Somewhere during the last ten minutes, Angel had decided that he was never drinking again. At least, not when Spike was involved. He was utterly miserable; his throat was burning, his stomach was churning, and somewhere along the line, his vision had gone blurry and his head had started pounding. And even leaving all that aside, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was making a fool of himself, and he couldn't do a single thing about it.

His stomach lurched again, and Angel gagged as the mixture of bile and alcohol seared his throat. Despite his best efforts, he heard a small whimper that only could have come from him.

Angel closed his eyes in frustration and embarrassment and let his head sag against the wall. To his shock, he felt the hand on his shoulder squeeze slightly.

"'Sokay," Spike said, sounding unhappy. "Happens to everyone."

Angel shook his head. Maybe everyone got drunk on occasion, but if this, this, happened to everyone, he was pretty sure alcohol as an institution would have been given up on long ago. He was fairly certain that he was going to be throwing up forever. As it was, he couldn't imagine his stomach ever settling enough to accept blood, not for the rest of his life. He couldn't even imagine being able to stand. This was it, he was going to die here, puking his guts up, accompanied by Spike.

Angel heaved again, shocked that there was even anything left to come up. He...he really did have to stop throwing up eventually, right? Was it possible he could start vomiting up his internal organs? He must be getting close to that. He had been kneeling on the ground throwing up for what felt like hours, and as much as he hated to admit it he was close to tears….

"I hate this," he whispered weakly. The words just slipped out, he certainly hadn't intended them for Spike. But he felt the other vampire stiffen beside him. Angel started to groan, but his stomach chose that moment to turn over again and he coughed up more stomach acid onto the ground.

Tentatively, Spike put a hand on Angel's back. "Hey," he said. His voice was...soothing was too strong a word, but at least it wasn't unkind. "You know this is all your fault, right? If you hadn't drunk too much, this wouldn't be happening to you."

Angel wasn't really sure how to respond to that. He just continued leaning against the wall, wondering if he would be better off if he just died now. He didn't look at Spike. It wasn't that he was ungrateful for his presence exactly, but in some corner of his mind he was mortified, and he knew it would only get worse once he sobered up….

His stomach clenched again, but this time, to his great relief, nothing actually came up. He sagged against the wall, arms shaking so badly he was worried he would fall. Apparently Spike was worried too, because he didn't remove his hand from Angel's shoulder. And much as Angel hated to admit it, the knowledge that he wasn't alone in this did help.

Of course, it didn't help much, seeing as how the person with him was Spike. Angel dry heaved again, stomach muscles cramping, throat burning. Spike stood behind him, every moment he watched Angel shudder and heave on the concrete adding to the embarrassment Angel would no doubt feel in the morning. Angel whimpered slightly as his limbs shook beneath him. He was really not having a good night.

Spike waited a little longer, just barely stopping himself from tapping his foot in impatience. But after about ten minutes when Angel hadn't actually brought anything up, Spike thought he was probably done.

"Right, do you think you can stand?" Spike asked, not expecting much. He reached down to haul Angel upright.

Angel mumbled something unintelligible, staring fixedly at the ground. But he took the proffered hand and Spike managed to pull him to his feet.

"Suppose you'll need help down the stairs," Spike said, then realized with horror that he hadn't even made an effort to sound annoyed. God help him, he'd become inured to the situation.

"Yeah," Angel whispered, flicking his eyes up to Spike, his expression raw with shame. Then, he dropped his gaze and fell silent.

"Sober enough to be embarrassed, are you? That's a good sign," Spike said, not bothering to hide his grin.

Angel didn't respond, just let his head sink a little further into his chest. Spike could almost smell the waves of mortification rolling off him.

Still smiling a little, Spike began dragging Angel down the stairs. The other vampire may have sobered up slightly, but the thirty minutes crouched on the concrete had taken their toll. Angel wasn't tripping on air anymore, but from the way he was trembling, Spike could tell he wouldn't be able to stand on his own, either.

"You're an idiot, you know that?" he asked Angel, who was currently struggling to coordinate his muscles well enough to step downwards.

Angel nodded miserably and clutched at the bannister, hand shaking. Spike sighed. It was no fun when the idiot agreed with him.

Spike helped him down a few more steps. With Angel leaning on the bannister, the going was a little faster. Angel was still clammy and pale, but at least the vomiting seemed to have sobered him up some. He wasn't doing great, but Spike thought he might be doing better than before.

By the time they reached the next landing, Angel was walking nearly on his own. Okay, he was swaying a lot, and leaning heavily on both Spike and the wall, but he was moving. He had not reverted back to the loud, happy, and somewhat obnoxious drunk he had been on the metro, but Spike thought he currently had about as much alcohol in his system now as he'd had then. Spike had been genuinely starting to get a little worried, but now it was fading. The other vampire seemed sleepy now more than anything.

"Alright," Spike said. He was getting tired of nearly carrying Angel, and was hoping that soon he would sober up enough that he could stop. "How are you feeling now?"

"Mmmm," Angel groaned. "Are we almost back?"

"We're...still inside Wolfram and Hart."

Angel made a small, annoyed sort of sound in the back of his throat. Spike sighed. If Angel had just decided to be sober tonight, he would probably already be back in his bed by now and Spike would be long gone.

"I'm...I'm alright," Angel said. "Let...let go of me. I can go faster."

He started trying to shrug Spike off. The fact that he was even strong enough to attempt this indicated to Spike that he really was feeling better, and Spike let him go a little bit. He still seemed shaky and rather unbalanced, but he could stand unassisted, and that was improvement. Spike kept a hand on his shoulder, and told himself that it was because if Angel took a bad fall now it would slow them down even more, and not because he actually cared about the bastard.

"We're at the bottom of the stairs," Spike announced when they reached the bottom of the stairs. He thought Angel might be able to tell on his own, he was unsure how much he was tracking at this point but it was certainly more than he had been before. "Just have to get through the lobby and then we're out of this bloody building."

"Good." Angel glowered at the door to the lobby. "I hate this place."

"Can't wait to see the back of it myself," Spike agreed, pushing open the door at the bottom, then freezing in dismay. "Bollocks."

Angel felt Spike stiffen beside him, and drunk as he was, he could still tell that was a bad sign. His head snapped up, and he blinked spots away to make out four large demons, covered in spines and sporting some very nasty talons, rushing towards them.

"Angel, what the fuck are those?" Spike asked, sounding dangerously calm.

Angel swallowed nervously and prepared for the coming battle as well as he was currently able. "Demons," he hazarded.

"BUT WHAT ARE THEY DOING HERE?!" Spike snarled, dodging to the side as the demons approached. Angel threw himself into a roll, barely evading the swipe of the lead demon's talons.

"I guess the security guard must have woken up," Angel answered, wishing his head wasn't pounding quite so much. He backed slowly away from one of their four attackers.

"Security - you didn't kill him?" Spike twisted away from the leader's strike and danced under the arm of a greyish beast, managing to elbow it squarely in the chest as he went.

"Umm, no? Champion, remember?"

Spike sagged momentarily, then dove to safety as a dark green demon tried to stomp on him.

"Fine," he said, clearly annoyed. "I'll take the leader, the green one, and the grey one. Think you can handle the ugly one with the face like a squid?" He looked at Angel somewhat doubtfully.

"Easily," Angel scoffed, glaring at Spike. Spike wasn't watching, being somewhat occupied by the three demons closing in on him. Angel switched his attention back to the monstrosity in front of him. The creature was a good foot taller than him, and its tentacles were heavily serrated, waving menacingly in front of its "face" as it approached.

Angel looked down at his hands, which were still shaking slightly. His legs weren't too steady either. This wasn't anything close to the worst odds he'd faced, but they weren't the most encouraging, either.

From the other side of the room, Spike yelped in pain, and Angel automatically turned toward the sound. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the squid monster rushing toward him, its tentacles reaching for him eagerly.

No, this certainly wasn't his night.

Spike thought that he had bitten off a little more than he could chew. He was a good fighter, he wasn't going to lie. Normally, he could take three average demons without too much trouble. But these demons seemed specially trained. They were good. Maybe too good. And it wasn't like he could rely on Angel for help. The other vampire was still desperately trying to get an edge on the one single demon Spike had asked him to fight. Spike figured there was a pretty good chance he was going to have to end up taking that demon out too.

One of the demons had already caught Spike across the chest with a long, curved blade. It wasn't bleeding too badly, Spike didn't think, but he hadn't really taken the time to look down yet. It stung more than anything, which he thought had to be a good sign. If it had nicked anything really important, it would have hurt more.

The grey demon, the one with the knife, came at Spike again. Spike dodged to the side, and felt the knife graze his cheek. He turned back to the demon quickly, before it could figure out what had happened, and threw it to the ground. But he barely had time to blink before another one had come at him.

By the time he had taken out the first demon, he had another long cut carving across his shoulder, and a third one on his opposite forearm, which was slowly dripping blood onto the floor. Spike wasn't worried, he knew that it was blood he could afford to lose. But the one on his shoulder was especially painful, enough that he didn't want to use that arm.

From across the room, Spike heard a cry. He didn't want to let Angel distract him, but he couldn't help himself. He turned towards Angel, who had knocked his opponent to the floor and then proceeded to fall on top of him. He could probably finish the demon now if he was quick, but he seemed stunned.

"Get up, idiot!" Spike yelled. Angel started slightly at the noise, and Spike saw him begin to push himself to his feet.

It was then that the green demon came towards Spike with a dagger. Spike's attention was still on Angel, and he simply didn't see the blade in time. Then it was slicing across his stomach. This wound was bad, almost instantly Spike felt blood start to make the front of his shirt sticky.

Spike stumbled, hand automatically going to the deep slash. He pulled his fingers away and saw red, a lot of it, dripping off his hand and falling to the ever-growing pool on the floor. He blinked, vision beginning to blur slightly.

But the green demon was coming back at him, and the leader was advancing from the side. Spike tensed for attack, wincing as his many wounds protested. The demons rushed forward, and Spike dropped to the ground, rolling under the green demon's swipe and grabbing the sword dropped by the first demon. He came back up, letting his fangs show for effect.

"Might wanna back off," he told the two remaining demons, hoping he sounded and looked more menacing than he felt. "I'm one bad motherfucker in a corner."

The lead demon made a sound that Spike thought might have been a scoff, and stalked forward, baring its teeth.

"Worth a try," Spike muttered, and threw himself toward his approaching adversary. The demon raised its claws, and Spike went low, burying his stolen sword in the demon's gut. Footsteps behind his back startled him, and Spike yanked the sword out and spun around, blocking the green demon's strike.

Then, pain exploded across Spike's back, and he fell heavily to the ground. There was a thump as the leader toppled down beside him, and Spike heard the demon breathe its last.

Ordinarily, Spike would have taken this as a prime opportunity for gloating, but now his back was on fire from the thing's talons and he could barely move his right arm at all anymore. And on top of all of that, there was still one demon left.

The aforementioned demon chose this moment to grab Spike's collar, hoisting him into the air. Spike hung there limply, clutching the sword in blood-soaked fingers.

"Time to die," the demon said in a voice like a rockslide, brandishing its dagger. Spike took a split second to wonder just what it intended to do with a glorified pen knife, then buried his sword in the demon's arm.

The demon roared and dropped Spike again, right onto his injured arm. For a moment, everything went black. And then Spike was moving, and the world blurred into blades and violence and pain.

When Spike's head stopped swimming, he was standing above the demon's dead body, holding the head in his one functional hand. He opened his mouth to say something witty, only to be overwhelmed as a sharp pain in his chest made itself known.

Spike looked down at himself, or, more specifically, at the dagger buried hilt-deep in his chest.

"Oh," was all he managed to get past his suddenly numb lips before his legs buckled, and he hit the floor hard enough to make the world disappear.

Angel straightened up. His demon was dead. It hadn't been an easy fight for him, he was still feeling pretty nauseous and spinny. But he had done it, mostly just so he wouldn't embarrass himself in front of Spike.

Spike. Speaking of the other vampire, where was he? Angel looked around. All he saw was a pile of bodies on the ground, the demons that Spike had killed. But where was Spike himself? Had he just abandoned Angel as soon as he could reasonably leave with the spellbook?

And then Angel realized that one of the demons on the other side of the room was moving slightly. And had a shock of white-blond hair. And was wearing a leather jacket.

"Spike?" Angel cried, wishing desperately that his brain was working a little better. "Spike? Are you alright? What are you doing down there?"
Spike did not respond. Angel swore that he had seen the other vampire move, and that's what had attracted his attention. But now he wasn't so sure.

Angel crossed the room, and got on his knees beside Spike's limp body. He examined him carefully. Spike wasn't breathing, but then that wasn't anything out of the ordinary. He had a dagger buried in his chest, which wasn't great but it seemed to have missed his heart. It wouldn't kill him, but it would hurt like hell, probably for at least a few weeks. He saw nothing else on Spike's body that would pose a serious threat to a vampire, although he was covered in numerous wounds, some shallow and some not so shallow.

"Spike?" Angel stage-whispered. "Spike, can you hear me? Spike, we need to get out of here."

Nothing happened. Angel reached out and shook him a little. Spike groaned.

"Wake up," Angel hissed. "Spike, wake up!"

The sound of his name seemed to rouse him a little more, and he slowly opened his eyes.

"Bloody hell," he said, looking down at his blood-covered chest. His voice was quiet, and tight with pain. "They got me pretty good."

"You'll be fine," Angel said, trying his best to keep his voice light and encouraging. "Just walk it off."

As horrifying as the wounds on Spike were, it should lead to nothing more than a few weeks of misery. It wasn't going to kill him, or anything. But there was one scenario in which he died, in which they both did, in fact. And that was if Spike couldn't get himself out of Wolfram and Hart, and the lawyers showed up to find the two weakened vampires just sitting in the lobby with a stolen spellbook. Angel didn't think that would turn out very well at all.

"Spike?" Angel poked the other vampire in the shoulder. "Did you hear me? We gotta go."

Spike opened his eyes and glared at Angel, beginning to hoist himself up with one hand. Then, he gasped and fell back, other hand flying to his chest. "Gonna tell me to 'walk it off' again?"

Angel shrugged sheepishly. It had been worth a try. He grabbed Spike's less injured arm and lifted Spike off the ground, blinking away dizziness as he stood.

Spike made a sort of strangled squeak as Angel pulled him up, his skin going somehow even paler. After a fair amount of internal debate, Angel decided not to mention it. Spike could have just left him on the stairs, but he'd stayed. If Angel stuck with Spike now, he wouldn't owe him anything in the future.

Angel managed to arrange Spike in a way that looked as painless as possible under the circumstances, and they began limping toward the door. With every step, Angel could feel Spike leaning on him, could feel the tension in Spike's muscles as he struggled not to cry out. Angel had to give credit where credit was due, it was impressive that Spike was still holding himself together. The vampire was covered in fairly serious wounds, and there wasn't any good way for Angel to support him without hurting him. Every step had to be excruciating.

Angel dragged Spike a little farther, and Spike moaned involuntarily.

"Do you need to stop?" Angel paused, despite his better judgement.

"No," Spike hissed through gritted teeth. "I can keep going."

Angel glanced at Spike, pale and drawn with pain, then at the trail of blood he was leaving in their wake. Time for him to make an executive decision. He nodded decisively, and Spike mustered the strength to glare at him.

"We can't take the metro," Angel informed him. "I'll call a cab."

"No shit, Sherlock," Spike muttered.

"I'm gonna put you down against this wall," Angel said. "I'll be right over there. If you need anything, scream in agony."

Spike closed his eyes as Angel moved a few feet away and pulled out his cellphone. Everything hurt. A lot. The world was swimming sickeningly in front of him, and he was a little worried he was going to black out again. There wasn't much he could do to prevent it at this point, if it was going to happen it was going to happen. He was already sitting down, head leaning back against the glass exterior of Wolfram and Hart.

He didn't think he could die from blood loss, but it certainly couldn't be helping. Unless he wanted to spend the next week trapped in the Hyperion with Angel, too weak to move, he needed to do...something. Laboriously, he lifted his left hand and placed his palm over the gaping wound in his chest. It was hard for him to put much pressure on it, his muscles were exhausted, his arm felt like it belonged to someone else….

It seemed to only take a few seconds before his hand was sticky with blood.

"Um, yes," he heard Angel saying. "A cab to Wolfram and Hart please, yes, that's the correct address…."

Spike lazily opened his eyes and looked up at Angel, who was holding the phone like he thought it might explode in his hand but was doing a valiant job of not slurring. Spike could scarcely believe this was the same vampire who had just spent an inordinate amount of time crouched in a stairwell puking his guts up. The vomiting seemed to have done wonders to sober him up.

Although as much as Spike had hated taking care of Angel, he would much prefer that to having the other vampire take care of him…..

Spike let his eyes drift closed again. He was so tired, it simply seemed like too much work to keep them open.

After another moment, he heard Angel walk over and stand beside him. "Hey," Angel said, sounding awkward. "How...how are you doing?"

"Wonderful," Spike said.

"You may...want to try to pretend to be in less pain. When the cab gets here, I mean. It's pretty suspicious."

"Yes," Spike said, still not bothering to open his eyes. "That definitely seems possible."

"I just mean-"

"I get it." Spike wasn't necessarily trying to be snappy with Angel, but he was in a lot of pain, he couldn't help it. A groan slipped out from between his clenched teeth.

"You'll be alright," Angel said. He felt a hand come down on his shoulder. He supposed the gesture was meant to be comforting, but it wasn't. Partially because he didn't like Angel. Partially because there was a knife wound in his shoulder. Spike hissed in pain, and Angel quickly withdrew.

"Sorry," he said, and Spike couldn't see him but he just knew he was hovering there awkwardly with his stupid sad expression. Well, good. This was all his fault. Spike didn't respond, choosing instead to focus on not screaming.

Angel touched him again, this time not on top of a bloody wound.

"What is it," Spike said, noticing his words were slurring slightly.

"The cab's here," Angel answered.

"Already?"

Angel paused. "It's been fifteen minutes," he said, and there was a definite note of worry in his voice.

Spike considered this. It hadn't felt like fifteen minutes. It hadn't felt like any particular length of time at all, just a hazy jumble of pain and blood and nonsense sounds. That probably wasn't a good sign.

"Spike, come on," Angel said, sounding almost panicked now. "We gotta go."

Spike nodded wearily, or at least he thought he did. He wasn't quite sure if his muscles were working the way he wanted them to. He felt a hand on his wrist, and then he was being dragged upright, then shoved into a backseat smelling of cigarettes and curry. The combined scents made him queasy, intertwining with the pain and making him feel as though his stomach was going to claw its way out. He moaned.

"What's with him?" the taxi driver asked. Spike managed to open his mouth to reply, but nothing would come out. Angel would have to handle this one.

"He walked into a door," Angel said firmly. So much for that.

The cabbie laughed. "Yeah, sure. Hope they give you good benefits. Seems like I'm picking one of you lot up off the pavement every week."

"Not good enough," Angel answered, surprisingly quickly. "I gotta talk to HR."

"Hospital?" the taxi driver asked, and Spike felt Angel's hand tense unpleasantly on his wounded shoulder.

"No! No, go to the Hyperion. I...have a guy."

"You're payin' me," the driver answered, and the car began to move.

Spike curled against the pleather seat and tried not to think about whose hand was keeping him from falling.