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My [info]lynnevitational fic

Thank you thank you, as always, to [info]reremouse, who's fault this all is, anyway, and [info]darkhavens for pointing out my messes.

Post-everything, adult, blah blah. You guys know the drill. The title is from Burn On by Randy Newman.





TumbleTurnOverflow


by
Tabaqui





Part One

The thing Xander hated pretty much more than anything else was jail. All of 'em. They all had that same musty smell, overlaid with sweat and sick and cheap, lye-based disinfectant. And they were mostly loud and crowded and old, except when they were new and then they just reminded him of the Initiative and that kind of gave him the creeps.

Xander sat in his rental car outside of the Escambia County Detention Center. It was big and white and ugly. It seemed to waver slightly in the thick Florida air and Xander hesitated for another minute or so in the air conditioning, his fingers idly tapping the little Enterprise key tag. He didn't want to turn the car off. He didn't want to go in.

'Really, really, really don't want to go in. Don't want this job, don't want... Fuck. A lot of things.'

He'd been in jail. Three times in Africa, twice in Bosnia. Once in Japan and once in Oklahoma, of all places, when the officer and Xander himself had discovered simultaneously that his driver's license was three years out of date. None of those times had been fun. The Bosnian jails still gave him the occasional nightmare.

The Japanese one had been scarily clean.

Xander's watch faintly beeped the hour and Xander sighed and turned off the car - pushed the door open and stepped out into the heat and humidity of the Florida panhandle. Almost immediately he could feel sweat prickling under his arms and along his hairline - under the patch, starting up an instant itch and he cursed softly, dragging his briefcase out of the seat. It had all the necessary paperwork - all the documents and crap that would keep him in this ugly building for hours. Sighing heavily, Xander stomped across the parking lot and went inside.







Three hours later he was finally taken to a small, pale-green walled room and told to wait, they were gonna bring him out. Xander nodded and watched the officer walk away - glared at his watch and then out the window where he could see his car, sitting in direct and unrelenting sunlight.

'Gonna be like a fucking oven in there. Like a god damn oven. Giles, you bastard.'

There was a distant clang and clatter - a sort of muffled bellowing and then a louder clank as a door opened. And the bellowing became a voice. One Xander recognized immediately.

"Bloody bastards, put me back! I told you, was a - fuckin' mistake! Not goin' anywhere with that soddin' - ponce!"

'Ah, Spike. It's so comforting to hear a familiar voice. Not.' Xander waited with something eerily close to anticipation for the voice to become a physical thing. He stepped over toward the doorway and watched the officers manhandle some homeless guy up the hall. Bird's nest of filthy hair and jeans that could probably walk on their own - at least three layers of cast-off shirts, all ragged at the hems and stained around the neck. Stubble, bruises and a nasty-looking set of scratches down one cheek that looked a little infected.

'Yuck. Probably crawling. And where the hell is Spike?'

The homeless guy twisted like an eel and one officer - big and blond and flushed - jerked him around by his scruff. "Look, asshole, you're goin' 'cause we say you're goin'! Don't need your junkie ass stinkin' up the place."

"An' I told you I'm not! I made a bloody mistake! I'm not... Harris?"

Incredulity in that voice and Xander stared hard down the hall - stared and then blinked and looked at - red-rimmed blue eyes and a scar right there and a long...black...filthy coat. Xander walked forward stiffly, taking in all the details. All the strange, wrong - incredible - details.

"Jesus fucking Christ. Spike?"

The blue eyes blinked back at him - widened and then narrowed. "What in fuck are you doing here? Where's the bloody Paddy?"

The other officer - black and built like a linebacker - gave Spike a not-too-gentle whap on the back of his head. "I'm a Paddy, you waste. Shut the fuck up."

"Bloody figures. Micks and n-"

"Spike. Jesus." Xander was relieved when Spike shut up, glaring at all three of them. "Where do I sign for him?"

"You sure you wanna?" blond cop asked, and Xander almost said no.

Almost. 'Of course I don't wanna. He looks like he's been to five different hells and back and since when did Spike ever have a five o'clock shadow? Or more like half-past nine. Jesus. And...' "You stink, Spike."

"Fuck off, wanker. Where is he?"

"In LA, as far as I know. Nobody said. What do you care?" The black cop jerked Spike into motion and they walked the rest of the way up the hall, into the green room again. Xander signed a paper and then they took the handcuffs off Spike and pushed him toward a little table where a ratty backpack was lying. A big, brown paper bag was next to it and Spike snatched it up and started rooting through it.

"Was too fucked up to be thinkin' right, I told 'em to call the bastard. Hey!" Spike glared at the black cop. "Where's my knife!"

The man stared back, clearly baffled. "Are you kidding? It's illegal. We confiscated it."

"It's the only thing that's kept me from getting my sodding throat cut some nights, what in bloody hell am I supposed to do without it?" Spike tore the bag open, jamming things into his pack. Xander couldn't see anything, really - it seemed to mostly be a tangle of dirty clothes and newspaper clippings and a bulging journal-type book that was wrapped around with twine and rubber bands.

"Find a shelter and get into a program, then you won't need it," blonde cop said, and Spike all but growled.

For a fleeting moment Xander thought they'd be treated to fangs and forehead but... No. 'Learning some restraint,' Xander thought, and watched Spike shred the bag, shaking it.

"Where in hell is my fuckin' kit?"

"Oooh, man," black cop was laughing now. "You sure are a piece'a work, English. You know that shit's illegal. Now sign the damn form."

"Half my sodding gear gone and you want me to sign," Spike muttered, but he did. With, Xander noticed, hands that were callused and shaking and mooned with black under the nails. Dirty hands, with scarred knuckles and more scratches and Xander found himself staring at them for longer than he should.

"You can take him now," the blonde cop said and Xander blinked - nodded - reached out and took Spike's coat-sleeve gingerly between two fingers and tugged him toward the door. Spike swayed into him a little, cursing as he tried to untangle the straps of the backpack. He was limping and Xander wondered what in hell he'd done to himself.

"First stop - shower."

"First stop - liquor store," Spike countered. Xander considered.

"Okay, but you stay in the car."

"Long as you pay, Harris, I'll stay wherever you want."

"Okay - I'll go get the car and you can - you can just jump in, right? It's got tinted windows.

Spike gave Xander a look like he was insane. "Or I could walk to the car."

"Uh - just past noon, very sunny day?" Xander dropped his voice to an almost-whisper. "I don't think Giles had a box of dust in mind when he sent me to 'collect' you."

"Jesus bloody Christ," Spike muttered and slammed out the door. Into the sun. "It's that bloody awful Chevy Malibu, isn't it!" Spike yelled, and stumbled off across the parking lot, still wrestling with his backpack. Xander stared after him, his whole body tensed as he waited for what...didn't happen.

'Oh my god. Giles has a lot of explaining to do. A lot.'







The liquor store was halfway between the jail and the airport. Xander's hotel was halfway between the store and the jumbo jets. 'Halfway between alcohol and freedom.' Xander mused on that while he walked the aisles, pondering his selection. He usually went for beer, but the thought of sharing space with Spike for another ten hours until his flight left made him study the bottles of rum and whiskey and vodka with a speculative eye.

He finally settled on tequila, tequila and Jack for Spike. A bin of lemons and limes was handily placed by the cash register and Xander picked out a half-dozen, got 'special' salt - for three dollars more than regular salt - and laid his Council platinum card on the scarred counter. This was a business expense. He gathered up his paper-bagged tolerance and pushed through the door. The heat was immediate and smothering, like a damp woolen blanket. Xander squinted against the glare off the windshield and opened his door, leaning into the Arctic-cold blast of air conditioning.

"I hope you still drink Jack, 'cause that's - Spike?"

The car was empty.

'Damnit to hell! Five minutes, that's it! Five damn minutes -' Xander yanked the keys out of the ignition and looked around. Not a particularly bad neighborhood, but one that had its share of neglected buildings. There was a too-skinny man standing outside of one, shuffling back and forth, unsteady rhythm to the little radio he had in his hand. Xander strode over to him, hoping he looked scary enough to make the guy talk - not so scary that he'd bolt. The eye-patch did wonders.

"Hey -"

"Hey, man, I wasn't doin' nothin' - you got a dollar? If I got one more dollar I can go get a sandwich." The man's teeth were crooked and greenish and Xander averted his eyes. It was always the teeth that got to him. He hated the dentist and seeing teeth like that made him flash to fillings and wisdom teeth and long days of nothing but green Jell-O consumption.

"Did you see a guy come by here? Long black coat and a backpack?"

"I seen lots of guys," the man said, and Xander sighed and put his hand into his pocket - pulled out four ones and some change. The man stared with bright, fevered eyes.

"Did you see this guy?" Xander asked, pushing the money into a dirt-lined palm.

"Yeah, I seen him." The man busily smoothed and folded and re-folded the money, already twitching away. He jerked his chin toward the building behind him. "He's in there."

"Great. Thanks." Xander looked at the peeling boards and broken windows and 'For Sale or Lease' sign that was half falling off the doors and sighed. Just what he needed. Some rat-infested hole where Spike was...what, exactly? Buying drugs? Killing someone? "Spike, you fucker," Xander muttered, and pushed through the broken doors.








"Look, I just needed to step out for some air," Spike snapped, and Xander stomped a little harder on the gas, glaring at the road. The usual mid-afternoon Florida rain was falling, greasy and smeary on the windshield of the car.

"Oh, knock it off! You weren't getting air in that crappy building. What was in there - another of those vampire whorehouses? And - how in fuck do you get to go out in the sunlight now? Did you find that ring again?"

Spike stared at him, his long fingers twitching, twitching, twitching. Twisting the straps of his backpack, rubbing along the seams of his jeans - plucking at threads and buttons and invisible lint. "Nobody bloody tells you shite, mate, do they?"

"No, they don't, including you," Xander snarled. He hit his brakes and wrenched the wheel over, just making his exit by a hair. 'Fuck it. I don't care. Just wanna get to my hotel, get drunk - get him the fuck away from me. Rings, spells - I don't fucking care.' In the three years since Angel had taken down the Evil Law Firm Xander had heard bits and pieces about the final battle. The desperate, all-or-nothing battle that had cost the LA people two of their own. He'd even formed a grudging respect for the two vampires who'd fought so hard for humanity's sake.

Now, he was starting to rethink that respect. Spike was about as heroic as a junk-yard dog and smelled twice as bad and nothing, it seemed, would ever make him nice or even remotely polite and why in hell was he doing this, anyway? He didn't owe Giles a thing. Fuck the Council and fuck Spike, too.

"Fuck you too, you wanker," Spike snapped, and Xander realized with a start that he'd spoken aloud.

"Jesus! You really haven't changed. You're just as annoying and - annoying as always!"

"Fat lot you know," Spike muttered, and turned his face away. The twitching little movements of his fingers didn't stop and Xander pulled into the parking lot of the hotel and brought the car to a halt with a jerk.

"You have a Council-supplied ticket to London leaving tonight at ten. You can shower here and I'll get you some clean clothes and that's it. Then we're done and we can go back to ignoring each other." Xander got out of the car and jogged through the rain to the hotel, using his key-card to let himself in. Then he stood there while Spike apparently had an argument with himself and punched the dash a couple of times.

"Stupid vampire," Xander muttered, watching Spike get out of the car and limp to the hotel door, seemingly oblivious to the rain. He looked like a drowned cat.

The room had been vacuumed and straightened and there were new towels in the bathroom and Xander slung his briefcase down on the bed. He took the bottles out of their paper cover and lined them up on the desk next to the glasses. This hotel had real glasses instead of plastic, thank god. He hated drinking out of those dinky plastic cups. He picked up the ice-bucket and waved it at Spike, even though he didn't actually need ice. "Gonna get some ice. Go ahead and shower, okay? Before you sit on anything or touch anything."

"Fuck you," Spike muttered, but he looked a little unsteady - a little sick.

"Not my fault you stink," Xander said, and walked out. He spent more time then a normal human would getting the ice, but he was pissed off and tired and just didn't want to deal. If he was lucky, Spike would be in the shower and he could get a couple or three drinks down his throat before he had to talk to him again. 'Smooth off the rough edges a little. Get Spike drunk and smooth him unconscious. I can tell the airline he's got the flu or something. Looks bad enough...' A thought that made Xander frown a little, because even on his worst days - when Spike was crazy, or newly chipped, or beaten to a pulp by Glory or the uber-vamp - he'd never really looked that bad. Xander stopped and got a couple cans of Coke out of the machine, too - took his time smoothing the dollar bills.

He walked slowly back to the room and yeah - Spike was in the shower, thank god. Xander sat down and opened a bottle of tequila - dug his knife out of its hiding place in his luggage and sliced up a lime - licked the back of his hand and poured some damn expensive salt onto the damp patch. The ritual of it all made him feel a little calmer - the one two three step of it made him feel...a little more in control.

'Not a drunk if you can do it in the right order, do it the right way.' That thought got him through four shots and then Spike came out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel through his hair, completely naked. Xander choked on his fifth drink.

"What the fuck happened to you?" he wheezed, coughing, and Spike stood there blinking at him. Confused, it was obvious. He was translucently pale - almost skeletally thin - and there was a hell of a scar twisting down his left thigh and over his knee. A scar and something wrong with the muscle there. Xander shook his head. Spike had bruises all over - more scratches like the ones on his face, all red with fever. And little bloody spots, little - bites. Bites Xander recognized from a long and ugly week in Calcutta.

"Fucking rat bites. Those are rat bites, Spike, Jesus!"

"Huh?" Spike looked down at himself for a moment and then clumsily slung the towel around his shoulders, hugging it close. "Fucking f-freezing in here," he said. He stumbled over to his backpack and started pulling out clothes and Xander found himself jumping up - swaying just a little and touching the back of his chair for balance.

"No! No, no no. You're not putting those clothes back on; they stink worse than you do."

"I'm cold," Spike snapped, and Xander could see him shaking - goose bumps on his arms and shoulders.

"Well, too bad. I'm gonna burn that shit."

"It's my gear!" Spike shouted, hastily wadding everything back into the pack and hugging the filthy thing to his chest. "Keep your sodding hands off! Right, I'm not - not gonna stay here and - fuck you and fuck A-angel and - I'm gonna -"

"Knock it off, Spike, you're not going anywhere."

"You're bloody well n-not stopping me!" Spike snatched up his coat and started to struggle into it and Xander watched him, just high enough that he felt like...

'Can take him. Take that bastard...one good punch like I always wanted to...' "Wanna bet?"

"Sod off," Spike muttered, pulling his coat shut over his chest. The towel was still around his neck, bulging out the top of the coat collar and he looked - absurd. "I'm not putting up with your shite or his either, I -" Spike stopped and swallowed hard. He looked abruptly paler, if that were possible.

"What - what?" Xander asked.

"Don't feel good," Spike said, and bolted for the bathroom, awkward on his fucked-up leg. His shoulder hit the door jamb and he spun half around - stumbled and fell to one knee and then both and then he was crawling to the toilet, backpack forgotten and his coat half off his shoulders. He shoved the toilet open and hung his head down and Xander turned away, grimacing at the painful sound of Spike throwing up. He rubbed irritably under the patch, wishing he could take it off but...not willing to. Not now.

"Fuck...me..." Xander poured a sixth shot and drank it fast, forgetting about the lime and the salt. Fuck the ritual, he needed to get drunk.





Part Two



"Gotta be something...something...missed something..." Spike was sitting on the floor, hunched over his backpack. Xander had reluctantly given him sweatpants and socks and a t-shirt to wear, then gone down to the lobby and bought him a Jaguars football sweatshirt. He looked like a child in the bulky black and gold shirt. A freaked-out, ADHD child who was methodically stripping down every seam and pocket in the backpack and in the small mound of clothing that had come out of it. At the moment he was actually ripping open the seams of a pair of ratty khakis and Xander watched with detached interest, sipping at his seventh - maybe eighth...well, who cared - drink. Sucking slowly on a wedge of lime and grimacing when Spike put the edge of the filthy pants between his teeth to shred them better.

"You're gonna get typhus or something, doing that," Xander muttered and Spike glared at him over the rags of shredded cloth, looking like an insane terrier. Xander felt a giggle bubbling up and he stifled it - hiccupped instead. Spike's journal and the pile of clippings were lying between them and Xander squinted at the top clipping but he couldn't read it.

"Fuck you. Why don't you help me? Gotta find it -" Spike spat threads and bits of cloth out and shredded the khakis the rest of the way - pawed frantically through the remains. "It's not here, it's not here, fucking bastards took it... Know I had some, know I did..." His movements were getting choppy - frantic - and he pounded his fists on the floor, punctuating his words. "Where is it, where is it, where the fuck is it!" He hurled the shredded bits of his clothing in all directions and sat there, panting. "It has to be here, I fucking need it!" His voice sounded raw, like it was going.

"What're you looking for?" Xander asked, and Spike shot him a desperate, furious glare.

"Shut the fuck up! You're not helping, you... You..." Spike's expression changed, from hysterical to speculative to knowing in about ten seconds. To mean.

'Junk yard dog,' Xander thought distractedly and put his glass down a little too hard, wincing at the crack. "Me, what?" His heart was beating just a little faster because all of a sudden he remembered Spike was a predator. One that didn't like him.

"You took it. While I was in the shower or - or when I was sick. You took it, you bastard, I'm on to you and you'd bloody well better give it the fuck back or I'm g-gonna gut you." Spike was struggling to his feet - hissing in pain when he twisted his bad leg; shaking and shaking and shaking so hard he was starting to stutter. "F-fucker, should'a n-n-known you'd... All you bloody C-Council w-wankers - all alike -"

"I didn't touch your shit, Spike - probably get lice if I did."

Spike was on his feet now - kicking aside the torn pack and stalking three awkward, lopsided steps closer. Close enough Xander could smell the rank sweat and too-sweet hotel soap on him. The chemical tang of the new, heavily-printed shirt. "Shut the fuck up, Harris an' give it back."

"Give what back!" Xander snapped, pushing himself to his feet and then clutching desperately at the desk as the room tilted under his feet. 'Should have had something to eat, damn...'

"My gear, my skag, my fucking drugs! You fucking know what, now give it back!" Spike lunged and Xander tried to sidestep but he got tangled in the chair and Spike plowed into him, fists hitting wildly. Glancing off Xander's jaw and head and shoulder, bony knees knocking into Xander's knee and thigh as Spike all but climbed him.

"Get the fuck off me!" Xander shouted, pushing hard - jerking away and tripping over the chair and they both went down, solid thud of Xander's head onto carpet and concrete. He lay there for a moment, dazed, while Spike squashed him and then got two fistfuls of his shirt and shook him.

"I'll fuckin' rip you apart, I'll - give it back, you fucker, it's mine -!"

"I don't have it, you asshole!" Xander yelled. He shoved his palms flat against Spike's chest, ready to push him up and off again and... 'What the fuck, what the fuck, what is - what -' "Spike, what the hell -"

"Bloody bastard!" Spike's fist came out of nowhere and clocked Xander hard, ear and cheek - made him bite the inside of his cheek and made his eye blur and tear and he snarled - unbalanced Spike with a convulsive heave of his entire body and rolled over on him - drew back his own fist and punched hard, connecting solidly with Spike's jaw.

And Spike - was out. Just like that. "Fucker," Xander muttered. He got up, dazed - staggered to the desk and leaned there, panting. He lifted his glass and drained the last of his drink. His head was throbbing and his face stung - his shoulders and chest burned where Spike had clawed at him. Spike lay there, limbs splayed out and mouth open, eyelids cracked just a little so that Xander could see blood-shot white. It was creeping him out. The clippings had been scattered around like newsprint leaves. Xander stumbled to the bathroom and splashed a double-handful of cold water in his face, the patch up in his hair for the moment. He dried off and peered at himself in the mirror. Red skin around his eye, but that was all. He slipped the patch back down and went back out - slumped down at the desk and drained the last of his drink. Spike stirred, mumbling.

"If my eye swells shut or anything, I'm gonna strip you naked and shove you out the door," Xander muttered.

Spike seemed to swim, hands and legs moving in jerky, slo-mo motions until he got himself turned over - got himself as far as his knees where he stopped altogether. He was hunched - shaking - fingers pressing hard into his thighs, digging in. "Fuck, fuck..." He looked up finally, turning his head in a slow sweep until he saw Xander. "Harris, you gotta - gotta help me, I - it fuckin' hurts, just - gimme -"

"I don't have your drugs, Spike! I don't have any drugs. And I don't have to help you, not after you - fucking attacked me."

"You stole my -!"

"Shut up! I didn't steal anything from you. The cops took it, or you lost it, or you shoved it up your fucking arm but I did not steal anything from you!" Spike just stared at him, his face pale and too thin - his hair lank now, sticking to his neck and forehead in sweaty tendrils. His eyes huge and bloodshot and sheened with moisture and Xander poured out some more tequila and drank it down, one hard gulp. Spike was not crying.

He was leaning over his own thighs, moaning - digging his knuckles in and then his elbows - pounding his thighs with his fists and panting for air in a wet, broken way that sounded too much like -

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"It fucking hurts you bastard!" Spike shouted, head snapping up and oh, yeah, he was - "It hurts, it's like - s-sodding knives - fuck." His arms went around his belly and he groaned and Xander fumbled his glass, almost dropping it.

"You are not gonna be sick on the carpet! Get into the bathroom!"

"Not sick," Spike wheezed, but he shuffled on his knees to the bed - levered himself upright, his arms trembling hard under him. The sweatpants hung down too low, so low Xander could see skin and crack and bruises. The sweatshirt sleeves hung over Spike's knuckles and he absently dragged one under his nose, sniffing - standing there with one arm still wrapped around his belly like he was gonna heave.

"Go in the bathroom for god's sake," Xander said, and Spike shot him an agonized look and made his way carefully across the carpet. He shoved the door shut hard and Xander sat there a minute - winced at the noises he could hear and got up and found the remote and turned the TV on, pretty loud. No, Spike wasn't throwing up again but his stomach wasn't happy, that was for sure.

When Spike finally came out he could barely walk and Xander watched him laboriously kneel down and pick up the scattered clippings, shuffling awkwardly in the too-big pants. He picked up the journal and tucked the clippings under the binding around the book, his hands shaking. He stood up, hunched over and breathing hard, and went over to the other bed - tugged clumsily at the covers. After a minute he managed to pull them down and then he crawled inside and curled up, the book clutched tight to his chest.

Xander stubbornly pretended to watch M*A*S*H for another five minutes and then he got up with a sigh and pulled the sheet and blanket up around Spike's shoulder - smoothed the duvet and stood there a minute. Spike was shuddering all over, sweat-damp and pale, his teeth chattering - rapid, porcelain clicks. "What about some kinda pain pill?" Xander asked, and Spike nodded rapidly, not even opening his squinched-tight eyes.

Xander dug out his toiletry bag and then found the pill bottle. He didn't actually need the pills anymore - but sometimes he just...needed them. He shook one out onto his palm - looked over at Spike and shook out another and then poured a measure of Jack into a fresh glass.

"Here. They're those Oxycontin pills."

Spike struggled up onto an elbow and took the pills, getting them into his mouth with clumsy fingers. His jaws moved, crushing them.

"Hey! You're not supposed to do that!" Xander said, and Spike cracked one eye open.

"Just breakin' 'em in t-two. S'okay, d-done it before." He took the glass out of Xander's hand and lifted it to his mouth - drank it all in one swallow, grimacing. Then he pushed the glass blindly toward Xander and slumped back down on the bed, panting. "Okay, okay...count ta...five hundred...be feelin' it then...jus'... One...two...th-three..."

Spike whispered the numbers, curled tight around the book and a wedge of covers and Xander grabbed his second bottle of tequila and kicked off his shoes - settled back into his place on his bed. He stared blindly at the TV, listening to Spike's labored, rough-edged voice count to about three-hundred and eighty and then stumble. Start again, three-hundred...eighty-three...stutter, fade out. Silence.

When a commercial came on, Xander finally gave in and looked over at Spike. He was asleep - or maybe unconscious. Face slack and mouth a little open and Xander watched him for a long, long moment before slowly getting up - going over - putting his fingers lightly on Spike's throat. Spike twitched slightly and then sighed and Xander sighed, too.

Under his fingers - under the bruised, scratched skin - Spike's heart beat, a little too fast but steady. Real. Spike wasn't dead anymore.






Xander fell asleep around two, sodden with tequila but not feeling as drunk as he wanted. He swallowed three aspirin with half a bottle of water and rolled over on the bed, not bothering to undress - not even bothering to take off the patch. It had gone beyond irritation to numbness and he just didn't care.

Spike woke him around ten, moaning and thrashing. The journal fell out onto the floor with a thump and Xander toed it from his hunched position on the edge of the mattress. Then he got up and took a shower and brushed his teeth and went to find some breakfast, a double swallow of the hair of the dog fortifying him against the sullen Florida heat.

When he got back to the room Spike was pressed tight to the window, his hands doing a slow scrape up and down the glass. He'd shed everything but the t-shirt and his legs and ass were skinny and hairless - blue-plum-green with old bruises and an angry red around the bites.

"Jesus, Spike! You're so fucking lucky we're in a corner room!" Beyond the smeared glass was only a privacy fence and some gigantic pampas grass plants.

Spike twitched faintly, slowly sliding down until he was sitting sloppily cross-legged. "Hot," he mumbled.

Xander walked over to him and looked down at him - grimaced at the raw mess that was both of his inner elbows. "You sure have fucked yourself up." He tried his best not to let his gaze linger on the soft, pale curl of Spike's flaccid penis, resting just below the hem of the t-shirt.

"Hurts. Fuck...in'...h-hurts..." Spike said, his voice thick. He kept licking his lips and Xander turned around to get his water bottle - kicked something with his shoe that rattled. His pill bottle, open and spilling out little yellow pills. Not enough little yellow pills.

Xander reached down and yanked Spike to his feet, his fists bunching and tearing the thin t-shirt. Spike hung in his hands like wet laundry, strengthless and boneless. "What the fuck did you - Spike - how many?"

"Fuckin' hurts, H-harris. It..." Spike's lips were kind of blue and his chest didn't seem to be rising often enough and Xander wondered, in a weird, dizzy sort of way at the fury that rose up in him.

"It's gonna hurt more in a minute, you asshole!" Xander spat, teeth clenched and face inches from Spike's. 'Don't know anything about it, don't have a fucking clue, you bastard, you fucking bastard how dare you-!' It took the ambulance almost fifteen minutes to get there and the whole time Xander debated if punching Spike in the stomach would make him throw up.

When they let him into Spike's room at the hospital, there were grey-blue stains around Spike's mouth from the charcoal they'd made him swallow, and soft Velcro restraints holding him to the bed. The scratches on his face had been cleaned. Xander stood at the foot of the bed for a long time, watching Spike breathe - listening to the steady beep of the heart monitor. Then he called Giles.






"He's human, Giles! He's not a vampire anymore! How the hell does that happen?" 'And why didn't anybody say anything?' Not that they would. Why should they? Everybody knew - Xander hated vampires, Xander hated Spike. But -

"Yes, I'm aware of his...condition, Xander. When it happened, Angel called me - wanted the Council to use its resources and thoroughly investigate this...phenomena. Unfortunately, Spike has...resisted coming to us."

"Gee, really? Did you tell anybody? It's been three years, Giles!" There were fifteen ceiling tiles from the corner to the light fixture.

"It just didn't seem... Why are you calling, again? I thought Spike would be on his way here by now."

"We - he was sick." Xander shoved his hand in his jeans-pocket and clutched the key ring there. His keys, from his house. "And then he took a couple of my pain pills -"

"Are you still getting the headaches, Xander? I thought -"

"I just keep the pills around as a backup," Xander said, lifting his head creakily from the stiff, upholstered back of the chair he was sitting in. Spike was blinking at him from the bed, blue eyes slitted and bloodshot.

"Look, they want to - I need a fax from his regular doctor that says it's okay to release him and that he has a bed waiting in a facility in Cleveland."

There was a long silence on the other end and Xander could faintly hear Giles breathing - could hear someone else talking. Probably Andrew. He let his head drop back down onto the chair back.

"Xander, I really don't think -"

"What, exactly, was he going to London for, Giles? What was he gonna do over there?"

"Well, there are several spells we wanted to -"

"You were gonna run tests on him like a guinea pig, Giles."

There was a startled huff of breath down the line. "Xander, that's hardly -"

"You've got the fax number, Giles, and you've got an hour." Xander hung up the phone and pushed the little wheeled cart it sat on away. There were seventeen tiles from the light to the other side of the room.

"Harris? What're....you d-doing here?" Spike asked. His voice was wincingly raw - barely above a whisper - and Xander sighed and sat up.

"I came to take you home."

Spike blinked some more - ran his tongue over lips that were cracked and bloodstained, grimacing. "Ss-sunnyhell...s'gone, Harris."

"Yeah, I know." Xander watched Spike try to stretch his hand up toward his face only to be pulled up short by the restraints. He looked completely bewildered. "Someplace else."

"Oh. All right..." His eyes fluttered shut, then open, then shut again - stayed shut.

Xander watched him for another minute and then slouched lower in the chair, feeling his back twinge. 'Should have brought the damn tequila...'

The fax came through in fifty-four minutes.





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