"Well, I know what we're up against... and I know..…" Xander's voice cracked a bit, drunken and maudlin. "I know that Caleb is only part of it. That's why I came here… Angel and….." 
 
"Maybe I should have been there…" Spike started. 
 
"Yeah... maybe you should have. But no.…" Xander slapped his forehead as if just remembering something, "…you couldn't because you tried to --" 
 
"That's another subject you don't know anything about, Xander.…" Spike's voice was a warning signal… or would have been to a sober man. 
 
"What.... ? Because Buffy said yes before... you could ignore when she said no?" Xander's voice was gaining volume. ?Doesn't work that way, Spike... You tried to rape her." 
 
Spike twitched at the words, "It was wrong... so wrong... 'S why I went away. She'd said no and meant yes before.... But…" He stopped short, visibly shrinking in on himself, "She'd kicked my arse so many times before, Xander.... it was like she didn't even try.…" 
 
"No excuses, Spike.…," Xander's voice almost rang with his righteousness. "You obsessed over her long enough... followed her... did things to gain favour... Hell, you even tried to use Dawn to get to her." 
 
"That's a lie, Harris... I never would have used the Bit like that. She... Fuck. Why am I trying to explain myself to you. It was wrong... I left. Wish it had never happened... like I wish I hadn't done a lot of bloody things... Doesn't take them away... doesn't make them better... never could... never can... Not good enough... not clean enough.... Just…" Spike's voice trailed off. 
 
Xander was never one to miss pressing home a point. "You got that right. Never good enough for her... so, what is it now? Your newest obsession? An ex-Watcher who's so pitiful that even Angel tossed him out?" 
 
There was a small half-heard sound of protest from the doorway, and then Wes, standing there, his face pale.  

Mr Pak was locking up. Wesley tried for a moment to attract his attention, before a would-be customer arrived, and Mr Pak got involved in the inevitable late-night conversation about why he was not going to serve anyone else, due to everything electronic that would enable him to take money having been shut off. It was obviously going to take some time, since this was the last place in the area open at this time that stocked things that anyone would want at 2 am (even if some of those things were probably not on the official comestibles list). Wesley hoped for the customer's sake that he wasn't an over-optimistic demon, and went to wait out in the back. 
 
With time to himself, he was able to think a bit more rationally. He knew what he was going to try and do, to a point - 1) get Xander through this, 2) send him home - but then every idea that could link the two plans dissolved into a messy puddle of frantic indecision, and the only thing he was even marginally sure of was that he was definitely not the best person to be dealing with some kid's problems at the moment - he was only just on the verge of sorting out what the hell he was doing with his own life, let alone adding someone else to the increasingly complicated mix.  
 
That was the wall he kept hitting - that it had become not only his own life he was thinking of when he tried to consider his next steps, but Spike's: he was being selfish, he knew it, he was even capable of admitting it, here and now in the back of a supermarket, but he wanted Spike to himself,. However much he might want to help Xander - as much as it would be possible to do - he could not help but resent this interruption into something that seemed, frighteningly, to be heading somewhere good…the first good thing that had even threatened to happen to him for some time. He wanted peace, and quiet, and a break from the intrusions of the outside world…time for them both to come to terms with this new happiness that seemed to have come out of nowhere, one unexpectedly good thing that had emerged out of the purgatory they had been enduring for the last few weeks.  
 
Someplace good , he thought to himself, it has to be, we've earnt that, at least, something that's just ours…  
 
But they had been allowed less than a day, Xander's arrival unsettling the new equilibrium they had found, and replacing Spike's slowly returning confidence with all the signs of the single-minded attempts to cling on to 'ordinary' behaviour that he had shown when he first came back from the Hyperion. 
 
It's not fair, Wesley thought angrily, and wondered what the hell Mr Pak had thought he was playing at. 
 
He could hear voices drifting down, and hoped that Xander was at least allowing familiarity to get past his inebriation. Of course, Spike's lack of tact was probably acting as a wrecking ball on whatever nice comforting walls the alcohol had provided, but even so - Wesley knew only too well that even an enemy could seem like a lifebelt when everything seemed lost. 
 
Xander's voice, trailing off into silences for reasons that had nothing to do with his drunkenness, came down clearly. "There was this guy... human... Caleb. A... follower of the First Evil... And.…" 
 
Whatever else he said was lost, perhaps because he had stopped speaking, or moved, and it was only a split second from registering what had been said before Wesley felt himself slip into a raging anger, an anger at Giles, at the world, at the sheer stupidity of the bloody group of people who never, never seemed to realise that whoever they were up against would each and every time attack Buffy through her friends. 
 
Spike's reply, the tone questioning…and Wesley suddenly shifted, feeling the heightened tension begin to drift down as though it were a palpable thing, almost visible in the night air. 
 
Wesley wondered what the hell Mr Pak was doing, and started shifting uneasily, more concerned by now with what was happening back upstairs than any answers the elderly man might have for him.  

Xander's voice, accusation clear. "You weren't there, were you?" 
 
And that was damned-well enough, Wesley decided, heading back up the stairs. Xander could swallow his resentments until morning. 
 
The voices had died off again, and Wesley was nearly there before Xander's voice came through once more. "You tried to rape her." 
 
He froze, holding onto the railing with numb fingers, wondering exactly when things had spun so far out of control. He had known there was something - he would have had to have been intensely stupid not to - but oh, God, that as guilt?  
 
And Xander didn't know about Spike's soul - couldn't, surely, or he would never be throwing such things at the vampire to remind him of what he had been capable of. If he did know, Wesley decided, forcing himself to keep moving , he was going to sober the little brat up by means of repeated application of cold water - to the head. 
 
He could hear Spike mumbling, the tone horribly familiar, one step away from the point where he retreated into a world of half-remembered words that caused him less pain than whatever he was trying to deal with inside, and Wesley found that his fingers were twitching for a weapon…something, anything, to use that would make the bloody boy shut up before he did something utterly irretrievable. 
 
He got there just in time to hear Xander, his voice full of righteous indignation abut something, retort, "So, what is it now? Your newest obsession? An ex-Watcher who's so pitiful that even Angel tossed him out?" 
 
Wesley felt his world crumble around him. If Spike had felt it necessary to tell Xander that…if that was the only way he could be described…he heard himself make a small sound of protest, and flinched from it, even as their attention was drawn towards him. 
 
"Both of you, " he managed to say through lips that felt as though they had been injected with Novocain, "please…stop…" 
 
Xander's face was a mask of loathing - for him, for Spike, for whatever had been done to him, Wesley didn't know - and was rapidly beginning not to care. He felt as though something were annihilating whatever strength he had ever possessed from within, and he looked across at Spike, willing him to say something. 
 
Tell me that's not what you said. Tell me… 
 
But it was Xander who spoke, the words hitting him like blows, because where else could he have heard this but Spike, and Christ, Christ, this truly was the ninth hell, and he was doomed… 
 
"Well, if it isn't the traitor himself.... Wesley Wyndam-Pryce... kidnapper.... Oh... but you didn't even quite get that right did you?" 
 
Wesley took one step back, then another, his mind filled with nothing but the desperate desire to get away, to run from the sheer hatred on Xander's face, the utter desolation on Spike's. As he turned, he heard Spike yell, wordless and pain-filled, but somehow it didn't register, the desire to be somewhere - anywhere - else taking over. 
 
Not even sure where he was going, uncaring of the fact that he was leaving without helmet or weapons, he kicked his bike into action, and was gone, feeling as though he were back in the hospital, Angel's hands pressing the pillow over his face once more. 
 
You're a dead man, Pryce!  
 
And oh, God…he might as well be. 
 
*

Xander woke to find his face plastered against one of the ugliest couches it had ever been his privilege to see - and considering some of the places he'd been, that was saying something. 
 
His head ached and his mouth tasted like the Macaws, that somehow, he vaguely remembered, had been perching there overnight. 
 
He sat up cautiously, trying to determine if the contents of his stomach were going to remain where they were or would come out to add more questionable patterns to the ones already decorating the ancient couch. 
 
Where the hell am I? Xander peered blearily around the dimly lit room. 
 
"Okay… couch… table… desk… Ah, photograph…" he stood and carefully made his way towards it, peering at the picture. A very elderly and tweedy looking couple peered back at him with uncompromising stiffness. Each of them had one hand clamped unforgivingly on the shoulder of a very young and serious looking Wesley. 
 
Yeah… he vaguely remembered seeing Wesley last night. This must be his place. That thought, while not remarkably enlightening, was at least preferable to having woken up on the ugly couch of a complete stranger. 
 
"Computer… shit load of books, papers and other Watcherly-type paraphernalia… newspaper…. Spike's duster… strange-looking statue of some four-armed…. Whoa!" His brain suddenly ground to a halt. Spike's duster? He tried to access more of his memories from the previous evening. Yes, he vaguely remembered Spike… although he looked different than he had in Sunnydale.  
 
Xander's eyes flashed around the rest of the room… finally settling on the carpet. There were… Oh, God… bloody footprints leading from the front door to the bedroom. What if Spike had gotten his chip out? What if he had killed Wes and was now lying, blood-sated, in the bedroom, just waiting to come out and make Xander his next snack? 
 
His eyes darted around the apartment. Wes was a Watcher… well, an ex-Watcher… he must have a stake someplace. Yes, there… a cupboard with weapons and stakes and…. Well, Xander really had no idea what some of that stuff was, but he did know stakes. He grabbed one, turning towards the bedroom door, moving cautiously towards it. 
 
Okay, Xan-man… on the count of three. One… two…three… Xander flung open the bedroom door and dashed into the room, looking wildly about. 
 
"Wes?" But the room was empty. 
 
Well, empty except for the miserable figure on the bed. A tuft of honey-blond curls, long pale arms clutched tight around a pillow that his face was buried in, bare, sculpted back leading down to those tight, tight jeans… bare feet, torn and covered with blood that was still oozing sluggishly out onto the duvet. 
 
"Jesus, Spike!" Xander scowled. 
 
A whimper… a flurry of movement… and Spike was off the bed, flailing backwards and away until he ran up against the wall and curled up into a ball, the pillow clutched against his chest like a talisman.