Before I get on to the actual story, I'd also like to acknowledge some stories which influenced my concept for and writing of "Sock Puppet." Fandom is full of cross-pollination, and anything I read might plant a seed of an idea in my head for something I would like to write later, but when I was writing "Sock Puppet" I was particularly aware of four stories which had given me "Hey, I'd like to try something kind of like that!" feelings. In Savoytruffle's Survival Instincts, Xander has an OC boyfriend, Jamie, who was so very likeable that he made me feel okay about giving Xander an OC boyfriend myself. In Anaross's Unspoken, I met a mute Spike. The idea was intriguing. I wanted to try it myself. At the start of Metaphorgirl's Payless, Xander discovers a human, kinda broken Spike and takes him in. I loved the mood at the start of this story, and it made me very much want to play with the guys myself, giving them a similar dynamic. And finally, not long before starting "Sock Puppet" I read NWHepcat's Keeper of the Book, in which Xander is crazy. Which made me want very much to write crazy!Spike. Spike's habit in "Sock Puppet" of coloring in blank notebooks is sort of an homage to "Keeper of the Book," though of course Spike's notebooks have no mystical significance whatsoever.

The reason Xander was volunteering in the soup kitchen that night was because his boyfriend wanted to learn how to julienne carrots. I have trouble sometimes coming up with good first lines, but I like this one. It raises some questions right away: His boyfriend? What boyfriend? And "that night"? What's special about that night? Plus, "julienne" is a damn cool word which I'd never used before in a story, ever. Troy was on this "let's learn how to actually cook instead of living on Michelina's Frozen Dinners for the rest of our lives" kick, and apparently some master chef ran the soup kitchen Monday nights, and although soup kitchen food was pretty basic stuff, this chef taught you how to do it right. The soup kitchen concept is based on a real soup kitchen in Ottawa, Canada, where a RL friend of mine volunteers. The idea of combining self-improvement, couple togetherness time and charity work was irresistible to Troy. Especially that last one. He wanted to save the world.

Xander had never told him that he'd saved the world himself a time or three. He made a practice of not talking about that kind of thing anymore. This is very important: Xander's determination to deny his past and live a normal life is going to be the central conflict of this story. So he went along with the soup kitchen thing to humor Troy. Plus, there'd been kisses involved. And puppy dog eyes.

So six o'clock found Xander and Troy standing side by side, armed with ladles, doling out hot soup to L.A.'s homeless on what promised to be the coldest night in years. The forecast was calling for temperatures near freezing. When I first wrote this part, I was leaving open the possibility that there was a supernatural influence at work here. Maybe something about the impending apocalypse, or maybe the PtB using the cold to try to "nudge" Spike into Xander's path. Remember, the PtB did make it snow in Sunnydale that one time! Some of the more experienced volunteers had been talking about it in low, worried voices while they were chopping the vegetables earlier. The local shelters were filled past capacity.

Troy's smile was getting a little strained, but he was still doing his job, greeting each client warmly and ladling out thick, hot beef stew. Being in charge of the less popular veggie minestrone option, Xander had plenty of chances to look over and check out his boyfriend. Troy had his surfer boy look going tonight, which was pretty funny considering that he was afraid of the water. The bleached tips of his hair hung past his eyebrows, and he kept brushing them away with the back of his hand between clients. He'd probably want to cut it soon, which was too bad, since it was cute when it was shaggy. This description of Troy was one of the last things I added to the story!

A woman with a little boy came to the front of Troy's line. The boy was barely tall enough to see over the table, but he held up a bowl for Troy to fill and smiled at him, showing a gap in his front teeth. "Graçias," the boy said. The woman and boy were also last-minute additions—this paragraph was written literally three hours before I posted. Which, considering I'd spent three months writing the story, was very last-minute indeed! I put it in just to smooth the transition from Xander looking at Troy to Xander thinking about the night to come, but I think the whole scene works much better with this addition; the hungry child gives Xander a specific reason to think about how upsetting all of this is for Troy.

"De nada," Troy said, and Xander could see his heart breaking. This actually exceeds my own Spanish vocabulary. I knew "graçias" but had to ask Yourlibrarian how to say "you're welcome."

This was going to be a rough night, Xander could already tell. Oh man, Xander has no idea. Whenever Troy's starry-eyed idealism came hard up against a problem he couldn't solve, there was bound to be ranting and pacing and vows to change the world going on long past midnight, with maybe a breakdown around two or three a.m.. Xander's job was to be the calm one. The one who'd seen so much shit, he couldn't get worked up about it anymore. I like writing old-for-his-age, world-weary Xander. This Xander has a lot in common with his Fragments-verse counterpart, though in fact he's somewhat less screwed up; I wrote Fragments-verse Xander with full-blown PTSD, at least in the beginning, whereas this Xander is pretty much okay, just tired of all the shit.

A client stopped in front of Xander, waiting for soup. I used the word "clients" for patrons of the soup kitchen because that's the word that my friend who runs a food bank in Seattle uses for the people who use its services. I think I might not have been sure what word to use, otherwise, which might seem like a strange thing to be puzzled about, but word choice here is potentially problematic. I like "client" because it is accurate and also quite neutral. His head hung low; no eye contact for this guy. "Vegetarian minestrone?" Xander asked, just to make sure. He'd already had a few guys land in his line by mistake, and found them disappointed or belligerent when they discovered there was no meat in the bowl he'd handed them.

This guy didn't even give a sign he'd heard Xander. With his head ducked down, his shaggy dark blond curls hid his eyes. I figured that most readers would immediately realize that this is Spike. Xander takes a little longer to figure it out, since he didn't get to read the story header information. His shoulders were hunched in a too-big olive army jacket, his arms wrapped tight around his chest. It takes a while for the full extent how screwed-up Spike is to be revealed, but I think his physical presense here is already a strong clue.

Little bit crazy, Xander guessed. Not like he was the first one tonight. Jenny, the volunteer coordinator, had warned them up front. The hospitals are underfunded and overcrowded. A lot of people who should be in care end up on the street. They're some of our most vulnerable clients, and we help them as much as we can and treat them with dignity. They're mostly harmless, but if someone's making you uncomfortable, call me or one of the social workers over right away.

This guy was twitching a little, but he didn't look like trouble. Xander filled up a bowl and held it out. "Here you go," he said. "Minestrone goodness."

Reaching out to take the bowl, the guy finally looked up and met Xander's eye.

I know that guy from somewhere. For a moment, he couldn't place him. He had the feeling it was someone he should know well, but not from L.A.. From Sunnydale, maybe? Oh. Oh fuck. Originally, I had Xander recognizing Spike as soon as he saw his face. Yourlibrarian suggested that Spike had changed enough, and was sufficiently unexpected in this context, that it would probably take Xander a moment to get it. I think she's right. The ladle dropped from Xander's suddenly-numb fingers. "Spike?"

Spike's eyes widened, registering shock. In the long second they stared at each other, Xander had time to notice his matted hair, the shadows under his eyes, and a new pink scar that touched his upper lip, distorting the left side of his mouth just slightly. His face was gaunt, and kind of dirty.

None of this explained why he wasn't dust, or what the fuck he was doing in a soup kitchen.

Before Xander could figure out what to say or do, Spike broke eye contact and jerked his bowl of soup away so fast he spilled half of it over his hands and the table. Xander watched him hurry away, cradling the bowl in front of him. Spike didn't look back; he headed for the far side of the big room.

"Xander?" Troy said, touching his shoulder. "You know that guy?"

"Yeah." Xander was still watching Spike, noticing the furtive, uncertain way he moved between the tables, looking for a place.

"Do you know him well?" Troy asked, obviously impatient with Xander's terse answer.

Xander wasn't even sure what a true answer to that question would be. Heh. Seriously. "We knew each other in Sunnydale," he said, hoping that would kill the subject. Troy knew he didn't ever talk about Sunnydale.

Troy didn't look satisfied, but he had to give his attention back to the line of people waiting for stew. So Xander had a few minutes to think about the situation.

What he thought was: Fuck. He didn't deal with this kind of thing anymore. He was fucking retired. The underworld left him alone, and he left it alone, and so it would go until the end of the world. This is the first mention of the impending apocalypse, though it's sufficiently oblique that probably nobody got it! That was the deal. Okay, not the deal in any sense of it having been agreed upon by any responsible parties or signed in blood or even said out loud, but still. It'd been working. He'd been living a perfectly ordinary, mundane life for a year and a half now, and damned if he was going to get sucked back into the metaphorical (or possibly literal) Hellmouth by Spike. This is mid-January 2006, by the way. Not quite two years after NFA. The idea here is that pretty soon after NFA, the Raven, Bear & Snake started their taking-over-the-world campaign and the Scoobies/Watchers started fighting them. It's been a longish fight; the Slayers beat back the Mirodan quite thoroughly in the fight in which Buffy died, but it was only a matter of time before the Mirodan rebuilt their numbers and attacked in force again.

Spike, who by the way was supposed to be dust—but hey, not like he hadn't pulled that one before. He'd dusted in Sunnydale, too, and that had lasted, what, less than a month? Here I'm letting the reader know that in this story's reality, Xander did eventually hear about Spike's post-Chosen resurrection. Canon, of course, gives us no word on that one way or the other. Anyway, there hadn't been any surviving witnesses to the big battle in L.A.. They'd all just assumed Spike was gone when he never showed up. Here I imply that Angel, Gunn and Illyria were killed and/or destroyed in the battle. In any case, none of them will surface during this story!

"So, Xan," Troy said, dropping his ladle into his now empty pot with a dull thunk, "The look you and that guy gave each other was pretty intense. Are you exes or something?"

"What?" Xander squeaked. He cleared his throat, raking his hair back with one hand. "No. God no. He was, uh, involved with a friend of mine for a while. A female friend."

"In Sunnydale."

Xander nodded. And noticed the curiosity in Troy's eyes, and realized he'd already made a big mistake. This is why Troy's in the story: to be curious. To push. To be an outsider, an audience for the spectacle of Xander's "normal" life unravelling. Also, of course, to convince Xander to bring Spike home in the first place. I like that comment, because it implies the second audiencing. Troy makes the reader more of an insider because the typical reader will understand much more about Xander's behavior during the story period than Troy will. Which is a tricky thing for a writer because you don't want the reader to lack respect for the character but at the same time his position of ignorance is necessary to remind the reader what a real outsider would see.

Up until now, he'd never said a word to Troy about his life in Sunnydale other than the bare fact that he came from there. It was a decision he'd consciously made when he cut ties with the Council and started trying to live this new life—it was too hard to talk about the Sunnydale days. Too much pain and too many things he could never explain to a normal guy like Troy. So Xander became the guy with the dark, mysterious past—at least it went well with the glass eye, the limp and the African tattoos. That's a lot of important information right there! At this point, it's basically descriptive and scene-setting—giving you a better idea what this Xander looks like and what kind of vibe he gives off. But of course the tattoos are going to turn out to be central to the plot, and this is me being all sneakily casual about introducing them.

Troy was gazing in Spike's direction now, looking thoughtful. "I bet he could use a place to stay tonight."

"No," Xander snapped quickly. "No fucking way."

Troy blinked, clearly a bit distressed by Xander's reaction. "It's supposed to get into the mid '30s tonight. I can't think in Fahrenheit; I had to decide on the temperature in Celcius and then convert it with one of those online conversion applets. You're going to let a guy you know sleep on the street?"

"He's probably not actually on the street," Xander protested, feeling his face flush under the You kick puppies, don't you? look that Troy was giving him. Puppies seem to be a recurring image in this story. I don't know quite how that happened. "He's—he's good at finding places to stay." Of course at this point Xander still thinks Spike's a vampire, and that he's staying in a crypt or something.

"What, like, abandoned buildings?" Troy frowned at Xander. "Not good enough. But hey—if you're going to be a big asshole tonight, I'll invite him back to my place." So here's a little more info about Troy and Xander's relationship: they don't actually live together. One of my goals, in writing, is to slip exposition in so you don't notice it happening. I like when it works. I cringe when it fails.

Oh Christ. This just got worse and worse. For about the first time ever, Xander wished the word vampire meant more to Troy than B-movies and bedtime stories. Only, the fact that it didn't was exactly the state of affairs Xander was trying to preserve here. "That's a bad, bad idea," Xander said. "He's a ... he's ..." Right, Xander, how are you going to finish that sentence? A monster? A mass murderer? A sexual predator? "Last time he lived with me he stole my stuff." Poor Xander. Seriously, how would you explain Spike to Troy?

Troy mock-punched Xander's shoulder. "You lived together? You said you barely knew him!"

"I don't think I said that." In fact, he didn't, though he sorta-kinda-implied it. He's definitely trying to minimize his history with Spike, to avoid making Troy overly curious. He is, of course, completely failing. Xander set down his ladle, since there didn't seem to be anyone else wanting soup right now. Oh man, you would not believe how much I struggled with making the blocking work in this scene. Are they still serving? Are there breaks in the talking? Are other people around them? "Anyway, we didn't exactly live together—he just stayed with me a couple of times. And it always ended badly, so just let it go, okay?"

"You lived together," Troy repeated, like he hadn't been listening to a word Xander just said. "In Sunnydale." He backed away from Xander suddenly with a definite glint in his eyes. "I'm going to talk to him!"

"What? No! Troy, please!" Xander begged, but Troy was already around the serving table and walking away.

Someone touched his shoulder on his blind side. "Xander?" It was Jenny, the volunteer coordinator. "Is something wrong?"

Xander's taut nerves cried yes! even as his tongue managed an unconvincing "No." He shrugged, trying to deflect her concern, to keep this from turning into a bigger deal than it already was. "Just a guy I know from somewhere else."

Leaving Jenny behind, Xander followed Troy. His palms were sweaty now, and he could feel his heart thudding. Don't panic, he instructed himself. At least he still has a soul. Probably. That last thought got reworked a bit. Originally it was just "He still has a soul. Probably." I changed it because Yourlibrarian pointed out that it made it seem like the state of Spike's soul was the main source of Xander's concern, whereas actually the fact that it's Spike is the main source of worry; Xander doesn't care much whether Spike has a soul or not, he's just trying to comfort himself in an "Oh well, it could be worse!" kind of way.

Troy was waiting for Xander at the end of the table where Spike was. He looked a little smug, a little excited—to him, Xander realized, Spike must seem like the key to a giant exciting mystery. Fuck.

Xander put an arm around Troy's waist, kissed his earlobe and said very quietly, "Please, Troy. Let it go. You talk to him, you're opening Pandora's box. Nothing but trouble."

Troy squeezed Xander's hand. "He's in trouble, Xan. We have to help him. It doesn't look like he has a lot of friends." Troy very much wants to talk to Spike in hopes of learning more about Xander, but he also sincerely wants to help him. I figure Troy is attracted to people who need him, to a certain extent—and there's an aspect of that in his relationship with Xander, too.

"That much is true," Xander murmured, distracted. Spike, at the far end of the table, didn't seem to have noticed them yet. His fist was pressed against his mouth and his shoulders were shaking like he was coughing. No, not like—he was coughing. Xander could hear him even over the babble of voices and clattering of forks and spoons. Vampires don't cough. A wiggly, tickly feeling seemed to expand out from the base of his skull—a long-dormant Sunnydale instinct telling him there's something weird going on here. Spike was pressing a paper napkin against his mouth now, coughing into it. The gesture struck Xander as oddly dainty. Victorian. In "Late Night Porn Store Blues," my other Xander-encounters-human-Spike story, Xander spends a whole evening with Spike without even realizing he's human; Angel has to tell him. In this story, however, Spike is more obviously changed, and Xander figures it out quickly.

He approached Spike, with Troy trailing after him. Spike had stuffed the napkin in his pocket and was spooning up the last of his soup.

"Hey, Spike," Xander said, trying for casual.

Spike looked up with a jerky, startled motion. His eyes met Xander's and a look of panic crossed his face. He pushed his chair back with a screech of metal on linoleum and stood up like he was going to run, but Troy was there blocking his way.

"Um, hi ... Spike?" Troy said with what he clearly meant for a reassuring smile. He backed off a step, and held up empty hands. "I'm Xander's, uh, friend. We thought you might like a place to stay tonight. Since it's, um, gonna be cold." My characters tend to say "uh" and "um" a lot, because I want to evoke the hesitations of real speech. I hope it doesn't get too annoying!

Spike was frozen between them now. He was wide-eyed and breathing fast like a terrified animal. He still hadn't said anything. The fact that Spike is completely mute comes out gradually; it's not something that Xander's necessarily going to notice right at first, because hey, maybe Spike just doesn't want to talk to him. They were starting to draw attention.

"It's okay," Xander said to him. "You don't have to come with us if you don't want to." A part of him hoped Spike would refuse to go anywhere with them—that he'd swear and flip them off and stomp away, and then Xander could say to Troy "hey, we tried" and they could get on with their lives. Sink back into the normal.

But Spike and normal were like oil and water, and the wild-eyed Spike standing in front of him now seemed further from normal than ever. He was hugging himself with a white-knuckled grip and shaking.

Something was wrong with him, that much was obvious. It was sort of like back in the high school basement, only without the cryptic babbling. Because let's not forget, Spike's been crazy before!

Spike coughed again suddenly, muffling it against his grimy sleeve. The cough had a nasty, rattling sound to it. Xander was starting to suspect something fairly impossible. He couldn't ask Spike outright, not with Troy and all these other people around. So he said "That's a bad cough you've got there, Spike. How long's that been going on for?" It has been observed that I have a kink for sick!Spike. Oh man, do I. I am such a h/c whore! Thank goodness I discovered others of my kind.

Whatever response he'd been hoping for, he didn't get it. Spike kept a wary gaze on Xander and wrapped his arms around himself again. It wasn't clear if he'd even understood the question. It's possible that he didn't. Spike is pretty out of it here. Of course, even if he does understand he can't communicate it. While I was writing I did try to keep track of what was going on in Spike's head, even when he couldn't express it and Xander, the POV character, had no real way to guess.

Troy tugged at his wooden bead necklace—that was a nervous tic he had—and gave Xander a beseeching, do something look.

"Spike, give me your hand," Xander said. He had to see if his suspicion was right. He wasn't sure how well this would work, though—Spike was giving off the vibe of a guy who didn't want to be touched. Rather than offering his hand, he just looked at Xander, his eyes blank and scared.

Xander reached out to take Spike's hand. No sudden movements, just slow and gentle. He had a feeling Spike might bolt if he was startled. Even though a minute ago Xander had been wishing Spike would just leave, he figured now that since this situation had fallen into his lap, he had some kind of responsibility to deal with it.

You can't just turn your back on it all, said a little voice in Xander's head that sounded very much like Willow.

I can and I did, he replied. This is just ... a blip. More hints here about the rift between Xander and his friends.

Spike didn't resist Xander taking his hand. In fact, strangely, he seemed to relax at Xander's touch. The shaking stopped and his breathing got quieter. His eyes fixed on Xander, almost ... curious. Xander's presence has this effect on Spike for a combination of reasons. First of all, the Powers that Be have been nudging Spike in Xander's direction, so he's getting a sort of faint metaphysical pat on the back right about now. Also, Xander's tattoos are attractive to Spike in a supernatural way that won't become clear until the end of the story. But finally, I think that even though Spike is quite out-of-it here, the fact that someone's touching him without meaning him harm or wanting anything from him is registering in a sort of comforting way. He does recognize Xander, and although their history isn't totally friendly, he would know that Xander at this point is more likely to help him than hurt him.

Xander was aware of his audience. A dozen or so people at the nearest tables were watching them now, staring openly or furtively. So he just held Spike's hand, but he let two fingers slide up to press against the inside of Spike's wrist. I was really torn about whether this physical description actually makes sense. I'm not sure I could find someone's pulse like that. But it gets the idea across.

He felt warm skin, and a hummingbird pulse.

So. Spike was human, or something like it. And he was kind of a mess.

"Troy," Xander said quietly, still holding Spike's hand, "Find Jenny and let her know we have to go now, okay?" They were supposed to stay and help with the cleanup, but there were five other volunteers, and Xander figured these circumstances were exceptional enough to justify skipping off. "Bring my jacket and meet us at the car." He turned back to Spike. "I'm taking you back to my place. Just like old times, hey?" No reaction. Spike gazed at him, apparently calm—but Xander was starting to wonder whether whatever had happened to Spike had included massive brain damage. Did he even recognize Xander? Maybe he'd run away back at the serving table just because Xander spoke to him, not because he wanted to avoid a Sunnydale reunion.

First order of business—get him out of here. Maybe he'd be more communicative once they were on their own. For now he figured he might as well at least assume Spike understood what he was saying, until proven otherwise. "I'm parked a couple of blocks away," he said, carefully letting go of Spike's hand.

Spike visibly drew in on himself at the loss of contact. His arms wrapped around his body again, and a shadow of muted fear flickered across his eyes. Okay, that was fairly high on the disturbing scale, considering their shared history—since when did Xander's presence have a calming effect on Spike? Xander briefly contemplated the possibility that this Spike was from an alternate reality where he and Xander didn't hate each other, but quickly discarded the idea as highly improbable. What kind of crazy reality would that be? That last line was another of the last-minute edits; the idea for the "alternate reality" remark was Yourlibrarian's. I like it because in the Buffyverse, it's a real possibility!

Spike followed Xander out of the community hall and onto the street. Xander kept slowing down to let Spike catch up, but Spike slowed down every time he did, apparently determined to remain several steps behind. After a few repetitions of this pattern Xander gave up and just took the lead; he could tell Spike was still following because he heard him coughing.

He tried communication one last time once they were about a block away from the community hall. "Spike, what happened to you?"

Spike gave no sign he'd even heard the question. He was coughing into his napkin again, which looked worse for the wear. Xander guessed there might be phlegm involved. God only knew what kind of cooties Spike had. Hopefully not the supernatural kind. In fact he has TB, as will be established in chapter 3 after he's been to the hospital. He easily could have picked it up while living on the streets and/or in shelters in L.A., but actually I'm assuming that he brought it with him from Victorian England. I use the same basic premise here that I did in the Fragments-verse: that when Spike reincarnated as human, his body came back to him exactly as it had been when Drusilla killed him. Germs and all. Since his mother was canonically dying of TB, I take it as a given that he had it too. In the Fragments-verse he got pretty sick with it when he first came back as human, but Angel got him to a hospital, and that all happened months before Xander ran into him.

Xander felt around in his own pocket and discovered a couple of folded kleenex. "Here," he said, offering them to Spike. "You look like you could use these."

Finally, a reaction. Spike reached out and took the tissues. Nothing showed in his face, though, and he didn't meet Xander's eyes. Xander shrugged to himself, and continued towards the car.

He wondered whether Spike had noticed his limp—or, well, given that he couldn't have missed seeing it, walking behind Xander the way he was, Xander wondered whether it had registered. Whether Spike was at least privately wondering whether Xander had run into one too many gravestones, or what. The gravestones line was Yourlibrarian's, too.

Then again, maybe Spike knew. Maybe he'd been in contact with the Scoobies-turned-Council more recently than Xander had. Not like Xander would know if he had. That might be one explanation for Spike's fun new dissociative state—maybe he'd heard how Buffy had died. I like doing this: casually dropping a bombshell (Buffy's dead!) and then not explaining for, like, 6 more chapters.

That still wouldn't explain the pulse and the body temperature, though. Or why Spike was alone in L.A..

They only had to wait a minute for Troy, who could walk a lot faster than Xander.

"Hey, how's it going?" Troy greeted them, his cheerfulness only slightly awkward as he slid into the passenger side. Xander caught the look on his face, quickly suppressed, as he noticed the reek of Spike in the back seat. Xander shot Troy a quick little grimace—what did you expect? Aren't you glad this story isn't scratch'n'sniff?

Spike was huddled against the driver's side back door. Xander hadn't tried to get a seatbelt on him.

"So, Spike, I guess you haven't seen Xander in a while," Troy said. His tone still had that trying-too-hard edge to it; bringing Spike home had been his idea, and he probably thought he'd talked Xander into it, so now he felt responsible. He must've guessed by now that he wasn't going to get a response from Spike, so he just kept talking. "He's never mentioned you to me, but don't feel bad—he never talks about anyone from Sunnydale. I guess that was a hard thing to live through, huh?" I assume there was some official story about how Sunnydale was destroyed.

"Troy," Xander said, gripping the steering wheel just a little bit tighter, "We're not going to talk about Sunnydale."

"I'm just trying to make him comfortable," Troy whispered.

"Talking about Sunnydale isn't going to help with that." At least, it sure didn't make Xander feel comfortable.

Troy's fingers worried at his bead necklace. "Xan, I think we might have to talk about it now."

"Not gonna happen, Troy." Xander reached down and turned on the radio, ending the conversation. To me this line said a lot about what Xander is like these days, and what their relationship has been like as well

Things were relatively peaceful for a few minutes. But a little while after they pulled onto the freeway, Spike started trying to get out of the car.

Troy noticed before Xander did. "Hey, don't do that," he said nervously, twisting around in his seat.

Xander glanced over his shoulder and discovered that Spike was rattling the door handle. "Shit, Spike, stop that." Spike didn't react to Xander's voice any more than he had to Troy's. "It's okay," Xander said quietly to Troy. "That side's broken anyway." Xander's car, by the way? Is pretty crappy.

Instantly, Spike lunged for the door handle on the other side.

"Fuck!" Troy tried to reach back and grab him, but the angle was too awkward. Xander, still driving, couldn't see properly what was going on. He could tell by the sound of roaring wind that the door had opened a crack. Troy was swearing and climbing onto his knees facing backwards, still more-or-less tangled up in his own seatbelt. Xander swerved into the breakdown lane and braked hard.

Spike was out the door before the car had fully stopped. He fell to his hands and knees and skidded and rolled, but by the time Troy got out of the car he was on his feet and running. Troy sprinted after him. Xander followed at a staggered lope, hating his messed-up leg for slowing him down. Spike was fucking crazy, there was no telling what he'd do—

And then he did it. With Troy almost close enough to tackle him, Spike ran out into the traffic.

Car horns started keening. Headlights blurred in Xander's vision like in a long-exposure photograph. Troy hesitated at the edge of the breakdown lane.

"No!" Xander shouted, heading for him as fast as he could. His right leg was on fire. Spike stood still now in the middle of the third lane. He was holding his head high for the first time all evening, facing the oncoming traffic, and his arms were half-raised, palms forward. A high-intensity streetlight caught his hair like a halo, and that was the thought that popped into Xander's head in the midst of the mind-numbing fear—Spike looked like a suicidal angel. Xander's fear is mostly for Troy, but at least a little for Spike, too. He's not starting to like Spike yet, but he's starting to feel some responsibility towards him.

The traffic was stopping. An SUV braked gently, coming to a stop a few feet in front of Spike and turning on its 4-way flashers. In the lanes between Troy and Spike, cars and trucks were slowing to a crawl. Much later in the story, Spike will allude to the fact that he's tried to kill himself but "it never works." My concept here is that the PtB are working to keep Spike alive, but they can only act indirectly, so their involvement is always ambiguous. Maybe it was just lucky that all the drivers managed to avoid Spike—or maybe they had a little help.

And then Troy sprinted across three lanes and grabbed Spike from behind.

Spike fought him—not like a vampire or even an experienced street-fighter, but more like a frightened child. He twisted and squirmed and pounded Troy's chest with his fists. Xander was limping across three lanes of stopped traffic towards them now. Troy was desperately, ineffectively trying to calm Spike down, shouting, "It's okay, it's okay, I won't hurt you!" over the honking of dozens of irritated motorists. As Xander got closer he saw the panicky, desperate look on Spike's face. And Spike still wasn't saying a word. Originally, I had the drivers towards the front refraining from honking, since they could see what was happening. Yourlibrarian told me this was unrealistic. What can I say? I'm from a small Canadian city where cars habitually stop for pedestrians!

"Little help here?" Troy gasped as Spike's elbow randomly caught him in the stomach.

"Spike, it's me." Xander hoped he could calm him down like he had before—it didn't have to make sense, it just had to work.

He didn't expect it to work so fast. Spike jerked his head around as soon as Xander grabbed his arm. Xander got a glimpse of the wild panic in his eyes—but only a glimpse, because as soon as his gaze fixed on Xander, calm descended. He stopped fighting so suddenly that Troy stumbled, and Xander had to catch them both.

The driver of the SUV had stepped out onto the road. It was a silver-haired man in a business suit, with a build suggesting 'former linebacker.' "What's up with him?" he asked in a tone wavering between belligerent and concerned. "You better get him the fuck off the road."

"I'm really, really sorry," Xander said, already steering the suddenly-compliant Spike back towards the edge of the road and their abandoned car. "He's off his meds. Things got out of hand. I'm so very, very sorry."

Back at the car, still holding on to Spike, Xander said to Troy, "I think you'd better drive."

Spike climbed into the back seat willingly enough with Xander holding his hand. Xander managed not to make any verbal sign of dismay when Spike curled up and rested his head on Xander's lap.

The homeless-guy smell was pretty rank, but Xander could deal. He'd smelled worse. He hoped Spike didn't have, like, lice or something—but again, he could deal. Originally I tried to fit some exposition in here about how Xander had volunteered for a while in a health clinic somewhere in Africa, and therefore had gotten hardened to all sorts of squicky stuff. But it didn't fit well here; it was unnecessary and disrupted the flow. I ended up bringing up the topic in an offhand way much later in the story to explain some of Xander's sensible actions in first-aid situations. The fact that it was Spike curled up on his lap, though—that was freaking Xander out on many levels simultaneously.

"Off his meds?" Troy said once he'd got them back on the road. His voice was shaking a little. "Got anything you wanna share, Xan?"

"I made that up," Xander admitted. He was trying to figure out where to put his hands. He finally settled for letting one rest on Spike's waist, and the other lie along the bottom of the window. He could feel Spike trembling. He wondered if that was a delayed fear reaction, or what. He wondered what the hell Spike had run out in traffic for, and why he'd come back so easily as soon as Xander got there. "People like an explanation. It stops them asking questions." Of course when he tries to put this theory into practice with Troy, Xander's just going to dig himself into deeper and deeper holes.

Troy caught Xander's eye in the rear-view mirror. "Why did you tell me he wasn't your ex?"

"Huh? What? He's not. I told you, I never dated a guy before you." A little more sneakily-inserted exposition. This being a slash story, it's nice at some point to establish Xander's sexuality and sexual history. So this is where I let readers know how I'm dealing with Xander's canonical history of dating women: it happened, but he's dating a boy now.

"So why's he all over you like that? Why's your touch the only thing that calms him down?"

"I have no idea." They were starting to talk about Spike like he wasn't there, Xander realized—which was probably a natural result of him not ever saying anything. "This is so fucked up. When we knew each other before, we hated each other." Which was an oversimplification bordering on a lie, but no way was Xander going into details. How could he explain his history with Spike without using the word vampire?

Off the freeway now and stopped at a red light, Troy turned around. "He likes your tatt," he observed.

Xander's right sleeve had ridden up far enough to expose the tattoo on the inside of his wrist—a silhouette of a fern in black ink. Spike had lifted his head to see it, and was tracing it with his fingers.

The description of the tattoo here was another thing that changed just a few hours before posting. In the original draft, the tattoo described was a plain spiral pattern. When I'd first decided that Xander had tattoos, I'd googled "African Tattoos" and come up with some pictures that I liked, but I only imagined Xander's tattoos being of a similar style, not literally the same designs. A night or two before posting, I showed Yourlibrarian the site I'd originally looked at, and she noticed the descriptions of the meanings of the actual symbols, and started picking out ones that seemed especially appropriate. So then I got excited about the idea of using those particular symbols, and I asked her to incorporate them into a story icon for me (for posting to LJ). We debated how many symbols there actually were (settling on six), and Yourlibrarian is the one who actually picked them out! You can see all of the symbols that make up Xander's tattoos here.

Xander shivered involuntarily. He fervently hoped that Spike's interest in the design was purely of the I'm-crazy-and-it's-pretty variety, as opposed to the I'm-mystically-possessed-and-drawn-to-its-power variety. Sorry Xander, it's door number two!

Giles had promised him that the tattoos would become magically inert at the end of the ceremony. He'd promised.

"There won't have been anything. They're working a large-scale glamour—I expect you'll find Mongolia completely excised from the international news. I just looked at that sentence now and went "Oh, crap, I spelled glamour the Canadian/British way instead of the American way!" Which would make sense if Giles were writing this conversation, but not for speech, since I'm using American spellings in this story. (Though not in my colour commentary here!) Anyway. I just double-checked online with the American Heritage Dictionary, and apparently contrary to the usual -or vs. -our pattern, glamour is actually the preferred American spelling. Whew! Dodged that bullet! But I imagine they'll be moving beyond stealth soon enough. Two or three weeks, perhaps." Originally it was months, rather than weeks. I imagined Spike staying with Xander for a month or two. But then as the story progressed, I realized that things needed to move along much more quickly.

Xander closed his eyes. Ah, yes. His eyes. I worried a lot in this story about the singular versus the plural when talking about Xander's eyes. He only has one eye, of course, this story being set post-Caleb. But he uses a glass eye a lot of the time, so for some intents and purposes, he has two eyes. Like, in that sentence there, what I meant was that he closed both of his eyelids—one of which closed over a real eye, and one of which closed over a glass eye. Throughout the story, I alternate between the singular and the plural depending on context. He hadn't known it would come quite this soon, but he'd known it was coming. He'd known for as long as he'd lived in L.A.—you can't walk out on an apocalypse.

He wasn't going to apologize. He'd done everything he could, and more. And after Buffy died, after it became horribly apparent that they couldn't possibly win this one, he'd decided to take a shot, however brief, at living a normal life. And if that meant cutting himself off from all his friends who were determined to go down fighting—well, it sucked, but that was the way it was.

"Oh well," Xander said. "Sorry you can't help."

"As am I," Giles said. And hung up.

Xander listened to the dial tone for a good thirty seconds before he turned the handset off.

"So," Troy said from the doorway, "Who's Giles?" Apparently Troy never heard that saying about curiousity and the cat?

"Fuck!" Xander yelped, nearly dropping the phone. He wrenched his head around to glare at Troy. "Were you eavesdropping on me?"

"Sorry," Troy said, though he didn't sound or look it. He crouched down next to Xander and took the phone from Xander's numb fingers. "Who's Giles?"

Xander was desperately trying to remember exactly what he'd said. Unlike us, he can't just scroll back up! In fact, I make a point of that; Xander can't remember exactly what he said, which words he used, so he has to gauge it from Troy's reactions. "Troy, you do not listen in on my private conversations. It is not cool. It is not okay."

Troy finally started to look ashamed. He tugged at his bead necklace and ducked his head. "Sorry, Xan. I just came out to see how you were doing, and you were on the phone."

Xander tried to get some control over his own voice—the more he panicked, the more Troy would wonder what was up. "What did you hear?"

"Giles is from Sunnydale too, right? And he knows Spike. It sounded like you thought he would help, but he won't."

Okay. Troy obviously hadn't heard anything really weird, or he'd be asking about it now. "Yeah," Xander said, starting to stand up and letting Troy give him a hand. "That's pretty much it."

"So who is he?" Troy asked for the third time.

Xander sighed. "My old high school librarian."

Troy gave him a funny look. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"And why won't he help?"

"He's got his own shit to deal with. He doesn't have time for this."

"Something to do with Mongolia?"

Xander froze. "What about Mongolia?"

Troy frowned. "Well, I don't know, you're the one who was talking about it."

"Nothing's happening in Mongolia." Nothing but the beginning of the end of the world.

"Okay," Troy said, and walked away towards the bedroom.

Xander followed, and discovered Troy opening up his laptop. The computer itself was a leftover from Xander's days with the Council, but he sure didn't have the Demons, Demons, Demons database bookmarked anymore. Referring, of course, to the website mentioned in AtS 1.16 "The Ring." By the way, did you know that someone made it into a real website? http://angel.fcpages.com/ddd.html. "What are you doing?"

"Google news," Troy said, tapping at the keyboard. Troy reacts like a normal person would, I think. "Huh. Well, that's weird."

"What?" Xander caught up and looked over Troy's shoulder.

"Your search - Mongolia - did not match any documents," Troy read off the screen. "No pages were found containing 'Mongolia'." To make this as realistic (ha!) as possible, I went to Google news and typed in a nonsense word to see what message would show up when there were no hits. He looked back at Xander. "Isn't that weird?"

"Told you," Xander said. "Nothing's happening in Mongolia." Heh.

"But—" The point being, of course, that it makes no sense for Mongolia to not show up at all in Google News. This is the first clue Troy gets that something very big is going very very wrong, but of course he has no real chance of understanding what's going on.

The glamour, by the way, stops people in general from noticing that Mongolia has disappeared from the news (even people who'd normally be concerned with Mongolia, like people who do business with it or whatever). Sort of like the Ben-is-Glory thing. Troy's able to notice what's going on only because it was specifically brought to his attention.

Xander cut off Troy's protests with a kiss. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Maybe their server's down. Let's go to bed."

It wasn't that apocalypses made him horny. It was just that when he knew that everything was about to go to hell, he wanted to cling to as much joy as he could. He wanted to love, and be loved. He wanted to caress, and be caressed. He wanted to fuck. He wanted that moment of climax when he could forget that the world was ending, and he wanted it as often as possible.

Okay. Maybe apocalypses did make him horny. This line got particularly good reader reactions, which made me happy. And I figure it's a true thing about Xander, given his canonical history.

By the way, did you notice how I just totally skipped over writing the actual sex scene?

Xander woke up straight into an adrenaline rush. Someone was screaming. His hand closed around the baseball bat he kept by his bed before he was even awake enough to remember who was supposed to be in the living room.

By the time his feet touched the floor he'd realized it was Spike, the screaming, but he still had no idea what to expect in the living room and he held onto the bat.

Spike was huddled on the floor not far from the couch, clutching his head and rocking. He was sobbing in desperate gasps punctuated by violent coughing.

Troy came up beside Xander, touching his shoulder. "Shit," he said softly. "Now what?" Then he looked down at the bat. "What's that for?" Here's another important difference between Xander's life experience and Troy's. Troy really doesn't know why Xander grabbed the bat. It had never even occurred to him that Xander kept the bat around for protection; if he'd ever noticed it at all, he would've assumed that Xander had a secret affection for baseball.

"Didn't know what happened. Could've been a—" demon "—burglar." Xander laid the bat on the floor and approached Spike carefully, finally crouching down to his level just out of arm's reach. "Spike? What's wrong?" He was definitely using the talking-to-crazy-people voice now. Soft and gentle, exaggeratedly non-threatening. "Was it a bad dream?" He thought maybe Spike would answer—that maybe the sobs spilling out of him now had broken through the barrier of silence.

But Spike didn't react, and this time Xander really wasn't sure if Spike had even noticed him.

"Try touching him," Troy said softly. "That helped before."

Xander shuffled a step closer and reached out to lay a hand on Spike's arm. "Spike? Don't be scared. It's okay."

Spike quieted—not all at once, but in a series of shaky breaths. Xander could still feel him trembling. His fingers unclenched from his hair and he looked up. For the first time that night, Xander had the sense that Spike was looking at him, rather than just in his general direction. Like, Spike was in there and seeing Xander. Not crazy.

He looked wrecked, though. His face was soaked with sweat and tears, and crisscrossed with faint fresh scratches from his bitten-down nails. His lips were flecked with blood—not exactly a new look for him, but it had a different significance now.

"You're safe here," Xander said steadily, squeezing Spike's arm gently and looking right into his eyes. He was convinced that he was finally reaching him, that Spike was really hearing him. "I promise." He wasn't sure where this fierce protective feeling was coming from. Maybe it was a 3 a.m. thing. At the beginning of the story Xander was quite hostile towards Spike—picking up from where he left off in canon, with an extra side of you represent a world that I'm trying very hard to stay out of. At this point, his pity for Spike is overcoming that. He still has no idea what's happened to Spike, but he can imagine a possibility or two—certainly better than Troy can.

He's not attracted to Spike yet at all, though. That will come later.

Spike blinked. Reached a tentative hand out as though he wanted to touch Xander's face—then pulled back quickly, looking scared.

"I take the glass eye out at night," Xander explained, guessing Spike's attention had been on the socket. "Looks kind of gross, huh? ... You saved me that day, do you remember?" Well, dragged him out of the wine cellar with Buffy's help, anyway. Still. That kind of thing leaves an impression. Funny, Xander hadn't thought about that in a long time. Maybe he did owe Spike a thing or two.

A noise behind him made Xander aware of Troy listening in. So Troy had just gotten another little clue about Xander's past. Maybe it would satisfy him for a while.

Yeah, right.

Spike, meanwhile, had drifted away. The focus was gone from his eyes, and he was trembling harder.

"Fuck," Xander muttered. "Come back, Spike." He eased in closer, and put his arms around him, thinking maybe it would help. It seemed to, at least a little. Spike sank into his embrace with a barely-audible whimper. Xander tightened his hold and, without really thinking about it, started rocking him. "It's okay, it's okay, you're safe," he murmured. He thought maybe it had helped when he said that before.

Troy came a little closer and dropped down into a crouch himself. "What happened to him?" he asked. "You think it was a nightmare?"

"I guess. I don't know." Xander spoke very softly, because Spike's head was cradled against his collarbone now. He wondered, silently, what Spike had been through since Andrew saw him two years ago. What could do this to Spike?

"There's blood," Troy said suddenly. "Where did that—shit. On the phone you said he was coughing up blood?"

Xander followed Troy's gaze and saw the dark, damp patch near the knee of Spike's pants, and a smear of red on the fake-wood floor by Spike's bare feet.

"I'll get some stuff to clean him up," Troy said, standing up.

"Troy," Xander stopped him, "there's latex gloves under the kitchen sink. Use them."

Troy gave him a look. "I'm just going to get a cloth, wipe up the blood and stuff." The blood thing was a bit difficult to handle. I knew from the beginning of the story that Spike was HIV positive, and I knew that the world wasn't going to end and that both Xander and Troy were going to survive, so I wanted to keep them safe. But Xander knew neither of these things, so why would he be careful? I try to explain that a bit in the next paragraph.

"He's obviously sick. I just want you to be careful." Not like Xander had any more medical training than Troy did, but at least he'd had the experience of helping out at an MSF clinic in rural Cameroon for a couple of weeks while waiting for a Slayer to appear. MSF is Doctors Without Borders, by the way. Internationally they're known more commonly by their French acronym, which stands for Médecins Sans Frontières. I figured Xander would've learned to call them that when he was working for them. I wasn't sure whether all readers would necessarily recognise the acronym, and did debate, with Yourlibrarian, whether it would be better to have him say "Doctors Without Borders" instead. Ultimately though I decided that anyone who was confused and curious could google it. The doctors had drilled the habit of caution around bodily fluids into him pretty hard.

On the other hand, now that he thought about it, the fact that the world was going to end in two or three weeks pretty much mootified the whole getting-sick-or-not thing.

It was a line of thinking that led nowhere good, and Xander pushed it away. So there's the other half of the explanation for why he's bothering to be careful: yes, he expects the world to end soon, but he's trying not to think about it.

Troy came back wearing the gloves. He had some paper towels, a washcloth and a bowl of water.

"Spike, I'm gonna wash your face," Troy said, dipping the cloth in the bowl and wringing it out.

"That's warm water, right?" Xander asked. God, what would Buffy say if she heard me—

That was another thought that wasn't allowed to finish. Because she's dead, and he feels partly responsible. Mmm, angsty!

They all shared a few quiet moments then. Xander held Spike, who felt strangely fragile in his arms. Troy dabbed at Spike's face with the washcloth, then did the best he could to clean the spot on his pants, and finally the floor.

"You think maybe we should take him to the ER now?" Troy asked when he was done.

"I think he's fallen asleep again," Xander said, keeping his voice low. Spike's head was resting heavily against Xander's chest now, and his breathing had been steady for a while. "I'll take him in the morning."

"You mean 'we'."

"We can't both take off work."

"Sure we can. I'll call in sick. You can't take him alone in the car, not after what he did tonight."

"Fuck. You're right. Okay. But, wait for morning."

Troy looked at Spike, then at the couch. "What if he has another nightmare or whatever that was?"

Xander sighed, realizing what he had to do. "I'll stay out here. On the couch. It's just a few more hours till morning." Again, with this exchange I liked seeing that Troy expected them to work out the issue of Spike together. Xander, for obvious reasons, wants to keep Troy out of things as much as possible. But he does need Troy, and not just for the practical reasons Troy comes up with here.

You'll notice that I skip ahead three days here. Originally, I didn't! I actually wrote the scene where Xander and Troy bring Spike to the hospital. I didn't like it, though, so it became a deleted scene. I include it here in the grand tradition of DVD bonus features. You can read it either without or with my commentary. Then come back and read Chapter Three!

"Well, we can't let them send him back out on the street." Troy hunched his hands into his pockets as they walked across the hospital parking lot. It was still damn freaky cold out—there had been hints of frost on the car's windshield when they got started this morning. This is the last time I mention the cold; I guess the temperature went up after this! Perhaps once Spike was safely established at Xander's house, the Powers let the weather go back to normal. Or maybe it was only a coincidence!

"I don't think they would," Xander said. "They want to make sure he does the whole treatment for the TB, right?"

"Okay, so they might lock him in a mental ward. And probably keep him doped up the whole time. You saw him Wednesday. And yesterday wasn't much better."

"I just don't see how we're supposed to take care of him," Xander said. "We both have to work. And how the hell are we going to pay for the drugs? No ID, no social assistance, remember?" After all these years of fanfic, and several seasons of ER besides, I still get confused by details of the American medical system. Would Xander really have to pay for the antibiotics to treat Spike's tuberculosis? What happens when an illegal alien with no money needs treatment for a communicable disease? Actually I can answer that. I remember some years ago there was an outbreak of TB among immigrants from Haiti down in South Florida and if the patient was an illegal immigrant they were jailed, treated and deported. Oh, wow. I guess Spike's very lucky that his silence here is hiding his nationality!

This was a thing they did—argue about something that was already settled.

The three days' TB quarantine were up, and Xander was going to do everything in his power to get Spike to come home with him. Troy wouldn't forgive him if he didn't, and besides, he had seen Spike on Wednesday. Apparently the nightmare thing had happened again, and the hospital's solution had been heavy sedation. Xander and Troy had found Spike propped up in bed, blinking slowly, staring at a blank TV and drooling a little. However crazy he'd been before, it was better than that.

Inside, they made their way to the east wing. "Hospitals are kind of creepy, aren't they?" Troy said as they waited for the elevator.

"Creepy?"

"All those people on the beds in the hall back there—it's like, these moments in their lives should be so private, so intensely personal, but instead there they are all laid out in public for anyone to see."

"Yeah, that's not really normal. They're kinda overcrowded here." Xander wondered silently whether the overfull hospital was a harbinger of the apocalypse, or just a sign of government cutbacks. Is there a difference?

It didn't matter either way. A few weeks, Giles had said.

"Oh," Troy said. "You know, I'd never seen the inside of a hospital before we brought Spike in on Tuesday. Except on TV. I guess I've had a pretty lucky run so far." I think it speaks to the relative tranquility of his time with Troy that a lot of the things Xander has come to take for granted haven't stood out to Troy, since it's a difficult thing to hide the way you see the world.

"Yeah. Keep it that way as long as you can." Xander squeezed Troy's hand. "I've seen too many."

When Troy gave him a curious look, Xander realized he'd put a bit too much emphasis on that last bit—enough that Troy would guess he was talking about more than just the times he'd been hospitalized himself. He'd never told Troy that he'd had friends who had died, though sometimes he thought Troy suspected it.

The arrival of a half-full elevator saved Xander from any concerned-boyfriend questions, at least for now. They made it up to Spike's ward, where a nurse, recognizing them, impatiently thrust a clipboard into Troy's hands. "William has to sign these forms so we can release him. Just an X would be enough, but I can't even get him to pick up a pen. Think you can talk some sense into him?"

"He, uh, doesn't really talk," Troy said, hesitantly like he didn't want to imply the nurse was stupid, but didn't know how else to respond.

She rolled her eyes. "No, but he listens when he wants to. He got dressed when I told him to."

She followed them into Spike's room, where Spike was sitting fully clothed on the bed with his knees tucked up against his chest—staring at the blank TV again. Xander wondered whether the damn thing was broken. This is meant as a bit of foreshadowing. The hospital staff has already discovered that watching TV tends to trigger violent panic attacks in Spike. Unfortunately, nobody tells Xander.

"William, your friends are here to take you home," the nurse said. "You just have to sign the form."

Spike didn't turn to look at them. Xander wondered if maybe in his head, he was watching a fascinating TV show. It wouldn't be the first time Spike had seen things nobody else could see.

"Spike? ... Come on, this is easy." Letting his voice drop into a soft, coaxing singsong, Troy sat on the bed beside Spike and held out the pen and clipboard. "You can do this."

"What happens if he doesn't sign the papers?" Xander asked quietly.

"Well, then we have a problem," the nurse said. "We can't keep him. There's no room. You saw the hallways. We'd have to move him out onto a gurney."

Troy gave Xander a get over here and help me out look. Meanwhile, another nurse in green scrubs poked her head in the door. "Sharon, I need your help for a moment with Mr. Lopez." I wrote a lot of this story while riding the commuter train to and from work. Sharon the nurse is named after a woman who was sitting near me the day I wrote this scene.

Sharon shot a worried look in Spike's direction. "Can it wait?"

"Not really, no," the new nurse said with an air of tightly-controlled desperation.

"I'll be right back," Sharon said.

Xander and Troy watched her go. Then Troy looked at the clipboard he was holding, up at the doorway, back to the clipboard—and he shrugged and made an X himself. After Yourlibrarian told me that Spike would need to sign himself out of the hospital somehow, I spent a while agonizing over the logistics of it. I definitely needed to get him out of the hospital and into Xander's apartment, but on the other hand I couldn't let him make an X himself; the Spike of this story can't communicate in any way until he starts doing so through the sock. So I was quite pleased when I hit upon the idea of Troy just plain cheating.

Xander gave a tight smile. "Good one. Let's go."

Spike stood up immediately.

"And yet you couldn't make an X?" Xander muttered under his breath. Spike probably heard him, but didn't react.

Troy came back to Xander and touched his arm. "I think I'm starting to get it," he said quietly. "He can't communicate. He understands what's going on around him, he understands when we talk—most of the time, at least—but he can't say anything himself. Not with words, or writing, or even gestures." This explanation is really for the readers, of course. Well, and for Xander too!

"Huh. Maybe." Xander looked at Spike—wanted to ask him if Troy was right, but obviously that wouldn't work. How the hell are we going to take care of him? Xander wondered again. And then he noticed Spike's chart clipped to the end of the bed. "Hey. A little information would be good to have," he said to Troy, and snatched it up. "Cover me."

Speaking of agonizing over logistics! I knew that Spike was going to be HIV-positive, and I wanted Xander to have this information, but it took quite a while to figure out how to get it to him. I knew that both Xander and the readers would realize that it was a possibility from when it's first revealed that Spike has been injecting drugs, but there's a big difference between "possibly" and "definitely," and for various story reasons I wanted the information to be certain. But Yourlibrarian found out from her doctor friend that HIV tests are never done without the patient's consent (which Spike couldn't have given), and anyway nobody would give Xander the results. So again, my solution was to cheat! Acknowledge the rules, and watch everyone break them. (In real life, I'm so rules-abiding that it's not even funny. Maybe that's why it took me so long to think of this simple solution!)

Apparently the stereotype about doctors and their messy handwriting was firmly grounded in reality. Xander couldn't make out half of what was written. He found the TB diagnosis, and a note that the strain was non-resistant, which even Xander knew was a good thing. No kidding it's non-resistant. It's from 1880. Somewhere in L.A. there's a very puzzled lab technician. The night nurse, who had good handwriting, had noted the nightmares—God, he'd had them every night—and the sedatives the night shift had given him. The attending doctor had suggested a psychiatric evaluation, which it didn't look like anybody had followed up on. The next page was HIV test results. A little box at the bottom said consent had been obtained from the patient, which Xander strongly suspected was bullshit, but whatever. The important thing was the result—positive. Fuck.

I made Spike HIV-positive for a couple of reasons. First of all, the history I'd given him made it very likely. He'd definitely been injecting drugs, and given his sparse resources and mental state, it seemed pretty likely that he'd used shared needles. It's also strongly implied that he'd been exchanging sex for drugs, which is another big risk factor. So those were the practical reasons. From the storytelling point of view, I used his HIV status as a sort of warning to readers: do not expect a happily-ever-after.

"She's coming back," Troy whispered.

By the time Sharon walked in, the chart was back in place and Xander was holding Spike's hand. "We got him to sign," he said.

"Good." Sharon took the clipboard from Troy with barely a glance. "I'll go get William's prescriptions for you."

After they got Spike home from the hospital, Troy had to go to work. Xander had taken the whole day off so he could look after Spike, but he wasn't sure what to do with him, to start with. He tried sitting him down in front of the TV and leaving him there, which seemed to work pretty well at first. A TV that worked had to be more interesting than one that didn't, right? Xander started a load of wash and got most of the dishes done—but then the sound of televised gunshots was accompanied by a real-life crash, and Xander ran out into the living room to discover the cops on 'Law & Order' arriving at a murder scene, the floor lamp knocked over with its bulb broken, and Spike tucked into a corner, shaking.

"Okay, TV, bad idea. Turning it off now."

So that meant ten minutes of rubbing Spike's back and murmuring soothing things before Xander could even get Spike out of the corner, which he had to do, because it was time for a dose of antibiotics.

It made him kind of queasy, wondering how Spike had gotten into this state. It was his time in Hell, of course. Fucked him up but good. Plus the fact that he still has his soul, and all of his memories tormenting him. I also take the point of view that it's harder for him to cope with it all now that he isn't a vampire anymore—that even after the soul he was able to draw on the strength of his demon to help him deal with his memories and guilt, and now he doesn't even have that.

In the kitchen, Spike noticed his notebook and pencil, which had been lying on the table ever since Xander pulled them out of the army jacket. Spike picked them up and started patting his hips and chest, looking increasingly troubled. Xander had a moment of confusion, until he realized Spike was probably looking for pockets.

"Hey, you can wear your jacket, it's clean now," Xander said. It had been sitting in the dryer for the past three days, in fact. Xander is not quite completely domesticated.

Spike snatched it from Xander's hands and pulled it on in a quick, rough motion. It made Xander think of the duster, and the way Spike had worn it like a personality. He'd always seemed bigger when he was wearing it, stronger, more dangerous. Now, he seemed lost in the crumpled green army jacket. The sleeves brushed his knuckles and the fabric hung loose over his shoulders. Still, he seemed happier now that he had it back.

Or maybe happy wasn't the right word. Xander wasn't sure if this broken new Spike even could feel happy. But he seemed calmer with the jacket on, at least.

"How about you sit right here," Xander said, guiding Spike to a chair at the kitchen table. "Just sit there and watch me, uh, do stuff." He was pretty sure it was the shooting on the TV that had freaked Spike out, and how fucked-up was that? Spike used to love violence. Even after the soul.

Or maybe it hadn't even been the violence. Maybe it was just the loud noise. Honestly, Xander had no idea what might set Spike off next. Sports? Teletubbies?

How was he supposed to keep Spike safe when he didn't know what he was protecting him from?

While he thought about these things, Xander finished emptying the dryer and put in a new load of wet laundry. Spike, meanwhile, had taken out his notebook and pencil, and started coloring. He had a page that was half filled in with pencil, and he was methodically shading the rest of it, one line at a time. Coloring it all black. Spike never exactly explains his coloring, although the sock will mention later that "it makes the buzzing in his head go quiet." At this early point in the story I wanted it to be a bit mysterious, so the reader would be wondering along with Xander "crazy or mystical?" In fact there's nothing mystical about it. Spike does it because it's calming. It's a soothing, repetitive motion, with a sense of progress as the pages get colored in. Something that he can control. Like knitting, only simpler. Like meditation beads, only crazier.

"Is that supposed to be some kind of comment on the state of your soul?" As soon as he heard himself, Xander wished he'd kept his mouth shut. It had been a mean thing to say. As usual, though, Spike didn't seem to have noticed.

He looked like he was safely occupied for the moment, so Xander took a broom and dustpan out to the living room to deal with the broken light. He was halfway done when he heard drawers slamming open and shut in the kitchen.

"Shit." Xander ran back to the kitchen, nearly falling when his weight hit his bad leg. "Shit! Spike! Put that down!"

Spike was standing in the middle of the kitchen holding the biggest knife Xander owned. His expression was as blank as ever.

"Okay, Spike, stay right there." Xander edged closer, trying to stay calm. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I just need the knife. It's my good knife." He got his hand around Spike's wrist and gripped it hard, quickly grabbing the knife with his other hand. Spike released it without resistance, finally focusing his eyes on Xander. He looked confused. "No playing with sharp things," Xander said, the adrenaline rush already ebbing away. He wasn't sure if he'd been afraid Spike would hurt himself or Xander—either way, bad scene.

Right about then, the dryer stopped. "Okay, you're going to sit there and watch me fold laundry," Xander decided. "It's fun and exciting. And very, very soft." He set the knife on top of the fridge, and wondered if he should get padlocks for the cupboards. Several chapters later, we'll see that Xander has indeed done this.

Keeping one eye on Spike while he took the laundry out wasn't exactly easy, since he only had the one. So he pulled it all out in one armful and dumped it on the table to sort it.

Spike blinked at the pile of laundry, like it was something really odd he'd never seen before. Which, hey, considering the state his clothes had been in when he'd showed up at the shelter—maybe it was. "Wanna help me fold?" Xander offered, since Spike at least seemed to be paying attention.

To his surprise, Spike reached into the pile and pulled out a sock. It was one of Xander's white gym socks. "Okay, can you find a matching one?" Xander asked. He felt like he was talking to a toddler—let's see if we can stimulate little Spike's intellectual development! At this point Xander's still considering the possibility that Spike has somehow sustained massive brain damage.

Anyway, Spike ignored him. He slipped the sock over his left hand like a fingerless glove. He cupped his hand inside the sock and poked the hollow part, so the sock puckered in between his fingers and thumb. He pivoted his wrist so that the sock's new 'mouth' faced Xander. And then he started opening and closing the mouth—and talking. "What in sodding hell are you gawking at, Harris?" I was so happy when I finally got to introduce the sock puppet! It had been the driving inspiration behind the whole story. I was trying to come up for a concept for my Fall for S/X fic, and out of the blue it came to me: wouldn't it be fun to have crazy!Spike using a sock puppet to communicate? (My brain can be an interesting place.) The rest of the story grew from there.

Xander was so startled he lurched backwards against the kitchen counter. "Gah! Fuck!" He glared at Spike, seriously considering homicide. "So you were fucking with us all along!? What the hell, Spike? Have you got Ashton Kutcher and a camera crew hidden behind the sofa? Okay, fun, I've been punked. Get the hell out of my house."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist," Spike said, still opening and closing the sock's mouth as though it were the one speaking. In fact, Spike was looking at the sock as he spoke, not at Xander. The sock, on the other hand, was looking straight at Xander. Only without eyes. "Spike doesn't even know I'm talking to you, you stupid sod. He'd cut his fucking tongue out first." Mr. Sock's personality is based largely on the nastier side of early-seasons Spike, of course. But the characterization is also partly inspired by Ed the Sock, a bad-tempered sock puppet who hosted his own talk show on a Canadian music station.

By extreme force of will, Xander kept his gaze from flicking towards the knife on the fridge. His fury was already slipping away, as his quick conclusion that Spike was playing some twisted, elaborate prank got less certain by the moment. Maybe the sock wasn't the punchline. Maybe it was just one more level of crazy.

Or maybe it was something else entirely.

"Who are you?" Xander asked cautiously, looking at the sock.

"Full of stupid questions, aren't you," the sock said derisively. Okay, well, Spike said it—but he was still moving the sock's mouth. His voice was hoarse, like it had been a long time since he'd used it. "What's a bloke got to do to get a fag around here?"

Xander didn't miss the fact that the sock had evaded his question.

He wished he could be sure that Spike was completely off his rocker, and that this wasn't some kind of mystical possession. Dammit, he was supposed to have a life now where 'mystical possession' got ruled out implicitly.

"I don't have any cigarettes," Xander said. "Anyway, Spike shouldn't be smoking. He's sick." Xander kind of couldn't believe he was talking to a sock. But he was. Talking to a sock. "Do you, um, do you know what happened to him?"

"He's human now." If a sock could sneer, this one was. I tested some of these expressions with an actual sock. Can a sock sneer? Sure it can! "Weak like the rest of you."

"Yeah, I noticed." There was an implication there, Xander realized, that Spike knew he hadn't always been human. And he'd called Xander by name. So he remembered stuff. That was good to know, at least. "How did he get that way?"

"Haven't got a sodding clue," Spike said. The sock said.

"Okay ... what was he doing with the knife?" Xander tried.

Spike cocked his wrist a little bit sideways—head tilt. The sock was doing a head tilt. That image makes me happy. "He wanted to sharpen the bloody pencil," it said.

"Oh." Xander glanced towards the end of the table where Spike had abandoned his coloring project, and he saw that in fact the pencil tip was worn down to nothing. "Well, I can get you a pencil sharpener."

"Him, you mean," the sock corrected him sharply. "Not like I care what the pathetic wanker does with his fucking pencil."

So Spike was making a firm distinction between himself and the sock. Sort of a multiple-personality thing? Assuming, for the moment, crazy-not-mystical. In any case, Xander didn't have any better ideas than play along and see where it goes. "So, you're not Spike. Can you, um, talk to him?"

"Yeah," the sock said in a well, duh tone of voice. I imagined Spike carrying on actual conversations with the sock persona inside his head.

"Can you ask him—" Xander's brain stuttered. There was too much he needed to ask. "Ask him what he remembers. Does he remember Sunnydale?"

"He remembers everything."

"What about fighting Wolfram & Hart? Does he remember that?"

The sock nodded, its upper lip curling derisively. "Not one of Angel's better plans, was it?"

You have no idea, Xander thought. And that's another little hint. It's not until much later, when Xander is able to talk to Spike directly, that it will be explained that Angel's battle with Wolfram & Hart is the root cause of the current apocacrisis. One of the things I'm happiest about, in how this story turned out, is the slow way in which the various mysteries unfurl. "So, how did you—sorry, how did Spike survive?"

"He didn't. Some demon with a sword caught him from behind, cut off his head." In the other series of fics I'm writing with post-NFA human!Spike, I'd had him burned up by the dragon. I wanted to give him a different death for this story, not because there's anything terribly significant about it but simply to emphasize, for readers who've read my Fragments-verse, that this is an entirely different story post-NFA.

"Oh." Xander winced a little at the sock's—at Spike's brusque description of his own death. When he said he remembered everything, did that include the feeling of his head coming off? That line bothers me, actually, just because I imagine that while he does remember his head being cut off, it probably didn't hurt all that much compared to his previous death, in which he burned up from the inside out under Sunnydale, and which he also (canonically) remembers. Xander knows about what happened with the amulet, so wouldn't he maybe make the same comparison? Only, when I tried to have him bring it up, it just felt stilted. There was no clue in his expression. He'd been holding himself largely immobile this whole time, animating only the sock. Even though the words were coming out of his mouth, he seemed strangely disconnected from them. "So how did he end up alive?"

The sock sort of wiggled, what might be a shrug if it had shoulders. "Hell spat him back out."

Xander knew too much to assume Spike was speaking metaphorically. "So he was in hell?"

"Well, yeah," the sock said. "Things he did? What did you expect?" This is quite a sticky question for Buffyverse theologians, really. Is Spike (souled) responsible for his actions while unsouled? What about Angel? It doesn't seem quite fair, but then who ever said that the Powers that Be were fair? Or that they're even in charge of the whole heaven/hell process, for that matter?

"How long?" Xander remembered Buffy explaining what had happened to Angel after Acathla. A few months of Sunnydale time had equaled a century or so in hell.

"Not long enough." I think Spike doesn't know himself how long he was in hell. I imagine the sense of time passing is different there, and there's no real way to measure it.

Interesting answer. "What, you hadn't had a chance to meet all the cool people yet?" Here's another line I was never entirely happy with. Xander's taken by surprise, so he responds with irony. What he says is meant to be a reference to Mark Twain's famous statement about hell (that he would prefer heaven for the climate, but hell for the company). I just never managed to tweak the line to feel as snappy as I wanted it to.

"It's not a fucking garden party." The sock had no real face and Spike's own expression was blank, but Xander still got the feeling there was an eye roll in there somewhere. "It's endless torture, pain beyond imagining."

"So why did he go playing in traffic? He's so eager to go back?"

The sock didn't answer.

Xander took the moment of quiet to reflect on the fact that he was talking to a sock. "Look, can we just—can I just talk directly to Spike?"

The sock curled its lip. "Talk to him all you want, just don't expect an answer."

"Why not?" Xander said, ignoring the sock now. He waved a hand in front of Spike's eyes. "I'm here, you're here, I know you can talk now. What's the difference if you use a sock puppet or not?"

"He's not allowed," the puppet snapped. "Leave him the fuck alone." The sock's relationship with Spike is a bit complicated. It despises him, but it's protective of him as well.

"No." Xander grabbed Spike's hand, immobilizing the sock. "Why aren't you allowed to talk, Spike? Who says so?"

The reply came out hoarse and strained, but it came from Spike's lips and the puppet didn't move. This is the only time that Spike communicates directly with Xander up until the point when he helps defeat the two Mirodan. He's not ready for this. "They...." The word "they" is a bit of a cheat. I wanted Xander (and the reader) to have reason to suspect there's some outside force silencing Spike. I didn't really have an end to that sentence in mind. In fact the only one stopping Spike from communicating is Spike himself. But the word "they" could refer to all the people he's killed; later he will mention that he hears them screaming in his head.

But he didn't say anything else. He stood there, suddenly so taut he was shaking—and then he threw himself backwards away from Xander, hitting the floor and scrabbling into the corner formed by the kitchen cupboards. The gym sock was left in Xander's hand and he had a quick, absurd flash that it was like a skin that had been shed. Spike was gasping, shaking. And then puking. Right on the kitchen floor.

"Oh God." Xander tossed the sock aside and looked around for a bowl or something. The big mixing bowl was sitting in the dish-drying rack, and he grabbed it and went to Spike, but Spike was already on to dry heaves. The little puddle by his knees looked like mostly water. He hasn't been eating, Xander realized, which was a worry for later. "I won't ask you to talk again," he promised, setting the bowl aside. He wanted to say 'They what? Who are they?' but he was half-afraid some mystical force would reach down and silence Spike permanently if he tried. A reaction this strong—it had to come from something outside of him, didn't it?

Spike's skin looked pale and clammy, and his teeth had started chattering. He seemed to be done puking, at least. "Come on, let's get you out of there," Xander said, offering a hand at first and then, when that didn't get a response, grabbing Spike under the shoulders and hauling him up. "Let's get you to bed."

"Where's Spike?" Troy asked as soon as he came in the door.

"Hello to you too." Xander stood up, stretching out the kinks in his back. "He's in my bed."

"Oh." Troy nodded. "Okay, that's good."

"Yeah, he, uh, kinda had a breakdown earlier." Xander had been turning over the question in his mind all afternoon, and he still hadn't decided whether to tell Troy about the sock puppet. He sort of needed to know, in that he was helping to take care of Spike. But if Spike was going to stage a repeat performance—well, the sock seemed pretty willing to talk about Sunnydale, and around Troy that could be dangerous. Yourlibrarian asked me, when we were going over this bit, "Dangerous for who?" And really, the main danger that Xander's thinking of here is the danger to the fragile construct of a normal life that he's built up over the past year and a half. But at the back of his head there's also the worry that if Sunnydale-style things start happening, Troy could get hurt. "TV, by the way, is a bad idea." Notice how smoothly Xander implied that the TV was the cause of the breakdown, without actually lying? This is a Xander who's pretty good at keeping things from his lover.

"Something on TV upset him?"

"Yeah. I think maybe it was some gunshots on 'Law & Order.' I'm not sure, though." Xander kissed Troy, who'd come and wrapped his arms around Xander's waist. "Also, he's not eating. This could be a problem."

"What did you try giving him?"

"I made chili." Made meant opened a can and heated, but Troy would understand that. "There's lots left over, by the way. You'll probably want to nuke it."

Troy looked thoughtfully at Xander. "He was in your line at the soup kitchen, remember? Maybe he's vegetarian."

The idea was so absurd, Xander laughed. "Uh, no. He's not vegetarian."

"He wasn't when you knew him before, you mean." Troy rubbed the back of Xander's neck as he spoke. "I think we've established that he's changed since then."

"Okay," Xander conceded. "It's possible."

"I'll make something," Troy said. Troy is right; Spike is vegetarian now. He never does explain this change, but I hoped that readers would guess that it's something to do with guilt over his past killing.

While Troy got to work cooking, Xander settled on the couch and turned on the TV. He flipped to CNN, which was a thing he was very much not in the habit of doing. He told himself he was waiting for the sports report, but he knew that he was really looking for signs that the world was going to end in less than three weeks.

He should've told Troy about the sock puppet. God, what did it even matter if Spike told Troy the truth about Sunnydale? Troy was going to find out about demons soon enough. Everyone was going to find out.

The Wolf, the Ram and the Hart had been pretty human-friendly, when you got right down to it. They preferred to operate in secret and make use of the human population, rather than eliminate it. Their rivals, the Raven, the Bear and the Snake, had a different policy: cleanse and settle. Another piece of the puzzle.

"Anything good on?" Troy asked, perching on the arm of the couch. "Oh hey, news. Are they talking about that thing in Mongolia?" Poor Troy. Just trying to make sense of the information he has.

"I told you, there is no thing in Mongolia." Xander clicked the TV off. "Did you get Spike to eat?"

"Half a bowl of Kraft Mac & Cheese," Troy said. In Canada, we call it Kraft Dinner! "Isn't it time for his pills now?"

"Yeah." Xander pushed himself up and headed for the kitchen. Troy followed him.

"Xan? Why's one of your socks on the kitchen counter?"

Of course Troy was pissed off at Xander for not telling him right away, but his curiosity quickly took over. "Do you think he'll do it again if we give him the sock back?"

"Hey!" Xander grabbed the sock away from Troy. "He's not a freak show, okay?!" This is another one of those lines that trouble me. Why did Xander react like that? My original thought was that he still didn't want Troy talking to Spike, and the "freak show" remark was calculated to make Troy feel guilty so he'd just let it go. I had a bit more narrative here, too, to support that interpretation. But that made Xander seem too cold and calculating, so I took it out, which made the line look like more of a sincere reaction. But then that implied that at this point Xander felt like he needed to protect Spike from Troy's curiosity. Which is kind of weird since he still likes (and trusts) Troy a whole lot more than he likes Spike.

"I didn't mean it like that." Troy looked appalled at Xander's reaction; Xander was a little surprised at it himself. "I just thought—this is a major breakthrough, isn't it? Maybe he can tell us what's wrong. Or at least tell us what he needs."

Xander gave Troy a quick hug. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you. Maybe you're right." The only problem was, the sock had already explained what was wrong. How was Xander supposed to explain to Troy that Spike was suffering from Post-Traumatic-trip-to-Hell disorder? "I just don't think it's a good idea to try again tonight. I think maybe I fucked up before, trying to get him to talk to me directly. That's when he freaked out, and he was a mess after that. I think we should just let him rest."

"Okay," Troy agreed. "But we give him his sock back in the morning."

Morning. Xander woke up alone in the middle of the bed. Rumpled blankets to his left and right showed where Troy and Spike had slept.

Christ. How did I let Troy talk me into that? So, um, this is a slash story! Which means that Spike and Xander need to end up in bed together. But it has to make sense! Troy's a good catalyst here; he has a different sense of 'normal' than Xander does (I imagine this isn't the first time Troy's slept three to a bed) and he's able to point out the practical reasons for bringing Spike into their bed.

"If we put him back on the couch, he's going to have nightmares again, and you're going to have to go out there and stay with him anyway—and what if he hurts himself?" Troy had said. "The bed's wide enough for three."

"He's sick," Xander had reminded him. "Sharing the bed might not be a good idea."

Troy had shrugged. "I read the brochure from the hospital. Transmission risk for TB's really low, especially now that he's on antibiotics."

"And you don't find the idea of the three of us sleeping together frighteningly weird?"

"It's just sleeping, Xan." Troy had poked him in the ribs, smirking. "Get your mind out of the gutter!"

Now Xander quickly pulled on his bathrobe and an eyepatch, and followed the sound of voices into the kitchen.

Voices.

"They bloody well stopped being punk when they signed on with Atlantic," Spike was saying, via the sock. "How can you claim to be anti-authority when you work for the fucking mainstream record industry?" I know, like, nothing about punk music. But I went and read an article before writing this conversation snippet.

Troy was at the stove, flipping pancakes. "Yeah, but they had no choice if they were going to get any kind of distribution." He turned around. "Oh, hi Xan. We were going to wake you up in a minute. How many pancakes do you want?" You'll notice that the only food that Xander and Troy really know how to cook is breakfast food.

"Um." Xander blinked. "Three." He sat down at the table opposite Spike.

"You look like a sodding pirate," said the sock. "Where's your eye?"

"Right, like I'm going to tell you where I keep it at night." He wanted to ask what the hell was going on, but he didn't want to risk disrupting the almost-normal vibe that Spike and Troy had going. Other than the fact that Spike was talking through a sock, the scene was all warm fuzzy domestic bliss. And the pancakes smelled great.

Xander accepted the plate Troy handed him, and listened to Troy and Spike talk about music. If he closed his eye, the illusion of Spike's sanity would be pretty much flawless.

At the end of breakfast, as if responding to some invisible cue, Spike peeled off the sock, laid it on the table, and curled himself into a tight ball on the kitchen floor.

"Spike?" Troy said, sounding worried. "What happened?" He turned to Xander. "Is this how it went before?"

"No, it was a lot worse yesterday." Frowning, Xander crouched down beside Spike. "Hey, are you tired? Do you want to go back to bed?"

Spike let Xander take his hand and lead him to the bedroom, where he curled up under the blankets and closed his eyes.

Xander met Troy back in the kitchen. "He probably needs a lot of sleep," Xander speculated. "I mean, he's still sick."

"Hey, Xan, is he actually British?"

It hadn't occurred to Xander that Spike's silence was hiding his accent; Spike's whole Brit-punk thing was such a fundamental part of how Xander knew him, it was weird to realize that Troy hadn't even known about it. "Yeah, he is."

"Okay. That explains why you were so sure he couldn't get on social assistance." Troy turned off the stove and brought the last pancake to the table. "Split this?" At Xander's nod, he cut the pancake in half. "How long has he lived in America?" I actually asked my friends-list on LJ what Troy should say here—wondering about word choice, 'America' vs. 'the States' or 'the U.S.A.' or whatever. It seemed to me that what sounded most natural to me as a Canadian wouldn't necessarily be what sounded right to an American. ('The States' would have been my first pick.)

"I don't know exactly." Xander shrugged. "A while." He reached for the Aunt Jemima as an excuse to break eye contact. Also because mmm, syrupy goodness. If the world was going to end in a couple of weeks, there was no point in skimping on syrup.

"Earlier, he was talking about the Industrial Revolution like he'd seen it firsthand. I mean, literally."

Xander felt a quick stab of dismay—a that's it, the game is up kind of feeling—until he noticed Troy's sad expression. Troy thinks this is proof that Spike's totally looney-tunes Xander realized. Right. That would be what a normal person would think. At this point Troy probably thought Spike was about one delusion away from declaring himself Emperor of San Francisco. This is a reference to Emperor Norton. "Yeah," Xander said, trying to sound sad rather than relieved, "he always was a history buff."

"And who's Drusilla?"

This time, the stabbing sensation was fear like a knife in his gut. "What did he say about Drusilla?"

Troy must have caught the change in Xander's tone—he gave him a measuring look. "She really exists, then?"

"She's his ex-girlfirend, and she means trouble like you can't even imagine." Forget the apocalypse coming down the pipe—if Dru was around, they might not even live to see it. "What did he say? Did it sound like he'd seen her recently?" I really love Dru, actually—she's so beautiful and ethereal and weird. But from Xander's point of view, she must be terrifying. She killed Kendra, who was a Slayer. When Dru comes to town, people die.

"He sounded like he'd seen Queen Victoria recently." Troy frowned. "What's so bad about this chick?"

Okay, how to explain this one? "She's crazy," Xander said. "And really fucking dangerous."

"Crazy like tattoos-piercings-petty vandalism?" Troy asked. "Or crazy like—well, like Spike is?"

"Crazy like 'I see burning fishies in the sky,'" Xander said, mimicking her accent. "And she's ... she can be violent. She, um, hurt some friends of mine." Hurt was a brutal understatement for what had happened to Kendra, but there was a limit to what he could tell Troy without having to explain why the police weren't involved.

"But Spike dated her?"

"For years, yeah."

"And he ... wasn't crazy then?"

"No. He, uh, took care of her, I guess." Xander had never really stopped to think about Spike and Dru's relationship. It must've been pretty strange, even by vampire standards. "Anyway, hopefully she's not around, but be careful, okay? Come right home after work, and whatever you do don't talk to any strange women."

"Um, that's pretty much what I do all day," Troy pointed out. "Talk to strangers. They call it customer service."

"Oh. Right." Xander imagined Drusilla walking into the downtown Borders and luring Troy ... behind a bookshelf? This is the first mention of what it is that Troy actually does. I gave him the bookstore job both because it seemed appropriate for his character, and also as a nod to one of my roommates from Writercon, who works for Borders herself. Okay, probably not too likely. "Well be careful when you're coming home, okay? If she's around at all, she'll probably be near here. Near Spike. So if there are any strangers lurking around, don't let them get near you."

"Okay." Troy looked doubtful, but worried. "I've never seen you act like this before, Xan. God, I didn't think you could get scared." You see how different Xander's life in L.A. is from what he was used to in Sunnydale?