Title: Inside Information
Author: Raihne
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but then again, if wishes were corpses
then beggars would dine.
Summary: Xander is in a coma, he can hear people around him but doesn't
remember them or himself. So who's the guy was
the cockney voice who visits each
night, and why did Xander give him control over the decision to pull the plug.
Note: I'm thinking about letting
this become a round robin or a join fic. If anyone wants to write the second
part, go ahead
and Email it too me, maybe we'll can write it together.
Part 1
beep. . . beep. . . beep. . . the sounds of the heart
monitor were so loud in the silent hospital room. Xander couldn't move. Couldn't
open his eyes, couldn't speak, all he could do was lay there and listen to
the loud beeping. He felt every ache, every broken bone, every IV that pierced
his flesh. If not for the people who would stop in and talk to him he
would have been driven completely INSANE by the damn beeping!
Xander would lay in the hospital bed all day and try
to remember how he had gotten there. Why he hurt so baddly. Who the voices
were. He couldn't remember though. He couldn't remember anything. Even his
name was new to him, but that was what the voices kept calling him. Xander.
Or mister Harris, but those voices were alway cool and sterile like the hospital
itself so he was pretty sure those were nurses and doctors.
//How can I remember what a doctor sounds like but not
my own name?!//
All he knew about his life was gleened by the visiting
voices, but they talked like he should already know everything they were talking
about. //Well, I guess I 'should' know. But they can't realize I don't can
they.//
The voices came every day, sometimes all at once, sometimes
one at a time. One of them was an older, father type voice was an accent that
made him sound like a more cultured version of James Bond. //Again, how do
I remember James Bond?!// The father type guy would always pause while he
was talking and say "well. . . ah. . . " as if he was trying to figure out
what to say.
Another voice was a babbling girl who must have lungs
the size of Texas to compensate for how much she talked. She cried a lot too.
He knew it was because of him. She was crying because he wouldn't open
his eyes for her. He couldn't even tell her that he was trying to. She felt
familiar, close to him, like family. Maybe she was his sister or something.
He stopped his thoughts right there, it made his head hurt to try to work
out why his father and sister would have two different accents and visit him
at seperate times.
The other girls voice was more. . . well it was scarey!
She was obviously dominant, it was the nicest way to describe her. He prayed
to God that she wasn't his girlfreind. She would appologize to him for not
being there to protect him, another thing he wasn't going to think about,
and then yell and threaten that if he didn't get better she would kill him.
She was funny like that. Scarey funny.
The last voice was different from the others. This voice
only came when the others were gone. Xander wasn't sure how the other voice
got into his hospital room so late but it did. He did. The voice was male.
British, but not the polished father guy type British. Sometimes he
didn't speak at all. Other times though, he had a voice like a cockney angel.
This was the voice he liked most of all. This voice would sing and read out
loud to him and talk to him like he knew Xander could hear him. One day the
voice cracked and broke with a sob. It apologised to Xander and then asked
when he was coming home. That was the day Xander remembered the voice as Spike.
Nothing else came to him, no memories or explanations, just the name Spike.
And a pair of haunted and haunting blue eyes.
He tried then to answer the sobing man, but he couldn't
manage a sound. He forced his lips to move, but Spike must have left already.
There was no one to see. The effort exhausted him and he fell asleep again.
That happened a lot lately.
When he woke up people were arguing. It was Spike! He
was there with the two girls from before. Xander listened carefully, this
was the first time he'd heard them speak to eachother, but they weren't strangers.
Strangers were nicer to one another.
"He' hasn't moved in almost a year now! It's inhuman
Spike!"
//A year?! That long?!// Xander was shocked.
"Well I'm not human. am I."
"Spike." The soft girl spoke, "You can't let him go on
like this. He isn't in there anymore. What made him Xander is gone." She sobbed
but pressed on, "He's my best freind. . ."
//Well the answers the sister question.//
". . . but even I know when to let go."
//Let go? No! I'm trying! Give me a little more time!//
"He'll get better. You humans are a stubborn lot."
The dominant girl growled, "Why would he have left this
up to Spike anyway?!Willow, he's evil!"
//Willow.// Xander thought, //I know her. That name is
familiar. My best freind? That doesn't sound right. . . but I know her!//
Willow was replying, "Buffy, calm down. Maybe he wanted
to spare us the decision. It isn't right and I wish he hadn't excluded us,
but maybe he thought Spike could do what we couldn't."
"Well that plan backfired!"
Xander frowned, Buffy was wrong. So was Willow. He didn't
know why, they just were. Something deep inside of him knew that."
"He isn't done yet." Spike was closer now, arguing again,
"I won't let him go until he thinks it's time."
"And how will you know that?"
"I'll smell it."
The conversation was a bit confusing but Xander was glad
he'd chosen Spike, whatever the reason.
It was quiet for a while after the girls left. Spike
was there, Xander felt those blue eyes on him even though he couldn't meet
the gaze. He felt a moist drop hit the back of his hand then another, and
then soft, thin lips touched the now moist skin.
"I know you'll never give up luv." He said quietly, "You
love living too much."
//Your accent's changing.// He smiled inside. //poser.//
"That Anyaka bitch screwed us over good didn't she. I
swear pet, I find 'er an' she's dead."
//Anyaka? Bitch? A girl did this to me? Oh God I'll never
live it down.//
"'ad no right to do the vengence bit anycall.You were
mine since Angel gave you to me to snack on, if anything you cheated on me."
//Snack on? Someone gave me to Spike? Am I a hooker or
something? Oh God! I'm a male prostitute!//
"Shags you even with my mark on ya an' then punishes
you fer comin' back to me. Damn bitch!"
//Whoa! I'm marked too? What kind of Jerry Spinger kick
was I on?!// Xander mentally blinked, //And hold on I'm gay?! With Spike?!
And why does this have to make more since than anything has since I woke up
here? I mean couldn't I even try to deny it?//
"Really need you back here soon though."
//Oh God, why? Is there something else I don't want to
know?!//
"Miss ya luv." He whispered hoarsly.
//oh.// Xander could feel his eyes tearing up.
Spike could see it. "Xan?!"
All he could manage was tears.
"Ah luv. Don' cry. 'least you're alive. I know you'll
be back ta me soon."
Xander wished he had Spike's faith. //But then again,
Spike actually remembers me, so maybe he had some inside information.//
~tbc~