Chapter 5
…Why Does It Hurt so Bad?…
Xander, fully clothed, running a hand through his dark hair, stumbled out of the locker room and walked past Buffy without seeing her.
She frowned as she watched him walk down the hall, his actions were suspicious. He stumbled into the wall and slid slightly down to the floor, shaking bodily like a man going through withdrawals.
Buffy rushed over to him and squatted down in front of him to touch his face. She pulled her hand away, shaking it as though she had been burned, he was so feverish. "Xander?" she questioned.
"You gotta love those undercover jobs," he quipped in a shaky tone with a laugh at the end. "Twenty minutes…" he shook some more then stilled, "…in a hot room with a bunch of sweaty guys..."
"Xander?" Buffy said his name once more in a worried tone.
He shook his head, "I need…" he tried to speak but he was shaking too much.
"Where's Gage?" she said as she noticed he was on his way to passing out.
"I don't know," he said as he closed his eyes. "He was just coming out of the sauna when I was finished with my shower." He tried to rise from the ground.
Buffy tried to help, but the young man shook her off. "Leave it!" he snapped rudely as he shook her off and headed down the hall at a controlled pace trying not to seize.
…Help Me if You can I'm Feeling down…
Xander entered the library, stumbled over to a table and collapsed on it still shaking.
Giles looked at him, wide eyed, "Xander, what's wrong?"
"Have the meds come in yet?" the young man questioned as he shook violently from the seizure.
"No," the Watcher said with a frown. "We should receive a package real soon though."
The X5 struggled to breathe calmly through the shakes. "I… had hoped… we left these… behind," he stuttered out at the end of a sob.
"You can have my turkey sandwich," the Watcher had remembered what the young X-5s had told him… about tryptophan, turkey and milk.
"That's…" Xander began, but a particularly violet shake overtook him and he rode it out and tried once more, "…better than nothing."
…My Foolish Friend…
Willow sat with Buffy surfing through the school medical files on a computer in the student lab.
"It was weird," the blonde Slayer told her friend. "He was shaking, I tried to help him but he was really rude… so totally not acting like our Xander shaped friend."
"Yeah," Willow nodded, "I've seen him do it too… And he's been late to class a few times," she flipped through some more school files, "…weird."
"Is he on something that we don't know about?" Buffy asked her friend.
"I don't know," the red head frowned.
"There," the blonde pointed to something onscreen.
"McAlvy, Dodd, torn tendon, depression, headaches," the hacker read, "Petronizi, Gage, fractured wrist, depression, headaches."
"It's all there in the records," Buffy said thoughtfully.
"Symptoms of steroid abuse," Willow trailed off as she noticed Xander, perky and upbeat, walk into the room.
"Steroid abuse is linked with, 'I'm a Fish'?" the young man quipped as he sat down next to her.
Buffy eyed him suspiciously; she looked for anything that would explain his earlier behavior.
"There must be something else that's wrong with them..." Willow trailed off thoughtfully.
"If steroids are that dangerous," Xander said with a thoughtful look on his face, "Why would they do that to themselves?"
"I don't know," Buffy said as she looked at him suspiciously, "Why would you do it?"
He looked at her for a long, hard moment. "I wouldn't," he finally said in a dead tone, "Why do you ask?"
"Why were you shaking earlier and your fine now?" Buffy confronted him.
Xander's eyebrows shot up as he looked at her, "I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about." He stood quickly and left the room.
Buffy and Willow shared a communicative look at one another.