Seeing You Broken Part 5

Disclaimer: Not mine, just take em out to break em sometimes.

Summary: Xander confronts Spike.

Reviews: Yes, please. Readers Rock but Reviewers RULE.

A/N: And here's yet another chapter in the story that won't quit. There will be a very short epilogue and then the story goes back to canon. Although the reviews for the last chapter were admittedly disappointing, my muse decided to take this tale just a little further. That and RL has been such a bitch lately that I couldn't write the humor I needed for Silence. The euphoria that I was infused with from the Sacramento convention has worn off and the resulting depression has made my imagination run toward the dark side.

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"We're having a birthday party for Buffy this weekend. Do you want to come?" Willow's invitation rang in Spike's ears. He wandered back to his crypt almost automatically. He listlessly dropped down into the lower level and sank onto his bed. His head ached. His heart ached and he didn't know if he could face going into that house again. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. He growled as he realized he was near tears again. He hated that aspect of himself. She'd broken something in him and he wasn't sure he could fix it.

"Spike? Are you here?" A familiar voice echoed down from the upper level. Spike's blond head shot up as he snarled. He stood, stalked over to the ladder and wasted no time reaching the top.

"What do you want?" The vampire growled.

"Wanted to check your supplies. Make sure you didn't run out. Anya worries." Xander answered him from next to the refrigerator where he was taking inventory of the contents.

"How many times to I have to tell you I don't want your help?" Spike paced back and forth in front of his cushy chair in agitation.

"May not want it but if I want any Anya lovin, you get my help." The brunette human answered with a grimace.

"Why does demon-girl care?" Spike dropped into his chair. He was just so tired of it all.

Xander tilted his head as he let the refrigerator door swing closed. "You know, I don't know. I asked her that the other day and she just mumbled something about demons sticking together. But that doesn't make sense, she's not a demon anymore." He walked over and sat on the edge of the battered sofa. He tried not to be obvious about it but part of his assignment was to see how well the beaten face was healing.

"Stop looking at me." Spike snarled as he shot up from his chair and retreated to the far side of the room. He wrapped his arms around himself and leaned against the stone wall. He dropped his chin to his chest and closed his eyes.

"Sorry, but Anya wanted me to make sure you were healing. It's going slow, huh." Xander apologized.

Spike gave a bitter little laugh. "Yeah, slow."

"Want to talk about it?" Xander ventured the hesitant question softly.

"What are you now? Some counselor? 'Tell me all about it and I'll make it better'. Get real. Like I'd talk to you." Spike scoffed but he huddled a little more against the wall, turning slightly so his profile was all Xander could see.

"You know I'm not a counselor. What makes you think I care?" The male Scooby held his breath as he baited the vampire. His dark eyes scanned the defensive posture of his companion. The bruising on the handsome face was changing colors in a last flair before beginning to fade away. Xander knew that Spike should have been almost bruise-free by now. He'd seen vampires heal almost overnight. He's seen this vampire heal so much faster than he was doing now.

"I noticed the stack of blood packs in the fridge isn't going down very fast. Why aren't you eating?" Xander asked. Anya had told him not to return until he had some answers and there were times that he was more scared of her than he was of Spike.

"Maybe I'm not hungry." Spike muttered. He moved away from the wall and prowled the space of the crypt. Xander warily watched him moving around. The bleached pain in the ass was on the edge and the human wasn't sure he was the best person to try to pull him back from it. The vampire stopped and lit a cigarette. Xander noticed the flame flickering from the lighter, Spike's hands were shaking.

"You need to feed." He tried again and jumped when Spike yelled.

"Leave me alone!"

"I'd like to. This isn't my idea." Xander retorted. "Anya's got some weird idea that you're our friend and she says we have to watch out for our friends."

"Take that back! I'm not your friend. I hate you." Spike's rebuttal lost volume toward the end. "I don't want your help." He repeated almost too softly for Xander to hear. The brunette heard the emphasis on the word 'want'.

"But you need it and that's making you crazy." He observed. He watched as Spike threw his spent cigarette to the floor. The vampire began pacing again, agitation in each step.

"Yeah, I'm crazy. I should have eaten you years ago. If I hadn't messed around playing games with the slayer, I could have eaten all of you sodding Scoobies and been gone. I'd still have Dru. I wouldn't have this bleeding chip in my head. I wouldn't have…" He broke off abruptly when he realized what he's been about to say. 'I wouldn't have fallen in love with her and shagged her.' He stopped pacing with his back to Xander. Letting his head drop to his chest, he sighed. "Go away."

Xander was shocked at the weariness in the vampire's voice. It sounded like Spike was giving up. The last time he'd heard that tone was the previous year when the bleached wonder had gotten so fed up with the ridicule regularly doled out by the Slayerettes that he'd nearly left town. Staying had gotten him almost tortured to death at the hands of Glory. While Xander had outwardly bitched at having Spike around during the entire ordeal, he'd been secretly grateful the blond had stayed and helped. He also knew that they would all have died during the excruciatingly long five months Buffy had been gone. Spike had saved them all more than once, slaying with viciousness that had shocked them all from time to time. The vampire's grief had been all but tangible and Xander had kept a surreptitious eye on him knowing that if Spike had decided to greet the sun, Dawn would have been inconsolable. He turned to leave but a question had been bugging him for days, ever since he'd stumbled across the beaten bloodsucker in the alley in fact. He turned back and silently watched Spike's hunched, defensive posture for a few seconds.

"Spike?" He began.

"What?" Spike voice was defeated and soft.

"Why does she do it?" Xander stopped, trying to find the right words to ask what he wanted to know.

"Do what?" The inflection in Spike's voice never changed, but his shoulders tensed.

The human cautiously wandered back over to the sofa and gingerly sat on the edge. "Why does she beat on you like she does? She knows you can't hit back. I find it hard to believe she can be that cruel but the evidence is right in front of me and I don't understand."

Spike's mind had blanked out when the boy started asking so clumsily why the slayer had tried to beat him to death. A flicker of relief shot through the vampire when he realized that the Scoobies were still unaware that he could hurt her. Not that he wanted to but that he could. He wrapped his arms around himself and wished he hadn't left his duster downstairs. He felt chilled and tired. Part of him wanted to just tell the Whelp everything and wait for the relief that could be found at the end of a piece of sharp wood. Sometimes he felt he was skating on the edge of madness and there was no bottom should he slip and fall from the precipice. 'Why does she beat on you like she does?' The words floated through Spike's emotional barrier and he began to laugh.

Xander started when he heard the mirthless sound. Goosebumps broke out on the brunette's skin when the laughter got a little more hysterical until the breaths fueling it began to hitch and it changed. He'd avoided looking at Spike as soon as the question had left his lips but now he dragged his gaze from the floor to look at the vampire.

A last few chuckles trickled out and Spike inhaled as he stopped. "She does it because she can." The statement was drawn out and breathy.

Xander caught his own breath at the bitterness he could hear. "But that's not…" Spike interrupted him.

"Not what? Not fair? And why would she be fair to a vampire? I'm evil, soulless. There's nothing good or clean in me. Didn't you get the memo?" All traces of humor were gone from Spike's voice and Xander blinked in confusion.

He did what he always did when confronted with something he didn't want to face, he babbled. "Well, yeah, I get the whole evil and soulless but the other? Where did that come from? I mean, how would we know if there's anything good or clean in you? Yeah, you have the whole vampire thing happening but I really haven't seen you do anything overtly evil in a long time. But…" He trailed off as he realized that Spike was glaring at him.

Spike tried to contain his anger, he really did, but to have this particular human sit there and tell him that he wasn't very evil anymore was just too much. He felt the edges of his temper begin to fray and he vamped.

Xander let out a little squeak when he saw Spike shift into game-face. "Well, I think it's time to go. It's getting late and I don't wanna be a late night snack for some vamp. I… um… have my car. It's parked really close so I'll be ok, no vamp snacking happening to this Scooby. No, sir. Gonna just make a quick run for the old car and get myself safely home." He got up from the sofa and began to walk toward the door, keeping up a, he hoped, distracting line of chatter so Spike wouldn't be tempted to risk a migraine by taking a big bite out of his neck. He risked a quick glance back at the vampire as he went. At the moment it didn't seem like such a remote possibility.

He got almost to the door before he was grabbed and spun around to face the demon. Spike shoved him gently against the wall and snarled, baring his fangs. He knew better than to struggle so he went limp against the stone. "S-spike, come on man. You know you can't hurt me. Let me go and I just go on home. No harm, no foul, all right? You don't want the migraine you'd get."

Spike leaned forward and sniffed Xander's neck as if checking to see if he wanted to sample the goods. Gold eyes flickered and settled on the human's curiously unafraid face. "Don't forget what I am. I am a killer, a monster. I'm not your friend and I don't want to be. She doesn't forget. Ever. Doesn't let me forget either." The last statement was almost whispered, the threatening tone of the first sentences fading away.

"B-but I don't think she h-hates you." Xander stammered. "Something she said the other day…" He paused, wondering why he's trying to help. He hates Spike, doesn't he? "She said, 'You always hurt the one you love.' Why do you think she'd say that?"

Xander watched the vampire carefully, breathing a tiny sigh of relief when he was released. Spike backed up, giving Xander enough room to get away.

With difficulty, Spike shook off his demon visage. "Just get out, Harris." He said wearily. He ran a shaky hand down his face.

Xander opened the door and paused for a minute. He looked back at the vampire and noted the renewed shaking of Spike's slender hands and the incredibly weary sadness on the vampire's lean face. He swallowed and blinked before slowly leaving and closing the door firmly shut behind him.