Chapter 25 - please enjoy.

Xander was too exhausted to be afraid, and too dizzily concussed to even feel the extra bruises. It should have surprised him that Drusilla was in town – it should have come as a shock and a burst of adrenaline that made his heart beat in his throat and made his skin crawl because Dru… Dru was scary beyond reason, smacking him so hard his lip began to bleed again. But he came to with a resigned sigh, and a black flickering light somewhere in his memory and the only thing he felt was a swell of nausea that had him swaying and trying futilely to fall.

He could just about rest on his knees, but the chains held his hands above his head and bit into his arms, leaving red rust stains across his skin that floated away in flakes and made him sneeze. It did not help his headache at all, but he watched them, rusty orange darting away to the blue pleading pinpoints of Spike's eyes and back; back and forth and back and forth because the alternative was Drusilla. The alternative was seeing what she had once been, what she could be, and he had thought she was scary before, scary and a little deranged but mostly under control. He was wrong. He was so wrong. And he couldn't stand to look at her, black and twisted and slick as snake oil, because she had once been so very different.

And she was completely irrelevant.

He looked at Spike because even chained down and at her mercy, Spike had the power here. She might kill him, she might hurt him, but it was up to Spike to let him go. "I want to go home. Can we please just go home?"

"Xander, I'm gonna get you out of this. Okay? It's gonna be okay."

"Of course it will be, silly." The monster in the little girl chided, "All cuckoos want a family, isn't that right my bird?"

There was no part of him that was prepared to deal with Dru, and he let it show, slowly shaking her words out and leaving him stunned and stupid. "What?"

"Dru," Spike sighed, still watching him, Xander watched the rust. "He's not going to be part of any family."

That stung more than he would have liked. He didn't know what to make of anything right now. He didn't know the sky from the ceiling, black and spangled as his vision was, but that stung. It was irrational acid and sorrow and the shame of a child too stupid to pull his hand from the hot stove top. He didn't even want a family, but he wanted Spike in it, and just when he thought he'd managed to reach a plateau where being pathetic and needy and human almost stopped eating at him, the vampire pushed him higher. He should have been angry – he wanted to be angry – about so many things, but all he was was tired. He just wanted home.

"Can't keep him, Princess." Spike was saying, consoling away her pout like she was a child. But Xander knew better – he could see it. "Can't clip his wings, or keep him in a cage."

"Then we'll blow scent up his nose until he loves us, my Spike. Loves me. And he'll hunt for us – won't you my bird? My falcon in a cuckoo's egg…"

For the first time since he'd blearily been smacked around to consciousness, Dru gave him her full attention. He watched Spike – dismay and fear and loathing dancing between his eyebrows as she came to him and hoisted him up, effortlessly pinning his chained wrists to the wall and holding his sagging body weight with one hand. She didn't touch him, just held him by the rusty links that made his wrists grind together until he was panting in pain, and he didn't want her to touch him. She was so much worse up close, deep green and roaring and shattered, and there was always a part of her laughing, maniacal desperate toothy laughter that made him press himself into the wall to avoid her.

"Dru… princess, come to me. You don't need this – don't need him." There was an edge to Spike's voice, and their eyes met over the narrow crown over her shoulder. Spike looked like he was about to panic.

"But it's such a pretty present, just waiting to be hatched… Look at me, poppet," it was melody and harmony twisted up in juniper. It rang, commanding and perfect, and his eyes lost Spike's because he could not disobey. "There you are, cuckoo. Be. In me. Be in me…"

"Dru, don't thrall him… Don't!"

There was something screaming under his skin as she leaned against him, touching, screaming and fighting and making his breath come in shallow pants, but it was far away. So far away, down a long gossamer thread, and she wrapped it in others, a web, a beautiful intricate cat's cradle of shining strings and somewhere in the distance an out-of-tune harp jangling and chanting "Dru! Stop, Dru! Stop!" And she was perfect, a rocking wave against his chest, a brilliant tattoo prickle in his mind, and the world was spinning silver and hazy, liquid like a teardrop and the blood of saints.

An almighty groan and screech of metal exploded around him, bursting through the spell she'd been weaving and sending him crashing back to earth, skin screaming and the fear… the fear and the madness and the adulation stabbing him – ceaseless brutal pistoning that left him shrieking in his chains, unholy noise of "Get off! Get Off! GET OFF ME! FUCKING GET OFF ME!" ripping open his throat.

He hardly noticed that it was gone, that she was somewhere else and his skin was empty of her touch as the chant changed to "Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me," low, hoarse, and wrapped in helpless sobbing. He didn't notice. Like he hadn't noticed Spike, thrashing and pulling at inch-thick galvanized steel that not even he could tear through, hadn't noticed the brass bedstead come apart, didn't notice him leading her away, his wrist still dangling a heavy manacle, blackening with bruises. Didn't notice, didn't care, eyes shut and body dangling from his wrists because it was too much. She had been too much, and it came out as a litany, invective and a low moan of horror and pain and sympathy. "Oh god don't touch me! So afraid. You were so afraid and you saw! You saw! Fucking guilty, so wrong… your sisters, it hurt, oh god it hurt, it hurt and you fucking loved it. You loved it when he fucked you on their corpses. You loved it, loved him, and you would die again and again for him… for that. You… I can't get it off me, get off me! Don't touch me…"

And Spike was there, bundling Drusilla away while she crooned and shrieked, her own hands tangling in her long hair because his screaming had upset her. He upset her, and Spike was there, comforting and cosseting and Xander's stomach heaved so hard that he felt like his shoulders were coming out of their sockets, but he was grateful for the intervention. Grateful because Spike hadn't touched him, even in an effort to pull Drusilla away, the vampire had let him fall, let him shake and cower against the wall and the rough stone was solid and good. He couldn't stand it, couldn't stand it if after that, if after feeling Drusilla die in a thousand ways, if after feeling Angelus's teeth in his neck and the cock in anatomy that Xander didn't have, hands all over skin that was bursting with pain and exultant adoration, if after feeling that, he had to feel Spike, that peace and that love and the pain of completion…. Xander thought he might be losing his mind, and scraped his shoulders against the wall, pushed the chains into his wrists, just to feel them. Feel himself.

He wished he could pass out again, wished he could sink into that place of cool quiet emptiness where he could sometimes take himself away. He wished Dru had just killed him and gotten over it, because hearing her cry, high pitched keening across the room, was like a drill bit in his brain, the whine of working against the grain. He imagined it really was his drill, an old Black & Decker that belonged to the building manager – it did whine, desperately in need of a new motor, and Xander had to baby it, gearing it up slowly and letting it cool often, but it did the job. He was putting together planters, basic wooden things, fragrant cedar on heavy-duty castors so he could roll them – Spike thought it was a good idea, something worth trying, and the vampire helped him haul lumber and soil, and later, when the weather turned nicer, Xander would make him move plants too. He could picture it, long vines of squash and zucchini arcing across the roof, tall sprays of tomatoes and bell peppers climbing up scrap-wood trellises, and a patch of strawberries, boxes full of basil, thyme, and mint, all of it fresh and green and thick enough to create some shade for flowers for his girls, and a comfortable bench where he could sit and enjoy and… drink iced tea. Something. His imagination grew hazy and indistinct, the cool coarse wall behind him became a stiff breeze that ruffled his hair and sent the leaves rustling in his imagination, and by the time the drill wound down, he was lost in it.

Fuck his wrist hurt. He felt it go just before the bedstead came apart, bones crunching and cracking between his muscles and the steel manacle, but Harris was ripping into Dru with poisonous truth that left her shrieking and ready to claw at him, and he didn't have time to deal with it, or even stop for a quick whinge. He snagged her around the waist, wrestling her long arms down and pulling her away and out of range of Harris, who had screamed. It was a noise Spike had heard before, loud, thick with violence and desperation, tearing through the throats of victims in the throes of agonies, just before they resigned themselves to the fact that they were going to die. He had never heard it out of Harris or any of the scoobies – had never imagined a situation where someone as mule-stubborn and tough as Xander Harris would make that noise because Xander knew the stakes. Had for a long time now, and while he had begged for death before, it had never been with such ferocity, and Spike had to find a way to end this because that scream was a private hell.

"Hush now, poppet. It's all right," he crooned at the madwoman in his arms, and she sank into him, trying to protect herself from whatever was playing on the ancient flickering film reel of her memory. He sank with her, eyes tracking Harris while they slid to the floor, "Shh. Shh. Shh, long time ago, Princess. Can't touch you anymore."

"You didn't tell me…" she accused vaguely, the warbling keen in his ears mellowing into something more like a moan, and she clutched at his arms, digging in with cat-scratch intensity. "You didn't tell me! No knowing what he is, what he knows…" She extracted one long hand to point at the boy chained to the wall, laughing with her voice caught somewhere between humor and hysteria, "'gainst whom no lock will hold! Oh Spike, he's perfect! He's perfect, and he's so wrong, and they didn't' tell me!"

"Shh shh shh." The slow rocking was working its magic, Dru slowly started to settle, and Spike had time for a soft curse, lost in the press of her hair. "It's all right, princess. It's not important. You just come back to me now, come back to your Spike."

"He sees, Spike. He sees, and he's haunted by the breath of the world…" She giggled a bit, finally taking her own weight and loosening the painfully tight grip on his arm. "He could be ours. He could be ours and every touch would be pretty music."

"You can't keep him."

"No, my Spike," she corrected him, wearing something like a pout and tweaking his nose before springing to her feet. He followed, leery of her now that she was so interested in Harris, needing to protect them both. "He can't be kept."

"Love?"

She wandered across the room to her victim. Spike tried to catch her, tried to smooth his hand around her waist and distract her, but when she was in a mood, there was nothing to distract, she was snake-smooth and sinuous, single-mindedly twisting out of his arms to scrape her fingers back through Xander's thick hair. The boy grunted, thrashed a bit but he didn't make that noise again, didn't scream, and Spike was very fucking worried. He was hanging in his chains, knees not quite brushing the stone floor, and his arms were going to hurt in the morning, if there ever was a morning. Spike felt like he was trapped and any kind of escape was miles away.

He caught Dru again, pulling her away while Xander sagged and panted and hung his head even lower. Caught her by the elbow and danced with her, pulled her close – away – and struggled to think of anything that would get Harris clear of this place. Get Dru clear, because his world was imploding.

"Oh my Spike… my Spike." She crooned, cradling his wrist, swaying her snake's dance, dangerous and light and loving all at once as she rolled her brow against his, ran sharp fingernails across his mouth. His Dru. "Oh my sweet William. It was a strawberry. Oh it was beautiful, and succulent, and ripe. There for the tasting, my prince." And the words held no meaning for him, but her lips did, just a gentle press, and she smiled against him. "But can't you see it, sweet Spike? That a thief has come to change our strawberry for a fig leaf, and you are hiding the pretties."

Half way under her spell, but he managed to murmur, "You can't kill him, Dru. I don't want you to kill him, and you can't turn him."

And she tore away from him, spinning wildly, stopping herself with a hand splayed on Xander's chest. She raked her nails down his shirt, and this time he didn't make a sound. Spike wondered if he were even conscious. "Ooh cuckoo. I couldn't end you if I tried." And grinning still she leaned in close to lick the blood away from his lip where he'd bitten it, sinking her nails in deep, "But I could make it hurt."

"Dru… no."

Back to Spike, in his arms now and giggling lightly, her legs refusing to hold her. He hadn't seen her this bad in a long time, this energetically, willfully mad, and wondered what it meant, wondered what she had seen in Xander's head that cracked her this much further. "You were mine. You were mine until the moon fell from your eyes, oh can't you see it, my very own Prince Darling. Fell and he is holding it."

"Dru, what's this about? Explain it to me, princess. Try."

"You have to choose, my William. Your strawberry or your fig leaf. Your moon. You must choose."

"What am I choosing?" But that was a stupid question, because no one had ever known Dru like he did, and he knew.

It was always going to come to this. It was always going to be a choice between the two halves of him because it always had been, but never so obviously. He had never been asked outright to choose between the man and the monster, caring for Dru and loving her the way she wanted, or choosing the world over family. He had never been asked, so he could pretend that the choice wasn't always there, looming just out of sight, but now Dru was asking, and it had been an inevitability, and he could only resent that it had to happen so quickly. Choose something he'd always loved and never had, or something he'd viciously and stupidly broken. Something old and something new both in the same glass case. And he thought, but not very loudly, that the world was cruel. He hadn't even had a day's grace.

It was her. It had always been her. It would always be her, for as long as she wanted him, he would always choose her. Dru who would leave him and leave him and leave him in a world full of sunlight and electricity where magic was a dying echo and there was nothing but the long walk to a burnt out home. He had loved her since the moment he laid eyes on her, and would love her after he was dust. Because it was Dru. Over sanity, over freedom, over his own blessed life it was always her, mad and rare as a mid-winter magnolia.

He would die for her a thousand different ways… but he wasn't willing to sacrifice Harris for her. Spike hadn't realized there was a line he wouldn't cross where Drusilla was concerned, but apparently he'd just found it. Because if he said yes, if he said 'Let's leave on the midnight train to anywhere' like he had wanted to for years, like he'd been trying to do the night Xander showed up on his doorstep, she would want to play. She would drag Harris behind them like a cat by the tail, stripping pieces away from him, breaking him apart inch by inch, and he wouldn't be able to stop that, or fight it, or deny her anything. He wasn't about to watch Harris waste away into nothing. Two absolute realities and he was caught between them. Spike didn't want her to go, but she couldn't stay either; he wanted to go with her, but he couldn't leave. "Dru, I… I can't. I can't go with you."

She looked hurt, surprised, and it was an eerie moment of near vindictive satisfaction that he was breaking her heart for once. That he had her attention and was sending her away. Satisfaction and sorrow, naturally. "Spike?"

"I need to stay. I need to stay here and find a way to deal with this chip and… you can't."

The chip was a poor excuse and they both knew it – it hadn't been a problem earlier, not when they were rolling together in the soft clutch of little humans who were too stupid to know they were about to die, not when they were rolling together in the better clutches of each other, sex and sweat and sweet rejoinders. It was a piss poor excuse, but it was an excuse. Enough that his heart hurt a little less when she looked at him with those big watery sheep's eyes, when her lip curled, vulnerable and so very lost.

"Don't lie to me. My honest knight in black lacquered armor – you've never said untruths before."

"I love you."

"Yes."

"But I'm not coming back to you. I can't be yours anymore."

"For this!?" The confusion and the sting fled from her expression, draining away like it had never been there and replaced by a seething rage that only a Victorian woman in a high snit could really manage. She tore herself away from him, left him helpless and naked and trying to catch what refused to be caught. She was like fire under his fingers, and she raced away from him, snatching Harris by his hair and shaking, and he hoped – oh he hoped – that the boy really was unconscious and not just ignoring them. All too successfully ignoring them. And Spike flinched, fearing that if he stepped closer she would drag her nails across his throat or rip out his beating heart and eat it. He didn't want to have to see that. "For this? For a broken animal you'll never touch? You would abandon me for the thing you embraced me to escape?"

Spike wasn't in the mood to suss out the nuance of that accusation, but he caught the relevant detail. "You left me, Dru. You left me, and you'll leave me again."

She froze, a steel wariness creeping into her, and she nodded, acknowledged, possibly for the first time that she had hurt him, or worse, that he could be hurt.

"I can't come back to you."

Harris' head hit the wall with a clack, but that was all the damage she did. In his surprise, he forgot to be grateful, and stood there dumbly while she snatched up her tall boots and climbed the ladder, marching up the rungs with more purpose than he knew her to possess. She didn't say a word, and neither did he, just stared after her, feeling curiously numb, empty, but without regret. She was a whirlwind, his Dru. She tore through his life and upended it, a force and fierce as a storm, and for a while he rode the whirlwind, crude metaphors aside, he was with her, and danced her across the world, but it couldn't last forever, and when he'd landed, he'd landed hard, bruised and broken with the impact, mourning her. He wasn't ready to do it all again.

He loved her. He did love her, and he always would, but buried somewhere under the empty Novocain was something akin to relief.

Spike didn't know how long he stood there, naked and at a loss but not alone, Harris' heartbeat throbbing in his ears. He stood there until he couldn't anymore and the cool February chill of the crypt sank through his skin and into his bones. And he thought of how nice it would be to curl up around Xander, the toasty warmth of him, the welcoming back that he pressed himself to in the narrow confines of their double bed, and the thinking of it stabbed him with grief for what he had to have lost. When the chill dissipated and he managed to turn around, Xander would be there, but Spike would be a fool to think that he'd be there with a warm smile for him, and Spike was sometimes incredibly stupid, but he wasn't often a fool.

He should pull the boy off the wall, at least. Xander had to be hurting and he hadn't made a sound. Concern for him finally got Spike moving, got him to shake off the fugue of lost possibilities and pushed him into action.

"Harris?" Pulling the chains off the wall was tricky work with one working hand, and he tried not to flinch when Xander's knees hit the ground with a loud crack. But he was down, down and slumped over on his knees like he'd been the night he died, and Spike was trying really hard not to feel guilty for the similarity. "Xander? You in there… talk to me, love."

It took a long moment, a long painful breath while Spike rubbed briskly at his shoulders and arms, trying to get the blood flowing again. Trying not to think of what he'd do if Xander didn't answer. And when he did, his voice was thick and muffled around a swollen mouth, but Spike heard it clearly enough and cringed. "Hey, Spike."

"You okay?"

The stupid irony of the question had Xander looking up, eyes flat and not quite tracking while Spike winced. He didn't actually answer, but the stare was enough to let him know; yes, Xander was in there, and no he wasn't okay. But he would live. "We're out of juice."

Spike busied himself with getting the chains off him, leaving rusty red powder and indentations that took too long to fill. "I'll get you some. Let's just… let's get you up. Get you off the floor."

"Drusilla's not here." It wasn't a question.

He pried him up by the shoulders, got Harris under his arms and lifted the long body towards himself with some effort because Xander wasn't helping, he was a dead weight and Spike was trying so hard to be careful of every bruise. He got him standing, and Xander was happy enough to shuffle along after that, sinking with him into the soft, stained bed with a sigh that sounded like one part comfort and two parts sob. "Yeah, pet. She's… I sent her away."

"Good. I… I didn't need another reason to hate Angel, but Jesus Christ, I… she… I felt… it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter as long as she never touches me again." His mouth was a line, thin and white, drawn with tension on the pale paper of his face, and Spike hated that. Hated Angel and himself, and even Dru. "Can we make that happen? Can sh-she never touch me again?"

"She'll never touch you again, love. I swear it."

"Good. Can you not touch me for a little while?"

Spike flinched. He knew that had to be coming, was amazed that Xander wasn't fighting him to be away – that he'd come at all – but it still hurt, more than it had any right to. Spike hurt more than he had any right to, and letting go of Xander's shoulders was almost a physical pain. He did it anyway, backed off slowly and put some distance between them, and Xander sagged, sitting like a limp rag doll. "I'll just… I'll get you something to drink."

"Thanks."

There was orange juice in the mini-fridge – Clem had a thing about the color orange and there were always clementines and Doritos and tabby cats – and it was probably the best thing, under the circumstances. He brought it back to Xander, who accepted it with shaking hands, coughing around the first mouthful, but diving back in for a second. He finished the whole cardboard carton. Silent and determined, sip by painstaking sip he drank down every drop while Spike watched the green Tropicana label like it held the mysteries of the universe, or at least a road-map to Xander's psyche.

"Thanks." The boy said again when he was through, operating on autopilot, and he sat there, empty bottle dangling from one limp hand that was, to Spike's relief and consternation, beginning to purple up with bruises.

"Xander…"

"No."

"Sorry?"

"No. No talking. I'm not talking to you right now. Right now I am sleeping. I am sleeping, and you… If you're leaving, I can't stop you, and I don't wanna think about it."

"I'm not leaving."

Xander gave him a long, considering look. The eyes still weren't tracking quite right, and a distant corner of Spike's mind thought that perhaps the boy had a concussion, but it didn't matter. He wouldn't sleep long anyway, he never did when he was upset; Spike hated that he was the cause. Hated himself. And wondered, caught in the stare that seemed to be assessing everything that he was, if Xander hated him too.

"Okay," The boy said, and didn't so much lay down as fall over with a half-choked grunt.

Perhaps it wasn't only Xander who was in shock because he felt dumb with it, standing by the bedside like an idiot, helpless and at a complete loss until the boy's breathing went from too-carefully even and shallow with anger to the deeper slow whoosh of actual sleep. And all he wanted was to be there with him. Careful not to wake him, Spike laid down beside him, back to back and so very deliberately not touching him, feeling the heat and weight of another body through six inches of empty air, and he was exhausted, still riding the hangover left pounding in his skull in the wake of Dru, but sleep was a long time coming.