Turnabout

...you ever see a robin weep
when leaves begin to die
that means he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry

Xander pulled the pillow over his head and shifted away from the music.

The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry

Xander groaned and slammed his hand down on the clock radio before squinting at the display. 7:30. Not a shock, that's when he had set the alarm to go off, the same time every day for the last ten months, but somehow 7:30 came three hours earlier on mornings when he woke up with head pounding and tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. Too much to drink in an effort to block out the night's activities. Again. He reached up to rub the sleep from his face, surprised to find the eye patch in place. That happened only on nights when he passed out rather than fell asleep since he hated searching for it in the bedding when it came off during the night.

He stretched out on the bed, arms flung over his head to rest against the headboard. Need water. Water's too far away. Gotta pee. Bathroom's too far away. Shit. Gotta get up. Why bother? Gotta work. Again I ask. Shit. The ritual internal dialogue would continue, he knew, until thirst or discomfort led him to the bathroom. Work was never motivation enough to crawl out of bed. The creativity of the motel patrons always offered him some sense of adventure in never knowing what parts of the building they might have ripped apart the night before, but somehow the thrill of surprises seemed to have been burned along with the rest of Sunnydale. Sometimes he wondered if everything he was got burned out on that last day, but then he couldn't fool himself that some things had been burned or crushed or sucked, pick your verb of demolition, out of him long before.

Xander shifted uncomfortably. The need to piss was going to drive him to make a move from his nest in the blankets. He flung back the covers and slowly swung his legs over the edge of the bed to rest on the threadbare carpet. He rubbed the sleep from his eye and yawned, waiting for the pounding in his head to subside before he made the move to stand. He leaned over to the other bed to grab some clothes for the day and suddenly stopped. He leaned back and rubbed his eye again. Opened it. Spike. On the bed in front of him, sleeping in faded black jeans and tight blue t-shirt. Spike.

"Wha?" He stifled the sound that croaked out of his parched throat as scenes from the night before streamed frantically through his head. Spike. Doorway. Asking to come in, and oh god, oh god, did I ask him for help? Shit. Shitshitshit. Gotta think of something to tell him. Gotta... Xander pulled himself to his feet and stumbled for the bathroom. There was no way he was going to come up with something coherent to say to the vampire this morning if he had to come up with it while looking at that sleeping form.

**************

Spike opened his eyes as the bathroom door clicked shut. Xander was trying to be quiet, but it hadn't mattered since Spike had been awake before the alarm went off with that god-awful caterwauling country music the boy seemed partial to at times. Unsure of what Xander might say in the light of morning, he feigned sleep to let Xander make the first move. But judging from the sudden wave of panic that swelled around the man as he dashed from the main room, maybe waiting for Xander to make the first move hadn't been the best plan.

He sat up and propped himself up on pillows as he considered the options. Knocking on the bathroom door would probably only undermine any sense of control or security Xander had at the moment, and Spike didn't know if this morning's panic arose from the same source as last night's. He hadn't sensed the mortal terror that had emanated off the man in waves as he babbled about dreams. Straightforward panic, closer to the mortification sort, seemed the order of the morning, which meant Spike had to play this right not to get shown the door. He snorted at himself. Vampire worried about outstaying his welcome. Pathetic. But the mockery lacked bitterness. He needed to know what had happened while he burned in the Hellmouth, as well as what happened after. He needed to find out what brought Xander to the point of begging for help.

Sod it all. It looked like Xander had no intention of coming out of the bathroom any time soon. Not gonna sit here like some bint waitin' for him to pull himself together. Spike ambled over to the mini-fridge and rummaged through the contents. Cheap American beer, a jar of strawberry jam, two Chinese take-away boxes, and a suspicious looking Tupperware container. Spike settled for a beer, popped it open with the opener on top of the fridge, and scooped up the TV remote on the way back to his bed. No sense wasting good telly time by brooding. `Sides, it might drive the whelp from the loo. Never did like to let anyone else get their hands on the remote. Spike always suspected that being tied to a chair in Xander's basement stemmed in part from the boy not wanting to relinquish control of the tube. He settled himself back in and snapped on the TV. Car chase. Perfect. A little reassurance that things hadn't changed that much since he had been gone. He turned up the sound so that Xander couldn't mistake the activities going on in the main room.

**************

Xander paced. Or rather, he took one step toward the shower, turned around, and took one step back toward the door, unable to get the image of the sleeping vampire out of his head. His brain fought against the evidence his eye provided. Spike can’t be here. Spike is gone, burned up and buried in the Hellmouth. He is not lying on the bed. He sank down onto the floor, drawing his knees to his chest, momentarily overwhelmed by the familiar rage and sorrow that had colored the weeks following the destruction of the Hellmouth. He still thought of it in terms of destruction rather than in terms of saving the world. He had escaped the jubilant group of new slayers and even his friends who looked only toward the future and talked of remaking the world with new watcher's council, training, organizing, strategizing. All he could see was the pit of rubble that buried his ex-lover and the ex-enemy who had willingly sacrificed eternity to save them.

And here came the massive guilt and remorse over the fact that the world--you, his traitorous conscious whispered--was saved by two people he had hurt the most, people he would never have the opportunity to apologize to, to come clean to about the goodness he saw in them. And he got out of Sunnydale alive. Something he never believed would (or should) happen. Even during the trip-that-wasn't after graduation, Sunnydale had never let go of him. Mechanical failure had been less the reason for stopping in Oxnard than the unwillingness to travel any further away from the Hellmouth. He knew fate had tied him there. He was born in Sunnydale, and he would die in Sunnydale. Early on in life, he'd had it mapped out as coming from a drunk driving incident with his mom or from one harder than usual punch from his father. Once Buffy had shown up and his demon-magnet status kicked in, he recognized that the odds went up and every possible death scenario that was escaped placed him one step closer to whatever cosmic joke fate finally had in store. Now with Sunnydale gone, his foundations had crumbled. He knew he should have been buried under that rubble, not Anya. Or Spike. Fuck. This cannot be happening. Second chances don't come from the Hellmouth, and even if they do, all I ever do is manage to fuck `em up all over again. Shit. And last night's yammering is not a safer place to start.

If he could just get out of the room and get to work, he could get away without conversation. But going to work meant putting on clothes, and putting on clothes meant finding said clothes. Unfortunately, the finding of clothes led him right back to Spike who had apparently moved his clothes in order to sleep in the extra bed that Xander had been using as a dresser. Fuck. He was going to have to face the vampire. Never mind that the vampire had been presumed dead; he didn't seem to be going anywhere while Xander hid out in the john. Deep breaths. You've done this kind of thing for years. Crack a joke, bitch about the stuff being messed with, ignore feelings, deny any references to help being anything more than alcohol-induced delusions. This is just Spike. Annoying, yes souled, but still just Spike, not some mind-reader. He's probably just passing through and can't wait for sundown to take off. And didn't that thought drive another shudder of desolation to run through him. Probably doesn't even remember what I said last night through his usual Buffy-brooding haze. It's safe. He won't see. Nobody sees me. I'm the one who sees. He grimaced. Okay, used to see. So no problems here. He grasped the doorknob and swung the door open to stride back into the room.

"Hey Bleachboy."

"Whelp." Spike didn't remove his eyes from the screen.

"Car chase?"

"Got it in one."

Silence.

"So, uh, Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"What d'you do with my clothes?"

"You mean that mass of rags on the bed here?" Spike turned to Xander and smirked.

"Yes. That mass of rags would be my clothing. I need it. For work." Xander shifted under the vampire's gaze.

"End of the bed." Spike gestured with the beer bottle.

"Er. Thanks, and by all means, help yourself to my beer." Xander walked over to the pile at the end of the bed, conscious of being observed. He pawed through the stack quickly, searching for jeans, t-shirt and flannel.

"Breakfast of champions. ‘Sides, you’re outa O-neg."

No response.

"So you want to tell me?" Spike pitched his voice low, but Xander could still hear it under the sirens and play-by-play of the announcers coming from the TV.

"Tell you what?" Xander sniffed at the underarms of a t-shirt, deciding that it could weather one more wearing before it had to be relegated to the laundry.

"Why I'm here?"

Xander snorted. "How the hell should I know? Why am I here? Why are any of us here? I mean, cosmically speaking. As for why you're here in the lovely Gilded Grove--and what's up with that name, anyway? Founder couldn't decide whether to go with the whole gold rush or orange grove history of California? Again, couldn't tell ya. It's not for the nightlife. Or well, vampire, maybe it is for the nightlife. Besides, isn't that my question? I mean, you're dead, aren't you? Buffy said you were dead and now you're here. Drinking my beer. And that rhymed, didn't it." He began backing toward the bathroom, clothes in hand.

"Xander." Spike nearly growled his name. "You are not sixteen, and you are not stupid. Don't play games with me. Not after all that's happened. Why did you let me in last night?"

"'Cause you're Spike. It's what I do right? House homeless Spike? Look, I gotta get ready for work. You can stay here out of the daylight and take off tonight once the whole sunshine-equals-pile-of-dust problem goes away."

"You want me to go?" Spike tried not to sound hurt as well as surprised.

"Just figured you had places to be."

"Any place in particular, pet?"

"Not here." Xander shrugged. "Look, shower. Work. Talk later."

"Fine. Talk later." Spike turned his attention back to the television as Xander escaped to the relative safety of the shower.

Fifteen minutes later, Xander was clean, dressed and headed out the door with toolbox in hand, hoping that Earl had a damage report that would take him all day to take care of. He tried not to think about Spike left to his own devices in the room.