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lynnevitational fic, and it's not...quite done. Heh. So i'll be posting in chapters, and linking the chapters.
I had three - yes, three - fics i started for this, and all three became not-suitable. *sigh*. But they'll all be finished at one time or another.
So - on with the show! And - i'm actually feeling pretty good, if not just a bit more tired than usual. Being a patient is *boring*, and i don't like it.
Thank you thank you, as always, to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
reremouse, who's fault this all is, anyway, and 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.
Some hard-core drug imagery/talk/use warning, for those that don't like.
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all places, when the officer and Xander himself had discovered simultaneously that his driver's license was three years out of date.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.
Continued here.
lynnevitational fic, and it's not...quite done. Heh. So i'll be posting in chapters, and linking the chapters.I had three - yes, three - fics i started for this, and all three became not-suitable. *sigh*. But they'll all be finished at one time or another.
So - on with the show! And - i'm actually feeling pretty good, if not just a bit more tired than usual. Being a patient is *boring*, and i don't like it.
Thank you thank you, as always, to
reremouse, who's fault this all is, anyway, and 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.
Some hard-core drug imagery/talk/use warning, for those that don't like.
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.
Continued here.
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