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Another post! Heh. Why not? I'm having fun. Hope you are, too!
Part one is here.
"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.
Continued here.
Part one is here.
"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.
Continued here.
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Heh.
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And thank you so much! It's going great - i had some doubts, at first, so...yay!
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:)
*squishes you with love*
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:)
It's great fun to write.
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Thank you thank you!
*smooooooch*
*pokes you*
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This is wonderful. Poor Spike. I'm morbidly curious as to what has brought him to this.
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::hovers near your feet, gazing adoringly upward::
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*twitches pillow over special brainwave machine*
It's just happy coincidence!
*la la*
Ummmm.
Sorry about all the fluff down there, haven't vacuumed in a while.
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Thanks, bay-bee.
:)
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*pets him*
:)
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glee. I love this. You got voice.
sorry. idon't write well reviews. when I'm sick. XD
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But Xander will take care of him - make it better. Yes, yes, yes.
Wonderful job, hon!!
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Thank you thank you!
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*i hope so!*
:)
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*pet pet*
S'okay - any fb is good.
:)
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So maybe vampires aren't Xander's favourite critters, especially Spike, but he's got a huge heart. He won't be able to resist helping.
Damn. I'm all involved now. :)