Survival Instincts

Chalk it up to Sunnydale survival instincts: Xander hears the scuffling of feet, the smack of flesh against flesh... he walks toward it. Xander sees the attackers, makes out the body of the victim curled up on the ground flinching under vicious kicks... he launches himself headlong into the fray. It's automatic. Just as automatic is the thought that it's a stupid move—the recognition that in no time he will be on the ground next to the victim, looking over for tips on the most effective fetal position. Survival instincts, hell. More like deathwish instincts.

It's not like Xander seeks violence. He isn't the type for bar fights, though sometimes when he walks into bars, that's the impression people get. It's the eye patch, he supposes, which is silly because the absence of depth perception and a hell of a blind spot aren't exactly assets in a rumble. But it's not really the lost eye that keeps Xander out of brawls, it's the sense that he fought enough in his former life when lives depended on it that he deserves a rest, and simply that few causes seem worth it anymore.

Still, three against one is hardly fair and some part of him he hasn't been able to bring around to reason is willing to go down trying to even the odds. Of course, by the time he joins in, it's just three against Xander, because the man on the ground is in no shape to help his rescuer. The adrenaline rush of the chronically foolish fills Xander's veins. This is feeling some people mistake for bravery, he muses, as he reaches out to pull one of the men out of the scuffle. The man reacts blindly, pulls back his fist as he is turned. Xander doesn't have time to duck, only to close his eyes and brace himself for the blow, but at the last second, the man pulls his punch. Xander opens his eyes and looks up into a familiar face covered in chagrin.

"Nelson?" Xander asks.

"Uh, Mr. Harris... uh..." The man ducks his head and begins to back away.

Hearing their companion utter that name, the other two assailants freeze and look over. Xander recognizes them, too.

"Lewis? Hassler? What the hell is going on here?"

Cue awkward silence. But Xander's expectant stare is relentless and Lewis cracks first.

"He started it, Mr. Harris. We just... we were having a drink over at the bar after our shift. And we were on our way back to our cars when we come to this... guy and he's all looking at us funny and licking his lips and winking and shit... You know, trying ta... you know..."

Hassler shakes his head. "Fucking queer," he mutters.

The three men dart nervous glances at the body, which is starting to stir, then turn pleading eyes to Xander, willing him to understand that when faced with this obvious threat to their heterosexual masculinity they'd had no choice but to beat the "queer" up.

But Xander doesn't understand, just keeps staring at them—these men who work for him. These stupid, awful men that he had hired. Well, technically, his foreman hired them, but still... Here they are, out in front of his site and if he hadn't stopped by to get some paperwork, if he hadn't been absentminded enough to forget the paperwork in the first place, who knows what would have happened to the poor man on the ground.

Suddenly Xander can't stand the sight of them, these men—no, Neanderthals—who work—no, who used to work—for him. He turns his head.

"Get the fuck out of here," he mutters, moving toward the prone figure. "And don't come back tomorrow. Or ever. I don't ever want to see any of you around here again. Your last checks will be in the mail."

Hearing something deep, dark and final in their boss' tone, the men don't argue, just skulk off, cursing under their breath. The danger gone, the victim uncurls and tries to stand. Xander reaches down to help and, as he pulls the man up to his level, Xander takes in familiar features..

The hair is longer, curlier and a more natural blond. The planes of the face are sharper and the skin more pale, neither of which ought to be possible...

"Spike?"

The blue eyes meet his and they haven't changed a bit. Piercing, haunted...

"Well, what d'ya know. A slayerette."

... contemptuous.

Xander flinches involuntarily at the name, but is quickly distracted by the nasty shades of purple and blue blossoming on the vampire's face.

"Spike, what the hell happened?"

Spike rolls his eyes and begins brushing himself off, straightening his clothes.

"What do you think, wanker?"

When Xander continues to stare at him blankly, Spike raises an eyebrow as he brings a slender finger up to tap at his own temple. The light dawns in Xander's eyes.

"Oh, shit. The chip."

"That's right, Harris, the chip. Bloody marvel of American military technology. Never were the brightest of the Scoobies, were ya?"

The remark stings more than it should after all this time and Xander knows that his entire status quo depends on walking away right now and not looking back, but he can't quite get his feet to move. One foot in front of the other, he thinks. I've still got both of those. How hard can it be? But instead his mouth is opening and words are coming out.

"And you never were the nicest, fangless."

Not just words. Incredibly lame words. Jesus, the retort is pathetic even to Xander's ears and he hates that two minutes with Spike can somehow reduce him to this. Echoes of Zeppo.

"Wasn't ever tryin' to be," Spike points out with a shrug. "Nice is overrated." He fishes in the pocket of his jacket—a green army-style thing, Xander notes, not the signature black duster—and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo.

Zippo, Zeppo. Zeppo, Zippo, Xander thinks intelligently. He barely prevents a nervous giggle from escaping. Damn it.

Xander watches as Spike puts a cigarette between his lips and goes to light it. The pale hands are shaking too much to work the lighter. Xander lets him try a few times before releasing a sigh.

"Give me that," he says, reaching out to take the Zippo from Spike's hand. The flame flares and he offers it to Spike. "And by the way, I just saved your ass, you know."

"Ta, mate," Spike says and Xander isn't sure if it's for saving Spike's life or lighting his cigarette. "Anyway, great running into you and all that, Harris, but let's try not to do it again, eh?" Spike turns to leave.

This is good, Xander thinks as he watches the vampire walk away. Thank God one pair of feet between them seems to be functioning. A good thing... except that Spike just looks so... frail....

"Spike! Wait!"

And never let it be said that the Xand-man isn't willing to open his mouth to ruin a good thing.

Spike turns and suddenly Xander doesn't even know what he wanted to say. Those eyes bore into him, waiting.

"Have you... I mean... Have you been feeding?"

There's a suspicious pause before the smirk appears on Spike's face.

"'Course I have. 'S what vampires do, innit?" Spike turns away.

"It's just... you look... I mean, maybe I could get you some blood or something..."

"Gonna buy me some pig's blood? No thanks. Rather fast." Spike starts walking again.

"I could get you human." Xander hears the words and recognizes the voice as his own, but doesn't know what foreign consciousness has taken over his brain and why it wants to feed human blood to a vampire it doesn't even like.

"And where would you do that?" Spike asks with his back still turned.

Xander realizes he doesn't have an answer. In Sunnydale, he would have known. Would have had a ready list of sources to choose from. Funny how it isn't the kind of resource he needs these days.

"Though so," Spike mutters.

"Well, you must know places. I could... I could give you some money..." Xander reaches for his wallet, still wondering who or what has control over his body.

Spike turns sharply, showing a hint of game face as he growls, "I don't need your pity, Harris." The ridges melt into a smirk. "And I don't need your charity, either. Can make my own dosh. Got skills you only wish you'd seen."

It takes Xander a minute of watching Spike's rolling hips as the vampire saunters away before he figures out that comment. By the time he has, Spike is gone.

Xander stares at the television without taking much in. He should be looking over the paperwork he picked up at the site but that conflicts directly with his goal of forgetting everything that happened at the site. But considering that he's failing miserably at the forgetting anyway, Xander decides he might as well be productive while dwelling. He gets up and walks over to the desk where he commences staring blankly at the paperwork instead of the television. Yeah, big improvement there.

After another fifteen minutes, he manages to jot a few notes before he hears the door to the apartment open.

"Hey, sweetheart," Xander calls out without looking up, "how was class?"

"Class was great," says Jamie, the attractive young man who enters. He throws his bag on the table and walks over to wrap his arms around Xander from behind. "Gorgeous nude model. Reminded me of you. Couldn't wait to get home."

Xander smiles as the smaller, younger, horny man kisses his neck then moves around the chair to settle himself in Xander's lap. They begin to kiss, but Xander finds his mind wandering back to the evening's events, his brain poking at them against his better judgement, the way a tongue pokes at an irritating cold sore to make it sting. He can't concentrate on his lover and Jamie notices.

"What's wrong, baby? Hard day at work?"

"Yeah... No... It's nothing. I'm fine."

Jamie attempts another kiss and Xander certainly doesn't stop him, but he's not exactly present either. Jamie pulls back.

"Come on. Either there's something on your mind or you simply don't find me attractive anymore. Which is it?"

Jamie is looking at him expectantly. Xander knows he has to say something.

"It's just... There's this guy..."

"Okay, I have to say, not exactly the answer I was hoping for." Jamie frowns and begins extracting himself from Xander's lap.

Xander tightens his arms around Jamie and shakes his head.

"Not that kind of guy. Just this guy that I used to know."

"A friend."

"Not a friend exactly..."

"An ex."

"Oh, no way." Xander laughs. "I wasn't even out when I knew him."

"A crush, then?"

"No, just this guy. It's hard to describe. I mean, I didn't even really like him, but he was... always around. With my friends."

"You had friends?" Jamie feigns surprise.

"Jamie!"

"What? I'm serious. You do realize that right now—this two-minute conversation—is the most you've ever told me about your past?"

"That's not— I've mentioned Willow before."

"Yeah, from when you were in grade school. You never talk about high school or anything after that. If I didn't know better, I'd think you'd been in juvy or prison or something."

"Okay, I admit that I may be a little... reserved on the subject."

"Reserved? In an interrogation, you'd make a KGB agent look like a guest on Jerry Springer by comparison."

Xander grimaces at the truth of that statement.

"Was your youth that traumatic?" Jamie continues. "Were you like this totally repressed geek or something?"

"Something like that. My youth? You make me sound like I'm middle-aged or something. I realize you're younger, but I'm only 28."

"And you're changing the subject," Jamie points out.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Shocker."

"I'm sorry," Xander says. And he is sorry, but that doesn't mean he's going to change his policy.

"It's okay. I'm used to it. So, this guy: You've been thinking about him, in a way that I have no reason to be jealous of, and..."

"I wasn't thinking about him. I saw him. Today. Tonight. At the site."

Jamie waits for more, but receives silence.

"And you caught up on old times?"

"And he basically told me to fuck off."

More silence.

"And you're hurt."

"No, I'm... I'm... It's just... the way he was, it wasn't... normal. I mean, for him... Well, for anyone really. I'm just... It's like he's living on the streets and I'm not sure he's fee—eating and I think he may be... um... a hustler."

Jamie ponders this information for a moment.

"Um... wow. Did you...?"

"If offered him food and money, but he basically told me to—"

"Fuck off."

"Yeah."

They lapse into silence. A few minutes pass and then Jamie is off Xander's lap and pulling him out of the chair.

"Let's go."

"Go?"

"We'll go look for him. Find him. Bring him home," Jamie says firmly. Xander loves Jamie for his optimism, but...

"He won't come."

"You won't sleep until you try."

Xander doesn't move at first.

"I know you, Alex. You have to go look." Jamie picks Xander's keys up off the kitchen counter and hands them to his boyfriend along with Xander's jacket.

When they are nearly to the car, Xander stops.

"Get in," he tells Jamie. "I just need to grab something for him. In case he won't come back with us."

Xander jogs back up the stairs and into the kitchen. He pulls out a thermos, screws off the cap and only pauses for a second before rolling down his sleeve, picking up a knife and making a cut on his forearm. He carefully guides the blood into the thermos, filling it halfway before he stops and applies pressure to the wound, grabbing medical tape from the kitchen drawer to hold it closed. He pulls his sleeve down again.

What's weird is how not weird the whole process is. Xander wonders how many more years he'll have to spend away from Sunnydale before bleeding himself for an old enemy will start to feel just a little bit odd.

He's on the woozy side when he gets back down to the car, so asks Jamie to drive. They head to the site first.

If I were Spike, where would I hole up? Xander tries to think like a vampire. Years in Sunnydale should have taught him how to do that, right? Xander tries to remember if he ever actually attempted to tap into vampire mentality back in Sunnydale. He realizes he mostly just let things take him by surprise back then or followed Buffy's strategy or Giles' or even Willow's. He had been a sidekick, a follower.

He looks over at Jamie. He isn't the follower in their relationship. He's the breadwinner. He's older. He rents the apartment; he owns the car. And he makes decisions—not all of them, but a lot of them—and with confidence. He tops, damn it, not that that kind of thing matters, but still...

His mind has wandered. Back to thinking like a vampire, Xander reminds himself as they pull up to the site. He looks out the window and there's Spike. Too easy. So much for putting his belatedly developed strategic skills to use. He asks Jamie to pull over and they get out of the car. Jamie hangs back as Xander approaches Spike, who is seated against a cement wall, smoking.

"Oi, couldn't stay away?" Spike asks. He leers. "Or were you hoping I could do something for you?"

"No... no... I ... um... I brought you some..." Xander looks back at Jamie as he holds out the thermos "... tea. It's hot."

Spike looks as if he might refuse out of pride or spite or something, but then apparently decides he's hungrier than he is proud or spiteful or whatever. He takes the thermos and sips from it. He pauses after the first taste and sniffs the air.

"Hey, this is your..." Spike glances at Jamie "... tea."

Xander shrugs. "It was the only thing I had at the house. I'll find another... brand tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Spike eyebrows lift.

"Uh, yeah. We were, um... thinking you should crash at our place for awhile."

"We?"

"Jamie and I."

"Jamie?"

Xander gestures to the man in question. "My boyfriend."

"Interesting..." and there go the eyebrows again "... but no."

"C'mon, Spike. You can't like living like this."

"Don't you tell me what I bloody can or can't like. Thanks for the... tea, Harris. Now, sod off."

"I can't just leave you here."

"Bloody well can. Just turn around and walk away. It's that simple. Even you should be able to handle it."

Walk away. It really should be simple. God knows he's had practice... Suddenly Xander knows exactly what to say.

"Fine. I guess I'll just call Buffy then. She'll want to know where you..."

Without a word, Spike stalks past Xander to the car and climbs into the back seat.

By unspoken agreement, when they get back to the apartment, Xander and Spike begin to all but ignore each other. It's Jamie who settles Spike into the guestroom. Sheets and towels and tour. Jamie's the domestic one in the relationship anyway—the one with people skills.

Xander doesn't talk much since Sunnydale. As if all that energy for babble and social niceties had been drained (no pun intended)—as if few things these days merit much more than the minimum of words. When he's not finding it mildly annoying, Jamie seems to think the reticence makes Xander "deep" or something. And maybe Xander is deep because when he does talk, the words feel real and he must be extra deep since there are further depths to Xander's psyche that he never puts in to words, even for his lover.

That Spike is from a time in Xander's life that he never talks about intrigues Jamie. In bed that night he tries to use the opening.

"So is Spike normally this quiet and standoffish?"

"Consider yourself lucky on the quiet thing, but other than that, yes."

"And you two were friends?"

"No."

"But you hung out together."

"In a manner of speaking."

"For how long?"

"A few years, more or less."

"He went to your high school?"

"No."

"Friend of the family?"

"Not hardly."

"Attended your church?"

Xander laughs. "Goodnight, Jamie."

Jamie tries once to get at information about Xander's past through Spike.

"So, how do you know Alex?"

Spike studies Jamie for a moment with the signature raised eyebrows and finally says: "Ask your boyfriend."

Jamie feels ashamed and doesn't try again.

Jamie does, however, try to befriend Spike and Xander is surprised after a week or so when he notices the dynamic. Xander doesn't get much chance to see Spike and Jamie interact, his schedule being at odds with both of theirs. Xander is out the door by 6:30 in the morning and back around 4:00 or later if he can't get away from the office.

By contrast, Jamie's classes are in the afternoons and early evenings and he tends to stay up late and sleep in. Spike, though he doesn't have a schedule per se, is much the same, getting up around noon, going to sleep some time between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m. Xander wonders why Spike hasn't been keeping real vampire hours. He would also have expected Spike to be out a lot, but the vampire actually stays holed up in his room or sometimes in front of the television. Xander doesn't know what to make of it, but says nothing.

Xander watches Jamie fuss over Spike by preparing regular meals, according to their nocturnal schedules, which Spike dutifully consumes. Of course, it is Xander who has located a steady supply of human blood—Where else? The Internet—and is having it shipped to his office. It's Xander who places a small cooler under the bed in Spike's room and who brings home blood packets every afternoon and places them there. Neither he nor Spike ever acknowledges this service, but Spike starts looking better and Xander feels satisfaction.

In any case, Xander comes home one day to find Jamie teaching Spike to play the guitar. Another night he wakes up to pee around 1:00 a.m. and overhears them having a heated discussion about New Order versus Depeche Mode. Jamie has also been teaching Spike to play the X-Box and Xander often falls asleep to the sounds of kicks, punches, gunfire, explosions and the rapid clicking of controller buttons. At least Spike's getting some kind of violent outlet, Xander muses.

Jamie's good with him, Xander finds himself thinking at some point. But then that makes Spike sound like an introverted child or a skittish pet or something and that seems wrong somehow. But it is good that they get along, as Xander and Spike have barely spoken two words to each other since that night at the site. Spike seems to make an effort to stay clear of Xander, tending to spend the time between when Xander gets home and when Xander goes to bed hidden in his room. Xander doesn't know how to tell Spike to stop—he actually isn't even sure he wants to. It seems easier this way.

But on nights when Jamie doesn't have class, he sits with Xander on the couch and finds Spike's absence conspicuous. Once he feels comfortable enough with Spike, Jamie starts going to Spike's door and deliberately inviting Spike out to watch the movie or the game and drink a beer with them and Spike does not refuse. Xander starts to notice that Spike refuses few of Jamie's direct requests and wonders if it's more than the threat of Buffy that keeps Spike there, if Spike actually wants to stay.

A few evenings later and Jamie is in class and Xander is on the couch drinking a beer when Spike emerges from his room to join Xander. Spike takes a beer from the fridge and sits down and Xander expects it to be more awkward than with Jamie there between them, but somehow it's less.

"Alex," Spike says after a while, almost a question but not quite.

"William," Xander replies.

And the rest is silence, but in it is a depth of understanding, a shared past.

And so it goes: Spike and Jamie enjoy talking and doing, Spike and Xander enjoy sitting and silence, Xander and Jamie interact increasingly little without Spike there. The three of them together in front of the television in the evening becomes a strange dynamic and one Friday Jamie suggests they get out for once.

If Spike's been any farther than the corner drugstore for a pack of cigarettes or the grocery store with Jamie—and isn't that an odd picture?—in the month or so he's been staying with them, Xander doesn't know about it.

They go to a gay bar across town. Dimly lit, dark walls, small tables, passable dance floor. Xander buys a round and stops to consider the fact that, for all intents and purposes, both his companions tonight are kept men. He pays rent and household expenses, keeps Spike in blood, buys Jamie the art supplies not covered by his scholarship. Spike has even appropriated some of Jamie's clothing, all of which was paid for out of Xander's wallet.

They hover until a table becomes available, then sit and watch the dance floor. Xander is wondering if he should take Jamie out to dance when suddenly a look passes between Spike and an older man on the floor and Spike gets up, goes over and beings moving his body against the man's. Neither Xander nor Jamie takes his eyes off Spike as the blond leads the man toward a back room.

He's gone maybe ten minutes and when he returns, he buys the next round.

It should be very disturbing, but it's kind of hot, too, and the balance between disturbing and hot begins to tip in favor of the latter as Jamie and Xander continue to drink and watch as Spike continues to hustle.

Spike's hand is moving up under some guy's shirt and Xander's hand is moving up Jamie's leg and Spike has his other hand on the guy's ass and Jamie is crawling into Xander's lap and Spike is leading the man into the back room and Xander doesn't even notice because he's got his tongue too far down Jamie's throat and somewhere out of sight Spike is breathing heavily into the man's ear and whispering, "Yeah, luv, want me to suck your cock?" while Jamie drags Xander out to the car and performs the same service free of charge.

The temptation to go home and fuck like bunnies is overwhelming and the thought of bunnies brings thoughts of Anya to Xander's mind, which hasn't happened in forever (must be Spike's presence), but Xander quickly banishes the thoughts by kissing Jamie hard and wet one more time before running back into the club to see about Spike.

Spike is back on the dance floor with a new guy and Xander tries to be as unobtrusive as possible as he grooves his way up behind Spike and places a light hand on the vampire's shoulder. Spike turns into the touch, facing Xander and pulling him into a smooth, sensuous dance even as he continues to rub his backside against the man behind him.

"What can I do for you, pet?" Spike asks silkily, still in hustler persona and Xander is momentarily disarmed. He stares.

"Xander?" Spike says in a normal voice this time, breaking the spell.

"Oh, uh, yeah.... Jamie and I kind of wanted to get out of here and we wondered if you wanted a ride or would just get home on your own..."

"Fine on my own, pet," Spike says with a smile and it's all infused with an energy that is signature Spike and Xander hasn't even realized it was gone or how much he missed it until this moment. And then Spike is running an expertly light touch over the bulge in the front of Xander's jeans and says:

"'Sides, it seems like you and the boy could use some time alone, yeah?"

"Yeah," Xander says, his voice so breathy it's barely there. It really has been far too long, he thinks. He goes home and fucks Jamie through the mattress.

Things continue as is becoming usual, only Spike is much more Spike-ish—arrogant in bearing if not in word or deed, hair cut and bleached again, going out more often at night—and Xander considers it a major improvement, though he's a bit surprised at himself to think so.

Balancing the checkbook, Xander finds that food expenses have seen a sudden drop and Jamie admits that Spike has been chipping in on their grocery shopping excursions.

"You don't need to eat," Xander points out to Spike on one of those evenings when they find themselves alone in front of the TV.

"Do, though."

"Only to make Jamie happy."

"Jamie's worth making happy." Spike shrugs. "Let me pay for the blood then, or help on the rent."

"Look, you don't have to..."

"It's just a job, luv. World's oldest profession. Just think of it as part-time contract work."

"It just seems..."

"Don't. I like to contribute. Jamie let's me. Leave it be."

Xander nods and lets it be.

One evening, Spike announces that he's going to be gone for a few days. He doesn't offer a reason and Xander and Jamie don't ask, but they suspect they are being given time alone and they suspect that they need it. They've been getting along (and getting it on again) since the night in the bar, but things still haven't been the way they were before Spike.

Without discussing it, each makes a special effort in their days alone together and they soon find the effort unnecessary. They do like spending time together, always have. Xander takes Jamie to a movie he's wanted to see, holds his hand, buys him popcorn. Jamie likes dates and they used to go on them on a regular basis but haven't in too long.

Jamie asks Xander to pose for him and begins a sketch and thinks of how strong and steady his boyfriend is, not to mention handsome.

"Alex, why do you take care of me?" Jamie asks suddenly, looking up from his sketchpad.

"Because I love you," Xander answers without thinking.

"But you could love somebody with a job, instead of a starving art student," Jamie points out.

"You create beautiful things. I like to have a hand in that." Xander smiles almost sadly. "The world needs beautiful things."

Jamie shakes his head. "It's not just that. I needed someone, so you took me in. You can't help yourself."

They lapse into silence for another minute as Jamie focuses on the sketch, trying to put enough kindness into Xander's single eye to do it justice. He is unsatisfied with the result and sighs.

"I should get a job," he says.

"No." Xander's voice is firm. "Being young should be easy. Can't you let me give you that?"

"But..."

"Please."

Jamie sighs, but smiles. "You're a natural born hero, Alex."

"I'm a natural born sidekick," Xander corrects.

"Says who?"

"Nevermind."

Jamie frowns at the evasion. He never knows when he'll run up against one of his boyfriend's walls, but he's learned to let these things go. He keeps sketching.

Xander remains in his pose and imagines telling Jamie everything. But he doesn't. He stands up instead, takes the sketchpad away from Jamie, pulls Jamie into the bedroom. There he tells Jamie with his hands and his mouth and his cock that Jamie is everything, even if he doesn't know everything, perhaps precisely because he doesn't know everything. Because Xander doesn't have room for everything. Xander isn't strong enough for everything. But he's strong enough for Jamie. He has room for Jamie.

And for Spike. Spike, who knows everything. Spike, who comes home to what seems like a happier household. Jamie and Xander are talking again and touching again. Not just the naughty touching either, but the little touches that say: I know you're there. I don't want you far from me. I've grown accustomed to your face.

Xander doesn't really realize that Spike doesn't actually know everything until one day Spike pops open two bottles of beer, plops down on the couch in front of the baseball game, hand a bottle to Xander and asks:

"So what happened to yer eye?"

Xander's good eye blinks at Spike. He'd forgotten Spike wouldn't know the truth and now debates whether or not to tell it. To tell the truth. It's like Pandora's box. Only this is the first time that opening it has seemed even a little tempting. The eye blinks again.

"Carpentry accident," he says.

Spike studies him. "Must've hurt."

"You forget," Xander replies.

Days pass, but the conversation remains so fresh in his mind that Xander has no doubt that it's a continuation when Spike says:

"So, how're the others? Slayer, Watcher, Witch, Bit?"

Xander turns over possible answers in his brain, can't bring himself to lie, isn't up to telling the truth. It's unusually good timing that his cell phone rings just then and it's Jamie and he wants Xander to come out and meet him and a group of his friends from school at a bar. No need to explain to Spike since the vampire could hear both sides of the conversation anyway, so Xander simply nods to the blond on the couch as he picks up his keys and jacket and leaves.

Once the relief of having escaped Spike's questions wears off, Xander remembers that he doesn't exactly enjoy hanging out with Jamie's friends. There's nothing wrong with them per se, they're just young and innocent and trying to appear sophisticated bordering on jaded and Xander doesn't exactly fit in.

He's feels too big around them, like a bull in a china shop. A butch bull who is strong and not bad looking and makes good money and fucks pretty well, so it's not like they don't think Jamie's done well for himself, but he's still the only one drinking beer—inebriate of the plebian class—in a sea full of wine, cosmos and martinis. And he doesn't find much to contribute when the group competes to see who can make the most self-important and pretentious comment about the latest hot artist or artistic trend.

So he folds himself into a corner and tries to feel less oafish as he downs a first beer then nurses the second, thinking of things far from this moment that he'd rather keep that way. And when the gathering winds down, he escorts an overly affectionate and giggly, drunk-off-his-ass Jamie to the car, takes him home, nods to Spike on the couch—who doesn't seem to have moved an inch since Xander left—and puts his lover to bed. Xander considers crawling in with Jamie—it's late after all—but needs another beer to quiet his mind before he goes to sleep. He almost hesitates to go back out to the couch, but there's nowhere else and its not like he can avoid Spike permanently.

"Have fun?" Spike asks as Xander approaches, declaring a neutral subject.

Relieved, Xander drops onto the couch. He shrugs. "They're young."

"Yer boy's young."

"In him, it's sweet. With them, it's..."

"Bloody annoying?"

"I was going to say 'a bit overwhelming,' but you're not wrong."

"But the boy's worth it, yeah?"

"Yeah." A pause. "He was... what I needed," Xander admits softly.

Spike frowns. "Past tense?"

"And present."

"So how long you been...?"

"Gay?" Xander suggests.

"Was going to say 'shagging blokes,' in case you didn't go for the label, but yeah."

A quirk of Xander's lips. "A few years, a couple of boyfriends."

"Same time you left Sunnyhell?"

Xander shrugs again. "More or less."

A thoughtful pause and then Xander asks his own question:

"How long have you been...?" He's not sure how to finish.

"Sucking cock for money?" Spike suggests.

"I would have said 'hustling,' but okay."

"Awhile, I guess. Off and on since..."

"Sunnydale."

Spike nods.

And now there it is—that word, that place—like a big pink circus elephant in the middle of the room and in the awkward silence Xander gets up and grabs another beer out of the fridge, opens it, take a big, long swallow and then inches off the platform and out onto the tightrope:

"So, uh... how's the soul?"

Only a minute flash in his eyes reveals Spike's surprise at the question before the vampire becomes the picture of composure once again, but Xander catches that flash and suddenly wonders when he learned to read Spike so well.

"Still there," Spike says.

"But it's not still making you..." Xander gives a wave of his hand.

"Crazy? I think I should be insulted that, after living with me for over a month, you actually have to ask."

Xander laughs at that, and maybe it's the beer or something, but it feels like the first real laugh he's had in a very long time. And then Spike is laughing, too, and it's not a cool or mocking laugh, it's just a genuine laugh. And then they're laughing together for half a minute or more until the sounds start to trickle out, but before they reach silence Xander is getting up and patting Spike on the shoulder and telling him:

"I'm gonna hit the sack."

And Spike nods and then there is silence and Xander's hand is still on Spike's shoulder when he says:

"You don't seem crazy."

"That's good," Spike calls from the couch as Xander walks toward his room.

"Yeah," Xander stops at his door to say softly. "That's good."

Then one night, Jamie comes home from sketch class as horny as that night they found Spike. Spike is not around.

"Hey, baby," Jamie says dropping his portfolio on the counter, sliding out of his jacket, stalking toward Xander, crawling into his lap. "How was your day?"

"Apparently not half as stimulating as your sketch class." Xander cards his fingers through Jamie's hair, runs his thumb over Jamie's lower lip. "Sexy model?"

Jamie opens his lips and takes Xander's thumb between them, teasing it with his tongue.

"Oh yeah," he breathes around the digit.

"Did he remind you of me?"

Xander doesn't wait for an answer as he removes his thumb from Jamie's mouth and replaces it with his tongue. The kiss deepens and Xander adjusts Jamie on his lap for greater contact between their growing erections. They both groan and then Jamie pulls back from the kiss long enough to smile teasingly and say:

"No."

It takes Xander a moment to recall the question and when he does he laughs and stands up, carrying Jamie towards the couch.

"No?" he asks, smiling. "No?" He throws Jamie down onto the cushions and climbs on top of him. "Who did he remind you of then?"

Jamie pulls Xander down by the shirt for another kiss before answering: "Spike."

Xander laughs again as he slides a hand up under Jamie's shirt.

"The model looked like Spike?"

Xander's hand reaches Jamie's nipple and he plucks at it, rolls it between his thumb and forefinger.

"Yeah, don't stop," Jamie moans. "Mmm. Was Spike."

Jamie is working on Xander's fly when those words register and Xander pulls back.

"Was Spike? As in, the model was Spike? As in Spike was the model? For your sketch class?"

Jamie has opened Xander's fly and is stroking Xander's cock.

"Yeah," he explains distractedly. "Got to class and found out the scheduled model had to cancel at the last minute. Called Spike and he came over."

Xander is still trying to process, which is difficult given Jamie's hand and what it's currently doing, but he does manage to hit on the crux of the issue:

"You saw Spike naked?"

"Yeah. God, Alex, you should have been there. He's like a sculpture. The lines of his body are almost coldly immaculate, but you can sense, practically feel, the coiled energy and power beneath the surface..."

He could says it's Jamie's hand, but Xander knows it's Jamie's words that have so impossibly turned on. And a line has definitely been crossed because they both know they've each fantasized about Spike before while in bed together, but this is the first time they've made it explicit that they'll be thinking about Spike while fucking each other.

"I mean, he seemed cold at first," Jamie continues, "but then he smiled ever so slightly and he was positively sizzling and the people who noticed rushed to capture that expression, but the gay half of the class mostly missed it because they couldn't take their eyes off his cock. Jesus, Alex, his—"

Xander is hanging on every word, but Jamie doesn't get to finish his thought because he's interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.

And in walks an unwitting Spike, having been humming to himself in the hallway and therefore not having heard that he is the star of the discussion. Not even imagining there had been much discussion at all as he takes in the half-naked couple tangled together on the couch. He freezes, but before his lips can even form the words of an apology for interrupting, two hot, wanting gazes settle on him and he no longer has the impression that he's the intruder in this scene—more like the special guest star.

As he lets the heat in their eyes draw him forward like a moth to the flame—or a ship lured toward the rocks by the sirens' song—Spike thinks of how things never work out terribly well for the moth or the sailors and of what a terrible idea this will probably turn out to be. But he's watched this couple for so long—studied and envied the life they've carved out in this simple apartment, longing to be on the inside but always feeling on the edge—that he doesn't have the willpower to just walk away from the invitation.

And he's standing beside the couch now and four hands are reaching up to strip the clothes from his body.

Xander's alarm goes off in the morning and Xander leans over a body to reach the nightstand and turn it off. The first fact to crystallize in his sleep-murky brain is that the body he's leaning over is not Jamie's, it's Spike's.

This realization is followed by a glance at said body, which is presently covered by a sheet, but his mind is immediately filled with images of said body not covered by said sheet, or anything at all for that matter, which leads a second fact to crystallize: I saw Spike naked last night.

Then: I touched Spike naked last night. Naked Spike touched me last night. And Jamie was there, naked, touching and being touched. Jamie, Spike and I with the nakedness and the naughty touching. Last night, Jamie, Spike and I had a big ol' raunchy threesome.

The facts are coming fast and furious now, tripping over each other in Xander's brain as each one demands to be addressed, and somewhere inside Xander's mind, a little man with a stick is trying to beat them all back.

Go shower! says the little man, allowing Xander to recognize one additional fact: he is very, very sticky.

Half an hour later, Xander is clean and dressed for work with a travel mug of steaming coffee in hand. He is standing at the foot of his bed looking down at his boyfriend and his... extremely-sexy-formerly-evil-and-souless-former-enemy-from-a-time-in-his-life-he-never-talks-about-who-is-now-a-not-so-evil-souled-hustler-and-roommate-and-let's-face-it-friend-apparently-with-benefits. He figures Hallmark probably makes a birthday card for boyfriends but that with the other relationship, you may just have to use one of those little kiosks to make your own custom card. He figures that if this is the way his brain is working, it's not going to be the most productive day at the office.

He gives a mental shrug, walks over to Jamie's side of the bed and plants a goodbye kiss on Jamie's forehead. Jamie murmurs and snuggles deeper into his pillow. With another mental shrug, Xander makes his way around to Spike's side and plants a kiss on his forehead. Spike remains still as a corpse, which of course he basically is. Xander straightens up, takes a big swig of his coffee, and heads to work.

Mornings are busy at the office, a fact for which Xander is deeply grateful on this particular morning. Around 11:00, however, it's time for lunch so Xander gets up from behind his desk and steps out of the building, where he faces the harsh light of day. The light in which he must now examine the previous night.

So, threesome. Me and Jamie and Spike. Sex. Well, not like fucking sex. Just like kissing, touching, licking, sucking sex. And rimming. Dear God, how could I forget the rimming? So, good sex. Really good sex. Unexpected good sex. Because it's not like Jamie and I planned it or discussed it or anything. Spike just walked in while we were fantasizing about him. Together. Jamie and I were making out with each other while talking about naked Spike. Which was making me really, really hard. Which can't be a good thing.

Although naked Spike turned out to be a very good thing. Just like Jamie said. Which also can't be a good thing. Because I shouldn't want my boyfriend to be lusting after our roommate. Who, by the way, is a vampire. Which, by the way, Jamie doesn't know even exist. And that's probably a good thing, unless he finds out, in which case it will become a very, very bad thing. And it's so much more likely if we're all screwing around all the time that Jamie's eventually going to notice that Spike's all pulseless and room temperature.

At least Spike breathes during sex. Or maybe pants is a better word. Pants and sighs and moans and sort of purrs and growls a little, too. And man, that's like the sexiest thing I've ever seen. Except that it's not. Because Jamie doesn't do those things during sex And Jamie should be the sexiest thing I've ever seen. Or rather heard. Or both. Whatever. Because he's my boyfriend. And Spike's just a guy who lives with us. Which means we see him everyday. Which means there's no way this thing isn't going to get really, really awkward. Unless the three of us just decide to pretend it never happened. Or unless we just keep having sex, all of us, which seems like the more fun option, but probably just won't work out as well as I'd want it to. Or I guess we could just kick Spike out...

And right there, Xander puts a stop to the mental babble. He is not going to kick Spike out. He doesn't know what he'll do, but whatever it is, it sure as hell isn't going to be that. And that's final. With that concluded, Xander finishes up his lunch and goes back to finish out the rest of his workday.

When Xander gets home, the living room is empty.

"Hey? Is anybody home?" he calls out, half hoping he'll get no answer.

He wanders over to the kitchen counter and picks up an envelope with "Xander" written on it. He studies it for a second and then Spike walks in.

"Hey," Spike says softly.

"Hey," Xander answers, still looking at the envelope. He shows it to Spike. "Did you...?"

"No. Don't know who it's from. Someone slipped it under the door." Spike pauses to take a deep and unnecessary breath. "Xander, I think we should have a talk. 'Bout what happened last night, I mean. Because I wouldn't want it to cause any..."

Spike trails off because it's clear that Xander isn't listening. In fact, the last thing Xander heard was Spike saying his name, because Spike just doesn't use names much, but more importantly no one he knows uses the name "Xander", except for Spike... and the person who left this envelope.

As Spike looks on in confusion, a mute Xander moves to the couch and sits down, opens the envelope and begins to read:

Dear Xander,

Hi. How are you? It's been a long time.

It's kind of hard to know what to write. I guess that's why I didn't just send you an email or a letter or something. I'm here.

I mean, not as in I'm standing over your shoulder or watching you from a window across the street right now stalker style or anything. As in, I'm staying at the Holiday Inn down on Patterson.

I really want to see you. I found you on my own (I've become quite the research pro, Giles is very proud) and no one knows I'm here, if that will make it any easier for you to come. If you don't come... Well, I can't say I'll "understand" exactly, because that's the whole reason I want to see you: I want to understand. But I guess I'm just saying you don't have to come if you don't want to.

I'll be here until Sunday morning.

Love,
Dawn

Xander simply continues to stare down at the note for a minute or more. Finally, he looks up and around him and sees Spike hovering several feet away, looking worried. He just stares at Spike for a moment and the worried look deepens.

"What is it, mate?" Spike takes a step toward Xander. "Wanna talk about it?"

Xander is honest. "No."

"'Kay." There's a flash of something in Spike's eyes and then he starts to back away.

Xander stands quickly and shakes his head. "Sorry, Spike. I'm... C'mere. Please."

Spike comes over to the couch and Xander sits back down. It takes a moment and a deep sigh before Xander speaks.

"Can I... Can I ask you something?"

"'Course."

"Why did you leave Sunnydale?"

The question throws Spike, but after a second he smirks and shrugs.

"Was obvious, wasn't it?"

"Yes... No... Maybe." Well, that was clear. Xander tries again. "I mean, we all had thoughts on the subject, I guess, but we never talked about it."

"Didn't throw a party? You hated me."

Xander opens his mouth to deny it, then doesn't.

"I hated a lot of things," he says instead. "What I thought isn't important, though. I want to know what you were thinking... feeling."

Spike shrugs again, as if to keep the subject from really touching him.

"Did it for Buffy, didn't I? Back then? Everything I did, I did it for her. Regular Bryan Adams, I was."

A sudden image of Spike standing on stage in a karaoke bar singing Bryan Adams distracts Xander for a second and a smile starts on his lips. Then he looks down at the note and frowns again.

"So what? You did it to protect Buffy? From you?"

"Buffy, the rest of the world. Whatever. The First was using me and It wasn't going to stop. Was still half crazy with the soul, how could I stand up to It? It had me, after It used me to open the seal, It was torturing me, pretending to be Dru—It liked to be Dru or Buffy or sometimes me. How fucked up is that? Anyway, there's Dru and I told her, told It, I was out. Wasn't going to be Its puppet anymore. Told her, It, Buffy was coming for me, that she believed in me. And then Buffy did come and I was so grateful that I knew I had to give her what she really needed—me gone. I mean, I guess she thought she wanted me around, but I couldn't have helped her. Not really. Was more likely to get her killed. So after she bandaged me up and left me in the basement, I got up and just walked away."

Xander takes this in, considers it for a moment.

"So, that's it? The only reason? All for Buffy? That simple?"

"Yes." But it's not a question Spike was expecting and something about the intensity of Xander's tone makes him hesitate. He doesn't just want to give the easiest or clearest answer. He wants to give the truest one. "No... Maybe... maybe I just needed to go."

"Why?"

"Well, everything I just said is true. I mean, I was living for Buffy. Had been for a while by then. Went and got the soddin' soul for her. But once I had the soul, things... certain things became clear. I mean, when I wasn't crazy, there were these flashes of insight. I saw that she had been using me before. I saw that I had played on the darkest things inside of her to get her to want me. I mean, that wasn't love. Not really. Or at least not completely. With the soul, though, I thought I could love her. Really love her, like she deserved. 'S why I went back.

"But she told me something. Right before The First sent his minions to take me. Told me I didn't even know myself. Had a lot of time during the torture to think about that. It's good to let your mind wander during torture, you know?"

"I'll keep that in mind," Xander jokes, trying not to think too hard about the idea of Spike being tortured by The First and of how little he would have cared back then.

"Anyway, she was right. I was a vampire with a bleedin' soul. And in love with the bloody Slayer, for Christ's sake. I mean, I know it wasn't the most original gig, and I wasn't about to turn all broody about it or nothing... but it seemed like something I should figure out. Away. Away from The First, away from Buffy, away from Sunnydale. Just me."

Xander nods and there is another silence.

"Was it the right thing?" Xander asks finally.

"Yes."

Spike sounds so sure that Xander almost doesn't ask the next question, but he has to.

"Do you ever... I mean, do you ever wonder if... if it would have been better for Buffy... and... and the others... if you'd stayed? If they were actually worse off because you left."

"'Course I do."

"Me, too," Xander says softly

"You wonder if it would have been better if I'd stayed?"

Xander looks straight at Spike and shakes his head. His next words are so quiet Spike doesn't know if human ears would even hear them.

"No. I wonder if it would have been better if I had stayed."

Spike does a poor job of hiding his shock at this revelation and Xander notices and laughs and it's not a pretty sound.

"You know, the other day, Jamie told me I was a natural born hero. Can you believe that?"

"Yeah," Spike says, "I can."

"Yeah, right. Someone who abandons his friends while they're facing the end of the world—that's definitely the definition of a hero."

"Maybe..."

"No, no maybe. That's what I did." Another ugly laugh. "It's funny, when Jamie said that, I told him I was really a natural born sidekick, but even that isn't true. A real sidekick stays by the hero's side until the end of the fucking world, not just until it stops being fun."

"World's still here, mate."

"No thanks to me."

"No..." Spike agrees "...except for the other couple of times you helped avert the apocalypse."

"Stop it," Xander snaps, going from zero to angry in 0.2 seconds.

"Stop what? Stop tryin' to keep you from beatin' yourself up?"

"Yes, damn it! You don't even know what happened."

"And surely when I hear the whole story, I'll understand that you deserve to be miserable," Spike says dryly. "So carry on. Let's hear it."

The anger disappears as quickly as it built and Xander deflates, slumping into the couch. He still doesn't want to tell it, but he knows it's time.

"I don't know where to start," he says.

Spike scoots over into the arm of the couch and spreads his legs, one foot on the couch and the other resting on the floor. He pulls an unresisting Xander over between them so that the brunet's back lies against his chest. Spike lifts his hand and slides his fingers through the hair at Xander's left temple, encountering the band of his eye patch.

"Why don't you start with your 'carpentry accident'?"

Xander takes a second to gather his thoughts and to notice that it's a little weird, but not altogether bad, that he's snuggling on the couch with Spike. Then he begins.

"Well, it must have been over a month after you left and things were getting... tense. The house was crammed with teenage girls. I think we'd all have been going batshit crazy even without the whole First-Evil-devouring-from-beneath thing going on. It was like some fucked up reality show, only people weren't getting voted off, they were getting killed off.

"Anyway, you know Buffy. It was driving her crazy. Here she was trying to train an army of girls to fight something she didn't, couldn't understand—an enemy whose favorite weapon was the mind fuck—and the girls were terrified and hadn't even decided yet if they could trust her, let alone whether or not they were ready for a battle to the death.

"So this evil preacher named Caleb rolls into town and fucking brands one of the potentials on his way in. He tells the girl to tell Buffy he's got something of hers. And it's just what she's been dying for because it's the waiting that she really couldn't stand, the impotence. But finally she's got a target—something corporeal, something she can walk up to and take a swing at.

"So she rounds everyone up and tells us we're going in. I guess we all had our doubts about the plan. I mean, I told her it seemed like a trap, but she didn't want to hear it. She wanted action. And you know what? Maybe somewhere inside we all did. Maybe we were all sick of waiting around to see who'd be picked off next.

"She took me and Faith—Faith had busted out of prison or whatever—and the girls who could fight best. She left Willow and Giles at home with the others."

"She'd have wanted me there," Spike interrupts softly.

Xander doesn't lie.

"Yeah, she'd have wanted you there... but it wouldn't have mattered. We busted into this vineyard ready to fight, but we weren't ready for Caleb. Before you could blink—Oh god, I can't believe I just said that.... Before you could... do something that doesn't involve your eye, two girls were dead and the rest were basically down for the count and I... well, I wasn't going to be taking up juggling anytime soon."

"How...?"

"Caleb gouged it right out with his thumb."

Spike winces.

"Yeah, it was pretty much the worst thing I've ever felt in my life, but they got me out and got me to the hospital, where they put me on some industrial strength painkillery goodness. And when my head cleared—or at least when I came to in a loopy, fuzzy fugue state—Travis was there."

"Travis?"

"Yeah, he was an orderly. But he had a lot of duties, given how few members of the hospital staff were actually left at that point. Anyway, he came by a lot. More than Willow was able to. More than Buffy was willing to. And he didn't just stop in. He stayed to chat. It took me pathetically long to realize he was actually chatting me up, but not long at all to admit that I liked it.

"And it wasn't just because the only women I seemed to be able to attract were demons, or because my she-demon-date a few weeks back had tried to kill me. I mean, I'd been having naughty feelings about guys for a long time—and I'd even started to be okay with them at some point—but with the whole wedding-that-wasn't and with Anya still around and still hurting—not to mention the impending doom—it hadn't seemed like the right time to pursue a major lifestyle change.

"But there Travis was, flirting with me. And I was flirting back and it was fun... And then he told me he was thinking about skipping town. A lot of people already had by then—it's like the general population of Sunnydale had finally wised up. And I told him I was sorry that we wouldn't be able to get coffee sometime, but that he should definitely go and never look back.

"And then he looked at me and sort of did this half-smile thing he had and said, 'You could come with me.' And I laughed and said, 'Yeah, right. I wish.' And he just said, 'Think about it' and left the room.

"And for the next few hours, I couldn't think about anything else. And I kept telling myself that I couldn't leave, but then when I started asking myself why... I mean, if I'd ever been any good in a fight, that would be pretty much lost along with the depth perception and the left side of my field of vision. And really, I'd never been a warrior. More like a cheerleader or a jester. A little moral support, a little comic relief. But I didn't feel so much like laughing right then and I wasn't actually sure I could be very supportive either.

"I mean, just a couple days before I'd given this whole speech to the potentials about how Buffy deserved to be trusted with their lives, but suddenly I wasn't sure—deep down, where I'd always been so sure before—that I trusted her with mine.

"And then, that afternoon, Willow and Buffy came by and we were going to play cards... but Buffy didn't stay. It was like she couldn't stand to look at me and... and I didn't want it to be like that. So Willow and I played for a little while and I hugged her so hard when she left and I knew she thought it was weird since she was coming back to take me home in a couple of hours. But then Travis came back and I said, 'Let's go' and we did. As simple as that. I signed myself out and told the nurse at the desk to tell my friends not to worry—yeah right—and that was it."

A lengthening silence tells Spike that Xander isn't planning to continue and he wraps his arms around Xander and squeezes before speaking.

"So you've given me all the reasons you could live with. Now, how 'bout telling me all the ones you can't?"

Xander tenses at the question. For a second, he thinks about playing dumb, about asking 'What do you mean?' but he knows that isn't fair. He pressed Spike to be honest so now he owes Spike the same.

"Tell me what keeps you up at night," Spike says softly next to Xander's ear and his voice is gentle and Xander finds it encouraging, comforting and maybe just a little bit sexy.

Xander takes a deep breath and tries to take himself back to those days in the hospital and the days before that. Tries to do more than see the sequence of events from an emotional distance.

"I... I guess I—"

"Is this a private party or can anyone join in?"

Startled, Xander cranes his next to see Jamie, whom he didn't even hear come in, walking over to the couch. For a second, Xander maybe resents the interruption and maybe it shows on his face because the sexy smile that was on Jamie's starts to fade, but Xander snaps out of it and really looks at Jamie and sees Jamie and loves Jamie.

And Xander opens his legs and pulls Jamie down to rest between them and there they all are on the couch, Jamie resting on Xander and Xander resting on Spike and Xander wonders briefly if maybe there's some symbolism to that, but lets the thought go along with all the other hard thoughts and focuses on the feeling of Jamie's breathing falling into synch with his. He wishes Spike would breathe—wishes he could feel tangible evidence of life and well-being in the room-temperature body behind him. But he can't. Still there's a strength, a solidity, to the body and that's meaningful.

Minutes pass in silence. Xander thinks maybe he could just lie there forever, but apparently Spike doesn't. He stirs.

"Think I'll pop over to 7-Eleven for some smokes."

Xander starts to move and Jamie hops up.

"Don't worry about it. I'll get'em for you, Spike. I need to pick up a few things anyway."

Spike shrugs and Xander sits up and pulls away from him as Jamie bustles around for a second, grabs the car keys and leaves.

"So..." Xander says when they are alone again, sitting on opposite ends of the couch.

"So..." Spike echoes.

"Jamie won't be gone long."

"If you don't want to talk about..."

"No, it's not that I... I mean, I do... I... I just don't think... with just a few minutes..."

"'Course. Later. I'll be here."

"You'll be here." Xander likes hearing the words come out of his own mouth.

He smiles slightly and nods, looks down, looks back up at Spike but doesn't speak, looks down again. Spike waits.

"Um, I was wondering... I mean, I think maybe I have to... I mean, she came all the way here, so it would be kinda wrong if I... Don't you think? But it's been so long... So, um, would you... I mean, do you think you could... maybe... come with me tomorrow? To see Dawn?"

Xander kicks himself mentally for sounding like a needy 15-year-old, kicks himself for feeling like a needy 15-year-old, can't believe he's so nervous just looking up and meeting Spike's eyes.

Spike shrugs and smiles slightly. "In for a penny, in for a pound, yeah?"

Xander lets out the breath he didn't know he was holding and manages a weak smile of his own.

"Are you sure? Because I have a feeling things might get a little heavier than that."

"Than what?"

"Than a pound."

It takes a second, but Spike gets it. "Oi. That's pound as in currency, mate. Not as in weight."

"Oh. Well then I have a feeling things might a little more expensive..." Xander pauses and shakes his head. "You know, I think the other metaphor worked better."

"Yes."

"Right, 'cause with 'heavier'—"

"Meant, yes, 'm sure, Xander. I'm in."

In spite of his relief that Spike will be by his side, the impending reunion looms in Xander's mind, dwells in the pit of his stomach, squeezes at the walls of his heart. In between wondering what Dawn will say and wondering what he will possibly be able to say back, Xander wonders what to tell (or not to tell) Jamie.

He goes through several scenarios. Tomorrow is Saturday and they will all be loafing around the apartment, as per usual. He imagines waiting until Jamie leaves for some reason, telling Jamie he'd rather stay home, sneaking off to the Holiday Inn with Spike as if for a lover's tryst, coming home and lying about where they've been. Imagines adding more secrets to his relationship. And not just old secrets anymore, but new ones.

He imagines sitting Jamie down and telling him a tale of blood-sucking corpses, chosen girls trained to seek and destroy, werewolves, witches drunk on power, and vengeance demons... not to mention all the people and creatures in Sunnydale who weren't part of his intimate social circle.

He spends all night lying awake next to Jamie coming up with better and better lies that he's more and more likely to get away with... but he can't make himself feel good about any of them.

He gets up early and puts his nervous energy to use cleaning the apartment. The bathroom is spotless and he's nearly through with the kitchen before Jamie wanders out from their bedroom. Jamie pulls a face of mock horror.

"Dear god, Alex, you're cleaning! Whatever it is, it can't be that bad..."

Xander looks up at Jamie, but can't quite manage a smile.

"Or maybe it can," Jamie amends. He sits at the kitchen counter and looks across it at Xander. "Wanna talk about it?"

Xander thinks about this question for a second—and that's a second longer than he's ever considered it before—but then shakes his head and turns to spray foam in the oven.

"Okay," Jamie tries to be cheerful. "How about we go to dinner and a movie tonight? Take your mind off things."

Xander doesn't turn around.

"I can't... I..." No lies. I will not lie. "Spike and I have to do something tonight."

"Oh-kay." Jamie frowns but then shrugs it off. "Well, then, we'll just—"

"And you can't come with us." Xander pushes the words out quick, like pulling off a bandaid.

Jamie just stares at Xander's back for a moment. Xander turns and follows with his eye as, without a word, Jamie slides off the barstool, walks over to the fridge, pours himself a glass of orange juice and heads for the bedroom. His hand is on the doorknob before Xander breaks the silence.

"Jamie..."

"Don't," Jamie says, not turning around. "Don't try to explain unless you're really going to explain."

The ensuing silence thunders it their ears until it's broken by the snick of the bedroom door closing behind Jamie. Xander turns back toward the oven and starts scrubbing.

From cleaning the oven to mopping the kitchen floor to dusting and window-washing in the living room and finally to vacuuming, which possibly wakes Spike up because his head peeks out around his bedroom door just as Xander is finishing up. Spike looks around for Jamie. Finding the coast clear, he emerges with a bag of blood and pops it in the microwave. He sets the time, presses 'Start' and turns to Xander who is shoving the vacuum back in the closet.

"Good morning."

Xander glances at his watch. Nearly two o'clock.

"Not morning. Not good," he mutters.

"Nervous?"

"Are you kidding? I just cleaned the entire fucking apartment, for Christ's sake."

"It'll be okay..."

"Oh yeah? How, Spike? How will it be okay?" Xander's voice is low and agitated. "The whole fucking life I've built is falling apart and there's nothing I can do except watch it crumble."

The microwave beeps and Spike empties his warmed blood into a mug, brings it to his lips and finishes it in one long, slow thoughtful swallow.

"Don't know how. Just know that you're a survivor."

Xander sits on the arm of the couch and runs a hand over his face. "It's Jamie. I don't want to lose him, Spike."

"You haven't lost me yet."

Xander turns and watches Jamie walk out from the bedroom, tries to read the younger man's face, to figure out if it's the "haven't" or the "yet" that's the key word in the sentence.

"I still think you need something to take your mind off whatever it is..." Jamie turns to Spike with a sly smile. "Hey, wanna help me distract Alex?"

Spike smirks back. "What did you have in mind, pet?"

Oh, shit. Hustler voice. Xander knows he's in trouble.

Jamie glides toward Spike, reaches out a hand and pops a few buttons on Spike's shirt, slips his hand inside to brush Spike's left nipple first with his fingers and then with his thumb. Spike purrs low in his throat, lifts a finger to Jamie's mouth, lets Jamie suck on it for a second before using it to slowly wet Jamie's lips.

God that's hot, Xander thinks. I am going straight to hell in a hand basket. He's not exactly sure what the significance of the hand basket is, but somehow he just knows that the expression was made for moments like this.

And now Spike is pulling Jamie's t-shirt over his head and Jamie is sliding Spike's shirt off his shoulders and Dawn is pretty much the last thing on Xander's mind. Jamie grabs Spike by the waistband and pulls their hips together, groin pulsing against groin, and they're kissing slow, deep and wet. Xander simply stares for a long moment before he stands and approaches.

Then Jamie is pulling back and studying Spike with a puzzled smile on his face.

"You taste funny." Xander's heart jumps into his throat as Jamie searches his mind for the familiar taste. "It's like... like..."

"Blood," Spike supplies easily. "Bit my tongue a minute ago."

Jamie nods and Xander's heart drops back down into his chest, though its frantic beating doesn't slow. He comes forward quickly and kisses first Jamie, then Spike. He plumbs the depths of the latter's mouth thoroughly with his tongue—just to make sure he gets all the blood taste out before Jamie gets suspicious, of course...

Yeah, right. Hell in a hand basket, baby.

He and Spike don't do small talk. Xander realizes this during the drive to Dawn's hotel because he would do anything for a little inane but distracting chatter, but he combs his mind and comes up with nothing. He and Spike do silence, brief statements loaded with meaning and, lately, huge confessions, but they don't do small talk.

"So, um, read any good books lately?"

Xander's hopes that the question might come off more natural out loud than it had in his head are cruelly dashed as the words echo in the car. Spike just looks over at him and shakes his head indulgently.

"Let's just put on some music, shall we?"

"You know," Xander says, "we could at least try the small talk thing."

Spike seems to consider for a moment, then:

"Been thinking..."

"Yeah...?"

"Dawn is only expecting you, you know. She may not want to see me."

"Okay, I didn't go to college, but I think I can safely say that that was not the 'old college try'... Fine, we skip the small talk. So, what, you don't want to go in?"

"Don't know if I'll be welcome."

"I didn't think you needed an invite for hotel rooms."

"'S not the point."

"Okay, true. But I left and she wants to see me. Why wouldn't she want to see you?"

"Oh, can't imagine. I mean, 'cept maybe for the fact that I... oh... tried to rape her sister."

"I forgot about that," Xander admits after a moment. They're reached the hotel and he pulls into the parking lot, turns off the car and turns to face Spike, studies him.

"I've changed," Spike says. The tone is quiet and mostly confident, a statement, but Xander can hear a tiny undercurrent of needy, a question.

"I know."

They turn to face forward again. To Spike's surprise, all of a sudden, Xander drops his forehead to the steering wheel and starts shaking.

"Xander?"

Xander doesn't look up and now muffled sounds are coming out from where his mouth rests against his arms. Spike places a hand on his shoulder.

"Xander? It's okay. I'll go in with you. Or we don't have to go at all. Whatever you want. There's no need to..." Spike stops when he hears something that sounds suspiciously like a chuckle. "Wait a minute, are you laughing?"

Xander lifts his head. He is laughing, so hard that tears are forming at the corners of his eyes, or maybe those are there for another reason, but he is laughing hard and he can't stop. He can barely find the breath to speak.

"Sorry... I... I'm gonna stop... It's just... I mean... We're so fucked up... you and me... I mean, shit, look at us... Look at me... I'm almost 30 years old. I'm a grown up. I have a job. I have employees—people I hire and fire... And I can do these things with confidence because I am an adult. So how is it that I'm utterly terrified by the prospect of seeing a... how old is she now? Twenty-two? Oh god..." Xander's eyes widen and the laughter resumes. "Dawn is older than Jamie. Jesus Christ, my boyfriend is younger than Dawn. Now that's fucked up... And you..."

"And I am a vampire with a government chip in my head, which has rather outlived its usefulness, seeing as I went out and got myself a soul to impress a girl who was supposed to be my arch enemy, who I subsequently left right before the end of the world. And now, instead of sucking blood for a living, I suck cock and live with the one friend of the aforementioned girl who always hated me the most out of everyone..."

"I don't..."

"I know... So, we goin' in?"

"What the hell," Xander says, pulling the keys from the ignition. "What've we got to lose?"

Xander turns to open his door, but Spike stops him, grabs him by the shirt and pulls him forward for a quick, hard kiss, Thelma-and-Louise style, before they drive off the proverbial cliff.

******

A quick stop at the front desk and the attendant calls "Ms Summers" and they are told to go on up. Spike stands off just out of sight as Xander takes a deep breath and knocks. A split second later, the door is swinging open; she must have been standing right there, waiting. And now she's standing right in front of him, staring. The staring is mutual and Xander takes in short hair, cut just above her chin, a stylish pair of black glasses and make-up, sparingly applied. His eyes travel briefly down her body and she's still thin, but fuller somehow, and in her bearing is a notable lack of teenage awkwardness. He's looking at a young woman.

And that young woman is looking at him. Even after he's stopped staring, she continues.

"Hi," he says.

She keeps staring and now he's blushing. Finally, she snaps out of it.

"Um, hi. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare. It's just... I..."

Her eyes dart over his face and away again and Xander gets it.

"You forgot to expect to see me without an eye."

Dawn swallows. "Yeah.... Come in?"

Xander shifts his weight. "I, um... I brought someone with me. I hope it's okay..."

Spike takes his cue and steps out into Dawn's line of vision. He watches intently as her eyes widen.

"Spike."

"Bit."

Then Dawn giggles, actually giggles, and suddenly she's not such a stranger to either man. She steps aside and gestures them into the room.

"No one's called me that in, like, forever," Dawn says as she closes the door and moves to sit on the bed. Xander and Spike have taken chairs. "Well, I mean, you were the only one who ever called me that, so it's not like it was an old nickname or anything, so I haven't heard it since you... since you... I mean, it, um, really, takes me back... and... and I'm just going to stop talking now because when I was practicing this whole encounter in my head, I was so much smoother."

"Funny," Xander says. "In my head, it was just about this awkward."

"I just... I can't believe you're actually here. Both of you. It's... strange."

Spike shifts in his chair. "If you'd rather... I can just..."

"No, stay," Dawn and Xander say in unison.

They smile at each other. It's awkward. Their eyes hold for a second too long to be comfortable and then Dawn turns to Spike.

"I looked for you, too, you know. Just turns out you were impossible to track. Vampires who don't feed don't really leave any..."

"Bodies?" Spike suggests.

"Trail," Dawn says. "Police reports, newspaper articles, rumors of strange happenings..."

She trails off again and silence ensues. Dawn looks back and forth between the two men.

"Um, can I get you guys anything? There's a soda machine down the hall..."

Spike is shaking his head.

"I'm fine," Xander says.

Dawn looks at him. "Are you?" she asks with a sudden note of urgency. "I mean, your life. Is it okay?"

Xander is surprised by the worry in her voice, on her face. He wants to reassure her, wishes he could maybe just hug her, settles for words.

"Yeah, I think it's pretty good. I've got a good job. I like it. I get to boss some people around. And I've got a great boyfriend..."

Xander looks over at Spike and smiles, leading Dawn to a natural, if erroneous, conclusion.

"Oh my god, are you two...?"

"What? Oh, no..." Xander shakes his head.

"Boyfriend's name is Jamie," Spike offers. "I just stay in their guest room."

And has sex with us from time to time, Xander adds silently.

"Oh," Dawn says.

And again with the pregnant silence. This time Spike breaks it.

"So... world didn't end..."

Dawn sighs. "I don't know. It kinda feels like it did. I mean, sure, the earth wasn't overrun by ubervamps, but it sort of felt like... I mean, no more Sunnydale, no more Scoobies, no more one-girl-or-sometimes-two-in-all-the-world, no more Angel. It felt like the end."

Both Spike and Xander are staring and speechless. Xander finds words, or something like them, first.

"Wai—Wha—Whoa there, Dawn. Back up like five hundred feet. No more what? What the hell happened?"

"Start with Angel," Spike says quietly.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to... Angel's fine. He, um, burned up destroying Sunnydale, but he came back." Dawn giggles. "And I'm sure he'd be touched to know you care."

Spike grimaces at the thought. "Don't care. Not really. S'just that if I were the only souled vampire around, people might come looking for me when they needed someone to... to do whatever it is that the world needs souled vampires to do."

"Not up for a life of celebrity?" Xander teases.

"Tryin' to keep a low profile. Cuts down on the paparazzi."

The three giggle (or more manly versions thereof) over this for a second, but as the giggles die out, the awkward silence creeps back in and then they're all just staring at each other again. Spike can hear Xander's heartbeat racing in anticipation, knows Xander wants to know what Dawn knows but is too terrified of what he'll hear to ask.

"All right, Bit, so the Broody Crusader's not dust and just possibly that fact doesn't make me entirely unhappy. Fine. Now why don't you tell us the rest, starting from the beginning."

Dawn sighs and Spike can hear her heartbeat, too, realizes that she doesn't want to tell the story any more than Xander wants to hear it, but somehow that's what they're both here for. Spike wonders what he's here for. Xander? The Bit? Himself? Then Dawn is speaking to him.

"I, um... I guess Xander's already told you about the time between when you left and when..." Dawn looks at Xander. "... when..."

"When it stopped being all fun and games?" Xander suggests.

Dawn doesn't seem to know whether to laugh or cry at this comment, looks like she might do both, so Spike once again fills the silence.

"Yeah, I know all that. You can start from there."

Spike offers Dawn a reassuring smile and reaches across the space between his chair and Xander's to offer a reassuring hand. Without hesitation, Xander's fingers are threading through his and the hand squeezing his none too gently. So maybe he's here for all of them, Spike thinks, for Xander, for Dawn and for himself. Spike squeezes back as Dawn begins.

"Well, after the vineyard, morale was a little... diminished. And I guess Buffy didn't know what to do. She probably just wanted to give up, let the world end, see if she could finally get back to heaven... but more people than ever were depending on her and she couldn't even tell them all that it was going to be okay, because she knew it wasn't. I can't tell you, Xander, how badly she felt about..."

Xander shakes his head to keep her from finishing the sentence and the tears are forming now in Dawn's eyes and they don't fall but he can hear them in her voice.

"And then Faith took me and the potentials out to The Bronze without telling Buffy and there was trouble and she came and sent us all home and we, um... we made a banner for you because we were expecting you to come home and... And then Willow came home alone told us you were gone and everyone was looking at Buffy and I guess she only knew one way to handle it, because she told us we were going back in."

"Back to vineyard?" Xander asks in disbelief, the picture of the last place he ever saw with two eyes flashing unbidden into his mind. Spike squeezes his hand again and he squeezes back, hard.

"Yeah. So, um... there was a mutiny. And I... I kicked Buffy out. And Faith took over and the next day she led the girls into another trap and more of them got hurt. We had looked for Buffy, but we couldn't find her. But she hadn't given up, just slowed down and thought things out a little, I guess. Because she'd had some intelligence from Giles before and she went and found this weapon, this scythe that could kill the ubervamps. So she rescued the girls from the trap, went to see this old lady about the weapon and then killed Caleb with it."

A relief Xander hadn't even known he was searching for washes over him.

"Then Angel showed up, fresh from Wolfram & Hart, law firm of evil, with this amulet that was supposed to help. Just his being there, though, it seemed to give Buffy strength, new energy—or maybe that was the scythe thing, which I think made her kinda tingly when she held it, because it's not like she and Angel could do the tingly thing together, because, you know, curse...

"But anyway, something must have been tingling because the next day she had a plan. She gave Willow the scythe and had her use its magic to give the slayer power to all the girls. And just like that, the potentials became actuals. And not just the ones who were there, but all of them, the younger ones, too, all around the world, all slayers. And then they kicked some ubervamp ass."

"That's my girl," Spike says, smiling.

"But the weirdest part was with Angel and the amulet. I didn't see it, but apparently it started glowing and these rays were shooting out of it and it opened the Hellmouth to the sky and the sun came in and dusted all the leftover ubervamps..."

"And Angel," Spike adds.

"And Angel. And then it all started collapsing in on itself. We escaped on a school bus. We barely made it outside the city limits before the entire town was just swallowed up."

It's a lot to take in and Spike and Xander are silent, each lost in his own thoughts, wondering how it would have gone if they'd been there.

"So, yeah," Dawn continues awkwardly, "no more Sunnydale, no more Angel—except that Wolfram & Hart had just made him head of their LA branch, so they weren't exactly going to let him go—and no more chosen one. More like chosen hundreds."

"And no more Scoobies," Xander says, his eye meeting Dawn's for a second before they each look away.

"Wow," Spike says, "potentials all actuals. Must've been some pretty scary baby girls born that year."

Dawn giggles. "I don't think they pop out of the womb holding stakes or anything."

Spike smiles but Xander doesn't. Xander shows little reaction at all and Spike wonders if he shouldn't just take his boy home—And wait a minute? When did Xander become his boy? And really, Xander isn't a boy at all. Hasn't been, it would seem, for some time. But just at this moment, Spike wants to treat him like one, wants to take care of him, shield him from all the things that are tough to deal with. But Spike resists the urge, knows that they might as well get it all over with at once. And there's one more big question that has to be asked, one more thing that, for better or for worse, this meeting must reveal.

"So what's the old gang up to these days?" Spike asks, trying for casual. As if he doesn't know Xander's terrified of the answer. As if he's not a bit nervous about it himself. Just a bit, mind you.

Dawn's shaky laugh reveals that the nerves aren't one-sided and that the report might not be all good news, but her eyes show that she knows this is what she signed up for when she came and that she's resolved to see it through.

"I'm not sure where to start," she says.

"Start with you," Spike suggests.

"Uh... okay. So, um, we ended up in Cleveland, site of a still-active hellmouth, but since it wasn't located under any of the high schools, Buffy told me I had to go back to school. I tried for like a week, but it was just too weird. I just didn't feel like there was any way I could fit in, you know? I mean, how was I supposed to go back to being a regular teenager after all that? I mean, hell, I was never a regular teenager in the first place, just a ball of energy. But the whole ball-of-energy excuse didn't fly with Buffy. She was all, 'You want to know about not being a regular teenager? I'll tell you about not being a regular teenager.' And sure, I get that life as the slayer-slash-student wasn't easy for her, but did that mean I should suffer too?

"Finally, Willow stepped in pointed out that maybe I was a little beyond high school. She convinced Buffy to let me take the GED and go to community college. She said there were a lot of weird people at community college and I probably wouldn't stand out at all. I think she meant that to be comforting. Anyway, it was just as well. I hadn't exactly earned the grades to get into a great four-year college, you know?

"So community college actually turned out to be pretty cool. I started off trying to stay as far away from the stuff I was used to researching as possible. I tried to do some psychology, took some PR and advertising classes. But I lost a bet with Giles and he made me take an anthropology class and, what can I say? I loved it.

"So I ended up at Case Western majoring in anthropology and free-lancing a lot for the new Council. I graduate this year and next year I'm starting a PhD program at University of Chicago. It's such an awesome program and I can't even believe I got accepted."

"Congratulations," Spike says with a soft smile. Dawn's practically bouncing in her excitement and he finds it contagious.

"Anyway, I keep swearing that I won't go into the family business. I mean, I've repeatedly refused to be trained as a Watcher or even to sign on as a part-time Council researcher—I've been keeping it strictly freelance and on a case-by-case basis—but I'm probably just wasting my energy trying to fight it. I mean, once this world has sucked you in, it's pretty much impossible to escape. You can run, but you..."

Dawn trails off as she hears what she's saying. "... can't..." She darts a glance at Xander and blushes.

"...hide... Though the running part is kinda hard if you've got a foot crammed in your mouth, limiting your mobility. Shit, Xander, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"No, you're right," Xander says without emotion. "Impossible to escape—that's about how I remember it. Go on."

"Right... okay, um... Willow! Willow's doing really well. She's got like this total Hogwart's gig... except without the school."

Xander and Spike look puzzled.

"Oh, come on, guys. Where's your pop-cultural literacy? Hogwarts? Harry Potter? Worldwide phenomenon in children's literature?"

Still nothing. Dawn shakes her head in disgust.

"Nevermind. So Willow's like this Wicca teacher, but not at a school or anything, you know. People just come from all over the world to study magic with her or under her or whatever. It's sort of like with my piano teacher when I was in 5th grade where I'd go over to her house once a week for a lesson and then I'd go home and practice and then we'd have recitals. Only she doesn't really have recitals, she just lets them help her do stuff for the Council or takes them out demon-hunting or whatever.

"Anyway, it's perfect for her. She loves studying magic and teaching it and I think she ends up learning a lot from her students, too. And she places a lot of emphasis on self-control and the proper use of magic, so that's a very good thing for them and for her. Plus, I don't think it makes her job any harder that a lot of the girls who come to study with her are wicked hot. Or maybe it does make it harder because she has this strict rule about not dating her students.

"Of course, she doesn't have the same rule about not dating the young slayers at the slayers' academy. After Kennedy there were like three more and it kinda started seeming like a fetish. I mean, the lesbian pedophile jokes were flying around fast and furious there for a while, but we were just kidding... mostly. Anyway, she seems to be past that phase now. Her current girlfriend is a respectable 26 years old and doesn't have superpowers or anything. She's a travel agent. She actually comes off as a little ditzy and more than a little perky, so you wouldn't expect her to be Willow's type, but it seems to work for them, so I guess that's what counts.

"Anyway, let's see, I've kinda already mentioned Giles. After The First, he rebuilt the Watcher's Council from scratch, and I think it's a little less British and stuffy for its being based in Cleveland these days. And he's the head of everything, which he says he hates, but I think he secretly loves. Or at least he doesn't trust anyone besides him to do it right.

"Anyway, I'm not sure what he does exactly because he has people to do everything. I mean, he has recruiting people and training people and research people and even special ops people, though he won't admit it. So I guess he just coordinates, masterminds, flies around the world a lot, networks, schmoozes. No power suits, though. It's the same old Giles look. But anyway, I think he's happy and I know the rest of us sleep better at night knowing he's the guy in charge of all that power and knowledge.

"So, um, then there's Faith and Principal Wood, I mean Robin. But he's actually still Principal Wood and we like to call Faith 'Headmistress,' 'cause it totally bugs her. Anyway, they run the academy for new slayers. We try to find all the slayers around the age that they're really starting to come into their powers and at least give them the chance to come to the academy and train. I mean, it's strictly opt-in these days with the calling, but if they do want in, it's good for them to have somewhere to be with others like them. And Faith and Robin are just tough enough not to take any bullshit from the girls... or from each other. It works out well."

Dawn pauses for a moment as if unsure who to talk about next. Spike worries at the way the most obvious person is clearly being evaded, but good or bad, he has to know.

"What about Buffy?"

Dawn sighs. "Buffy's... fine. I mean, she's good. She lives in Cleveland right near Willow and Giles. All her debt disappeared with Sunnydale and she gets support from the Council now like all the slayers do, but she doesn't really have to do the day-to-day slayage anymore. I mean, the academy's got that more than covered, plus Willow and her disciples.

"Buffy's more like the big guns. So she gets called out from time to time to help out with hardcore stuff. Giles, Willow, Faith, Angel—they all need her for things once in a while. Sometimes she goes to Europe or Asia or Africa, wherever something big might be going down. And it keeps her busy enough...

"But I guess it's different now. I mean, now she actually has time in her life for other stuff... but she doesn't really have any other stuff. No job, no boyfriend, no hobbies. It's like she's kinda lost or something. I mean, she's been offered a more permanent role in everyone's various operations, but she always turns that stuff down. I think she's afraid of getting too involved in the whole thing again. But she thought about going back to school for guidance counseling and then decided not to. And I've—we've all—suggested a bunch of other stuff to her—everything from volunteering for the Fire Department to taking up the guitar—but she never goes for it. It's almost like she's... Nevermind. She'll be fine. She is fine."

Another silence follows this assessment. This time even Spike has no idea how to break it. It's Xander who finally speaks.

"You haven't mentioned Anya."

Dawn doesn't have to answer, she only has to look at Xander like she doesn't want to answer and that's answer enough.

"How?" Xander asks.

"In the final battle with the ubervamps. In the hall of the high school. Saving Andrew's life."

"Andrew?"

"Yeah, um, near the end they kind of had this thing..."

"Thing?"

"Well, not that kind of a thing... I mean, they bonded, I guess. And, I don't know, it could have been something more..." Dawn pauses. "Should I be telling you this?"

Xander nods.

"Well, I guess when they were there in the hallway, waiting, Andrew asked Anya if she thought she might be getting over you anytime soon. And Anya said she thought she might. And Andrew said, 'Well, if by some miracle I don't die, I was wondering if you'd maybe consider going to a movie and maybe dinner with me?'

"And apparently Anya cuffed him on the head and was all, 'What is it about me that I only attract guys who are almost as socially awkward as I am and who are only able to express feelings for me in life and death situations? Am I so undesirable to normal people under normal circumstances?'

"So Andrew figured he'd been shut down and was about to apologize for even asking, I guess, but then Anya was like, ' You're paying, right?' and when Andrew got over his surprise enough to nod his head 'yes,' she said, 'Okay. If you live, we'll have a date.'"

A smile appears on Xander's face—a smile at odds with the tears forming in the corner of his eye—as he recognizes the same old Anya in the details of the story and sees a chance for her to finally find happiness with someone.

"He was prepared to give his life for her," Dawn says, "but it came out the other way around."

And suddenly it hits Xander, really hits him, that Anya never got that chance at happiness and never will and the smile is gone and Xander is standing up and moving toward the door and he knows he should say something to Dawn, explain himself somehow, but he doesn't have any words, doesn't have any explanation, just a flood of emotion raging through him and something in his head telling him: Get out! Get out! So he does.

Spike gets up as Xander leaves. He moves toward Dawn, pulling her into a brief but tight embrace.

"I've got to..."

"I know. Go."

"I... I'm sure he'll..."

"Go."

Spike finds Xander in the parking lot standing next to the car, squeezing the keys in one hand and gripping the handle of the locked driver's side door with the other, perfectly still, staring at nothing.

Spike moves closer and lays a gentle hand on Xander's shoulder, feels that shoulder shaking beneath his fingertips. Reaching down with his other hand, Spike prizes the keys from Xander's fist.

"I'll drive, yeah?"

Xander manages a stiff nod and allows Spike to ease his hand off of the door handle then lead him around to the passenger side. Spike opens the passenger door and Xander allows himself to be urged inside. Staring at nothing again, he doesn't notice as Spike goes back around the car and gets in the driver's seat, but suddenly there Spike is, next to him, and he's holding out a thin silver flask. Xander takes the offered flask and opens it as Spike starts the car, takes two deep swallows as Spike pulls out of the parking lot.

They are on the road now and the whiskey from the flask is burning a trail through Xander's insides, searing away the numbness and chasing painful words from his gut.

"I killed her."

"No."

"I let her get killed then."

"No."

"Well I sure as hell wasn't around to save her."

"You might have been there and not be able to save her. 'Sides, you can't have known what was going to happen."

"That's bullshit, Spike. Of course I knew what was going to happen! I knew people were going to die. I knew we might all die, every last one of us... And I didn't care. I didn't fucking care. All I cared about was myself."

Xander takes another swig from the flask.

"And you want to know the weird thing? I actually didn't even care whether or not I died—I just wanted to live. I mean, really live. Live for Xander or Alex or whoever the hell I really was, and not just for Buffy. Because I had been—living for Buffy, I mean—for so long. Since age 15. And I never questioned it, I didn't have time to question it. I just did what she said or what I thought she'd want me to do or what I thought would be best for her or whatever, until one day, seven years later, I woke up in a hospital room missing an eye—an eye, for Christ's sake!—and I realized that everything I was—everything!—I was for her. And I hated who I was. I hated being weak and useless and average. And I was tired. I was so damn tired of being the comic relief and caring too much and always being the one getting picked up off the ground."

Xander pauses, his breath coming in short gasps, and pours more whiskey down his throat.

"And then I lost my eye! My fucking eye... was... gone... And why the hell did she let that happen? Why didn't she stop it? Didn't I matter enough to her? But of course I didn't. I mean, Christ, she didn't even care enough about me not to kill Anya."

It's getting harder to get the whiskey in through his constricted throat, harder to get the words out

"She wanted to kill Anya and she just expected me to stand aside and let her! Not like I could stop her from doing anything anyway... But you know what? She didn't just expect me to stand aside. She expected me to stand by her and make jokes so that everyone would laugh and feel better about her killing the woman I loved. She expected me to stand by her while she did it and say: 'You're right, Buffy. You're always right. You can do no fucking wrong. What does Anya matter in the grand scheme of things? She's just my girlfriend—or my whatever—and it's not like I matter, so why should she?'"

They've reached the apartment now and Spike parks the car. By this point, unrestrained sobs wrack Xander's body and Spike reaches out across the gear shift to pull Xander into an awkward embrace, stroking circles on Xander's back and cooing half-articulate reassurances.

Eventually, the sobs taper off first into hitched breaths and finally into deep, steady inhales and exhales. Xander mumbles something into Spike's shoulder, too muffled even for vampire hearing.

"What was that, mate?"

"I said, the worst part is, after Buffy didn't kill Anya, I... I kinda wanted her gone."

"Did you want her dead?"

"What? No, of course not. I just... I mean, it was just so hard to move on with her around. I wasn't really over her and trying to date women was a disaster and I really wanted to give the other team a try, but the thought of trying to explain that to her scared the fuck out of me, so I just kept wishing she'd somehow just decide to take off... But instead I took off and she stuck it out 'til the end."

"Listen to me, Xander. You didn't kill her. Not with your thoughts and not with your deeds. It's been a long night. Let's go upstairs."

When Xander gets out of the car, the effects of the whiskey catch up with him and he stumbles. But Spike is there catching him, slinging Xander's arm around his neck, slipping his arm around Xander's waist, helping Xander up the stairs and into the apartment.

Spike walks them over to Xander's bedroom door. The door is cracked and it seems Jamie has gone to bed early and is already asleep within. Spike is about to lead Xander inside, when Xander shakes his head.

"No, no..." His voice is soft but panicked. "I can't go in there. Not now. Not like this."

"'Right, then. Couch it is."

Spike starts to lead Xander to the living room, but again Xander panicks.

"No, please, I... I don't want... I can't be... alone."

"Know you're pissed and traumatized, but you've gotta make up your mind, mate. You want the couch or your bed?"

Xander considers.

"What about your bed, Spike? With you?"

Spike shakes his head.

"May seem like a good idea right now, but trust me, it's not where you want to wake up in the morning."

Xander is silent for a moment and Spike thinks he's off the hook, but then it comes:

"Please."

Silently cursing himself for a fool, Spike leads Xander past the room where Jamie is sleeping and into his own. He helps Xander strip down to his boxers and carefully lays the exhausted man out on the mattress before crawling in beside him, curling up against his warm back and pulling the sheets up to cover them both.

Jamie wakes up the following morning with the feeling that something is off, but it takes him a moment to pinpoint the fact that he's waking up alone and, as far as he can tell, has been that way all night. Trying not to panic—assuring himself that there must be several possible logical explanations, even though not a single one comes to mind—he heads into the living room in search of a clue to his boyfriend's whereabouts. What he finds is Spike, asleep on the couch.

Okay, Jamie tells himself, this is good. If Spike's asleep on the couch, that means Alex isn't lying in a ditch somewhere because Spike would never let that happen. Spike takes care of Alex.

Spike takes care of Alex? He's never had the thought in so many words before, but once he has it, he realizes he's known it, seen it, felt it for a long time. But what does it mean? In a way, they all take care of each other: Xander pays the bills. Jamie keeps the house. And Spike? Spike watches and waits and gives them things they don't even know they need until they have them—companionship, understanding, a look, a touch, his presence, his absence, his body.

But what does it mean? Jamie wonders. Can they really go on like this indefinitely? Life tends to work easiest in certain numbers... and three isn't one of them. Isn't that the reason for the expressions "third wheel" and "three's a crowd"?

With effort, Jamie shakes off these thoughts. He needs to wake Spike up and ask him about Alex. As he approaches the couch, he notices how peaceful Spike looks. What a shame to disturb him when he's so quiet, so still, so... not breathing?

Jamie's heart starts to pound and he unconsciously holds his own breath as he focuses on Spike's chest, searching for the rise and fall. He tries to keep himself from blinking, afraid he'll miss it. Nothing. He takes a step closer... then jumps a mile when a knock comes on the door.

Spike's eyes pop open at the noise and Jamie lets out the breath he's been holding. "Thank God," he murmurs.

Spike looks at Jamie and Jamie can practically see Spike's mind working to bring itself up to speed on the situation.

"Spike, where's—"

A second knock interrupts him. With one last look to satisfy himself that Spike is among the living, Jamie goes to open the door.

A slender, brown-haired girl about his own age stands on the other side. She studies him for a brief moment and then smiles and sticks her hand out.

"Hi, you must be Jamie, the boyfriend. I'm Dawn." She takes in his pajama pants and bare chest as they shake hands and frowns an apology. "I'm sorry to get you out of bed, but I'm headed to the airport soon and I really need to talk to Xander."

Jamie's brain can't keep up. Xander?

Dawn doesn't understand the confusion. "Isn't he here?"

"Hey, Bit," Spike says from just over Jamie's shoulder. "He's here. Probably still sleeping. I'll get him."

Jamie's eyes follow as Spike walks into his room. Wait a minute. Xander is sleeping in Spike's room?

"Um, do you think I could come in?"

Jamie's head snaps back to the girl standing on the other side of the doorway, which he's blocking.

"What? Oh! Of course. I'm sorry. I... Um, yeah, come in, sit down." Jamie suddenly notices that he's half-naked and starts side-stepping toward his room. "I'm just... gonna go... put on a shirt."

Dawn gives a reassuring nod, not quite sure what's she's walked into. "'K."

She's sitting in the armchair studying her surroundings when Xander appears, looking slightly worse for wear. He sighs as he sinks into the couch.

"Hey, Dawnie," he says.

"Hey."

Dawn observes as both Spike and Jamie emerge, dressed, from their respective rooms to stand behind the couch, arms crossed, flanking Xander on either side. Dawn's not sure if their positions are protective or possessive, but they do make her a little nervous. And then a look passes between to the two men that Xander can't see and Dawn isn't quite able to tell if it's a challenge or an understanding. She takes a deep breath and tries to focus on her reason for coming.

"So..." Xander prompts.

"Look, I promised myself I wouldn't do this, but I have to. I just have to. When I planned this, I told myself I was just going to come here and make sure you were okay and tell you anything you wanted to know and then just leave. I mean, Willow told us a long time ago, that we had to let you go. She could have found you anytime, we knew that. And Buffy even asked once, but she said ‘no.' She said sometimes if you love someone, you have to let them go. But you know what? We did and it sucked and it still sucks and I want you to come back. I need you to come home, Xander. Please?"

This isn't what Xander is expecting and he's overwhelmed. He's shaking his head as if to ward it all off. He says the first thing that comes to his mind.

"Cleveland's not my home. I've never even been there."

"Fuck Cleveland, Xander." Dawn takes in the identical looks of shock on Spike's and Xander's faces. "Oh, for Christ's sake. I'm 22, you guys. I say ‘fuck.' I even have sex on occasion. Get over it. I know Cleveland's not home, Xander, but we are. We're your family. And if you don't want to be involved with..."

Xander shakes his head slightly.

"...with... stuff, that's fine. But be involved with us."

"Dawn... it's not..." Xander casts a glance backward. "It's not just stuff... it's..."

Suddenly, Jamie is moving, grabbing his jacket off the hook by the door, picking up his wallet and cell phone off the counter and shoving them into the pockets.

"You know what? Xander?" The name is so dry it stings. "I'm going out."

"Shit. Jamie..."

"Hey, don't worry. I'll come back. I have to. I mean, all my shit's here, right?"

"Jamie..." But it's too late, the door is already slamming behind him.

"Shit." Xander buries his face in his palms, running them up over his hair and down to the back of his neck as he lifts his head again to face the girl from his past. "Look, Dawn, I can't, okay? I'm sorry. I love you and I always will. But I just can't."

"Xander..."

He can't look at her. "You should go now."

"But..."

"I'm sorry. Please. Go."

With his face once again buried in his palms, Xander listens as Dawn leaves.

Xander remains that way for a while, head down, as if afraid to look up and face his life. Spike holds back for a minute, but then steps up behind Xander and places his hands on the man's shoulders. He offers a comforting squeeze and then some soothing circles and finally a small massage until Xander shrugs him off and lifts his head.

"Stop it."

"Stop what?" Spike asks, coming around the couch and crouching in front of Xander.

"Stop being nice. I'm obviously a big jerk. Just ask Jamie or Dawn.... Oh wait, you can't. Because one left and I kicked the other one out. Why would that happen? you ask. Because I'm—"

"A big jerk. No arguments here, mate. Question is: What're you gonna to do about it?"

Xander thinks about this for a moment, takes a deep breath. "I guess I'm going to ask you to make yourself scarce."

Spike is taken aback but quickly covers his shock with snark. "What's this then? New policy? Leave no friend unalienated?"

Xander shakes his head and manages a weak smile.

"Not for good, Spike, just until later tonight. I'm going to call Jamie and try to get him to come back so we can talk, and I think it'd be best if we had some privacy."

Spike nods and stands up even as he grumbles. "It's sunny out there, you know."

"You're resourceful."

"What're you gonna say t'him, then?"

"Whatever it takes to make him stay."

Spike wonders what's going on in Xander's head, wants to ask him why exactly he wants Jamie to stay and at what cost, but Xander has a resolve-face on to challenge even Willow's, so he lets it go.

"The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" he asks instead.

Xander snorts. "I want him to stay here with me, not just remain in the apartment after checking me into a the insane asylum."

"So what then? You'll just tell him everything except for the parts about the vampires and the demons and the slaying and the magic and the apocalypses? And which parts would you be telling him again?"

"There's nothing all that mystical about the way I fucked up." Xander sighs. "Besides, I have to do it this way, I can't risk him figuring out about you and asking me to kick you out."

"Maybe it would be best if I wasn't around," Spike suggests to his feet.

"Look at me, Spike." Xander waits until Spike meets his gaze. "That's not an option, alright? You're staying and that's final. Now, get out of here."

"Right. Could stand to make some dosh anyway..."

Xander frowns. "You know, I wish you wouldn't..."

"Xander..."

"Spike, you're my friend."

"Xander..."

"My best friend, okay?"

"Xander..."

"No, let me finish. I'm your friend and I don't have to like the fact that you're whoring yourself out."

Spike grabs his jacket and shrugs it on. "Right. Unless it's for you and your boy..."

He mutters it under his breath, but Xander still hears. Spike's hand is on the apartment door, but Xander leaps up and grabs his arm.

"I heard that. Christ, Spike is that what you think?"

"Forget it."

"Spike. It's not like that. You know it's not like that."

"Of course not."

"Don't fucking humor me."

"Fine, Xander. It's not like that, okay? Call Jamie. I'll be back tonight."

Spike shrugs his arm and Xander releases it. Spike walks out the door and Xander picks up the phone.

"Don't hang up," Xander says as soon as Jamie answers. "Listen, I'm sorry. Please come home, okay? I'm not going to Cleveland."

"Fuck Cleveland, Alex. I don't give a shit about Cleveland. And if you think that's why I'm mad, we have nothing more to talk about."

"Don't hang up," Xander repeats quickly. "Look, I know it's not about Cleveland. Can you just come back? Then you can yell at me and then... then I'll explain."

"Explain how you can't talk about your past? Or actually explain your past?"

"Both."

"I'll see you in a few minutes."

The connection is cut and Xander waits.

Jamie starts talking the moment he walks through the door.

"Do you have any idea what this morning was like for me? I mean, first I wake up alone with no idea where you are."

"Jamie..."

"No, let me finish. I wake up and you're not there and I don't if you're dead or lying in a ditch somewhere or in some hotel room fucking Spike. And then I go into the living room and there's Spike and I'm actually relieved because that means you're probably alive, and then someone knocks on our door. And there's this girl who I've never met, never seen a picture of, never even heard of, but she knows who I am and acts like I would obviously know who she is and she calls you by some name I've never even heard. So I'm standing there like an idiot, wondering who the hell Xander is and Spike has to step in."

"Jamie..."

"No. And then Spike goes into his room to get you. What the fuck, Alex? And then this girl starts talking about wanting you to come to Cleveland and be with your family? I thought your family lived in California."

"They're not..."

"Just. Shut. Up. And then sudently you're both referring to things, stuff, that you obviously don't want me to know about and... I mean, Christ, Alex, is there anybody you know who knows less about your life than me? Me, your fucking boyfriend?"

Jamie stops and Xander waits.

"Can I talk now?" he asks carefully when Jamie doesn't continue.

"By all means. Talk. It'll be a novelty if nothing else."

The words sting, but Xander takes a deep breath and contemplates where to start. With the best way to keep Jamie listening, he supposes. Go for the drama then...

"Okay, about last night... I was drunk. And I was... upset. We'd... we'd gone to see Dawn and... and she told me that this girl I used to know... this girl I was once engaged to... this... Anya was dead. And basically, it's my fault."

The words sober Jamie immediately, righteous anger melting away.

"Wait a minute, why would it be your...? Oh my god. Did she... I mean, after you broke up with her... she didn't... you know...?"

Xander almost doesn't get what Jamie is asking because the idea of suicide just doesn't go with the idea of Anya, the ex-demon so accustomed to immortality and so perplexed by and fearful of human death.

"No, she didn't kill herself. Somethi—someone killed her."

A pause as this sinks in.

"God, Alex, that's awful. I'm so sorry. But... how is that your fault?"

"Because I wasn't there to stop it."

Jamie is stunned by the conviction in his voice.

"Alex, that's crazy. You can't have known what was going to happen."

"I knew. I knew what kind of place I was leaving her in."

And, ironically, Jamie wonders for a second if maybe he doesn't actually want to hear about the past of this man he now realizes he barely knows, this Xander. But he steels his nerves.

"Okay... I think you're gonna have to back up a few steps and start at the beginning."

"Right. The beginning... Well, it all started with this girl: Buffy Summers, a small, blond force-to-be-reckoned-with. Sunnydale—that's where I grew up—wasn't a safe place. Well, I guess it wasn't always not a safe place. I mean, it used to be pretty safe. I mean... I guess I was a teenager when it started. It's like people who went walking alone at night had this nasty habit of never being seen again. And I guess we all sort of knew it was happening, but everyone, even the smart people who changed their habits, still just sort of looked the other way... Until Buffy.

"She was stronger and braver than she looked, and whole lot smarter than she acted... and really, really hot. So we followed her. Willow—I've told about Willow before—Willow and I, we followed Buffy. She became our leader and we became her gang. And she just kinda went around helping people out, making Sunnydale a safer place."

Xander lifts a palm to preempt the obvious question on Jamie's lips.

"Don't ask me how. I can't explain. She just... she just did what she had to do. And we did what she told us to do. And her strength? Eventually, it sort of rubbed off on Willow. I mean, the Willow I knew was always sweet and wicked smart, but she was shy and she could let people walk all over her, including me. But by the time we graduated from high school, Willow could kick some serious ass."

"And what about you?"

Xander seems almost surprised at the question.

"Me? You mean did it rub off on me? Um, not so much. I got a little better at not getting hurt, I guess, and I gained this sort of foolish fearlessness that some people might sometimes have gotten confused with bravery, but I was mostly support staff, you know? Coffee, donuts, the well-timed self-depreciating joke, a little rah-rah-you-can-do-it when necessary... but I was never strong like them."

Jamie shakes his head as he stares at this unconfident man that he barely recognizes.

"Don't you think you're selling yourself short, Alex? You're one the strongest people I know. And I'm sure your friends thought so, too."

"Believe me, the only person who ever thought I was strong—aside from Dawn, who's Buffy's little sister, by the way, and who had this adolescent crush on me.... Aside from her, the only person who ever thought I was strong was Anya, and that's only because she had her own issues. And besides, she changed her mind once I left her at the alter..."

"You...?"

"Left her at the alter. And I'd like to say it was because I was gay, but it wasn't. Not really. It was because I was scared."

"What? Scared of commitment?"

"Maybe, a little. It's like, I was scared to get married when I wasn't even sure I'd figured out my own life yet, you know? And I was scared that if I did that, if I got married to soon, I might turn out like my father..."

"Like your father...?"

"Mean, drunk, sometimes violent. Bitter about his life, resentful of me and my mother."

"That sucks that you had to grow up with that, but Alex, I know you. You'd never..."

"No, I wouldn't. But I didn't know it then. So anyway, I left Anya at the alter and then... then a whole bunch of shit went down and in one fight among many..." Xander points to the eye patch "... this happened. And I got mad and I got scared and then I met this guy..."

"Spike?"

"No, not Spike. Believe me, Spike and I never got along back then. He'd been around for years by that point. He started off as an enemy and eventually turned out to be useful, but we were never friends. And besides he'd taken off about a month before."

Jamie thinks. "Travis, the infamous first boyfriend."

"Yeah, Travis. I met him in the hospital. He was on his way out of town and he offered to take me with him. So I went. I didn't think about Anya. I didn't think about Buffy. I just went."

Xander pauses and then shakes his head.

"You know what? That's not true. I did think about Anya. And I did think about Buffy. And I left to get away from them. I left and Anya died."

Slowly, Jamie closes the space between them and wraps his arms around Xander.

"It's not your fault, Alex."

Xander buries his face in Jamie's hair.

"I left her to die."

Jamie runs gentle fingertips through Xander's hair.

"You left so you could live your life."

Xander pets Jamie's neck.

"And I found you."

"And you found me."

"And we have a good life, don't we?"

"Of course," Jamie soothes, petting Xander in return. "Of course."

Xander tightens his arms around Jamie and he knows it's manipulative and he doesn't want it to be, not exactly, but he asks it anyway. One word.

"Stay?"

And Jamie knows it's the worst possible time to make this decision and that he's answering for the worst possible reasons, but he just keeps petting Xander and says it anyway.

"Yeah, I'll stay."

Spike comes home to the sounds of make-up sex. He turns on the TV to drown them out and when they're done, he goes to bed.

When Xander gets home from work the next day, Spike is waiting for him, hands him a stack of cash. Three hundred dollars. It's the first time Spike has ever given him money directly, not through Jamie. Xander opens his mouth to refuse, but Spike's look silences him. Xander takes the money.

"So," Spike says as they stand there, looking at each other, "he stayed."

"He stayed," Xander says.

It turns out to be the most significant exchange they have for the next three weeks.

The dynamics in the apartment have changed. It's not clear to Xander whether he's been avoiding Spike or Spike's been avoiding him, but it is clear that avoidance is occurring and there are no more evenings spent in front of the TV sharing beers and companionable silences. There are, however, plenty of other silences.

Silences between Xander and Spike, silences between Xander and Jamie. Xander's confession, it seems, did not go far enough to clear the air in their relationship, but just far enough to make the smoke in the air impossible to ignore, and now they're both choking on it, suffocating.

Jamie knows that Xander must be grieving, but Xander has walled up his grief and Jamie finds himself sleeping with a stranger. Sleeping with, occasionally having sex with, but never making love to this stranger... because you can't make love to a stranger.

Conversation wears thin, reduced to strained and scripted exchanges performed as a spectacle of normalcy that convinces no one, least of all the actors. The spectacle grates and exhausts like endless white noise, like hours spent in a cold waiting room over-lit by harsh fluorescent lighting, and Jamie starts to go out more and stay out later. Or, when he doesn't feel like staying out, he stays up and avoids the bedroom by playing video games and listening to music with Spike or continuing to teach Spike the guitar.

Jamie and Spike break the silences of the household by smiling together and laughing together, snarking at each other and touching warmly and playfully. They're friends, Jamie is sure of this, and it's good, but he knows deep down that it's all distraction, a way to take each of their minds off the same other man.

Then it starts. The first time it happens, Jamie accepts Spike's assurances that it's nothing. But after a second and a third time which seem, despite Spike's attempts to hide it, to become increasingly severe, Jamie begins to worry and to look into things.

He Googles "Sunnydale." The Internet, he finds, is a handy research tool and can be shockingly illuminating depending on what you're prepared to believe.

The look on Spike's face the fifth time it happens—along with Jamie's suspicion that it's probably happening more often than he sees—convinces Jamie that it's time to talk to Xander.

When Jamie gets home from class the following evening, Xander has already retired to their bedroom. It's the usual routine. But this time, instead of settling into the living room with Spike until he's sure Xander is asleep, Jamie goes straight in. Xander is awake in bed. He watches silently as Jamie begins to undress.

"So," Jamie begins casually, "has Spike always had migraines?"

It doesn't surprise Jamie that this question brings Xander to full attention.

"Migraines?" Xander tries to keep his tone casual as he brings himself into a sitting position.

"Sudden and intense," Jamie says.

"Is there anything... in particular that... seems to bring them on?"

Jamie thinks back. "I don't think so."

"He's not having any sort of... physical contact with you—or with anyone else—when it happens?"

"No..."

"Are you sure, Jamie? It's important."

Jamie goes over it again in his mind. "Yeah, I'm sure."

"Is he... I mean, I know this might sound odd, but... do you think he's thinking violent thoughts when it happens?"

"What? Um, I don't think so.... Alex, do you know what this is? Has it happened before?"

"No, not like this."

"Well I think it's getting worse. And fast. They only started last week, but now they're really bad. Is there anything we can do to help him?"

Xander is honest. "I don't know."

A pause as Jamie gets into bed, then:

"He can't go to the hospital, can he?"

Xander looks up at that, looks straight into Jamie's eyes, tries to interpret the question, answers slowly.

"No, he can't."

Another pause.

"Especially not during the daytime?"

Xander just stares at Jamie now, doesn't answer. His silence asks: How?

"I Googled Sunnydale."

Xander considers this.

"There's a lot of weird stuff on the internet," he says carefully.

Jamie nods, but holds Xander's gaze. "And a lot of it is true."

"Yes," Xander admits after a moment, "a lot of it is true."

Jamie reaches out to turn off the bedside lamp.

"Find a way to help Spike," he says.

"I'll do everything I can."

After an almost sleepless night and a few unproductive hours in his office, Xander admits to himself what "everything I can" is. He doesn't have Dawn's phone number, but he channels Jamie's Internet savvy and looks up her email through the Case Western website. He sends a message and has his answer within a few hours.

He goes home shortly after that, taking off early, and surprises Spike sitting on the couch. If he'd come home at the normal time, Xander knows Spike would have made sure he was elsewhere and, damn it, how did it come to this? How did they go from whatever they were there for a minute to hiding from each other within a small apartment?

He realizes he's been standing and staring when Spike finally looks up with a question on his face.

"You're home early."

Xander thinks about calmly telling him why, but sharp words come out instead.

"Why didn't you tell me?" More an accusation than a question:

"Tell you wh—?"

"Don't say ‘tell you what?'! You know very well ‘what.'"

And all of a sudden they're both standing, facing off, yelling at each other.

"Wasn't going to say ‘tell you what?' I was going to say ‘tell you when?' When exactly—during which our many heart-to-hearts lately—was I supposed to have told you? Huh, Xander? When?"

"I don't give a fuck when. Whenever. This is more important than whatever fucked up reason we're not talking to each other. You just should have told me."

"'S none of your business."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me. Of course it's my business. Jesus! How long?"

Spike shrugs, starts to walk away.

"Damn it, Spike! Don't walk away from me. Answer me. Jamie said last week. Is that when it started or was it earlier?"

Spike stops walking, but still doesn't answer.

"Answer me."

"Been about two weeks now," Spike mumbles.

"And there's no reason?" Xander's voice is softer now, but still tense, urgent. "You're not hurting anybody? You're not touching anybody? You're not even..."

"I'm not even thinking bad thoughts. So how d'you like that?" Spike drops onto the couch.

"I don't like it at all. We're going to Cleveland."

Spike's head snaps up. "Wait. What?"

"I'll talk to Jamie tonight. We'll leave tomorrow at sunset. We should be able to do it in two and a half nights if we make good time."

"Hold on..."

"I already emailed Dawn and she'll fill everyone in, see if anyone has any ideas."

"Xander. Just stop for a second."

"What?"

"I'm not your fucking pet."

And once more, with feeling: "What?!"

"I'm not your pet. You can't just make a decision like this and then pack me into the car like a bloody Yorkshire terrier. You ever think about asking me what I want to do?"

"Christ, I can't believe this. You need help, Spike, and I'm trying to get that for you. Don't you get that? I mean, first you say I'm treating you like my whore, and now you say I'm treating you like my pet. Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, I'm treating you like my friend? That maybe I care about you?"

"Sure you care about me... when you need me. When it's convenient..."

"What are you talking about? I seriously don't get it. Where is this coming from, Spike?... Spike?... Spike!"

Spike's face tenses, contorts. His hands clutch at his head, a tableau of silent agony until he cries out. Xander drops onto the couch, is by Spike's side in an instant, but then he just stares, hands hovering over Spike's coiled form, not knowing what to do, afraid to touch Spike in the middle of the wail, worried he'll somehow cause more harm...

Then, as suddenly as it started, it's over and Xander doesn't hesitate to haul Spike into his arms, running soothing hands wherever he can reach and producing a soothing voice to go with them.

"Convenient?" Xander manages a soft laugh. "You've got to be kidding. When have you ever been convenient, Spike? Huh? You've always been—how would you put it?—a bloody pain in my arse? Yeah, that sounds about right. You've never been convenient... but I do need you. I need you now... and sometimes?... sometimes it feels like I've always needed you...."

"You're petting me," Spike grumbles, but he doesn't pull away.

"Get used to it." Xander keeps petting and keeps talking, hands and voice gentle, synchronized. "I'm going to need you in Cleveland, too. It's going to be hard, so hard... but we have to go. We have to go get you help. Because I need you... See, it's sort of like a catch-22. I think we're stuck with each other.... Think you can live with that?"

A pause as Spike seems to give the question serious consideration. Finally:

"Lay off the skittish-animal voice and I'll try."

Xander laughs and shoves Spike off his lap.

"Jerk."

"Wanker."

They smile at each other for the first time in weeks.

"So I'm asking now. Tomorrow night at sunset, okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

When Jamie walks into their bedroom that night, Xander is sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting.

"We have to go to Cleveland," he says without preamble. "We have to go by car. We'll have to be gone for at least two weeks, I think."

Jamie looks at him. It's not exactly an invitation. The "we" is ambiguous. After a quiet moment, Xander clarifies.

"You could..."

"I can't. I shouldn't miss that much class." Jamie pretends not to see the relief in Xander's body language. "So they're all there? All your... friends?"

"Yeah."

"Are you scared?"

"