Inspired by Eli Cash's 'I'm not in love with you anymore' scene in Wed Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, and also by the English Folk song The Flash Lad (also called Willow Day). Beta'd by RavenLove12

"Adieu, adieu h-hic-hard was my fate-"

CRASH

Spike laid sprawled across the armchair in his crypt, his fingers trailing to the pile of bottles on the floor by his chair, and closing round the neck of another. His voice echoed around the crypt, clear despite the alcohol separating his vision into sickening fractals.

"-I was brought up in a tender state-"

CRASH

He hurled the bottle into the pillar, reaching for another as it burst into shards.

"Bad company did me entice-

CRASH

"I left off work and took bad advice-"

"Spike?" The last bottle stalled in his hand. His eyes contracted painfully from the sliver of fading light intruding behind Buffy like an unwelcome guest.

"Bloody hell there's eight of you," he mumbled, rubbing his eye with his hand's heel. "What a fucking nightmare." CRASH.

"Were you singing Amazing Grace?" She asked, cocking an eyebrow at his withering glare.

"No."

She waited to see if he'd explain, and shrugged when he didn't. "There's trouble."

"When. Is there ever. Not?" He ground out.

"I need your help, I-... Are you drunk?"

He snorted, downing the last dregs from the wine bottle in his hand and hurling it into the wall to join the others. It exploded in a firework of green glass.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Look, I don't have time for this-"

"-I don't think about you."

Buffy blinked, taken aback. "What?"

"I don't think about you," he repeated, bleary eyes finding hers with difficulty. "I don't think about you. I don't- God-" he righted himself. "I don't think about being around you, or kissing you, or fucking you or the way you cried when I asked you to marry me and you said yes, or the way we-" He choked off, trying to remember what his point was supposed to be. "I don't think about any of it. You're a pain in the arse and I don't know why you don't just leave me alone if being around me is so fucking awful for you."

"Spike, I can't do this alone. I need-"

"Yeah! Yeah, me too, n'all, luv," he slurred, red eyes trying to focus on hers. "That's all I wan'ed, y'know? Just wan'ed notta be alone... an' I was at that stupid party-" he ran his hands down his face, fingers digging into his eyes until he could see dim dark red spots through his eyelids. "-and she was there twirlin' about and laughin' and they all bloody laughed and she laughed an' she said beneath-" his voice cracked then, and he made a sound like he'd swallowed his tongue. "Beneath me."

"What're you talking about?" Buffy asked but it didn't stop his drunken miserable rambling.

"And then I left, didn't I? Cus I was alone in a sea of fucking ARSEHOLES... and then SHE was there and I thought... that maybe that it might be better. Even if it hurt it'd be better than the hurt it already was hurting but it was just a new hurt. N' now I'm bloody stuck here-"

"Spike, would you SHUT UP I need your help-"

"You dun need me. You just want me." Wait no... that was backwards. Or maybe forwards? His thoughts were splashing around in his head on a sea of booze and agony, it was all so loud and painful.

Buffy's iron grip around his bicep unseated him from the armchair.

"Oi, get off!"

"GET A GRIP!" She shouted and he reared out of the way of her spitting fury. "Riley's lost in those stupid caves AND YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE that knows them!"

Spike winced, feeling like her words were trying to cut him in half brain to balls. The entire planet was trying to squash itself into his head, and he groaned, doubling over.

God, everything's running together. Everything hurts, it hurts-

'Spike? Spike!"

Buffy made an attempt to grab him as he fell backwards. He huffed as he hit the floor, moaning pitifully as he brought his hand up.

Four enormous shards of green glass protruded from his palm.

"Oh God!" Buffy paled. There was barely any blood welling up around the glass, but Jesus Christ if that'd been anyone else's hand it'd be a trip to the hospital and about a billion-zillion stitches. "Alright just- DON'T PULL THEM OUT-" She hauled him into the armchair, swatting his glass free hand away from his shredded palm.

He's shaking so bad. If he touches those shards he won't have any fingers left.

"Stay there! Don't touch, Spike! DON'T!" She skirted the broken glass to his liquor cabinet.

He's got to have a first-aid kit right?! Honestly the amount of times I've broken his nose, he's got to have SOMETHING!?

She unearthed a battered tin, finding gauze and bandages inside. A deep strangled groan turned her head.

"I SAID DON'T TOUCH! WHAT PART OF DON'T TOUCH DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND!?"

She pulled a footstool over to him, seating herself between his legs.

"Hurts," Spike croaked, but when she looked up his gaze was swaying at the floor between his feet. He leaned his head against the palm of his free hand as she yanked the mutilated one full of glass towards her. She tried not to look at his face. Sadness seemed to be drowning him.

She gripped the first large piece of glass, pulling it free with a nasty sucking sound. He barely moved, just a twitch of the fingers.

"You feel warm," he mumbled as she pulled another piece free.

His hand landed on her shoulder clumsily, slipping for a moment before his fingers found her hair spilled over her shoulder. She tried to focus on the shard buried underneath the fleshy mound of his thumb like a fish hook, made a mess of extracting the curved glass. He hardly seemed to notice.

"Stay with me, yeah?" He mumbled squeezing the join between her neck and her shoulder. Her heart tugged like she was pulling glass out of herself. "Let's just go to bed. Stay here with me." His forehead rested against hers and she froze, not thinking to pull back. "I love you."