Broken (AKA Beautiful Broken)

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Xander heard the door open and he cracked his eyes to see that the room was still dark, the window a black hole, and Giles outlined by the light from the hallway. Xander kept his eyes open only enough to watch Giles sway, one hand against the door frame keeping him upright. He didn't know what Giles wanted from him, so he stayed quiet, tangled in his sheet and cramped into his corner. After all, if he was asleep, Giles couldn't blame him for doing something wrong.

Giles stumbled forward, putting out a hand to catch himself on the empty bed, before his head swung from side to side. Soon enough Giles' view settled on Xander's corner, and Xander closed his eyes and just hoped to be left alone because now that Giles was watching, he realized how truly stupid he must look. Instead he heard the bed creak. The room went silent for so long that Xander risked taking a peek to see if Giles had fallen asleep, but the man sat of the edge of the bed staring at him and Xander struggled to stay still and keep his breathing even. He sooooo didn't have the energy to deal with Giles and wasn't sure he would ever be ready for this conversation. But Giles just continued to sit and look.

"I bloody failed at everything. You're right, you know. I did tell Willow to stop; I suppose Spike told you that." For a second, Xander worried that Giles knew he was awake, but when the watcher continued to gently rock on the bed, Xander realized that the watcher was talking to himself, or rather he was talking to what he thought was an asleep Xander. "William the Bloody Idiot brings you home when I wasn't even looking, and now I'm failing you again."

Part of Xander wanted to comfort the man whose cracking voice and slurred words carried a pain that Xander couldn't even understand. Another part of Xander wanted to scream out that Giles *was* failing him so the watcher should let him go home. He compromised and did nothing.

"Bloody can't even run the store without my suppliers and half my customers checking with Spike behind my back. One word from him, and they'll stop doing business with Spike's properly claimed and marked slave, and then I really won't have anything, but don't worry, Xander. Even if Spike shuts down the Magic Box, I'm not giving you back. I won't sell you to make life easier. I won't fail you like that. I'll just... damnable Christ, I don't know what we'll do, but we'll do something." Giles words came out in spurts with awkward pauses in the middle of sentences and painful half-sobs brought on by drink and an illusion of privacy. Xander listened to the bed creak again and he watched through his eyelashes as Giles stumbled out of the room again, closing the door rather loudly on his way out.

Xander lay tangled on the floor and for the first time he realized that Giles was a guy. Well, he had always known that Giles was a guy in that he wasn't a girl, but somehow he had always expected Giles to be better than the rest of them. Giles was supposed to have the answers and Giles was supposed to fix it when Xander went and cast a spell over all the women in town and Giles was supposed to be able to train a slayer and have a job and sit and listen to their adolescent problems. He somehow never really thought of Giles as *just* a guy who was clearly falling apart on his own. Of course, Xander also realized that this version of Giles who didn't have the answers and sought them in the bottom of a bottle could never help him, so he wasn't sure where that left him.

If Angel was right, Spike didn't really want him but rather he just needed something to focus on other than himself. Even more importantly, Spike needed to obsess over someone who could be an equal partner instead of accepting Spike's affections without being able to repay them. Xander's heart tore at the idea that he wasn't enough, but Angel's words pointed out a truth he couldn't just ignore. Giles clearly didn't have the resources to take care of another nutcase since he seemed so close to the edge himself. He suspected that if he stayed here, he was going to slide off the deep end and possibly take Giles with him. Joyce...well Joyce had a right to some normalcy, and nut-boy wasn't normal. She needed to get her life and her health back. Besides, Joyce meant Spike, and he didn't think Angel would let him get near Spike again. Sometimes he felt like Angel was really just trying to protect Spike by getting the crazy human away from him, and other times Xander felt like he was Angel’s excuse for wanting to hurt Spike. In the darkest corner of his mind he wondered if Angel would use him as an excuse to stake Spike.

So, that left Angel. Xander tried not to shiver at the idea of belonging to the broody one. He imagined a future where he was left in a corner out of sight. He tried not to think about what it would mean to never be touched again. But listing all the options really did leave him with the suspicion that he was about to move to L.A. Now that he had made himself totally miserable, Xander allowed himself to sink into the memory of being chained to the bed under Spike's body, and as he drifted back to sleep, whether the expression was love or obsession didn't matter any more because it was the closest to thing to happiness that Xander ever expected to feel again.


Xander woke up gasping for air as the feeling of the carpet under his back somehow translated into the feeling of the whip as his trainer had let it rest against his naked skin just before it cut into his flesh. The sheets had come loose and Xander flailed his arms, slamming the top of his one forearm into the edge of the dresser so hard that he almost cried out, but instead he closed his eyes and tried to gather his wits as he figured out where he was. He crawled out of the corner and noticed that his sheet was damp with sweat, but his clothes were gone, so he wrapped it around his waist, ignoring the musky scent of fear that rose to his nose as he did so.

At the door, he hesitated. Angel had threatened go after Spike if he disobeyed, but he didn't know whether the rule about opening the door from the inside meant not opening the door to try and escape or not opening the door at all. He could hear someone banging around in the front rooms, so if he opened the door, they couldn't possibly think he was trying to escape, but Angel had said to not open the door, and his bladder was starting to demand that he either find a bathroom or pee on Giles' carpet, and Xander stood immobilized as he tried to sort through the choices and the voices in his head.

Finally, with his hand trembling, he raised his fist and knocked on the door. The metal on metal sounds stopped and Xander stepped back as he waited for the door to open.

"Xander? Do you need something?" Giles asked as he opened the door. Xander actually did snort in disgust before he could control himself, and horror encompassed him as he realized what he had done. He carefully schooled his voice before he answered the question.

"I need the bathroom," Xander said quietly as he tried to control any other flashes of emotion.

"It's right down the hall, Xander. You know where it is," Giles said, and thanks G-man for rubbing in the fact that he had obviously just done something else wrong if the frustrated expression and clipped tones in Giles’ voice meant anything. Xander ducked his head down and found himself missing his trainer who at least explained the rules. Xander had gotten quite good at escaping punishment, but without saying any of this, he gathered the sheet and started to walk past Giles.

“Xander, the sheet…” Giles began, and Xander immediately pulled the sheet off and dropped it on the floor. Right, his clothes were gone, he shouldn’t have tried to fashion new ones. “Xander, I didn’t mean. Oh good lord, go to the bathroom and I’ll get your clothes.”

Dismissed at last, Xander hurried to the bathroom before he accidentally peed on the floor. Once he had pushed the door shut and stood in front of the toilet, Xander struggled to get his brain straightened out. Of course Giles hadn’t wanted the sheet. God, he had just flashed Giles, and while he could admit to harboring an evil flashage thought or two in high school, the librarian had never been a target of that fantasy.

Okay, so what had Giles wanted? What had he done wrong? Xander turned on the water and started drinking from the faucet since his brain had no obvious answer. His brain had no answers on a lot of issues lately, but Xander just reminded himself to submit. That’s all he really had to do in order to make everyone happy. Giles would know that he had taken him away from Spike. Angel would know that Spike wasn’t burdened with Xander. Either that or Angel would know he was safe from Spike—he couldn’t figure that out. Spike would go and find a strong, powerful vampire mate to obsess over. The girls…” Xander stood up with water dripping off his lips as the pain of that washed over him. But it wasn’t his choice, he reminded himself. He wasn’t in the saving business any more and if Giles and Angel ruined Spike’s best chance of getting the girls back, he didn’t have the power to stop that.

“Xander, I’ve brought you clothes. I washed them,” Giles called from outside the door, and after a brief pause, Xander opened the door just wide enough for Giles to pass the clothing in to him. Xander held the clothes in his hands and wondered whether he was supposed to shower or dress now. Xander thought about everything he knew about Giles and decided to shower.

By the time he left the bathroom he could smell the remains of bacon and eggs, no doubt the source of the cooking sounds. He stepped nervously to the edge of the kitchen and waited.

“Xander, you startled me,” Giles said as he turned to put a pan away and nearly dropped it. Xander just ducked his head and avoided making eye contact. Big sigh at that, but Xander really didn’t know what else to do. “Xander, sit down and I’ll get you breakfast.” Xander momentarily cheered at the thought of bacon and eggs, but then he faced the table and came to the confusion over the word sit. He must have stared at the table too long because Giles called from the kitchen. “Just sit in any chair, Xander.” Okay so that solved the floor versus chair issue Xander thought as he took the chair farthest from the kitchen. He had missed his second meal last night so he really was hungry.

Giles came out with a bowl and put it down. Oatmeal. Xander reminded himself not to make a face.

“This is the kind with cinnamon and sugar. I’m sure you’ll like it.” Giles put a spoon down beside the bowl before going back to the kitchen for a glass of milk. Xander stared at the food helplessly. He couldn’t bring himself to admit the problem to Giles, but every time he even thought of picking up the spoon or the glass his stomach knotted so badly that he couldn’t even consider eating.

Xander sat at the table just looking at the bowl, and suddenly he couldn't even find the energy to care any more. Not like it mattered, just sit and stay out of Giles' way and don't give Giles and Spike a reason to kill each other because he didn't want either of them dead. Xander had stared at the bowl for so long that he flinched in surprise when Giles bumped him.

"Sorry. Just taking the bowl since you're not hungry," Giles offered, and Xander watched the food disappear without comment. Yep, he was just a pathetic man who's not hungry, he mused as he felt his stomach rumble. He'd gotten used to regular meals with Spike, and now missing two meals bothered him more than it used to.

"Do you want to watch T.V.?" Giles asked as he knelt down next to Xander's chair, and Xander wanted to give him an answer, but he had no idea what he wanted anymore. He wasn't sure he even knew what he needed. Besides, what he wanted or needed didn't matter since he couldn't have it anyway.

"Okay, maybe we can just go sit in the living room and talk." Xander took that as an order, so he followed Giles the three or four steps to the living room and then stood nervously, unsure how to handle himself when faced with actual furniture. Honestly, he'd rather stand.

Giles sat on one end of the couch and gestured toward the other end with a wave. Xander closed his eyes for a moment as he sought some inner strength before he walked over and sat on the couch, pulling his knees up in front of him.

"Xander I'm not going to try and pretend to know the answers; we're just going to have to work this through together. I've called the council, and they're sending a specialist to talk to you....It would help if you actually talked," Giles' voice had that familiar, sarcastic tone on the last sentence, but it wasn't a question so Xander waited.

"Right now my guess is that you're angry with me for taking you away from Spike, and I understand that. I'm not angry with you for wanting Spike," Giles commented, and Xander all but snorted his disbelief. Giles was all about taking things away from Spike, and Xander could see that even if Giles couldn't. "This feeling of connection you have with Spike comes from your fear." Giles paused.

"Xander, you don't have to tell me these things, but I want you to answer in your own mind." Giles took a deep breath.

"When you were with the slavers, were you afraid for your life?" Well duh, Giles. Fear was more constant than breathing in the training area.

"Were you afraid of Spike?" That took more thought. He certainly expected Spike to beat and rape him, but he hadn't been afraid of that. Even during the rape he hadn't been afraid, and looking back, he now understood that Spike had done it to protect his cover as a slave buyer since the no demon would believe that Spike would buy a slave and then not use him. Spike himself hadn't really wanted to have sex, and he had thought Xander enjoyed the experience. So, not only had he never feared Spike, but he really never had a reason to fear Spike.

"Were you hurt badly?" No, Giles. Trainers made suggestions and rewarded good behavior with sugar cubes. How the hell did the watcher think they turned humans into good obedient little slaves? Xander repressed an urge to berat Giles up side the head.

"Do you feel badly about yourself, doubt yourself?" Xander didn't even have to think on that one. He knew that he'd lost any good sense he might have once had, which is why he truly didn't trust his own judgment. So, back to the 'no duh' answer here.

"Does Spike do little things that make you think he likes you?" Xander didn't limit Spike's kindness to little things. Let's see, Spike was teaching him how to fight and gave him decorations and praised him for making his own decisions even about stupid little things and held him so that he didn't feel afraid. Yeah, Spike had cared for him with more kindness than Xander had a right to expect after the whole tying Spike to the chair thing.

"Xander these are symptoms of Stockholm syndrome. It's really quite common even in human hostage situations. You need to hold onto some sort of hope, so you take any gesture on the part of the captor as an act of kindness and proof that the captor likes you and won't kill you. It's a way of controlling you." Xander thought of his trainer's hand smoothing back his hair while he was in the cage and he understood the logic. He had felt a weird sort of loyalty to his trainer even while he was terrified of the demon.

"Spike likes controlling people, especially the people who once saw him brought down by the Initiative. For him, it's better than seeing us dead," Xander thought about that, but it didn't fit what he'd seen of Spike. It didn't fit with Spike losing at Trivial Pursuit and having to rinse his own mugs.

"Spike isn't really being kind to you; he's using kindness to get you to accept him as your Master, and you'll never be free if you don't recognize the pattern and stop turning to Spike as your protection," Giles finished and then he leaned back on the couch. Xander sat on the far end of the sofa and considered Giles' words. He really didn't have anything else to do in the oppressive silence that fell over the room. Could Spike be trying to make Xander's slave status permanent? Xander considered and admitted that it might be true. Spike had been essentially alone since Drusilla had left, and Spike might want a lover that he could control more easily than Drusilla, but that didn't really bother Xander. If Spike wanted to keep him, Xander wouldn't argue, except for the whole Angel argument about Spike needing a better partner than Xander, which was also true. Xander's mind was saved from imminent burn out from running in circles by the sound of the doorbell.

"Stay there," Giles said with the first clear orders Xander had heard yet. It calmed his nerves to have a nice clear direction as Giles went to open the door. When the blond woman pushed her way in without even a word, Xander wasn't sure who was more surprised at Joyce's appearance, him or Giles.

"Joyce?" Giles asked in confusion.

"Oh thank god you and Angel haven't gone and done something stupid," Joyce said, and Xander just continued to watch her as her eyes went from him to Giles.

"Yes, of course, heaven forbid we do something foolish like move in with a vampire," Giles said dryly as he closed the door. "Please, Joyce, do come in and sit down." Of course, Giles said that as Joyce settled in at the far end of the couch, and Xander had to restrain himself from moving. He just wasn't sure whether he wanted to move away or move toward. He wasn't sure what he wanted, truth be told, so he just sat and watched.

"Xander, are you all right?" Joyce asked, and Xander just blinked back, unable to even form an answer.

"As you can see, he is *not* all right, and I have no intention of allowing Spike to continue abusing him." Giles took his own seat on a chair.

"I never saw Spike do anything abusive," Joyce protested, but Giles just rolled his eyes in contempt. This was almost as good as watching a fight at home, Xander thought to himself. The drinking, the contempt, the mutual frustration and blame, he was feeling right at home now.

"Xander, what happened to your arm?" Xander looked over toward Joyce at the sound of his name and then he looked down where the skin was swollen and red with small drops of dried blood on the surface.

"I hit it," Xander commented unemotionally.

"Seems like there's more abuse here than with Spike," Joyce snapped back sharply and Giles quickly protested.

"The boy has always been clumsy. He must have slipped."

"The *boy* isn't clumsy at all now. Xander, how did you hurt your arm?"

"I hit the dresser."

"*Why* did you hit the dresser?"

"I had a nightmare."

"About what?" Xander could tell from the tone of voice that Joyce expected him to break at any moment; she talked as if he were a three-year-old victim of sexual abuse, but at least she actually talked *with* him.

"Trainer's whip," he answered truthfully.

Giles now interrupted. "Oh, Xander. Why didn't you tell me?" Xander resisted the urge to point out that Giles hadn't asked.

"You have no clue what you're doing here, do you?" Joyce asked as she turned to face Giles. "Xander, down," Joyce gently ordered as she pointed to a spot next to her, and Xander's anxieties which had ratcheted up to into fear land all dissipated at the clear order. He slipped off the couch and knelt next to Joyce, leaning against her leg in an incorrect position that would have earned him a whipping in his trainer's presence. “He needs Spike,” Joyce pointed out.

"I've researched this condition thoroughly, and I am well aware of the psychological dependence he has formed with Spike." Boy, Giles had his snotty English school teacher voice out now. At that point, Xander’s stomach chose to make its displeasure know with a low rumbling noise.

"Xander, are you hungry?" Joyce asked.

"Yes,” Xander answered, grateful that someone had asked.

"I fixed him breakfast, Joyce, so if he's hungry he had every opportunity to eat."

"I guessing he didn't," Joyce objected. "Did you put the food down in front of him or feed him?"

"I am not going to feed him as though he were a baby," Giles scoffed, and Xander pressed himself into Joyce's leg. He'd never felt so stupid in all his life, not even when Giles had ripped into him about falling asleep on Oz watch. Joyce's hand found his hair and gently stroked it.

"Rupert Giles, if you can't see the damage you're doing, you need to pull your head out of either your bottle or your ass." Xander physically jerked at that comment, totally unprepared for such a condemnation out of Buffy's mom of all people. Maybe she'd been hanging around Spike a little too much.

"Well, I..."

"Don't even finish that because if you start explaining why you had a reason to insult Xander like that, you aren't going to like my response. He is *not* a baby; he is an incredibly strong young man who has suffered and who has been tortured so much that he can't pick up his own food. It's not about being a baby, and if you had done nearly as much research as you claim, you'd know that."

"I certainly am aware of the behavioral conditioning aspects of torture; I just hadn't thought that the slavers would have..." Giles stopped, and Xander watched the glasses come off in that familiar gesture of frustration and loss.

"You aren't aware of entirely too much, and you're going to destroy Xander before you figure it all out," Joyce pointed out in a coldly logical tone of voice. "Spike understands more about the slavers and more about a broken human psyche."

"Joyce, he's better off here," Giles said in a voice only slightly tinged with desperation and pleading.

"Really? Because the last time I saw him, he was happy and sleeping in a bed and occasionally making inappropriate off-hand remarks that made him blush when he realized he'd said them. I'd say that he was better off then."

"Spike is turning Xander into his slave; I won't have that," Giles suddenly snapped in a voice far more Ripper than Giles.

"Rupert," Joyce said quietly. "Xander has been a slave for so long that he doesn't know how to be what you're trying to force him to be. He isn't our old Xander anymore even if he has managed to hold on to parts of himself through that horrific training."

"And you're taking Spike's word for this, just like you're taking Spike's word for Buffy's death." Giles' anger practically flowed from his body in waves, and Joyce leaned back away from him with a sigh.

"I held William though *his* nightmares, and I know exactly how my daughter died." Xander looked up at Joyce both surprised and horrified. She knew about Spike's made up story right? He looked into her eyes as she gazed down on him and stroked the hair back out of his eyes. "I know exactly how my daughter died," she repeated, "and I don't blame William at all." Xander felt tears start to fill his eyes, and Joyce simply wiped his eyes with the back of her finger.

"So you're taking Spike's side again," Giles snapped, breaking the silent communication Xander had found with Joyce.

"I'm taking Xander's side now. I took the side of the truth then." Joyce wasn't angry or babbling or desperate: she was calm and reasonable and infinitely motherly.

"You cannot condone what Spike has done here!"

"Spike hasn't done anything except help Xander recover, and now I'm seeing much of that recovery lost. Rupert, he would tease Spike and smile and fall asleep in the living room and make all these facial expressions that told me exactly what he was thinking, and now he's gone back to square one. You can't keep him."

"I have to protect him," Giles said, and even Xander could hear the note of desperation.

"You're killing him. If you want to protect him, let him leave."

"I just can't…"

"Rupert, I swear....I might not take an ax to your head like I did with William, but I'm starting to think that I have a frying pan with your name on it. You need to worry about your own mental health and maybe then you can have a relationship with Xander. Right now, we're leaving. Come on Xander." Joyce stood and immediately started walking toward the door. Xander bounced in nervousness on the floor once or twice: his growing awareness of his own unhealthy need for his Master warring with that raw, undeniable need, and then he sprang up and followed Joyce closely at heel.

"Joyce Summers," Giles demanded just as Joyce opened the door, and Xander didn't move as Joyce turned around to face Giles again.

"No, Rupert. You are not responsible for saving everyone, and you need to save yourself right now. You and Angel stay away from Xander and stay away from my house." She turned and walked out, and Xander followed still in bare feet, leaving the door open behind him. When Joyce opened the car door, he hesitated only a bare second before deciding that sitting on the seat was better than being left behind as a nut-case, so he clenched his teeth and sat down as Joyce slammed the door and walked around to the driver's side.

"You do know that will make them stay away for about 10 minutes, right?" Joyce asked as she started the car and backed out of the driveway.

"Yep," Xander answered as his stomach started to unknot at the thought that he would be going back to his Master. Of course, Angel and Giles has made their mark, and he couldn't let himself believe that Spike would keep him forever or even that it would be healthy for either of them to stay together, but he could help find his girls, and then he could be with Spike until the vampire lost interest or turned him. He pushed aside thoughts of the future and resolved to focus on remembering every good moment in case Spike took the leaving option. As a slave, he was actually quite good at ignoring the future, so he used that skill and just focused on the memory of his Master's arms around him—a feeling he had given up on feeling again.