TumbleTurnOverflow
by
Tabaqui
Part Three
Xander gave Spike two more of his Oxycontin and all but carried him onto the plane - waved faxes and questionable doctor's papers at the crew and got Spike belted in, half-drowned in the folds of his coat. The flight attendants hovered and fluttered and even unconscious and looking like an advertisement for anorexia, Spike still had...it.
'Whatever the hell 'it' is. Something I only have with geeks and girls under the age of sixteen. Oh, and guys with a death-wish, can't forget that...' Xander ordered a Bloody Mary and crunched his celery morosely all through take-off. Four hours to Chicago, then they had to change planes to get to Cleveland. Xander hoped the pills would last until they were safely in his car - safely headed home, to normal October weather.
'I am out of my mind. Completely out of my mind. Worse than Spike, even!' Spike shifted sluggishly - muttered something unintelligible, his eyes slitting open for a moment in the dimness of the cabin. Xander downed the last of his drink and signaled for another. 'Just get me home...maybe I'll figure out why the hell I'm doing this once I'm home...'
But he didn't have any more of a clue driving down I-90 - taking his exit into Tremont - heading east toward the river and home home home like some sort of migrating bird. Spike was a little brighter, sitting slouched but eyes open in the passenger seat.
"Where're we at?" he asked finally, his voice a little slurred, his eyes narrow and blue and different. Spike's stare had never been that...old before.
"We're home. Well, my home. Cleveland."
Spike blinked and looked out the window again - hummed for a moment, ghostly scratch of a voice. "'Cause the Cuyahoga River...Goes smokin' through my dreams..."
"Yeah, exactly," Xander said softly, and turned onto Third Street. His street. 'Almost there, almost there...' He wasn't sure, exactly, why he wanted to be home so badly. But his little voice was telling him that it was the best - the only place to be right that minute, and he didn't fight that little voice. Good or bad, it was the only direction he had in his life anymore, and he didn't ignore it. Much.
"This is me," Xander said, pulling his car into the driveway and up in front of the ramshackle garage. He hadn't gotten around to fixing that up too much yet. The house was an old frame house - two stories, wrap-around porch, gingerbreading and little, scrolly details in every corner. Even a couple of panes of old, leaded glass in the upper story, stained a faded blue. A lot of it Xander had fixed, and more than fixed. Saved - rebuilt - polished smooth and perfect. It kept his mind off...things.
Kind of like the beer. And the pills.
"Posh digs, Harris," Spike mumbled, squinting against a stray shaft of sunlight, peering at the house. White and green and grey with a touch of scarlet here and there - day lilies and hastas and iris and other easy, self-propagating plants in the beds flanking the porch and foundation. Things that girls with lives that moved too fast had planted and left behind.
"Yeah - used to be the Slayer house, when the Hellmouth here was open." Xander turned the car off and got out - dragged carry-on and briefcase over the seat and out. "Let's get inside."
"Sure. Wouldn't want the neighbors to see me," Spike said, fumbling with the seatbelt.
"Oh, fuck the neighbors. I'm tired." Tired, sore, headache - sick to death of Spike already and why in fuck had he thought bringing the ex-vampire, ex-champion, ex-pain in the ass back here was a good idea? 'I need a fucking drink.'
Spike managed to undo the seatbelt and follow Xander inside, hitching at the sweats Xander decided were his now. He sure as hell didn’t want them back. Somebody at the hospital had cleaned the coat - some awe-struck idiot candystriper, Xander guessed, who'd believed his story about Spike being a vet. The same idiot who'd got Spike a razor and helped him shave and Xander was secretly glad of that, because the scruffy-bearded look was just too...weird.
Inside the house it was chilly, the air still and slightly stale. Xander hung his keys on the little peg-board by the door and went straight upstairs. The downstairs was where the kitchen was - the big living room and the office and three bedrooms that had housed Slayers.
Xander didn't live downstairs. He lived up. Two bedrooms, bathroom, and one big room across the back of the house with a little kitchenette in one corner and all his electronic stuff in the other. Empty middle space where he did...stuff. Tools and workbenches and things along the wall and three tall windows that framed trees, train tracks and the river.
Xander dropped his carry-on and briefcase at the top of the stairs - stepped out of his shoes and walked straight to the middle window.
"That some sort of Zen thing? Yoga or somesuch shite?" Spike's voice was less slurred now - a little clearer and a lot meaner.
"It's windows, Spike. Even you should be able to see that." Xander finally surrendered to the burning irritation of sweaty cotton and too-tight elastic and took the patch off - shoved it into his jeans-pocket. He rubbed absently at the side of his face, blinking. Wanting to turn away when Spike shuffled up beside him.
"Here - how in fuck - why in hell d'you wear a patch, Harris?"
Spike's face was soft with surprise, his eyes wider and his mouth open and Xander sighed. Rubbed his left eye and looked out the window again, waiting for his vision to focus and settle. The sky outside was a soft, deep purple, shading to navy along the horizon. There were lights here and there scattered like points of static flame and the last, ruddy beams of the setting sun glinted carmine and prune-purple and turquoise off the river.
"It's a long and fucked up story and I really don't wanna tell it right now." At Spike's sour look, he added: "Why are you alive?"
"Because the world's a fucked up place, that's why," Spike muttered, and walked away - walked over to the shelves where the DVDs lived and started poking through them. His hands were shaking and Xander sighed again.
'Probably needs another hit. Really don't want him doing the withdrawal thing up here... Fuck.' "I'm hungry - I'm gonna order some food." Spike didn’t say anything and Xander shrugged - went over to the junk drawer in the kitchenette and pulled out the delivery menus. Tonight, he felt like ribs. Big, greasy ribs with corn and home fries and coleslaw - slabs of buttery Texas toast. Carbs and fat and dead animal flesh and maybe he could shake the nauseating buzz of a day's worth of travel.
Forty minutes, they said, so Xander took a shower and put on flannel pajama pants and a t-shirt - shrugged into his ratty hoodie that he kept on the back of the bedroom door and shuffled his feet into fleecy slippers. Willow's idea of a joke, last Christmas, and even when their old-man aura made him wince, he'd been happy to have them when the temperature had dipped below zero.
When he came out of his bedroom, his carry-on was open and his toiletries bag was up-ended on the top of the stairs, contents scattered. And Spike was curled up on his couch, fleece throw pulled haphazardly over his legs. Xander cursed, looking over the mess. The bottle of pills was gone. 'Fuck. Need to know how many he took. Last thing I fucking need is him ODing here...shit...should have thought...' Xander went over and roughly shook Spike's shoulder. Spike jerked away from him, batting weakly at Xander's hand.
"Where in fuck are the pills, Spike? How many'd you take?"
"Jus' a couple, Harris - f-fuck, they're on the - sink." Spike waved a thin hand toward the opposite corner and Xander glanced over - saw the bottle sitting there, lid off and a glass sitting next to it.
"Don't fucking take my stuff, Spike. Not without asking." Spike blinked at him, slow as molasses and only halfway there and Xander wanted to shake him again, if only to get that look of idiot confusion off his face. 'Like he's not even all fucking there - not in there even without the damn pills...' "I ordered food -"
"M'not hungry," Spike said, and burrowed down into coat and cushions. Xander stared down at him for a minute and then shrugged.
"Well - good. More for me, then." He scooped up his stuff and put it all away, pills going into the drawer in the bedside table.
When the food came, Xander ate steadily until every last bit was gone, then he washed up, locked up, and went to bed. He spared a thought for Spike on the couch but then dismissed him from his mind. Spike was out, Xander was tired and fuck it. There was other stuff in the bathroom and if Spike wanted to OD then Xander could just drag him down to the river and topple him in. 'And hello, morbid-me. Haven't seen you in a while.' Morbid-Xander just flashed a blood-flecked grin and Xander downed the last of his whisky and went to bed.
He woke to the sound of something breaking and was awake and on his feet, heart pounding, before he even remembered Spike. Too many years of life-and-death in the dead of the night and he sagged back onto the edge of the bed for a moment, catching his breath. Listening to random bumps and bangs and then Spike's voice, cursing.
"Fucking - hell -" Spike sounded shaky - desperate - and Xander jerked on his clothes in the pale grey-blue of nearly-dawn, kicking the edge of his door and hissing in pain as he struggled into his hoodie - strode out of his room and into the kitchenette. Where half the cabinet doors were open - plates and cups and pots and things shoved around or stacked on the counter.
"What the hell are you doing?" Spike was kneeling on the edge of Xander's kitchen counter, head and shoulders deep in the cabinet that held - well - Xander didn't really know what it held. Something breakable, 'cause it was on the floor in pieces.
Spike jerked around at Xander's voice, clutching at the edge of the cabinet. Stripped down to sweats and t-shirt, his knuckles bloody and his face pale and sweating. "Looking for the god damn pills. What the fuck've you done with them?"
"I put 'em away since they're mine, you asshole." Xander hated being jerked out of sleep like that - he felt cold and shaky, only half awake. He hugged his arms around his ribs, yawning.
"Well, I bloody well need one. Need soemthing to - fucking go away," Spike shouted and jabbed furiously at thin air - at the wall. The wall didn't dent but Spike's knuckles did and he cursed and sucked at them, glaring at Xander.
"You need to get the hell down from there. What'd you break?"
Spike looked down at the floor, twisting on his knees, the soles of his feet clean and white, his nails too long but oddly white, too. "Dunno. Some kind of big - bowl."
"Oh." The punch bowl. He'd bought it for a Christmas party two years ago - hadn't touched it since. 'No big loss. Except he doesn't need to be up in my fucking cabinets breaking my stuff. Looking for drugs, for Christ's sake.' "You owe me. Now get down."
"Where'd you put the fucking pills, Harris?" Spike twisted around more and sat - pushed off the counter and landed inches from razoring glass and Xander finally noticed that his workbenches were ransacked - his DVDs and CDs all pulled out onto the floor - everything gone through.
'Oh, you fucking did not -' "You complete motherfucker! Look what you did!"
Spike followed Xander's waving hand with an indifferent - narrowed - gaze. "It's not that bloody bad, I'll put it back, just gimme -"
"No. You don't get shit. Except maybe locked up. I should never have brought you back here."
Spike sucked in a breath and glared at Xander, arms locked around his ribs. He was sweating a little, a fine dew of it on his upper, lightly-stubbled lip. "I didn't bloody well ask you to, did I, you sanctimonious prat! Was doing fine on my own."
"Yeah, in jail -"
Spike pushed his hands back through his sweat-tendriled, too long hair, digging in and pulling in a way that looked damn uncomfortable. "They would have let me out! Don't have money to fuckin' keep me there, didn't have any damn beds and I only got pissed and broke a window." Spike's hands slipped down out of his hair and dragged over his neck - shoulders - arms. Where nails met skin, he left marks behind.
"Don't -"
"Thirty days, maybe, and I'd have been out with some new clothes and some - some drugs from one'a the other b-bastards in there and - and - fuck, it's fucking hot in here, it's - god damn bugs, Harris, you've got -"
"I don't have bugs, you idiot, it's you. You've got the - DT's or whatever."
Spike just stared at him, his eyes too wide and too dark - more pupil than anything else. Scratching his arms again - longer, deeper and a little more frantic and Xander felt his gut curdling, watching the skin redden and then split under the ragged edges of Spike's broken nails.
"Spike, look -"
"God damnit, fucking hot - Jesus, filthy fucking house -" Spike twisted, clawing at his stomach - ripped the t-shirt up and off and raked his chest, a look of growing panic on his face. "What the fuck are they, what've you - Harris, damnit -" Spike was jerking, now - twisting and scratching and kicking - blood smearing across his ribs and the sweats slipping down - showing a bruised, too-prominent hip bone and a dark curl of hair.
Jittering not quite in place and Xander put his hand out, looking around for the broom. "Spike, damnit - just stand still! You're gonna -"
"Fuck! Fucking - god damn -" Spike took one step too many and his foot skidded through the shards of glass, leaving a glittering ruby trail over the varnished floor. "Jesus - Christ!" His voice went high and shrill and he reeled back into the cabinets and hit, hard. Slid down the pale wood, his hands gripping his ankle. He was back to the shaking - back to sweating and looking like he might puke at any moment.
Xander leaned and snatched the broom from the crack between 'fridge and counter - did a quick one-two-three sweep at the glass, grimacing as the bristles smeared the blood. "Sit still, just - lemme look -" He went to his knees, taking Spike's ankle in his own hands and lifting his foot, squinting at it. Spike twitched in his grip, hands absently clawing at this thighs and Xander spared a moment's thought that at least he couldn't draw blood through the thick sweats.
"There's a piece of glass in here, I gotta get it out - hold still -"
"Fuck, fuck, buggering - fuck, will you leave me alone?" Spike tried to jerk his foot away and Xander jerked back hard, ignoring the sudden shift of Spike's tone from 'pissed off' to 'panicked'. "Just leave me the fuck alone! Please, please, please!"
Xander looked up sharply, scowling - ready to snap something but Spike wasn't looking at him - wasn't looking at anything. Was twisting his fingers in his hair again - leaning forward and then bang. His skull connected hard with the cabinet behind him and Xander jumped, his hand squeezing hard around Spike's ankle. Probably hurting him. "Knock it the fuck off!" Spike ignored him - didn't hear him - and bang again. Bang, bang, bang, harder and faster. "Stop it - stop it -"
"Out, out -get the fuck out -" Spike slammed himself back hard enough that the cabinet door cracked and Xander just stood up and yanked - jerked Spike down the cabinet and onto his back and then sat on him, Spike's leg pretzeled up toward his face and Spike's bony hips digging into Xander's ass.
"Hold fucking still and let me get this fucking glass out!"
"Lemme go - Harris, stop it, just - fucking stop it - ow - ow!" Spike twisted and clawed Xander's back - flailed out with his fist and hit the broken cabinet and Xander tossed a bloody, two-inch shard of glass into the sparkling little blood-spattered pile in the corner. Spike's torn t-shirt was by his knee and he picked it up and shredded it a little more, wrapping and tying and watching the blood start to seep through.
"Christ. You're gonna need stitches, this isn't stopping."
Spike convulsed under him, gasping, and his other foot skidded on the floor as his hands pushed uselessly at Xander's back. "No - no, I don't - just let me - Harris, let me the fuck up, just -"
"You need stitches -"
"I'm gonna be sick!" Spike yelled and Xander stood up fast - reached down and yanked Spike up by his arm and the waist of his sweats and shoved him hard toward the sink. Spike yelped when his foot hit the floor and then he leaned over the sink and threw up hard - hard enough to make Xander reach up over the stove and grab the bottle of scotch he kept there. Not his favorite drink, but fuck, he needed....
'Need a little calm around here. Jesus. Need to get him the fuck out of here. What the hell was I thinking?' Spike gagged again, the sound raw and horrible, nothing coming up but bile. He reached and fumbled the faucet on - put shaking hands under the stream and rinsed and rinsed his mouth - slicked a handful of water back through his hair and then hung there, breathing. 'Breathing. Damnit. Breathing and bleeding and puking and having bugs in his eyes or whatever in my damn kitchen, in my damn house... in my damn life.'
Xander took a long drink from the bottle - coughed and wiped his mouth and then held it out. "Here. Get the taste out."
Spike looked around slowly, water beaded on his face - on his lashes. Dripping from the ends of his hair onto his shoulders and Xander watched his hand reach for the bottle and miss it. Reach again and Xander moved it and Spike's fingers curved around the neck. Brought it to his mouth and clattered the glass against his teeth and Xander watched a drop of water run down the side of Spike's throat and pool in the deep indent of his collarbone.
"Thanks." Scratched-thin voice, barely a whisper. Exhausted slump to his shoulders and the shaking in his hands was moving up and out - shivers that seemed to start somewhere in Spike's bones. He hunched in on himself - took another drink and coughed, wiping his wrist over his mouth and then wiping it under his nose. "Fuckin' mess, me."
"Yeah, just like my fucking house. Shit." Spike's blood was dripping through the t-shirt and Xander turned abruptly and stomped toward his bedroom. Turned around at the door and stared back at Spike who looked like a ghost, standing there under the too-white fluorescent light. "If you freak out or puke in my car or do or say anything fucked up at the hospital I'm gonna tell 'em you're suicidal."
"Fuck you, Harris!" Spike yelled, and tipped the bottle up, gulping. Xander got dressed, knowing the smile on his face was a mean one. He didn't care
Part Four
'God. Good Housekeeping and Maxim in the same rack. That's just...weird.' Xander eyed the curvaceous brunette on the cover of Maxim and then eyed the equally curvaceous but somehow wholesome blonde on Good Housekeeping. One was offering an X-rated spa in Barbados, the other cake with only 7 grams of fat. His hand hovered.
"Mr. Harris?" Xander jerked, startled, then turned around, smiling slightly at the woman with the clipboard and iron-grey hair.
"Yeah, that's me."
"I'm Doctor Feeney. You brought in - uh - Spike?"
"Yeah, I did. He ready to go?"
"He's all stitched up, yes. He's showing signs of acute drug withdrawal, Mr. Harris, and of ongoing addiction. We have a strict policy about prescribing pain killers to -"
"Look - Doc - Doctor Feeney..." Xander rubbed his hand up over his face - back through his hair, staring at the woman's orthopedic shoes. The left one had a drop of blood on it. "He's been through some really - rough times. I just got him out of jail down in Florida and brought him up here for rehab." He looked up at her and she nodded slightly, clipboard held casually in the crook of one elbow.
"He's got a bed but not until - until Wednesday." 'Oh, hell - what day is it? It's...fuck...oh, Monday. Okay, yeah, that sounds good...' "I know he's - messed up, but he's trying, you know? He really is."
"Mr. Harris..." She nibbled her lip and then sighed - wrote something on her clipboard and then fixed Xander with a fierce, grey stare. "I'm giving him a 'script for Demerol. But only six pills. He should be fine on regular aspirin after that. We used dissolving stitches on his cut - they're more flexible than standard ones, so he doesn't have to come back in." She glanced at her watch and then up at the doors, which had opened to let in a gurney and two EMTs. "Good luck with him, Mr. Harris. A nurse will get him checked out in a little bit."
"Thanks. Thanks a lot," Xander said, but she was already turning away, focusing on the new patient, listening with little bird-like nods to the EMT.
After about half an hour, Spike emerged in paper slippers and a dark-purple scrub shirt. Shaking hard, huddled down into a wheelchair being pushed by a middle-aged Latina nurse.
"Here you go - he needs to get some rest and some food in him," the nurse said, fixing a stern eye on Xander. Then she looked down at Spike and her expression softened. "Keep your stitches out of the water, Spike," she added, giving him a little grin and he grinned back. A skeletal thing, teeth clicking and his eyes sunk far, far back in his head.
"Do my b-best, Tilda-love. You know what I r-really need is for you to give me ss-sponge baths." Tilda chuckled, her hand stroking gently over Spike's battered knuckles. "You know I'm married, bonito."
"But if you w-weren't -"
"In a heartbeat." She laughed, then held out a sheaf of papers toward Xander. "Here's the after-care for the stitches and his prescription - there's a 24 hour pharmacy right down the hall, they can get you the crutches he's gonna need. You take care of him, you hear?"
"Yes ma'am," Xander said, old habits still lingering even though his head was throbbing and he wanted to shrug Spike off and let him make his own way. Crawl, if he had to - Xander just wanted to go home. 'On his fucking death-bed he'd flirt, and Christ...they flirt right back.' Tilda patted Spike's arm and bustled away and Xander grabbed the wheelchair and jerked it in a half-circle, pointing them both toward the door. "We'll get these later - here." He dug a pill out of his pocket and shoved it into Spike's hand and Spike took it and pushed it past his teeth with a little noise of pure pleasure.
"Guess you're n-not such a wanker after a-all."
"Shut up, Spike. Just shut the fuck up." They didn't say a word all the way home.
Didn't really say anything for the rest of that day and that night. Xander drank and did laundry and angrily cleaned up the kitchen, scrubbing blood off the floor and getting a splinter of glass in his thumb. Went out once to get the prescription filled and all but threw the bottle at Spike, who only grinned and then shook a pill out into his hand, dry-swallowing it. Spike took the entire morning and afternoon putting all the movies and music back. When Xander went to check on it later, he found it all arranged in some bizarre order that made sense only to Spike; Casablanca next to Mall Rats and all the Star Trek movies shuffled in with Fawlty Towers.
Xander made himself eggs and toast - made microwave Hot Pockets later and Spike just watched him eat, a sort of longing in his expression that made Xander uncomfortable. Xander built a fire in the fireplace at the far end of the living room and settled on the couch with the last of the beers and some popcorn. Channel surfing, but really just watching Spike. Brooding about Spike. He finally snapped around midnight, tired but too buzzed and restless from beer and introspection to sleep.
"Why the fuck aren't you eating?" he asked, and Spike looked up from his journal, his eyes unfocused and his expression confused. Flying on his drugs and some of Xander's and three double shots of the scotch Xander hadn't finished. Just - out of it and too quiet and too shrunk. It was making Xander twitchy.
"What?"
"You didn’t eat all day. You didn't eat yesterday. I know you're hungry. Why aren't you eating?"
Spike blinked - looked back down at the journal, Xander being all too obviously dismissed. Spike's finger moved, following a line of text on a curled newspaper clipping and he seemed to sink back into whatever he was reading. Xander snorted in irritation and scooted forward on the couch - kicked the journal away. The clippings spilled into a rumpled fan across the floor.
"Hey!"
"Answer the fucking question!"
"Fuck you!" Spike scrabbled after the journal, snatching at the clippings with clumsy hands and gathering them up. When he had them all together again he snapped the rubber bands back around it - tied the frayed twine. It took him three tries. Xander watched, scowling - clenching a beer bottle in his fist. Spike curled his arm up close to his chest, trying to get himself to his feet one-handed. "I'm - I'm fucking tired, I'm gonna go -"
"No, you're not." Xander lurched up off the couch and lunged at Spike - slapped the journal out of his hand and kicked it again. Spike surged up from the floor and Xander knocked him back. It was...ridiculously easy. 'Not a fucking vampire anymore, not super strong or super fast or super...anything.'
While Spike tried to get up without touching his hurt foot to the floor Xander stomped over to the journal and picked it up. It was heavy - the spine broken and then clumsily fixed with duct tape, the edges worn and nibbled and the pages stained. It smelled of smoke and musty water and Xander crouched down by the fire and held it just above the flames.
"Harris, don't you fucking dare, don't you -"
"Answer the question, Spike, or I'll let it go." Xander watched Spike lever himself up using the couch - watch him limp closer, his hands twisting together and then clenching into fists. He was panting.
"Give it back, you sodding bastard, give it back, it's mine."
"Answer. Me."
"It's none of your bloody business! Now give that back to me or I'll -"
"Or you'll what, Spike? You'll hurt me? You'll bite me? You can't do a fucking thing to me."
Spike snarled, silent grimace of teeth and lips. But his fists were shaking and his leg was and his eyes were darting from the fire to Xander's face, gold-sheened by the flames.
"Fuck you, I'll bloody kill you, give it back!"
Xander waved the journal once through the flames, watching the ragged edge of a clipping curl and blacken. Spike saw it, too, and a keen of desperation wrenched itself out of his throat. Xander felt a twist of satisfaction go through him, bitter and mean. "Tell me -"
"Harris, don't, don't, give it back, I need it, Harris! Fuck, c'mon, don't -" Spike limped forward another step and his leg gave out. He came down hard on his knees and stayed there, his hand stretched out and trembling. His fingertips were smudged with ink and a smear of blood where he'd bitten a nail back too far. "Please don't burn my book. H-harris -" Spike's voice cracked, too thick - too breathy. Broken. "Please, I'll - do anything you w-want -"
Xander stared at his agonized expression - at the gleam of sudden moisture in Spike's eyes and the tremble of a chapped, bitten lower lip. The mean feeling flared and went black as abruptly as the clipping had and Xander sighed - sagged back out of his crouch and onto his ass. He slid the book across the floor to Spike and Spike snatched it up and cradled it protectively, head bent low.
"Fuck. Fine, whatever. Jesus, Spike, what the hell? You're so...."
Spike looked up sharply, the sheen in his eyes actual tears now - tracks of wet that gleamed in the firelight, as surreal a sight as anything Xander had ever seen. Surreal and familiar and Xander pushed Buffy's second death out of his mind. "So - what? I'm so different? I'm not my bloody self? Fuck you."
"I just wanted to know -"
"Fine!" Spike shouted, and Xander flinched. Spike did, and they both sat there in silence for a moment. "Fine. You want to know why I don't want to eat? I'll tell you. If I don't eat, then I don't shit. Mostly don't puke. I can't stand these bloody disgusting h-human..." Spike gasped in a hard breath and glared at Xander and Xander stared back, his right side too hot beside the fire, his head pounding.
"Spike, that's -"
"That's my fucking business, Harris. Sod off." Spike climbed awkwardly to his feet, ungainly and exhausted looking - too pale, too thin and too god damn human. It was like watching a broken god. Or breaking your favorite toy. "I'm going to...go to bed. Don't...don't fucking t-talk to me anymore." Spike wrenched the throw off the couch and limped painfully away to the stairs and slowly down and Xander watched his too-dark head sink down and down until it was gone. Then he drank the last of his beer and took one of Spike's Demerol and went to bed, too.
Spike was gone the next day. Gone for two days and Xander contemplated calling the police or maybe the Council - calling on his own contacts in the city. In the end he got royally, roaring drunk and passed out on the couch. Woke up the same way he had a hundred times before - sober, sane - fucking normal. It made him sick in the way the alcohol just...never did, anymore. He built a fire and sat there and fed sticks into it - watched snowflakes drift past his windows, tiny and light as down. It wouldn't stick - it wasn't cold enough - but it made him feel cold. Cold to the very marrow of his bones.
He singed himself on the fire a few times, watching his skin blister - knowing it wouldn't last. 'Nothing fucking lasts except...the lasting part... Fuck, fucking Spike and his fucking...humanity. Bastard.'
Spike came back around nine the second night, crashing in through the door that Xander had deliberately - cynically - left unlocked. Stomping up the stairs, singing something at the top of his lungs that Xander didn't recognize.
"Oh, you're so naïve,
how could you believe everything I said to you...
I got your sex and wrote you rubber checks
well, what'd ya think I was gonna do?"
"Jesus, you suck!" Xander shouted and Spike stopped dead on the stairs, staring at him. Eyes barely above the top tread, meeting Xander's over the back of the couch.
"Harris! There you are. Thought you'd be out. Not havin' to babysit an' all, thought you go do some kind of -" Spike waved his hand and almost lost his balance - continued up the stairs with a little hop. "Some kind of white-hat thing."
Xander ignored that - picked up his beer and took a long drink. "Where've you been?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," Spike said, grinning. He strutted over toward the kitchen, his limp almost gone.
"I'm remarkably insincere, incredibly insincere, totally insincere -
Oh don't take it so hard, my dear, I'm consistently insincere..."
"Truer words," Xander muttered, flopping around on the couch and trying to ignore Spike, who rattled around in the kitchen for a minute before coming over. He had a two-liter of Mountain Dew and a huge glass of ice. "Doesn't your foot hurt?"
"Not right now," Spike said, and Xander saw the tenseness of his jaw - the manic brightness of his eyes.
"What're you on?"
"Not one bloody clue, mate. Just took what they gave me. Lovely bloody stuff." Spike struggled out of his coat and tossed it haphazardly onto the couch - sank down, wobbly and awkward, into a cross-legged position and opened the soda - poured the glass full, not seeming to notice when the foam overran the top and puddled on the floor. It made a damp spot on the leg of the jeans Spike had on.
'Wonder where in hell he got those?' "You're making a fucking mess, Spike!"
"Sod. Off." Spike drained half the glass at a gulp and poured out more. "You should play some music, instead of sitting here in the bloody dark, brooding."
"I'm not brooding. I was just - relaxing."
"With your thoughts," Spike said, a leer twisting his mouth as he made a jerking off motion with his hand.
"God, you're so fucking disgusting."
"Everybody does it, Harris - no point in pretending."
"'Everybody' doesn't make it a topic of conversation."
"No bloody conversation here," Spike pointed out, and Xander had to agree. Spike looked around and spotted something - stretched his arm out long and came back with the remote and turned the TV on. He settled himself against the couch, legs stretched out and the glass and soda in the v between his thighs.
"I don't want to watch TV," Xander said.
Spike ignored him, flipping through the channels too fast to really see anything, working at one boot with the toe of the other, trying to get it off. It seemed to be resisting. "Don't actually give a shite what you want or don't want right now. I feel fucking good and I'm not gonna let you fuck it up." He grimaced, twisting his foot and then his boot slid off with a sort of wet noise and Xander stared in queasy horror at the swaddling of blood-and-pus soaked bandage that was revealed.
"Spike, fuck -"
"It itches," Spike said, glancing down and then away, concentrating on the TV and his soda.
"It stinks," Xander snapped, aware of not only the ripe-rotten smell of the bandage but of Spike, who was rank with sweat and something else - chemical tang under the stinks of smoke and grease and dirt.
"I'll shower later." Spike reached up for his coat and dragged it down off the couch - rummaged around in the pockets and finally pulled out a little roll of cloth. It looked like a table napkin from some restaurant.
"You need to go back to -"
"Shut up, Harris." Spike finally looked up - looked right at him and his gaze was more than drug-addled. It was black and blank and completely empty and Xander twitched back away from it. "Not going to a doctor, not going to any bloody rehab." He hauled the faded blue sweatshirt he was wearing off, revealing a grey-black t-shirt underneath, two sizes too big. "Going to get on the bloody nod and fucking enjoy." He unrolled the napkin, spilling the contents to the floor. "Now sod off."
'This is my fucking house,' Xander thought. But didn't say, because Spike was looking more and more like some kind of fucking zombie - animate but not all there - and it was creeping Xander out. He looked thinner, if that were possible, and his cheeks were hollowed under the stubble - that sunken look that Xander had seen so often in Africa. Look that meant someone was... 'Dying. He's dying. And he's doing it right here in front of me. Fucker. You don't get to fucking die, you asshole.'
He focused on Spike again, who was carefully balancing a lit Zippo on the floor. He was holding a spoon in one hand and once the Zippo was standing upright, he plucked a piece of crumpled foil off the floor and carefully shook its contents into the spoon.
"What the hell are you doing?" Xander snapped, dismayed at the squeak in his voice.
"I'm cookin' up," Spike said, his voice distracted and distant as he bent down over the spoon and lighter, watching the powder in the spoon reduce itself to bubbling liquid. His hand tremored and he gripped his wrist in the opposite fist.
"I know what you're doing, I mean - Jesus, Spike!" Xander pushed up off the couch and paced over to the fireplace, feeling like he wanted to punch something. 'Like Spike. Pound him into the fucking ground.' "If you don't go back to the hospital you're gonna get gangrene or something."
"Like you give a fuck," Spike muttered. He groped across the floor and picked up a slender syringe and Xander noticed for the first time that he had a piece of rubber tubing tied around his right bicep.
Xander wanted to stop him - wrestle him to the ground and throw the mess of paraphernalia into the fire - dig his fingers into Spike's knotted, revolting hair and pound his head on the floor until he screamed uncle. Until he stopped being such an asshole. If that were even possible. "Like you'd fucking know," Xander muttered back. He crouched down, getting unwillingly closer. Fascinated and disgusted at the same time.
Spike balanced the spoon carefully on the floor. The handle was bent around so it would sit flat without spilling. He picked up the syringe and carefully filled it, his hands shaking harder now, his lip caught between his teeth as he concentrated. Once all the liquid was sucked up he shifted it carefully, holding it poised over his arm but his hand - his whole body - was shaking. Shaking so hard that when he shifted the syringe again, getting a better grip, he fumbled it. The syringe fell onto his thigh and then the floor and Spike's fingers were just - too slow. It rolled into the Zippos and Spike finally put his palm down on it and just sat there, panting just a little. Xander suppressed a snort and Spike looked sharply up at him, frowning.
"What the fuck are you doing, Harris?"
"I never watched a junkie shave a day or two off his life - thought I might learn something," Xander snapped, and Spike's eyes went wide and then narrow - went mean.
"Wanna learn something? Here." He held the syringe out and Xander scowled down at it.
"What the fuck do you want me to do with that?"
"You wanna learn? Here's your chance. Do it."
"Fuck you, Spike -"
"Harris..." Spike licked his lips - took a sharp little breath. Jitter, jitter, jitter in place, his teeth clicking together sharply when he took a breath. "I'll miss." His voice wasn't sharp anymore - wasn't challenging. It was...
"Fuck. Fuck. I fucking hate you," Xander snarled. He took the syringe out of Spike's hand and for a moment he almost threw it away. Almost chucked it in the fire. Then he could pick Spike up and carry him downstairs like the sack of fucking garbage he was - take him to the hospital and get him locked up in a psych ward as suicidal - dangerous. All of that through his mind in seconds as he held the syringe, staring at the brownish liquid inside - at the red, raw punctures in the bend of Spike's elbow. At the hands that twitched and plucked at the seam of the jeans and the hem of the ragged t-shirt. Spike wasn't looking at Xander at all, just...
'Sitting there looking away like some kind of fucking dog. Beaten up junk yard dog who's pretty sure I'm gonna beat him some more. Fucking...hell.' "This isn't anything fucking new, you know," he said, tucking Spike's right arm up under his own and squeezing - rubbing his thumb over the vein that he could see much too clearly despite the scars. Spike's skin was nearly translucent.
"Don't tell me you -"
"No - fuck no. When I was in Africa I helped put in IVs and stuff sometimes, if I was near a clinic or something."
"Always the fucking do-gooder," Spike said and Xander shot a glare at him - slid the needle in. Spike didn't flinch. Xander depressed the plunger slowly, watching the drug disappear into Spike's vein. He slid the needle back out and put the syringe down by the spoon. The Zippo was out - out of fluid, it looked like - and Xander snapped it shut. Spike gave a long, shaking sigh and Xander watched him pop the tubing off his arm - watch his whole body ripple and then go lax, his eyes rolling back in his head. "Bloody...f-fucking gorgeous, that is...f-fuck..."
Xander crouched there, watching. Watching Spike arch up a little into the air, a soft sound of pure pleasure vibrating up out of his throat. Xander picked up the stuff and rolled it all back up into the napkin and shoved it into a random pocket of Spike's coat. His fingers touched the journal and he hesitated, but Spike was trying to say something so he left it. For now.
"Har-risss..." Spike focused with difficulty, his head nodding on his neck like a too-heavy flower on a stem. "Thanks, mate..."
"Whatever, Spike. You jerk." Xander moved the glass and soda to the end table and got the remote out from under Spike's leg - flopped back onto the couch and started skimming the channels. "God, I hate you."
"Me too," Spike mumbled, and then his eyes closed and he was out.
The song Spike is singing is Remarkably Insincere by Alice Cooper.
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