile now, smelling of booze and cigarettes and possibly blood.  Bright blue eyes, electric and untrustworthy, and that familiar little scar in his eyebrow, like a brand.  The music was pounding Xander’s head.

Spike was going to kiss him.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck

There was dirty and there was dirty, and he wasn’t going to do this.  He turned his head to the side and stared at the far wall.  He was shaking.  His face felt hot.

Spike leaned even closer, until his nose almost touched Xander’s cheek, and Xander closed his eyes.  He was breathing in Spike, not just the cigarettes and bourbon, but the smell of his skin and hair, and when he realized that, his cock went stiff.  Dear God.  He pressed his legs together and ground his thumb into his knee. 

Spike inhaled, paused, then did it again.  Then he just stayed there.  Xander didn’t move.

“You need a bath, pet.”

Spike stood up and stepped back, and Xander let out a short gasp—didn’t mean to—and opened his eyes.  Spike was looking at him with the evil bastard smile, his hands hanging loosely at his sides.

Spike knew.

Of course he did, he must have known as soon as Xander did, maybe even before, but Spike had just made it real, and Xander’s face felt like it was going to burn off his skull.  He should say something, make a joke, that was what he was good at.  But how did you make a joke about the hard-on you got for an evil dead guy?

He should say something, anything, but he couldn’t think of a thing, and he just stared at Spike like an idiot.  Wondering how much torture Spike was going to dish out, and exactly what kind it would be.  Wondering if he was going to get out of here intact.  And whether that really bothered him.

Of course it bothered him.

He didn’t say anything, and after a minute Spike raised his eyebrows to invite comment, and he still didn’t say anything.  Spike smirked and walked away.

He went into the bathroom, leaving the door open.  Xander stared after him, and through the open door saw him turn one of the sink taps on full and run his hands under it.  Xander watched numbly until he realized he was staring; then he looked away so sharply he heard his neck crack.  Jesus Christ.  The music was drilling a hole in the side of his head.  Jesus Christ.

He wanted out.

He stared at the decibel lights on the stereo, all ramped up to eleven, and wanted to get out, get home, back to the Park, back to Sunnydale, back to Tuktoyaktuk or wherever, as long as it wasn’t here.  Sitting in Spike’s chair having a nervous breakdown or a Change of Life or whatever the fuck this was.  Out.  Away.  Please.

The song, if it was a song, ended and he heard the bathroom door close, and Spike’s feet went across the room to the bed.  He gave it a minute or so, then looked carefully around.  Spike had put on a black T-shirt under the red shirt, and he was pulling his boots on.  While Xander watched, he yanked his leather jacket off the rack where Liv had hung it, and walked out.

The door closed behind him with a hollow bang.

Xander sat there for a second, staring after him.

Another song started up, howling and banging, and he groaned.  His face was hot and he felt sick and angry and stupid and…guilty.  He had the strangest feeling that he’d done something wrong.  He looked down at his lap.  His hand was still clenched in a fist beside his knee, and he shook it out.  His fingernails had made deep dents in his palm. 

Also, he had a semi.

He didn’t know what to do about that, so he closed his eyes and thought disgusting thoughts—maggots, liposuction, Mrs. Parmenter—until it went away.  He was sick.  He was in trouble.  For some fucked-up reason, he felt like he should apologize to Spike.

The music was screeching at him and suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t stand being yelled at.  He lurched to his feet, leaned over and hammered at the off button.  The aggro cut out and he fell back into the chair in silence.

He hadn’t done anything wrong.  Spike was an evil fuck, he was probably on his way even now to killing a nasty or doing the nasty, either one or both, didn’t matter.  He knew how Xander felt—except it wasn’t so much a feeling as a visitation, something he couldn’t, wouldn’t lay claim to, something he just had to suffer through until he either got loose or whittled a stake—and that was going to be hell.  It was hell already.

Except Spike hadn’t got much mileage out of it so far.  Hadn’t teased him, or called him a poof, or taken advantage of his crippled state.  Just this, whatever it was, this weird sniffing thing.  Spike had sniffed him.  That’s what it boiled down to.

Well, not just that.  There was the hand on his head, too.  The hand down the side of his cheek.  And the look on Spike’s face, when he’d leaned in just now—that wasn’t a sniff look.  Xander had been kissed before, he’d been to bed with predators before, and he knew that look.  It was a sex look.

But he’d turned his face away, and Spike hadn’t kissed him.  Hadn’t even touched him.  He’d turned it into something else instead, a joke, a tease, and when Xander hadn’t been able to deal with that either, he’d gone away.

He stared down at his hand, at the fading dents in his palm.  Having Spike lean in with that pure, determined look on his face, feeling his lips an inch away, breathing in the smell of his skin…  He closed his hand into a fist again.

Mrs. Parmenter.

The door to the little room opened and Liv leaned out, frowning.

“What happened to the stereo?”

He didn’t say anything.  She got up, leaned through the door, and looked around the loft.

“Where’s Spike?”

Xander cleared his throat.  “I—I don’t know,” he said.  His voice sounded normal.  Normal voice, that was good.  “He split, no message.”

She stared at him a moment with an odd expression, then glanced behind her at the computer and sighed.  “You want a bath now?”

“Uh—all right.  Sure.”  Naked sounded bad, and it was on the tip of his tongue to say no, but it was better to do it without Spike around.  A gazillion times better.

She came out and closed the door behind her, went to the tub and turned the taps on full.  The sound of the water was familiar; all bathtubs sounded alike.  She left it running and walked back to the rice paper partition, and he sat staring at the tub and thinking about nothing.  Carefully thinking about nothing.

After a minute she came back out with a pair of his boxers and a T-shirt in her hands.  She was wearing a blue T-shirt; she’d been wearing a black one when she’d gone back.  He blinked, trying to figure that out.

And then he realized, and wondered why he was always such a pure-D fool.  The cot hadn’t been set up for him.  It was hers.  The little rice-paper partition was hers.  The dresser, the goose-neck lamp, the scratchy wool blanket.  That was her room.

He thought about waking up and seeing her curled at the foot of Spike’s bed, on top of the covers.  Not in the bed, not like she was used to sleeping there.  Just temporarily crashed out, and it was kind of disturbing that she slept at the foot like…  Well, like a dog.

“Shit,” he said.  “That’s your room back there?”

She looked at him with surprise.  “Yeah.” 

“I’m sorry.  I thought it was just—“  Temporary, he almost said, but caught himself in time.  He had a particular talent for insulting her, it seemed.  “I mean, why don’t I just stay on the couch?  I don’t want to put you out.”

For a second her face softened.  Then she shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter.  I’m leaving soon anyway.”

“You—what?  You’re leaving?”

She nodded and veered away, over to the bathtub.  He stared in silence as she fussed with the taps.  Everything was moving too fast, he was always a few steps behind.  It was starting to get frustrating.

“Where are you going?”

“Disneyland.”  Her voice was sour.

“You don’t sound too pleased about it.”

“I’m thrilled.  There’s soap in the dish.”

“How long will you be gone?”

She swished the water for a minute, then walked over to him and held out her hand.  He took it and she pulled him to his feet.

“Your knees are better.  You’re doing more of this on your own.”

“How long will you be gone?”  He sounded desperate, but he didn’t care.  It was just sinking in that if Liv disappeared, he’d be alone with Spike.  He didn’t want that.  Really.  Didn’t.

She looked at him curiously as they walked over to the tub.  “What are you, my mother?  I’ll be gone as long as I’m gone.  Here, give me your arm.”

He let her take his shirt off, and then she sat him down on the edge of the tub and started to unwrap the sling.  It hurt his shoulder, and he grabbed the cold water pipe and breathed hard to keep from making a sound.  She stopped and looked at him.

“Maybe it’s too soon for this.”

He shook his head vehemently.  “No—no, it’s fine.  I need a bath.  Really.”

She kept looking at him.

“Come on, I smell like a Bantha.”

She started unwrapping again, very carefully.

His shoulder came out of the bandages looking like a side of grade-D beef.  Bruised purple and black, and swollen like a heavyweight’s.  It was kind of impressive, actually.  He couldn’t move it, had to keep the arm curled against his chest like a baby bird wing, and while it felt good to have the sling off, the weight of his arm made the shoulder ache like a bastard.

“Trousers.”  He had a second to reflect that she could be almost Ozeric at times, and then the khakis were off and he was in his boxers and nothing else.

“Uh, I don’t want to be all prim or anything, but—“

She handed him the towel.

“Put that over.”

“Okay—“

He unfolded it and put it over his lap, and she reached under and skinned his boxers off before he could even feel embarrassed.  Then she stood up and held out her hand.

“Get in.”

He took her hand uncertainly, and she pointedly turned her face the other way.  Balancing off her hand, he got his legs over the edge and into the tub, then sank down into the water with his right knee bent and dry.  It was somewhere between warm and hot—perfect.  Except he was now naked in clear water, and that wasn’t so much better than being naked on the edge of the tub.  He covered himself as well as he could with his left hand.

“All right?”  She was still looking at the far wall.  It was sort of funny, probably, but not right now.  Right now it was just kind, and he was grateful.

“I’m…fine.  Thank you.”

“Shout when you’re done.”

He nodded, then said, “Okay,” when he remembered she wasn’t looking at him.  She walked away.

Which left him to his own devices.

The water felt delicious, better than anything he could remember feeling since…  Since breathing, sometime recently.  He’d dreamed of telling Willow about that.  He sank lower in the tub to get his neck under the surface, and the water lifted his arm and eased the pain in his shoulder.  It was like being held in warm arms.  Like being gently touched and washed clean, and Jesus it was just a bath, he just really needed a bath, but his throat was tight and his eyes were starting to blur.

He ducked his head so it wouldn’t matter.  Warm dull sound filled his ears, the pound of water from the faucet, the sound of his heart under that.  He ran his hand through his hair, felt it floating softly away from his head.  Rubbed his hand over his face, over the bruises and stitches.  His eyes were still smarting.  He could lie here forever, warm and thunderous and gently held, nothing to see but the black behind his eyelids.  It was something from a dream.

Finally he had to breathe.  He lifted his head and the world of clear sound came back to him.  It was just the faucet and the sound of the keyboard on the far side of the room, but it seemed so sharp that he almost put his head back down again.

The tub was getting dangerously full, and if he flooded the loft he’d have mad Liv on his hands.  He sat up, wincing at the ache in his stomach, and shut the tap off.  Then there was just the sound of typing, and water lapping around the edge of the tub.

He turned back around and picked up the soap.  If he could reach it, he was going to wash it.  Scrub it.  Fucking flense it, if he could.  He’d never felt this filthy in his life.

He rubbed the soap over his chest.  The bruises sang out and he could practically rest his fingers in the notches between his ribs.  Didn’t matter.  His stomach was tucked in somewhere near his spine, and green with bruises.  Didn’t matter.  He soaped his legs and his feet, poured water carefully down his right thigh and shin to get clean around the bandage, ran the soap between his legs and wanted to scrub like a maniac but couldn’t because he was…sensitive.  Didn’t matter.  Don’t think about it.

He lathered his hair, ducked his head, shook the soap out, then did it again.  His scalp felt light and warm.  He scrubbed out his ears with his fingers and scoured his armpits.  When he was done the water was cloudy with soap, and his skin felt slippery and tight.  His eyes stung.  He felt for the plug and pulled it.

Liv had put music on the computer.  Piano, intricate and classical, probably Mozart or Bach or some other dead white guy.  It surprised him a little, but he liked it.  It was quiet and sort of sad.  Made him think of sitting in his old apartment in Sunnydale, spinning quarters on the floor.

He let the water drain, sluiced the soap out, then filled the tub a second time.  A little hotter now, and he lay back on the bottom of the tub and let the water rise over him until it felt like he was floating.  He could hear his heart beating under the sound of the water.  He shut the tap off with his foot.  He could hear his breath.  He was clean and warm, and he didn’t hurt much, and he felt like he was being held.

He stared at the crisscross of pipes on the ceiling, and thought absently that this was where he’d first lain in the loft.  It seemed like years ago that Spike had brought him here.  He’d thought Liv was Dru, and his heart had almost stopped.

Liv was leaving.  Going to Disneyland for the summer, and that would leave him here with Spike, and that was…  A bad idea.  There was nothing he could do about it.  Where was she going?  Who would pick up Spike’s clothes while she was gone?

He didn’t want to think about any of it now.  He didn’t want to think at all.  The hot water was soaking into him, loosening the ache he hadn’t known was in his spine.  The pain in his shoulder had melted down.  Warmth over his stomach, behind his neck.  He tipped his head back and shook it gently from side to side, just to feel it move without hurting.  He smiled. 

He lay like that for a long time, eyes closed, ears under the water, right arm curled up over his chest to keep the weight off his shoulder.  It felt like he was holding himself, keeping himself together.  Keeping himself from drifting apart into pieces.  He might have dozed a little.

Finally the water was lukewarm and he had to sit up.  The sound of typing, and the piano wandering quietly, sadly back and forth.  He was exhausted, could barely fumble for the plug and keep his eyes open.  He grabbed the towel and started drying his hair while the water drained.

When the tub was empty he was tempted to just lie down again, pull the towel over himself as a blanket, and go straight to sleep.  But that was a bad idea.  He needed clothes.  Also, a bed.

“Uh—“  His voice came out weak and thin, and he cleared his throat.  “Uh…Liv?”  It was strange to say her name out loud.  He hadn’t said it before.

The typing stopped and he heard her push her chair back and start walking toward him.  He covered himself with the towel.

She appeared above his head and looked down at him.  Upside-down, her expression was hard to read, but he thought it was close to amusement.  Or gentleness.

“Hi,” he said.  “Can I—I need some clothes.  Please.”

“Sure.”  She bent down and came back up with a clean pair of his boxers in her hand.

“Can you get those on?”

“Yeah, thanks.”  He took them and she went off somewhere for a minute or two while he struggled damply into them.  When he was done he sat up, and she came back and gave him her hand, and together they got him out of the tub.

She walked him over to the chair he was starting to think of as his, seeing as he spent so much time in it.  He’d been hoping for the bed, but maybe she was taking him up on his offer of vacating her room, and it didn’t matter anyway, he could sleep standing up.  He practically was.  He stumbled twice on the way to the chair, and knew she was carrying more of his weight this time.

She lowered him into the chair and he said, “Thanks,” and closed his eyes.  Wait—he needed clothes.  Can’t fall asleep here without clothes, his brain told him.  Sounds like a good idea now, but wait till you wake up with Spike standing over you.

He made an almost physical effort to get back to the surface of consciousness, and saw that Liv had her ER pile there, and was cutting the tape on his knee bandage.  He groaned.

“Come on—not now.  Just, I just need clothes, and then I’ll sleep—“

“Take these.”  She put the scissors down and handed him two red-and-yellows, then a glass of water.  He took the pills and drank.  He was actually pretty thirsty.  He finished the water while she unwound his bandage.

His knee was definitely better.  The swelling had gone down, and the incision was dry.  Liv smiled slightly and started dousing a pad with antiseptic.

“That’s great,” he said blearily.  His eyes kept shutting on their own.  “Looks great.  Relatively speaking.”

“Yeah.”  She pressed the pad to his knee and started winding gauze around it.  The cold felt good.

It was wonderful to be clean, to be warm and tired and teetering on the edge of sleep, to drink cool water and have calm gentle hands taking care of him.  He felt her cut the gauze and tape it, heard the scissors go back onto the table.  His ears were roaring.  Her hands moved to his shoulder, lifted his arm slightly to slip some cloth beneath.  It hurt, and he flinched and mewled.   

“Sorry.”  She moved his arm and it hurt sharply for a second, then fell into the right spot and the pain dropped away.  He felt her tie the sling around his neck and nestle the knot into the dip of his collarbone.  His arm was light again.

He was toppling backward, struggling hard to stay awake and tell her he needed clothes.  Either he said it or she understood without needing to hear, because he felt soft fabric on his shoulders and back, and she put his left arm though a sleeve.

Thank you, he said, but he knew he didn’t say it out loud.  He lost his balance completely and gave up, let himself fall.

 

---

Chapter 8

He realizes with horror that he never paid his parking tickets.

They’re still in the back pocket of the trousers he was wearing the night he ran into Spike, the ones covered in plaster dust from the site, and they’ve probably gone through the laundry by now, and the tickets are toast.  The Nova’s going to be towed and scrapped, and then he won’t be able to get to work, and he’ll lose his job.  He’s already been evicted, he’s been sleeping on bar floors for a couple of weeks.  He hasn’t told the gang about it.  They all go for drinks together and then one by one the others leave, and he makes sure he’s always the last to go, because he isn’t going anywhere.  He sleeps under the table with the cigarette butts and gum.

He empties his duffel out onto the bar and starts going through it, looking for the trousers he was wearing that night.  There’s a huge pile of clothes in front of him, and he catches a glimpse of something that might be them—but it’s gone when he digs for it.  He needs the tickets.

“That guy’s a steel cleat bastard,” someone says, and he looks to his left and sees an old guy with an alcoholic nose, a Blue Jays cap, a bottle of Coors.  He’s watching the TV over the bar, and it’s Ty Cobb pitching.  He’s got an arm like a cannon.  The stadium lights gleam on his spikes, and they look about three inches long, like the weapons they are.

“That umpire’s a blind fucking punter,” he hears himself say.  “Pardon me, a visually challenged fucking punter.”

Spike laughs and drinks his beer, and Xander smiles.  He has a beer too, and it’s cold and good.  He spins it on its mat and watches Cobb pitch straight through three Orioles like they’re not even there.

“Throws like a son of a bitch, though,” Spike says mildly.

“Yeah.”  He’s trying to remember something, there was something important he had to do.  Something unpleasant.  It worries him.  He catches a glimpse of himself in the bar mirror and looks away.  Then he looks back, because Spike’s reflected there too, and that’s just weird.

“Look at that.  You show up.”  He gestures at the mirror and Spike glances at it, nods, and looks back up at the television.  Xander keeps looking.  There’s something nice about seeing the two of them there together, side by side.

He finishes his beer and there’s no one behind the bar so he leans over and takes another bottle from the cooler himself.  Rosie’s old brown dog is lying back there, watching him sadly.  He smiles and tosses a couple of peanuts down. 

He wants to leave money, but when he pulls it out of his pocket the parking tickets come with it.  That was what he’d forgotten—the tickets.

He stares at the official stamp, the smeared red ink and the savage black scrawl of his own name beneath, the date that’s three weeks passed, the phrase “primary offense.”  His heart is climbing up into his throat.  What the hell is he going to do?  He can’t imagine how he’ll get around this one, how he’ll make it through the beating.  He’s just recovered from the last one, he can’t stand another.

He’s fucked.  And it’s his own fault.

Spike’s still watching the game, and he pushes his stool back and stands up shakily.  As an afterthought, he slides his beer over to Spike’s elbow.

“I gotta go, Spike.  You can have this one.”

Spike looks around, at the beer, then at him.  “Where you off to, poppet?”

He tries to smile.  “Disneyland.  I’ll catch you later.”

Spike turns around on his stool and stares at him.  “You don’t have to go.”

He laughs a little, off-key.  “Actually, I do.”

“You don’t.”

“Spike, come on.  I forgot to pay these, I’m fucked.  I gotta go get my head caved in.”

Spike looks at the tickets in his hand, then reaches for them.  “Give.”

He hands them over and Spike looks at them carefully.  Then he rolls his eyes.

“I paid these already.”

“You—when?”

“Got Liv to do it when she took you to the hospital.  Tosser.”  He drops them on the bar and turns back to the game.

The relief is overwhelming, incredible.  He isn’t going to die.  He doesn’t have to face another beating.  It’s going to be all right.

He leans forward and puts his forehead against the middle of Spike’s back, just rests there.  Spike drinks his beer and watches the game.

“That was never ninety miles per hour,” he says absently, at one point.

Xander smiles into Spike’s shirt, then lifts his head and looks in the mirror again, at his own face just behind Spike’s shoulder.  He looks happy and calm.  It’s going to be all right.

He sits down on his stool again, drinks his beer, and starts to watch the game.



He woke up to arguing, and for a second he was back in the basement.  It was hammer and tongs time upstairs, and pretty soon he’d start hearing crashes.  Just stay quiet and they’ll forget you exist.

But he wasn’t in the basement, he was in the loft, in the chair he’d fallen asleep in.  Spike’s chair.  Spike and Liv were somewhere behind him, arguing about something he didn’t understand yet.

He blinked down at himself.  He was wearing his old green Oxford shirt, half-buttoned, and blue boxers.  His knees and shoulder were throbbing.  He was cold.

A second ago he’d had a good feeling.  He’d been dreaming something good—he couldn’t remember what, now.  But the tone of their voices stomped the good to jelly.  Liv sounded tired, Spike sounded cold.  They both sounded pissed off.

“It’s not a sure thing,” Liv said.  “It could fall through completely.  Or worse.”

“One way to find out,” Spike said.

“It’s dangerous, Spike.  How many times do I have to—“

“Pack light.”

“Spike.”

Silence.

“Please.  It’s the stupidest possible time for me to go off like this.  You must know that.”

“There isn’t going to be a better time, pet.  We miss this chance, we might not get another one.”

“We’ll get another one.”

“Nice to be optimistic.  But I prefer realism.  Carpe diem and all that.”

“I am being realistic.  You’re the one who’s—“

“Liv.”  Cold warning tone.

Pause.

“If I get killed,” she said, “how will you—“

“If you get killed I’m no worse off than I was before I hired you,” he said calmly.

Xander opened his eyes.

“Then what if something happens here while I’m out—“

“Piss off, Liv.”  His voice was hard now, and the anger wasn’t couched in diffidence anymore.  “I’ve bagged two Slayers and more nasties than you’ll ever see.  Pack a goddamn bag.”

“You’re chipped,” she said immediately.  “And if the Slayer turns up, or the plug uglies, I’ll have to sweep you out of the floorboards when I get back.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”  He almost shouted the words.  “You stupid bint—why won’t you do what you’re told?”

“Because this is dangerous.  For both of us.”

“I am going to—if I were any other vampire, I’d break your wrists and make you knit an afghan.”  The phrasing was deliberate, obviously, for the chip’s benefit.  There was no thud, so it must have worked.

“Spike, we can wait.  I’ll put him off, set up another time—“

He broke in harshly.

“You don’t want to go?  Fine.  Get your coat.”

“My—“ 

“Get it.  Now.  And your kit.”

Silence.

“Spike, I—“

“You want to know why you’re going?  Why we’re not waiting around any more?  Get your fucking kit.”

A pause, and then she walked across the room and pulled her coat from the rack.  Xander closed his eyes and watched from under his lashes as she walked back to her room and disappeared behind the screen.  When she came out, she was pushing something into the back of her jeans, and she had a small black satchel slung across her chest.  Her face was miserable and exhausted.

She glanced at him as she walked past, and he shut his eyes.  She paused, then veered off to the kitchen.

“Come on,” Spike said from the doorway.  His voice was the coldest Xander had ever heard it.  “Stop fucking around.”

“He’s due for more pills,” she said quietly.  There was the sound of a glass under the tap, the bottle opening.  She walked over and he heard her put the water down in front of him, the tiny click of the pills beside it.

Spike must know he was awake.

But he hadn’t said anything, and Xander wasn’t going to either.  He didn’t want to be any part of this conversation, any part of this sudden viciousness.  Whatever it was all about, he wanted to steer clear.  Spike was evil, yeah, he’d forgotten that somehow.  He’d consider this his reminder.

“Come on,” Spike said again, and Liv hesitated a split second at Xander’s side, then walked quickly out the door.  It banged shut after them, and there was a small snicking sound.  Their footsteps went down the stairs.

He opened his eyes and sat up.  He was alone.  He looked over his shoulder and saw that the room with the security monitors was still open.  Awkwardly, he stood up and gimped over to the wall, leaned panting against it and watched from two different angles as Spike and Liv walked to the Jag.  They didn’t speak.

Liv got into the driver’s seat and Spike stood for a moment, staring oddly at the wall, before seeming to collect himself and getting in on the passenger side.  The Jag’s headlights came on, the garage door opened, and they were gone.

He was alone.  Really alone.  For the first time in…how long?  He didn’t know.  He was cold and in pain, and, frankly, kind of scared.  Liv had put something into the back of her jeans, and he may be a small-town boy, but he watched TV.  He could put that gesture together with the oil he’d smelled on her before,  and come up with one word. 

Gun. 

Where was Spike taking her?

He stood staring at the monitors, watching the garage door come down slowly, slicing the blackness outside thinner and thinner until it was gone.  And that blackness outside, that was the world still turning out there, and he was in here, and this was his chance to get the hell out.

His first thought was for a phone, but he couldn’t see one in the little office.  He hopped backward and looked around the apartment.  Nothing.  Fuck that, there had to be a telephone.  Modern man, modern vampire, could not exist without call waiting.  He went to the kitchen and scanned the counters, then checked by the stereo.  Nothing.

“What are you, fucking Amish?”  He turned in a slow wobbling circle in the middle of the room.  They must have cells.  And they didn’t leave them lying around, apparently.

“Okay, so I’ll instant message my way to freedom.”  He went into the little office, sat down, and stared at the computer screen.  It was dead.  The power bar was on the desk to his right, and he flicked it on.  The tower hummed and buzzed, and the screen blurped numbers.  He waited for the familiar green desktop, but it didn’t come.  Just lots of numbers, and then a blinking cursor on a black screen.

It must be waiting for a password.  He stared at it angrily, then hit Enter.  It fidgeted and gave him the cursor again.  He typed “spike,” and it just blinked at him.  He typed “liv,” without hope.  More blinking.

“Fuck you,” he said, and typed it in.  Part of him was actually hoping it would be the password.

It wasn’t.  The cursor kept blinking and he hit the power bar with his fist.  The computer died.

He sat back in the chair and stared at the monitor, trying to breathe normally.  Why was he such a putz?  If he’d paid attention to Willow at all since eighth grade, she could have taught him the Way of the Computer.  He’d be able to geek his way out of here, maybe hack into the Department of Defense and call down an airstrike on the loft after he was gone.  That’d teach Spike a lesson.

If Willow were here, she could get him out of this.  She wouldn’t even need to use the computer.  She’d just cast a spell and pop the locks off the doors.  Maybe she even had a spell for summoning taxis in LA.

Think, Xander.

He stared at the security monitors—the landing, the doors, the garage.  All places he couldn’t get to.  Thanks so much for the view.

Then he looked at the wall just below the monitors, and saw a bank of switches.  Numbered switches.  He looked from the switches to the monitors.  There were numbers in the bottom corners of the different shots—the garage door was number one, the door from the garage to the stairway was number two.  And so on.

Sweet fancy Moses, he was going home.

He stood up and reached for the first switch.  He flicked it and watched the monitor.

Nothing happened.

He flicked it again, then twice more, then tried the second switch.  Again, nothing.

“What the fuck—“  Then he saw the little black keypad on the wall below the switches.  With numbers from zero to nine.

“Jesus Christ.”  He punched it and took skin off his knuckles.  It hurt.  He stood shaking his hand and cussing for a minute or two.

At last he hobbled back out to the main room.  The clicking sound when they closed the door had been pretty obvious, but he tried the handle anyway.  It didn’t move.  He went back to the chair, sat on the arm, and stared helplessly at the windows.  They were too high to reach.  He couldn’t see anything that was tall enough for him to stand on, even assuming he could haul furniture and climb and break a window in his current racked-up condition.  Even assuming there was something soft and forgiving to land on outside.

He looked at the pills on the table in front of him, and realized that his knees and shoulder were sending up sharp, angry flares.  Maybe he should hide the pills, and just pretend that he’d taken them.  Then, when Spike and Liv got back, he could…surprise and overpower them.  Yeah.  Sure.

He took the pills.

He sat in the chair and waited for the pain to go away, hating himself.  Zeppo.

He thought of Liv coming out from behind the partition, tucking the…whatever, the gun, into the back of her jeans.  She kept a gun in the room and he hadn’t even known it.  He’d never looked through the dresser drawers; he’d been too busy passing out and having nightmares and waking up with Spike’s hand on his head.

Bury that.  Whack it with a shovel and bury it.

If she had one gun back there, she might have more.

He was up and hopping in a second.  Jumpin’ Jack Flash, that was him.  He’d always hated that song.

He must be getting better, or else motivation was the key, because he made it to the partition without once feeling like he was going to pass out.  He dropped onto the edge of the cot and yanked the top dresser drawer open.

Underwear, socks, T-shirts.  Mostly white and black, a few grey, one with a flaming skull that was actually kind of cool.  He rifled quickly to the bottom, not letting himself think about the fact that he was going through Liv’s underwear drawer.

Nothing. 

He closed the drawer and opened the bottom one.  Jeans, mostly.  A couple of sweaters, a pair of low-top sneakers pushed to one side.  At the bottom, something heavy and metal that sent a shock through his fingers and straight up his arm to his heart, but when he scrabbled it out, it was a set of brass knuckles.

Brass knuckles.  Jesus wept.

He dropped them back to the bottom of the drawer and closed it.

There had to be something lethal in the loft; a knife in the kitchen, or maybe Spike still kept a gun around somewhere.  Something he could use to force them into letting him go.  Although, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure exactly how he planned to do the forcing.

If he found a gun, he wasn’t sure he could use it.  What was he going to do—shoot Liv?  That was his only option.  Shooting Spike wouldn’t help, although it would feel pretty damned good.  For about three seconds, before Liv eviscerated him.

He was stuck.  No phone, no Internet, no way to skitter off into the night and leave this mess behind.  And that was really the only way he was going, if he was honest with himself—a quiet, unobserved exit.  He sure as hell wasn’t going to fight his way out.

The Demerol was starting to rub warm fingers up his spine.  Thank you, Pfizer.  He sighed and shifted his feet to stand, and his heel struck something under the bed.  Something hard.  He hesitated, then leaned down carefully and felt around.  There was a box under there.  Wooden, with a metal handle.  He grabbed it and pulled.

It slid out easily and soundlessly, and just from looking at it—solid dark grain, almost four feet long and a couple feet deep—he knew what it was.  It smelled like gun oil.  His heart started to hammer.

There was no lock on it, thank God.  He flipped the lid open and blinked.

Inside there were three guns—pistols.  He had no idea what kind.  Boxes of ammunition, a couple of holsters.  Tucked in one corner, a bottle of gun oil and a clean white rag.

For a second his mind was blank, except for one crazy thought:  this was Liv’s hope chest.

Then he reached down, without thinking, and picked up one of the guns.  It was heavier than it looked, and cold.  It felt uncomfortable in his left hand.  He stared at it for a minute, then turned it over and tried to figure out where the safety was.  The little metal switch by the trigger; that must be it.  And the bullets went…  He checked the base of the handle and saw where the clip fitted in.

The metal grip was warming slightly already, and he shifted his fingers a little, put his index finger over the trigger.  Something told him it was loaded.  No toddlers running around the loft, no reason for Liv not to keep her guns ready to go.  All the reasons in the world for her to keep them loaded all the time.

He wondered whether she’d shot anyone with the pistol in his hand.  If he smelled it, would he be able to tell?  No, that was stupid, guns only smelled for a little while after you fired them.  Even Angela Lansbury knew that.

He smelled it anyway.  It smelled like metal and oil, sharp and dull.

So, Liv had a gun.  No, guns.  Several of them.  He let his hand dangle and stared into the box, feeling inexplicably hopeless.  This was LA, they practically issued you a firearm with your driver’s license.  It wasn’t such a strange thing, especially given her line of work.  If he worked for Spike he’d want a gun too, if only to make the guy shut up once in a while.  And there were the plug uglies to consider.    

Suddenly, the box of guns seemed like a very good idea.

He lifted the pistol and tried pointing it in front of him, aiming at the rice paper a few feet away.  He’d never pointed a gun before.  After just a few seconds, he felt the weight in his wrist and forearm.

He tried to imagine Liv standing there.  Him, pointing the gun at Liv.  Closed his eyes and held the gun a minute or two longer, until his arm started to shake. 

He felt sadder than he’d felt in months.  Since Anya left. 

He dropped his arm and put the gun back in the box.  Closed it and slid it back under the bed, until he thought it was about where he’d found it.

Then he got up and made his way slowly back across the room.  His legs looped and wavered.  He dropped into the chair that faced the door, hooked the remote from the table, and turned the television on.

Waited.



Two Outer Limits and a Barney Miller later, they came back.

He heard a bang beneath the sound of the television, and when he muted the sound there was another.  Car doors closing in the garage.  If he stood up and went to the office he could watch them coming up the stairs, but he didn’t feel like standing.  He sat in silence and listened to their feet.

A key in the door, the mechanism clicking, and then Liv walked through, glanced at him, and kept walking.  Her face was white and taut and her mouth was set in a way that told him she’d either cried recently or was about to now.  She walked fast to the kitchen and turned the faucet on full blast, then yanked the fridge open.  She pulled something out of her coat and threw it in.

Fast, but not so fast he couldn’t see what it was.

A blood bag.

He blinked, and she reached into the other side of her coat and threw another bag in.  Then she slammed the fridge and put her hands under the tap.  Steam curled up.

Spike came through the door and kicked it shut behind him with his heel.  He looked bright, wired.  His eyes skated over Xander quickly, and he smiled.

“Hello, ducks,” he said.  “Behave yourself?”

Xander didn’t say anything.

Spike’s smile tightened.  He pulled his coat off and dropped it on the floor, then walked around and sprawled on the sofa.  His boots went up on the coffee table.  Clunk.  Clunk.

“What’s this shite?” he asked, staring at the screen.  “Remote.  Now.”

Xander tossed it at him, and he caught it with a quick snap of his wrist, only half-looking.  He started flicking through the channels.

There was some kind of stain on his knuckles and the base of his nails.  Something dark and rusty.

A small rusty smear at the base of his throat, almost hidden by the collar of his T-shirt.  Like the last trace of something that had been almost completely wiped away.

On the other side of the room, Liv shut the faucet off and went into the bathroom.  She closed the door hard behind her.

Spike kept flicking channels fast, too fast to see what he was flicking past, and Xander fingered the bottom of his shirt and glanced at the screen, then back at Spike’s hand.  There was more reddish rust in the web of skin between his finger and thumb, the one he was using on the remote.  Xander was getting a chilly feeling in his stomach.  He wished he was wearing trousers.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Spike said conversationally, not looking away from the television.  “It’s flattering you find me so bloody fascinating.  But maybe you could go be all big-eyes somewhere else for a bit.” 

“You killed someone,” Xander said.  He hadn’t meant to say it.  He’d been thinking it, but he hadn’t meant to say it.  He’d meant to play dumb and keep his eye on the prize:  getting out alive.  So much for that.

Spike didn’t look at him.  “Nah,” he said.  Kept flicking.

For some reason, that was maddening.  There was dried blood on Spike’s fingers, on his throat.  Liv had just put two bags of it in the fridge, then cauterized her hands.  And Spike looked…full.  How stupid did he think Xander was?

“How stupid do you think I am?”  Nothing like speaking your mind.

“Points off for guessing?”

“You’ve got blood on your hands, Spike.  Way subtle, there.”

Spike glanced at his hand and scowled.  He clicked the television off and threw the remote onto the table.  In the sudden quiet, Xander could hear the shower running in the bathroom.

Spike raised his arms, closed his eyes, and stretched.  His shirt rode up, and there was something that looked like a rusty thumbprint smeared across his belly. 

“It’s four in the morning.  Aren’t you supposed to be kipping?”

“I’ve been kipping for days,” Xander said.  “I’m all kipped out.  I’m ready for parlor games and explanations.  Like, for instance, how you managed to eat someone just now.”

“Fell on my fangs,” Spike said, and smiled.  It was unnerving to see his teeth, his human teeth, just now.  “Poor sod.”

“Come on, Spike.  Since when do you pass up the chance to brag about killing someone?”

Spike gave him a butter-wouldn’t-melt smile.  “Chip, luv.  Keeps me from kacking you lot, remember?  Should we go back to how stupid I think you are?”

“So you just hit the drive-thru, huh?  A couple chalupas and a large AB negative to go?”

“Sure.  Know what?  It’s been a long night, I’m knackered.  Think I’ll turn in.”

“How come Liv’s taking a shower?”

“I don’t know.  Ask her.”  He stood up and started to walk away.

“Spike—“  He let it hang, and Spike didn’t turn around or answer, just yanked his shirt off and dropped it on the floor.  There were a couple of dark red streaks around his ribs and back, like dragged fingertips.  He walked straight to the bed and fell into it, toed his boots off with his face planted in the mattress.  Clunk.  Clunk.

Xander stared at him, at the dirty soles of his feet, the dried blood stripes on his white skin.  Such a skinny little bastard, just muscle and bone.  His spine was a line of knobs up the middle of his back.  Hard to imagine him ripping anyone’s throat out.

Well, no.  Not hard, really.

He knew what Spike looked like with the blood mask.  He’d seen it just a little while ago, on the floor of the bathroom, bright red and dripping.

He’d wiped it away.

But that was different—that had been Spike’s own blood, and Spike’s eyes had been crazy and cracked like blue marbles, and he’d been hitching for breath like a dying man.  This time, the blood was someone else’s.  Someone who patently had not fallen on Spike’s fangs, but who nevertheless had parted with a few pints at least, and how the hell had that happened?  The chip would blow Spike’s lobes out before he could put the bite on anyone.

Xander stared at Spike’s back and listened to the shower run.

He was starting to have an idea.

He really didn’t like it.

“Spike,” he said quietly.  “Tell me it’s not what I’m thinking.”

There was a silence.  Spike turned his head slightly to the side.

“’s not what you’re thinking,” he said.  His voice was muffled and sleepy.

“I’m not kidding, Spike.  Tell me.”

“Just did, pet.  Shut up now.”

Xander stared at the bandage on his knee.  He was toying with the tape, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger, just mindless touching.

After a minute Spike shifted up on one elbow and looked around at him.  He stared back.

The shower went on.

“You take the couch tonight,” Spike said finally.  “Let her have the cot.  She’ll want some…privacy.”

Xander stared at him.  After a moment he opened his mouth to speak, and Spike frowned and put his face back into the mattress.

So he didn’t say it.  Didn’t confirm it out loud, because he didn’t need to.  Spike had just done it for him, without actually saying the words. 

The shower went on and on, and after a while he was sure Spike had fallen asleep, and he turned on the television but kept the sound off.  An old Rockford Files was on, and he watched it with his hand on his knee, toying with the tape.  He wasn’t tired, but when the shower finally shut off he closed his eyes and lay breathing quietly.

Her footsteps came out, paused, and went to the bed.  They stayed a long time there.

Then they moved away, and they were soft and slow and regular as she went around the loft, turning out the lights.

 

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