Tumble, Turn, Overflow...part six *s/x*

[tabaqui]

Hullo!
Hope everyone had a good weekend! Mine was slow and fairly lazy and much, much too hot. Yerk. Last night, though, sweptawaybayou sent us rain and thunder, so that was *great*. The temp dropped by like fifteen degrees. Lovely. Thanks, bay-bee! *smoooch*

Now, on to more of the fic! Tell me if i've gotten all confusing here. I can't really tell. reremouse is, of course, the reason it's not all funky. Well, mostly, since i went out on a limb and posted without a beta on the last bit.
ETA: reremouse rocks my world. Five minutes conversation and the bit that i was iffy about in my own mind is now clear and fixed up. Yay!
ETA2: kitty_poker roxors with her fabu typo skillz!!
Previous parts here.






The next day was...blurry. Spike used up the last two foil packets and then the one remaining Demerol and resorted to Xander's Oxycontin and the Jack that Xander had delivered. Xander went back to tequila and watched Spike drift in and out of consciousness - read the journal until Xander was sick of it. He got another fire going in the porcelain-blue of twilight and draped himself over the couch next to Spike, who was staring at the muted TV, his foot back in the tub of hot water and salt.

"I know what it is," Xander half-whispered, leaning close to Spike. "Your journal. I know what it is." Spike lifted a bottle to his lips and drank - rolled his head on the back of the couch and looked at Xander with dazed, bloodshot eyes.

"Figured it out, then? Good...good on you, H-Harris."

"It's a...it's like a map. X marks the spot," Xander said, and giggled.

"S'right. Treasure map. An'...you're X. Know what the - what the treasure is?"

Xander contemplated the bottom of the tequila bottle for a moment. "Pharmaceuticals?" he guessed, and Spike broke into snorting, wheezing laughter.

"You git. No, no. The treasure is...Dru."

"Drew. Drew what? Like a picture that...that....some famous - picture-making guy drew?"

"Bloody - h-hell, Harris! No, Dru. Drusilla. She's the treasure."

"Oh." Xander reached for a bag of cheese popcorn but his hand stopped halfway there. "You mean - crazy, scary, thinks I'm a catch, killed a Slayer Dru? Your Dru."

"My Dru, yeah." Spike's voice was thick with narcotics and memory and he closed his eyes, smiling. "My girl Dru. She's coming here. Been - tracking her. Watching the papers and...keepin' my ear to the ground. Underground. Gonna be here soon."

"How soon?" Xander asked, cold sobriety lancing through his warm cocoon of alcohol.

"Halloween. That's when she'll be here."

Xander leaned back again, watching Spike stretch to put his bottle on the floor - shift and settle, wincing a little. Shaking even now, when his blood stream all but oozed with drugs. "That's tonight, Spike."

Spike was humming something under his breath and he nodded along to the tempo of it. "Yeah. Tonight. Need t'get dressed. Can't greet her in these bloody...track pants."

"Fuck," Xander whispered. But he didn't get up. Didn't move. Dru couldn’t come in and...it didn't matter, anyway. She couldn't come in, they were...Spike was...safe. *Why does he want to see her? If she - fuck, if she does...anything to him he'll lose his soul...if he still has...Jesus, what if -?*

"Spike, you're still soul-boy, aren't you?"

"Suppose so," Spike said, obviously not thinking about it. Making lazy circles in his thighs with his fingertips; digging in every now and again as a tremor went through him. "Don't suppose the sodding Powers took that away."

"Can't you tell?"

"Not when I'm fucked up," Spike said, and actually laughed. Rusty croak of sound that made Xander cringe a little. "An' I've been mostly fucked up for the last three years. I can't...feel it." He frowned then, lifting his head off the back of the couch.- put one hand on his chest, over his heart. "Can't feel much of anything, really." He sat still, staring down at his hand. Tapped his fingers over his breastbone for a moment. "S'why I do it, really." He turned his head in a funny little lock-slip-lock motion, as if the underlying armature of spine and neck were abrading away. Rusting and creaking and winding down. His eyes caught the fading light from the window oddly and glimmered. Chlorine-blue, pupils blown wide. His gaze made Xander draw back.

"That why you do it, mate? That why you're livin' on take away and finest kind?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Xander muttered, and Spike's fingers - ice cold and thin like long-buried bones, locked around his wrist and squeezed.

"You owe me, Harris. 'Fess up, now - tell Spike aaall about it."

Xander flinched away from his touch - lifted the bottle in his hand and took a long drink. The tequila didn't even burn, anymore. "Yeah, okay. Andrew told you I went to Africa, right?"

Spike nodded, picking up his bottle again and swirling the Jack in it in a slow circle. "Said you sent him a fish. What in hell'd you do that for?"

"It was a joke," Xander said, slumping down a little further, bare feet stretching out toward the fireplace. "Anyway, I got hurt over there a couple times. Got jumped by some soldiers, got shot...random, uh, stuff."

"The hazards of being a do-gooder who won't keep his nose out," Spike said, nodding.

"I was finding Slayers, Spike. Kind of important."

"I should sodding well hope so, since it was Red's mojo sent the poor bitches round the twist in the first place."

"I think you're the only ones that got a crazy Slayer," Xander muttered, and Spike laughed.

"I think we're the only ones that stopped one. Cold comfort, believe me."

Xander watched Spike rub his wrist, circling his fingers around bones and tendons and too-pale skin. "Anyway...I got kind of sick of the whole hospital routine. So when I was in Moscow for this...Council thing, I found a witch. Told her I wanted something that would keep me safe."

"Something wrong with your own personal witch?" Spike asked, and Xander shrugged.

"I didn't want to hear the 'come home' speech again. Every time I got hurt, Willow and Buffy tried to talk me out of working. Wanted me to do...desk stuff. And I couldn't..."

"Couldn't give it up, yeah? Excitement, danger -"

"Watching my first boyfriend get torn to pieces by vampires. Yeah, it was just like Indiana Jones." Xander tipped the tequila bottle up, swallowing the last few inches and then coughing when a swallow went down wrong.

Spike grinned crookedly at him. "Amazing, isn't it, how life continues to kick you in the goolies when you least expect it. So - witch and...boyfriend, Harris?"

"Yeah, boyfriend. Deal and move on." Spike made a tsk sort of sound that Xander totally ignored. "Witch. Moscow. Fucking cold. I told her I was sick of getting hurt. Was tired of everybody worrying about me. I told her...I didn't want to be so fucking vulnerable anymore. And she said she could fix it. And she did."

Spike tapped his fingers along the neck of the bottle, one two three over and over. Staring at Xander.

"What?"

"Oh, bloody hell! That's not the way to tell a bloody story, Harris! What the fuck happened with your eye? I saw it go."

"And now it's back. Having one eye made me vulnerable. It - grew back." Xander shuddered, remembering in a sickly flash the swift, painful growth - the pressure and crack of muscle and bone rearranging around the new *foreign* thing. "I screwed up my hip in Bosnia and that's better, too. Had a pin in there - it worked its way out." Xander still had it, in a drawer in his desk downstairs. Shiny steel pin that had taken four days to bore through him.

"So..." Spike looked a little confused. "You can't get hurt so you're drinkin' yourself to death?"

"No. No. You don't..." Xander sat up and leaned his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped tightly together. "I can't die, Spike. I jumped off a fucking building. I had to lay in the dirt in this empty lot for a fucking hour while my bones healed up enough so I could walk." An hour of grinding, screaming pain as shattered bones had knit themselves, slivers working through muscle and then the muscle itself having to grow again. That had been the last try.

"Sounds like a vampire, that. You sure you're not -?"

"I'm not."

"You're still not making any sense, Harris. You're immortal. There's no bad there."

"Oh, there's bad, all right." Xander picked at a ragged nail, glancing over at Spike. Spike looked pretty pissed off. In a loopy sort of way. "I really can't die, Spike. Even a vampire - sunlight or a stake - chop your head off - you're dead. But nothing... Nothing can touch me. And I've fucking tried everything."

"Yeah? More than just the dry dive?" Spike took a drink and sniffed, huddling a little into the couch. "Water's gone cold," he said, wiggling his foot.

Xander sighed and slid off the couch. "Every fucking thing you can imagine. Walked into a burning building once. Jesus..." Xander slid the tub of water out from under Spike's dripping foot. He swathed it in a towel and inspected the cut. It was still too open for Xander's liking, but the redness - the oozing infection - seemed less. He wrapped the towel around and around and tucked the edges in and then knelt there, looking up at Spike. "That made me think of you, you know?

Spike pulled the throw down off the back of the couch and settled it clumsily over his chest and lap. "It did?"

"Yeah. That was probably what it was like for you, in Sunnydale. When you...died."

Spike shuddered, pulling the throw up a little higher. "Wouldn't wish that on anybody, mate. That was..."

"That sucked. Plus, all my clothes burned off. I had to sneak out naked and all fucking...crispy and get to my car without anybody seeing." And get home without being arrested. He'd stood in the bathroom afterward, just staring in the mirror. Watching his bald, blackened skin curl and come away in bits, new skin pushing up from underneath. Pale and delicate as a baby's skin, and just as perfect. Xander scrubbed his palms on his thighs - looked over at the fire, watching the flames dance - watching the embers scintillate in the heat.

"Still don't see -"

"If nothing can kill me... Jesus, Spike! Think about it. What if a Stephen King happened tomorrow - that bird flu or whatever?" Xander pushed himself to his feet - paced over to the fireplace, feeling cold himself now. Feeling a little sick from remembering. He leaned on the mantle, staring at the fire. "What if - what if somebody over in the Middle East gets some damn plutonium and gets the bomb?" He turned around, back to the fire, staring hard at Spike. "And then everybody's dead from radiation sickness and - and nuclear winter and all that and there's me, still wandering around like the world's biggest fucking cockroach!"

"Don't go all Kafka on me, Harris - can't stand that shite."

Xander laughed shortly, rubbing his hands back through his hair. "What? I don't even know what you're talking about. Spike, do you get what I'm saying?"

Spike turned his bottle up and drained the last of the whiskey - coughed once, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "Yeah, I get what you're saying. You're saying you can't die and you can't be hurt or fucking maimed or - or kill yourself drinking or shooting up or bloody anything. And you're fucking sad about it. That about right?"

"Oh, you're such an asshole," Xander muttered. He folded gracelessly to the floor in front of the fireplace, moodily poking the coals with a long piece of wood. "Yeah, great, if my flight goes down, I'll live. After I live through whatever fucked-up things happen to bodies that fall fifty thousand feet through the air. And..." Xander poked the fire a little harder - watched a chunk of wood crumble into pieces, the edges glowing a deep, sullen red. "Everybody else is gonna be dead."

"That is the meat of the matter, isn't it, Harris? That everybody else is going to be dead...eventually."

Xander glanced up at Spike and Spike grinned. It was like looking at a death's head, and Xander shivered and looked away - back to the fire. "Yeah. And even if I'm...so fucking lonely, or - or crazy or the last fucking guy on Earth... I won't be able to die."

"Well, too bloody bad for you," Spike muttered, and Xander felt the surge of rage and frustration come up through him like fire - like a bubble of acid. He took a step toward Spike, fist's clenching... And then it faded. Like it always did. Receded like a tide, leaving nothing but blank sand behind. Spike squinted up at him. "Thought you were gonna hit me, Harris."

"Thought I was too. I wanted to." Xander flopped back onto the couch, squeezing his eyes shut. "But it just...goes away."

"It does?"

"All of it does. Anything too...extreme, it just...goes away."

There was a long silence from Spike, then he shifted a little on the couch and his cold fingers patted carefully - hesitantly - at Xander's. "Guess that'd make you vulnerable, too, yeah?"

Xander curled his hand a little, catching Spike's fingers between his own. "Yeah. Guess it would."


Drusilla arrived fifteen minutes before midnight, appearing in front of them like a ghost. Dressed in form-fitting red, the skirt smooth to her knees, she looked like some high-dollar lawyer until you saw her eyes. Then you knew she was something else entirely. Xander just stared at her while Spike woke with a little gasp, jerking upright.

"Trick or treat," she whispered.

"You weren't invited in," Xander said dully and she smiled a slow, sly smile at him.

"No need for an invitation into this house." She tilted her head at him, cat's eyes green-gold in the firelight, a curl of dark hair sliding over her shoulder. "I remember you." She looked at him from top to toes, her gaze almost tangible - caressing. "Oh, you've changed, you have. Shed your skin a few times."

"Dru?" Spike's voice was shaky - hoarse and breathy and Dru turned to look at him, her face crumpling into something like sorrow.

"Ooh, Spike. Sweet Spike..." She flowed forward - folded to her knees, her hands reaching out and cupping Spike's face. Blood-red nails against his white skin and Xander bit his lip, hard. But he couldn't move.

*What if she...can she turn him again? He'll be here... God. I'm a selfish fucking bastard, he'll lose his soul...*

"Dru, I've been - following you. Trying to - trying to find -" Spike's hands skipped up her arms - latched onto her wrists and held on. Fine tremors shuddering through him, making his voice skip and catch.

"Shhh, love. I know. I could feel you, looking, couldn't I? I talked to Daddy, you know." Her thumb smoothed over Spike's lower lip and his eyes fluttered - opened wide and locked on her face.

"You did? When - when did -"

"Oh, I don't remember. Nights and moons and hunts ago." Drusilla looked over at Xander - leaned in a little closer to Spike, her voice husking down into a near whisper. "Daddy is ever so much easier to catch now that he's all souled. He told me - everything."

"God...Dru, please, I -"

"Shhh." Dru shushed Spike again - leaned forward more and dropped a light kiss on to his lips. "I know, love. You're like Sir Galahad, aren't you? Sent out into the world, told to find the Grail... And now you've found it, and I'm your Joseph, aren't I? Laying you to your rest after your long journey."

Spike's eyes were glimmering in the firelight and his chest was hitching and falling in uneven, half-strangled breathes. "Yes. Yes, Dru - please, I can't - they... It hurt, Dru. Hurt so fucking much and it won't stop, it won't stop..."

"I know, I know." Dru leaned her forehead on Spike's, her eyes closing, and Spike's did the same. His lashes were wet. "You screamed into the ether, love - shook the stars, rattled the bones... " Dru twisted easily out of his grasp and rose, smooth column of scarlet and black. "I've been searching too, Spike and I've found it."

"What did you find, love?" Spike was leaning forward, his gaze locked onto Dru and Xander ground his fingers together, fisting them into a knot of bone and flesh. Feeling his heart jump and skitter in his chest like a trapped bird.

Drusilla turned on one foot, curving spine and arms and leg like a dancer, seeming to float in the dim, golden air. Xander couldn't take his eyes off her. She bowed toward the fire - swayed to the far-left window and pointed out. The new moon was there, just at the edge of the sky. Slender quicksilver smile, like a razor. "New moon, Spike. Everything growing - changing - becoming. Just like you. I found my way - threaded the maze. I can bring you back, good Sir Knight. Back from your slow death. Back to the dark, out of the light."

"Thank Christ," Spike whispered. Spike's face was - glowing, somehow. Transformed by Dru's words - by her very presence. Lit from inside as hope and happiness kindled up in him.

*God, fuck, he looks...like himself, like... Like he should look, like... No, no...* Xander reached out and grabbed his wrist, squeezing it hard enough to make Spike flinch. "Spike - you can't, you'll be - just a monster again." *Doesn't matter, I am too. This shouldn't hurt. Doesn't this make me vulnerable? Why does this fucking hurt?*

"Don't be a sodding idiot, Harris! Of course I can, and I bloody well am."

"I can - she can't kill me, Spike," Xander said, desperation making his voice harsh. "I can - stop her."

Spike snarled, jerking his wrist out of Xander's grasp. "You could fucking try. You think healing up from your jump or your fire was bad? What she could do to you would be ten times worse."

Dru turned suddenly from the window, clapping her hands sharply and startling them both. "Boys, enough. We have to wait just a little longer. Can't be getting up to mischief on Halloween." She looked toward the stairs and smiled, nodding. "But tomorrow... All Souls. We'll be making you whole again, Spike. Fixing all the hurts." Three vampires dressed mostly in black materialized from the gloom, glitter of gold and the soft shush of shoe leather. A delicate blonde woman, a slender boy with dreadlocks and earth-dark skin and a lion of a man, with broad shoulders and ash-gold hair fanned like a mane over his shoulders.

Xander just stared at them - watched Drusilla all but skip to the couch and pull Spike close - whisper into his ear. Telling him what they were going to do - telling him what was going to happen. And Spike slipped his arm around Dru's waist and leaned into her and closed his eyes. Relaxing into her hold and sighing softly and Xander clutched at the rags of his outrage - his fear - his bitterness.

But they slipped away from him, leaving him with nothing at all.


Continued here.

Comments

[oolongtea.livejournal.com]

::happy sigh:: You give really good Dru.

[tabaqui]

Hehe.
Thank you!
And hey! You!
Haven't seen you in ages.
:)

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

So that's what happened to Xander! Why he can get as wasted or drunk as hell and wake up just fine the next morning. Damn, I get why he'd be freaked at the thought of being alone forever, except for some unsouled vampires maybe, who'd spend all their time trying to prove he can be killed.

I love Dru's appearance. And the puzzle it sets Xander. And if she re-vamps Spike, will he keep his soul? Will it matter if he doesn't?

Great part!

[katekat]

OH YEAH BABY! Now it's cooking, or something. I love Miss Dru, just adore her. And whatever you were worried about, don't worry, don't worry at all!

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

So the law of unintended consequences bites Xander in the butt, there,as it's already dined on Spike, but Drusilla's crew looks like a chance for it to reach even more spectacular chaos.

Julia, and, also, EEK

[witling.livejournal.com]

Whoah. The plot, she thickens.

[angstpuppy.livejournal.com]

Oh, holy feckin' hell. This was just too damn good.
Yeah, you do give good Dru, I've seen you do it before and wow, this is just as good.
And oh, poor Xander. Ok, lip trembling here: :tremble: if...if anger is a strong enough emotion to make him vulernable, and it just goes away...what about love?? Eeep.
And yes, Spike *needs* to be a vampire again, cuz the whole Sanshu-hoo-doo always just pissed me off.
:nodnodd:

[justabi.livejournal.com]

See, you won't be alone anymore forever! Also, OUCHIE! And Dru! *happy sigh*

[fuzzyboo03.livejournal.com]

Oh, man... Amazing Dru.

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

Wonder if you've stumbled upon the backstory of The Immortal - not that I care about him as long as he keeps Buffy away from Spike.
Whenever I read another chapter of this fic I get Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" running through my brain - something to do with mixed signals of the bois I guess.
Another great variation. Looking forward to more.

Shakatany

[sweptawaybayou.livejournal.com]

Wheeee!!

*is thrilled to little bits*

You rock, baby. Like a very, very hard thing.

*smoochsmooch*

**loves**

[eithnex.livejournal.com]

I love Dru and she's come to make our Spike all healthy and vampy again! Right? I hope anyway, poor Spike. Then we'll have to see what he can do for poor Xander. Wonderful update, I'll look forward to more when you get the chance. Thank you.

[alida-hush.livejournal.com]

mmmm....nummies. Beautiful job deary, wonderful words. ^^

[tabaqui]

Heeeee.
You have an evol mind.
:)

Thank you!
And thanks for the email.

[tabaqui]

Heeeeee. Thank you thank you!
:)

[tabaqui]

Oh, yis. People just don't think.
Thanks, bay-bee.
:)

[tabaqui]

She does.
:)

[tabaqui]

Thank you thank you!
I luffs Dru, so much.
:)

Yis, what *about* love?
*la la*

Shanshu sucks.

[tabaqui]

Heeee!
*smooch*
Thanks!

[tabaqui]

Ummmmmm.
I have no interest in the Immortal. What a tool.

Heeee. Clowns? Evol things.
*shudder*

Thanks!

[tabaqui]

Heee!
Thanks, bay-bee!
*smooches you all up and down*

[tabaqui]

Yes, Dru!!
:)
Thank you thank you.

[tabaqui]

Thank you so much!
:)

[girlguidejones.livejournal.com]

Jesus. I went from poor, pitiable Spike to poor, pitiable Xander in record time. Can't die? That is truly horrible. Can't Willow undo it?!?

Junkie Spike is so terribly painful to read that I find myself rooting for Drusilla. *acK*

[realtsunamigirl.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Happy fix.

Loved this:

He turned his head in a funny little lock-slip-lock motion, as if the underlying armature of spine and neck were abrading away. Rusting and creaking and winding down.

In fact just loved the whole chapter, especially Dru.