Unacceptable Losses

“Spike!” Faith shot a dirty look at the vampire as he cinched the ropes tightly enough around Angel’s torso to make them creak. “He’s still out. Not like he’s going anywhere.”

“Keep that on him,” Spike snapped at Dawn, gesturing toward the tranquilizer gun in her hands, ignoring Faith as he straightened up. He gave Angel’s unconscious body a shove, making sure that he was securely tied to the wheelchair. He stared at his sire, forcing away everything but the anger that kept him going.

“He gives you any trouble, send him back to oblivion. Don’t care if you do it with those tranq darts or fists.”

“Spike,” Dawn began, only to trail off when the blazing yellow eyes turned on her. She swallowed, and steadied her voice. “We know what to do. We’ll stay with him, I promise.”

“Still say he’d be less likely to take off if we took that thing away from him,” Faith muttered.

“No. You let him hold onto the gem. Gives him focus. You take it from him, and he loses the reason for going back to the Well at all. You’re just there to make sure he gets there and back.” Spike spoke in clipped tones. “Plane ready?”

“Giles arranged everything for us. We’re taking a chartered plane to London, and he’ll have a car ready for us to pick up.” Dawn recited once more. “They’ll stay out of our way. It was the quickest way to get there, and I trust him, Spike. We’ll be okay. I kinda doubt Angel’s gonna attack either of us no matter how unhappy he is about us going along with him.”

“Deeper Well’s not exactly a safe place ‘Bit.”

“Spike, we’ve been over all of this. We can’t trust that he’ll come back if he goes alone, and he’s not going to let anyone else go in his place. It will be okay.” Dawn laid a hand on Spike’s arm.

“C’mon, Spike.” Xander glanced at the sky, knowing sunrise couldn’t be that far off. “They’ll be okay.” He tried to sound confident, but doubted it came across that way.

“We will.” Dawn reached out to hug the bristling vampire, pulling him close despite his stiff posture. “We’ll take care of Angel, I promise,” she whispered. “You’ll be okay here?” At his quick nod, she stepped back.

“See you in a couple days,” Faith nodded her goodbye and began wheeling the unconscious Angel toward the plane that waited on the tarmac. Dawn gave them a strained smile and quickly followed.

Spike turned and stalked back toward the terminal, leaving Xander to trail after him, wincing in sympathy at the vampire’s limping, yet determined, gait. After the last few hours, all he wanted was to get completely and mind-numbingly drunk. Maybe he could talk Spike into detouring past a liquor store on the way back to the apartment. If he could get Spike to talk to him at all.

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

“Get out.” Spike screeched to a stop at the curb next to the apartment building.

“What?” Xander stared.

“Get out of the car.”

“But…what about you?” Xander didn’t move.

“Going out.” Spike continued to stare out the front windshield, unseeing.

“Spike, you’re hurt. Going looking for a fight might not be the best plan.”

Spike’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Get the fuck out of the car, Harris.”

Xander glared at the glowering vampire and debated continuing the argument. Angel hadn’t held back when he found Spike wielding a battle ax in Fred’s room, and the bruises still marred Spike’s face. Tension highlighted the muscles in his jaw, and the vampire still refused to look at him. Sympathy threaded through Xander’s frustration. Arriving in time to catch the end of the violent confrontation between the two vampires as Fred had called for them to halt, Xander, Dawn, and Faith had stared, weapons in hand, until Faith had pulled Angel off the prone Spike. A few gasped sentences of explanation later, Fred had elicited Angel’s promise. Then they had all watched as Angel raised the axe, sorrow and acceptance in the gaze that locked with Fred’s grateful eyes, and had been blinded by the flash of purple-green light that blasted outward as the axe severed the thin neck, leaving only a single glowing purple gem the size of a fist on the white sheets where Fred’s suffering body had laid.

When another argument had broken out as to what to do with the gem that represented all that had been Illyria and Fred, Spike had grabbed the tranq gun from Xander’s slack grip. Rather than argue against Angel’s insistence that he return the gem to the Deeper Well alone, Spike had unceremoniously emptied the traq gun into Angel’s hide. Then he had spoken only to set the alternative plan in motion. He hadn’t said a word about Fred’s death.

Xander startled back in the seat as Spike lunged over, yanked the door handle, and flung the door open. In full vamp visage, he growled at Xander, “Get out now.” Unfamiliar fear sliced through him as Xander fumbled to unbuckle his seatbelt and scramble out of the car. He barely had time to close the door before Angel’s black convertible screeched away and sped into the early morning darkness.

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

Angel stared unseeing at the closed window blind, his right hand held protectively over the large gemstone in his pocket as he fought against the urge to simply open the window and let the sun have him. In his mind, he saw Fred’s eyes, trusting and grateful and scared as the axe swung toward her neck. Time folded, and his first sight of her, kneeling on the chopping block waiting for the honored champion to swing the crebbil that would make her the feast for the Pylean bach-nal, superimposed itself on the woman lying pale and accepting on the bed in the Hyperion. Time and fate had brought him back to the beginning, fighting hadn’t mattered. Now he had to take what remained of Illyria, cocooned inside a single gem, back to the depths of the Deeper Well and add Fred to his list of fallen comrades.

“Fuck you, Doyle,” he muttered, cursing the Irishman who had so determinedly set him on the path that had him collecting and losing the humans he had tried to connect with.

“Who’s Doyle?”

Dawn’s soft question went ignored as Angel continued to stare at the closed window screen.

“Angel?” Dawn glanced at Faith napping fitfully in the seat across from her before slipping over to sit next to Angel. She studied the pained lines of the vampire’s face, watching his hand stroke back and forth over the gem that bulged in his jacket pocket.

“I know you’re probably pissed about the whole knocking you out and inviting ourselves on your mission. I guess it’s a good thing we’re flying, not driving. When Buffy had Xander knock me out and drive away from the big battle with the First, I tazered him and turned the car right back around. You don’t really have that option up here.” She stifled the urge to reach out and touch Angel, intuiting that the gesture wouldn’t be welcome. “But you’re stuck with us. We’re not going away. Might as well get used to it.”

Angel closed his eyes, trying to block out Dawn’s persistent voice. She had tried several times already to engage him in conversation since he had woken up disoriented during the flight. He had forcibly pushed her away the first time only to be halted by Faith’s hand on his arm and the forbidding look on her face.

Unwilling to be ignored any longer, Dawn reached out and held Angel’s hand still over the gem. She flinched, but didn’t draw back when he turned and growled.

“Stop it. Just stop it. Grieving doesn’t give you the right to be an asshole,” she growled back at him as best as her human vocal cords could manage. “Haven’t you figured it out yet that we actually care about you? That we’re not going to just abandon you to the hole of self-pity and blame that you’re determined to sink into? And it’s not just because you’re some champion or something,” she rolled her eyes. “You’re our friend, Angel. The sooner you accept that, the easier things will be.”

“You sound like Cordelia,” Angel whispered hoarsely, fighting against the lump that tightened his throat. He closed his eyes once more and bowed his head.

Dawn slid her hand up to brush over the back of his head, resting her small hand on his strong neck. “Thank you. That’s one of the kindest things you could have said to me.” She glanced down at her old jeans and faded sweater. “Of course, she’d probably kick your ass for comparing me to her in this outfit.”

Angel bit back a snort, half-sob, half-laugh, and when Dawn’s fingers gripped a bit more strongly, he felt the first tears fall. Silently, Dawn reached out with her other hand and slid it into the one that wasn’t gripping the gem. Wordlessly, he clasped the reassuring hand and smelled her tears as she shared his grief. Across the aisle, Faith let out the breath that she had been holding since Dawn had first touched the wounded vampire and wiped at the tears that wet her cheeks.

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

Wobbling slightly, but no longer feeling the pain from the bruises that decorated his body, Spike pushed at ropes from the beaded curtain that tangled around his arms. Snarling he yanked free and stepped into the low-lit back room of the bar. He gave thanks for whatever powers granted vampires such useful memory retention and further thanks to Faith for inadvertently leading him here. Her story about taking down Angelus had contained just the bit of information he needed to help bury the pain of failing to grant Fred’s request, the pain that he had managed to compound by failing to save Angel from taking up the cross of killing his last connection to his human pack. Even as he had found the bar, Spike hadn’t been sure that he could really go through with drugging himself so deeply, knowing that Xander would be waiting for him to return. He had only remained behind in Los Angeles because he hadn’t wanted to drag Xander back to England. The man was still too fragile to go back there.

Hours had passed as he valiantly tried to achieve numbness through alcohol alone. Another hour or two had passed in joining the fight that had broken out before a particularly nasty stab wound sent him back to the bar. After the second post-fight bottle, he had given up, and now he stood staring at the humans and vampires entwined in the dim light of the back room that Faith had recounted discovering with Wesley as they had searched for Angelus. Moans of pleasure floated on waves of pheromones as he surveyed his options for partners. Scant moments later, he buried his fangs in the tanned neck of a slight woman as she laid a welcoming hand on the back of his head, urging him on. The first swallow burned his throat and stomach before the warmth spread outward, releasing his limbs from the laws of gravity. The second swallow traced the raw path cut by the first, replacing thought with tranquil colors. The third swallow relaxed muscles one after another until his fangs slid free and his body tumbled to the floor into the soft embrace of oblivion.

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

Xander blinked blearily as he woke stiff-necked from sleeping on the couch, certain that he had heard someone calling his name. He rubbed his hands vigorously over his rumpled hair, trying to dislodge the jumbled feelings of dread that lingered from whatever he had been dreaming. And wasn’t he grateful that he couldn’t remember more of it, if whatever it was left him feeling this way.

Darkness had crept over the apartment while he slept. He glanced at the clock on the wall. 8PM.

“Spike?” He cleared his throat and called out again, louder. “Spike?” His voice echoed through the apartment with no answer. He frowned. Spike hadn’t returned. The beer that had dulled the worry last night no longer held soporific sway over him, and fears of Spike inviting a fight he couldn’t win or worse immolating himself crowded in. He had seen how much pain the vampire was in, and he knew first-hand how pain and self-destructive impulses could go hand in hand.

Before his worry could ratchet itself up into panic, a thud sounded against the front door. Xander froze. A soft thump was followed by scratching noises at the door handle.

“Bloody buggering fuck.” The slurred voice dissolved into what could only be called a giggle on the other side of the door. The sound galvanized Xander into action, and he yanked the door open, jumping back as Spike fell over backwards into the apartment.

“Jesus,” Xander breathed, taking in the multiplied bruises and bloody, ripped shirt.

“Where?” Spike blinked and turned his head back and forth. “Sodding bad timing for the Second Coming.” He lifted his head to leer at Xander, “Haven’t even come the first time. Not tonight anyway.” Spike struggled to prop himself up, hissing with pain as he put weight on his left hand.

Xander ignored the leer and focused on getting Spike out of the doorway, pulling him into a half-standing lean against his side as he kicked the door closed. Spike curled into him, rubbing his groin against Xander’s thigh.

“Mmmm,” he moaned into Xander’s neck.

“You’re fucking wasted, Spike. Not to mention beaten nearly to a vampire pulp.” He maneuvered Spike to the couch, but when he tried to sit him down, the vampire pulled him along for the ride, landing them in a tangle of limbs. Unfortunately, that led to Xander’s elbow jabbing the stab wound in Spike’s belly.

In response, Spike roared and reared backward. Xander yelped as his ass hit the floor. In the long moment that followed, Xander’s breath sounded loud in the otherwise silent apartment.

“Are you done?” Xander demanded.

“Hurts,” Spike all but whimpered.

Xander levered himself to his feet and stared down at the vampire curled into a ball of pain on the couch. He tamped down the anger that rose now that the fear of Spike’s demise had been alleviated. Instead of tossing out the vitriol that burned in his belly, he went to the bathroom and slammed open cupboard doors, collecting the first aid supplies that seemed most useful. He took a deep breath before returning to the living room. Spike might be an uncommunicative asshole, but he had been willing and able to help Xander in ways no one else could. As uncomfortable as it still made him to think about that, Xander felt the connection between them more strongly than he had with anyone in a long time, and Spike was in pain. It was Xander’s turn to help.

Xander returned to the living room laden with supplies to find that Spike no longer lay on the couch. He heard glass breaking in the kitchen. Dropping the supplies, he dashed the three steps to the kitchen to find Spike staring at the beer bottle in his clenched hand, the neck broken and beer flowing over his fingers.

“Spike?” Xander stepped forward, carefully avoiding glass fragments.

“Was getting you a beer. Didn’t mean to break it.” Blank eyes raised from the bottle.

“Give me the bottle, ok? Drinking broken glass is generally not supported by the FDA.” Xander reached out to pluck the bottle from Spike’s unresisting hand and set it on the counter. “Why don’t you come sit down, and we’ll get those wounds fixed up.”

Suspiciously docile, Spike followed him, boots crunching over the glass on the floor. Xander guided Spike to the couch and tugged off the bloody leather coat before encouraging him to sit down.

Xander sat on the coffee table and reached for the supplies, but a cool hand on his cheek stopped him. He looked up to find the vampire’s slightly unfocused vulnerable eyes watching him.

“Spike?” The hand withdrew, but Xander reached out to grasp it. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

Vulnerability turned to mockery. “Not a thing wrong in the world, mate.” Spike yanked his hand away and stripped his shirt in a move that pulled open the gut wound that had been glued to the material with dried blood. “Need a shower,” He staggered to his feet, pushing past Xander and nearly falling on his face as he tripped over the first aid kit on the floor.

“Fuck!” Spike kicked at the small red and white box, sending it slamming into the wall. He turned and headed for the front door.

“Spike!” Xander grabbed Spike’s naked shoulder. “Where the hell are you going?”

“Out,” Spike pulled away, “Gotta go out.”

“You’re half naked and bleeding all over the floor. Any place that would let you in looking like this is not a place you need to be going right now.”

“Right, like you’re one to talk, bottom boy.” Spike snarled, turning and pulling back a fist.

Xander might be willing to let Spike take a belt to him from time to time, but he would be damned if he would just stand here and take a punch without complaint. It briefly flashed through his mind that just a few days earlier, he might have approached the situation differently, taking the punch with a willingness that bordered on thankfulness.

As Spike swung forward, Xander fell back on his training with Faith and easily sidestepped and grabbed the vampire’s arm as it went past. Taking advantage of Spike’s already unstable balance and tumbling him to the floor, Xander then stepped back, wincing at the pained breaths that escaped the vampire.

“Are you done being an asshole?” When the question received no answer, Xander knelt on the floor next to Spike. “Can you sit up? I’ll patch you up, and you can sleep off the rest of the bender you’re on.”

“M’fine.”

“Too bad, you still get bandages. I’d like to keep blood off the sheets.” Xander retrieved the supplies that had spilled out when Spike kicked the box. He sat on the floor next to the subdued vampire. Minutes passed as Xander carefully cleaned and bandaged the cuts, wishing he could do something about the bruises, but consoling himself with the knowledge that they would heal within days.

Bandaging finished, Xander quietly went to the kitchen to heat blood. As he waited for the microwave to warm the mug, he searched for words that would alleviate some of Spike’s pain. He could offer some relief from the physical pain, and it frustrated him that he couldn’t find any sort of offering for the emotional pain. He shook his head at himself, recognizing the shift in positions. Instead of Spike struggling to help him, now Xander was stuck trying to play caregiver to the unwilling wounded. The microwave sounded, but Xander didn’t move, thoughts suddenly spinning to a halt. He wanted to help Spike. He wanted to help. Tears gathered as a long dead part of him surged to life. Since Buffy’s death, he had been so busy pushing everyone else away that there had been no time or energy left for even thinking about taking care of anyone else. But now, he saw Spike in pain, and he wanted to help.

“Xander?”

Blinking the tears away, Xander hurriedly opened the microwave and fumbled at the mug, sloshing hot blood over his fingers. He swore, nearly dropping the mug as he set it back down and stepped over to the sink to wash off his hand, calling back over his shoulder, “Blood’s ready.”

When he finished washing his hands, Xander felt in control enough to turn around and check on his patient. Spike stood drinking the blood, leaning back against the counter and watching Xander warily.

Xander frowned at the expression. “What’s wrong?”

Spike shrugged and lowered his eyes. “Guess I’m waiting for you to throw me out.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Not like I don’t deserve it.” Spike carefully set the mug on the counter and wrapped his arms around his chest. “Shouldn’t’a hit you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Tried to.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one.”

Spike swayed a bit as his eyes went unfocused.

“That’s it. You’re still wasted, and you’re about to fall down. Bed. Now.” Xander reached for Spike, but the vampire flinched away only to stumble into the counter, eliciting a curse.

“Look, let me help you before you end up on your ass again.” Xander tried to temper the frustration in his voice, not wanting to initiate another fight. He stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Spike’s slender shoulders, steering him firmly but slowly toward the bedroom. Once there, he guided Spike onto the bed and knelt to remove boots and socks before standing.

Not trusting himself to say the right thing, or anything really, Xander went to the bathroom and prepared for bed. Despite the nap on the couch, he was more than ready to sleep. He returned to the bedroom to find Spike curled up under the covers as though to make himself as small as possible. Xander’s heart constricted, and again he was hit by a surge of compassion and the once-familiar need to make it all better.

Xander stripped to his boxers and climbed into bed. He lay still for a long time, unable to keep from playing the scene in Fred’s bedroom that had sent Spike spiraling into self-destruction. Crashing had interrupted his research with Dawn, and he had grabbed the first weapon in the cupboard that came to hand as they rushed toward the battle. Seeing Spike and Angel at one another’s throats had been startling, but the image that stayed with him was the frantic despair in Spike’s eyes as the older vampire pinned him. It wasn’t until Fred had explained, and Angel had taken up the sword that Xander had begun piecing it together. Spike had been the one she had asked to kill her. While the others had watched Angel and Fred, Xander had watched Spike. Propped against the wall, Spike’s eyes had telegraphed his pain, not only of losing Fred, but of failing her.

His heart aching for the vampire in his bed, Xander turned and stared at the still form, certain that Spike wasn’t sleeping any more than he was. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and tried to let everything become simple. Spike hurt. Xander help. Releasing the breath, he slid closer to Spike and spooned against him, wrapping his arm around the vampire.

To Xander’s relief, instead of bolting from the bed, Spike reached up to hold tight to the warm arm around him. In the moments that followed, Xander felt the slim body in his embrace shudder with soundless sobs. He laid a gentle kiss on Spike’s shoulders, buried his face in the vampire’s neck, and held on until exhaustion overtook them both.