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Chapter 9

He woke up to closed curtains and half-light, and Liv setting his pills down on the table in front of him.  She was in jeans and a white T-shirt, her hair pulled back in the usual ponytail, the tattoos stark blue against her throat.  He blinked at her uncertainly, wondering why he felt slightly sick and sad.

Then he remembered, and he looked at her hands before he could stop himself.  Looking for what—blood?  Stupid.  Her hands looked the same as always.  Kind of thin, with short neat nails.

Maybe they looked a little stronger today.

He wondered how she’d filled the blood bags.

She saw him looking and followed his gaze.  Then her face twisted, and she pulled her hands away behind her back.  She turned and started to walk away.

“Hey—”  He had no idea what he was going to say.  She paused and waited, not looking at him.

“Uh.  Can you—uh.  I need…the washroom again.  Sorry.”

Very, very smooth.  But also very true.

She turned back and put her hand out, and he grabbed it.  Her skin was warm and she had a slight callous on her palm.  He hadn’t noticed that before.  She wouldn’t look at him straight on.

He slung his arm around her neck and they started for the bathroom.  It was strange to be so close to her, the side of his body pressed against hers, her arm around him, bracing him.  He couldn’t decide how to feel.  Part of him was shying away, remembering the smell of gun oil.  Thinking of the two blood bags in the fridge, and the death that implied.  Someone had died last night.

Liv had killed someone.

But another part of him was thinking of her face as she’d come out from behind the partition—wretched, frightened, angry.  Young.  And now she looked wasted and sleepless, she wouldn’t meet his eyes, she seemed to be pulling her body away from his even as she hauled him across the floor.  Like she couldn’t stand to touch, or be touched.

And that made him want to hang onto her hand, to show her that he wasn’t afraid or repulsed—although he was both.  He wanted to tell her that it was all right, but he wasn’t sure it was.

Spike had forced her to do it.

Spike couldn’t force her to do anything.  He couldn’t hurt her.

This wasn’t like Cordy answering Angel’s phone, or Wes looking up demons and toting battle axes.  This was more like…  He couldn’t think what it was like.  It was sick, whatever it was.  He actually felt sick, like he might like to just sit down and throw up and call it a day.

He thought of Spike punching the air, leaning over his chair, looking at him with that bright purposeful expression—when had that been?  Maybe last night, maybe two nights ago.  It seemed like forever.  He’d been turned on.  Spike had leaned in and almost kissed him, and he’d almost let it happen, except sanity had prevailed, and thank God for that.  Because Spike was a miserable cruel evil fuck.

With cool hands.

He glanced at the bed as they passed it, and Spike was in there somewhere, half-buried under a pile of sheets and pillows, either still asleep or pretending to be.  Xander caught a glimpse of his bare neck and shoulder, a lick of rust across his collarbone.  His jeans were crumpled on top of his boots.  So he was naked in there.

And that was just how the brain worked, it supplied you with interesting useless facts like that.

Xander looked away, and Liv hauled him through the bathroom door and propped him against the urinals.  He looked around and saw that a toothbrush and toothpaste, a bar of soap, and a towel were piled on top of one of the sinks.

“Thanks.  I’m okay from here—”

She nodded and walked out, closing the door behind her.

He took a second to wonder whether she was ever going to speak again; then nature paged him and he unzipped in a hurry.

He took care of business and got cleaned up, and everything seemed to be proceeding according to plan, because the trek across the bathroom floor wasn’t too vertiginous at all.  He still looked like Frankenberry in the mirror, but the bruises were mostly green and yellow now, and they didn’t hurt as much.  The stitches were healing over well; they could probably come out soon.  He wiggled the fingers of his right hand while he brushed his teeth with his left.

When he was done he stumped to the door and opened it.  Slowly, because it weighed about eighty pounds and he still only had one truly functioning appendage.  It was a big old door, from the days when they still made them out of actual wood, and it had good hinges.  It opened silently.

He stepped over the sill and saw Liv standing at the foot of Spike’s bed.  She wasn’t doing anything.  Just looking down at him with her hands hanging empty at her sides.

Well, not just looking.  More like staring.  Staring like she was going to kill him.  Like she was going to open her mouth any second and start to shriek.

Her eyes were wide and dark as burns, and there were two high pink circles in her cheeks.  She looked terrified and furious, the way people looked when they found out an apocalypse had been scheduled for the day after tomorrow.  Xander hadn’t seen anyone look like that in a long time.

She didn’t say anything or move, just stood there throwing out rage and fear and anguish, and after a moment the door bumped Xander’s back and he winced and squeaked.  She jerked as if he’d yelled at her.

Spike lifted his head and gave him a casual glance.

“Look at you,” he said.  “Toddling around on your own.  Clever lad.”

Xander held onto the door frame and swallowed.  Spike was awake.  He’d been lying there awake while she looked at him like that.  Just looking back at her.

Xander opened his mouth.  Closed it.

“Give him a lift back to the sofa,” Spike said, turning back to Liv.  She glanced down at him, then back at Xander.  For a second he expected her to refuse, to curse or scream or hit Spike.  He clutched the door frame in readiness.

But she did nothing.  A second later her face closed up, and she started walking quickly toward him.

He tried not to flinch as she took his arm.

Spike sat up and grabbed his jeans as they walked past him, and Xander didn’t look at him again until he heard a zipper.  Then Spike was up and walking bare-chested to the kitchen, opening the fridge, and pulling out a blood bag.  He dropped it on the counter and started rooting through the cupboards.

“Where’s mugs, Liv?”

She went over, opened a cupboard, and put a mug on the counter beside him.  He tore the bag open with his teeth and poured.

He tipped his head back and drank the whole thing cold, without pausing.  Liv watched him do it.  When he finished he chucked the mug in the sink and shook his head, blinking.  His eyes were wide and watering slightly.

“Too right,” he said, to no one in particular.  He wiped his mouth with his arm and wandered away into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Liv and Xander were silent.  The drained blood bag leaked onto the counter, then onto the floor.

After a moment, Liv reached out and dropped the blood bag into the trash.  She picked up the sponge from the corner of the sink, wrung it out, and started to wipe the counter.

Xander heard himself speak before he knew he was going to.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said.  “You can—I mean, I happen to know the Slayer.  She’s good at telling Spike what’s in his best interests.”

Liv stared at the counter.  She was moving the sponge very slowly.

“Or not,” Xander said.  “You could just get a different job, you know?  Be a temp, right here in LA.  You can type, right?”

She squeezed the sponge out under the tap.

“No thanks,” she said.  She knelt and began wiping the floor.

“I’m just making a suggestion.  Because you don’t seem so happy doing this.  Whatever…you do, exactly.”

She smiled slightly and stood up.  “Whatever I do,” she repeated.

He waited a second, but she didn’t say anything else.

“Liv,” he said softly, “I’m sorry, but I really don’t think you’re on the winning team here.”

She rinsed the sponge and dropped it in the sink.

“Maybe not,” she said.  “But neither are you.”

He stared at her, then opened his mouth without knowing what was going to come out.  She shook her head slightly, a fly-shooing gesture.  Her eyes dropped to her watch, and she raised her eyebrows and walked away without another word.

He sat there like an idiot, his mouth still open, staring at the spot where she’d been standing.  She disappeared behind the partition.

The bathroom door opened and Spike stepped out, his head soaking wet.

“Liv!” he shouted.  “There’s no clean towels!”

Xander blinked and clenched his fist against the hot rush of anger that went through him.  Fucking shut up.  You evil fucking prick.  If Spike had been anywhere near him he would have taken a swing.  Stupid, his brain told him.  This is stupid.  Don’t get involved in this.  But he had to fight to control his breathing, and after a second of silence from behind the partition, Spike looked over at him, squinting a little through the water in his eyes.

“Don’t be such a twit,” he said, and Xander felt his superego calmly hand control of his mouth to his id, and every filthy abusive thing he’d ever heard screamed on the first floor of the Harris household took a number and lined up just behind his uvula.

“You dumb fu—”

Liv put her head out from behind the partition.  “There are towels in the bin,” she said.  “Right hand side.  With the sheets.”

“Well, bloody get me one, luv.  I’m dripping.”

“Do it yourself.  I’m in a hurry.”  She disappeared.

“Hurry to what?”

Liv didn’t answer.  Spike walked over to the screen and pulled it aside.  She was standing at the foot of the bed, stuffing clothes into a canvas bag.  The dresser drawers were open, and Xander had a moment of panic, wondering whether she could tell he’d been in them.  Sorry about rifling through your underwear, Liv, but it’s not what you think.  I was looking for a gun so I could blow your head off when  you came home last night.

Last night?  It seemed like longer, somehow.

“You’re packing.”  Spike’s voice was flat, maybe a little satisfied.

“Yes.”

“Good girl.”

She said nothing, didn’t react at all, just folded a shirt and put it into the bag.

“When’s your flight?”

“Two o’clock. I’ll leave the Jag in the parkade by Pershing, you can get it tonight.”

“Fine.”

She turned to the drawer and pulled out a pair of jeans, rolled it up, and stuffed it into the bag.  He just stood there, watching her.  She picked up a shirt and rolled it tight.

“Towels are in the bin, Spike.”

He turned around and walked back into the bathroom, dripping all the way.

Xander watched Liv zip the bag closed, and step around the screen without bothering to pull it back into place.  She crossed the loft without looking at him, opened the door to the little office and went in.  He heard the power bar go on, and then typing.

In the bathroom, Spike was showering.

He cleared his throat.  “Uh.  Can I just—”

She kicked the door closed without looking around.

He sat for a few minutes in silence, listening to the shower and the faint sound of the keyboard.  Liv was leaving.  Spike was an asshole.  He was going to be left alone with Spike.

He could get up right now and limp back to the gun box.  Buffy wouldn’t have hesitated, she would have grabbed the biggest piece in there and used it to blow Liv’s head off.  Well, that was kind of hard to imagine, actually.  But she would at least have used it to shoot the door open—

His mouth fell open and for a moment he couldn’t hear through the rush in his ears.  Why hadn’t he used the gun on the door?  He didn’t have to actually shoot anyone to get out, he just had to shoot the fucking door.  He could be out of here by now.  He could be in Sunnydale.

The thought raised a strange jumble of emotions in him—mostly anguish at his own stupidity, his total Zeppo nature, mixed with a weird ribbon of relief.  Why relief?  Probably because if he’d tried to shoot his way out and failed, if the lock had turned out to be bulletproof or if the door set off an alarm, he’d have been even worse off.  It might even have forced him to shoot Liv, once she got home.  Or, more likely, she might have shot him.

He fiddled with his bandage and listened to the shower run.  A running shower was a good sound.  But fuck, he could be out of here by now, he could be listening to a shower in Casa Summers or somewhere, anywhere that was blameless and clean and not here.  The YMCA, or his own apartment, or LA county’s finest overnight holding cell.  Anywhere was cleaner than here.  Because he wasn’t going to think about it even a bit, but he knew the relief wasn’t because he hadn’t had a chance to bungle his own escape.  He felt relief because he was still here.  Trapped.  With Spike.

Some part of him wanted this.

He put that away in a hurry—the root cellar was getting mighty full—and was just starting to think he’d have to get up and at least try for the gun box, when Liv opened the door and came back into the loft.  He felt relieved again, and hated himself for it.

She looked preoccupied, tired, unhappy.  Spike was an evil asshole.  The exact variety of evil was a little unclear at the moment, and it was hard to imagine how the chip would let him hurt her, but…  Where there was a will, there was a way.  Wasn’t supposed to be, but there you go.

He couldn’t help it, he had to try again.

“That offer?  It’s of the standing variety.”

She looked at him as if she’d forgotten he was there.  Then her face cleared and she turned away and walked to the kitchen.  He kept going.

“I’m just saying.  You want a change, want to try life without the evil dead guy, just let me know.  I know some people who can make it happen.”

She walked back across the loft and sat down in the chair facing him.  Her face was serious and for a moment he thought she was going to accept the offer.

“These are your pills, Xander.”  She held up the bottles, her eyes fixed on his.  “Can I trust you with them?”

“What do you mean, will I keep them out past midnight and try to get them drunk?”

She said nothing, and after a moment he shrugged.

“Yeah, sure.  You can trust me.”

“I can take out most of the Demerol, and only leave you enough for a day or two.  That’s not enough to hurt you if you take it all at once.”

“You can trust me.”

“You can’t drink while you’re taking them.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t seem so good at not drinking, Xander.”

He paused, and dammit, he blushed.  She stared at him without expression and he had to look away.

“I’m not going to go Montgomery Clift on you.  I like living.”

It came out sounding weak and far from true, and she didn’t say a thing.  She just let the silence flatten and draw out, and the sound of the shower seemed very loud.  He glanced at her, and her expression was oddly sympathetic.

At last she gave a tiny shrug and set the bottles down on the table.

“Take the Demerol when you need it, not more than two every four hours.  The amoxycillin twice a day, two at a time.”

He nodded, staring down at his bare feet.  He still wasn’t wearing any pants.  Why wasn’t he wearing any pants?

“I’ll tell Spike what to do about your knee, but you’re in charge of the pills.  He’ll never remember.”

“My knee’s fine.”  He said instinctively, before he could stop himself, and it came out too loud.  He blushed harder and stared a hole through the floor.

“No, it’s not.  The bandage has to be changed, and he’ll probably forget that too.  Remind him.”

He didn’t reply, and after a moment she said, “Remind him, Xander.  You want to walk, right?  So remind him.”

He nodded, thinking of the little doctor and his shaking head.  Infection was an ugly word.  But the thought of Spike touching his knee was almost more distressing.

“Xander.”

He looked up, surprised to hear her use his name.  She’d been using it the whole time, he realized.  No more Nova.

“Your offer—”  She left off and he stared at her.  Her face was drained but calm.  “I understand that you mean it to be…helpful.  I appreciate it.”

He leaned forward, a little shocked that she’d said even that much, but quick to grab the opportunity.  “So…?”

“So, nothing.  I appreciate it, but I don’t need it.”

“You really think you’re going to retire on this?”

She actually looked surprised.  “No, of course not.  It’s just a job, Xander.  He only needs me until—” She trailed off and he waited, but she shrugged and didn’t finish. 

“Last night,” he said slowly, “maybe I don’t understand, but it seemed—”

“You don’t understand.  So don’t talk about it.”

He paused, unsure what to say.  The moment passed.

“Xander,” she said, “Spike is my employer.  He’s a fair employer and I do my best to meet his expectations.  I also do my best to make sure he doesn’t get staked.  I’m going to be away for a while, and normally I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving a stranger behind with him.  Someone who could try to hurt him while he can’t fight back.”

He straightened up in the chair and met her gaze.  He’d missed her tone at first, it was so even.  Now he understood what it was—a warning, or a kind of matter-of-fact threat.

“You’re injured, and that makes me feel a little better,” she went on.

“Thanks,” he muttered.  She ignored him.

“And there’s the fact that if you did hurt him, or kill him, you’d be trapped in the building.  You need a key and a pass code to get out of here, and you don’t have either of those.  If something did happen to Spike, Xander, you’d still be here when I get back.  And I’d kill you.”

“That seems fair,” he said.

“There aren’t any sprinkler heads, Xander.  If you set a fire you won’t get the fire department, not until the building’s well along.  You’d be dead by then.”

“This is fascinating,” he said, “but your point is…?”

“I appreciated your offer,” she said, and he saw she was sincere.  “I thought you should know how things stand, before I go.  So nobody gets dead.”

“You’re very kind,” he said, thinking of the gun box and wondering which gun she’d leave behind.  Fuck the key and pass code both, he’d shoot the locks off tonight while Spike was out getting the Jag.  Right now, the thought didn’t give him a pang at all.

“Xander,” she said, and something about her tone made him look straight at her.  She was looking straight back at him.

“The guns will be gone.”

It sent a chill up his neck and arms.  Could she read his mind?  No, of course not.  Stupid.  But she knew he’d been into the box.  She hadn’t said anything before, but she’d known.  Suddenly everything she’d been saying seemed more real and important.  He couldn’t hurt Spike, couldn’t try to escape.  If something happened to Spike, he’d be trapped in the loft until she came back.

What if something happened to both of them?

He swallowed, wondering if he should make something up about the gun box, he’d been looking for a Tic Tac, trying on her underwear, his hand had slipped.  But it was too late, he’d already admitted it by his stupor and silence, and if she hadn’t known already she did now.  No point in lying now.

He ducked his head and muttered, “Right,” and she stood up.

He was trapped here.  Really still trapped, no way of getting out, and it was ridiculous how easy it was.  In a little while Liv would be gone, and he’d be alone with a dead guy who couldn’t even slap him, but he’d still be trapped.  It was agonizing.

The shower turned off with a bang and he jerked.  The pills had kicked in some time ago without his noticing, but he was hungry and exhausted and he felt sick.  His eyes were grainy and wouldn’t focus.  He hadn’t slept enough in the chair.

A hand touched his shoulder and he pulled away with a start, sure it was Spike.  Liv was still standing over him, her hand held out, her face calm.

“You’ll be all right,” she said.  They looked at each other for a moment, and then she patted his shoulder again, lightly. 

She’d just finished telling him she’d shoot him if he stepped out of line.  Was she psychopathic?  He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.  He was doing that a lot.  She half-smiled and dropped her hand.

Then she walked away to fuss with her bags, and he let his eyes slip closed.

The bathroom door banged open and he didn’t open his eyes.  He might have dozed a bit.  The next things he was aware of were out of synch, too abrupt.

“Don’t touch the accounts.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I’m serious.  Don’t touch them.”

“Any other orders?”

“Call me if anything happens here.”

“Get out already.”

“This is still a bad idea, Spike.”

Silence.  Footsteps moving to the door, the sound of a key.  The door opened.

“Spike—”

Xander peeled one eye open and saw a smear of white standing in the door.  Liv, her bag in her hand, her jacket over her arm.  Spike was standing waiting to close the door after her, wearing a put-upon face.  She looked all around the loft once, as if memorizing it, then looked back at him.

“Well, all right,” she said.

“Get some sleep on the plane,” he said.  “You look like holy hell.”

She nodded, turned, and disappeared.  Spike didn’t close the door immediately; he leaned against the doorframe, watching her down the stairs.  After a moment her steps rang on the landing, and he turned away and toed the door closed.

Xander sat absolutely still, wondering whether he should shut his eyes again.  No point—Spike knew when he was awake. 

He swallowed and tried to clear his throat, but his mouth was too dry.  Sweet Jesus, he was tired.  His joints felt filled with sand.  He had the bad, sliding feeling that he’d pulled into the breakdown lane on the road to recovery.

“You too.  The pair of you, you’re letting down the side.”  Spike was regarding him critically from a few feet away, and Xander nodded, staring down at the bruises on his legs, not really paying attention.

So far he’d been worrying about getting out, about figuring out the locks or getting hold of a gun.  Suddenly he realized that Liv had just walked out, and Liv was the one who’d been taking care of him so far.  Not Spike, apart from the initial haul to the head.  Liv had given him the pills because Spike wouldn’t remember, or wouldn’t give a shit.  She’d told him to remind Spike about the knee because they both knew he’d forget that too.  Liv was the one who’d got Xander this far, and now she was gone.

He had a feeling that dead guys didn’t make very good nurses.

Spike slung a leg over the back of the couch, sank down into it, and said, “Remote.”

It was on the table in front of Xander, where he’d left it the night before.  He hooked it carefully and tossed it over.  The effort made his arms ache.

Spike flipped the television to soccer—there was always soccer, he must have satellite—and leaned back into the cushions with a frown of concentration.

He should talk, ask questions about Liv or the blood bags or the chip or something, but he couldn’t find the energy.  He should get up and haul his ass back to the cot, where he could sleep lying down instead of in chair purgatory.  The very thought was a joke.  His limbs were made of lead.  Had he taken the antibiotic?  Did he need to take it now?  He didn’t even know what time it was.  He tried to ask.

“What?”

“—time is it?”

“Morning.  Christ, pet, you look like three dead men.”

That was a new one.  He half-smiled despite himself, and dissolved.

 

---

Chapter 10

He woke up some time later on the couch.  His back hurt and his knees gave up a hot dull ache.  He was lying on his left side, and when he tried to sit up his right shoulder screamed.

“Fuck—”  He gasped and reeled, clenching against the pain.  For a moment he was afraid he would throw up, but he swallowed hard and it passed.

What time was it?  The Demerol had worn off, he had to piss, he was freezing.  He had to take the pills.

The bottles were on the table in front of him.  He’d never appreciated before how good it was to have Liv taking care of him.  Making sure he took the fucking things on time, making sure he didn’t get gangrene.  Now that he was taking care of himself, the bottles had his full attention.

He grabbed the Demerol and immediately realized that he couldn’t open it one-handed.  It was child-proof.  He sat staring at it dumbly.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

He shook it, as if that would do anything, then looked around the loft.  What time was it?  Where was Spike?  If it was night already and Spike was out, he was done for.

The television was still on—still soccer—but the sound was turned off.  Xander shifted and craned his neck painfully, and saw the edge of Spike’s foot under the sheets on his bed.  The bastard was asleep.

“Hey.”  He meant to yell, but it came out a dry croak.  His throat was dry as chalk.  He tried again.  “Hey!”  Not much better.

“Spike—wake the fuck up, you asshole. “  He sounded weak, raw, damaged.  It was just because he’d just woken up, his throat was dry, but it was kind of alarming all the same.  Breakdown lane, yeah.

Spike hadn’t moved.  The bastard could hear paint dry when he was awake, but he could sleep through a Baptist revival.  Xander realized he was starting to gasp, and stopped trying to yell.  It was stupid.  He was being stupid.  All he had to do was get up and go over, just wake the bastard up with a smack upside the head.  Nothing to panic about.  Easy.

Okay. 

He swung his legs out and put his feet on the floor, tested them and winced.  Was it worse than yesterday?  Was he getting worse—could he be getting an infection?

Stop that shit.  Go wake up the dead guy.

He grabbed the couch arm and pushed to his feet, swayed in outer space for a moment, then seized hold of consciousness and clung.  His legs were freaking.  Fuck them.  He had to piss anyway, he had to get up.  Could he make it to the head on his own?

Moot point.  Pills first.

He had the bottles in his right hand, cradled inside the sling.  He made it around the couch by leaning on it, then started across the Sahara of floor toward the bed.  There was broken glass in his knees.  He wavered, lost his balance, compensated, and came down heavily on his right foot.  The knee screamed.  He stopped and doubled over, his eyes squeezed shut, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

Jesus fucking Christ.  He missed Liv.

When the roar stopped he continued on, cussing Spike under his breath continuously.  He couldn’t yell now; he needed all his breath for walking.  Was this what it was like to be old?  Really old, not Giles-type old, but old where you couldn’t walk or sit or breathe without pain?

If he ever got out of here, he was going to volunteer at a retirement home.  He’d be kind and patient with all the old farts, and they’d love him to pieces.  Their handsome young Xander, such a fine pleasant young man, so sympathetic.  He’d get a fucking plaque.

He was almost there.

Spike’s bare foot was sticking out past the edge of the mattress, and he was lying on his stomach with his arms spread out and his face planted in the sheets.  He wasn’t wearing a shirt.  It was crumpled on the floor at the side of the bed—Liv won’t be picking that up anytime soon, Xander’s brain muttered mechanically—and his jeans were beside it.  He was naked again.

Xander couldn’t have cared less.

He made it to the foot of the bed and half-fell down onto it, narrowly missing Spike’s foot.  He was back in outer space, little lights orbiting his head and wheeling between his ears.  His legs were burning.  He was going to pass out.

Spike sat up with open eyes and stared at him.  For a moment he didn’t seem to know who Xander was; then recognition came over his face and he smiled.  It was a pleased sleepy smile.

Xander threw the bottles against his chest.  “Open those, asshole,” he said.  His voice sounded like dry wheat.

He saw the smile go like a letter wiped off a blackboard.  It didn’t signify.  He could barely see; his hands and feet were freezing.  He propped his head on his hand and tried to stop shaking.

He might have gone out for a few seconds; he didn’t hear Spike get out of bed, but he felt the cool hands lift his head up and put the pills in his mouth, then give him water to drink.  He drank as much as he could and felt better.  He came back to the world with a wet chin and ringing ears.

Spike was sitting next to him on the bed, holding half a glass of water and looking at him.

“All right?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say Fuck you, but he needed to piss and he couldn’t get there by himself.  He closed his eyes.

“I need the head.”

“Sure.”  Spike stood up and started to take his arm.  Xander realized with a dull shock—he seemed incapable of feeling any more by now—that Spike was still naked.

“Aw, Christ.”  He turned his face away.  “Put something on.”

Spike paused, put the glass down on the floor, and walked over to where his jeans were.  There was the sound of fabric and a zipper.  Then silence.

“Want me to put a shirt on too?”

He couldn’t tell whether Spike was fucking with him or not, but assumed he was.  He didn’t bother to answer, but turned and started to lever himself up in Spike’s direction, not looking directly at him.

Spike got an arm under him and skimmed him over the floor to the bathroom.  It wasn’t like being hauled by Liv—it was fast and neat and seemed to take just seconds and no effort at all.  He pushed the door open and carried Xander to the urinals.  Xander pulled weakly against his grip.

“I’m okay from here.”

“You just pitched a fit—”

“Spike—”  There was an edge of real hysteria in his voice.  He was too cold and tired and angry to take anything else.  He was shaking like a feather.

Spike let him go and went out without another word, and he pissed in a hurry, before he could pass out into the basin.  He flushed and Spike came back in and hauled him out.  He caught a glimpse of himself on the way—he was white as paper, and the bruises were blue.

He expected to go back to the cot, but Spike hauled him back to the other end of the room, towards the couch.  It wasn’t as comfortable and he tried to say so, but it seemed too complicated to express.  They passed Spike’s bed, and Spike dropped him into it.

He sat dumbly on the edge for a minute, not saying anything, not understanding.  For some reason he expected Spike to pick him up again and continue on to the couch.  But Spike just stepped back and looked at him.

After a moment it sank in, and he started to get up.

“No—no, I’m on the—”

Spike reached out and pushed him down with a finger.  He hit the mattress and bounced.

“Go to sleep,” Spike said.  “You look dead.”

“I’m not—” sleeping in your bed—he wanted to say, but his lips felt numb and Spike picked up his feet and put them on the bed.  The mattress was softer than the cot or the couch, and it was big.  The pillows were clean and cool. 

He was in Spike’s bed.

He wasn’t sleeping here.

He tried to sit up.  Spike pushed him down, and when he tried to rear up anyway his abdomen felt sliced.  He lay still for a second with his eyes closed, breathing against the pain.

A cool hand came down on his forehead, and he jerked.  Spike was standing there, looking at him oddly, his hand on Xander’s forehead.  The same hand as that night, whenever it was, when he had let it stay and then clung to the wrist as he fell asleep.  This was who it had been, and how it had looked.  It had been Spike, and of course he knew that already, but he wasn’t ready to think it, and he wasn’t ready to look up and see Spike standing beside him, owning the cool hand, looking down at him.

He made a strangled little noise, punched Spike’s hand away, and jerked upright, ignoring the slash in his belly.  He wanted to get up and run, get out, kick the shit out of something, never see this place or Spike or himself again.  He hugged his knees, burying his face in the pain, gulping air in huge sobbing gasps. 

“Fuck off,” he heard himself say.  “I can’t—I can’t.  I can’t.”  He said it over and over, and his voice was like torn paper. 

“Can’t what?”  Spike was standing a step or two back from the bed, looking at him inscrutably.

His teeth were chattering.  He was freezing, but he was sweating too—his sides were clammy.  Everything hurt.  How could everything hurt?  It wasn’t fair.  He hadn’t asked for any of this.

“I can’t,” he repeated.  “I can’t.  Fuck off, will you?  I can’t.”

Spike didn’t say anything for a while, and slowly Xander got control of himself.  He fell silent and let go of his knees, felt himself begin to sink a little into the Demerol.  He was still shaking, and his teeth were still chattering, but he didn’t feel so cold somehow.

“Can’t what?” Spike asked again at some point, and he said, “I don’t know.”  He didn’t.

He was lying down, and the sheets were over his back.  He felt warmer.  He could hear a soccer game being announced.  Crowds were cheering.  It was dark.  He fell asleep again.



He woke up because he smelled food.  Maybe Chinese again, maybe something else.  Whatever it was, it had been communicating with his stomach for a while before he regained consciousness.  He was fucking ravenous.

The loft was dark, but he could hear Spike moving around, making dish noises.  He just had time to wonder whether Spike was actually cooking, when a light clicked on in the kitchen and he saw the takeout containers.  It was a relief.  Somehow he couldn’t bear the thought of Spike cooking for him.

Spike was wearing jeans and the same black T-shirt he’d had on before, and his coat was back in the middle of the floor.  He’d been out, obviously.  He was opening drawers, rummaging through with an annoyed expression.  Finally he came up with a spoon and bashed the drawers closed with his hip.

Xander sat up and was surprised to find himself in Spike’s bed.  Then he remembered, and felt a rush of shame.  He’d had hysterics.  He’d cried.  He’d fainted.  And he was in Spike’s bed.

He swallowed and edged to the side of the bed, testing to see how his body was holding up.  His stomach burned, his shoulder ached.  His knees were fairly quiet, but when he put his feet on the floor and tested them they yipped.  So basically, it was all still shot.

He felt a little better, though—less shaky, warmer, not as out of breath.  He still had Demerol in his blood, and he’d slept better in the bed—Spike’s bed—than he had in days.  Fucking hell, he was in Spike’s bed.

He thought again of his tantrum, and blushed.  Why had he done that?  He remembered the hand on his head and winced.  Had he misinterpreted it?  Maybe Spike was just checking to see if he had a fever.

Sure. 

He knew better, but not much better.  Not much better at all, really.  He didn’t know what was going on with his own dreams, or with Spike’s hand on his forehead, or with the chip, or with Liv.  All he knew for sure was that he was stuck here.

And he was hungry.

Spike was walking toward him with a plastic takeout tub and the spoon.  The smell was coming too, and Xander’s mouth went wet. 

“Hungry?”

Dumb question.  “Yeah,” he said, and it came out in a whisper.  He frowned and Spike half-smiled.

“Sound like Melanie Griffith.”

“Fuck you.”

“Sultry.”

He didn’t say anything.  For some reason the joke didn’t bother him—it was too dumb to feel like a come-on of any kind.  But he didn’t want to talk more and encourage it.

He raised his eyebrows at the tub and Spike peeled off the lid and pitched it to the floor.  “Thai soup.  Hope you’re partial.”

He made a gimme gesture with his hand and Spike put the tub down on the bedside table, next to the lamp.  He dropped the spoon in and stepped away.

“Bon appétit.”

Xander edged over to it and picked up the spoon carefully.  His hand was pretty steady again, and he managed okay with it.  The soup was delicious—hot, sour, and salty, with rounds of ginger and carrot floating in it.  As soon as he tasted it he knew he should have been eating it all along.

He put the spoon down and turned to say thank you, but Spike was already walking away to the television.  He said it anyway, and went back to the soup.

“You’re welcome,” Spike said in a bored voice, flipping channels.

He finished half the tub and had to stop.  His stomach must have shrunk.  He put the spoon down reluctantly and looked around.  Spike was still watching soccer—a different match now, it seemed like—with his back turned.

“What time is it?” Xander asked.

“Night,” Spike said.

Xander wiped his face and looked regretfully at the soup again.  Liv had been gone for less than twenty-four hours, and he’d already pitched a fit and ended up in Spike’s bed.  This wasn’t going so well.

“Spike.”  Spike’s head didn’t turn, but Xander knew he could hear.  “I’ll take the couch again.”

Spike lifted the remote and pointed it back over his shoulder without looking, and the kitchen light clicked off.  Neat trick.  Now the loft was totally dark except for the light from the television screen.

“Give me a hand over, will you?”  No response.  “Please.”

Nothing.  He sighed.

“Fucking hell, Spike.  I want the couch.  Please.  Thank you.  Now.”

“Go to sleep, tosser.”

“Couch, Spike.  Now.”

Spike dropped the remote and turned to stare at him with annoyance.  “You won’t catch anything sleeping in there, you know.”

“It’s your bed, you have it.  I’ll take the couch.”

“Wanker.”

He started to heave himself up from the edge of the bed, trembling as the pain cranked up.  Spike shook his head and watched him catch his balance, then finally got up, walked over fast, grabbed him, and hauled him back to the couch.  It took less than ten seconds, and Xander had to blink a couple of times to clear his head.

“Happy?”

“Delirious,” he whispered.

The ball went back and forth, and the crowd cheered, and Spike sat in the armchair and frowned.  Xander glanced back over his shoulder into the darkness.  The tub of soup was still on the bedside table, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to ask Spike to deliver it.

The match broke for ads, and Spike kept staring at the screen.  Xander had the impression that Spike’s attention wasn’t really on the television, although he was looking at it fiercely.

“Not going out tonight?” he asked.

Spike looked at him with irritation.  “Got a tyke at home to look after, don’t I?”

He stared at his legs without responding.  The bandage on his knee was getting a little loose and worn.  He fingered the tape.

“Where’d Liv go?”

“Vatican City.”

“She said Disneyland.”

“That’s right, Disneyland.”

“Uh-huh.”

There was a silence.  Xander caught the tail end of a passing train of thought:  watching this soccer match with Spike was the closest thing he’d had in years to hanging out with a guy friend.  It almost made him smile.

“Hey, Spike?”

“Yeah.”

“This mystery person—”

“Yeah.”

“Did you send Liv out to find him?”

Spike gave a curt laugh.

“Christ, no.  Waste of a good lackey.”

“Lackey?”

Spike rolled his eyes.  “Figure of speech, brainchild.  I told you, she works for me.”

“Yeah,” Xander said.  “I know.  I told her Buffy could cut her loose and she basically told me to stuff it.”

Spike stared at him.

“See?” Xander said.  “Eminently surprise-able.”

Spike snorted and turned back to the television.

Xander watched the ball go back and forth, and listened to Spike insult the umpire or whatever it was, and tried not to think.  His brain felt full.    

He was warm and he didn’t hurt much, he wasn’t hungry, and he’d be sleepy soon but wasn’t just yet.  Why did he want to start a conversation with Spike?  Because he was trying to figure out what was going on.  Because it was normal, a normal thing to do.  Because it felt good to talk to someone.

Still.  Pretty weird behavior for a guy who’d just had a fit because Spike had touched his head.  His head, after all.  It wasn’t exactly an erogenous zone.

Wasn’t supposed to be, anyway.

If he closed his eyes he’d be able to feel Spike’s hand on his forehead, cool and firm, and he wanted to feel it again.  He did.  It was ridiculous.  It shocked him.  He glanced over at Spike’s hand, which was lying on the armchair cushion, and thought he knew exactly how it would feel on his head, or his jaw, or his shoulder.  He’d dreamed it already.

“I’m sorry about before,” he said, without realizing he was going to.  It came out too quiet, but that didn’t matter.  He knew Spike heard it.  As soon as he’d said it, his heart started to race and he blushed painfully.  And Spike would know that, too.

Spike turned his head to look at him, and he didn’t ask what Xander meant, because he knew.  Must know.  What was going on?  He was insane.  There was no way out of this.  He couldn’t let it alone, couldn’t stop picking at it, and he couldn’t handle it when it turned on him.

Spike didn’t move for a minute; then he stood suddenly and Xander felt a surge of panic.  He opened his mouth to stammer something, some diversion, but Spike was walking away into the gloom.  Xander sat with his heart in his ears, clutching the sofa cushion and feeling like a total idiot.

After a moment, Spike came back with a bottle and two glasses.  He put them on the table and sat on the couch beside Xander.  Not close enough to touch, just close enough to pour.

Xander checked the label—Macallan’s.  Looked like whiskey, and looked like good.  Better than Kentucky Straight, anyway.  Better than CC, too.

Spike uncapped the bottle and poured two glasses—small ones.  He shoved one toward Xander, took the other, and leaned back to put his feet on the table.

“Thanks.”  He snared the glass with a finger; from the corner of his eye, he saw Spike tip his glass in an offhand salute.  He tipped his back and sipped carefully.  It was good smooth powerful stuff, an infinitely better version of the lifeblood of the Harris household.  His belly accepted it gratefully and in a minute he was even warmer.

He knew he shouldn’t drink—Demerol, red-and-yellows—but he’d spent most of his adolescence on codeine, he knew what he could and couldn’t do.  Sorry, Liv.  Have fun at Epcot.

The ball went into the net but the whistle went at the same time and everyone was angry.

“What’s going on?”

“Offside.”

“What’s that?”

Spike looked at him.  “Means the bloke who scored was behind the defense when he got the ball.  That’s offside, it’s illegal.”

“Oh.”  He sipped and watched.  There was another goal, and this time it counted.  A man was kicked and lay writhing on the field.  Xander watched for a moment, then suddenly felt ill and looked away.  Spike glanced at him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

It was too much like himself, like Bony Nose’s boot slamming into his knee and his screaming and hanging and screaming.  None of it going anywhere, because of the tape.  His palms were damp and he finished his glass in one swallow to kill the tightness in his chest.

“They’re all actors anyhow,” Spike said.  “Roll around on the grass like women, hoping for a penalty.”

The player was carried off on a stretcher, and the referee flashed something yellow at the sidelines.

“What’s—”

“I’m not a fucking See n’ Say, am I?”

Xander fell silent.  Spike finished his glass, leaned forward, and poured them both another.

Xander reached forward and hooked his, sipped it, then set it down.

“Spike,” he said.  “What’s going on?”

Spike didn’t answer for a minute.  He stared at the television and again he didn’t seem to be seeing it.  He lifted the remote and clicked it off, and they sat in darkness.

Xander’s heart went crazy, and he had to struggle to breathe.  Suddenly he was terrified.  He felt like he hadn’t felt in months, like he used to feel when the Scoobies were coming up against something profoundly bad.  They all felt the same way.  Like they were totally alive, and about to die at any moment.

“What do you think is going on?” Spike asked.  His voice was calm and perfectly controlled.

Xander gaped for a moment.  Then all of a sudden he didn’t care; just didn’t care, and talking around the subject seemed idiotic.  “Fuck this, Spike,” he said.  “What do I think is going on?  Fuck, I think—you put your hand on my head.  Not just, I don’t mean just now, I mean before.  At night.  You came back there and—  And you were going to kiss me.  I mean after, in the chair.  I’m not an idiot, Spike.  I know it when I see it.”

He couldn’t think of anything else to say and so he stopped before he started repeating himself.  There was a silence.  For a moment he stared grimly into the darkness, listening to his heart pound and waiting to hear whatever was going to come next.  Nothing came.

Maybe he’d been wrong all along, it was nothing, it was just his own fucked-up Freudian dreamscape, and now Spike was going to laugh and laugh…

Spike didn’t laugh.  He didn’t speak or move, and the silence went on in the darkness until Xander was sure he’d been wrong, and Spike wasn’t laughing because it wasn’t funny, it was sad and kind of sick, and now Spike was going to offer to take him back to the cot and that would be it.

“Fuck, Spike—”  His voice came out too weak, too raw.  He wiped his face with the back of his hand and tried not to think about the fact that Spike could see perfectly well in the dark.

“What do you want, Xander?”

He froze.

Spike didn’t move or say anything else.  His voice was still smooth and even, calmer than Xander usually heard it. 

What did he want?  Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?

If Spike was just fucking with him, he was already in too deep to get out.  He’d just said something that was pretty hard to smooth over and forget about.  It wouldn’t kill him to keep going with it a little longer, since he was already sunk.

And if he was right, the hand on his head did mean something, and it still didn’t add up to anything he understood, but that wasn’t the question.  The question was, what did he want?

What did he want?

“I don’t know,” he said quietly, closing his eyes because it was making an admission he couldn’t withdraw.

Spike said nothing.  After a moment of silence it was clear that it wasn’t enough not to know.  You either wanted or you didn’t.  He didn’t say it but it hung there in the darkness between them.

What do you want?

He wanted—he didn’t know, honestly didn’t know.  He’d never dealt with it before, couldn’t properly imagine what it was.  If Spike was a girl, he’d know what he wanted.  But Spike wasn’t a girl.  And that wasn’t the whole problem; in some ways, it didn’t even feel like much of the problem.

“I don’t know,” he said again, with more strength.  “Fuck, what do you want from me?  How the hell should I know?”

“You don’t know what you want?”  Spike’s voice was lazy and amused.

“Yes, I fucking know what I want—”  He stopped short.  He did know, of course.  It wasn’t something specific, something he could name out loud, but he knew what he wanted.  A cool hand, a back to press his forehead to.  Bright untrustworthy eyes.

“I want—”  He took a deep breath and let it out shakily.  “I want—yes.  I—I don’t know how to say it, but…yes.”

As soon as he said it, he felt lighter.  It was a cliché, but he felt a weight go.  He smiled.

He heard Spike move, and there was a cool hand on the back of his neck, and another under his jaw, holding his chin, tipping his head gently back.

Spike kissed him.

It wasn’t like his dream—Spike’s mouth was cool, and he curled his fingers into Xander’s hair and tugged while his mouth moved open over Xander’s lips.  Xander smiled, couldn’t stop smiling.  He couldn’t see a thing, and that made it easier.  He smiled into Spike’s mouth and let Spike kiss him.

He tasted like whiskey.  Whiskey and his own skin and mouth, his tongue, the way he smelled.  Xander wanted to laugh out loud, and after a minute or two he did.

Spike was smiling too, he could feel it.

“What’s funny?”

“Fuck, nothing.”

He brought his left hand up carefully and touched the back of Spike’s head.  His hair was soft.  Only thing about him that was.  No, his tongue.  He shifted and put a leg over Xander’s, and then he was kneeling with a leg on either side of Xander, not putting any weight on him, but holding his shoulder with one hand and the nape of his neck with the other, kissing him.  Xander had a feeling of butterflies in his stomach, of pure delight.  He ran his fingers down the back of Spike’s neck and Spike kissed him deeper.

It went for a while, and then he started laughing again and couldn’t stop.  It was the tension, the sudden release of it, and also the absurd feeling of necking on the couch in the dark like teenagers.  He sensed that he had to be careful with that, couldn’t think too much about the absurdity or anything else.  Right now he could only be here in the darkness, kissing and feeling this delight.

Spike leaned away to let him laugh, and immediately Xander wanted to pull him close again.  It was so strange to feel someone so cool.  He’d never kissed anyone with cool skin before.  Cordelia, Willow, Anya—maybe women were warmer.  Of course, they all had the advantage of being alive.

Another avenue of thought to avoid.

Spike leaned farther away and Xander heard him pick up one of the glasses and drink from it.  He put out his hand and Spike put the glass in it.

“Are you getting me drunk?”

“No.”

He smiled and drank, rested his head against the back of the couch with the glass against his chest.  After a moment Spike’s hand came down and went through his hair and gently down the side of his face.  He turned his face into Spike’s palm and caught the heel of it between his teeth.  He worried it lightly for a second, then let go.

Spike came down fast in response to that, a hand on each side of his face and a mouth opening his lips.  Spike’s tongue was in his mouth.  He tipped his head back and let his mouth fall open, let Spike kiss his lips and pull his tongue into Spike’s own mouth.  Their teeth met and he smiled even wider.

He could feel his pulse everywhere, through his whole body, and the pain he still felt didn’t matter anymore.  He was hot, he must be flushed, he could feel heat coming off his face.  He wanted to touch Spike’s hair, his neck, but he had the glass in his hand.  Spike made a low noise and pushed his head back against the couch.

“Fuck, wait—”  He held the glass up and Spike took it and just dropped it on the floor, by the sound of it.  His hand was free, and he reached up again to touch Spike’s neck.  Amazing.

Spike pushed his head back down into the couch and leaned over him, turning his face and kissing him.  His whole body was trembling again, he couldn’t keep still.  His hand on Spike’s back was shaking.  After a moment Spike stopped and pulled away.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Why’re you shaking like that?”

“Can’t help it.”  He reached out to pull Spike back, tilting his head to be kissed again.  His hand connected with something cold and metallic.  Spike’s belt buckle.

He let it go as if it had burnt him.  He’d just grabbed Spike’s belt.  He hadn’t meant to do that, hadn’t even thought about it, had meant to catch his shirt or his side and pull him down.  Grabbing a guy’s belt was something else entirely.

Like it made a difference, at this point.

He was blushing again, even more flushed than before, and before he could stop himself, he whispered, “Sorry.”

“Why?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head helplessly, even more embarrassed by his own apology.  “Nothing, nothing, I just—”  He really wished that Spike couldn’t see so fucking clearly in the dark.

“You can do that, you know.”

He blushed harder and looked elsewhere in the darkness, where Spike wasn’t.  “Yeah, whatever.”

A cool hand came down and touched his forehead.  “You’re toasty.”

He closed his eyes and leaned into the hand.  After a moment he felt cooler again and he smiled sheepishly and turned his cheek into the palm.

“Nice smile.”

He was embarrassed, which made him smile more, and he leaned his head back and reached up, carefully this time, and found Spike’s neck.

“Shut up, asshole,” he said, and tugged, and Spike came down and kissed him again.  Gently at first, the tip of Spike’s tongue on his lips and then between them, opening his mouth, then harder and more insistently.

Xander moaned, and Spike’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

Spike’s tongue was in his mouth, pushing over his tongue, and he didn’t know what it meant exactly but it made him push his hips up and forward.  He didn’t mean to do it; it just happened.  His cock was fully erect, trapped inside his boxer shorts, rubbing a wet spot down one side of the crotch.  He wanted to brace his heels on the floor to get more push.  Spike hadn’t put any weight on him; there was nothing touching him at all.  He squirmed and moaned again, and Spike drove his tongue hard into Xander’s mouth, and Xander gasped, “Fuck.”

It was sex, but Spike wasn’t touching him, just kissing him, and Xander couldn’t even see him.  It made him feel like he’d had sex all wrong before.  Not that it was wrong with girls, just that he hadn’t understood the nature of it at all.  This was different, it was a feeling of giddy delight and license and self-abandon, a willingness to open his legs and his mouth and touch and be touched.  Kiss and be kissed.

He reached lower and touched Spike’s belt again.  Just the belt, and his courage made his own cock jump so hard he lost his breath.  He slid his hand around and felt Spike’s hips beneath his jeans, strong and hard.  He’d seen them before.  He’d seen all of Spike, just this afternoon.  Somehow it hadn’t been the same.

He put his hand on Spike’s back, the strong small of his back that was all muscle with the bone beneath.  Spike didn’t move, just kept kissing him and moving his tongue over Xander’s tongue, hard and soft and wet.  He pulled back for a moment and ran his hand over Xander’s face, lightly over the bruises and stitches.  Xander had forgotten them, but Spike’s touch reminded him and for a second he was embarrassed.  

“Close your eyes, will you?” he said.

“No.”

“Come on, it’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair?”

“I can’t see you, you can see me.”

“And you want me to close my eyes?”

He grimaced.  “I look like shit.  Come on.”

Spike laughed.  “Do you really think I’m having trouble?” he asked.

A cool hand took hold of Xander’s and put it, before he could react, on Spike’s crotch.  His cock was a pole beneath his jeans, and it leapt at Xander’s touch.

Xander leapt too, with embarrassment and lust, and tried to pull away.  Spike’s hand held his there, stroked it twice up and down the shaft, and Xander’s head dropped back into the cushion.

“Oh my God—” he whispered.  He was shaking again.  Spike started to rub their hands along his cock again, and he felt a jolt in his own cock, sweet and painful.  He tried again to pull away.  “Stop—hang on, stop.  I’m going to—”

Spike let his hand go and didn’t touch him.  He lay shuddering, his eyes closed, trying to swallow.  Liposuction.  Mrs. Parmenter.

Spike leaned away again and found the other glass.  After a minute Xander held up his hand without opening his eyes, and Spike put the glass into it.  Xander drank and coughed.

“Better?”

He nodded and held the glass out, his eyes watering.  Spike made it disappear.

For a couple of minutes they just stayed like that, Xander sprawled back against the cushion staring into darkness, and Spike somewhere over him, a leg on either side.  After a while a cool finger dragged down Xander’s cheek, and he reached out without looking and ran his own fingers down Spike’s chest and stomach.

Xander laughed slightly, and Spike kissed him.

“Fuck,” Xander said.  “Fuck, this is—”  He didn’t finish, but wrapped his arm around Spike’s neck and pulled him in, kissed him hard and deep.  He wanted—  He didn’t know.  He wanted to be naked with Spike, body to body with him, even if his own body was a pretty crappy model.  If it didn’t bother Spike, it shouldn’t bother Xander.

He kept kissing, kept opening his mouth to Spike’s tongue, but started unbuttoning his shirt.  It was only half-done anyway, because of his shoulder.  He got most of it on his own and Spike helped him get it off the bad arm.  The air was cool on his chest and stomach.  Spike kissed him, pulled him forward to kiss him harder, and Xander went loose all over.  He’d let Spike do anything.  Anything he wanted, with a blessing and a smile.

He was smiling again, still shivering but grinning like a fool, and they bumped teeth again, which brought back the dream.  I dreamed this, he almost said, but stopped himself.

Spike licked his bottom lip and it tickled.  He smiled.  His hand was tucked into Spike’s waistband, although he couldn’t remember putting it there.  He wasn’t embarrassed by it now; they were beyond that.  Spike’s tongue slipped into his mouth and he opened his lips, felt Spike start the same rhythm as before, and felt his own hips rise helplessly in response.  It was fucking, he realized—Spike’s tongue was fucking his mouth.  It sent a rush of blood to his cock and face.

The thought made him wonder suddenly what it would be like to have Spike’s cock in his mouth, not just his tongue.  To have Spike really fucking his mouth.  The thought both scared him and made him moan with lust, and his cock jerked and leaked into his shorts.  He wondered if that was going to happen, if that was perhaps what happened next.  Could he do that?  He thought about how Spike’s cock had felt against his hand, how just touching it had almost made him come.  Yes, he could that.  He could that with a smile, and he could let Spike do that to him.

The thought of Spike’s mouth on his cock made him gasp for air.  He had to wrestle free for a moment to breathe.

Spike didn’t ask this time, and he didn’t pause long.  He let Xander get a breath, and then he pulled him back in and started kissing him again, stroking his mouth with his tongue while Xander’s good hand hung helplessly clenched in midair and his heels fought for purchase on the floor.  He was thrusting blindly now, not caring that Spike could see him, just responding to the rhythm in his mouth.  Spike’s hips were moving too, and he was leaning deep into Xander, his arms braced in the cushions on either side of Xander’s head.  He made another noise, low and wordless, and it hit Xander like a train.  He moaned and fought to raise his hips.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Spike—”

He got the words out in a half-strangled rasp, and Spike reacted immediately.  He raised up, lifted one leg, and pushed Xander down on his back on the couch.  Xander couldn’t see, could only feel himself being lifted and moved, and then he was lying down with Spike still overtop of him, straddling him and still not touching him.  Xander jerked his hips up and made contact.  His cock was out of the shorts now, and he pressed it hard against Spike’s jeans.

“Spike—” 

He wanted a hand, and he got one light touch, cool fingers and palm around his cock, rubbing him once up and down and then pushing him away just as he thought he’d explode.  He opened his mouth to complain and Spike came down fast, pushed Xander’s head roughly to the side, and fastened to his neck.

The feeling was electric—incredible.  He bucked and his knees screamed, and he couldn’t breathe.  The feeling of Spike’s teeth in his neck was pure sex, sex undiluted, just give and take and rough possession and he fought against it instinctively.  Spike grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down hard into the couch, and Xander screamed as his shoulder ground out white sparks, but it didn’t matter.  He was still bucking, felt a hot sweet guttering in his cock, and knew he was coming.  His hands were locked around Spike’s shoulders.  He felt yanked inside out, opened and shaken out like a pouch.

He kept shivering and pushing until Spike’s lips left his neck, and he started to lick the wound.  They lay wrapped together, body to body, in the darkness.  Xander felt exploded and dull, stupid and happy and unsure, and slightly guilty until he shifted and realized that Spike had come too.

His shoulder started to hurt first.  He bore it for a while, then poked Spike in the side and tried to sit up.

He couldn’t do it.

His abdomen wouldn’t take his weight—it hurt like hell and shook like a branch when he tried to sit up.  He rolled onto his side instead, but it was his right side, and the jolt in his shoulder knocked him off the couch.

He hit the floor hard on his good side and yelped, but immediately pushed himself up into a sitting position.  His crotch was cold and wet, and he was buzzing all over.

“Holy fuck,” he said, and started to laugh.

Spike’s hand came out of the darkness and touched his head lightly, and he jumped, then leaned back against the couch.  Spike’s fingers curled in the hair at his neck and tugged gently.

“Holy fuck,” he said again, still laughing.  Spike leaned forward, turned his head, and kissed him.  He closed his eyes and let it happen.  He couldn’t feel his hands.

Spike’s mouth wandered down his jaw to his neck, and soon he was nuzzling there, just above the shelf of Xander’s collarbone.  His mouth was cool and wet, and from the way his tongue worked, Xander guessed there was blood.  He couldn’t feel much except for Spike’s mouth.  His shoulder ached, and there was a strange warm sensation in his knees, but everything else was darkness and quiet and the feeling of Spike’s tongue carefully cleaning his neck.

He had no idea how long he sat there, blind and drugged with the feeling.  He was willing to let it go on forever.  The room would be dark and Spike’s hand would be cool on his shoulder, his mouth would be cool on his neck, and Xander’s body would cease to exist.  While Spike’s mouth was on him, he felt no pain.  All the ache and stab disappeared, the burning was tamped down to a glow, and he didn’t feel sick or cold or scared.  He was quiet and sleepy and happy, and he let his fingers go through Spike’s hair, pulled his head close, and let him do whatever he wanted.

Finally, Spike pulled away.

Xander’s neck was suddenly naked and cold, and he tried to pull Spike back.  Spike shrugged him off.

“Hey—”

“That’s enough.”

“Come back.”

Spike didn’t answer, just ran his fingers quickly over Xander’s head and got up.  Xander was left alone on the floor in darkness, wearing nothing but wet boxer shorts.

The warmth in his knees was cycling up fast into a hot ache, and his shoulder was throbbing.  His whole body hurt.  He remembered Spike pushing him down into the couch and winced.  He was shivering, too.  Somehow he hadn’t noticed until now.

He gathered his legs underneath him and pushed himself up onto the couch.  The effort made his head spin and pound, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe.  He started to fall sideways and jerked upright at the last moment.  His sense of direction was fucked, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.  Where was his shirt?  He was freezing.

He found the shirt with shaking hands, and got his left arm through.  He couldn’t button it.

There was something wet on his neck, and he wiped it absently, then paused when his hand came away wet and warm.  Blood.  He was bleeding from the neck.  Of course he was, Spike had bitten him.

Spike had bitten him.

His heart went into overdrive and he wiped at his neck again, holding his hand in front of his face as if he could see it.  Spike had bitten him.  And hurt him.  That shove down into the couch—that had hurt, even under the circumstances.  It should have given Spike an aneurysm to do that.  But it hadn’t.

He was still caught up in the shock of that realization when another one hit him—he’d let Spike bite him.  He’d let a vampire bite him.  Not just let it happen—wanted it.  Practically demanded.  He’d sat here on the floor with Spike attached to his neck like a tick, and he’d liked it.  He’d tried to pull Spike back when he withdrew.

The tap went on in the kitchen and he turned, forgetting he couldn’t see.  Suddenly the darkness wasn’t comfortable or welcome anymore.  He heard Spike move somewhere on the other side of the room and his neck prickled. 

When he’d said yes, was this what he’d agreed to?

He wanted to ask for light but he didn’t want to call out into the darkness.  It felt too vulnerable.  He pulled his shirt closed around his chest and thought about trying to stand—but what then?  His shorts clung cold and sticky to his legs, and he flinched.

Spike’s footsteps came back toward him and he felt a flash of panic.  If the chip wasn’t working, he’d just had the world’s most expensive orgasm.  He couldn’t see, couldn’t fight, could hardly move without falling over.  Spike could spread his innards all the way to Monterey.

He sat frozen, listening to Spike’s footsteps as if he could tell something from them.  Nothing except that Spike was barefoot.  Not useful information, really.

Spike came around the couch and set a glass down on the table.  Xander swallowed and searched the darkness blindly, trying to hear where he was.

There was a creak of cotton directly in front of him and he knew Spike was crouching there, close enough to touch.  He could smell him.  He smelled good, like booze and skin and sex.

Despite the pain in his shoulder and legs, despite the cold, despite the fear that Spike was about to lean in and tear his throat out, he felt heat in his cock.  Some part of him wanted to reach out into the darkness and hook his arm around Spike’s neck, pull him closer, and kiss him.

That was what he’d meant when he’d said yes.

He didn’t move.  He sat in silence, his eyes lowered, waiting to see what would happen.  A trickle of blood ran down his neck into his shirt.

There was the sound of a plastic bottle being opened, liquid sloshing, and then a cool hand pushed his head to the side, baring the wound on his neck.  He swallowed and closed his eyes, grabbing the cushion beneath him.

Something cold touched his neck and he jumped.

“Hold still,” Spike said.

He held still, breathing hard.  There was something cold and wet against his neck, and the smell of pure alcohol in the air.  After a moment Spike’s hand took hold of his and put it over a small gauze pad on his neck.

“Press on that,” Spike said.

He pressed.

Spike moved away again, and there was the sound of the pill bottles opening.  Funny, how familiar that sound had become, without his even noticing.  He could tell them apart in the dark—the Demerol first, the red-and-yellows second.

If Spike was cleaning up his neck and feeding him pills, he probably didn’t intend to rip his head off.  At least not right away.

He must still have the chip.  When he’d gone for Liv in the bathroom, it had half murdered him, even though he hadn’t laid a finger on her.  He must still have it.

So how could he bite Xander and feel nothing?

Spike was in front of him again, a cool hand over his, taking the gauze out of his fingers.  The alcohol didn’t sting at all—did a vampire bite go numb?  He’d never heard.  Usually the bitees weren’t around to talk about it afterward.

“Here.”  Pills in his hand.  He put them in his mouth and Spike gave him a glass.  He drank the whole thing.  He was thirsty.

When the glass was empty he held it between his knees and kept silent.  His crotch was a swamp and he reflected that he was probably wrecking Spike’s couch.  He couldn’t bring himself to care very much.

Spike was silent, and Xander couldn’t tell if he was still there, crouching a foot away, not breathing.  Watching him.  Again he wanted to ask for light, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.  Partly because he didn’t really want a light—didn’t really want to see Spike right now.

After a moment there was a small sound, and a movement in the air, and Spike’s hand was on his face.  He jumped slightly with surprise, and found Spike’s face inches from his own, his mouth by Xander’s lips.

Xander jerked away.

It hurt, of course—everything hurt again—and he made a small noise and then sat gasping as his blood crashed in his head.  He couldn’t tell which direction he was facing, he was all turned around.  He had a sudden, horrible conviction that Spike was standing right there, an inch away, a fist drawn back.  Anything could come out of the darkness at him—a boot, a bullet.  Anything.

“What’s wrong?”

Spike’s voice was on his left, and he jerked that way, shaking.

“Nothing.”  His voice was a wreck, a whisper.

“Don’t lie.”

There was annoyance in Spike’s voice, and a touch of coldness that made Xander’s spine ache.  It was the same kind of coldness he used on Liv.  For some reason, it was worse than being yelled at.

“You bit me,” he said softly.

There was silence.  Xander turned his head away and touched his neck without thinking.  He heard Spike shift, and felt him settle onto the couch.  Not touching.  Far enough away not to touch.

“What did you expect me to do?” he asked.

Xander swallowed.  He couldn’t tell whether Spike’s tone was pitying or sympathetic.  He realized he was still touching his neck, and dropped his hand self-consciously.

“What did I expect?” he asked.  “Fuck, I don’t know.”

“I’m a vampire,” Spike said evenly.

“I know.”  He felt a sudden malicious impulse and added, “I’ve been staking your relations since I was sixteen.”

To his surprise, Spike laughed.  It sounded genuine and amused, and a cool hand came out of the darkness and dropped on his shoulder in a companionable way.

“I know,” Spike said.

Some of the strain went out of Xander’s body—too soon to be the Demerol starting to work, so maybe it was the fact that Spike didn’t seem inclined to kill him. 

“I need a bath,” he said without thinking.

“You need to sleep,” Spike corrected him, and stood up.  A hand hooked under his left arm and pulled him upright.

He went with it because there was no use arguing, but suddenly there was no feeling in his feet and he saw lights spinning.  Spike caught him and held him up.  His body was lax and refused to do what he told it.

“Fucking—”  It came out in a whisper and trailed off, and Spike took him carefully around the waist and seemed to just pick him up.  The room moved and he was lying down on top of cool sheets.

He was cold and had the strangest impression that his body had disappeared entirely.  He couldn’t feel it, couldn’t see a thing.  He was nothing, hardly even consciousness, just an awareness of cold and the feeling of sheets being pulled over a body he didn’t seem to have.  That, and the wet spot in his boxers.

Fucking hell, he tried to say, get these fucking things off me.  But his mouth was loose and open and for once it didn’t speak.

 

---

Chapter 11

He woke up with a body at his back and a cold tub of Thai soup in front of his face.

It was daytime—must be, there was a grey light seeping through the cracks in the curtains.  He could see the loft in dim outline, the partition at the far end still shoved aside, the bathtub empty and silent.  There were some carry bags on the kitchen counter, and a few forgotten cartons of Thai.

He was exhausted.  He felt as if he were lying in a deep imprint in the mattress, his limbs pulled down by their own weight.  Squashed like a bog man.  He ached.

He shifted and realized that the boxers had dried and stuck to him.  He had to reach down and pull them free, and he considered trying to get them off, but there was a body next to him.  Spike’s body.

It was a pretty big bed, and Spike was mostly on the far side of it.  His back was turned and he wasn’t moving.  He wasn’t wearing a shirt.  Or socks; his bare foot was cool against Xander’s calf.  Xander couldn’t tell what else he wasn’t wearing.

And now he didn’t really want to get naked, even though the alternative was a pair of crusty boxers.  His shirt had got lost somewhere between the couch and the bed.  He stared at the back of the couch and thought about what he’d done on it the night before.  He was insane.  He was suicidal.

He was thirsty.  He looked back at the tub of soup and considered it, then remembered how salty it was.  He wanted a glass of water.  His throat felt like he’d swallowed flour.

He turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling.  Flaking grey paint, grey pipes criscrossing.  Once upon a time, he’d lain on the cot and stared at the ceiling, thinking about Glen and the lawn mower blade.  It felt like ages ago.  His legs had been fucked for ages.

He wasn’t getting any better.

He had a sudden moment of panic.  He wasn’t getting better, he felt worse now than he had that day—how long ago?  He wasn’t bouncing back, he was going to get an infection and what the hell would that mean?  He’d end at the knee.  No, he was taking the red-and-yellows, he wouldn’t get infected.  He just had to rest, take it easy and eat and sleep, and he’d be walking again soon.  He’d be doing fucking steeplechase.

He should have stayed in the hospital.

He looked over at Spike’s naked back and tried to imagine where he’d be right now if he’d done the smart thing—stayed in the hospital, or called Buffy for help when he had the chance.  He wouldn’t be here now, that was certain.  He wouldn’t be on his back in bed with a dead man, wearing a pair of very used skivvies.  LA extension of the Slayer posse, sure.  This was Xander Harris, out on his own in the world. This was what it looked like. 

He closed his eyes and tried not to hate himself.



Someone was shaking him and he woke up annoyed.

“Hey,” he said.  “I’m trying to have a recovery, here.”

“We have to go now,” Buffy said.  She was looking around in the darkness, and there was fear in her face.

“Sure,” he said.  “But my legs are fucked.”

“I’ll carry you,” she said, and together they heaved him up out of the bed.  She got an arm around his waist and started for the door.

It was dark, but he could see.  The loft was quiet and empty, except that when they passed the couch he saw Spike sitting on it.  He didn’t turn his head to watch them go by.

“What about Spike?” he asked.  Buffy’s pace didn’t slow.

“He’ll come later,” she said, and Xander thought, Okay, later.  He’s a vampire, he can take care of himself.

There was a brown dog sitting by the door as they went out.  He let his fingers brush its head as they passed, and it watched them silently from the corners of its eyes.

“What about the dog?” he said, when they were halfway down the stairs.  If the loft was going to go up in flames, he didn’t want to leave the dog behind.

“Spike will bring it,” Buffy whispered.

They reached the door to the garage and Buffy propped him up against the wall while she bent the handle off and pulled it open.  He wondered how she’d come in.

“Which car are we taking?” he asked, and Buffy put her hand over his mouth.  She smelled clean and sweet, like shampoo.

“Come on,” she mouthed, and grabbed him.  They stumbled together around the doorframe and started running to the Nova.  His keys were in his pocket, and he fished them out as they went, losing hold of them once but miraculously catching them again in mid-fall.  Buffy yanked the Nova’s driver side door open, pushed him in, and slid over the hood to the passenger side.  He had a moment to think, Nice move, and then she was in the car beside him, wide-eyed, clutching the dash.

“Go.  Go!”

He yanked it into drive and tore a half-circle around to the garage door.  It was opening already, slowly but surely, like an envelope of black.  Night outside.  He didn’t like the look of it.

“Buffy, what are we—”

“Just drive, Xander.  Get us out of here.”

“But what—”

“Shut up.  Just shut up and drive.”

He drove.  They made it out just under the door, launched up the incline and landed in a trail of sparks.  Like the streets of fucking San Francisco.  He yanked the wheel left and they screamed through an empty lane and started laying tracks.

They flashed past empty nighttime parks and houses, dark windows and blinking red traffic lights.  It was past midnight; the sidewalks of Sunnydale had been officially rolled up.  They passed the old high school, still smoking, and one of the cemeteries.  He’d almost died in that one.  One step to the left—but he didn’t die, just got his first prescription for codeine.

Buffy settled back in her seat and pulled anxiously at her seat belt.  He glanced over at her.  He’d forgotten how tiny she was.

“Buff, what’s going on?”

She looked out the window and shook her head.

“Come on, since when do you cut a loyal Scooby out of the loop?”

She looked at him sadly.  “You’re not a Scooby, Xander.  Not anymore.”

He stared at her for a minute, to see whether she was serious.  He was stung, but at the same time he knew it was a bullshit accusation.  “Don’t go Dynasty on me, Buffy.  I’m still a Scooby and you know it.”

“If you say so,” she said, and looked away.

He started to speak, then stopped.  The Scooby thing hurt, but not because he thought she was right.  It was just that she thought it.  She was serious—she didn’t think of him as part of the group anymore.

“I’m not going to convince you, am I?” he asked, looking back to the road.

She didn’t say anything, and after a minute he said, “If I’m not a Scooby, why’d you come and get me?”

“We still need you,” she said softly.

“What for?”

“You know where Spike is.”

It was true, he reflected—he’d been in the loft, he could probably find it again.  But if they’d just brought Spike with them in the first place, they wouldn’t have to find it again.

“You’re slipping,” he said with a smile.  “He was just here, you could have talked to him yourself.”

“He’s coming later, I told you.  He has to wait for the plug uglies.”

“The—”  He looked at her.  “The uglies?  They’re coming to the loft?”

She nodded.

“Buffy, they’re human.”

She looked at him, puzzled.  “Yuh-huh,” she said.

His hands were starting to sweat on the wheel.  “They’re human, Spike can’t hurt them.  The chip, remember?”

She frowned, then figured it out and shrugged.  “Well, he’ll just have to do his best.”

“His—”  He yanked the wheel and the car came to the curb.  “Buffy, they’ll kill him.”

She started to shrug again, then froze.  She looked past his shoulder, out into the empty street.  Her eyes went wide and she drew in a breath.

“Stay here.”  She was out the passenger side door before he could say anything, and so instead he looked around to see what she’d been looking at.  At first he saw nothing.  Then there was some movement in the alley beside the Bronze, and someone walked out.

Bony Nose.

He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and he was smiling.  Buffy looked both ways before she crossed the street toward him.

Xander fought to roll the window down, to call out to her—Get back in the car!  Come on, Buffy, move!  But she’d already got too close, she was saying something, and Bony Nose laughed and reached out and casually smacked her across the face.

Xander got the door open and ran three steps before his legs disappeared and he piled into the asphalt.  He was shirtless, shoeless in the middle of the street, his legs a ruined mess of bloody bandages and dirt.

“Buffy!” he yelled, and they were both looking at him.  Bony Nose waved, and Buffy frowned and kicked him in the stomach.  He took a step back, staggered a little, then reached into the back of his jeans.

“Gun!” Xander screamed, and Buffy turned to look at him in confusion, and Bony Nose pulled the pistol out of his jeans and blew the top off Buffy’s head.

She stood for a moment, still confused, then fell.

Xander stared at the black pool spreading around her.

Bony Nose looked at him and smiled.  He started to walk over.

Xander didn’t move.  Buffy was still lying there in the growing pool.  Her hair was getting wet.  She was going to hate that.

He started pulling himself forward, thinking he could lift her head up out of the pool, and when he looked up Bony Nose was standing over him.  There was a bright star over his left shoulder.

“Hi,” he said.  “You know what this is about by now, right?”

Xander looked away and tried to go around Bony’s legs.  He heard Bony sigh and felt the gentle blunt pressure of the gun behind his ear.

“Tell Spike it’s about the dog,” Bony said quietly, and Xander thought, Spike, who the hell is Spike?  He heard a quiet metallic click and closed his eyes for the bloom.



A hand was on his shoulder, and he was sitting up.  He couldn’t move his legs and he started to panic.

“Jesus—” 

“It’s all right—”

He was caught in the sheets, that was all.  He yanked them away and kicked his legs free.  His hand hurt.  Great.  New pain.

He’d dreamed about Bony Nose, and Buffy, and getting the hell out.  It hadn't been pleasant, he knew that much.  He was cold and sweating.  Jesus, he needed a bath.

Spike’s hand was still on his shoulder and he looked around.  Spike was standing beside the bed, wearing a pair of faded jeans without a shirt, his hair messy with sleep.  His face was tight and watchful, and there was a red mark on his shoulder.

It was strange to see Spike; it gave him a sickly, uncertain feeling in his gut.  After a moment he realized it was because he hadn't looked Spike in the face since…last night.  Whatever it had been.

“You all right?”  Spike took his hand away, and Xander tried to sit up straight.

“Fine,” he said.  He was like one of those barkless dogs.

Spike stepped back and watched him, and Xander began to feel embarrassed.

“Was I—I was loud?”

Spike shrugged.

“Sorry.”  He fiddled with the sheets and shook his hand absently.

“Hurts?”

He looked up and saw that Spike was watching him test his hand.  He nodded.

“You took a lovely swing just before you woke up,” Spike said matter-of-factly.

Xander didn’t get it for a minute, and then he did.  He looked at the red mark on Spike’s shoulder.

“I hit you?”

Spike shrugged again.

“Sorry.”

Spike watched him for another moment, then turned away and picked up a glass from the bedside table.  “Pills time.”

Xander took the pills and drank the water.  When he gave the glass back, Spike took it to the sink and drew him another.

“What was it about?” he asked as he walked back.

Xander paused, then said, “I don’t remember.”  He didn’t remember most of it, and he didn’t want to talk about the rest. 

Spike stood holding the water, looking at him.  After a minute he absently lifted the glass and took a sip.

“Hey.”

“You said something about the plug uglies.”

“Yeah.”

“Reliving the glory?”

He laughed shortly, bitterly.  “Yeah, kind of.”  His throat caught and he started to cough.  It tore at his stomach and his shoulder.

Spike waited for it to finish, then handed him the water.  It was cold and sweet and delicious, and after he’d bolted it he hiccupped.

“Thanks.”

“What else?”

He looked up in confusion, then realized Spike was still talking about the dream.

“I don’t know,” he said with annoyance.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“It could be important.”

“Who are you, C.G. Jung?  It’s a fucking dream.”

“What else do you remember?”

He had a sudden, blinding urge to turn and whip the glass against the wall.  He saw it happen in living color, but he didn’t do it.

“I don’t want to remember it, Spike.”  He spoke slowly, trying to control his voice.  He wanted to scream.

“I’m telling you to.”

“Fuck you.”  It snarled out before he could even think, and it wasn’t so much the words as the tone.  All of a sudden he wanted to kill Spike, and it was right there in his voice.

There was a brief silence, and Xander stared at the grubby edges of the bandage on his knee.  It occurred to him that one of two things could happen.  If the chip wasn’t working, Spike could punch him in the side of the head, or just lean over and take his throat out.

If it was working, he could walk away.  He could dump the pills down the sink, Xander realized.  He could stop bringing Thai soup and glasses of water.  It would be easy.  He wouldn’t have to risk the chip, and he could hurt Xander as much as he wanted.

Really hurt him.

Xander swallowed and took a deep breath, and found himself hoping to be punched. 

But Spike didn’t punch him, and he didn’t walk away.  He just stood there.

“I’m asking you to,” he said, and his voice was cool and careful.

For a moment Xander was struck by the strangeness of it, and then he realized that he’d better answer.  Spike was asking nicely.  He’d asked nicely three times already.

“It’s just rehashing,” he said, staring down at the glass in his hand.  “Bony Nose shows up and floats the message again.”

“The message.”

“Yeah, you know, like before.  When they were all, this is a message for Spike, and then with the whaling-on.  I thought you got that.”

“I got that.”

“That’s it.”

“He leathers you?”

“What?”

“Beats you up?”

“Yeah.”  He thought about the cold pressure behind his ear and swallowed.  Spike’s eyes narrowed.

“Something else?”

“No, just—yeah, I think he had a gun.”  The understatement was staggering.

“He shoots you?”

“Yeah.”

“How many times?”

He paused.  “Just the once.  That’s all it usually takes, I think.”

“No, git—how many times have you dreamed it?”

The days were a blur.  “I don’t know…twice, maybe.”

Spike stared at him, frowning.

“You wouldn’t wake up,” he said after a minute.  “I couldn’t wake you up just now.”

Xander smiled uneasily.  “I’m a heavy sleeper.”

“I shouted in your ear.”

Xander shrugged.  He didn’t want to think about the dreams anymore.  He had a rotten feeling, like a black mold trail down the back of his throat.  A black pool had been spreading around Buffy’s head, in the middle of the empty street.

He shook his head and tried to think a happy thought.  Thai soup.  That was of the good.

“Anyone else?” Spike asked.

“Anyone else what?”

“In the dream.”

He sighed and touched his neck gently.  The bite throbbed.

“Spike, I don’t want to talk about it any more.  Please.”  It came out small and humble and thin.  He was starting to feel tired again.  He could lie back down in the sheets and fall asleep right now.

Except he didn’t want to have that dream.

He’d been sagging, and he sat up a little straighter and forced his eyes to focus. 

Spike was still standing there, watching him.  After a moment he put out one hand and ran it through Xander’s hair, at the back of his neck.

Xander jerked uncomfortably and didn’t look at Spike. Spike let his fingers stay a minute, then took them away.

“Hungry?” he asked.

Xander nodded, looking at his legs.

“Head before or after?” Spike asked, and Xander sighed and lifted his arm.  Spike caught him up and they started across the floor.

Their bare chests were together, Xander’s arm around Spike’s neck and Spike’s arm around Xander’s waist.  Spike’s skin was cool and smooth, and Xander was horribly aware of how battered and thin his own body was.  He was still in the tragic boxer shorts, and he smelled like sex and sweat and days in bed. 

“I need a bath,” he said aloud, to take away from the awful intimacy of being carried like this, half-naked and stumbling.

“Sure,” Spike said.  He kicked the bathroom door open and hauled Xander to the urinals.

Xander waited for him to let go and leave, but he didn’t.

“Spike—”

“Oh my sweet aunt—”

“Spike, let me—”

“You have got to be joking.”

“I’m not joking.  Get out.”

He didn’t turn his head, but in his peripheral vision he saw Spike turn and stare at him.  Their faces were inches apart.

“Do you have any recollection,” Spike asked, “of how you spent last night?”

Xander ground his teeth and blushed.  It was unbearable.  He tried to yank his arm free and got nowhere.

“Spike, please get out.”

“I’ve seen it already, wanker.”

“I—”  He stopped, took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders.  “I know.  But this is—it’s different.”

“Yeah, I think I fucking know that.”

He tried to pull away again, and again it was useless.  Like trying to pull his own arm off by tugging on his hand.

“Spike, I don’t think I even can, with you standing there.”

“Give it a go.”

“Spike.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re a nance.”  He sighed and ducked out from under Xander’s arm.  “Piss in peace, little princess.”

“Thank you.”

Spike went out and he pissed, flushed, and turned to look at himself in the mirror.  He couldn’t make the trek across to the sinks this time; he knew he’d fold if he tried.  He was having trouble just hanging onto the wall.  But he could still see what he looked like.

It was worse than he’d imagined.  He looked gaunt and grey-white, with dark pain circles under his eyes, a three-day beard, and the black stitches still holding his face together.  His shoulder was an impressive mess, like a smeared palette, and the stomach bruises were going green and yellow.  He looked heavily fucked up.

He was heavily fucked up.

The bite on his neck was purple and bruised—two puncture wounds the size of pencil heads, scabbing over with black.  He raised his hand and touched it gently.  He’d seen wounds like that lots of times.  Mostly on dead people.

Spike came in and caught him looking.  For a moment their eyes met, and Spike’s face was hard to read.  He looked at Xander’s throat, and his eyes weren’t remorseful or sympathetic.  If anything, he looked hungry.

Xander dropped his hand and looked away, and Spike came over and picked him up.  “Food,” he said, and Xander almost laughed at the double entendre.  He was feeling a little giddy.

Spike had put a T-shirt on, which made touching less personal and easier to bear.  Xander’s feet barely grazed the floor on the way out to the couch.

There were a few cartons of last night’s Thai food open on the table, and a fork was plunged into one of them.  Xander smiled.

“Props for the food styling.”

Spike ignored him, lowered him onto the couch, and handed him the carton with the fork.  He started eating.  Pad thai.  Room temperature.  He’d never tasted anything better.

He tried to go slowly, but still his stomach gave up after just a few minutes, and he had to put the carton down.  The rest sat mocking him silently.

“Just you wait,” he said quietly.  “Your time will come, you little fuck.”

Spike had turned the water on in the bath and disappeared into the bathroom.  He came out with a towel, which he dropped it on the floor beside the tub on his way back to the partition.  When he came out he had a pair of green boxers and a white shirt over his arm.  He dropped them on the towel and walked over to Xander.

“Come on,” he said, putting out his hand.  Xander grabbed it and they made for the bath.

When they got there he hesitated, wondering how this was going to work.  Spike didn’t give him a chance to express a preference.  He leaned over, hooked his thumb into the waist of Xander’s boxers, and yanked them down.  They ripped in the process, and he kicked them under the tub.

“Grab on,” he said, and just scooped Xander up, the way he’d done that first day, as if he were no more than a child.  A second later Xander was in the bath, in warm water up to his navel.

“Jesus Christ, Spike—”  He pulled his knees up to his chest, partly to keep the bandage out of the water, and partly for modesty.  Spike looked at the bandage and frowned.  It was getting pretty mangy.

“Have to change that later.”

“Later, sure.”  He wasn’t looking forward to it.  He held his knees and waited for Spike to leave.  Spike stayed crouched beside the tub, looking at him without moving.  The light was dim—it was always dim in the loft—but still Xander felt ridiculously exposed.  It wasn’t as bad as in the bathroom, but it wasn’t the comfort of total darkness, either.  He watched Spike’s eyes move over his body, and couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

Maybe he was thinking Xander had looked better last night.

Maybe he was thinking he’d been pretty damn drunk.

“Spike—”  It was ridiculous, he hadn't even had a chance to think about last night, to figure out what he’d done and agreed to, and what might be likely to happen again, and he was nervous and uncomfortable as hell.  But at the same time it was painful to think that Spike might find him ugly.

“Yeah?”

“Listen, I—”  He stopped.  He looked down at his bruised, mottled body and couldn’t think of what to say.  He cleared his throat and waited for something brilliant to occur to him.

It didn’t happen.  Instead, Spike reached into the tub and put his hand on Xander’s bare shoulder, then ran it up his neck and tugged the hair at the base of his skull.  Xander opened his mouth again, then closed it.  He was hot all over—partly shame, partly instant lust.  Spike leaned toward him and he leaned sideways, met him halfway and kissed him.

It was sweet and cool, and Spike tasted like himself, and the taste was enough to bring back the night before in a blinding rush.  Xander opened his mouth and let Spike kiss him, and this time it wasn’t a feeling of delight and abandonment so much as a knife of need.  He didn’t smile.  He brought his hand up and yanked Spike in hard, pushed his tongue into Spike’s mouth, and groaned.

For an instant Spike kissed him back just as hard.  The hand in his hair twisted deliciously, the knuckles against his skull—and then it stopped.  Spike pulled away and Xander was left with nothing, trying to put his face back together. 

“What—?”  It took a second for it to sink in, and then it crashed over him all at once.  Spike had just turned him down.  He clenched his teeth and tried to smile.

“None of that,” Spike said.  He was kneeling a couple of feet away from the tub, too far to reach.  Because Xander was acting like a desperate girl, and Spike didn’t want to get grabbed again.

“Yeah, sorry,” Xander said, looking down.  Under the water, the bruises on his belly were obscene.  Like mildew.

He’d just made a grab for Spike.  When, exactly, had he taken leave of his senses?  He was insane.

He was ugly.

And insane.

“Soap’s in the dish.”

“Right.  Thanks.”

Spike’s hand was in his hair again, and he flinched away.  Pity touch.  “I’m fine, I’ll…I’ll burble when I’m done.”

“Look at me, you tosser.”

He looked.  Spike was staring at him levelly.  “It’s not you,” he said.  “I shouldn’t have started it.”

“Yeah, I get it.”  He looked away and Spike gave a harassed sigh.

“You stupid shit, did you look at yourself?”

“Yeah.”  He glanced down at his arms, the bruises scattered over them, and smiled painfully.  “Kind of modernist abstract, is what I’m thinking.  And did I mention that I get it?”

Spike rolled his eyes.  “Not because of how you look, twit.  Because you’re half-dead already, and I’m assuming you don’t want to go the other half here and now.”

Xander looked at him.  “Are you expressing concern for my wellbeing?” he asked after a moment.

Spike scowled and leaned away.  “Take your fucking bath,” he said, and stood up.

Xander watched him walk away, the humiliation fading and giving way to a shaky, uncertain happiness.  He was alone with a hard-on for a dead guy, but he’d seen the front of Spike’s jeans, and it was oddly reassuring that the dead guy had a hard-on too.  He sank down into the water and smiled at the ceiling.



Spike watched soccer, and Xander took his bath.  He washed everything, drained the tub and filled it again, then fell asleep in the clean hot water.  When he woke up it was lukewarm and his skin was pink and wrinkled.  He pulled the plug and reached over the edge for the towel and his clothes.

When he was dry and half-dressed, Spike wandered over and hauled him back to the bed.  He thought about protesting, then thought, fuck it.  The bed was big and soft and cool.  His head hurt.  He sat on the edge of the mattress and looked at his feet while Spike brought the pad thai over.

“You ever watch the news?”

Spike shrugged and walked away to the kitchen.

“Because, you know, you could learn something.”

“Like what?”  Spike was rummaging in a cupboard, and Xander sat with a forkful of pad thai in his hand, watching Spike’s back.  The knots of his spine showed through his T-shirt, and the muscles in his neck showed when he lifted his arm.  Xander had never really noticed that before.  His heart tripped, and he felt a good warm ache start up between his legs.

Spike pulled a roll of tape out of the cupboard and turned to look at him.  His expression was amused.  Xander looked away, feeling his face go red.

“Like…I don’t know, consumer reports.  Community events.  Something that isn’t soccer.”  He put the fork in his mouth and chewed, but he couldn’t taste.  He’d just ogled Spike.  And Spike knew it.

“Football.”  Spike turned back to the cupboard, but Xander could hear the smile in his voice.  Bastard was smirking.

“Whatever,” he said quietly, keeping his eyes on the television.  He couldn’t see it very well from here, but that didn’t matter.  He wasn’t thinking about soccer anyway.  He was thinking, damn him, about Spike’s back, and the line of muscle that went down his neck into the collar of his shirt.  There was still a building warmth in his belly and groin, even though his stomach was tight with embarrassment.

Spike started towards him and he dropped his eyes to the carton in his hand.  He wasn’t hungry anymore; the cold food disgusted him.  He put it on the bedside table and wiped his hands on his shorts.

“I think there’s a good caber toss on ESPN,” he said, staring at his feet and hoping he didn’t have a hard-on.

Spike dropped some stuff on the bed next to him, and Xander looked at it.  Gauze, tape, scissors.  Oh, fuck.

He looked up and tried to smile.  Funny, he didn’t feel turned on anymore.

Spike crouched down in front of him and picked up the scissors.  Xander swallowed and looked at the television. 

“Man, that’s a big field,” he said softly.  He felt Spike cut the tape and start unwinding the bandage.  It pulled unpleasantly, and he tensed and held onto the edge of the mattress.

The bandage came free and made a thump when Spike dropped it.  There was a slight yeasty smell.  Xander looked down.

The wound under his kneecap was pink and raw and shiny with pus.  The bruises had started to fade down from black to purple, and the swelling had lessened.  It still looked like a dead man’s leg.

He noticed with detached interest that they’d shaved his knee, and the hair was just starting to grow back.

“Huh.”  He was still gripping the mattress tightly, and he forced himself to let go.  “That’s, uh…  Is it supposed to look like that?”

Spike looked up with pursed lips.  “They did a decent job,” he said, and Xander wondered whether he meant the uglies or the doctors.  “You’re lucky, really.”

“And I feel lucky.”

Spike reached for the gauze and opened the bottle of alcohol.  They were getting some serious use out of that stuff.  “You’re lucky you had it stitched up right.  Miracles of modern medicine.”

“You wanted to dump me in the back and let me walk it off, remember?.”

Spike shrugged and put the alcohol-soaked gauze over his knee.  It was cold, and Xander flinched.

“You’re lucky I didn’t,” Spike said.  It wasn’t a threat, just an observation.  It struck Xander that certain facts of human frailty didn’t get through to Spike.

“I’m lucky Liv was here,” he said pointedly, and Spike nodded without rancor.

“She’s sensible,” he said.  He moved the gauze and Xander’s knee flared.  He jumped, but Spike didn’t seem to notice.  He was holding the gauze with one hand, sorting through the pile of stuff with the other.  “I did a bloke like this one time,” he said, and paused for a moment, frowning.  “Eighteen—  Oh fuck, eighteen eighty-three, eighty-four.  He said something to Dru and I walked out with him, put his head in a rain barrel and did a dead good job on his knees.  They were on backwards by the time I was done.”  He smiled and pulled the roll of tape out of the pile.

Xander sat frozen, clinging to the mattress again.

“Didn’t kill him,” Spike went on, turning the roll of tape around and squinting to find the end.  “That’s the thing—no Demerol back then.  No real antibiotics.  We took a little trip somewhere, maybe it was Bath, or Brighton.  Looked him up when we got back, just to see.”

He found the end and picked it free with his fingernail, then tossed the tape aside and lifted the gauze off Xander’s knee.

“This’ll be fine,” he said.  “Looks rough, but it’s coming along.”

He wiped the incision and dropped the gauze on top of the old bandage, then found a fresh pad and put some antiseptic on it.

“Hold that,” he said.  Xander let go of the mattress and held the pad numbly against his knee while Spike found a wide roll of gauze and started wrapping him up again.

The television announcer said something in an excited voice, and the crowd cheered.  They both looked over at the screen.

“Brilliant shot,” Spike said as they watched the replay.

“What happened to the guy?” Xander asked.  He felt cold and shocked and distant.

“What?”

“The guy.  Was he okay?”

Spike looked at him with confusion and annoyance, then remembered and shook his head.  “Oh, fuck no.  They had to cut his legs off, if you were poor they did it with a hacksaw in those days.  He didn’t last halfway.”

Xander nodded silently, and watched Spike wrap the gauze neatly and firmly around his knee until the worst of the bruising was hidden.

“Thank you,” he said formally, after Spike had taped it up.

Spike looked at him.  “You all right?” he asked.

“Fine,” Xander said.  He lay down and closed his eyes, and after a minute he heard Spike gather up the pile of stuff and take it back to the kitchen.

The crowd was shouting something in unison, a huge dull unintelligible chant.  Like Romans baying for blood, he thought.  In the end, that was what everyone wanted—someone else’s blood.

He turned inside himself and found a doorway into sleep.  Opened it and slipped through with relief.



When he woke up the loft was dark except for the bedside lamp.  There was a glass of water beneath it, and the pills.  For a moment he was disoriented, thinking he was back on the cot—hadn't he woken up like this before, everything dark except the pills in a circle of light?

His knees and shoulder were throbbing.  He propped himself up and took the pills.  There was no grey light showing through the curtains, so he assumed it was night again.

When had his life shrunk down to this?

Spike wasn’t in the bed, and Xander had the feeling he wasn’t in the loft at all.  The silence was total.

He lay for a long time staring at nothing.  Vaguely, he was aware that the pain was easing down into a low grouse, and that he was getting sleepy again.  He could spend his life like this, just sleeping and taking pills and sleeping again.  He felt like he’d already spent his life like this.

He thought about his apartment, the roaches and the smell and the empty refrigerator.  It seemed unreal—was it even still his anymore?  He didn’t know the date; he might have missed rent by now.  His stuff could be out on the curb.  He thought of Willow and Tara’s curtain abandoned in the gutter, and felt a wrench of sadness.

The job was gone by now, for sure.  He hadn't called Jeff to let him know what was going on—and what was he going to say, anyway?  I got beat up, I’m not at home, I’m not sure where I am, actually.  Some other guy was hauling beams in his place.

No job, maybe no apartment.  Troubling thoughts, but somehow he didn’t feel troubled.  He felt low and calm and warm.  Because—why?  Because there was nothing he could do.  He was in the hands of a dead man, a murderer, a vampire who’d bitten him once already.  And the thing was, he was mostly okay with that.

He thought about the guy whose legs Spike had broken.  It couldn’t have been a quick death.  It must have been long and slow and terrible.

Before the chip went in, Spike had done that to hundreds of people—given them long, slow, terrible deaths.  Or just ripped their throats out, if he was hungry and they were handy.  If the chip hadn't gone in, he probably would have killed Xander by now.  He’d had a few tries at all of them, back in the day.

He knew it was true—it was just flat and plain and true, like Spike saying he was lucky without any hint of threat—but it was still hard to believe.  He closed his eyes and thought about how Spike’s mouth had tasted, how he’d run his hand through Xander’s hair and kissed his jaw.  That was—weird.  He felt flushed, and suddenly the bedside lamp seemed too bright in his face.  He reached out and clicked it off.

Was he losing his mind?  He was content to lie here, fall back to sleep and wait for Spike to reappear.  He’d reviewed the ruins of his life and found it didn’t really bother him.  What he wanted wasn’t in that crappy little apartment anyway.  What he wanted was to wake up and see Spike’s back, be able to reach over and touch it.

He was losing his mind.

He tucked his hand between his knees and fell asleep without a qualm.



He woke up and saw Spike’s back, and life seemed pretty okay.

Spike was sitting on the edge of the bed taking his boots off.  There was faint grey light in the curtain cracks—barely morning.

Xander reached out and touched Spike’s back, felt the points of his spine through his shirt.

“Hey,” he said.

Spike didn’t say anything.  Xander’s finger came away dark and wet.

“What—” he said, and Spike turned halfway.  His face was torn.  There was blood on his forehead and in his hair.

Xander’s heart leapt and he jerked upright.  Spike’s shirt was soaked in blood.  There was blood on the sheets where he’d put his hands.

“What’s going on?” Xander whispered.

Spike turned away.  Slowly, he ran his hand through his hair.  Two of his fingers were broken.

“Oh fuck,” Xander said.

Spike made a small noise, and his shoulders started to shake.

“Spike—” Xander started, then stopped.  Was Spike crying?  The thought transfixed him and he couldn’t move.  Spike wiped his face and flicked blood onto the floor.  He was crying.  Spike was crying.

Xander thought he should put his hand out, touch Spike’s shoulder, say something—but he was frozen, and all he wanted to do was get away.  He felt sick and terrified and betrayed.  Spike didn’t cry.  Of everyone he knew, Spike didn’t cry.

“It’s okay,” Xander said woodenly, without emotion.  The words came out as though someone else had spoken them.  He was holding his knees to his chest, staring at the bloody prints on the sheets.  Spike looked at his hands and tried to straighten one of the snapped fingers.

“Don’t do that—” Xander whispered.

A brown dog came out of the darkness and sat between Spike’s legs.  He stroked its head with shaking hands, leaving black streaks of blood in its coat.  It licked his palm.  Its eyes were dark and sad.  It laid its head on his knee and he leaned slowly down and buried his face in its neck.

The dog filled Xander with dread.

He’d seen the dog before.  Its eyes were familiar, and when it turned its gaze on him over Spike’s shoulder, he flinched.  The hair on the back of his neck stood up

The dog was something terrible.  It made something terrible happen.

“Spike—”  He reached out to take his arm and pull him away, but there was a bang down in the garage and they all looked at the door.  It was standing open.  There was a moment of pure silence while they all sat frozen, staring at the darkness beyond.

Footsteps started up the stairs.

Xander grabbed Spike’s shoulder and pulled, and at the same moment the dog spun and ran out of the loft, through the open door.  Its footsteps went down the stairs at a run, then stopped.  There was silence.

“Spike,” Xander whispered.  “Spike, come on.  We have to get out of here.”

Blood was running from Spike’s nose, and from the corners of his mouth.  He fell back onto the bed and looked up at Xander dazedly.

“Wha—?”

“We have to get out,” Xander whispered.  “Come on, now.”  He yanked Spike’s shoulder, but he couldn’t move him.  “Spike, get up.  We have to—”

Spike raised a hand weakly to his face and started to sit up, then fell back.  The sheets under him were red and wet.

“Spike—”  Xander pulled at his shoulders, got him halfway up and realized there was no way.  His own legs were fucked, there was no way he could take Spike’s weight.  “Spike, you have to get up.  Get up, we have to go right now.”

Spike looked up at him with blood-filmed eyes.  Christ, there was blood in his eyes.  Xander wiped them with the sheet and Spike gave him a cockeyed smile.

“Come on,” Xander said.  He used both hands to pull Spike upright, and his right shoulder screamed.  He ignored it.  “Is there another way out?”

Spike’s head lolled and he blinked.  “Back,” he said loosely.

“Okay,” Xander said.  “We’re going out the back.”  He grabbed Spike’s arm and slung it around his neck, held onto Spike’s wrist with his right hand even though the pain in his shoulder sent stars across his vision.  He wrapped his left arm around Spike’s waist and got ready to either lift or fall on his face.

The dog screamed.

It gave one sharp, piercing yelp, almost like a child’s, then went silent.  Xander froze.

The door was still wide open.  He was such an idiot, such a fucking idiot.  He should have closed it—he could have made it there in time if he’d gone right away.  Maybe he could still do it.  If he went right now.

Everything seemed to happen very slowly.

He let go of Spike and pushed off the bed, wavered for a second on senseless legs, then half-fell forward and started for the door.  The footsteps were coming up the stairs again.  Too close, they were too close, and he was too slow.  He wasn’t going to make it.

He stumbled forward with Spike’s blood on his arms and face, hardly feeling the pain in his legs, thinking idiot, fucking idiot—and he was almost there, a foot away from the open door, and Bony Nose came around the doorjamb and smiled in his face.

He reared back in terror and fell.  Bony Nose stared down at him.  His expression was amused and repulsed.

“Sweet mother Mary,” Bony said, leaning against the doorframe.  “You are one slow study, my friend.”

This was it, this was what the dog brought.  Xander pulled himself backward across the floor, unable to look away from Bony Nose’s hands.  They would go behind him, disappear and then come back, and when they came back they’d be full of death.

Fucking idiot.

He should have closed the door when he had the chance.

“Where you going, little guy?”  Bony’s hands went back, and Xander closed his eyes for a second.  He felt his shoulder touch Spike’s leg.

“Spike—”

Spike gave a low growl, and Xander looked up to see him sitting up, facing Bony Nose in full game face.  He was wearing a mask of gore, and his eyes were bright and fierce and full of hatred.  His lips skinned back, and dark blood ran down his chin.  One of his fangs was broken.

“Spike, no—”  He turned back just in time to see Bony Nose sneer and point the gun at Spike’s head.

“Smile,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

The sound was like ice on a lake, cracking.

Spike flipped back onto the bed.  His foot kicked Xander’s elbow, then lay still.

“Okay,” Bony Nose said.  He walked forward and crouched in front of Xander.  “This is getting pretty old for both of us.  There’s a message you need to deliver.  You need to tell him something.”

Xander stared at the gun in Bony Nose’s hand.  He could smell cordite.  That was what a gun smelled like, after it had been fired.

Fingers snapped an inch from his eyes.  “Come on,” Bony Nose said.  “Don’t crap out on me now.”

Blood was soaking down the sheet on either side of Xander.  It was cool against his back.

“What’s the message?” Bony Nose asked, as if quizzing a child.

Xander stared at the gun.  After a moment he realized he was supposed to answer, and shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

“You do know,” Bony Nose said.  “You know.”  He waited, and Xander didn’t say anything.  Bony Nose sighed.  “Do I have to give it to you again?”

He nodded dumbly, just because it was a question.

Bony Nose shifted, let the gun dangle, and shook his head.  “I don’t know, I think you’re going to blow a gasket pretty soon.”

Xander shook his head, because it seemed required.

Bony Nose took a deep breath, then put a palm against his chest and pushed him back against the bed.  Xander’s head came up and he found Bony Nose staring into his face, his eyes clear and piercing.

“Okay,” Bony Nose said.  “Here it is, one last time.  See if you can make it stick.”

He lifted the gun and pressed the muzzle to Xander’s forehead.  Xander closed his eyes.  He felt a tear go down his cheek, and bit his tongue.

“Tell Spike it’s about the dog,” Bony Nose said.  “The dog, Xander.  He can’t keep a dog in this city, it’s not allowed.  Can you remember to tell him that?”

Xander opened his eyes and looked at Bony Nose with confusion.  It made no sense.

“It’s not his dog,” he said, and Bony Nose smiled.

“Sure it is,” he said.  “Now let’s see if we can do this right, okay?”

Xander caught the movement in Bony’s forearm and shut his eyes tight, tight, for the thunderclap

 

---

Chapter 12

He woke up and lay still, staring at the ceiling.  There was some light—it was morning again.  He could see the plumber’s notations on the pipes.  Hot, cold, steam, furnace.  Stencilled on in black paint, probably fifty years ago.

His face was wet and hot, and he couldn’t breathe well.  He couldn’t feel his body.  Then he moved his feet and the throb started up again.

He raised his head slowly and found Spike sitting at the foot of the bed, looking at him.  He was wearing his jacket, as if he’d just come in.  While Xander watched, he raised his hand and looked at his wrist.  He was wearing a watch that looked a lot like Xander’s old Timex.  Xander had left it in the apartment, sometime in another life.

“Forty-five minutes,” Spike said.

Xander cleared his throat.  He was desperately thirsty.  “What?”

“Forty-five minutes you’ve been having it.”

“Having what?”

“That dream.”

Xander licked his lips and glanced at the door.  For some reason it gave him a feeling of relief to see it closed.

“And that’s just since I got here,” Spike said.  “You were already at it when I came in.”

Xander tried to look at him, but his eyes went back to the door.  “Is that locked?” he asked.

Spike stared at him.  After a moment he reached into his pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes.  He shook one out, put it between his lips, and lit it.  The smoke curled up and smelled like heaven.

Xander pushed himself up until he was sitting.  “Can I have one?”

Spike held the cigarette out and Xander took it with shaking fingers.  He dragged on it lightly, and the smoke was sweet and thick in his nose and throat.   

“Same as before?”

Xander sat staring at the cigarette, watching the smoke curl up between his knuckles.  “No,” he said.  “Just—the end’s the same.”

Spike held his hand out, two fingers splayed.  “What’s the end?”

Xander dragged on the cigarette, then put his finger to his temple and mimed pulling a trigger.  Spike raised his eyebrows.  Xander shrugged, blew out smoke, and gave him the cigarette.

“You remember anything else?”

“It was here.  It was—”  He remembered Spike’s game face, a mask of blood, and the flat echoing crack.  A shudder went down his arms.  “You were here too.”

“Yeah?”

“He shot you.  In the head.”

Spike frowned and blew a smoke ring.  They both watched it float toward the ceiling.  “Never cared to try it,” Spike said after a minute.

Xander closed his eyes and saw Bony Nose’s face clearly, as if it were in front of him.  It had been so close, he’d been crouched at the foot of the bed and Bony Nose had pushed his head up and stared into his face and told him…

He rubbed his shoulder and swallowed, and Spike said, “What?”

He rolled his head and tried to make it come, and it slipped away.  Bony Nose had told him…  Something about the message, but he knew that already.

He opened his eyes and shrugged in frustration.  “I don’t know.  I just—I just feel like I’m forgetting something.”

Spike watched him without expression.

“It’s stupid anyway.  It’s a fucking dream, it doesn’t matter.”  Xander held his hand out for the cigarette.

Spike looked pointedly at his wrist again, and didn’t give him the cigarette.

“Why are you wearing my watch?” Xander asked.  He wasn’t sure it was his, but it seemed worth asking.

Spike took a last drag on the cigarette and dropped it on the floor.  He crushed it under his boot and picked a speck of tobacco from his tongue.

“Fancy a shave?”

Without thinking, Xander touched his jaw and felt the stubble there.  It was getting so long it was almost soft.

“Well—okay.”

He was a little surprised that Spike had let the dream go, but if it meant he didn’t have to talk any more about it, then okay.  Except—he had a strange, nagging feeling he was forgetting something.  And even though it was just a dream, just psychic hiccups, he had the feeling there was something important in it.  Something he needed to dig up.

Spike got up and held out his hand, and Xander took it.  His shoulder hurt, his knees hurt.  It must be pill time.  His throat was dry and raw.

“Can I—water?”  Spike nodded, took his arm, and started the haul.  They beelined to the bathroom, and Spike propped him against the urinal and left him, for once, without a struggle.

He didn’t think he needed to piss, but he did anyway, then turned and saw that the chair Liv had shaved him in was still there, pushed against the sinks.  He started slowly across to it, veering like a drunk but getting there nonetheless.  He was at the halfway mark when Spike walked in, set a glass of water on the nearest sink, and grabbed him.

“Stop walking,” he said curtly, and skimmed Xander over to the chair.  He hooked it out with his foot and lowered Xander into it, then handed him the water.

“Thanks.”  He drank until he gasped, then lowered the glass to breathe.  Spike had turned one of the taps on, and steam was starting to collect on the mirror above it.

“You were crying.”  Spike dropped a towel into the sink and let it soak while the words hung in the air.  After a minute he plucked it out, wrung it dry, and tossed it at Xander.  “Put that on your face.”

Xander caught the towel awkwardly and sat without moving.  His face had been hot and wet when he’d woken up.  He hadn't thought about it at the time.

“No,” he said.  “I was just asleep.”  That didn’t make much sense, but he felt he had to say something.

Spike shrugged and pulled the pill bottles out of his pocket.  He shook some into his palm and held them out.

Xander picked out two red-and-yellows and two Demerol, and took them.  It occurred to him in a vague way as he was doing it that he could probably have taken more, and Spike wouldn't have stopped him.  Spike wasn't really a detail-oriented kind of guy, and there was also the fact that he probably didn't give a damn.  But he was already dropping the rest of the pills back into the bottle—mixing them up, Xander noticed remotely—so it was too late to test the theory.

And did he really want to be more stoned than he already was?  If two Demerol led to...whatever it had been—total insanity, total stupidity, a death wish—then three or four seemed like the mother of all bad ideas.  

He held the warm towel to his face and listened to Spike open a fresh razor.

“Someone I knew once said if you keep having the same dream, it's a warning."

“She told this to you directly, or were you just in the room when she mentioned it to her dollies?”

“Wasn’t Dru.”

Xander lowered the towel and looked at him.  “It’s just a dream, Spike.  Maybe it’s different for you dead guys, but living breathing people have dreams because they’re… working stuff out in their unconscious.”

Spike took the towel and held it under the tap.  “Mind the technical talk, will you?  Some of us didn’t do sciences.”

“Fuck, I don’t know how it works.  But I know how it doesn’t work, and under that heading, see your way.”

“What’s my way?”

“Crop circles,” he said.  “Elvis in a tortilla.  Psychic visitors.”

Spike sprayed a mound of shaving cream into his fingers, then turned his hand upside down and watched the cream cling.

“You know,” he said absently, “I haven’t shaved in more than ninety years.”

“Yeah—you don’t have to tell me that right now.”

Spike leaned forward and rubbed some of the foam along Xander’s cheek, took hold of his chin, and picked up the razor.  Xander looked away.  He was too hot, and the feel of Spike’s hand on his face was startling.  The shave was starting to seem like a bad idea.

“Should I point out the irony now and get it over with?” he asked, trying for flippant. 

“It’s a safety razor, pillock.”

“And you’re supposed to be a safety vampire, but you took a chunk out of me last night.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, but there it was, and Spike leaned back and looked at him.  Xander swallowed and glanced at him, then stared at the sink.  The silence got long.

“So,” Xander said, when he couldn’t stand it any longer, “am I scheduled for a headectomy in the near future, or what?”

Spike paused a moment longer, then snorted, leaned forward, and used his thumb to pull the skin on Xander’s cheek tight.  “Make my life simpler if you were,” he said.

Which sounded like a roundabout no.  It was better than nothing.  Definitely better than yes.  But he couldn’t just leave it alone.

“You’re chipped,” Xander said, “which is the only reason I’m still carrying credit card debt.  I mean, not to rain on the church picnic, but if you didn’t have that thing in your head, you would have killed me the first night, right?”

Spike drew the razor carefully up his cheek.  “Nah.  I would have killed you years ago.”

“Whatever.”

Spike rinsed the razor and wiped more cream onto his cheek.  “What’s your point?”

“My point, Spike, is that I have a newly ventilated neck.”

Spike ran the razor along his jaw, skipping over a welt and then going back to take a few small strokes around the edges of it.  He turned away, rinsed the razor, and rubbed more cream along Xander’s chin. 

“This is foul stuff,” he said absently, flicking it off his fingers.

“Spike.”

“Shut it, unless you want a new dimple.”  Spike was doing the tricky curve of his chin, and Xander kept his mouth shut long enough to let him finish.  When Spike turned away to rinse the razor, he tried again.

“Spike, what’s going on?  Do you still have it or not?”

Spike turned back and studied his other cheek, then reached to pull the skin tight.  Xander caught his arm before he could bring the razor close.

“Spike, come on.  This is—it’s kind of important.”  Spike looked at him, seemed to consider, then pulled his arm free.  He put his hands on his knees and looked at the ceiling.

“I’ve still got it,” he said.

“Okay,” Xander said.  “Okay, good.”  Spike’s mouth twisted.  “I mean—I mean, sorry, sucks for you.  For everybody else, yay.”

Spike looked at him with half-lidded eyes.  “Yay.”

"Yeah, yay.  You want me to cry a single perfect tear for your lost days of torture and mayhem?"

Spike rolled his eyes and leaned forward with the razor again.  Xander leaned away.

“Wait a second.  You’ve still got it—and can I say yay again?  But I’ve got holes in my neck, and I didn’t get them from rolling on a stapler.”

“I know.”

“So how come you can bite me?”

Spike looked down at the razor in his hand, then leaned back against the sink.  “The chip’s intentional,” he said.

“So—what?  You didn’t mean to bite me?  I fell on your face?”

“No, idiot.  I wasn’t trying to hurt you.  I wasn’t attacking you.  I was—”  He stopped and turned the razor over in his hands.  “It’s different,” he said at last.

“Doesn’t feel different to me.”

“I think it did at the time,” Spike said quietly.

Xander stared at him.  At the time, it had felt like—like being taken over, fed on, throttled, fucked, loved.  It had felt tender and vicious at the same time.  It had hurt like hell and he’d panicked and fought, but on some level he hadn't wanted it to end.

He didn’t say anything.  After a moment he realized he was touching his neck lightly, and he dropped his hand in embarrassment.

“It felt good,” Spike said for him.

Xander swallowed and looked at the razor in Spike’s hand.  It felt good.  He wanted to feel it again.  He didn’t want to die for it, but he wanted to feel it again.

“It felt pointy,” he said.

Spike laughed softly and tapped Xander’s head.  “Turn,” he said.  Xander turned his head and let Spike put more cream on his jaw.

“Did you know about it…before?”

“About what?”

“Did you know you could bite me like that?”

Spike drew the razor along his skin, squinted at a healing cut, and rinsed the razor.  “Yeah.”

“Do you—I mean, do you always—”  Xander stopped; he was blushing.

Spike shook the dripping razor and looked at him.  “I’m a vampire, Xander.”

“So then that’s…that’s what you do.  That’s your action.”

“That’s my action, yeah.”

Xander fell silent.  It struck him that he was having a conversation with Spike about sex, and the reason he was having it was that he’d had sex with Spike.  That was laughable.  He must have dreamed it.  He might be dreaming right now.  Probably was.

“Head back,” Spike said, and Xander tipped and felt the razor go up his throat.  Spike’s fingers were cool and firm and skilful, despite the fact that he hadn't done this in almost a century.  Maybe it was easier to shave someone else.  Maybe he was just good with throats.

“You’ve done it with other people?” he asked, staring at the ceiling.  It was easier to ask when he didn’t have to look at Spike.

“Be a long immortality if I didn’t,” Spike said.

“And you bit them too?”

“We established that.”  The razor went up his throat and Spike’s hand stayed while the razor went under the tap.

“Ever kill anyone like that?”

Silence.  Xander kept staring at the ceiling.

“Feel free to lie,” he said finally.

Spike’s fingers shifted and the razor came back.

“No,” he said.  “Never.”

Xander stared at the ceiling and Spike finished his throat, then wiped his face with the warm towel and looked him over critically.  Xander looked at the floor and fiddled with the edge of his shorts.

“Not bad,” Spike said, running his hand up Xander’s cheek.  “You’re a new man.”

“Just like the brochure promised.”

Spike turned and pitched the razor into the trash can by the door, then rinsed his hands and shut the tap off.  He turned back, drying his palms on his jeans.

“So now what?” Xander asked.  “If I have to watch any more soccer, I’m going to need another Demerol—”

Spike leaned down and kissed him, and he lost his breath completely.

He opened his mouth and let Spike in, just tossed it all up and let himself be kissed.  His pulse raced in his ears and he couldn’t catch his breath back.  He gasped and felt Spike’s tongue move over his, and without thinking he reached up and grabbed a fistful of Spike’s shirt.  Spike’s mouth tasted familiar, dizzying. He smelled like himself, like his skin and hair, and Xander’s cock was suddenly ridiculously hard.

Spike dropped to his knees on the tile in front of Xander and kept kissing him.  His hands were on Xander’s stomach, his sides, then his back.  He put his fingers in the muscles and pushed hard, and Xander sat up straight with a gasp.  It felt good—harsh, possessive, right.  Spike smiled and kissed him, then bit his lip.  No fangs, just straight blunt human teeth, and the feeling still went through Xander like a shock.

“Jesus—” he said, and Spike kissed his bruised jaw gently, then his neck.  Xander froze, panting.  If he asked Spike not to do it, would Spike listen?  Hard to imagine he would, and somehow even that thought made Xander groan with desire.

Spike’s lips were on the bite, and then his tongue, cool and wet.  He licked it.  Xander’s heart triphammered and he closed his eyes.  Spike’s mouth settled over the bite and started to gently work at it, and every touch of his tongue made Xander’s cock jerk.  He took a few shallow shaky breaths and tried to think of Mrs. Parmenter.  Spike’s fingers pushed low into his back, strong and painful.  

Xander opened his eyes and glanced down.  Spike's head was thrust into the curve of his neck; he couldn't see Spike's face.  But he could see the slight pushing movement of Spike's head as his mouth worked over the bite, and he could see Spike's throat making a drinking motion.  Reflex; he hadn't bitten.  His tongue felt rough and cold.

It was the strangest thing, but the moment filled Xander’s chest with something huge and sweet, and without thinking he lifted his arm and caught Spike’s head in the crook of his elbow.  He tipped his head back and closed his eyes, and gently forced Spike’s lips against his throat.

For a moment Spike's mouth pressed harder, and then he went rigid and pulled away.  Xander dropped his arm and stared at the ceiling.  He wanted Spike to open the wound again, drink from it, take what he  needed from Xander's body.  His heart was fluttering and he felt calm and bright.  He tried to catch Spike's head again, but Spike ducked away.

“It’s okay.  I want you to.”  He put his hand on the back of Spike’s neck and smiled.

“Not right now,” Spike said.  He was staring at Xander oddly, intently.  The words came out sounding absent.

“You said that last time.”

“I meant it.”

“Well…fuck.”  He laughed and pulled Spike back up to him, and Spike kissed him with his cool lips and tongue.  His body pressed against Xander’s and Xander felt his erection.  The feeling took all the breath out of his lungs again, and he gasped.

“Nice,” Spike murmured, and his hand slid around and brushed Xander’s cock.  Xander jumped and pushed without thinking, and Spike’s hand took hold of him and started to move up and down.  Xander’s legs spasmed and he gasped into Spike’s mouth.  Spike bit his lip again and rubbed him harder, and a sweet electric bolt surged through Xander’s spine and into his cock.  He pushed at Spike’s hand clumsily.

“Stop—stop it, I’m—”

Spike thrust his tongue into Xander’s mouth and moved his hand fast—two, three more times, and Xander bucked and lost it.  He came in a bright soundless wave.

When it was over he opened his eyes and saw Spike looking at him from between his legs.  His eyes were dazed and predatory, and a muscle in his cheek was jumping.

“Oh—” Xander said.  There was cum all over his lap and Spike’s fist.  The sight sent an aftershock of sex and shame through him, and he closed his eyes.

He felt Spike move and opened them again.  Spike was standing up, fishing the towel out of the sink and cleaning his hand with it.  The front of his jeans was a sight.  When his hand was clean he dropped the towel into Xander’s lap.

“Use that.”  He leaned against the sink and watched Xander wipe himself off.  His hands held tight to the enamel rim.

“Spike—”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, uh—”  He balled up the towel and tossed it into a sink a few feet away.  “Aren’t you going to—?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Told you before, you’re not up to it.”

Spike's eyes were still fixed on him, bright and strangely intent.  Xander was suddenly aware of how tired he was, and of the dull ache beneath the tingle in his neck.  If Spike kissed him again, he'd be right back in it, he'd want to be bitten.  He was beginning to understand that it just worked that way.  Even seeing Spike look at him like that put a warm charge in his spine.

He couldn't want to be bitten—that was insane.    But he couldn’t just let it go.  Let Spike go, with a hard-on in his jeans and a sex look on his face.  He was insane, or he was dreaming, he was going to wake up and swear off the Welsh rarebit, whatever, but right now it was really happening and there were some things you just didn’t do.

He cleared his throat and looked at the floor.

“Well, I can…do this for you, then.  Like you just did.  Or—”  He hesitated, thinking of what he’d wondered about the night before.  Spike’s cock in his mouth.  Could he do that?  “Or…something else.  If you want.”

Spike was silent for a moment, then he pushed off the sink and stepped forward, and Xander was suddenly terrified.  What if Spike said yes?  What if he undid his fly in front of Xander’s face and said, “Right, go ahead”?  Xander sat up straight and tried to stop the panic in his stomach.  Fuck fuck fuck.  He'd do it.  He'd offered, and he'd do it.

Spike was still silent, and Xander took a breath and forced himself to look up with a smile.  A pretty thin one, but the best he could do.  Spike was looking down at him with inscrutable eyes.  The look went on too long.

“Or—”  Xander said, and couldn’t think of anything else to offer.  He trailed off.

Spike blinked and seemed to come back to himself, and he bent down and kissed Xander on the mouth.  It wasn't a demanding kiss, but still Xander felt it between his legs.  He immediately wanted to offer his neck again, but he didn't let himself speak.

"No thanks, mate," Spike said.  He pulled back and examined Xander; for a moment his eyes went to the bite mark, and then they were back on Xander's face, expressionless.  He stood up.  "Another time, maybe."

Relief went through Xander like a flood tide, and he exhaled shakily.  He hadn't realized he’d been holding his breath.

Spike gave him a small smile that could have meant anything.  “Food?”

"I could murder a hamburger."  Actually his stomach felt fluttery and tight, but it was something to say.  And food would be a distraction.  Spike put out a hand and he took it, trying to smile.  He felt light, dizzy, out-of-body.  Spike had just jerked him off.  That was...well, it had seemed pretty good at the time.

Spike pulled him up and whisked him out of the bathroom, and halfway back to the couch something occurred to him.

“Who told you about the dreams?”

“What?” 

“The dream thing—if it wasn’t Drusilla?”

Spike lowered him onto the couch and picked up one of the cartons of Thai still on the table.  “How long can this stuff sit out?” he asked, sniffing it.

“Couple of weeks.  Give it here.”

“Last thing I need’s a puppy with food poisoning.”  Spike closed the container and walked over to the kitchen.  “You take enough looking after as it is.”

“Spike, I’m hungry.  Seriously.”

“There’s some Chinese left in the fridge, I think.  Should be safe enough.”  Spike toed a cupboard open and tossed the Thai carton into a trash bin.

“You’re being awfully solicitous,” Xander said, watching Spike rummage in the fridge.  There was still a blood bag in there—he could see it on the top shelf, next to a carton of milk.  It took him a second to realize what it was, and then he quickly looked away.

Spike found a carton of Chinese, which he opened and sniffed critically.  He shrugged and dug a fork out of a drawer, then wandered back over.

“Some kind of noodle.  The dream thing was Red.”

Xander was reaching out to take the carton, his attention on the prospect of food.  For a moment he didn’t register.  Then he realized—Willow.  It was Willow who’d said the dreams could be a warning.

“Oh.”  He took the carton and sat for a minute with it in his lap, staring down at it without seeing it.  Willow.

“You okay?”  He looked up—Spike was staring at him.

“Yeah, fine.  What—when did she say that?”  It was weird to imagine Willow telling Spike anything.  Weird to think of Willow at all right now.  It made him feel guilty and dirty and strangely afraid.

“Can’t remember now.  Some night, some nasty.  Didn’t turn out to be relevant at the time.”

“So maybe she was wrong.”  But Willow wasn't usually wrong.  The rotten panicky feeling was filling his chest and creeping up his throat, and he tried to crush it down.  There was something else, too—a feeling that he was still forgetting something important.

“Sure.  I’m just saying she said it.”  Spike was watching him closely, and Xander picked up his fork and twirled it in the noodles.  There was silence for a minute.

“Okay—”  Xander put the fork down again.  He had to talk, say something, try to act like a rational human being in control of the situation, or he was going to wig with extreme prejudice.  “Okay, so let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that there is something going on with these dreams.  Like a warning.”

Spike sat down in the chair facing him and kept his eyes on Xander’s.   “Right,” he said.

“Right,” Xander repeated.  “So, who’s it a warning from?  The powers that be?  The mystery mastermind?  Or when we say ‘warning’ are we talking about some crap-ass new age warning from my inner child, telling me not to get my legs broken again?”

Spike shrugged.  “No idea,” he said.  “She didn’t clarify.”

“Well—”  Xander broke off in frustration.  “This is pretty vague.”

“I couldn’t wake you up.  No matter what I did.”  Spike tipped his head to the side and kept looking at him.  “That’s the interesting part so far.”

“Fascinating.”  Xander picked up the fork again and stared at the noodles.  He wasn’t hungry anymore; his stomach was jumping and he felt a little sick.  “So…so, okay.  I keep having the same dream, and apparently I don’t wake up until it’s over.  And maybe it’s a warning.  So far, that’s all it is.”

It was a clever imitation of Scooby research mode, he realized with something like the distant fourth cousin of amusement.  What do we know, what do we have, what the fuck is going on and how do we stop it.  Well, Giles didn't usually say 'fuck'.  And Xander had never exactly been the captain of the research team, and it was kind of laughable, kind of pathetic, him sitting here with a bucket of cold Chinese in his lap, making with the scientific method.

He needed Willow.

“Maybe if you remembered more about the dream…”  Spike slung one leg up over the arm of the chair, his eyes still on Xander. 

“Right.”  He put the carton down on the table and wiped his palm on his shirt.  He was sweating slightly, although he was cold.  “Okay, let’s see.  It’s Bony Nose, and he beats me up and shoots me in the head.  That’s it, that’s the message.”  His chest was tight.  He stared at the bandages on his knee.

“Last one you had, he shot me too.”  Spike’s voice was lazy and calm.

Xander had a quick flash of Bony Nose lifting the gun, the cracking sound, Spike’s bare foot jerking against his arm.  “Right.  I forgot that.”  His breath was coming shallower and faster.  He swallowed and tried to remember.  “Yeah.  You—you were in another one, I think.  It was in a restaurant.”  He closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck.  He could taste something like burned rubber.  “A diner, like a greasy spoon, and you were—” 

A flash of Spike’s face close to his, bright evil electric smile, and warm lips.  He felt a simultaneous shock of desire and embarrassment and opened his eyes.

“What?”  Spike’s gaze had narrowed slightly.

“Nothing.“  Xander cast his mind desperately back into the dream.  All of a sudden a wave of images hit him at the same time; he felt it almost like a physical blow across his chest.  Bony Nose punching him in the face, stepping on his foot so that the bone cracked white.  Crouching down on the blood-slick linoleum and pressing the muzzle of the gun tenderly to Xander’s temple.  The movement in Bony’s forearm and the crushing red blackness that came with it.

Xander’s mouth tasted like copper.  He swallowed and tried to take a deep breath, but his chest was tight and wouldn’t fill properly.  A drop of cold sweat ran down from under his right arm.

“You okay?”  He looked up—Spike was leaning forward, staring at him.

“Sure.”  He licked his lips and tried to slow his breathing down.  It did no good.  There was an invisible hand pressing on his chest, crushing his lungs and making his heart beat in loopy, erratic doubletime.  He stared at the table, the carton of cold noodles, the anatomical print on the wall.  The arms stretched out in agony.  He couldn’t breathe.  He was starting to make a wheezing sound.  He was going to pass out.

Spike was on the couch beside him, a hand on his shoulder, saying something.  Xander jerked away.  He couldn’t stand to be touched and tried to say so, but there was no air to talk with.  Bright spots were dancing in front of his eyes.  Spike pushed his head down and he punched back hard, without thinking or even feeling, and tried to stand up.  He couldn’t, but in the same instant it became clear that he really was going to pass out cold.  He turned back to Spike and tried to smile.

Then he was lying on his back on the couch, and Spike was sitting on the edge of the couch beside him, looking down at him.

“—pitch a fit every time.  No offence.”

His mouth was numb and dry.  “None taken.”  He’d passed out—why?  Because of the dream.  Just the memory of it filled him with a feeling of dread and sickness.

Spike’s hand was in his hair, curling gently.  Whatever he’d just said had been callous, but his hand felt good.

“Sit up?”

He nodded and let Spike pull him upright.  The movement made his head spin, and he closed his eyes briefly, wondering if he was going to go down again.  He didn’t, and after a moment he opened his eyes and saw Spike looking at him.

“Sorry.  I’m…I’m not usually such a delicate flower.”  He meant it as a joke, but when the word were out they embarrassed him.  Spike didn’t seem to notice.

”You’re sick, and I bit you last night.  You’re not doing badly, considering.”

Xander stared at his feet and wondered if Spike had just complimented him.  He'd passed up the chance for an insult, anyway.  It was strange and uncomfortable, and it left him with nothing to say in reply.  

“You need to eat.”  Spike handed him the carton of noodles and Xander tried not to recoil.  It was true—he needed to eat, but the sight of the food repelled him, and the thought of actually eating it was unbearable.

“What’s wrong?”

”Nothing.”  He picked up the fork and rolled some noodles onto it, hesitated, then put them in his mouth.  They were cold and rubbery and his stomach jerked.  He turned his face away and spat the mouthful back into the carton.  His eyes were watering.

“What—gone bad?”

“No—no, I’m just—”  He wiped his mouth and put the stuff on the floor with a trembling hand.  “Later.  I can’t eat that right now.”

Spike picked up the carton and looked at it thoughtfully.  “You want something else instead?”

Again, it was too kind a thing for Spike to say, and Xander sat for a moment in silence, groping for a response.  “I could stand to go home,” he said at last.

Spike just looked at him, then turned and lobbed the carton across the loft into the kitchen trash bin.  Some part of Xander's mind admired the toss, even while another part wondered who was going to wipe up the arc of soy sauce on the floor.

“Yeah, well,” Spike said, wiping his hands on his jeans.  “Nice to have a dream.”

“I could stand a drink,” Xander said, without much hope.  Spike looked at him again, a slightly different kind of look.  Maybe a bit disappointed, or maybe just calculating.  He got up without a word and went to the kitchen, fished two glasses out of the sink, and took a bottle out of a cupboard.  Jim Beam.  Apparently he only broke out the good stuff when he was going to put the moves on someone.

The thought made Xander flush, and just like that he hated himself again.  A drink sounded better than ever.

Spike sat back down on the couch, poured them each a glass, and shoved one toward Xander.  He took his own and sat back with it held against his chest.

“Thanks,” Xander said.  Spike didn't acknowledge it; he put his boots up on the coffee table and closed his eyes and just went still.  The corners of his mouth were turned down, as if he were angry.  Except an angry Spike was a vocal Spike, and this was just silence.

Xander watched him for a moment, feeling a little uneasy, then looked away and downed half his glass.  There was the familiar instant of delay, then the kick, and he shut his eyes and grabbed hold.  His tongue was numb for a second, then singed, and he wanted more.  Wanted a bottle of forty-proof purity to call his own, JB, CC, Sterno, whatever, as long as it burnt hell out of his mouth and got rid of the feeling of being kissed, and of being dirty.  And the buzz, the float, the sanding-down of all the world's sharp edges, was nothing to sneeze at, either.  He finished the glass in one swallow, then glanced over at Spike.

It was a little easier to look at him now, outside of a few ounces of Kentucky's finest.  Didn't even matter that Spike was sitting there looking at him with the bad eyebrow raised, his own glass untouched.

“Got yourself a hobby in the interim, I see.”

Xander looked down at the glass in his hand.  It was one of the same ones they'd used the night before; there were finger and lip marks on it.  Maybe his, maybe Spike's.  “Hey, a guy needs something to break up the monotony of dusting you people.”  He put the glass down on the table and leaned back into the glow.  It felt good and soft and safe.

Spike studied him for a moment, then drank half of his own glass.  “What happened with Anyanka?”

Xander lost the smile.  “Whoah,” he said.  He sat up straight, his good hand clutching the arm of the chair.  “Fuck off.”

Spike regarded him without concern.  “Scarpered, I take it.”

Xander gripped the chair arm tighter and stared at the floor.  He wanted to tell Spike to fuck off again, but some part of his brain was sober and sane enough to remind him of why, exactly, that idea was bad.  Pills down the drain.  No more bandages.  Fuck off, Spike.  No, pills down the drain.  Shut up, Xander. 

“Let me guess—she got a premonition of Harris Senior in all his glory.”

He could hear his own breath whistling in his ears, and he knew he was flushed.  No hiding the fact that he was furious.  Outraged.  He wanted to grab the bottle off the table and crack it off Spike's head.  He was shaking.  He had to get a handle or he was going to say something stupid.

“Shut the fuck up, Spike.”  Too late.

“So it's definitely Splitsville, then.”

“Spike—”  He bit his tongue and stopped.

“Yeah?”

He took two deep breaths, then looked up and found Spike watching him with the evil half-smile, clearly enjoying himself.  Vintage Spike, old-model Spike, the Spike you couldn't know without hating at least a little.  And he'd kissed—  He couldn't complete the thought.  It was too surreal, too awful.

And then all of a sudden it was funny.  Surreal and awful and...funny.  It was ridiculous, it was all ridiculous.  Anya, L.A., Spike, it was a circus.  These late grabs for…what, propriety?  Pretending he still had standards, pretending he was still a sane and functioning member of society.

He was so far past all of it.  He'd been past it when he'd stopped for a drink at The Summer Place, he just hadn't known it yet.  He was just waiting for something to come along and kick him over the edge.

Ten minutes ago he'd had Spike's hand on his cock, and liked it.  He had.  He'd kissed Spike, he'd let Spike bite him, and Jesus Christ, he'd thought about Spike's cock in his mouth.  The thought had scared him but at that particular moment it hadn't been repulsive, or unimaginable.

He was insane, or he was dreaming, or it was the drugs or a fugue state or government-sponsored mind control, but he wasn’t going to make it through this if he didn’t let something go.  He knew that.  He had just enough sense left to know that.

All right.

He let out a long hot breath, leaned back in the chair, and officially gave up.  There was nothing else to do.  Nothing else to do but lean forward, over the edge of the cliff, and let himself fall.

I give up.

He smiled and said, “Why are you such a prick?”  There was no sting in it at all; it was almost affectionate.

Spike narrowed his eyes, paused, then smiled slightly in return.  “Dunno, mate.  Thought you liked prick.”

Well.  Even old-model Spike wouldn't have said that.  It was supposed to infuriate him, provoke him.  But no.  Xander felt outrage give one last dying quiver before he turned his back on it and walked away.  He felt light again, the way he'd felt when he'd sat on the couch and said yes.  He felt light and very tired.

“Whatever.  She didn't say why.  Just didn't want...us, anymore.” It was simple; it cost him nothing to say.  It was as if someone else were saying it for him. 

He was exhausted.  He yawned and pinched the bridge of his nose.  “I'm tired, Spike.  Give me a lift to the bed, will you?”

Spike sat for a moment without moving, and when Xander looked up he saw clear surprise on Spike's face.  Just for a second; then he covered it.

“Right, sure.”  He stood up, took Xander's hand, and walked him over to the bed.  “You want...you want water?”

“Yeah, okay.”  Xander sank down into the sheets and was half-asleep by the time Spike was back from the sink.  With a clean glass, he noticed.  He mumbled thanks into the pillow, and Spike said You're welcome, and stood there for a minute by the head of the bed, not speaking.  It was in Xander's mind to open his eyes and ask what Spike wanted, but he was already tumbling through darkness, and then he was asleep.

 

---

Chapter 13

He woke up in exactly the same position, thirsty and sore.  The loft was dark and silent, the curtains black.  Night.  He'd slept all day.

He sat up slowly and reached for the lamp, but his hand met the glass of water first.  The pill bottles were beside it, caps off.  He fished out two of each by touch, noticing that his hand didn't shake. The water was tepid and flat, and it tasted like heaven.  He drank half of it, then took the pills and drank the rest.

As he was putting the glass back on the night stand, the bed shifted, and he jumped slightly in surprise.  He looked over his shoulder, and though it was too dark to see he knew Spike was lying there.  Maybe awake, maybe asleep.

There was a brief moment while his heart fluttered and his brain tried to cycle up, tried to remind him of how he ought to feel about this—but only a moment.  He lay down and stared up into the darkness and waited for the ache to melt away.

It took a while, and he shifted uncomfortably a few times while he waited, and finally a cool hand came out of the darkness and settled on his head.  He closed his eyes and let it be.  It was still for a bit, and then it ran down the side of his face and turned his head, and there were cool lips against his own.  He kept his eyes closed and let it happen.

"You all right?"

It was strange to hear Spike's voice so clearly, so close, in the darkness, and it might have made him panicked or ashamed except for the fact that he'd already burnt that bridge.  A quick shifting of ballast, and it was all right again, it was amusing again.

"Fine.  I'm fine."

The cool hand moved down his neck and touched his shoulder lightly.  "Tired?"

"Tired, yeah."

"Want something to eat?"

"Nah."

Silence, and Spike's hand came up and curled in the hair at the base of his skull.  It felt good, and he tipped his head to let Spike's fingers reach him better.  The pills were starting to work, and he was falling asleep.

Spike's mouth was on his again, and he let himself be kissed, let Spike's tongue in and smiled when Spike gnawed lightly on his lip.  Spike tasted a little bit like blood, a little bit like smoke.  Good tastes, really.  Spike's hand was on the back of his neck, pressing gently into the muscle.  Good feeling.

It went on for a while, until Xander was honestly falling asleep, kissing clumsily and smiling with amusement at it all.  He raised his hand and found Spike's face, stroked the cheek and then tapped it lightly.  Spike paused and pulled back.

"I'm out," Xander murmured, and lowered his head until his forehead was against Spike's chest.  Spike's skin was cool and smooth, good to lean against.  He lay absolutely still while Xander sorted himself into a comfortable position; when Xander dropped an arm around his waist, he started slightly.

With the taste of Spike's mouth in his own, Xander fell.



He woke up a couple of times in the night, and each time he had a cool body beside him, a cool hand on his hip or shoulder or throat.

He had no dreams.



He drifted up to the surface and found himself staring at the ceiling, the pipes again.  There was a smell of food, and his stomach turned over.  He wasn't sure whether he was really awake; he felt strangely loose and insubstantial.

He didn't move, but after a minute or two Spike appeared over him, frowning slightly.  "Christ, you're a sleeper when you put your mind to it."

"Division A," Xander said.  His mouth felt cottony, and his voice sounded odd.  He cleared his throat.

"Head?"  Spike put out a hand, and Xander considered.  Head, yeah.  Good idea.

He nodded and sat up, put his legs over the edge of the bed and took Spike's hand.  His head swam a little when Spike pulled him to his feet, but his knees were definitely better.  He could put weight on the left one without much yammering.  The right one—he tried it, and it flared, and Spike's arm tightened around his waist.

"Look who's practically locomoting."

"Rejoining the bipeds, yeah."

They made it into the bathroom, and Spike unloaded Xander against a urinal and left without a word.  Xander pissed, flushed, yawned.  The toothbrush and toothpaste were still lying on the towel over on the sinks.  It was probably a bad idea, but he stumped across anyway, and brushed his teeth.

When he was done Spike came back in, raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, and hauled him out again.  He dropped him back on the bed and stepped back to look him over.  Xander yawned and started to sink back into the sheets.

"Hey, Division A.  Sit up."  Something was being pressed into his hand; he opened his eyes and found it was a spoon.  There was a tub of soup on the night table, and it smelled all right but his mouth tasted like toothpaste and he was tired.  Later, he'd eat later.

He waved the spoon vaguely to communicate this, and a firm hand took hold of his good shoulder.

"Sit up, idiot.  I didn't bloody go and fetch this stuff for my health, did I?"

He sat up and levered his eyes open, and started on the soup.  Spike watched for a couple of seconds, then wandered away.  It was Thai soup again, the elixir of life.  Xander's stomach warmed to it after the first couple of spoonfuls, and he finished half the tub before his stomach shut down and he had to stop.  His eyes were closing on their own again.  He put the spoon carefully back into the tub, pushed it away on the night stand, and lay down.

The loft was dim, not dark.  Daytime.  How many days had he been here?

A weight settled on the side of the bed, and he turned toward it instinctively.  Spike was sitting on the edge, an unlit cigarette ready in his fingers, peering into the soup tub.

"You finished?" he asked.

Xander leaned forward and pushed his forehead against Spike's leg.  For a moment, nothing.  Then cool fingers in his hair, and he let go and fell a little more.



Sometime later, he woke up.  Still dim, not dark.  Or maybe dim again—maybe he'd slept the night through this time, and it was day again.  If he could sleep all the time and never wake up, he would.  It was the only thing to do.

But here he was awake again, or partly awake.  Enough to know that he needed pills again.  And that Spike was in the bed.  Sleeping beside him, with him, one bare arm hooked around Xander's neck as if he were about to pull him close and tell him a secret.  His face was composed, absorbed.  The little scar glowed pale in his eyebrow.

Xander lay still and looked at him for a while, until his eyelids began to fall again.  Then he remembered he needed pills.

He sat up slowly and Spike woke up.  For a moment he looked confused; then his eyes found Xander and stayed there, watching him steadily.

"Sorry," Xander said.  "I just needed—"  He raised the Demerol bottle and turned away to look for the water.  He wondered briefly whether he should double up on the red-and-yellows, since he'd been missing the schedule lately, decided on three as a compromise, and chased it all with the rest of the water.

Then he lay down again, in the same spot he'd woken up in.

Spike had propped his head on his hand and lay watching with an unreadable expression on his face.  Xander paid no attention.  There was plenty of room still to fall, and his ears were roaring, he was exhausted.

"Not dreaming, are you?"

Xander pried one eye open and looked at Spike.  The dreams seemed a lifetime ago.

"No," he said, and closed his eyes again.

"Hm."  Which could mean anything, and that was perfectly all right.  Some other time he'd sweat the details.  No dreams was good dreams.

"Hungry?"

"Nah."

A pause.

"Not still tired?"

Xander used every muscle in his head to open his eyes, and stared at Spike.  "Since you mention it—" he said, and closed his eyes again.

"You're sleeping round the clock, you know."

"Division A," Xander said, and yawned into the mattress.

"Lazy, I call it."

"Blow me."

A pause, and then a cool palm came out of nowhere and lay flat against his throat.  He opened his eyes and found Spike staring at him, half-smiling. 

"Fuck off, Spike."  It was sleepy, bland, barbless.

Spike leaned forward and kissed him, and he took half a second to rebalance himself, to find it amusing and meaningless, and then he was kissing back.  Why not.

It didn't take much doing; Spike's tongue was between his lips and all he had to do was open and let go.  Cool mouth on his, familiar taste.  When had the taste become familiar?  He kept his eyes closed and his hand on the mattress, and let himself enjoy it.  What the hell.

He expected it to stop after a minute or two, but it didn't.  Spike shifted slightly and ran his hand down Xander's chest, found his hipbone and settled on it like a handle.  Then it moved lower and rested on Xander's thigh.  His fingers were cool on Xander's skin; his thumb moved in a slight absent circle.

Somewhere in the back of Xander's head a voice was crying out in the wilderness.  Stop this, stop it, for Christ's sake enough already, stop it—  He hesitated, and Spike stopped kissing him and pulled back.  He didn't take his hand away, but his thumb went still.  They looked at each other.

Xander closed his eyes, raised his arm, and found the back of Spike's neck.  He let his hand rest there.  No need to do more.

There was a long moment of nothing, and then Spike leaned in and kissed him again.  It was harsher this time, there was more bite in it, and Xander smiled.  It was good to be kissed, good to be touched.  It was just that simple.

Spike's tongue pushed into his mouth, and his hand was on Xander's thigh, pressing it aside.  Xander hesitated again, a split second, then let his legs fall open.  He was hard, just instinctively from the touch on his legs, and he wanted to push his hips up but he didn't.  He lay still and let Spike kiss him like fucking, and tried to find room to breathe.

Spike's mouth came down even harder on his, pushing his lips against his teeth, biting at his tongue, then gone again.  Xander didn't move, just lay listening to his heartbeat ram against his skull.  Then Spike's hand ran down his thigh and he jumped and pushed a little before he could stop himself.  He was caught up in the boxers, the sheets.

Spike's hand came up, slipped under the boxers and Xander gasped.  Cool fingers ran over the hollow of his pelvic joint.  He pushed again, and Spike's mouth came down and kissed him, bit at him, until Xander gave up and kissed back, raised his head off the pillow to keep kissing when Spike pulled away.  Spike jerked his head, knocked Xander's face away, then came back down and kissed him again, lightly at first and then not lightly at all.

Xander's breath was coming loud and short; when he opened his eyes he saw Spike grinning down at him.  Bright eyes full of guile and sex, that little scar, and those teeth...maybe a little sharper than usual.  Xander took his arm from around Spike's neck and pushed at Spike's canine with his thumb.  Spike tolerated it for a moment, then pulled his head away.

"You ever open mail with those things?"

"Mailman, once."

Xander blinked, and Spike's smile turned wolfish, and he came back down for another kiss.  Xander closed his eyes and let it happen.  Spike's fingers were in his back, under his shirt, pushing at the muscles.  It felt good.  His lips moved from Xander's mouth to his jaw, and the bite gave a surging little throb, and Xander groaned.  In a moment Spike's tongue was on the bite, and Xander was stiff and aching, weeping into his shorts, wanting to clutch Spike's head to his neck and force him to use his teeth.

"Oh, fuck—"  He pressed his palm into the mattress and clutched the sheet.  Spike's mouth pressed harder to his neck, and his hand dropped down Xander's back.  "Jesus Christ, Spike—"

And then Spike's hand was between, behind his legs, he was confused for a second, there was a cool hand on his buttock and then cool fingers between.  A light touch, just a suggestion.

"Oh, fuck.  Oh, no—"  He jerked away and Spike didn't raise his head or stop the working of his mouth, but his hand caught Xander's hip and held him, then slipped inside his shorts and brushed his cock.  Just barely, just the back of his fingers.

Xander spasmed and pushed, tried to find the fingers again but they were running over the hollow of his thigh, and Spike's mouth was nursing at his neck, and it was too much to track.  He moaned and brought his hand up, placed it deliberately on Spike's back and stared at it as if it could give him self-control.

Spike's fingers moved around again, followed the line of Xander’s spine down between his legs, and pressed lightly.

Xander jerked away again, and Spike's other hand came out of the sheets and touched his cock.  Xander squeezed his eyes shut and tried to lie still, tried not to make a sound.  Spike's mouth was cool and wet, there was a pulsing ache in Xander's throat, and the fingers were touching him, and the thing was, it felt good.  Strange and bare and awful.  Good.

Spike tipped his head slightly and closed his teeth around Xander's windpipe, and at the same time the finger pushed a little harder and there was a sweet tight infinitely shameful sensation, and it was inside him.  His cock jerked and he gulped air.  It sounded like a sob.  Spike's teeth were blunt and hard around his throat.  Another sob.

Spike let go of his throat, pulled back, and looked at him.  His eyes were glazed and lost-looking, too bright.  His voice, when he spoke, was thick.

"What's wrong?"

Xander lay still, staring at him, unable to look away.  He was shaking, he realized dimly.  Spike frowned.

"You all right?"

"F-fine."  His lips felt numb.  Spike moved the finger, and Xander arched in surprise and revulsion and lust.  Spike was smiling again.  He looked stoned.

"It's good, yeah?"  He pushed a little harder, entered a little deeper, and Xander clenched and flinched and, God save him, pushed back.  It felt good.  His cock ached.  He couldn't look at Spike anymore, so he closed his eyes.

Spike didn't say anything else; he just dropped his mouth back to Xander's neck, and Xander opened his eyes and stared at his hand on Spike's back.  It didn't matter.  None of it mattered, it was all a joke, it was meaningless.  He was being opened and fucked, used and bled.  He wanted it.  Didn't matter.  He closed his eyes and pushed back onto Spike's hand, and felt a fist close around his cock.  Spike's erection brushed his leg and they were both jolted, and then Spike was swinging a thigh over Xander's hips, positioning himself, and Xander gasped and tipped his head back so Spike could bite.

He came with Spike's teeth in his neck, Spike's hand on his cock, Spike's finger inside him.  A slow brilliant sheet of pain rising up from the bad knee, the one Spike was bracing himself against.

After, there was a long spell of semi-consciousness, lying on his back staring at the pipes, while Spike fed from his neck.  His heart felt relaxed and sturdy, capable of anything.  Spike's hair was soft between his fingers.

He couldn't remember what his address had been, the one in Echo Park.  He fell asleep trying to remember it.



Somewhere in his sleep, he thought This has got to stop.  He had a vision of his life as if from above, and it was a series of concentric circles coiling finer and finer, more and more dense until there was nothing but a small dark point in the center.  Inert, silent.  He was closing down.

This has got to stop, he thought again, considering the circles.  I am going to go insane if this continues.



When he woke up there were voices in the loft—Spike and someone else, someone who had just spoken but whose voice he hadn't caught yet, and the two of them were arguing, and he thought, Liv.  Back from Disneyland.  He'd have to ask her if the log ride was all it was cracked up to be.

He opened his eyes and squinted; the loft was dark except for the lamp by the television.  It was too bright to look at yet, and he was too thirsty to think.  There was a glass of water on the night stand and he sat up and reached for it.

It occurred to him that he was in Spike's bed.  He didn't want Liv to see him in Spike's bed.  Too late.  Amusing, it was amusing.  It was all a hell of a joke, and the punch line was the holes in his neck.  That ought to be a conversation piece.  He hooked the water and turned squinting toward the light.

Something was wrong—now that he was looking he could see it wasn't Liv.  It wasn't a woman.  It was a man, someone big and broad, and for an instant he saw Bony Nose standing there in the shadows, staring at him with an expression of pity and disgust.  His heart jerked, and he almost dropped the glass.

But it wasn't Bony Nose.

It was Angel.

"Oh, fu—" Xander said, and then his throat clicked dryly and he couldn't say anything else.

Angel didn't say anything.  His eyes went from Xander's face to his neck, and stayed there for a beat.  He looked—not surprised, but stunned.

Xander looked down and away, turning his head to hide the bite marks.  He still had the glass in his hand, so he drank some water and put it carefully back on the night stand.  Probably he should say something, but he couldn't think of anything to say.  Where the hell was Spike?

Something moved on the couch, and that answered the question.  Spike was sitting down, facing the television, his back to Xander.  He didn't turn around or speak.  The silence got very long.  At last, Angel shifted and started toward the bed.

"Can you walk?" he asked, holding out a hand.  It was always so hard to read the guy's face—was that kindness, or disgust?  Xander's eyes slid away, back to Spike.  He couldn't help it.

"Xander."  Angel was standing by the bed, then sitting gingerly on the edge of it.  It was kindness, almost certainly.  And disgust.  "Xander, come on.  Let's go."

Spike still hadn't moved, and Xander’s brain wasn’t firing properly.  He  looked back at Angel, and honestly didn't know what to do.  Everything was moving too fast.

"He didn't do this," he said, and Angel's eyes went to his neck again.  Xander flushed.  "I mean, he didn't—not the knees, it wasn't him."

"Told you," Spike said flatly, without moving, and just hearing his voice helped kick-start Xander's brain.  Angel gave a quick irritated glance over his shoulder at the words, and that was so bizarrely normal, so perfectly what Angel should be, that it made everything else click into place.  Suddenly it was all right again, it was all amusing.  Xander sighed, a low shaky sigh.

"Where have you been all my life?" he asked when Angel turned back to him.  Angel frowned.

"Xander, come on.  You need a hospital—"

"Been, done.  You should see the cross-stitch.  It's like a Pennsylvania quilting bee down there."

Angel stared at him for a moment, his eyes dark and solemn.  Xander ran a hand through his hair and rubbed his jaw—he was getting stubble again.

"I don't know what this is—" Angel started to say, and Xander looked away and picked up the water glass again.

"Yeah, get in line."  He was thirsty beyond belief, and sore.  He drank some water and looked for the pills.

"I don't know what's going on, what's happened to you—"

"The usual.  But more so."  He reached for the Demerol bottle, almost overbalanced, and caught himself against the table.  Angel hesitated, then picked up the bottle, checked the label, and handed it to him.  "Thanks."

"You can bring them with you.  We're leaving."  Angel's hand was under his good arm, cold and hard, and he had apparently ceased to live in a democracy, because he was already being lifted up out of the bed.  It hurt, and he had to scramble to arrange himself properly.  Angel paused and studied him, then shifted hands so that Xander's good arm was around his neck and he was holding Xander's waist.  He did it easily, without effort, as if Xander weighed nothing at all.

There was movement by the couch and they both looked over.  Spike was standing up, staring at them.  He was in the Big Bad getup, but he didn't look bad.  He had a dark purple bruise down the right side of his face, and his lip was split.

"Shit," Xander said.  "You fall down an elevator shaft or something?"

"I didn't fucking do that to him," Spike said.  He didn't look at Xander; his eyes were fixed on Angel, and his tone was harsh.  "I told you that.  Go be all Dark Knight somewhere else, why don't you."

For an instant, Angel's grip on Xander's wrist tightened painfully; then he remembered himself, and it loosened.  He didn't say anything, just started walking for the door.

"Hey."  There was a quick step following them.  "Hey, poof.  Nobody called you, nobody wants you.  He's fine where he is."  Spike's voice was loud and sharp and a little desperate.  He caught Angel's shoulder and yanked, and Angel stopped walking and turned around.  Xander came with him, dangling.

"Spike."  For a minute it looked like that was all Angel could bring himself to say, and it hung in the air like a threat.  Vicious.  Spike stared at him with his chin pushed out.  The split in his lip was fresh, still bleeding.

"Fuck off, Angel.  Go stop postal fraud."

"Enough, Spike."  Angel started to turn back to the door, and Spike's arm snapped up and caught his shoulder.  "Let go."

"Fuck you.  Did you even ask him what he wants?"  Still too loud, too raw.  Cracking.  He hadn't looked at Xander at all.

"I don't have to ask."  Angel tried to turn again, but Spike didn't move his hand.  Angel looked at it.  "If I have to put him down, Spike, I will break your hand."

Spike gave a little bark of laughter and jerked at Angel's shoulder, but he let go.  "Right," he said.  "Well, that brings back memories."

Angel shook his head.  "No," he said.  "Not this time."

Spike opened his mouth, then closed it.  Something went quickly over his face, raw and painful like a spasm, and then he closed it off and just looked bitter.  He raised his hand and wiped his lip. 

"Whatever you say, mate," he said, examining the blood on the back of his hand.

"We're leaving," Angel said, turning away again.  "I'm taking him to the hotel, and then I'm coming back here and you're going to tell me what's going on."

"Am I," Spike said flatly, from behind them.

"You are," Angel said.  He hitched Xander a little higher and they were walking for the door again.  It was standing open—Angel must have left it that way when he'd come in.  For some reason it gave Xander a chill to see the door open like that.

"Wait—" he said, and Angel didn't stop walking, but he turned his head, and his face was angry and preoccupied and maybe a bit sad.

"What?"

Xander shook his head.  It wasn't amusing anymore, it wasn't right, but he couldn't think what to say and he couldn't explain why it was wrong to leave like this, without even looking Spike in the face.  He still had the Demerol in his bad hand, and he stared down at it as if it were an answer.

"You're going to be okay," Angel said.

Xander looked up to say something smart, but Angel's face was suddenly taut and alert, and he was staring at the open door.  A moment later Xander heard footsteps, and his heart jammed in his throat.

"Who—" Angel started to say, and then Liv walked around the doorframe, her bag in one hand, frowning.

Angel stopped.  So did Liv.  For a long moment there was no movement, no sound, and they simply stared at each other.  Liv's mouth was open slightly, as if she had been about to say something when she walked in.  Her eyes went over Angel, over Xander, then found Spike.  They widened slightly, then went hard.

Angel said, "Who are you?"

Spike said, "Fuck."

She dropped her bag and put her hands to the small of her back, and suddenly there was a gun in her hand, a flat dull silver pistol Xander hadn't seen before.  Then he couldn't see anymore, because Angel had turned his body so he was between Xander and the gun.

He didn't expect her to shoot, not really, so the first crack seemed surreal, like something he was just frightened enough to imagine.  Angel wrenched left, and something cool and wet sprayed Xander's face.  Spike was shouting something—Liv's name.  Another crack, and Angel jerked again, crushing Xander tight around the waist for an instant, so tight he gasped and pushed to get free.  But Angel was curled around him, holding onto him, and for a moment they seemed to be crouching, the floor seemed very close, and there was blood on it.  Angel's arm loosened, and Xander pulled in a breath and they were standing up again, and everyone was shouting.

Then suddenly it was quiet, and the only sound was his own breath, ragged and fast.  He looked sideways and saw Angel's face locked tight, a muscle ticking in the cheek.  He was staring at the floor, his eyes unseeing and concentrated.  After a moment he raised his free hand, the one that wasn't holding Xander's waist, and touched his own chest, just beneath the collarbone.  His fingers came away slick and red.

"Jesus Christ—"  Xander stared at the blood.  Angel's fingers were shaking slightly, and he was staring too, and then he looked up as if Xander's voice had only just reached him.

"Are you all right?"

Xander gaped at him, then nodded.  Angel was still holding out his bloodied fingers; they both looked back at them, and then Angel dropped his hand and wiped it on his trousers.

Xander looked away, and found himself looking straight at Spike.  He hadn't moved; he was standing in the middle of the floor where they'd left him, staring at Angel.  His face was hateful and bleak, and when his eyes passed over Xander they didn't seem to see him at all.

The silence was getting long.  Angel touched the wound in his chest again, then flicked blood from his fingers to the floor.  He was standing a little awkwardly, and his hold on Xander's waist felt less secure.  Well, he'd been shot.  You had to cut him some slack.

Xander raised his head and looked over Angel's shoulder toward the doorway, where Liv still stood.  She was still holding the gun, but it was pointed at the ceiling, and her face was white.  She was blinking, staring hard at Spike, clearly trying to catch his eye.  Xander followed her gaze, and at last Spike looked up and seemed to come back to himself.

"Spike—"  Liv's voice was ridiculously quiet, or maybe it just seemed that way after the gunshots.  Spike gave her a tight smile.

"Hi, pet.  Don't think you've met the poof."

Her face registered nothing but confusion, and Spike sighed.  "Angel," he said.  "Helps the helpless."

She blinked.  "Oh shit," she said.  "I thought—"

"'s all right," Spike said.  "He likes being shot.  Next best thing to being nailed up on a cross."

Angel made a low aggrieved sound in his chest, and the hairs on the back of Xander's neck rose.

"Spike," Angel said, still staring at the floor.  "What is going on?"

"Poof, Liv.  Liv, poof.  The poof was just leaving.  Put him back where you found him, Peaches, and go leak plasma somewhere else."

Angel shifted his grip on Xander and straightened slightly.  There was a faint tapping sound coming from somewhere; after a moment, Xander realized it was blood dripping from Angel's elbow to the floor.  A dark pool was forming by his feet.   

"Who is Liv?" Angel asked, looking at Spike.

Spike smiled.  "'bout five ten, brown hair, just shot you.  Nice girl, really."

Angel was silent for a moment; then he turned his head to Xander.  "I'm going to have to put you down," he said, and his tone was quiet and apologetic.

"Sure," Xander said.  "No problem."  Cool blood was soaking through the arm of his shirt.

Angel walked back to the bed and lowered Xander onto it, then turned and started toward Spike.  Liv tensed and Angel looked at her.

"Liv," he said, and his tone was flat, as though he weren't really speaking to her at all, but just testing the word aloud.  "You know who I am?"

She looked at Spike, who said nothing.  "Yes," she said after a moment.  The gun was still pointed at the ceiling.

"You can't kill me with that," Angel said, nodding at it.  She stared at him and said nothing.  "But you can piss me off," he said.

She kept silent, and he turned back to Spike.  "What's going on here?" he asked.

Spike stared at him coldly, then thumbed his split lip again.  "Nothing," he said.  "I've got a groupie, don't I?  And I paid his bloody hospital bills, small thanks I've had for that.  Got himself pulped and I scraped him up and gave him a place to stay, and God knows—"

Angel covered the few feet between them in a second and grabbed Spike by the throat.  Liv made a sound that wasn't quite a word, and pointed the gun, and Angel jerked Spike off his feet and collared him against his own body.

"If you shoot, you'll hit him first," Angel said.  Liv stared at him, the gun still pointed.  "Put it down.  On the floor."  She still didn't move; her eyes were flickering from his face to Spike's, and they were wide and angry and frightened.  Spike tried to ram his elbow into Angel's belly, and Angel caught it without looking and twisted.  Spike gave a furious gurgling scream, and Liv's hands tightened on the gun.

"Put it down," Angel said again.  "It won't kill me anyway."

She was still looking to Spike for guidance, but he wasn't in the guidance business; he was too busy thrashing, trying to get his elbow out of Angel's grip.  He'd gone to game face at some point, Xander couldn't tell when.  Everything was happening too fast.  He needed slow motion, he needed replay.

"Put the gun down," Angel said.

Liv looked at him, and her face was furious and desperate, and then the gun tipped in her hands, so the barrel was pointing at the floor.

"Good," Angel said.  "Now put it right down."

She dropped her arms, but didn't put the gun down.  "Let him go," she said.  Her voice was flat.  Angel looked irritated.

"I told you—"

She raised her arm, and the gun was pointed at Xander now.  "Let him go," she said.

There was a moment of silence, while Angel simply looked at her, and she began to walk across the floor to the bed.  It wasn't very much space to cover, all of a sudden.  The gun was pointed at Xander all the way, and when she got close enough the gun nudged the side of his head, warm and strangely familiar.

"Let him go," she said again. 

Xander licked his lips and stared at nothing.

There was a rustle of fabric, and he looked up to see Angel stepping back and Spike yanking himself free, holding his arm as if it hurt.  It was strange to see him in game face; hard to read his expression.  He still had the bruise and the cut lip, and that was interesting.  In a transmission-from-outer-space kind of way.

There was still a gentle pressure against Xander's head, and his cheek itched, but he didn't want to move.

"Clever girl," Spike said.  His tone was oddly flat, as if he were merely saying something expected.  Xander looked up again; Angel was staring at him with that look that could mean anything, and Spike was leaning against the couch, rubbing his arm.  "You really want to earn your keep, you can put a few more rounds in the bastard."

Liv swallowed, and Xander heard her throat click.  The gun was shaking slightly against his head, kissing his scalp.  That seemed like a bad thing.

"You work for him," Angel said.

Liv cleared her throat and said, "Yeah."

"Why?"

She shrugged; the gun brushed Xander's head.

"Because I bloody pay her," Spike said.  "On your merry way, now."

"I can't leave Xander here, Spike."

Spike gave a raw barking laugh and spoke to the floor.  "You want to go with soulpatch, Harris?"

Xander opened his mouth, but his tongue was dry and his throat wouldn't work.  The pressure against his head was maddening; he couldn't think.  He made a sound like a squeak, and stopped.  Spike looked up, annoyed.  Annoyed game face.  Xander stared at him, still trying to make his mouth work.  Spike glanced at the gun as if he’d just now seen it, and his lips tightened.  Then he was human again, blue-eyed and fangless, glaring at Liv.

"Get that bloody thing away from his head."

Liv shifted.  "But—"

"What did I just say?"

The pressure was gone, and she stepped away.  Xander hesitated, then raised his hand and scratched his cheek.  There was a roaring in his ears, and his body felt light.  When he dropped his hand back to the bed, the sheet felt rich and cool beneath his fingers.

"Right," Spike said.  "I asked him, he doesn't want to go, so bugger off."

"He didn't answer."

"I am going to fill you full of lead myself in a minute, you thick-necked prancing bastard.  You can take your bloody—"

"If he says he wants to go, will you let him?"

There was silence.  Xander closed his eyes and drew his fingers through the sheet.  Cool and soft.  His head was airborne.

"Yeah, all right."  Spike's voice was still harsh, but quiet now, for no reason that Xander could see.  "He wants to go, he's all yours."

Another moment of silence, and Xander studied his hand against the sheet.  His skin was dark from sun, scattered with small shiny scars like candle wax.  Work scars, mostly, and he couldn't remember where he'd got any of them.  His pinky nail was black at the root, though, and that one he remembered; another guy had dropped a toolbox on it.  It had hurt like hell at the time.

"Xander."

Angel's voice, and he didn't look up.  His head itched in the spot where the gun had pressed.  The barrel had been warm, because she'd fired it just a few minutes before.  Again, an interesting transmission from planet Earth.

"Xander, do you want to come with me?"

Suddenly he missed Willow so badly it hurt.  He cleared his throat.

"Yeah."

Silence, and he didn't look up, but after a moment Angel's feet started across the floor toward the bed.

"That's nice," Spike said.  "Well, let us know where to send the bill, then."  His voice was sharp and loud again, and Xander looked up.  Spike was still leaning against the couch, nursing his arm, staring at Xander with bright angry eyes.

Xander wanted to say something; It isn't like that, or I don't mean— but there was no way to finish the sentence, or to explain what he did mean.  Whatever that was.  He was leaving, that was all.

"You'll want to be careful with him, poof," Spike said in a low vicious voice, studying his elbow.  "He's the kiss-me-first type.  Likes a little hand-holding."

For a moment the words meant nothing; then Xander felt his face break in utter astonishment, too shocked even to blush.  Angel didn't react at all; it was as if he hadn't heard.  Liv hadn't moved, and Xander couldn't see her face.  He didn't want to.  He dropped his gaze back to his feet, just as Angel got to the bed.

"You seem nervous," he said, and Xander looked up.  Angel was looking at Liv, who was staring back at him with white lips.

"I'm fine," she said.  Her eyes went from his face to the blood stains on the front of his coat, and back.

"How long have you worked for Spike?" he asked, beginning to lean down toward Xander.  His tone was conversational.

She did the obligatory glance at Spike, then said, "A while."

"A few months," Angel said.  His hand was on Xander's arm, but not under it yet.  "Not more than that; I would have known."

She shrugged.

"Not very long," Angel said.  He looked down at Xander, but didn't really seem to be seeing him.

"Liv—" Spike said, in a warning tone.

At the same moment, Angel took his hand off Xander's shoulder, turned smoothly and took the gun from Liv.  He didn't seem to move particularly fast; he just did it.  He held her wrist in one hand and dropped the gun on the bed with the other; when she swung her free arm at his head, he caught that too.  Then he was holding both of her wrists, and they were standing staring at each other in silence.

"Not long enough, I guess," Angel said.

Liv's face went red, and she tried to kick him in the groin.  He sidestepped, yanked her off her feet, and buried his knee in her belly.  She hit the floor with a woofing sound, and he put his foot on the base of her skull.

"Back off," he said to Spike, who was already halfway across the room toward them.    

"Fuck you," Spike said.  His face was splintered, bestial.  While Xander watched, his upper lip peeled back and showed fangs in his human mouth.

"Back off, Spike," Angel repeated, and pressed with his foot.  Liv yelped and coughed, and Spike's eyes sank to her.  He sneered, but stopped where he was.

"I'm taking her," Angel said. 

"The fuck you are," Spike said, and started forward again.  Angel pressed again, but Spike didn't even glance at Liv.  He made it close enough to throw a punch, and Angel caught his arm and took hold of his throat.

"I'm taking her," he said.  "I don't know what's going on here, but I'm going to have a talk with her and I'm going to have a talk with you.  I'm taking both of them to the hotel, and then I'm coming back here.  And you are going to explain."

Spike gurgled something.  Angel shook him.

"If you aren't here when I come back I'll make you very, very sorry.  Understood?"

Spike gave him two fingers, and Angel punched him in the face.  Liv made a frantic getting-up gesture, and Angel frowned and flattened her with his foot.  Spike's head was rolling on his neck.  Angel studied him a moment, then lowered him to the ground.

"Stand up."  At first Spike's knees didn't seem to hold; then he stood shakily, blood running down his chin into his shirt.  He wiped it, stared at his hand, then looked up at Angel.

"Fuck," he said weakly.  "Just like old times, eh?"

Angel looked at him in silence, then turned away and picked up the gun from the bed.  He slipped it into his pocket.

"Xander," he said, putting out his other hand.  Xander paused, then put his good hand in it, and was heaved to his feet.  He tried not to look at the blood on Spike's shirt, the expression on Spike's face.

"Don't interfere, Spike," Angel said, and started to stoop to pick up Liv.  Spike held still a moment; then his face twisted and he took a step forward.

Angel came up swinging, and jacked Spike straight in the chin with a snap like a hammer on slate.  The impact jerked through his body and into Xander, rattling his teeth.  Spike landed five feet off in a messy heap.

They stood there a moment, watching to see whether he would move.  He didn't.  Liv gave a low dismal moan and Angel bent down and hauled her to her feet.

"Come on," he said.  "We're getting out of here."



They took the Nova.  Angel's Plymouth was nowhere in sight, and Liv refused to produce keys to the Jag.  The Nova's keys were in the ignition, and Xander reflected that, hey, if they drove it out at least he'd have it back.  And that was probably all the silver lining he was going to get.

"How'd you get here?" he asked, as Angel was lowering him into the passenger seat.  "Carpool?"

"Sewer," Angel said, nodding his head at the corner of the garage.  Xander looked; there was an open drain by the DeSoto.

"Beats the bus, I guess."

"Do you have any rope?" 

"Do I—"  He looked back; Angel was still holding Liv by the neck, and as he said the words, she started to struggle.  He shifted his grip with an annoyed expression.  "Uh, no.  No rope."  Angel turned away to look around the garage, and something occurred to Xander.  "But duct tape.  A couple of rolls, in the trunk."

"Duct tape works," Angel said, and walked around to pop the trunk.  When he leaned through the driver's side door, Xander could hear Liv breathing hard.  Her forehead smacked the back seat window as Angel leaned, and she jerked and winced.

"Ow."

"Don't shoot me next time," Angel said calmly, and popped the trunk.

Xander sat still and waited while Angel went around behind the car and taped Liv.  She said something short and sharp, and Angel didn't respond except with a loud yank of tape.  Xander flinched slightly at the sound, and studied the Nova's dash.  Dusty, and the interior smelled like work clothes.  He really should clean it out.

The back passenger door opened, and Angel dropped Liv in, her hands taped behind her back.  She bounced sideways and tried to kick the door into his legs, and he stepped out of the way, then scooped her legs up and tossed them in after her.  She rolled off the seat and into the footwell.

"Don't shoot me next time," he repeated, and slammed the door on her.

Xander stared at the dust on the dash and listened to Liv's fast sharp breathing.  His stomach rolled.  He expected her to say something, but she didn't, and after a minute Angel got into the driver's seat and started the engine.

"Seat belt," he said, and Xander just stared at him.  Angel put the car in reverse and looked at him.  "Do you need help with it?"

"Oh.  No."  He pulled the seat belt across his chest and clicked it closed.  The sound of the lock was like the completion of some delicate mechanism, and now he felt fully surreal.  He could look into the back seat and see Bony Nose or Buffy, it wouldn't matter.  He could wake up at any moment.  That would be fine.

"How does this open?" Angel asked, backing up and pointing the car at the door.  "Liv?"

She didn't say anything, and after a moment Xander said, "It just does.  It's an electronic eye."

Angel gave him an odd look, but pressed the gas, and they rolled forward.  The door started to open.  It was dark outside.

As they were creeping out, Xander turned and looked around at the garage.  The Jag parked neatly by the door to the stairs, the DeSoto sagging on its blocks, the shadowed piles of old tires and canvas tarps and dusty oily garage crap.  His eyes went back to the door to the stairs; he half expected it to open, half expected to see Spike appear and come after them.

They started up the ramp, and Liv moaned.  From somewhere in the piles of trash and dirty work shirts on the floor of the car, she said, "Please—you don't understand."

"Don't understand what?" Angel said, without looking around.

She was silent, and then she said, "You have to let me go."

They were out under the door now, and Angel pulled into the street, looked both ways, and turned left.  When he put his foot down the engine bitched, but got to work.  He glanced down behind the seat.

"Don't shoot me next time, and I'll think about it."

 

---

Chapter 14

Somehow Xander had started to think of the warehouse as existing in its own dimension, somewhere outside of actual space and time, and so it was a shock to see the river to his right, and to realize that they were in plain old southeast L.A.  He’d bounced through once or twice during his first few weeks in the city—enough to note that it was mostly skid row hotels, missions, and warehouses.

If he never saw another warehouse in his life, he would die a happy man.

Liv had hitched herself up onto the back seat, and sat staring out the window in silence.  Angel hadn't said anything in ten minutes.  Xander fiddled with the bandage on his knee, watched billboards and gas stations go by, and tried to feel like he was really here, like this was really happening.

It sank in slowly, a little at a time, and that was probably a mercy.  They passed an SUV and the woman inside glanced at him, then stared.  He remembered he was still wearing the shirt with Angel's blood on it.  And his face—Angel's blood was on his face, too.  He must look like a serial killer.

He wiped his face with his hand, and noticed that he was shaking.  Angel looked over.

"I'm all—"  Xander plucked at the shirt.  "I look like Jackie Kennedy, here."

"Is there a towel you can use?"

"In the trunk, maybe."

Angel frowned.  "Just try to keep out of sight.  I don't want to stop if we can help it."

Xander slouched in his seat and wiped his bloodied fingers on the corner of his shirt.  "Yeah, okay.  Have fun explaining all this to the nice traffic officer."

Angel checked his mirrors and said nothing. 

Xander leaned his head against the seat and watched the streetlights streak past the window.  He was cold, and his body was just starting to remember that he hadn't given it any Demerol in a while.  He wanted a change of clothes, a bath, a bed.  A little piece of oblivion to call his own.

He had a bad feeling he wasn't going to get that.

"We'll be there soon," Angel said, and Xander fiddled with his bandage and watched the streetlights.  They were going to the hotel.  What if he didn't want to go there?  What if he asked Angel to drop him off at his apartment, instead?  If it still was his apartment.

"What day is it?" he asked.  Angel paused.

"Saturday.  The fourth."

The fourth of August.  He'd gone to The Summer Place on Friday night, at the end of July.  He'd been out of the world for a week.

Then the date struck him, and he realized he'd missed rent.  "Oh, shit," he said.

"What?"

"Nothing.  Rent. "

Angel gave him a cautious sideways look.  "Yeah," he said.  "I wasn't going to bring that up, but—“

"I'm out, right?"

"I...I think so.  I went by your place yesterday, and it looked like maybe it's been rented."

He said it so tentatively, as if it might all just be a mistake and he didn't want to alarm anyone, that Xander laughed.  "Fuck," he said.  "Well, that's...that's a real drag."  He thought of his stuff, and stopped laughing.  "That really sucks."

"I'm sorry.  If I'd known sooner, I would have—"

"It's okay."  Xander chewed his lip and stared at the lights.  "It's okay, whatever.  It was a dump anyway."

"Well...yeah."

He laughed again.  "Thanks."  He watched the lights for a minute, then asked, "Why did you go by there in the first place?"  Which was another way of asking why he'd turned up at Spike's.  Why he was saving the day.

"Willow called.  She hadn't heard from you, couldn't get you on the phone.  She asked me to check up."

"Huh."  Willow.  Of course, Willow.  She saved him, even when she didn't really know he was in trouble.  He closed his eyes and swallowed, and realized with a sick pang that he was still wearing the same shorts, the ones he'd worn in bed with Spike.  Had he been in bed with Spike?  The gears in his mind slipped a cog.

"Huh," he said again, to cover the surge of shame and sickness.  But Angel was looking at him sideways, and it was just like having Spike around, sniffing everything out before there was a chance to cover it up. 

"Are you all right?"

"Fine."  He set his jaw, opened his mouth, closed it again.  "Look, I don't think—I'm not sure I want to go to the hotel.  I mean, not like this.  I'm...a mess."  He touched the shirt again, unable to make himself touch the shorts.  Angel frowned.

"It's not your fault.  You can get cleaned up when we get there."

Xander ground his teeth and looked away, out the window.  "That's not what I mean.  I mean—"  He got hung up, couldn't think what to say.  Liv was still sitting in the back somewhere, silent and still.  "I mean, I don't really feel like seeing Cordelia right now.  Or Wesley.  Or anyone."

Angel didn't say anything for a moment.  He signaled, merged left, and slowed down for a light.  They were back in civilization now; Xander could see the top of a 7-11 sign glowing, and it was real and familiar enough to make him feel like crying.

Traffic started to move again, and they went with it.  The slip in the belts was getting worse.  He should get under the hood someday and take care of that.

"I know what you meant," Angel said.  He signaled again, and they turned left.  "There won't be anyone at the hotel tonight.  You don't have to see anyone."

Xander scratched his cheek and stared at his feet.  His throat hurt, and his eyes were hot.  "Okay," he said softly.  "Thanks."

"It's not your fault, Xander," Angel said again, more quietly.  "Believe me when I say that Spike and I are going to have a conversation."

Liv shifted in the backseat, and Angel's eyes went to the rearview mirror.  Neither of them said anything.

Xander slouched lower, and watched the world spin out along the top of the window.



When they got to the hotel, Angel parked out front and left Xander in the car while he hauled Liv in.  Xander sat listening to the engine tick down, to cars and voices and the sounds of the world.  He noticed that Angel had taken the keys with him.

He was going to have to call Willow.  Willow, Buffy, Giles.  The real world; he was going to have to make contact with it, and lie to its face like a son of a bitch.  One tangled web of deceit, coming up.

He ached more now, and he was shivering even though it was warm.   Probably a delayed reaction to...everything.  There'd been a gun to his head, less than an hour ago.  It had felt weirdly familiar.

He wiped his hands on his shorts, and then Angel was opening the car door, a blanket slung over his shoulder.  Xander glanced at it and looked away.

"Hey, I'm fine, I'm not a quake victim or anything."

"You're covered in blood," Angel said, and slung the blanket around him.  "I have neighbors."

"Oh."  That made sense, that was tolerable.  And the blanket actually felt good.  He let Angel lift him up, kick the door closed, and haul him toward the hotel.  He could walk a little by now, but Angel wasn't really giving him the chance.  Well, it was faster this way, and there were the neighbors to consider.

Inside, Liv was sitting in a straight-back chair in the middle of the lobby.  Angel did have rope, and he'd used it.

"Hey," Xander said reflexively, as Angel lugged him past her and started up the stairs.  She watched in silence.

"There's a couple of rooms made up down here."  Angel carried him down the hall and opened the first door on the right.  The room was small and pretty barren, but it was clean and it had the basics.  A bed, a chair, a telephone.  "All right?"

"Yeah, sure.  I mean—thanks, it looks great."  Angel put him down on the bed and stepped back, looked around, then rubbed the back of his head with a slightly bemused expression.

"Uh, I think there are towels—"  He went to the bathroom door and put his head through.  "Yeah.  And I can get you a shirt, some trousers, whatever you need."

"Thanks."  The thought of wearing Angel's clothes was too weird to linger on, so he didn't.  "Does that work?" he asked, looking at the phone.

"I think so."  Angel picked it up, listened, and nodded.

"I should call Willow, let her know I'm okay."

Angel held the receiver to his chest a minute, then put it back in the cradle and looked at his watch.  "Yeah.  Well, it's late.  You might want to leave it till tomorrow."

"What did you tell her so far?"

"Just that your place was empty, you might have moved."  Angel's eyes were dark and steady; he knew there would be lying.  "That was yesterday; I haven't called yet today."

Xander nodded and examined his bandage.  It was grey and fraying.

"That needs changing.  And your arm—"

"It's fine.  I'm fine.  I just need a bath, maybe some Tylenol if you've got it."  He'd lost hold of the Demerol back when—well, back when Angel was shot.  Hell, if anyone should be looking for Tylenol, it was Angel.

"I'll put it on the night table.  Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?"

"Plenty sure.  Thanks.  I just need—"  He blew out a breath and smiled tightly, suddenly afraid his voice was going to break.  "I just need a bath."

Angel stood there a moment longer, looking at him, and the smile was getting smaller and tighter, and he kind of wanted to scream.

Finally, Angel turned to go.  "I'll be downstairs," he said.  "I need to have a talk with this Liv person."

"Yeah," Xander said.  "Ask her about those tattoos."

Angel stopped and looked back around at him, and Xander tapped a finger behind his ear.  "Little spikes," he said.  "It's some crazy shit."

"Little—"  Angel stood there chewing on that pretty hard, and Xander raised his eyebrows.

"What?"

Angel looked at him and blinked.  "Nothing.  I'll put some clothes on the bed."  He raised a hand in a vague absent going-now gesture, and then he was gone.  His footsteps went quickly down the hall, and another door opened.

The tattoos meant something to him, and in any other mood Xander would have called bullshit, but not just now.  He didn't want to talk to Angel anymore tonight.  He didn't want to think.  He wanted to be alone, and he wanted to be clean, and he wanted to sleep.

He glanced at the telephone, and that was enough to get him moving.  It was a small room, easy enough to get to the bathroom if he leaned on the bed and walls.  The tub was old, big enough to drown in.

As Spike said, nice to have a dream.



He woke up in a tub full of tepid water, to the sound of the tap dripping.  Old pipes, old fittings.  Washer, his mind told him.  Rubber gasket, maybe.  The Hyperion needed a handyman.

He was stiff and sore, and his shoulder was playing a doleful blues number, because the sling had been soaked in blood too and he'd wrenched it off.  It was lying on the tile on top of the bloodied shirt and the shorts, and he didn't know what to do with any of it.  There wasn't a trash bin to put them in.

He sat up slowly and pulled the plug, then groped over the edge for the towel he'd dropped earlier.  Out of the water, his shoulder hurt more.  Time to see if Angel had made good on the Tylenol promise.

He was an old man again, a hundred years old with ground glass in all his sockets, and getting dried off and out the door took forever.  There was a pair of trousers and a shirt on the bed, and—pay dirt—a prescription bottle on the night table.  It wasn't just Tylenol; it was good old T3.  Maybe Angel didn't know the difference.  The prescription was Wesley's.

Xander dry-swallowed two pills and sat carefully down on the bed.  He could hear voices downstairs; Angel and Liv.  Angel was doing most of the talking, which maybe wasn't a good thing.  Well, that was Angel's problem.

He wriggled into the trousers and thought about the shirt, but his arms weighed fifty pounds apiece.  He got under the covers and lay listening to the voices.  Most of what Liv said sounded like No, but he could be wrong about that.  Anyway, it wasn't his problem anymore.

Not his problem.  That knowledge did a slow warm bloom in his chest, and he pulled in a deep breath and reminded himself to thank Angel—really thank him, with actual sincerity—whenever he woke up.  And yeah, sure, there were lots of things that still were his problem, but before he could start to think about them, he fell asleep.



The loft was dim when he woke up, and he thought, Daytime.  Which meant Spike was probably asleep beside him, and if he thought about it for a minute he'd probably register a cool hand on his back or arm.  Not such a bad thing, really.  Not the worst thing in the world.

He closed his eyes, sank back into sleep for a while, and woke up later in a small bare room he didn't recognize.  Then he did.  The Hyperion, contractor’s wet dream.  He was lying with his face pressed almost to the wall, and the wallpaper smelled like dust.

He pushed back into the middle of the bed and sat up slowly.  The room was quiet and dim; there were cheap hotel curtains over the window, and through them he could see it was a bright blue sunny day.  A beautiful day to be alive.

There was a white T-shirt at the foot of the bed, and now he vaguely remembered putting it there, just before dropping off the edge of the world.  And on the night table—the bottle of T3 was still there, uncapped.  He took a couple more to quiet down the ache in his shoulder, then pulled the shirt over his head.  It hurt to put his right arm through, but at least he could move it now.

He needed to call Willow.  The thought of her put a quick shudder of guilt and fear in his belly, and he had to stab it down hard.  He was being an idiot.  Just call her, lie to her, tell her everything was fine, and hang up quick.  If he didn't do it, she might break out the magical GPS, and then he'd have some serious explaining to do.

He picked up the phone and dialed.  Cleared his throat a few times while he listened to the tone, and hoped with serious and sudden panic that they didn't have Caller ID.

"Hello?"  It was a froggy, sleepy, morning voice, not Willow's.  Buffy.  Sleepy Buffy.  He smiled at his feet.

"Hey, Buff.  It's Xander."

"Xander?"  He could hear her fumbling with the receiver, knocking something over on the dresser.  "What time is it?"

"Uh—"  No clock in the room.

More fumbling.  "It's...eight o'clock in the morning, Xander.  Not even.  My mother doesn't get up this early on a Sunday."

"Sorry."  Not going so well.  But still, full speed ahead, phasers set on 'lie.'  "Sorry, I just ran into Angel last night and he said Wills was worried or something—"

"She was.  Me too.  We both were.  Worried.  Where have you been?"  He heard Willow's voice in the background, a sleepy question he couldn't make out.

"I'm fine, I've been right here.  Well, not right here—I had a little thing with my landlord, I kind of had to make tracks.  Sorry, I kept meaning to call and let you know, but it's been really busy—"

He let it hang, hoping.  After a moment, Buffy said, "Oh."  There was hurt in her voice.

"I'm really sorry," he said again.  "I didn't know you were trying to get hold of me, or I would have called."  He hated himself, hated himself, wanted to get up and catch the next train to Sunnydale, gimp straight to their dorm room and beg forgiveness.  "Was it, you know, something in particular she wanted?"

A pause, while Buffy processed that, and he squeezed his eyes shut and covered the mouthpiece to take a deep breath.  "No," she said finally.  "No, I think she was just checking in."

"Okay.  Well, tell her I'm fine, okay?  And, hey—how are you guys?"

"Fine," Buffy said absently.  "Everything's fine—hang on a second."  She went away for a minute, and he heard a quick exchange, then Willow asked another question.  Buffy came back.  "What kind of thing with your landlord?" she asked.  She sounded a little sharper now, a little more awake.

He opened his eyes and stared at the cheap curtains, the blue sky beyond.  "Just a landlord thing," he said.  "Stupid pipes thing.  No hot water half the time, it gets old.  You know."

Buffy relayed that, and Willow asked another question.  In a minute she was going to take the phone, and he was going to have to talk to her.  Sleepy Buffy was a safer bet.

"Listen, I'm sorry I woke you guys up.  I'm on weird hours at the site, I'm all turned around.  But I'm fine, I'll call you in a couple of days when they flip the switch on my phone, okay?"

"Where are you staying?" Buffy asked.  "Are you okay?  Do you want—"

"I'm fine," he said again, and knew at once he'd hit that too hard, made it sound pissed off.  "Sorry, Buff, I'm really fine.  Just a little tired, kind of strung out from the move.  I got another place, it's just as craptastic as the last one.  You guys should come visit once it's fumigated."

"He's in another place," Buffy said, not bothering to cover the phone this time.  Willow said something, and Buffy came back and asked, "Did you hang up your bead curtain yet?"

"First thing," he said, staring at the floor.  "Wouldn't be the Harris House of Love without it."

"Want to say hi to Willow?"

Pause.

"Sure, yeah.  Hi to Willow.  Give her a big sloppy kiss for me—I gotta run.  The Nova's double-parked.  I'll call in a couple of days, okay?"

"Okay.  If you need anything—"

"I'll send up a flare."

"Yeah.  And...you know Angel's there, right?  If you...I don't know, if you need anything, I guess."  Her voice was a little tight on that one, but she still said it.  He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.  Xander Harris, ladies and gentlemen.  Colossal jerkoff.

"I'm fine, Buffy.  I'll call in a couple of days."

They hung up and he sat staring at the floor, thinking about a fast Greyhound to Sunnydale, and a dorm room full of early Sunday sunshine and sleepy girls, and how much he wanted to be there instead of here.  He couldn't be there.  It wasn't an option.  And if he kept up the asshole routine, pretty soon they probably wouldn't even want him.

He took a deep breath and levered himself to his feet.  Someday he'd be rich and idle, and he'd have time for a nervous breakdown.

He was hungry, and thirsty again, though he'd drunk shamelessly from the bathtub tab the night before.  It was the first proper morning he'd had in a week, and he was having diner visions, so real they hurt.  Toast with butter and jam, scrambled eggs, bacon hot enough to make little crackling gasps on the plate.  A cup of coffee.  He'd kill for a cup of joe.

He put the pill bottle in his pocket and started for the door.  Walking was better today; not a pleasure, but manageable in brief bursts.  He let his left leg do most of the work and hung onto the doorknob, the wall, whatever he came near.  He was halfway down the hall when it occurred to him that Cordelia or Wesley might be downstairs.

He paused and listened.  No sound—and actually it was kind of early for work, and maybe they didn't even work on Sundays.  And if they were there, what was he going to do about it?  He couldn't stay socked into the little room the whole time, ordering pizzas and hoping no one would notice him.  The only one he could see that working on was Angel, who'd probably forgotten him already.

If the help showed up today, he'd just have to bite the bullet and lie some more.  He stood there a minute, swaying, wondering what the hell he could say.  Nothing came to mind, and his right knee was starting to gripe, and finally he just gave up and started down the stairs with no fixed plan in mind.  If he ran into them, he'd just have to trust to the Xander Harris stream-of-consciousness distraction technique.

The stairs took some concentration, because he had to cling and hop, cling and hop, and by the time he got to the bottom he was thinking room service would have been a better idea.  On the plus side, nobody was around to witness the ungainly.

No—scratch that.  The chair was still in the middle of the lobby.  Liv was still in the chair.  Her chin was on her chest, her face dropped, and all he could tell from here was that her eyes were closed.

He glanced around, but there was no sign of Angel anywhere.  He looked back at her and felt the back of his neck tighten.  She'd spent the night there, in the chair, while he'd been bathing and sleeping and talking to Buffy.  That seemed like a raw deal.  On the other hand, she'd threatened to shoot him, and she'd actually put a couple of bullets in Angel.  So maybe the deal wasn't really that raw; maybe it was just kind of medium-rare, and pretty much what she'd ordered.

He stood watching her a minute longer, and she didn't move, and he started to feel a little uneasy, trying to see her face.  Angel wouldn't have hit her—he was a good guy.  Helped the helpless.  Well, he'd kneed her, but that was self-defense.  Tying her to a chair and hitting her was something else completely, and Angel wouldn't do that.

Just to be sure he cleared his throat, and her head lifted.  Her face was bleary and tired, but not bruised.  She looked like someone who'd spent the night tied to a chair, possibly like someone who'd had to answer a lot of questions and listen to a few choice words of advice.  Maybe a quick punch in the kisser would have been more merciful.

She looked warily hopeful until she saw him; then her face fell.

"Nice to see you too," he said.

She worked her mouth as though it tasted bad, which it probably did.  "Xander," she said.

"Present."

She pulled a little, experimentally, on the ropes.  They didn't move, and she didn't look surprised.  "Okay," she said.  "Okay, will you please untie me?"

"No."

She yanked hard on her wrists, more out of frustration than anything else, it looked like.  "Look," she said.  "It's morning, it's daytime.  Spike's stuck in that place.  You have to let me go."

He took a step back and sat down slowly on the stairs.  "You're talking like we have a shared concern, here."

"I don't—look, I'm not going to do anything to you.  I just want to get back there.  I have to get back there."

He waited.  She shifted uncomfortably and he reflected that she probably had to pee by now.

"You know what those guys were like," she said.  "They put you in hospital, and it was just a message.  What do you think they'll do to him?"

"I don't know," he said honestly.  "But again, you're talking like I care."

She stared at him for a moment, and he saw her eyes go to his neck, then back to his face.  He looked away.

"Why should they show up now, anyway?  They don't have his address, do they?"

"No.  I don't know.  They're looking, and Angel went there last night, they might have followed—"

"Through the sewers?"  He laughed.  "Good one.  And the mystery mastermind is what, a Morlock?"

"Actually, a caedo,” Angel said.  They both jumped and swivelled to look at him; he was standing in the doorway, holding a book and a coffee cup. 

"Jesus Christ," Xander said, putting a hand to his chest.  "Don't do that."

"Sorry."  Angel walked into the lobby and held the cup out to Xander.  "You want this?"

"Hell, yes."  He took it, burnt his tongue on it, and felt an ounce or two more human.  "Thanks."

Angel was already walking away, closing the book and tucking it under his arm.  "There's food in the kitchen.  I'll be in my office if you want me."  He paused and looked back.  "Don't untie her."

"No," Xander said.  "A what?"

"A caedo," Angel said, turning again to walk out.  "Ask her about it."

Xander looked at Liv.  "A what?"

She stared at him, and he could tell from the creaking of the ropes that she was testing them again.  "I'm thirsty," she said after a minute.  "And I need the bathroom."

"Sorry about that."

"I helped you."

"Was that before or after you put a gun to my head?"

She tried to stare him down, but had to look away after a minute.  "Yeah, well," she said.  The ropes creaked.

"What's a caedo?" he asked.

"Let me go."

"Whatever it is, it's after Spike, right?"

"Untie me, Xander."

"He must pay you a hell of a lot."

She stared at him in silence.

"You want some coffee?"

Pause.  "Yes."  Pause.  "Please."

He pried himself off the step, stumped over, and held the cup so she could drink from it.  It burnt her too, and she made a face.

"Ow."

"Yeah, apparently he boils it."

"Tastes like."  She grimaced, then glanced down at his legs.  "How's the knee?"

"Fine.  Better.  I'll survive."

"You still taking the antibiotic?"

He shrugged and chanced some more coffee.

"You have to finish them, or it's no good.  You can't just stop halfway through."

"I’ll see if Angel has any Lysol kicking around in his medicine cabinet."  He held the cup out again and she sipped carefully.  "You know, it's kind of too late for the whole cryptic silence thing.  I think the cat has pretty much clawed right through the bag."

She said nothing, and he waited a minute, then shrugged and started to stump off in what must be the direction of the kitchen.  Well, the direction Angel had taken anyway.  Caedo was a caedo was a caedo, and it wasn't his problem anymore, and he was hungry as hell.

"A caedo is a demon," she said, and he stopped and half-turned to show he was listening.  "You know about demons, right?"

He smiled, even though it wasn't really funny.  "Yeah, I know from demons."

"Those guys who beat you up, they work for a caedo."

"And you know this because why?"

She paused, and looked oddly shamefaced.  "Angel told me," she said after a moment.

He stared at her, then laughed.  "Angel told you?  You found this out from Angel?"  Her cheeks were red, and she was scowling at the floor.  "Man, you should get kidnapped more often.  It's like taking a field trip—you travel, you learn a little something—"

"Shut up."

"Man, that's great."  He paused.  "Hang on—how did Angel know?"

She gritted her teeth and looked aside, then said, "I told him about the tattoos."

"The—what, the snakes those guys had?"

She nodded.

"Snake tattoos equals caedo?"

Another nod, even less patient.

He chewed his lip.  "But you have them too.  Little spikes."

"Yeah."

"And you work for Spike."

"Yeah."

"I'm confused."

"Xander, I have to pee."

He stared at her for a minute, then held up his index finger—one minute—turned, and went out.  He passed a kitchenette and continued on until he came to a door that was ajar.  There was a light on inside.  He tapped softly and put his head in.  Angel was sitting behind a desk covered in papers and books, holding a phone to his ear.  He looked up at Xander without speaking, and Xander stepped out and went back to the kitchenette.

There was a loaf of bread in the freezer, a jar of Joyce's jam in the door of the fridge.  He spent a few moments wondering how that had made it here, then pulled it out and started making toast.  He was sitting on the counter eating a second piece when Angel came in.

"Everything okay?"

"Great, yeah.  She needs the bathroom."

"Oh."  Angel looked a little nonplussed.  Apparently he hadn't tied anyone to a chair for a while.  "Right, thanks."

"You really think she has to be tied up like that?"

"I think if she wasn't, she'd be out the door in a second."

"Back to Spike."

"Yeah."

Xander studied his toast.  "She's worried someone's going to attack him.  The guys who did this, actually."  He indicated his knees.  "They were kind of bad-ass.  And kind of human."

"I know."

He knew?  Well, he'd been talking to Liv all night, he'd got the broad strokes. 

"Well—"  Xander took a small bite of toast, and couldn't taste it at all.  "I don't know what the hell a caedo is, but those guys were serious.  And Spike's chipped."

Angel didn't say anything.

"Really chipped," Xander said after a moment.  "Chipped like it's going out of style.  I mean, it was always pretty zippy, but now it goes to eleven.  I saw it fire, it looked like he was being trepanned."

Angel was silent.

"Not that that's a bad thing," Xander said quickly.  "You know I'm strongly pro-chip.  It's just—"

"It's getting worse?" Angel asked.

"In third grade, Craig Mueller jammed a paintbrush up his nose and bled so much the school nurse fainted.  Like that."

Angel was fiddling with a fork, studying the shine in the light.  "Hm."

"Well, I'm just saying.  I don't know what he did to piss this caedo thing off, but if those guys show up, he's dust."

Angel put the fork down carefully.  "He hired Liv."

Xander didn't get it for a minute; then he did.  "He hired a butler, and this caedo's out for blood?"

"He didn't just hire her.  He copied the caedos—she's got the same tattoos."

Xander put the toast down and wiped his hands on his trousers, then remembered they weren't his trousers.  Too late.  "Okay, there's a lot I'm not getting, here.  What, exactly, is her job?"

"That's the interesting question," Angel said.  "That's what I want her to tell me."

It was on the tip of Xander's tongue to say something about the blood bags, about the night when Liv may or may not have—probably had, practically certainly had—killed someone.  But he didn't say it.  Something was bothering him, he had the feeling he'd forgotten something.  He'd had that feeling a lot lately.

"Well, you'd better get in there before you have to put newspaper down under her chair," he said, and turned back to his toast.  He wasn't so hungry now, but he was damned well going to eat it.

Angel turned to go, then turned back.  "I talked with Wesley about the caedo.  I told him to take a couple of days off.  Cordelia, too."

Xander glanced at him, then away, before he could really make eye contact.  "Okay.  Thanks."

Angel went out without saying anything else.  At times there were real benefits to the silent, broody type.

Xander pitched the rest of his toast into the trash.



By the time he made it back out to the lobby, Angel was just herding Liv in again from the bathroom.  He wasn't holding onto her, but he was walking pretty close on her heels, and when she looked sideways at the doors he said, "No way," in a flat definitive tone.  She kept looking, and he took hold of her shoulder and steered her back to the chair.

"There's no point in keeping me here," she said, as he started lashing her back in place.  "I'm not going to be any good to you."

"I don't expect you to be," he said, without looking up.  "I just don't want you to be any good to Spike."

"You want him to get killed."

Angel finished lashing and tied a knot at her back.  He didn't reply.

"If those guys find him, they'll kill him.  How careful were you when you went there?"

He stepped back and studied the knot a minute.  "If a caedo was looking for Spike, it would have found him by now.  He's not exactly low-profile."

She turned in the chair and looked at him.  "No," she said after a moment.  She didn't sound certain; she sounded as if she were trying to get certain.

"I found you in a day.  All they have to do is ask around."

She stared at him, her hands twisting in the ropes.  Her face was strained; then it was angry.  "No," she said again, and turned away.  "There are four million people in this city.  It's not that easy."

"It is if you know who to ask."

She sat staring at the floor, while the rope creaked and rubbed over the back of the chair.

"You're going to get a burn doing that," Angel said.  She ignored him.

Xander sat down quietly on the stairs and leaned against the balustrade.  Angel glanced at him, walked away, and came back with a chair that matched Liv's.  He put it down a few feet from hers and sat down in it.

"Liv, you can't help Spike.  I can.  But not if I don't know what's going on."

She gave him a quick angry glare, and said nothing.  He crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling.  Watching them, Xander wondered how much of the night they'd spent in the same positions.

"Okay," he said, "I don't get this.  Spike knows about caedos, right?  Because he copied them, he did the tattoo thing, pissed in their campfire, whatever."  He waited; after a second, Angel nodded.  "Right, okay.  So how come she doesn't know what a caedo is?"

Angel lowered his gaze to Liv.  "We've been talking about that," he said.  "About what Spike's told her, and what he hasn't."

Liv flushed again.  After a minute she said, "I'm hungry."

"You won't starve."  Angel leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees.  "Xander said the chip's been getting worse.  That it makes him bleed now."

She looked up, surprised, and stared at Xander.  "It's always done that," she said, then shut her mouth hard, as if she hadn't meant to say anything.

"Always since when?"

She stared hard at the floor.

"You've known him—what, four months?  Five?"  Angel looked over his shoulder at Xander.  "My guess is he hired her to help him get it out."

Xander was holding his hand against his neck; he realized it all of a sudden and dropped it self-consciously.  "Right," he said.  "Sure.  Maybe she's a closet neurosurgeon.  Maybe she just got back from AMA."

Angel turned back to Liv.  "Where did you go?" he asked.

"Let me go."

"I can't help him if you don't talk to me."

"You can help him by letting me go."

"I don't think you know what you're doing.  I don't think Spike tells you everything, and even if he did, I don't think you'd be much help to him."

"Give me back my gun and we'll see how much help I am."

"Shooting vampires doesn't work, Liv.  You shot me before you even knew who I was, or what I was doing.  If I'd been any other vampire, I'd have ripped your head off."  He paused.  "If I'd been human, you'd have killed me."

She went a little white at that, and didn't have a comeback.  Xander shifted, thinking of the blood bags in Spike's fridge, and she looked up at him quickly.  Then her eyes slid away again and for some reason he hadn't said anything.  Angel glanced at Xander, then looked back at Liv.

"You could have killed Xander," he said, and it was a good shot but the wrong basket, it wasn't the reason she'd gone white.  Still, the truth of it suddenly struck Xander and he had to swallow.  If Angel hadn't turned, hidden Xander's body behind his own—

He had to remember to thank Angel with actual sincerity, very soon.

"I don't think you really know what you're into here," Angel said quietly.  "And no, I don't want to see Spike get killed.  I'm offering to help, Liv."

She sat for a while in silence, staring at her feet.  They waited.  Finally she looked up.

"Then let me go," she said, and yanked on the ropes.



Angel tried a while longer, and from the tone of his voice Xander got the impression that he was doling out his last meager reserves of patience.  Liv was monosyllabic.  She kept working at the ropes, until finally Angel's nose wrinkled and he stood up suddenly.

"That's enough.  Xander, I'll be in my office."  He went out without a backward look, and Xander, who had been in a semi-doze with his head propped against the stair rail, sat up in confusion.

"What—where's he going?"

Liv glanced back over her shoulder and wiggled the ropes again.  A drop of blood hit the tile behind her.  Xander looked at it, then at her.

"What, you're going to saw your hands off to escape?"

She turned back to him, grimaced slightly, and stopped wiggling.  "No."

"That's kind of gross, you know."

"Yeah.  Made him stop, though."

"You couldn't just ask for a recess?"

She pushed against the floor with her heels, and the chair tipped slightly onto its back legs.  "Think it would break if I dropped it?"

"No.  I think you'd concuss yourself.  But be my guest."

She lowered the chair and studied him.  "What did Spike ever do to you, Xander?"

A silent alarm went off and he sat up straight.  "What?"  Was he flushed?  He felt flushed, suddenly.

"He took you to the hospital—"

"You took me to the hospital."

"—gave you a place to stay, took care of you.  So why do you want to get him killed?"

He was sitting like had a ramrod in his shirt.  Relax.  Try to be slightly less transparent.  Aim for translucent.  "I've known Spike a lot longer than you have.  I have countless reasons not to care at all if he sublimates."

She stared at him.  "Yeah, maybe he stole your bike when you were twelve.  Spike is minor league.  I've seen major league, and he isn't it."

"Major league," he repeated.  "Define 'major league.'"

She shrugged.  "Major league is scary shit.  Major league is people I wouldn't work for in a million years.  But they never have trouble hiring because if you say no they kill you."

"Okay."  He held up a hand, staring at the floor.  "Okay, hold on.  I have so many comments and questions."

"Spike's a pretty good boss, Xander.  I don't want to see him get dusted."

"What exactly do you do, Liv?"

She shrugged and stared at the wall somewhere over his shoulder.  "I do a job.  I help him out."

"You provide hot meals."  He lowered his voice as he said it, though he still wasn't sure why he didn't want Angel to know.

She kept staring at the wall, but pursed her lips as if she were considering her response.  "That wasn't supposed to be part of it," she said after a minute.

"Part of what?"

"The other thing is, if he gets dusted while I'm working for him, it makes me look bad.  I won't exactly be anyone else's first choice."

"My heart weeps for you.  Will you tell me something, please?"

She looked at him.

"Did you kill someone, that night?"

She looked away and started to work at the ropes, then winced and stopped.  "That wasn't supposed to be part of it," she said again.

He leaned back until he was propped against the riser behind him.  "How many?"

She was staring at the wall again, and working her wrists against the ropes almost absently.  "I don't know," she said.  A few drops of blood fell to the tile behind her.

"Enough that you had a system.  You put it in bags for him."

She said nothing, just kept working her arms, and the blood kept falling.    Xander stared at the spots.  It was going to drive Angel crazy when he came back.

"Major league," he said after a minute.  "That's pretty fucking major league, Liv."

She shrugged.  "Not compared to what's out there."

"What's worse than killing people?"

She looked at him a moment, then shook her head.  "Read your history, Xander.  All kinds of things are worse than what I do."

He watched the red drops mark the floor behind her until he couldn't take it anymore.  "Cut that out.  It's gross."

She looked surprised, as if she hadn't noticed she was doing it, but she stopped.  They sat in silence for a few minutes, while he stared at his feet and she shifted uncomfortably in the chair a couple of times.

"Xander."  He looked up; she was staring at him with a solemn  expression.  "I'm not saying he's good.  But he isn't completely bad, either.  You know that."

"He eats people," Xander said.

"He took care of you.  He helped you; he didn't have to do that."

"He's a demon."

"He could have left you where he found you."

"Yeah."

There was a silence, and she let it draw out while he stared at his feet, and then she asked very quietly, "How did you get the marks on your neck,  Xander?"

He looked up; she was sitting perfectly still, watching him.  From her face he could tell that she knew the answer already, somehow.  She wasn’t really asking, just making a point.

His face was hot again, and his heart had slammed up into his throat.  He swallowed, spread his palms on his knees, and tried to breathe.

As soon as he could trust himself to do it without shaking, he reached for the banister and pulled himself to his feet.  He didn't look at Liv; instead, he turned around and stared up the staircase.  It looked very long all of a sudden.

"You are so on your own," he said aloud, and then wondered whether she knew he was talking to her.  It didn't matter; he wasn't going to clarify.

He grabbed the banister and started pulling himself slowly up the stairs.  One by one by one.

 

---

Chapter 15

He only meant to lie down for a few minutes, but when he woke up it was dark.  He had a moment of complete placeless panic, and then there was a tap at the door and he realized that was what had woken him in the first place.  He was back in his apartment, and someone was knocking at midnight.  Bony Nose.

No.  He was in the Hyperion, he was safe.  Calm down.

He sat up, rubbed his hand over his face, and wondered where the Demerol was.  No—the Tylenol.  T3.  Whatever.  Where was it?  Never mind, there was someone knocking.

"Yeah?" 

The door opened slightly, and a bar of light from the hall cut across the floor.  Angel was standing there, looking indirectly at him.  He had his coat on.

"I'm going out for a while.  Just wanted to let you know, in case you woke up while I was gone."

There was no clock, but Xander looked for one anyway.  Then he looked at his wrist; no watch.  He settled for gesturing at the window.  "I've been kind of...out of it.  Sorry."

"It's fine.  You need the rest."  Angel started to pull the door closed, and Xander turned and swung his legs off the bed.  His knee moaned.  Where were the drugs?

"Where you going?"

Angel paused, then opened the door and stood in the frame, watching Xander test his feet.  "Back to Spike's.  I need to talk to him, and there is some chance he's in danger.  Mostly I just need to talk to him."

Xander nodded, staring at his toes.  "You going to bring him back here?"

Angel was silent for a minute.  "Do you think I should?"

"Hell, I don't know.  I'm just asking."

"How would you feel about it if I did?"

"Pretty shitty."  He patted his pockets, found the pill bottle, and pulled it out.  God bless whatever nasty had pounced on Wesley, that there might be T3 for Xander.  He popped the top and shook a couple into his palm, then sat staring at them.  "But I can't see just sitting here while he gets dusted by those apes, either.  So...whatever.  I'll be out of here tomorrow anyway."

"You can stay, Xander.  You should stay until you're—"

"Thanks.  But I kind of want to put some mileage between me and all of this."  He took the pills, capped the bottle, and put it back in his pocket.  "I appreciate the offer."

Angel said nothing, and Xander raised his head and squinted at him.  With the light behind him, it was hard to see his expression.  Not that he usually had much of one.

"And I, uh, wanted to say thanks for everything else," Xander said quickly, before he could lose his nerve.  "For, you know, showing up.  And getting me out of there.  And taking a bullet for me.  Two bullets.  Thanks."  He was immediately embarrassed; it ought to be eloquent, or at least not glib.  He was thanking Angel for his life.  He flushed and started to try again, and

Angel shifted.

"It's okay, Xander.  You're welcome."

Probably Angel was just as uncomfortable as he was, and that was an odd kind of relief.  Xander rubbed his face again and took a breath.

"You get the bullets out?"

"Yeah.  I've been shot before, Xander.  It's not new."

"You got a collection of musket balls and buckshot rolling around your desk drawer?"

Angel didn't say anything, and after a moment Xander reached for the bedside lamp and switched it on.  It was too bright, and he winced and looked away.  "Liv still down there?"

"Yes.  Don't untie her, no matter what she says."

"I have no plans to, no.  Did she say anything useful?"

Angel shook his head.  "She seems convinced it would hurt Spike, or maybe just her.  And in some ways she's probably right.  Demons don't look too kindly on servants who talk."

"Servants, right.  I'm feeling remedial; I don't remember ever hearing about humans working for demons before.  Except Cordy and Wesley, I guess."  He realized what he'd just said and blushed hard.  "Not that you're a demon.  Well, I guess you are, but not a real—I mean, it's different, you're, uh..."

Angel studied his thumbnail and let a polite pause draw out.  "It happens.  I've seen kids like her before; they drop in by accident, and they end up staying and working.  They don't last very long."

"Did you tell her that?"

"I think she knows."

Xander rubbed the ache in his shoulder and smiled thinly.  "Man, this is one crazy town."

"It's ten o'clock now.  I'll be back by one, or I'll call.  Don't untie Liv."

"Again, no plans to do so."

Angel pulled the door partly closed, and left.  Xander sat listening to his footsteps go down the hall and down the stairs, and then across the lobby and out.  The door banged behind him.

Well, he was awake and hungry.  And he needed to brush his teeth.

He heaved himself up and into the bathroom, did the best he could with the soap and washcloth and his face, and swished around some mouthwash that looked to have been gathering dust in the cabinet since the late eighties.  In the mirror, he was still thin and bruised, but not as pale.  He didn't have  such awful circles under his eyes.  He wasn't grey. 

Walking back into the room he had a brief fantasy of calling for a pizza, but he didn't have any money.  His wallet was with his stuff, and his stuff was still in the loft.  He should have asked Angel to get it.  His credit cards, all his ID, his goddamned AAA card.  Spike had probably bought a bigger TV, maybe a humidor for his blood, then cut them all up with Liv's ER scissors.  Fuck.

Then the irritation ebbed and the true realization hit him.  Everything he owned—everything—was gone.  He was a T-shirt and a pair of shorts from desert asceticism.  He couldn't order a pizza, he couldn't make a call from a pay phone.  He couldn't even leave without borrowing clothes from Angel.  And if he did leave, he had nowhere to go.  No apartment. 

Well, there was the Nova.  With a quarter tank of gas and some failing belts.  It wouldn't get him to Sunnydale, but he had some clothes in it, and his tools—thank God, his tools—were in the trunk.  Sweet Jesus, that was something. 

Slowly, he pushed himself away from the doorframe and started the trek downstairs.  He was going to eat toast until he couldn't cram another bite down his gullet.  Until he was jammed so full he couldn't move or think.  Or at least until the bread ran out.

It was too bad Liv was stationed in the middle of the lobby, because it meant he had to stump down the stairs with an audience.  He gripped the railing with white knuckles and tried to go Zen about it, forget she was there, just focus on the next step, the next step, the bitching in his knee, the next step.  He was breathing heavily when he got to the bottom, and neither of them had said anything.  He started to limp past her to the kitchen.

"Is there anything to eat?"

He paused.  "Toast."  Silence, and he ground his teeth and forced himself to turn and look at her.  She was sitting in exactly the same position she'd been in before, of course, but she looked drained.  Pasty and tired and sore.  "You want some?"

She nodded.  "Yes.  Please."

"Okay."  He limped out.

In the kitchen, he sat on the counter to take the pressure off his knee, and ate three pieces of toast with Joyce's jam an inch thick.  Strawberry something.  Maybe rhubarb—she'd been rhubarb- happy a couple of summers ago.  Good stuff.  The loaf of bread looked pitifully small, too small to share, but he put a little less jam on the next one and stumped it out to the lobby.  Liv watched him approach in silence.

"Here you go."  He held it out and she leaned forward, bit out a huge chunk, and chewed fast.  "Hey, don't hold back on my account."     

She shot him a look, swallowed, and tore off half the slice in another bite.  When she'd swallowed that, she spared enough breath to say, "I haven't eaten all day," then snapped up the rest of it so sharply that he jerked his fingers away. 

"Jesus, it’s like watching Animal Planet."

"Can I have some more?  Please."

He paused and smiled.  "I'm having a flashback.  What was the wisdom—'you'll just get sick'?"

"Xander."

"Later.  You can have more later.  For now, just don't throw up."

He limped back to the kitchen, ate another piece, and made another piece for her, with a little more jam.  When she saw him coming back with it, her eyes widened and the corners of her lips went up.

"See, I'm not such a bitch, is the thing."  He held it out and she finished it in three bites.  "If you choke on that, I'm in no position to give you the Heimlich."

"Thank you."  She wiped her mouth on her shoulders, first one side, then the other.  "I'd be neater if you untied my hands."

"Okay, hear this now:  there will be no untying.  Any further requests will just piss me off."

"I've been tied to a chair for a day, Xander.  It hurts."

"I guess it does."

"I need to—"

"No.  I'm not going to do it, so spare us both the agony, please."

She licked a little jam off her lip and stared at the floor.  "Then can I have another piece of toast?"

"Maybe.  In a minute.  When my lumbago lets up."  He lowered himself painfully onto the stairs, and leaned on the railing.  He was tired again.

She sat still, watching him.  Well, there wasn't much else for her to amuse herself with.  He scratched his neck and yawned.

"I can go get it myself if you—"

"No."

Silence.  Something creaked somewhere in the basement and he jumped, listened, and decided it was just the building settling.  Liv hadn't registered it at all; she was still staring at him.  It was getting kind of annoying.

"So you going to spring for the laser surgery?"

She frowned.  "What?"

"You going to walk around the rest of your life with those tattoos?  Might make it hard to get a job at Chase Manhattan."

She half-smiled, without much real amusement.  "Tattoos aren’t that weird.  Not the weirdest thing I've heard of."

"Man, I don't want to know what you've heard of."

"Branding, for instance."

"I'm serious—shut up."

She smiled and pushed the chair back on two legs.  Watching, Xander had a sudden ugly desire to see her lose balance and fall on her head.  She didn't.

"Angel's gone to see Spike."  She wasn't asking a question; Angel must have told her.  Xander nodded.  "What's he going to do?"

She asked so simply that it startled him.  "I don't know.  Talk to him, I guess."

"Hm."  She tipped a little farther back, gauged the distance to the floor behind her, and hung for a moment in space.  He sat watching, waiting for her to let it fall, wondering what he would do when she did. 

She eased the chair back down onto four legs and looked at him.  Her  expression was set, as though she’d just made a decision.  "Xander, I really have to get back to Spike."

"Ah, man."

"I'm serious.  That trip I took—I talked to someone.  He agreed to meet with us."

"Well, that's certainly compelling.  Hang on, let me get the scissors."

"He was in that group, the ones who made the chip."

Xander sat up straighter and stared at her.  "The Initiative."

"Yeah."

"You met with an Initiative guy, and he agreed to meet with you and Spike.  Why?"

"To fry the chip."

"To—"  He sat staring at her.  He was surprised for just a moment; then it ebbed and he was left feeling heavy and inexplicably sad.  Liv stared back.  She had dark circles under her eyes.  "To…fry the chip," he repeated.

"Yeah." 

"So Angel was right.  That's your job."

"Sure."

He looked away and wiped his lips; his mouth was dry.  "You don't—"  He stopped.  His hand was on his neck, and he dropped it.  He needed a drink of water.  "If the chip stops working, Spike goes Cujo.  You know that, right?"

"If the chip stops working, he stops getting hammered every time he looks sideways at someone.  You saw what it does to him."

Xander nodded vaguely.

"If the chip stops working, I'm finished.  I take my cut and walk away."

"Your cut of what?" he asked, studying the stair beside him.  "Spike panhandles to buy gum."

"Not anymore.  Like he said, I'm good with the accounts.  The chip stops working, I take my fifteen percent of whatever I've made for him, and run."

Xander touched his knee lightly; the bandage was still under there, beneath the fabric of the trousers.  It felt bulky and warm.  "Or maybe he just eats you."

She was silent for a minute, and the building gave out a couple more creaks.  Old building.  Creepy, the way they talked to themselves. 

"If the chip stops working, Spike can deal with the plug uglies in his own way," she said.  "He won't have to worry about them anymore.  And neither will you.  They'll be gone, Xander."

He raised his head and looked at her.  "Dead, you mean."

She pursed her lips.  "Maybe.  After a while."

He sat for a minute, processing that.  Then he pulled himself slowly, painfully to his feet, and saw surprise and guarded hope light her face.  He shook his head.

"Don't get excited, I'm not helping you.  I'm getting another piece of toast, and then I'm crawling back into bed and forgetting that you exist."

"Xander—"

"Oh, shut up."

He stumped wearily past her and down the hall, into the kitchenette.  There wasn't much bread left.  The jam was getting low, too.  He put another slice into the toaster and opened the fridge, stared into the arctic void and wondered with some part of his mind what the hell he was going to do tomorrow, how the hell he was going to live from now on.

There was a creak in the hallway and he ignored it.  Then there was another, and he glanced up. 

Spike was standing in the doorway.

Xander stood frozen, one hand on top of the refrigerator door, the other on the counter.  He couldn't think.  Spike still had bruise stains on his face—not proper bruises, just the outlines of where they'd been—and a little mark on his lip where it had been split.  He was in the Big Bad outfit.  He was looking at Xander with cold dislike.

Instinctively, Xander looked past him for Angel.  They must have come back together, Angel must have brought him, he'd said he might.  That must be it.  But it was too soon, Angel had just left.  He couldn’t be back already.

Spike saw Xander's look, and turned his own head to look out into the hallway behind him.  When he looked back he was wearing a mock look of surprise.  Nobody there.

"Where's Angel?" Xander asked reedily, surprising himself.

Spike had his hands in the pockets of his coat; he shrugged and spread them wide.  "No idea, mate," he said.  "Not here then, is he?"

Xander swallowed and realized he was still standing in front of the empty refrigerator.  He started to shut the door, then realized it was the only thing between him and Spike and held it open.  Then he felt stupid holding it there, and closed it. 

Spike watched without expression.  When the door was closed he looked Xander up and down, and raised an eyebrow.  "Swapping clothes with the poof, eh?  Bad habit to get into."

Xander looked down at himself and felt oddly guilty for a moment.  He wanted to say something in explanation or excuse, but he had just enough brain function not to do it.  Instead he said, "How did you get in?"

Spike smiled.  "Same way he got into my place.  Slipped the latch."

"What do you want?"

"Lots of things."  Spike took a step forward and looked at the bread and jam on the counter.  "What are you eating, toast?"

It suddenly seemed like a stupid, childish thing to be eating.   Xander glanced at the jammy knife and said nothing.  He felt sick. 

Spike smiled at him.  "That's nice.  Glad to see you've got an appetite."

Something was pressing into Xander's back; dimly he realized it was the counter, and that he must have been retreating.  He took a breath and tried to stand up straighter.  "Angel's gone to your place, Spike.  To see you.  He's going to be highly pissed when he finds out you're here."

"And here I am being so accommodating, saving him the trip."

"Wesley's upstairs.  He'll come down—"

"Don't be stupid."

Xander fell silent, his fingers locked on the edge of the counter.  Spike couldn't hurt him.  He could hurt Spike, but Spike couldn't hurt him.  His heart was jackrabbiting in his throat.

Spike took a step forward, and Xander looked past him to the doorway, gauging the distance.  Spike noticed, frowned, and stepped closer.

"Where's Liv?"

If he tried to push past Spike and Spike didn't move, what then?  He couldn't think.  His eyes kept going back to the door.

"You've got her tied up out there, haven't you?  While you're in here feeding on toast.  That's not very civilized."

"I took her some," Xander said automatically, and then flushed.  He tried to push off the counter, but Spike put an arm down on either side of him and didn't move.  He was far too close, studying Xander's face with cold eyes.

"You took her some," he repeated.  "Well, my apologies.  You're a stand-up guy, Xander.  You're a Boy Scout."  His tone was acid.

Xander took a breath.  "What do you want, Spike?"

Spike said nothing.  He leaned in, his eyes hard and intent, and Xander's heart kicked into a sprint.  He felt sick and hot and strangely giddy, and there was a part of him that wanted to lean forward. 

He turned his face away.  Spike didn't pause; he lowered his head close to Xander's neck and simply stood, not touching him, not moving.  His mouth was an inch from Xander's throat. 

Xander unlocked his left hand from the counter, made an awkward fist with it, and lifted it to Spike's shoulder.  He pushed.  It wasn't a punch; it was a push.  Spike let himself be pushed back a bit, and when Xander turned his head again he saw that Spike was in game face.

Xander's heart skipped a beat, then another, and he swallowed hard and looked down, away from the yellow eyes.  Spike couldn't hurt him.  Couldn't bite him.  A line of cold sweat ran down Xander’s ribs. 

"You're afraid of me."  It was impossible to read Spike's tone; was he satisfied, gloating?  He must be.  What else could he be?

Xander stared at his feet and said nothing.  After a moment Spike stepped back, the demon stowed, and suddenly Xander couldn't smell cigarettes or booze or leather or Spike anymore.  He hadn't realized he'd been smelling it.  He had an odd warm feeling in his stomach and spine. 

Spike studied him, sniffed, and smiled.  "That's right," he said.  His tone was bitter and satisfied.

"What's right?" Xander asked faintly. 

Spike said nothing.  Then he lifted one arm and his fingers were in Xander's hair.  Xander stood still, staring at the knife, but the warmth in his stomach was in his groin now.

"I could have you," Spike said.  Gloating tone.

Xander blinked hard and tried to breathe.  "You and what army?"

Spike laughed, a genuinely amused laugh, and the fingers curled and pulled at his hair, and Xander finally reached up and pushed them away.  Spike stepped back and regarded him with a smile.

"You're a caution, you are.  Think you're being noble or something?"

"Get out, Spike."

"I plan to.  Just have to collect my investment, and I'm off."  He took another step back and raised an eyebrow.  "Sure you don't want to come along?"

"You can't take Liv."

Spike smiled a little wider, then turned to walk out.  Xander pushed off the counter and grabbed his arm. 

"You can't take her."  If he untied Liv, they were back at square one.  They'd disappear into the night, and when Angel got back Xander would be sitting next to a bunch of rope and toast crusts, looking like an idiot.  Or maybe not.  Maybe once Liv was untied, Spike wouldn't give him a choice about coming along. 

Spike looked at Xander's hand on his arm, then up at Xander's face.  He smiled unpleasantly.  "Thought you were being noble." 

Xander's right hand was in a fist at his side, but there was no way he was throwing any punches with it.  For a minute he just stood there, holding onto Spike's arm and breathing hard, wondering what happened next.  Maybe if he stalled long enough, Angel would get back and sort this out.  Yeah, maybe.

"Just get out, Spike.  Before I rip my stitches on you."

Spike's eyes widened a little, and his smile grew.  "Oh, that was good.  Now say it again in a manlier tone."

"I'm serious, Spike."

"Yeah, like that.  Keep doing like that and they'll never find out you're a fairy."

Xander made a small involuntary sound of disgust and rage, and yanked Spike sideways into the counter.  He lost his grip and almost his feet, had to grab at the wall to stay upright, but Spike didn't take the opportunity to walk out.  He stayed leaning where he'd been thrown, his eyes bright and furious, grinning.

"Did you learn that from the poof?  He always liked tossing people about."

"Spike—"

"'Course, you're getting the edited-for-telly version.  In my day, if you spent the night in his tender care you didn't walk for a week afterward."

"I don't—"

"Spare the rod and so on.  Though I think his interpretation strayed from the Biblical."

Xander turned away and stared at the baseboard.  "Shut up." 

There was a brief silence, while Xander tried to catch his breath and not think.  His mouth tasted foul, and he felt queasy and light-headed.  He heard Spike stand up and straighten his clothes. 

Xander put his hand against the wall, stared at it, and then pushed himself around until his back was braced and he was facing Spike.  He wanted to give up.  Just sink down the wall until he was sitting on the floor.  Curl up and sleep.  Let Spike take Liv, let them both disappear, whatever, it was easier and better and cleaner than this, and he was so tired of feeling dirty.

"Spike," he said, and stopped.

Spike was watching him with hard eyes and a slight nasty smile.  He was still beautiful.  Staring wearily at him, even hating him, Xander had to admit it.  He still wanted Spike.  In some dark rotten corner of his mind, he even knew why Angelus had turned William in the first place.  He was beautiful.  How could you see him and not want him?   

"Look—" he said.  Spike raised an eyebrow, and the smile seemed to go from nasty to...guarded.  There was something different in his eyes, too.  Hard to say what, exactly. 

"Spike!"  It was Liv, calling from the lobby, and Xander jumped.  Of course she knew Spike was here; she'd heard his voice, maybe even seen him in the hallway before Xander had.

Spike's face closed over, and he just looked annoyed.  "In a minute," he shouted back.  He didn't take his eyes off Xander.  When Xander didn't say anything immediately, he made a prompting gesture with one hand.   "Yeah?"

Xander stared at him.  What was he going to say?  I'm sorry, I hate you, come here.  It made no sense.  None of it had made any sense, from the start.  He couldn't see how to say any of it, and dimly he knew that tomorrow, in the cold clear light of day, he'd wonder why he'd even wanted to.

"Spike?"  It was Liv again, her voice sharp and edgy.  Spike scowled, put his head back, and bawled, "In a minute!"

"No," she yelled back.  "Now.  Right now—there's someone—"

They both heard the front doors open.

"Angel," Xander said automatically, flooded with relief.

"No," Spike said.  "That's not Angel."

"Then who—"  He was talking to himself; Spike had already pushed past him and gone out.  Xander hesitated an instant, his mouth dry and a strange cold vibration building in his belly.  Then he knuckled off the wall and followed Spike out.

He entered the lobby just as Bony Nose was walking through the door, then turning back to hold it open for someone else to come in.  Someone small.  A small brown woman in a pink dress and sandals.  She glanced at Xander and the cold vibration in his belly turned to a glossy smooth pain, as if something inside him wanted to swell and rupture.

Tan and Bullet were already inside, looking around the inside of the lobby with appreciative expressions.  They didn't seem to notice Spike, who was standing in plain view a few feet from the hallway entrance.  They didn't seem to notice Liv, either.

The woman raised a hand and pointed at Xander, and said something to Bony Nose.  He said something back—a couple of words, haltingly.  It sounded a little like Russian, a little like a chest cold.  She looked back at Xander and frowned.

Bony Nose seemed shorter, and not as wide.  He looked at Xander without interest, almost without recognition. 

The pain in Xander's belly rolled and he grabbed at the wall, wondering whether he was going to throw up.  Then it was gone, as suddenly as it had come, and he stood splay-legged and cold and shaking, staring at Bony Nose.   

"Spike—"  Liv was pulling at the ropes again, more urgently now.  From where he was standing, Xander could see how the blood had run down from her wrists and stained her hands.

"'s all right," Spike said, staring at the little woman.  "Saves us some trouble looking, doesn't it?"

Liv didn't reply, just worked the ropes a little harder.  They held.

The little woman said something else to Bony Nose, and he shook his head.  She shrugged and made a desultory gesture with one hand, then tucked her dress around her knees and sat down on the step.  Her face was calm.  She looked entirely human.

"You know who we are, right?" Bony Nose said to Spike. 

Spike walked forward a few steps, until he was standing just behind Liv's chair.  "Got some idea, yeah.  Don't think I got your name."

Bony Nose ignored that and looked past Spike at Xander.  "He give you the message?"

Spike glanced back too, very briefly.  "Oh yeah," he said, turning back to Bony Nose.  "Bang-up job on the knees, incidentally."

Bony Nose frowned.  "You got the message?"

"Such as it was.  Want me to tell it back to you?"

Bony Nose paused, then looked back at Xander.  "What did you tell him?"

Xander stood frozen, staring at Bony Nose.  He had a terrible feeling that something was cycling up, like a machine set in motion somewhere just out of sight.  A machine with just one purpose.  He couldn't force his mouth to speak. 

"Jesus Christ," Bony Nose said.  "You were supposed to give him a message.  Pretty fucking simple message."  He shook his head, then turned his gaze to Spike and pointed at Liv.  "That’s got to stop."

Spike frowned. 

"Spike—" Liv said again.  Her voice was quiet and desperate.

"Just a minute," Spike said.  "I never got any message about that."

Bony Nose jerked his chin at Xander.  "Yeah, tell it to your buddy there.  I gave it to him four times."

Spike turned and looked at Xander, and Xander shook his head wordlessly.  Spike's eyes narrowed.

"When did he tell you this?"

Xander kept shaking, and finally found his voice.  "He didn't—he never—"

Spike turned back.  "He says you didn't give it to him.  I never got it.  So we call it even, and next time pick up the bloody telephone, mate."

Bony Nose shook his head ruefully.  "No, man, it doesn't work like that."

"I'll tell you how it works," Spike said.  "It works with you and your boyfriends fucking off directly, and very nice to meet you, milady, but your presence is not required."  He directed the last part to the woman sitting on the steps, and even threw in a small ironic half-bow.  She watched him without expression, then said something to Bony Nose.  He nodded absently. 

"I'm really sorry about this, Spike," he said.  "You seem like a decent guy, but—"  He shrugged and reached into the back of his jeans, and Xander stood frozen, staring, while the machine whirled faster and Bony Nose brought his hands back around holding a gun. 

Oh God.

Spike tensed, and Liv stopped moving. 

"My employer's been more then reasonable," Bony Nose said.  "You just can't do business like this.  She’s got fucking tattoos.  You’ve got her going around killing people with tattoos like that—that’s just…”  He paused, looking at a loss for words.  “You can’t just piss all over someone’s lawn like that."

"Spike—" Liv whispered.

"Just a minute," Spike said.  "Just a minute, this is ridiculous—"

"Sorry," Bony Nose said, and raised the gun. 

The explosions seemed to come before he even moved his finger, as if they couldn't stand another moment in the barrel.  Liv's chair snapped back and broke on the tile.

There was a red spray on the floor behind her, like wine blown through a straw.

Someone was making a high light struggling sound.  Xander stared at the spray across the floor, then at the dark oval creeping out from beneath Liv, the lights reflected in it as trembling points.

Spike said something, Bony Nose said something.  Xander stared at the oval, at the bit of broken wood that had come off the chair and landed near his feet.  She was right:  if you dropped it, it broke.  He hadn't thought it would.

Spike was leaning down, and then he was kneeling, his fingers on her neck and the other hand pulling up her shirt.  There were two small neat holes in her chest, close to the center.  He was kneeling in the oval, or the oval had grown around him; he was going to be covered in it. 

Bony Nose was watching Spike sadly, the gun almost out of sight by his leg.  The little woman had leaned forward and was craning her neck to see over the chair.  She looked curious.  Mildly curious. 

The high thin struggling noise came faster, and Xander looked back at Spike.  The oval had crept out further, and because the floor was old and out of level the oval was drawing out, reaching out like a finger, and soon it would touch Xander's feet.  He didn't want it to touch him.

Spike said something quietly to her, and the struggling noise caught, held, started.  Too fast.  Like a little engine forced to run beyond its strength. 

Spike turned and looked at him.  "Xander.  Come here."

He dropped his eyes to the dark finger creeping toward his feet, and didn't move.

"Xander."

He looked up, blinked, and then he was walking forward automatically.  It was like walking through the barest inch of warm seawater.  He couldn't kneel, so he put one hand on Spike's shoulder and lowered himself awkwardly to a tailor's sit beside him.

"Put your hand on her face," Spike said, and Xander sat dumbly, not moving.  The struggling sound was Liv, he realized.  She was staring at the ceiling, and her face was white and grey, and the tendons in her neck were standing out.  Her eyes were round and bulging.  Dimly, he smelled urine.

Spike took his hand and put it on Liv's cheek.  "You're human," he said somewhere, from a great distance away.  "Come on, you idiot, she's dying."

What was he supposed to do?  He didn't know.  He brought his other hand up and put it around the back of her neck, cradling her skull.  Her hair was wet.  She didn't look at him.

"It's all right, Liv," he said.  "You're all right, you're going to be fine."

He kept saying it, and her eyes flickered over him once without recognition, then went back to the ceiling.  The struggling sound—it wasn't breathing, you couldn't call it breathing—got faster and higher, and cut out again.

He waited for it to start up.  Waited.

After a minute, he felt Spike stand up and walk away.

The room was silent.  His trousers were soaked, warm and cool, and there was a terrible rich iron smell in the air, so heavy he could taste it. 

He took his hand off her cheek, but didn't know what to do about the one under her head.  If he took it away her hair would get wet again, and he had a feeling she wouldn't like that.  Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that her shirt was still pulled up, and pulled it carefully down with his free hand.  He left red stains where he touched it.

They were talking on the other side of the room; Spike was yelling, actually, and Bony Nose was being patient.  The little woman had stood up and was waiting to leave.  Tan and Bullet were waiting with her.  From here, Xander could see that Tan did have the tattoo, right there behind his ear, just like the other two.  He just hadn't noticed it before, or maybe he'd forgotten.

Spike told Bony Nose to fuck himself, and Bony Nose started to put the gun away but Spike's hand whipped out and took it from him.  At first he pointed it at the floor, and he was telling Bony Nose he was going to kill him, and Bony Nose was looking sympathetic and nodding.  Spike brought the gun almost all the way up before he dropped.

Bony Nose crouched down and collected the gun.  For a moment he watched with concern while Spike writhed and retched and beat his head against the floor.  Then he shrugged, stood, and went to hold the door for the little brown woman.    

Xander sat quietly, holding Liv's head up.  It was heavy but he didn't mind.  He used a corner of his shirt to wipe a dark drop from her cheek.  He had a sense of being useful, even necessary.

 

---

Chapter 16

The Jag didn't belong to Spike.  Neither did the television, the stereo, the computers, the building itself.  There was money in various accounts, various banks, and after several days of trying to track it all down Angel hired an accountant and still they probably didn't get it all.  Later he told Xander they'd found records for four safety deposit boxes, and there were probably more of those too.

The Jag went to the police.  The hardware went with it; the serial numbers were gone, there was no telling where it had come from in the first place.  The agony print on the wall turned out to be part of a sixteenth-century Italian anatomical chart, razored from a medical library on the East Coast.  Angel sent it back.  The gooseneck lamp, the cot, the rice-paper partition—Xander never found out about those.

In the end, almost nothing in the warehouse had ever actually been Spike's.  A few clothes, a Zippo lighter, some papers and photographs that Angel brought back in a bundle the second day and locked in a drawer in his office.  The DeSoto.  He gave Spike a night to get it running and out of the garage, before he broke the lease on the building.

He said the car was gone when he went back the next day to finish clearing out the loft.  He said Spike would probably come by the hotel for his things sometime.  He didn’t say when.



Xander spent two nights at the Hyperion, in the same room he'd slept in before, with his bloody clothes and the bloody sling still balled up in one corner of the bathroom.  Angel lent him a new shirt, a clean pair of trousers.  The dirty ones disappeared, Xander didn't know where.

He slept fourteen hours straight, woke up to use the bathroom, and went straight back down for seven more hours.  When he finally woke up again it was almost midweek, and he was starving.  Angel ordered a pizza.

It made sense for him to stay a few more days, until his legs were a little better and his head was a little saner, but he fell asleep in the bath and dreamed that Liv was sitting on the bed outside, a gun in her hand, waiting for him.  That was it, he had to leave.  There was no blood on the lobby floor anymore—Angel had taken care of it while Xander was sitting silently in his office, the door closed—but he didn't like going down there.  One of the bullets had taken a chunk out of the doorframe to the hall.  He didn't want to notice anything else.

He asked Angel for a newspaper, and started calling numbers.  He had some money in the bank, he had some room on his Visa.  It was almost too easy.  He got a bachelor suite on the edge of Little Korea for just a bit more than he could afford, did the paperwork over Angel's fax machine, and found an old checkbook in the Nova's glove compartment.  Angel dropped the check off for him.

He had his duffel back, and his wallet.  Spike hadn't touched the cards.  He even had the Timex.  Spike had been wearing it the whole time; the band was bloody, and the face was cracked.  When Angel gave it to him, Xander sat for a long time just staring at it, trying to tell whether it was really his or not.  In the end he decided it didn't matter, and threw it away.



As it turned out, he didn’t have to see Cordy or Wes at all—he was gone before they came back to work.  Angel never mentioned what he was going to tell them.  Maybe nothing.  Not a big talker, Angel.  Especially not in the brief intervals Xander saw him in the hotel—he was like a ghost, wafting in and out and haunting the lobby, staring for long spells at the clean floor or the little chip in the doorframe.  Xander asked him why Spike had given her the tattoos in the first place, and he shook his head vaguely and said it was ego.  Then he shrugged and said maybe insurance.  Xander nodded as if he understood.  He still hadn't told Angel about the blood bags in Spike’s fridge.  He couldn’t decide whether it would help Angel to know that, or whether it would just make things worse.  In the end, he let inertia take over, and said nothing.

He left early in the morning, while the air was just starting to warm up, while it still smelled a little bit pure.  As he was heaving the duffel into the Nova's back seat, he saw something jammed into the crack between the seat and the back, and fished it out with one finger.  It was Buffy's key ring, the one from the Sunnydale Amoco, with the mace canister attached.  He had no idea how it had got there.

He looked at it in the palm of his hand and felt absurdly like bursting into tears.  But he was standing on the sidewalk outside Angel's hotel, and Angel was probably inside watching to make sure he didn't drive into a lamp post or anything, and there were the neighbors to consider.  He put the key ring in his pocket, closed the door, and limped around to the driver's door.  There was plenty of time to burst into tears in his own apartment, or in the unemployment line, or in the loans office at the bank.

He didn't ask what Angel did with her body.  He didn't ask whether he was going to track down Bony Nose, or the caedo, or even Spike.  He didn't want to know.

He got into the Nova, put his seat belt on, and drove.



To his own surprise, he got work again.  He went to see Randall, the foreman, while he was still limping, while he still had the bruises and the spiderwalk of stitches in his face, and that probably helped his cause.  He said he'd been mugged, and Randall launched into a long story about his own mugging in San Antonio, and how he'd used karate to disarm the guy, and how when the police came they said if more people were like him, muggers would be out of work.  They were sitting in Randall's tiny office in the portable on the site, and there was a nail gun on the corner of Randall's desk.  Xander smiled and nodded and said Man, that's amazing, and imagined picking up the nail gun and firing it directly into Randall's forehead. 

Later, he remembered the vicious glee he'd felt at the thought, and felt sick. 

He took a couple more days to heal up, then went back.  The guys were good about it; he was slow but they put up with him.  About once a day Randall would stop by and tell them all about the San Antonio mugging again, and they would stop work to listen, encouraging him with nods and comments, drawing it out as long as possible and flashing Xander grateful grins on the sly.  Xander took the breaks sitting down; he was weak and he got winded fast.  Once, on his second day, another guy reached out and grabbed him just as he was about to take a header off the fourth storey. 

"Careful," the guy said.  He was new, his name started with a T but Xander couldn't remember what it was.  He had curly white-blonde hair and a new guy's patchy sunburn, and his eyes were very blue.  Staring at him, Xander had a second of vertigo.

Then he recovered, said thanks, and went back to the wiring.  He tried to keep away from the edges of things for a few days after that.



He couldn't sleep.  Nytol didn't work, and he didn’t have a doctor in LA, so he went to a drugstore and got a bottle of melatonin.  It knocked him out and he slept like a rock for three nights running--like turning off the television, a dead screen, nothing. 

On the fourth night, he started to have dreams.  The pharmacist had told him it might happen, so he was ready for it.  He thought he was ready for it. 

He dreamed he was feeding Liv toast soaked in blood.  He dreamed he was tied to a chair and Spike had a gun to his head.  He dreamed he was crouched on the floor of his apartment, holding Liv's head up out of a pool of gore, while she stared at the ceiling and described what it was like to die--cold, light, terror. 

He dreamed he was in the bed he'd slept in at the hotel, and Spike was lying on top of him, feeding from his neck while Angel watched.  When he woke up from that dream, he had an erection.

He threw the rest of the melatonin away, and didn't sleep.



The girls came for a visit on a Sunday afternoon in September--they had some grand plan for a fall picnic and when they arrived he saw they weren't kidding; they had a wicker basket, a gingham blanket, the works.  His apartment faced the street, and he saw them toting it all up the sidewalk from where they'd parked Joyce's Jeep.  Buffy was laughing and Willow and Tara had some kind of identical braid thing going on with their hair, probably very hip but they looked like Klingons and he was so happy to see them, all of them, it was like a balloon was being inflated in his throat.  It hurt, but he felt lighter. 

He went down to let them in, and they were all grins up the steps, and then they saw him standing there and looked poleaxed.

"Xander," Buffy said.  "Oh my God, are you all right?"

He stood holding the door open, a smile dying on his face, wondering what the hell she meant.  "Fine," he said.  "I'm fine, how are you guys?"

"Fine," Willow said automatically.  She was staring at him like he had a dead puppy in his arms.

The bruises were gone, and the stitches were all out, but he still had the red marks where they'd been.  He'd lost weight.  He hadn't been sleeping.  Maybe he looked a little rougher than he'd thought.  Hard to say—he never really looked at himself except to shave, and he did that as fast as he could.

"I took a fall at work," he said.  "It's no big deal, I'm fine, I didn't want to freak you out."

"Oh, Xander—"  Willow came up the steps and put the basket down, reached up and touched his shoulder.  He swallowed and smiled. 

"I'm really glad to see you guys," he said, and he'd never meant anything more in his life.

Willow hugged him, and he stood there like an idiot for a second, still holding the door, then propped it with one foot and hugged her back as hard as he could.  Another pair of arms came out of nowhere, and Buffy was hugging both of them.  Then Tara piled on too.

He stood there in the middle of them, his face pressed into Willow's hair, Buffy's hand on the back of his neck.  A car went by in the street and honked its horn; a man shouted something lewd.  None of them moved.



By late October the work had started to slow down; there was a run of storms, and then there was a problem with the drywall suppliers, and then with the bank.  He had some time off. 

At first he tried to sleep it away.  He wasn't dreaming as much now, he could lie down and start to drift and not feel that awful falling sensation at the edge of sleep, the loss and fear that made him scrabble for consciousness with a leaping heart.  He needed to sleep.  But he could only do it for so long, and then he would float back to the world and find himself lying on the mattress in the corner of the apartment, staring at the ceiling while rain beat at the windows. 

He knew that he had to keep busy, though he didn't stop to think about why.  He needed something to keep his mind from turning on itself.  He didn't have a television, and he couldn't concentrate long enough to read.  He went to movies, sometimes two a day.  Soon he was seeing the same movies over, because he'd seen everything that was playing.  He started walking.

L.A. wasn't a walking town, but he did it anyway, through Little Tokyo and Chinatown, up and down Olvera Street in the Pueblo.  He walked past Grauman's Chinese Theater and glanced at the tiles without much interest, past Spago and Delmonico’s and Planet Hollywood, and it was really all the same.  It didn't matter what he was seeing; the important thing was to keep moving and not think.  He would have walked to Santa Barbara if he could have.  He would have walked to Modesto. 

He walked through rain and hail and wind, through some of the shittiest weather southern California had to offer, and when he got home at five or six o'clock it was always dark already, and he was soaking wet and cold, and his knees hurt.  He'd take a couple of aspirin and get into a bath, and hope that there would be work tomorrow, so he wouldn't have to walk again, or think.

After a while, he started stopping in at bars on his way home.  He'd have a couple of beers, watch a little hockey or basketball, then head home to the aspirin and the bath. 

The night before Halloween, Randall left a message on his machine saying there'd been another holdup with the bank, and not to expect work for at least a week.  Xander sat on his mattress and listened to the message dumbly, then played it again with a feeling of dull panic.  A week, at least.  He had a full week stretching out in front of him, and nothing to fill it up.

He didn't sleep much that night, and the next day he went to two matinees, then started walking.  Around six o'clock it started to rain, and a wind came up and blew cold water down his collar.  He started looking for somewhere to stop in for a drink.

He had an odd feeling he was in a familiar neighborhood, though he couldn't think why—and then he came around a corner and found himself across the street from The Summer Place.  The "u" had burnt out of the sign, and there was a paper jack o’lantern in one window, a folding skeleton blowing in the wind on the door.  It was still an ugly little dive.  Staring at it, he felt weirdly sad, as if it were somewhere he'd spent many good years.

He shook the feeling off and crossed the street, heaved the door open and stepped inside.  It smelled smoky and fuggy, and there was a hockey game on the television, loud as fuck.  A couple of old guys were sitting at a table in the back with a chess board in front of them.  Black and orange crepe paper hung in a limp twist across the room.  Rosie was behind the bar.  He smiled at her, and she looked at him but stopped just short of smiling back.

"Hello," she said, and that was it.  No 'love,' no real smile.  She didn't remember him.  He shook rain off his coat and walked over to sit at the bar. 

"Canadian Club, please."  There was a paper witch taped to the bar—pointed hat, green face, wart.  Willow would be so pissed.

Rosie set him up and swiped around his elbows, and he sipped and watched the game.  She didn't ask him where he lived; maybe she wasn't feeling so talkative tonight.  He wiped rain off his face with a cocktail napkin.  His hair was soaked, and water was running down his neck. 

The game went to ads and he finished the Club, slid the empty glass forward on the mat and said, "Again, please."  Rosie set him up again without speaking, and went away to the other end of the bar to clean glasses.  He turned back to the television, feeling strangely crushed.

Then he caught movement to his right and looked that way.  It was him, reflected in the bar mirror.  There were weals on his jaw and forehead where the stitches had come out.  His hair was too long, plastered to his skull and neck.  He'd been meaning to cut it for weeks.  He was wearing a crapped-out T-shirt with a torn neck and a flannel overtop, one with paint and plaster on the tails.  Mostly, though, it was the look on his face.  He looked burnt out, jacked up, desperate.  He looked like bad news. 

No wonder she didn't call him 'love.'    

He looked away, finished the Club and pushed the glass forward, and she came and poured him another.  He kept his hands off the bar while she was there, because they were rough-looking hands.

She trusted him enough to let him run a tab, at least.  He watched hockey and let the blare surround him, and after a while a few other people came in and sat down, shaking off the rain and bitching, and it felt a little better.  More normal.

He slowed down on the Club, and was just finishing the glass when someone came in and sat down at the end of the bar, several stools away.  Xander finished the Club, pushed the glass forward, and glanced over, one finger spinning a beer mat. 

The guy at the end of the bar was Spike.

Xander sat looking at him, still spinning the beer mat, and didn't think anything.  After a moment he looked away, back to the television, but couldn't process what he was seeing.  He looked back at Spike.

He was wearing his old beat-up coat, and his hair was soaked to his skull, and he looked thin.  He'd put a few dollars on the bar, and Rosie was giving him a beer.  He said something and she smiled thinly and turned away to the cash register.  Spike drank some of the beer, put it down, and ran his hand over his head to press some of the water out.

That wasn't right; he ought to look up, look around and see who was in the place.  It was what you did.  He was sitting with his hands on the bar in front of him, playing with a beer mat, not looking up.  Xander looked away again, then back.

Spike must know he was there; he must have seen him as soon as he'd walked in.  There weren't more than ten people in the whole place, and Xander was right in front of him.  Why wasn't he looking up? 

Xander looked back at the television for a while without seeing it, then got up, picked up his glass, and walked down to the end of the bar.  He sat down on the stool beside Spike's.

Spike didn't look up, just kept playing with the beer mat.  Xander watched the hockey for a while.  There was a goal, a fight, a couple of lousy passes.

At last Spike sniffed, tossed the beer mat onto the bar, and said, "Fucking gale out there."

Xander stared at the screen and nodded.  The weather; they were discussing the weather.  All right.  "Yeah."  After a minute he turned and said, "This is a holiday for you, right?"

Spike looked at him, frowning.  He had the faint remains of a black eye, Xander noticed.  "What?"

"Halloween.  You guys take the night off, right?"  He nodded at the paper witch. 

Spike gave a small half-laugh.  "Right.  Yeah, s'pose we do." 

"Sucky weather for it."

Spike lifted his beer in a cynical toast, and drank.  Then he went back to playing with the beer mat.

Xander watched him for a second, then caught Rosie's eye and pushed his glass forward again.  She came over, looked at him and then at Spike, and took his glass without a word.  In a minute he had another one, full, and she was back at the far end of the bar.

"Lovely lady," Spike said, without looking up.

"She was a lot nicer last time," Xander said.  It was weird to mention the last time he'd been here, because it was the night it had all started.  It was the closest he'd come to talking about any of it in months.

Spike glanced up at the television, frowned, and looked away.

"Not a hockey fan?" Xander asked, starting on his drink.

"Fuck no."

"That's too bad."

He watched the game for a while, spinning his glass slowly on the bar, and wondering what he was supposed to be feeling.  Anger, probably.  Disgust.  Panic.  He didn't feel any of that.  He didn't feel much of anything, except a mild astonishment at the coincidence that had landed him in the same bar as Spike on a miserable Halloween night.

"What happened to your eye?" he asked after a while, when the game went to commercials again. 

Spike gave him a quick sharp sideways look, then glanced away.  "Fell down an elevator shaft."

The phrase rang a faint bell, and he remembered Spike standing in the loft with the bruises on his face.  "Angel did it?"

Spike shook his head.  "Nah.  Did it to myself."

Xander stared at him a moment, wondering if he was supposed to understand something from that.  He didn’t.  He looked back at the game. 

Spike half-turned on his stool and looked around the bar, at the handful of wet sloppy people at the tables behind them.  He'd hardly touched his beer, Xander noticed.

"What a pesthole," Spike said, and something about his voice made it seem as if he weren't just talking about the bar.  He sounded tired.  Exhausted.

"You ever meet up with that guy?" Xander asked, without looking away from the game. 

"What guy?"

"That guy she went to talk to.  The chip doctor."

There was a pause, and then Spike said, "I don't know what you're talking about."  He said it slowly and distinctly, as if he were reading unfamiliar words from a page.

Xander sipped his drink and watched the screen.

"No," Spike said after a minute, and ran his hands over his face.

"Then you'd better not call it a pesthole where people can hear you.  On account of they might take it personally, and kick your ass."

Spike lifted his beer and stared at the light through it.  "I'll take that under consideration," he said.

The game flipped over into commercials again, and Xander watched them, drinking.  When he was halfway through the glass he said, "Why did you make me put my hand on her face?"

There was a pause.  "You couldn't hold her hand," Spike said.  "They were tied."

Right.  Xander watched the screen, but it was getting blurry and his throat hurt.  He swallowed and wiped his palms on his trousers.

"So…what was it for?"  He was still staring at the television, but he saw Spike shift in the corner of his eye.

"What was what for?"

"The tattoos, the copying the…caedo.  Why did you do that?"  His voice was quiet and rough, and he was having trouble keeping it from breaking.  Stupid.

Spike didn't answer for a minute.  He'd picked up his beer, and he was examining it again.  Then he put it down and pushed it away. 

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," he said.

Xander stared at the screen, not seeing, breathing hard.  His hands were wrapped around his knees.  He was sweating.

After a moment Spike pushed his stool back and stood up.  "I'll see you," he said, and paused, and Xander sat waiting to feel a hand on his shoulder or back.  Just something.  But he didn't, and after a moment Spike stepped away and walked out, and the door closed behind him.

Rosie glanced over, then came to collect Spike's bottle.  "You okay, love?" she asked, looking at Xander. 

"Yeah," he said.  "I'm--I'm fine, thanks."  It hit him that she’d called him love.  Her face was softer now, and she was lingering, and he had a sudden clear premonition that she was going to tell him Spike was no good, a bad man, he was better off drinking alone.  He couldn't stand it, and he yanked his wallet out, threw a twenty on the bar, and was gone. 

It was raining diagonally, a cold smack in the face as soon as he opened the door.  The skeleton had blown off its hook and lay in a wet mass in the doorway.  He stepped over it and stood on the sidewalk, looking around.

For a minute he thought he was too late, and then he saw Spike's hair in the light of a streetlamp, half a block away to the left.  He started to lope with the rain blowing down his back.

Spike heard him coming and turned while he was still ten feet off, his face annoyed and suspicious, then surprised.  He stopped and stood still while Xander walked up to him.

"What're you--" Spike started to say.  Xander leaned forward and kissed him.

Spike's mouth was cold, and his face was wet.  He tasted familiar.  Xander's heart was jerking in his throat and he leaned forward more, kissed harder, brought his hands up and grabbed hold of Spike's coat to pull him in and hold him still. 

Spike tried to turn his face and Xander yanked him back around hard by his coat.  Then Spike was twisting away, stumbling a little and wiping his mouth with his hand.  He took a few steps back and stood eyeing Xander watchfully.

Xander wiped his own mouth, and noticed that his hand was shaking.  He was on a sidewalk in the middle of L.A., and he'd just kissed a guy.  Cars were driving by, there were people around.  He'd just kissed Spike in the middle of the street.

"Holy shit," he said, and took a step back.

Some of the guardedness left Spike's face.  He settled his shoulders in his coat and pursed his lips.  Then he tipped his head sideways, pointing down the street.  "Come on," he said, and started walking.

Xander stood where he was, watching Spike go.  He was breathing hard, and his heart was beating too fast.  He felt sick and hopeless and like he might really open up and start to cry, right there on the sidewalk. 

But at the same time, there was a small coal of warmth in his stomach.  Not happiness or hope, just warmth.  It was better than nothing.

He started to walk after Spike.

The DeSoto was parked on the other side of the street; Spike ran through the traffic with his coat flapping, headlights flaring white off his hair, and Xander followed with his heart in his throat.  A horn blared.  He didn't die.  Spike was already in the driver's seat, and Xander walked around to the passenger side, hesitated a second with his hand on the handle, then opened the door and got in.

The car smelled of cigarettes and leather and dust, and of Spike.  It was dark, because the windows were sprayed.  Amazing he didn't get pulled over for that.  Rain drummed on the roof.  That was a good sound.  Of the many sounds in the world, that was one that was worth getting used to.

Spike was wiping rain off his face, squeezing it out of his hair.  He leaned forward and peered out through the little bit of clear pane in front of the steering wheel.  "Fucking stair-rods."

"What?"

"It's raining fucking stair-rods."

"What?"

Spike turned and looked at him, seemed to think for a minute, then said, "Cats and dogs."

"Oh.  Yeah."  Xander looked away, examined the door beside him, turned and glanced into the back seat.  It was too dark to see anything back there.  At least nothing was moving.

He looked back.  Spike was still peering through the windshield at the rain.  One hand was lightly touching the key in the ignition, but he wasn't turning it.  

"Where are we going?" Xander asked.  His heart was galloping in his chest; he felt like he’d run farther than just across the street.  The car smelled like Spike, and it ought to be disturbing that he was breathing it in deeply, that it made him feel safer.

Spike didn't look away from the window.  "Nowhere," he said after a minute.  "Don't have a place right now."

"I do," Xander said, without letting himself think. 

Spike didn't say anything.  There was enough light coming through the glass to see the outlines of his face, and he looked drained.  He tapped the ignition with his knuckles but didn't turn it.

"Listen," Xander said.  Then he didn't say anything.  After a minute Spike turned and looked at him, waiting for him to continue.  Xander reached out, caught the wet edge of Spike's coat in his hand, and kissed him again.

He tried to be a little gentler this time, a little more in control.  Spike hesitated, but he didn't pull away.  His hand came up and touched Xander's jaw and neck.  Xander could hear his own pulse in his ears, and the familiar taste was in his mouth.  It was the taste of his life before any of this happened, the taste he'd had dreams about, and he was desperate for it.

They sat kissing, just kissing, for a long while.  A few times Xander pushed his mouth hard against Spike's--hard enough to hurt, hard enough that maybe it wasn't a kiss anymore.  Spike let him do it.  Once Xander made a small noise in his throat, a needing kind of noise, and it didn't embarrass him but he didn't like it either, and he pulled away.  Spike came after him at once, tugged him back and kissed him gently, and Xander touched his wet hair with shaking hands, and wondered if he felt the cold.

Some people walked past the car, laughing and talking, and they pulled away from each other automatically.  Xander glanced at the window beside him; it was sprayed solid.  He couldn’t sit still; he looked around at the back again, then looked up, reached a hand up, and touched the ceiling.  A few flakes of vinyl or foam came down and got him in the face.

"I can't believe you dissed my car."

"Piece of shit, that."

"Yeah."  He shifted his feet and kicked something in the footwell; by the rattle, a can of spray paint.  "You going to actually drive this masterpiece, or am I walking home?"

Spike was silent for a moment.  Then he moved—Xander heard his coat creak—and the engine rumbled to life.  "Where d'you live, then?"

It took half an hour to get there, and Xander spent it flattened to the passenger side door.  He'd never considered how awful it would be to ride in a car that had, essentially, no windows. 

His panic seemed to perk Spike up.  He drove casually, grinning and cornering sharply.  "Hard to see with the rain like this," he said, letting the wheel go and patting at his pockets.  The car swerved slightly and he caught the wheel with his knee to straighten it out.

"Spike--"

"It was raining like this the night I rolled that old Peugeot outside Albany.  Well, maybe not this hard."

"Shut up, Spike."

He pulled his cigarettes from his pocket, hung one from his lip, and punched the dashboard coil.

"Second thought, it wasn't the Peugeot I rolled.  It was the Valiant.  The Peugeot I ran into a divider."

"Shut up."

He smiled and lit his cigarette, and squinted through the smoke. 

At last Xander felt them nose into the curb and stop, and Spike peered sideways through the windshield and said, "Hovel sweet hovel."  Xander sat up and felt for the door handle. 

"Yeah, people without houses should shut the fuck up."

Spike didn't reply, and he hadn't turned the engine off.  Xander looked around at him.  Spike was just staring at him, and it was too dark to see his face.  Xander let go of the door handle.  "Too hovelish?" he asked, trying to make it a joke but feeling a weight drop into his belly.

Spike said nothing for a moment, then turned his head so he was staring into his lap.  "Nah," he said.  "Just—"

Xander waited.

"Nothing," Spike said, and cut the engine.  He opened his door and got out, and after a minute Xander did the same.

The rain had died to a drizzle, and the air was cool and scrubbed.  Somewhere up the street someone was letting off fireworks--screaming Catherine wheels and strings of crackers.  The window below Xander's had a jack o'lantern in it.

He let them in and led the way up the stairs, sorting through his keys as he walked, and not thinking.  There was no reason to think; this wasn't a thinking thing.  It wasn't chess.  It wasn't even checkers.

Still, he was glad his hallway wasn't as disgusting as the last one.  He was glad he lived in a building where someone put a jack o'lantern out for Halloween.

He got to his door and stood sorting the keys some more.  Spike stopped a couple of feet away, staring back down the hall, saying nothing.  No help there.  Xander looked back down at the keys in his hand, jingled them, then just opened the door and stepped inside. 

"Come on in," he said, and shrugged off his coat.

Spike came in and looked around, and Xander closed the door behind him.  He hung his coat on the doorknob and walked away to the kitchen.  It struck him for the first time in a while that the apartment was tiny, and almost completely bare.

He drew a glass of water from the tap and stood leaning against the counter, drinking it, while Spike looked around.  There wasn't much to see; just the mattress he slept on, his tools spread out on a dropcloth in one corner of the room, a pile of newspapers he hadn't read.  He went and stared out the kitchen window, listening to Spike's footsteps.

They came back and stood in the door to the kitchen.

"Where's that bloody sofa?"

"Gone."

"Where's the telly?"

"Gone.  It's all gone—I missed rent on the other place, my stuff got put out on the street."  As he said it, he realized that in some small, petty way he'd wanted Spike to see this. 

Spike paused, then said, "Well, that's a stroke of luck."

"Sure.  I'm ready to embrace Buddhism now."

"You could buy a few sticks, you know."

"I will."

"Need a place to sit down and eat a proper meal, don't you?"

Xander stared out the window a second longer—the rain was a fine crosshatching in the orange halo of the streetlights—then turned.  "Are you expressing concern for my well-being?" he asked.

Spike didn't say anything, and Xander smiled, put the water glass down on the windowsill, and walked across the kitchen toward him.  It was only a few steps.  Then they were kissing again, and he had the familiar taste back in his mouth, the familiar lips against his own, and he didn't want to open his eyes ever again. 

He raised his hands, caught the wet cold collar of Spike’s coat, and started to pull it off.  For a minute Spike didn’t help; then he gave a little sigh and shrugged it loose, and it was history.  His T-shirt was damp too, and Xander used one hand to pull it up, then put his palm flat against Spike’s belly.  Spike gave a little start, hesitated, then leaned forward into the touch.  He was cold there.  Cold everywhere.  Warm hands must feel good.

Xander brought his other hand up and laid it against Spike’s cheek, and again Spike paused.  This time he pulled away, stepped back, and stood looking at Xander in the darkness.  Xander stayed where he was, breathing fast.

After a minute, he said, “What?”

Spike said nothing, just kept looking at him, and Xander stepped forward.  Spike stepped back. 

“What—why are you—?”  Stopping, he meant to say, but was suddenly too embarrassed to say it.  He’d assumed he could do this, assumed that all he had to do was say yes, and he could give up and let it happen, but maybe Spike didn’t want it after all.  Maybe Spike only wanted it when Xander was kneecapped and drugged and helpless.  Maybe that was his kink.

He took a deep breath and wiped his hands on his jeans, then realized his hair was dripping down his face.  He pushed it back and wiped his hands again.  The weight was back in his belly, and there was an awful edge to it now.  Because if not this, what? 

“Hey,” he said, smiling as well as he could.  “No problem.  I’m just—”  He couldn’t think what to say next.  His throat was tight, and he cleared it.  “I’m just a little crazy right now.  I didn’t mean to—”  Again, he had to let it hang. 

After a minute, Spike said, “To what?”  His voice sounded strange. 

Xander tried to see his face again, but it was too dark.  “I don’t know.  Nothing.  Maybe you should—”  Go.  But he couldn’t make himself actually say that either, and so he just stood staring at the floor, rubbing the back of his neck where the rain had soaked his shirt. 

There was a long silence, and his eyes were getting hot, his throat was tight and blocked again, and now he just wanted Spike out.  If he couldn’t have this he had to be alone, had to try to think it through rationally, like an adult, or maybe just drink until it was funny.  He coughed painfully and stepped back. 

“You should go,” he said, starting to turn back to the door. 

There was a quick step behind him, and a hand on his arm.  He turned back and Spike’s other hand was on his throat, the thumb along his jaw, tipping his head.  He was in the square of light from the streetlamp now; Xander could see his face.  He looked furious.

There was an instant to be frightened; then Spike kissed him, and he leaned forward into it so hard he lost his balance, and felt Spike’s hand steady him.  He knew his face was wet, knew he was breathing in messy gasps, knew he was trying to get control and failing for all the world to see.  It didn’t matter.  Spike held the base of his skull and ran his other hand up and down Xander’s side, a comfort or just a touch.  His mouth was cool and gentle.  He let Xander kiss him desperately, mindlessly, badly, and when Xander finally pulled away and stood wiping his face and shaking, half-laughing bitterly, he put his arms around Xander’s neck and pulled him back, then just stood holding him.

For a minute or two Xander put his face down and closed his eyes and could have been anywhere.  There were arms around him and the pain in his chest and throat was easing.  What did it matter, whose arms they were?  Maybe it was even good, maybe it would be all right to open his eyes and really be there. 

But as soon as he started to consider it, he felt strange and wrong and uncomfortable.  Without thinking any more he pushed lightly at Spike’s shoulder and after a moment the arms fell away.  He took a step back, wiped his face, and wondered if he was blushing.  It was very quiet in the apartment. 

“Sorry,” he said, staring at the floor.  There was no answer, and he looked up.  Spike was staring at him with the same furious look on his face, and Xander felt another quick instinctive kick of fear.  He swallowed and straightened up.  “What—” 

Spike reached for him again, curved his hand around the back of Xander’s neck. 

“What?” Xander said softly, resisting the pull.  “What are you—what do you want?”

They stood looking at each other for a moment.  Then Spike blinked and cleared his throat, and Xander realized with a shock that Spike needed this—this, something, whatever it was—as much as he did. 

“Want—” Spike said, and didn’t finish.  Xander stood looking at him a moment, then sighed and stepped deliberately forward, and kissed him lightly on the lips.

“Back up,” he said, and gave him a gentle push.  For a moment Spike looked confused; then he glanced behind him and saw the mattress in the corner.  He stood still a moment, then turned, walked over, and sat down on the edge of it, his arms resting on his knees. 

Xander stayed where he was.  This wasn’t what he’d expected.  The look on Spike’s face just now—he wanted this.  Wanted something.  So then why was it all awkwardness and uncertainty, and Spike sitting staring at him from the shadows with a damped-down, tired expression?

He felt strangely guilty, and hated it.  He’d thought Spike wanted this. 

He stood there a moment longer, then walked over and sat on the edge of the mattress a couple of feet away from Spike.  It was all getting too complicated, he didn’t know what any of it was supposed to mean, and he didn’t want any of it to mean anything. 

“This was supposed to be a lot simpler,” he said, staring at his hands.  Spike gave a quiet snort.

“Too right.”

“I thought—”  He stopped and scratched at a healing cut on his knuckle.  “I don’t know.  You know it’s your fault, right?  I mean, we’re agreed on that?”

Spike sighed and lay back on the mattress, his arms out.  “Yeah,” he said.  “That we are agreed on.”

Xander started to scratch a streak of paint off his thumbnail.  There was a silence.  Finally he said, “Do you want—”  He paused, examined his nail, and tried again.  “Do you want to bite me?”

Spike said nothing.  There was a tap of rain at the window.

After a minute Spike raised himself onto one elbow and looked at him.  Xander kept his head down, studying his thumb.

“Yeah,” Spike said.  He sounded bored.  “Sure, I’ll bite you.”

Xander looked up sharply.  “Hey, don’t do me any favors,” he said.  “I was just trying to—”  He stopped.

“Why do you care what I want?” Spike asked. 

Xander blinked and shook his head.  “I don’t know.  Maybe I don’t.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Spike said tonelessly. 

Xander shifted uncomfortably.  “I don’t know,” he said again. 

There was another brief silence, and then Spike sighed and said, “No.  You don’t.”  He sat up, then started to push himself to his feet.

Without thinking, Xander reached out and caught his wrist.  Spike paused, and in the faint light from the window he looked haggard and unbearably tired.   

“Stay a bit,” Xander said.  “If you want.”

Spike hesitated, staring at him, and there was something of that same expression on his face.  It looked hopeful.  Painful.  Xander put his hand out and touched Spike’s hair, and Spike closed his eyes.

“Stay a bit,” Xander said again, and pulled at Spike’s neck.

Spike leaned over and pushed his head into Xander’s shoulder, and Xander let himself fall back onto the mattress with Spike on top of him.  It felt strange and quiet and neutral, like lying with someone he’d known all his life, someone he trusted.  For a while he lay listening to the rain on the window, the muffled bangs of fireworks up the street.

Then Spike’s hand dropped onto his hip, the palm cupped over the bone, and Xander frowned slightly, turned his head, and found Spike’s mouth with his own.  It was the easiest thing to do.  Spike kissed back, took hold of his hip and rocked it back and forth very slightly.  His face was cool and he tasted like himself.  It was sad and maddening, it tasted like something already lost and gone, and Xander kissed harder.  Spike made a slight sound in his throat, and Xander pushed him over onto his back and rolled on top of him.  When he glanced down, he saw that Spike’s eyes were closed.

He hesitated a moment, studying Spike’s face.  He did know what Spike wanted.  Of course he did—he wasn’t an idiot.  He’d known for months, since Angel had come to save the day or maybe even before then.  He even knew, or thought he knew, that it wasn’t anything personal.  If it had been somebody else walking out of The Summer Place that night, drunk and tallying pocket change, it would all have happened differently.  Maybe the message would have been delivered.  Somebody else might have remembered it in time.

But it hadn't been somebody else, it had been him, and Spike wanted him, and it was just that simple and hopeless.  Spike was still lying under him with his eyes closed.  Waiting, or pretending.  All right.  Everyone had to pretend, sometimes.

Xander lowered his head and kissed Spike lightly on the mouth, felt the cool lips part at once and tasted the good familiar taste.  He lifted his hand and ran it gently down Spike’s cheek, remembering the trace of bruise around the eye, then let the palm rest on Spike’s throat.  Spike tipped his chin up, and his hands ghosted over Xander’s back.  His throat was white and unmarked, and for a moment Xander imagined biting down hard, drawing blood.

He kissed it instead, and Spike started sharply.  Xander paused, then put his mouth to the cool skin and gnawed lightly.  Spike made a shuddering sound and pushed his hips up, and his hands settled on the small of Xander’s back.  His skin tasted good, more of the same.  Xander kissed the notch of his jaw and Spike’s hands pulled him down, forced their hips together.  They were both hard, and Xander swallowed and caught his breath and tried to make his heart slow down.  Spike gave a little moan and tipped his head further back, baring his throat.

The sight made Xander’s cock jerk, but at the same time it was awful, wrong, perverse.  Spike wanted to be bitten.  When Xander’s mouth was on his neck, he pushed his cock up and groaned, and maybe it was understandable, maybe it was even forgivable, it was his nature after all, but there were all kinds of dirty and sometimes you got to choose.  Xander stared a moment longer at the gleam of Spike’s throat in the darkness, then reached down and rubbed his fingers over Spike’s cock.

Spike jerked and pushed up hard, and Xander didn’t let himself think about it, just yanked the button of Spike’s jeans open and forced the zipper down.  Then his hand was on Spike’s cock, cool and hard and awkward at first to get out of the fly, and Spike turned his head to one side, bared more neck, and murmured, Fuck.

Xander hesitated, then put one palm on Spike’s chest, just below his throat, and pushed down Spike’s body.  He felt Spike tense, maybe start to say something, and closed his hand around Spike’s cock, down and up.  Spike jerked again and then lay rigid, silent.  Xander held still, his head on Spike’s thigh.

He expected to feel repulsed, ashamed, at least unwilling—but he didn’t.  It was strange, stranger still because there was a foreskin and he hadn't considered that, but it wasn’t disgusting.  When he touched the tip there was wetness, and that made his own cock ache.  He ran his hand up and down, feeling how it was the same as his own, how it was different, and when Spike pushed his hips up and cursed under his breath, it was bizarre and heady to know that he’d felt that exact feeling before.

He didn’t know how to do it, didn’t expect to be any good at it, but that wasn’t the point.  He pulled his hand down, bared the wet smooth tip, and took Spike’s cock in his mouth. 

Spike made a thin noise in his throat and went still, and Xander pulled almost completely off, enough that he could taste as well as feel.  It was how Spike tasted, but more intense somehow.  It made his cock hurt.  He closed his lips over the end and forced them down, thought of how he knew it felt, and ground himself into the mattress.

Spike’s hips were moving, and he was cursing in a constant monotone.  One hand came down and touched Xander’s hair lightly, then his shoulder, then his hair again.  Xander glanced up; Spike’s other arm was curled over his face, over his eyes.

He knew Spike was controlling himself, not pushing as hard as he wanted to, but still he caught the tremble in Spike’s legs, and knew what it meant.  At the same moment, Spike’s hand came down and caught his shoulder.  He pushed it away.

“Stop—” Spike said, grabbing him again.  “Stop it, I’m—”

Xander knocked the hand away, closed his eyes, and used his teeth to lightly rake.  Spike’s hand knotted in Xander’s shirt, and his thrusts turned suddenly short and hard.  There was a moment of surreality, lust and panic together, and then cool wetness in his mouth, more than he’d though there would be, and some part of his mind noticed that Spike had been saying fuck fuck fuck and also love.

At last Spike stopped moving, and Xander wondered what the hell came next.  He had to—well, swallow.  He tried not to shudder as he did it.  He tried not to be obvious when he wiped his mouth on the sheet.

Spike had taken his arm off his face, but he hadn't moved otherwise.  And all of a sudden Xander was a little afraid to look him in the face.  He didn’t want to see that look again, the one that said so clearly what Spike wanted, the one he’d been able to ignore so far.  What he’d just done had nothing to do with that look, and they both knew it.  It was why Spike had kept his face covered, and his eyes closed.

He couldn’t stay where he was, face down between Spike’s legs, so he sat up and faced away, and after a minute he felt the bed shift and heard Spike’s zipper close.  It was raining harder; the window was a smear of black.

Spike sat up, and they were back where they’d started, almost, like some kind of perverse, intricate choreography.  Except it felt different now. 

After a couple of minutes, Spike ran his hand through his hair and cleared his throat.  “Want me to get you a telly?”

Xander looked at him.  “What?”

“Nothing.”  But he looked embarrassed, defensive.  He’d been serious.  Of course he had.  He looked away and ran his hand through his hair again.

He looked tired and skinny and miserable, and a part of Xander wanted to reach out and touch him, take hold of him and pull him in.  He could taste that mouth again, smell that skin and hair, and there would be arms around him, a body against his own, bright untrustworthy eyes.  He could be wanted.  Needed. 

He didn’t even have to do that much.  He could just let Spike stay in the apartment for a while, just until he found his feet, it didn’t have to mean anything.  It would be a humane and compassionate thing to do.  He might do it for anyone.

He dropped his eyes and studied the faint trace of paint on his thumbnail. 

“Nah,” he said.  “I’ll get one myself.  Thanks anyway.”

Spike sat silently for a moment, staring at the far corner of the room, then pushed abruptly to his feet.  Xander stayed where he was while Spike walked to the center of the room and picked up his coat.

“Right,” Spike said, shouldering into it and patting the pockets absentmindedly.  He should have looked Big Bad in it, but instead he just looked swamped.  “Right, well.  I’m off then.”

Xander said nothing.  There was a sharp pain in his chest, and he wasn’t sure whether it was because he wanted Spike to leave or stay.  He was suddenly disgusted with himself, and he shook his head without speaking.

Spike stood watching him silently, waiting, and Xander stared at the rain-streaked window and listened to the wind blow drops against the glass.  The weather in California wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“Listen, love—” Spike said, and Xander jerked.

“Don’t call me that.”

He looked up in time to catch Spike’s flinch, and felt even sicker.  “Sorry.  I’m sorry.”  He spread his hands as if they could speak for him. 

Spike walked back over and crouched down in front of him.  For a moment Xander was afraid Spike was going to take his hands, or kiss him, or try to comfort him in some other way, and he’d have to pull away because he couldn’t stand that right now.  But Spike didn’t touch him. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said firmly.  “Any of it.  You got that?”

Xander stared at the floor and nodded.  He could feel Spike giving him a look, even if he couldn’t see it.

“You’re—what, twenty?”

It was such an odd question that he looked up and nodded automatically.  Spike was regarding him without a trace of need or want; the bad eyebrow was up and he looked hard and skeptical and maybe a bit annoyed.  “Right.  Twenty years old, got your whole life ahead of you.  Don’t be an idiot.”

Xander just stared at him.  Spike sighed and started to enumerate on his fingers, as if giving instructions to a child.

“Buy some bloody furniture.  Eat a proper meal.  Take a fucking night class, meet some other tossers like yourself.  And get a bloody girlfriend.”

That was a thumb and three fingers.  Xander sat staring at Spike’s hand, a slight, involuntary smile on his lips.  “What’s number five?” he asked. 

Spike looked down at his hand, snorted, and raised it as if about to deliver a slap.  “Number five’s a thick ear,” he said, but then he put his palm lightly against Xander’s cheek, leaned in, and kissed him.

It was fine.  It was just a kiss, and when it ended Xander was still smiling slightly.  Spike rocked back on his heels and regarded him.

“You’re going to be all right,” he said after a minute, and stood up. 

Xander sat still and watched him cross the room and let himself out.  He listened, but the rain was coming down too hard to let him hear the DeSoto’s engine start.

 

The End

 

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