Boglescatverse

by
Witling

Part Sixteen

The blue shimmered open and Buffy said, "Isn't he kind of…preppy?"

It was all suddenly perfectly clear. A school of little fish all turning in the light, shining like polished knives.

"No," he said, taking her by the arm and starting to walk toward the bedroom. "No, you should see how scared he sometimes gets."

Then he woke up and lay staring at stucco, Navajo White.

The apartment was quiet except for the air conditioner. It must be early. Sunday morning. He turned his head and his neck ached. The clock read seven thirty. Why was he awake?

Ah, yes.

He sat up slowly, two fists in the mattress, his shoulder tight and hot. He'd crashed in all his clothes, all his goo. He was flaky, crispy, itchy. There was a slender herringbone of sun on the floor below the window. Automatically, he glanced behind himself.

Spike was a skinny bundle of sheets and fingertips on the far side, pretty much where he'd sacked out. His face was half-buried in the covers, reduced to a single concentrating eyebrow and an eyelid smooth as a spoon. Xander stood up slowly and scratched his neck. Spike's eyelid twitched and his brow crimped slightly. Dreaming.

Xander turned away, paused, and turned back. He closed his eyes, then opened one slightly. Just enough to see a shape in the bed. No detail. He studied it a minute. Arms, legs, presumably somewhere a torso. Even with his eyes almost closed, it looked nothing like Anya. He waited for the familiar seep of loss in his gut. Nothing.

His neck started to itch again and he turned and went down the hall, scratching and flaking a fine powder of dried goo. Peeing took an impressively long time. So did peeling off his clothes. The cool shower water felt like heaven. He washed everything twice, scrubbed rubbery yellow scum from under his fingernails and behind his ears and inside his navel. He was going to have to Drano the pipes again.

But still. The window over the shower was bright with sunshine, and considering the hole in his shoulder and how he'd got it, he felt strangely light and chipper. He banged the tap off with his heel and towelled off briskly. There was air conditioning, and there were waffles in the freezer. The day was his. And sure, Spike was plunked inevitably in the middle of that day like a sawhorse on a sidewalk, but that didn't really bother him either. He was unbotherable. Maybe he'd finally discovered his superpower.

He padded out in the damp towel that was becoming his uniform--or maybe it was the uniform of Unbotherable Lad--and detoured to the kitchen to jam his ruined clothes into the garbage. He still had milk in the fridge, just one day past the best-by date. And there was half a box of Wheaties left. He was ravenous. He trucked a bowl back to the couch, skirted the disaster area, clicked the remote on with his big toe, and started in.

Sunday morning television was predictably hortatory, and he watched happily while an orange man with welded white hair bandied Gog and Magog and the occasional implicit plea for funds. He was pouring a second bowl of Wheaties--he'd be a champion if it killed him, dammit--when the door to the bedroom opened. Spike stood there, still shirtless and shoeless, unservable at any 7-11 in the nation. His hair was standing up in dorky licks, and his eyes were puffy and swollen. The bump on his temple made him look slightly off-center, like he needed a gentle tap to bring him back to true.

"Morning," Xander said. "You look... Well, like shit, actually."

Spike rubbed the back of his head and eyed him. Then he started for the couch. He was slow and kind of shaky, but he didn't seem likely to hit the floor. Xander took his feet off the cushions, moved over, and went back to Sodom, Gomorrah, and tax deductible donations.

"They were just talking about you," he said between mouthfuls. "Serpents and devils. You just missed it."

Spike whumped down into the cushions with a little sigh. He surveyed the beached coffee table, the surf of magazines around it.

"Fucking tip," he murmured, and leaned slowly forward to pluck at the Wheaties box. "'s this?"

"Deadly to your kind."

Spike shook the box half-heartedly, grimaced, and let it drop. He settled deeper into the couch, let his head fall back against the cushion, and stared at the television.

"Bloody right," he murmured to the plagues and lakes of fire. Xander drank the last of the milk out of his bowl and got up. In the kitchen, he put a waffle in the toaster, squeezed some more blood into a mug, and zapped it. He didn't have any syrup, but there was peanut butter in the fridge. He spread some on the waffle when it came out and carried it out in his teeth, because his hands were full of mug and bowl.

The television was still on brimstone, which was baffling. The remote was right there, after all. He stood there with waffle in his teeth, and Spike slowly turned his head and squinted up at him.

"What?"

Xander held the mug out, and Spike studied it for a second, then raised a relatively stable hand and took it. Xander used his free hand to take the waffle out of his mouth.

"You feeling okay?"

Spike gave him the patented patronizing, almost regretful you fucking idiot look. "No," he said after a moment. "Feel like crap."

Xander nodded. "You can change it if you want," he said, and continued on to the bedroom. Before he even got through the door, he heard corner kick commentary start up behind him.

He wolfed the waffle, realized the cereal bowl was still empty and ditched it on the dresser, and found a long-lost pair of board shorts rammed into the back of the drawer. He needed new clothes. Or new hobbies. Or both.

He stuffed as many rancid goo-Pollocked items into the old Elvis laundry bag as he could fit, then turned and looked at the bed. His side was peppered with weird yellow stains that probably wouldn't come out. He reached out to pull the sheets off, then paused, stood up again, and looked at them. There was still the shape of two bodies there, two head dents in the pillows. Not something he saw every day, in this brave new world of his.

And now he did feel a little sad about something, but it wasn't Anya. He wasn't sure what it was. Just...

"Just because he didn't call doesn't make him a bad person," he recited quietly, and tugged the bottom sheet off the bed. "It just makes him...Amish." He bundled the sheet and started on the pillowcases. "Or Orthodox." He chucked the naked pillows back to the head of the bed and yanked the fitted sheet off. "Or discriminating."

That was a sobering thought--maybe he'd never called because it had sucked--but that way lay depression and self-doubt and the ruination of a perfectly good air-conditioned Sunday. And besides, he'd always been okay at it before. At least Anya thought so, and she ought to know. But maybe it was different with guys. Maybe with guys he wasn't so much a Viking as an Orkney Islander. Possibly a Pygmy.

"Fuck this," he muttered, and jerked the laundry bag drawstring shut. "I am Unbotherable. Lo, it bothers me not."

The stack of laundry quarters in the bedside table drawer seemed radically diminished, but he swept up what was there and headed out. Spike didn't even look up as he went past.

The laundry room was deserted--it was hardly a quarter past eight--and he started a couple of loads without any audience for his nasty, possibly toxic clothes. That was a relief. He'd already worked the "tarring roofs" excuse pretty much to death, and sooner or later Mrs. Dilwhipple was going to figure out that construction work didn't involve rubber cement.

On his way back up the stairs, he could hear his phone ringing. His first thought was to ignore it--it was Sunday morning, the world could go read the sports section like a normal person--and then he remembered Spike. He started hustling, wincing when he forgot and hauled on the bannister with his perforated arm.

He came through the door just as the ringing stopped. Spike wasn't on the couch. Neither was the phone. He paused to hone in. Little sound from the kitchen, and he barrelled in to find Spike sitting at the table, his back turned and the phone at his ear. Xander chucked the laundry bag onto the counter and raised his eyebrows when Spike swivelled slowly to look at him.

"Oh, sorry, I thought that was my phone. But I guess it's yours. Since you're not taking any more calls from the Jersey Shore on--"

Spike held the phone out to him without a word. His face was bored and tired.

Xander just stared. After a second, he heard a tiny Willow voice say, "Spike?"

He reached out and took the phone out of Spike's fingers.

"Hey, Wills. It's me."

"Xander! Hi! I was just calling to see if you were okay--"

"I'm fine." He stepped back to let Spike stand up and walk out. He moved slowly, like an old and aching person. "I'm fine, sorry. I was doing laundry. Spike picked up?"

"Yeah. He said you'd be right back. And he said--" She hesitated. "Well, he didn't exactly say thank you, but you know, he said the powder's working and he feels better. Which is good."

"Yeah." He leaned against the doorframe and examined the back of the chair Spike had been sitting in. "Yeah, he's up and around and answering other people's phones."

"Which is good," Willow said again. "How's your arm?"

"Arm is good," he said, flapping it automatically. "Arm is--ow. Arm is...still attached." He pried up a corner of the bandage and peered underneath. "Arm is gross."

"Poor Buffy," Willow said. "She was beating herself up all night about it. She'd still be beating except now she's asleep in all her clothes with her mouth open." She paused. "She'll probably start up again around eleven."

"Sounds good. And you are awake because why?"

"Oh, cacodemon research. It's easier to get onto the databases in the off hours. And can I just repeat? I'm glad it didn't anchor."

"Me too," he said heartily. "And please don't tell me why--"

"Because if it anchors," she went on, "and you break the proboscis, the broken part fragments and migrates through your circulatory system, and the shed fragments adhere to the vessels and start corroding them. So you basically just start melting from the inside, and when you've melted enough the cacodemon finishes siphoning you with its secondary proboscis, which is in its anus."

Xander stared at the chair.

"Xander? Are you still there?"

"Yeah." He patted the edge of the bandage down and licked his lips. "Here I am. Right here."

"Um, sorry."

"You want a waffle?"

She paused. "I can't. I told Giles I'd follow up on his citations, and there are, like--" He heard riffling pages. "Eighty of them."

"Okay. More waffle for me, then." He started for the freezer. "If you change your mind, you know where I'll be. Corroding. On the couch."

"Xander, don't even say that."

"Liquefying," he said, dropping a waffle into the toaster. "Melting from the inside out."

"Xander!"

"If Spike drinks my remains, hex him, will you?"

"I'm hanging up now. Buffy's making squinchy face."

"Yeah, catch you later."

He hung up and stood watching the toaster coils turn red, watching the little chunks of frost hiss off the waffle. In the other room, excitable English voices were discussing the offside rule. Faintly, he heard Spike add, "Bloody right."

He could be shrimp cocktail sauce right now. Briefly, he tried to imagine what Spike would have done if he'd woken up next to a puddle of corroded vessels. Probably dug around for a straw.

Which reminded him.

He sighed, squeezed more blood into a glass, added a tablespoon of scat, and headed back into the living room.

Part Seventeen

"There cannot possibly be any more soccer on the television at this time."

He heard channels blur past, a quick all-points tour of the compass. Within thirty seconds, there was a familiar roar of crowd approval. He closed his eyes and groaned.

"'s always footie," Spike murmured, as if it were a religious tenet.

Xander ran a hand over his face and lowered his head to stare at the floor. He'd picked the coffee table up so they'd have somewhere to put their feet, but the magazines and old papers were still all over the floor. He could…read something. His brain immediately flatlined at the thought.

"Okay," he said firmly. "Half an hour more of soccer. Then we switch to something else."

Spike didn't answer. His gaze was locked on the television; he winced slightly and the crowd booed.

"Okay then," Xander said, and closed his eyes again.

"Is there a sock between you and the door?"

Pause. Then Spike tore his eyes from the screen and lolled his head over the arm of the couch. "Yeah."

"Color?"

"Crud."

"Thanks." He got up and went over to pair it with the one he was holding. "And for a guy who, as far as modern science knows, owns no socks? You're awfully critical."

Spike went back to the television. Xander balled the socks and overhanded them through the bedroom door, then sat down and started sorting again. The smell of clean laundry was making him sleepy.

"Did you really have your crypt fumigated?" he asked, pitching boxers into a pile.

Spike turned his head and raised an eyebrow. "'s what I said, isn't it?"

"Uh huh." There were disturbing yellow stains on his old green Oxford, dammit. Maybe he could Shout them out.

Spike was still watching him, he realized after a minute. He looked up. "Time's up, sports fan. Remote."

Spike's fingers tightened around it. "You're busy."

"I can watch and fold. Give it."

"It's semifinals."

"You have no idea what's going on. You're been falling asleep for the last forty minutes."

"Have not."

"And you snore. Give it."

Spike gave him a narrow look, then tossed the remote onto the pile of boxers. "'m not watching the bloody fashion network," he muttered.

Xander clicked it to SFX and went back to sorting without a word.

"Back to work tomorrow, then?"

Xander jumped slightly. Neither of them had said anything in almost an hour. He glanced over his shoulder; Spike was looking at him, but as soon as their eyes met, he looked back at the television.

"Yeah." He went back to the X-Files. It was a good one, the one with Luke Wilson in Billy Bob teeth, but he wasn't getting into it. Mostly he just felt sort of flat and crappy, and thanks, Spike, for pissing all over what was supposed to be a perfectly good day off. Fashion network. Fuck.

"Got wiring to do?"

"Yeah," he said without looking around. Then he wondered how Spike knew that. His conversation with Daniel, Friday morning. Jesus, Spike could hear paint dry.

"Could use a couple new breakers myself," Spike said.

"I don't do heads," Xander said shortly. There was a little pause.

"Meant my crypt," Spike said.

Damn it. Xander hesitated, then glanced back.

"Right," he said. "Sorry."

"No problem." Spike's face was still and tight, and his fingers rubbed the knee of his jeans. Xander opened his mouth, then closed it.

"Not so much crypts either," he said, watching Scully give Mulder the once-over. "Too much of a fire hazard."

Spike grunted, and they lapsed back to silence.

When the episode ended he handed the remote wordlessly back to Spike and headed into the kitchen to hunt and gather. He wasn't that hungry—it was too hot to be hungry—but it was something to do. He stood with the refrigerator door open, staring at the half-empty bottle of Vlasics and the pizza box that had been there since… He couldn't remember. Maybe it had come with the apartment.

He could have waffles. Or he could order in. Somewhere in the mess on the living room floor, there were restaurant flyers. He went back and stood in the doorway; from there, he could make out Schlomo's House of Knish, The Colcannery, and Doublemeat. None of them appealed. Somewhere in there was a Taco Mahal leaflet. He could eat a taco. He sighed, went back, and started sorting through.

Spike kept flicking channels, ignoring him. After a few seconds he settled on something that sounded familiar. Xander paused and looked up with a Tempeh Tempeh flyer in one hand.

"—so we used the industrial-grade insulation from Innovative. It costs a little more, but come November, it's well worth it."

Xander turned his head and looked at Spike. "This Old House?"

Spike stared fixedly ahead, one thumb tapping the remote. "Nothing bloody else on."

Xander glanced back at the screen, then at Spike again. "PBS?"

"Seen the match already."

Xander stared at him a second longer, then settled onto his haunches and leaned against the couch. Bob and Norm were making their way through the workmen, pointing out the antique stair rods.

"Fuck, they painted them," Xander said, without thinking. He dropped his head and went back to sorting flyers. Spike shifted.

"'s wrong with painting?"

And if he answered that, he'd get nailed for being a big gay interior decorator. No thanks. He kept sorting. "You seen a taco flyer in here? Yellow, green, big taco on the front?"

"Paint keeps the bugs off."

"Uh-huh." He caught a glimpse of taco under an old National Geographic and lunged for it. "And who died and made you the Orkin man?"

Spike just watched in silence while he got up and brought the phone back from the kitchen. He should really keep the Mahal on speed dial.

"Taco Mahal, finest halal Mexican fare this side of Mecca. HowcanIhelpyou?" The guy sounded bored out of his mind, and Xander felt a stab of sympathy. God, he'd been there. Suddenly wiring didn't seem so bad.

"Uh, yeah. I'll have the Agra Combo, no onions. And a Sprite." He paused, then said, "Hang on a second," and put his hand over the mouthpiece. "You want something?"

For a second it was as if Spike hadn't heard him, or the words hadn't sunk in; then he looked frankly startled. He covered it up fast and looked bored. "Yeah. Sure."

Xander skimmed the leaflet at him and he caught it, glanced at it too fast to have actually read it, and said, "Number four." He let it drop and went back to staring at the television.

"And a number four," Xander said into the phone.

"Zoroastrian Medley," the guy intoned. "Liver or tongue?"

Xander paused. "Surprise me."

He hung up and went back to sorting the stuff on the floor, watching This Old House out of the corner of one eye. After a while, Spike started to snore again.

"Oh, this prick."

Xander lowered his taco. "Spike. Captain Picard is not a prick."

"Barking orders at everyone—"

"That's his job, Spike. He's the captain."

"Holier-than-thou—"

"Spike, everyone is holier than you. Steve Tyler is holier than you."

"Tugging on that poncy little costume every chance he gets—"

Xander raised a hand in surrender and went back to his taco. After a minute he conceded, "If anyone's a prick, it's Riker."

"Which one's Riker?"

"The one with the beard. That one."

Spike took a moment to examine the television, while his taco disintegrated further in his fingers. "Oh yeah," he said in a deeply satisfied tone. "That bastard. Hate that bastard." He took a bite of taco, paused, and fished something out of his mouth with a look of distaste. "Bloody toady, he is."

"Plus, he played on a Phish album," Xander said morosely. "Trombone."

"Ought to be shot," Spike said.

They both started on their second tacos.

"Thing with telly nowadays is, too bloody smart for its own good." Spike was almost prone, his feet propped on the coffee table, the cushions around him littered with taco shreds. He still had the remote in one hand, but the sound was turned way down now. Wild at Heart was playing, but without much of an audience. The apartment was getting hot again, even with the air conditioner running on high in the bedroom.

"Used to be," Spike went on, adjusting his feet and letting his eyes fall almost shut, "everything on telly was bloody earnest. Ties and separate beds. Setting an example. Now it's all teenagers in bikinis sassing off 'cos they've got theirs."

Xander paused and looked up from the pile of catalogs. "Exactly which program are you talking about?"

Spike waved a hand. "All of 'em. No one takes anything seriously anymore." He rubbed his head. "Like monster movies. Not scary anymore. No one's scared of the ogre anymore."

Xander studied him. He was still rubbing his head, running his fingers over and over his temple as if he'd forgotten he was doing it. The circles under his eyes were almost blue.

"You're just tired," Xander said. "And ogres are fucking terrifying."

Spike opened one eye. "You've never seen an ogre."

"An ogre broke my arm, Spike."

"Troll."

Xander paused and thought about it. "Huh," he said. "Okay, troll."

He went back to sorting catalogs. Spike tipped his feet so he could see past them to the piles.

"Got enough of those things, do you?"

Xander sighed, leaned back, and listened to his spine pop. "Anya," he said. The one-word explanation. "They just keep sending them, I just keep shoving them under the table. I'm considering the witness relocation program."

Spike leaned down and hooked a Pottery Barn catalog with one finger, paged through it, and let it drop. "Wondered why she upped and went," he said, turning back to the television. "Seemed…sudden."

Xander sat stiffly, waiting for the punch line. Wonder who's doing her hair now, then?

Silence, except for Sailor Boy. He glanced up; Spike was watching the screen with half-closed eyes. The latest empty scat glass was congealing by his left foot. Xander forced his shoulders to settle, forced himself to lean back against the couch, forced himself to put everything with her name on it in the throw-away pile.

The phone rang and he jerked upright, grabbed it up, and clicked it on. What time was it? The apartment was dim and sweltering. He had a crick in his neck.

"Xander?"

"Buffy. Hey." He blinked, swiped a hand across his face, and got his bearings. Taco wrappers on the floor. Stacks of magazines and catalogs. Lawrence Welk on the television. Muted, thank God.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I just—I was asleep." He turned his head sideways, wincing at the crick, and saw Spike on the far side of the couch, just coming to as well. Looking confused and sort of annoyed, and then horrified when he saw what was on the television screen. Fumbling for the remote.

"Sorry, I just wanted to check in and make sure you were, you know. Okay."

"I'm fine." He yawned and rubbed his neck. "Arm is fine. Spike is…" He glanced at Spike, who caught the look and raised his lip to show his canine. "He's fine."

"Okay." She sounded sort of at a loss, and he knew he should pitch in and make the conversation roll, but he just couldn't find the energy to do it. He waited, covering another silent yawn with his hand. "Okay, then. Well, patrol tomorrow night?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

"And you're sure you feel okay?"

"I'm sure. Box, nine."

"Okay. Have a good night."

He hung up and sat blinking at the flicker of channels. "No soccer. I'm serious."

"'s my turn."

"It's my television."

"Fascist."

"Freeloader."

"Like I'd bloody take anything from—"

"You can put the quarters back in my bedside table anytime, Spike."

The channel tour stopped on SFX. Xander smiled. "Now that guy," he said, "is a prick."