Beautiful Broken

Story by Lit Gal

Illustrations by Velvet Virago
......Illustrations are hidden under cover tiles, but they are not work safe.

Xander/Spike: Slavery, Non-con, D/s, Hurt/Comfort, Reference to past torture, Bondage
......NC-17 (not kidding, stop now if you're easily squicked)

Chapter 10:

Xander walked into Giles’ apartment without commenting. He didn’t complain about the fingers digging into his arm or even the far greater pain of not knowing whether or not Angel would actually kill Spike. He tried to turn off that part of him that felt like it had a right to question and scream and rage because when he had tried to defend himself and his Master, Giles and Angel had been perfectly clear about just how many rights he had and what punishment would follow disobedience. So he stood inside the door with his arms hanging limply, trying to figure out what to do. With his trainer he would have gone into a full Position kneel. With Spike he would have gone into the more comfortable Down kneel. With Giles he really had no clue what he was doing so he stood there feeling like the naked guy in the middle of math class, which he had done once during that whole nightmares come alive nightmare, and that really wasn’t a good memory.

Giles practically stormed the kitchen, throwing his coat at the couch which it hit and then slithered down. When Spike did that, Xander would quietly replace it without even thinking about it, but now he stared at the crumpled garment in fascination. Finally a sharp voice yelled from the kitchen.

“For God’s sake, Xander sit down!” Xander wondered at the disappearance of Giles’ comforting voice, but he slid to the ground without complaint, crossing his legs Indian style rather than kneeling, which he suspected wouldn’t amuse the watcher. He continued to stare at that fallen coat, and he finally figured out what bothered him so. Spike threw his coat and occasionally Oz tossed his coat, but Xander had never seen Giles do anything other than carefully arrange a coat on a chair back or even hang the thing up.

“Oh Xander, I’m sorry.” Xander looked up to see Giles gazing at him in pity, and he dropped his gaze to the floor.

“Xander, you can look at me; that’s fine,” Giles told him as the older man knelt down on one knee. “Xander did Spike tell you to keep your eyes down?”

“No!” Xander vehemently insisted as he looked up at Giles in shock. “Spike helped me look up at people again.” Xander mentally begged Giles to understand how important Spike had been to him. Looking back, he could see how different he was from just days earlier. His trainer would consider him horribly ruined.

“Xander, by giving you these little kindnesses, Spike is just confusing you more, creating feelings in you that aren't yours,” Giles said, dashing any hope of Xander being able to talk his way out of this. Anything good he said would just be evidence of Spike evilness, so Xander resolved to just stay quiet. He really didn’t have anything to say that Giles wanted to hear anyway. Hell, part of the man had to like the fact that he wasn’t getting called G-man and annoyed by television references he didn’t understand. Xander thought about the four of them sitting around the table in the old library, but the thought of Buffy just made his heart ache, and the knowledge that he couldn’t help find the girls made him truly want to cry. He’d gone from useless to useful only for a quick blow job to actually useful fighting and kneeling at his Master’s side right back to useless again. The Xander version of the Cycle of Life.

He felt a pull on his arm and he stood as Giles pulled him up and guided him toward the couch. When Xander felt himself pushed toward the piece of furniture, he felt the panic rising, a part of his brain wailing about punishments that he logically knew wouldn’t happen but that he couldn’t escape in his memories. He didn’t sit on furniture. Ever. Not any more. Until now. Xander felt the cushion under him and he tasted a hint of Joyce’s cooking as his meal attempted to back up. He fought his revulsion down with practiced ease, but he couldn’t control the cold shivers of fear that traced his backbone. Giles pulled up a chair so that it was inches from the couch and Xander eventually controlled himself well enough to make eye contact with Giles, his fear retreating to a corner where it could howl without interfering with the rest of the mind.

“Xander? Do you ever want to just go off? Do you hate yourself or want to go out and destroy something?” Giles had such a serious tone of voice that Xander almost laughed. Did he want to go off? Constantly. At his trainer, at himself, at the world in general. And then he’d get scared because he wanted to go off and if he did, he’d be punished. Except he’d gone off on Spike, and he remembered the vampire falling asleep on top of his cage that night, a hand dangling down in front of his face as if reassuring him that Spike was there. But Spike wasn’t here now, and what was Giles thinking? He didn’t even answer that question, leaving it to Giles to figure that one out on his own. After a long silence, Giles continued.

“Do you feel like you *need* Spike to keep you under control?” What? Was Giles playing twenty questions now? He sounded like the tag line for an after school special: ‘Do you ever find yourself thinking about suicide?’ asks a bubbly teenage actress who’s just played the depressed teenage student on the verge of killing herself. The image made something click, and Xander realized that Giles was asking questions off some sort of list. A quiz like the girls used to do on the internet where if you answered enough questions one way or the other, the website told you that you were nuts. Hell, he didn’t need a quiz to know that. Giles’ heavy sigh broke his concentration. He looked up to see the watcher cleaning his glasses slowly.

“I know you won't answer me, Xander, but if the answer is yes, you're in some serious trouble here and you won't be able to fix this on your own.” Xander bit his tongue to avoid pointing out that he hadn’t been trying to do it on his own, Spike had been helping. However, he didn’t think that would have impressed Giles in the least. When Xander remained silent, Giles stood and walked over to one of the trunks that Xander had watched him open countless times to retrieve some weapon for Buffy. A little voice reminded Xander about the pain weapons could cause on flesh, but Xander’s logical mind dismissed the nagging whispers. He realized that Giles and Angel held a far more serious punishment over his head, and he reminded himself to just submit to them. If that’s what it took to save Spike, he owed that much and more, and if he had to tear out his own heart in order to survive submitting, he’d do that too. So he sat and waited.

Giles still muttered as he dug around in a trunk, and Xander huddled on the couch, pulling his knees up in front of him so that he didn't anger Giles again by sitting on the floor even though he wanted to so badly that he nearly trembled, but he knew wanting things was wrong. He focused on eliminating that ‘want’ thought as he laid his cheek down on his knee. The watcher stacked up a pile of various tools and weapons to the side of the trunk until he stood up with a long handled cutter in his hands.

"That collar is a symbol of slavery, Xander, and you are no longer anyone's slave." Giles walked toward him, and Xander started to breathe heavily as Giles words triggered older words that now lived in that frightened part of his mind that now started shrieking.

"If you are not anyone's slave, then you are not of use," the trainer had said as he approached the small man. Xander had expected this one to break inside a week, but the fierce little man with his dark brown eyes and coffee colored skin had held out. He had survived the strings until the trainer had cut off the worst ones and called in the healer before the damage was irreversible. He had mouthed off until the trainer had cruelly gagged him whenever he was out of the cage. He had refused to learn his kneeling positions, choosing to endure the whip and rejecting any offers of kindness from the trainer.

Trapped within his own cage and voiceless or kneeling silently in correct form on the side of the training arena, Xander had watched it all with a split mind: cheering the man's determination and jeering at the pointlessness of the gesture. The man now lay tied into a Spread position, face down on the cold floor with his limbs stretched out, but instead of stretching his fingers out, the man had them clutched into fists. The trainer suddenly turned and tapped three cages, issuing a curt "In." Xander and the other two slaves who were holding position immediately rose and went to their respective cages, Xander momentarily grateful that he was only allowed to look at the floor in front of his feet because when he was caged and met the eyes of this nameless little warrior, the man glared at him with accusatory eyes and damning expressions. Xander already knew he was damned though, so he didn't know why the man bothered damning him.

Xander and the others worked themselves into the cages, and the trainer checked each of them before sliding the front piece in and then putting them on the shelf. Xander then watched the trainer call for a cutter, and a minion hurried in carrying a red handled tool. The slave on the floor had his cheek to the floor instead of his forehead as was proper, and the gag made his cheeks bulge out on either side of the leather strap that bisected his cheek and locked on at the back of his neck. Xander had worn that for three days before learning to shut up just from the agony of his distended jaw muscles. This man had worn the gag for…Xander had no idea, but a really, really, really long time. Rebellious white ringed eyes scanned the cages with revulsion before going back to scream the man's silent hatred of the trainer.

The trainer knelt down on the floor, running a soft hand along the length of the man's body, an owner's gesture of kindness intended to soothe a distraught animal.

"This is your last chance my pet," the trainer warned. "If you're not of use, there is no reason for me to protect you." The gentle caresses continued, but the man tilted his head up toward the trainer breaking position even farther while his eyes transmitted his agony and his resistance.

"I am sorry my beautiful little creature," the trainer said with such sorrow that Xander could imagine that the trainer truly was sorry to lose the nameless man, but then the trainer brought the tool down and clipped through the collar at his neck. Since the collar was a solid metal circle, he had to make two clips before he could pull the two halves away from that dark neck, which showed a rainbow of bruises even on the black skin. Now the slave put his head down, forehead to the concrete and eyes closed as the hands relaxed, but Xander could tell it was in relief and not obedience.

The trainer walked away, and the minions moved in. They had short tusk-like fangs on their lower jaws, and the minions' mouths fell open at the sight. Xander remembered soundlessly screaming as they ate, but the cages ensured that no screams other than the former slave's own interrupted the minions' meal. Xander continued to stare until he could no longer gasp in enough air through his nose and he passed out. His next memory had been of waking with his trainer making calming noises and brushing his hair out of his face. Part of Xander had screamed at being touched by the monster, and part of him had shivered him fear and pulled so far back into his own mind that he didn't feel like his body belonged to him any more, and part hated himself because that man had died fighting the way Xander should have and an ever-growing part of him had found pleasure in his trainer's hand knowing that if he pleased and obeyed his trainer would protect him from the minions.

By now Xander felt the bolt cutters at his neck as Giles cursed and struggled to cut through the heavy metal. He didn't move, as though moving would bring him to the minions' attention even though he told himself there were no minions around. The minions were the past; Giles and his stupid assumptions were the present. Giles slipped and the bolt cutters went skimming by the back of Xander's head, one of the handles hitting him hard enough to make him see white flashes, and for a moment, he was grateful because it gave him something to focus on other than the gibbering voice in his head that whispered of minions and cages and whips and fangs.

He focused on that pain so much that he didn't hear Angel come in. He felt a cool hand pushing down his head and he thought that his Master had returned, but he tilted his head slightly to the side to see Angel bent over him.

"He's fine. It's a small cut,” Angel announced, and Xander realized that the handle had split the skin.

"Oh thank heavens. I don't know if I can do this," Giles said in a tired voice, and Xander heard glass clinking on glass.

"I'll get the collar off," Angel offered, but Xander suspected that Giles' comment had less to do with the thick metal and more to do with life in general. When the bolt cutters closed over the metal again, Xander tried not to flinch away.

"I'll be done in a second, Xander," Angel offered and then with two heavy clunks, the collar was cut into pieces and off his neck. Part of Xander longed to reach up and touch the calloused skin, and another part of him wanted to ignore the curious feeling of air around his collar line. All of Xander worried about how many parts he seemed to have developed lately, only Xander already knew he was near the twist and quickly going 'round it, so arguing with himself just seemed a normal step toward total insanity.

“I could call up a vengeance spell that would liquefy the slavers’ entrails right now,” Giles said as he reappeared in the living room with a glass of amber fluid. Xander could smell the alcohol and it made his nose itch.

“Probably not a healthy solution,” Angel said although Xander watched the vampire’s expression twist into something decidedly unpleasant at the mention of the slavers.

“Yes, quite. Right now we need to focus on Xander. We need to find a way to bring him back after being so broken.” Giles pulled the chair that had been in front of the couch back to it’s original position, setting his drink down on a side table and looking at Angel who had retreated to stand against the far wall. Xander noticed that neither of them so much as looked at him.

He hugged his legs tighter and reminded himself to submit even though he wanted to tell both of them off. What right did they have to act like he was somehow dirty and not even look at him, but the minute that anger rose, Xander pushed it back down because deep down he knew that he was broken and dirty and the only thing he could do now was save Spike from Angel’s anger. So he would go along with whatever they decided for him until Spike could come and stake Angel because that’s the only way he would get to go back to his Master, and knowing Spike’s history with Angelus, he doubted Spike could or would ever do that. So this was his life now.

“He’s not totally broken.” Angel finally said into the heavy silence.

“Look at him. He won’t talk, he won’t even bloody move,” Giles waved a hand in his direction and yelled before taking a deep breath. “Maybe the council has some resources to…” Xander’s stomach certainly did jump at the though of being given to some nameless council members considering how they treated Kendra and Faith.

“He’s not broken,” Angel repeated. “Leshar couldn’t have held him the whole time or he would be a mindless slave by now, but despite what you think, Xander isn’t totally broken; he’s still in there.”

“I would hate to see your version of broken then,” Giles answered dryly, and Xander flashed on an image of Dru playing with dolls or William chasing after his sire and master only to get backhanded into a wall.

“I had to threaten him to get him to obey Spike’s order. If he was broken, he would have obeyed without question.” Xander thought about all the ways Angel was wrong. He’d spent every night since disappearing in a sleeping cage, and before the auction, had never left Leshar’s building. He *was* totally broken and just a week earlier would have followed orders without a second thought. Okay, he would have thought second things, but he would have followed orders without revealing that he was even thinking at all. And he hadn’t surrendered to obey Spike’s order, he’d surrendered to keep Angel from killing Spike. But hey, no one asked for his opinion, so he just continued to sit on the couch and order his hands to remain on his legs and not touch his naked neck.

“But he did obey Spike, didn’t he? He bloody knelt on order.” For a second Xander lost the thread of reality and resented the fact that Giles had ignored him, but then it occurred to him that he hadn’t actually said anything out loud.

"Spike is honestly trying to help here and while I can't even guess at his motive..."

"His motive is patently clear,” Giles said while slamming his glass down on the table hard enough that Xander expected to hear the sound of breaking glass.

"I understand why you think..."

"Damnable Christ! You do not understand anything. You do not understand that William the Bloody slammed me up against a wall and tore into my throat without any warning. You cannot understand what *that* felt like after months in an Initiative cell." Xander didn't say anything, but he did wonder how an Initiative cell ranked up against his cage. But then again, Giles had always been one to see things from his own point of view, and now Xander could see that easier than he could before. Losing Jesse didn't rate more than a pat on the back, but losing Ms. Calendar led to months of angst and this weird insistence that her spirit was still around. Xander watched as Giles' hand went reflexively to his neck.

"He didn't kill you," Angel pointed out rather ineffectively if the glare on Giles' face was any indication.

"No, he simply announced to the world that he considers me his property and then he paraded Joyce around in a slaver's medical facility and then he shows up with Xander following him and acting like the perfect little slave. I hardly think it difficult to connect these dots." Xander could almost see the logic, except for the fact that it was totally illogical. Spike had nothing to do with his own capture, and Joyce needed help. “Spike is following his own agenda as always, and you are simply refusing to see the truth, choosing instead to act like a total git.” Giles stopped as if surprised at his own rage.

"He hasn't gone back to killing since Buffy..." Angel stopped, and the two men shared such similar expressions of pain that Xander wanted to reach out and comfort them, except of course for the whole kidnapping him away from Spike and making him miserable thing. That didn’t really make them comfort worthy.

"Indeed. Buffy. And whose word do we have that her death was at the hands of the Initiative?" Giles asked darkly. "Riley told me that they had put Buffy and Spike together in a testing room, and while Spike had restrained himself to spite the Initiative up until the last time Riley was able to contact me, I suspect that a vampire's hunger would overcome that resistance rather quickly." Xander watched from his own position on the couch, and Angel had a flash of guilt that Xander never would have noticed before. He wondered if he was thinking of his own inability to resist Buffy sexually or Angelus’ inability to resist the temptation to break William. Maybe both.

Xander was really starting to appreciate this being quiet thing; he was finding people far more likely to forget he was there and talk openly. Which was actually very different from having people ignore him and then avoid talking about anything too important around him. Of course, Droopy Harris would have simply taken that moment of vulnerability on Angel's face and used it to torment the vampire. Now he resolved to take that moment and try and twist the vampire around to his way of thinking.

"Giles," Angel said in a placating voice.

"No, it's bloody not understandable *or* all right, so if you use those phrases on me again you overbearing souled excuse for a vampire, I will personally stake you." Xander jumped slightly at the threat, and then quickly pulled himself back together into a ball on the couch as he realized that these two were obviously just repeating an argument they’d had many times before. Wow, Joyce shacking up with William the Bloody while Giles and Angel did the buddy fighting routine. He was gone six months and the world fell apart

"For god's sake, Xander, you *are* allowed to move, so *move*," Giles pointed out, his voice slightly slurred, and Xander flew from the couch to the wall, standing against it as he carefully watched the two men react with startled faces. He couldn't imagine Giles actually hitting him, but he remembered how different his father became after losing his job and starting to drink, and, he kept reminding himself, he had to prove that he could obey them so that Angel didn’t go back and kill Spike to sever their connection as slave and Master. He could let go; he would let go. His jaw tightened in fear and loss, but those things didn’t matter. What mattered was proving that he wasn’t Spike’s slave so Angel didn’t kill Spike.

“Maybe I’d better settle Xander in for the night,” Angel suggested, and Xander glanced toward the still dark windows. Let’s see, he woke up, had sex, ate, went to meet Giles, and then came here. He hadn’t been awake for more than a few hours, but he didn’t argue. Maybe if they left him alone he could curl up in his memory of waking up under Spike, a memory which he now expected to, on most days, replace his memory of Buffy and her green bikini. He could lose himself in the sight and feel and smell of his Master, in the taste of his mouth when Spike kissed him, in the sound of Spike’s laughter and the memory of his smile. Yep, time to put Xander away so he could find some peace where the little voice in the back of his head didn’t take the feel of jeans against his skin and invent the ghost sensation of a minion’s tooth grazing flesh.

“Maybe that’d be best,” Giles agreed as he used the arms on the chair to push himself up before retrieving his glass from the table. Angel started walking toward him, and at the last minute simply gestured toward a hall. Xander started down the short corridor and Angel’s voice directed him.

“On the left.” Xander opened the door to a perfectly normal spare room and his stomach tried another gymnastic maneuver with the whole climbing of the throat. Xander didn’t want to think of being alone on the single bed with the tall dresser and the bookshelves, but he simply stood in the middle of the room and waited. He heard the door close and thought for a moment that Angel had simply locked him in the room leaving him to figure the rest out, but the vampire walked into sight and sat down on the bed.

“Down,” Angel commanded, and Xander hesitated for a brief moment out of surprise until his little voice screeched so loud that he dropped to his knees, spreading his legs and putting his arms behind his back as he lowered his head. “Oh, Xander,” Angel sighed, and Xander realized that he’d failed the test. He started trembling.

“Please,” he finally choked out past the fear and the training. “It wasn’t Spike, don’t kill him.” Xander struggled to control the trembling before it progressed to outright sobbing and begging which never worked, and probably wouldn’t impress Angel.

“Xander,” Angel started and then stopped. Xander waited in agony. “I know Spike didn’t teach you these things.” Xander started breathing again since the words sounded like a reassurance. Of course, reassurance always came with the petting, but he didn’t expect that. He didn’t even really want that. He just wanted to curl up inside himself and think of Spike, but he couldn’t because Angel might try to test him again. If he couldn’t show them that he was getting better, they might blame Spike. And somewhere that logic didn’t sound right, but Xander couldn’t figure out the problem.

“Xander, did Spike tell you about William?”

“Yes…” Xander said uncertainly. He wasn’t sure what to call Angel.

"I don't know how much Spike has told you," Angel began uncomfortably, and Xander would have laughed if he could have found his voice. The vampire who had tortured William into splitting his personality was worried about what a human slave thought of him, and Xander found that uniquely amusing. He struggled to contain giggles that he half suspected were hysterical.

"I’m not sure what type of relationship you have..." Xander resisted the urge to look up in confusion. He knew full well that Angel knew full well that he had slept with Spike because even the shower wouldn’t have removed the smell, so the whole conversation was a little strange. Spike was his Master; he and Spike had sex. What’s to not know?

"He no doubt wants to fix you, that always was his favorite escape mechanism. If he focused on someone else he wouldn't think about..." Angel stopped, unable to finish the sentence without either incriminating himself or bringing up unwelcome memories, Xander wasn't sure which. However, Xander remembered how casually Spike had dismissed the leather strings torture. He remembered the way Spike had looked when he talked about William breaking, Xander remembered the sort of tortures demons liked to use, and he knew enough about demons in general and Angelus in specific that he could fill in the missing blanks just fine. Of course nothing Angel had said took the form of a question so he just knelt and surreptitiously watched Angel as the vampire now stood up and started nervously pacing.

"William wants to help you take his route, but William's response included rejecting himself and his whole past." Angel took a breath as he obviously tried to organize his thoughts. "Do you want to stop being Xander Harris?" Angel finally demanded. Xander thought about that. He knew he wanted to stop being Droopy Harris with the babbling and the insecurities and the constant feeling like he was dangling on the edge of every group on the verge of being rejected. But Xander Harris had things he liked: a real determination and an ability to think through a problem and some strength that allowed him to keep some part of himself away from the slavers. He finally answered.

"No."

"Spike's advice is going to destroy you, Xander. It's easy enough for a vampire to reject the human part of himself, but a human can't do that." Xander tilted his head slightly as he considered Angel’s words. Maybe that's why he took the name Angelus and destroyed his human past. Maybe Darla broke him, which would leave Joyce the only sane member of the group since Xander suspected that Giles was well on his way to breaking himself.

“And what’s more, this isn’t real for Spike either.” Angel sat back down and Xander now gave the vampire his full attention. “Spike has always gone from one obsession to another. In the beginning, maybe as a way to escape my attentions, but he still does it.” Xander took a deep breath, trying to overcome his fear in order to defend himself and his Master.

“Xander?” Angel asked. Xander suspected that the word was the closest he was going to come to getting permission to speak. He used his observations before and thought carefully for the words that would dig into Angel the deepest.

“You broke William when you walked away, but now you’re making Spike walk away from me,” Xander fired his biggest missile and watched the sour expression on Angel’s face as the vampire considered those words.

“Xander I don’t want you to get hurt,” Angel said, “but the fact is that Spike’s attentions will eventually turn somewhere else. Dru turned him, and yet when he saw how I wanted Buffy, he obsessed over her until Dru left him over it. He has no blood bond with you, and I know it feels like he’s the most devoted…Master….in the world, but when his obsession turns again, you’re going to be left alone or possibly even turned.” Xander thought about those words and most of him clung to the belief that Spike did care as he taught Xander to break with rules with a smile. Eventually, Angel continued.

“Even if he doesn’t lose interest in you, he’ll still turn you because he won’t give up on an obsession, and letting you get old and die just isn’t in his character. Xander, you need to break away from Spike for your sake and for his.” Xander looked up at the idea that he had to give up for Spike, and Angel leaned down so they looked directly into each other’s eyes. “You can’t watch his back and protect him the way a mate could, and if Spike doesn’t have you, he’ll find a mate, maybe even go back to Drusilla. That’d be better for both of you,” Angel said before standing up.

“The door and the window have alarms, so you can’t open them from the inside without Giles knowing, and if you go missing, either Giles or I will go straight to Spike,” Angel said in clear warning, and Xander dropped his head in submission, recognizing the threat as genuine. “So stay here and think about what I said, Xander.” The door closed and Xander decided that he really didn’t like this no talking stuff because it just gave people who normally didn’t talk entirely too much time to talk.

Droopy Harris might have been an idiot, but he would have told Angel to shut up before the broody vampire had managed to say things that had sunk barbs into Xander’s soul. He had so wanted to lose himself in the memory of Spike’s touch, but now he shied away from that image because he didn’t want to think about his Master’s face and search the remembered angles for evidence of obsession. He wanted to believe that Spike wanted him, not just someone to obsess over. Of course, he’d be willing to accept that place in his Master’s life if Angel hadn’t added the closing words. Drusilla was stronger, Xander realized. Any vampire would be stronger. He dismissed his thoughts abruptly as he stood to look around the room.

Xander faced the bed with suspicion. He found himself desperate for his Master's chains and his Master's body holding him down and making him feel safe and at this point he even felt desperate for the cage. Instead, he was faced with the most frightening thing in the world: choices.

Knowing that he would never get any sleep at all on the bed, Xander stripped off his clothes and looked at the space between the dresser and the corner. It was small, but he was used to sleeping in small places, and as he sat down and arranged his limbs in the small corner, the solid surfaces to gave him a sense of boundary and border that he had lost when he had left Spike struggling in Angel's grip. He felt the presence of tears warm his eyes and he took deep breaths to try and calm himself, but as he squirmed around, he knew that he would never be able to relax enough to actually sleep, and he really suspected that he was going to need his rest. Eyeing the bed thoughtfully, he considered options and possible punishments even though a big part of him gave a mighty eye roll and pointed out that Giles' idea of punishment was making him alphabetize books.

Making his decision, Xander went over and pulled the blanket off the bed, folding it neatly and putting it on the floor next to the door. Then he took the top sheet with him back to the corner where he tangled his arms around in the cotton fabric and then hid his work under a drape of fabric. Now if he just could scoot forward onto the trailing edge of the sheet.... Xander lifted up and used his heel to pull the end of the sheet under him both keeping the itchy carpet off his backside and pulling his arms down. He hoped that if Giles came in, the man would assume that he had tangled himself in the sheet overnight. In reality, he had bound his arms firmly enough that he could now relax and have them trapped tightly against him, but if he squirmed too much, he would pop free. He didn't squirm. Carefully nestling himself down on the floor with his back to the dresser and his knees scrunched up against the wall so that he could barely move in the cramped space with his arms bound, he settled down for a poor night's sleep

Chapter 11:

Xander heard the door open and he cracked his eyes to see that the room was still dark, the window a black hole, and Giles outlined by the light from the hallway. Xander kept his eyes open only enough to watch Giles sway, one hand against the door frame keeping him upright. He didn't know what Giles wanted from him, so he stayed quiet, tangled in his sheet and cramped into his corner. After all, if he was asleep, Giles couldn't blame him for doing something wrong.

Giles stumbled forward, putting out a hand to catch himself on the empty bed, before his head swung from side to side. Soon enough Giles' view settled on Xander's corner, and Xander closed his eyes and just hoped to be left alone because now that Giles was watching, he realized how truly stupid he must look. Instead he heard the bed creak. The room went silent for so long that Xander risked taking a peek to see if Giles had fallen asleep, but the man sat of the edge of the bed staring at him and Xander struggled to stay still and keep his breathing even. He sooooo didn't have the energy to deal with Giles and wasn't sure he would ever be ready for this conversation. But Giles just continued to sit and look.

"I bloody failed at everything. You're right, you know. I did tell Willow to stop; I suppose Spike told you that." For a second, Xander worried that Giles knew he was awake, but when the watcher continued to gently rock on the bed, Xander realized that the watcher was talking to himself, or rather he was talking to what he thought was an asleep Xander. "William the Bloody Idiot brings you home when I wasn't even looking, and now I'm failing you again."

Part of Xander wanted to comfort the man whose cracking voice and slurred words carried a pain that Xander couldn't even understand. Another part of Xander wanted to scream out that Giles *was* failing him so the watcher should let him go home. He compromised and did nothing.

"Bloody can't even run the store without my suppliers and half my customers checking with Spike behind my back. One word from him, and they'll stop doing business with Spike's properly claimed and marked slave, and then I really won't have anything, but don't worry, Xander. Even if Spike shuts down the Magic Box, I'm not giving you back. I won't sell you to make life easier. I won't fail you like that. I'll just... damnable Christ, I don't know what we'll do, but we'll do something." Giles words came out in spurts with awkward pauses in the middle of sentences and painful half-sobs brought on by drink and an illusion of privacy. Xander listened to the bed creak again and he watched through his eyelashes as Giles stumbled out of the room again, closing the door rather loudly on his way out.

Xander lay tangled on the floor and for the first time he realized that Giles was a guy. Well, he had always known that Giles was a guy in that he wasn't a girl, but somehow he had always expected Giles to be better than the rest of them. Giles was supposed to have the answers and Giles was supposed to fix it when Xander went and cast a spell over all the women in town and Giles was supposed to be able to train a slayer and have a job and sit and listen to their adolescent problems. He somehow never really thought of Giles as *just* a guy who was clearly falling apart on his own. Of course, Xander also realized that this version of Giles who didn't have the answers and sought them in the bottom of a bottle could never help him, so he wasn't sure where that left him.

If Angel was right, Spike didn't really want him but rather he just needed something to focus on other than himself. Even more importantly, Spike needed to obsess over someone who could be an equal partner instead of accepting Spike's affections without being able to repay them. Xander's heart tore at the idea that he wasn't enough, but Angel's words pointed out a truth he couldn't just ignore. Giles clearly didn't have the resources to take care of another nutcase since he seemed so close to the edge himself. He suspected that if he stayed here, he was going to slide off the deep end and possibly take Giles with him. Joyce...well Joyce had a right to some normalcy, and nut-boy wasn't normal. She needed to get her life and her health back. Besides, Joyce meant Spike, and he didn't think Angel would let him get near Spike again. Sometimes he felt like Angel was really just trying to protect Spike by getting the crazy human away from him, and other times Xander felt like he was Angel’s excuse for wanting to hurt Spike. In the darkest corner of his mind he wondered if Angel would use him as an excuse to stake Spike.

So, that left Angel. Xander tried not to shiver at the idea of belonging to the broody one. He imagined a future where he was left in a corner out of sight. He tried not to think about what it would mean to never be touched again. But listing all the options really did leave him with the suspicion that he was about to move to L.A. Now that he had made himself totally miserable, Xander allowed himself to sink into the memory of being chained to the bed under Spike's body, and as he drifted back to sleep, whether the expression was love or obsession didn't matter any more because it was the closest to thing to happiness that Xander ever expected to feel again.

Xander woke up gasping for air as the feeling of the carpet under his back somehow translated into the feeling of the whip as his trainer had let it rest against his naked skin just before it cut into his flesh. The sheets had come loose and Xander flailed his arms, slamming the top of his one forearm into the edge of the dresser so hard that he almost cried out, but instead he closed his eyes and tried to gather his wits as he figured out where he was. He crawled out of the corner and noticed that his sheet was damp with sweat, but his clothes were gone, so he wrapped it around his waist, ignoring the musky scent of fear that rose to his nose as he did so.

At the door, he hesitated. Angel had threatened go after Spike if he disobeyed, but he didn't know whether the rule about opening the door from the inside meant not opening the door to try and escape or not opening the door at all. He could hear someone banging around in the front rooms, so if he opened the door, they couldn't possibly think he was trying to escape, but Angel had said to not open the door, and his bladder was starting to demand that he either find a bathroom or pee on Giles' carpet, and Xander stood immobilized as he tried to sort through the choices and the voices in his head.

Finally, with his hand trembling, he raised his fist and knocked on the door. The metal on metal sounds stopped and Xander stepped back as he waited for the door to open.

"Xander? Do you need something?" Giles asked as he opened the door. Xander actually did snort in disgust before he could control himself, and horror encompassed him as he realized what he had done. He carefully schooled his voice before he answered the question.

"I need the bathroom," Xander said quietly as he tried to control any other flashes of emotion.

"It's right down the hall, Xander. You know where it is," Giles said, and thanks G-man for rubbing in the fact that he had obviously just done something else wrong if the frustrated expression and clipped tones in Giles’ voice meant anything. Xander ducked his head down and found himself missing his trainer who at least explained the rules. Xander had gotten quite good at escaping punishment, but without saying any of this, he gathered the sheet and started to walk past Giles.

“Xander, the sheet…” Giles began, and Xander immediately pulled the sheet off and dropped it on the floor. Right, his clothes were gone, he shouldn’t have tried to fashion new ones. “Xander, I didn’t mean. Oh good lord, go to the bathroom and I’ll get your clothes.”

Dismissed at last, Xander hurried to the bathroom before he accidentally peed on the floor. Once he had pushed the door shut and stood in front of the toilet, Xander struggled to get his brain straightened out. Of course Giles hadn’t wanted the sheet. God, he had just flashed Giles, and while he could admit to harboring an evil flashage thought or two in high school, the librarian had never been a target of that fantasy.

Okay, so what had Giles wanted? What had he done wrong? Xander turned on the water and started drinking from the faucet since his brain had no obvious answer. His brain had no answers on a lot of issues lately, but Xander just reminded himself to submit. That’s all he really had to do in order to make everyone happy. Giles would know that he had taken him away from Spike. Angel would know that Spike wasn’t burdened with Xander. Either that or Angel would know he was safe from Spike—he couldn’t figure that out. Spike would go and find a strong, powerful vampire mate to obsess over. The girls…” Xander stood up with water dripping off his lips as the pain of that washed over him. But it wasn’t his choice, he reminded himself. He wasn’t in the saving business any more and if Giles and Angel ruined Spike’s best chance of getting the girls back, he didn’t have the power to stop that.

“Xander, I’ve brought you clothes. I washed them,” Giles called from outside the door, and after a brief pause, Xander opened the door just wide enough for Giles to pass the clothing in to him. Xander held the clothes in his hands and wondered whether he was supposed to shower or dress now. Xander thought about everything he knew about Giles and decided to shower.

By the time he left the bathroom he could smell the remains of bacon and eggs, no doubt the source of the cooking sounds. He stepped nervously to the edge of the kitchen and waited.

“Xander, you startled me,” Giles said as he turned to put a pan away and nearly dropped it. Xander just ducked his head and avoided making eye contact. Big sigh at that, but Xander really didn’t know what else to do. “Xander, sit down and I’ll get you breakfast.” Xander momentarily cheered at the thought of bacon and eggs, but then he faced the table and came to the confusion over the word sit. He must have stared at the table too long because Giles called from the kitchen. “Just sit in any chair, Xander.” Okay so that solved the floor versus chair issue Xander thought as he took the chair farthest from the kitchen. He had missed his second meal last night so he really was hungry.

Giles came out with a bowl and put it down. Oatmeal. Xander reminded himself not to make a face.

“This is the kind with cinnamon and sugar. I’m sure you’ll like it.” Giles put a spoon down beside the bowl before going back to the kitchen for a glass of milk. Xander stared at the food helplessly. He couldn’t bring himself to admit the problem to Giles, but every time he even thought of picking up the spoon or the glass his stomach knotted so badly that he couldn’t even consider eating.

Xander sat at the table just looking at the bowl, and suddenly he couldn't even find the energy to care any more. Not like it mattered, just sit and stay out of Giles' way and don't give Giles and Spike a reason to kill each other because he didn't want either of them dead. Xander had stared at the bowl for so long that he flinched in surprise when Giles bumped him.

"Sorry. Just taking the bowl since you're not hungry," Giles offered, and Xander watched the food disappear without comment. Yep, he was just a pathetic man who's not hungry, he mused as he felt his stomach rumble. He'd gotten used to regular meals with Spike, and now missing two meals bothered him more than it used to.

"Do you want to watch T.V.?" Giles asked as he knelt down next to Xander's chair, and Xander wanted to give him an answer, but he had no idea what he wanted anymore. He wasn't sure he even knew what he needed. Besides, what he wanted or needed didn't matter since he couldn't have it anyway.

"Okay, maybe we can just go sit in the living room and talk." Xander took that as an order, so he followed Giles the three or four steps to the living room and then stood nervously, unsure how to handle himself when faced with actual furniture. Honestly, he'd rather stand.

Giles sat on one end of the couch and gestured toward the other end with a wave. Xander closed his eyes for a moment as he sought some inner strength before he walked over and sat on the couch, pulling his knees up in front of him.

"Xander I'm not going to try and pretend to know the answers; we're just going to have to work this through together. I've called the council, and they're sending a specialist to talk to you....It would help if you actually talked," Giles' voice had that familiar, sarcastic tone on the last sentence, but it wasn't a question so Xander waited.

"Right now my guess is that you're angry with me for taking you away from Spike, and I understand that. I'm not angry with you for wanting Spike," Giles commented, and Xander all but snorted his disbelief. Giles was all about taking things away from Spike, and Xander could see that even if Giles couldn't. "This feeling of connection you have with Spike comes from your fear." Giles paused.

"Xander, you don't have to tell me these things, but I want you to answer in your own mind." Giles took a deep breath.

"When you were with the slavers, were you afraid for your life?" Well duh, Giles. Fear was more constant than breathing in the training area.

"Were you afraid of Spike?" That took more thought. He certainly expected Spike to beat and rape him, but he hadn't been afraid of that. Even during the rape he hadn't been afraid, and looking back, he now understood that Spike had done it to protect his cover as a slave buyer since the no demon would believe that Spike would buy a slave and then not use him. Spike himself hadn't really wanted to have sex, and he had thought Xander enjoyed the experience. So, not only had he never feared Spike, but he really never had a reason to fear Spike.

"Were you hurt badly?" No, Giles. Trainers made suggestions and rewarded good behavior with sugar cubes. How the hell did the watcher think they turned humans into good obedient little slaves? Xander repressed an urge to berat Giles up side the head.

"Do you feel badly about yourself, doubt yourself?" Xander didn't even have to think on that one. He knew that he'd lost any good sense he might have once had, which is why he truly didn't trust his own judgment. So, back to the 'no duh' answer here.

"Does Spike do little things that make you think he likes you?" Xander didn't limit Spike's kindness to little things. Let's see, Spike was teaching him how to fight and gave him decorations and praised him for making his own decisions even about stupid little things and held him so that he didn't feel afraid. Yeah, Spike had cared for him with more kindness than Xander had a right to expect after the whole tying Spike to the chair thing.

"Xander these are symptoms of Stockholm syndrome. It's really quite common even in human hostage situations. You need to hold onto some sort of hope, so you take any gesture on the part of the captor as an act of kindness and proof that the captor likes you and won't kill you. It's a way of controlling you." Xander thought of his trainer's hand smoothing back his hair while he was in the cage and he understood the logic. He had felt a weird sort of loyalty to his trainer even while he was terrified of the demon.

"Spike likes controlling people, especially the people who once saw him brought down by the Initiative. For him, it's better than seeing us dead," Xander thought about that, but it didn't fit what he'd seen of Spike. It didn't fit with Spike losing at Trivial Pursuit and having to rinse his own mugs.

"Spike isn't really being kind to you; he's using kindness to get you to accept him as your Master, and you'll never be free if you don't recognize the pattern and stop turning to Spike as your protection," Giles finished and then he leaned back on the couch. Xander sat on the far end of the sofa and considered Giles' words. He really didn't have anything else to do in the oppressive silence that fell over the room. Could Spike be trying to make Xander's slave status permanent? Xander considered and admitted that it might be true. Spike had been essentially alone since Drusilla had left, and Spike might want a lover that he could control more easily than Drusilla, but that didn't really bother Xander. If Spike wanted to keep him, Xander wouldn't argue, except for the whole Angel argument about Spike needing a better partner than Xander, which was also true. Xander's mind was saved from imminent burn out from running in circles by the sound of the doorbell.

"Stay there," Giles said with the first clear orders Xander had heard yet. It calmed his nerves to have a nice clear direction as Giles went to open the door. When the blond woman pushed her way in without even a word, Xander wasn't sure who was more surprised at Joyce's appearance, him or Giles.

"Joyce?" Giles asked in confusion.

"Oh thank god you and Angel haven't gone and done something stupid," Joyce said, and Xander just continued to watch her as her eyes went from him to Giles.

"Yes, of course, heaven forbid we do something foolish like move in with a vampire," Giles said dryly as he closed the door. "Please, Joyce, do come in and sit down." Of course, Giles said that as Joyce settled in at the far end of the couch, and Xander had to restrain himself from moving. He just wasn't sure whether he wanted to move away or move toward. He wasn't sure what he wanted, truth be told, so he just sat and watched.

"Xander, are you all right?" Joyce asked, and Xander just blinked back, unable to even form an answer.

"As you can see, he is *not* all right, and I have no intention of allowing Spike to continue abusing him." Giles took his own seat on a chair.

"I never saw Spike do anything abusive," Joyce protested, but Giles just rolled his eyes in contempt. This was almost as good as watching a fight at home, Xander thought to himself. The drinking, the contempt, the mutual frustration and blame, he was feeling right at home now.

"Xander, what happened to your arm?" Xander looked over toward Joyce at the sound of his name and then he looked down where the skin was swollen and red with small drops of dried blood on the surface.

"I hit it," Xander commented unemotionally.

"Seems like there's more abuse here than with Spike," Joyce snapped back sharply and Giles quickly protested.

"The boy has always been clumsy. He must have slipped."

"The *boy* isn't clumsy at all now. Xander, how did you hurt your arm?"

"I hit the dresser."

"*Why* did you hit the dresser?"

"I had a nightmare."

"About what?" Xander could tell from the tone of voice that Joyce expected him to break at any moment; she talked as if he were a three-year-old victim of sexual abuse, but at least she actually talked *with* him.

"Trainer's whip," he answered truthfully.

Giles now interrupted. "Oh, Xander. Why didn't you tell me?" Xander resisted the urge to point out that Giles hadn't asked.

"You have no clue what you're doing here, do you?" Joyce asked as she turned to face Giles. "Xander, down," Joyce gently ordered as she pointed to a spot next to her, and Xander's anxieties which had ratcheted up to into fear land all dissipated at the clear order. He slipped off the couch and knelt next to Joyce, leaning against her leg in an incorrect position that would have earned him a whipping in his trainer's presence. “He needs Spike,” Joyce pointed out.

"I've researched this condition thoroughly, and I am well aware of the psychological dependence he has formed with Spike." Boy, Giles had his snotty English school teacher voice out now. At that point, Xander’s stomach chose to make its displeasure know with a low rumbling noise.

"Xander, are you hungry?" Joyce asked.

"Yes,” Xander answered, grateful that someone had asked.

"I fixed him breakfast, Joyce, so if he's hungry he had every opportunity to eat."

"I guessing he didn't," Joyce objected. "Did you put the food down in front of him or feed him?"

"I am not going to feed him as though he were a baby," Giles scoffed, and Xander pressed himself into Joyce's leg. He'd never felt so stupid in all his life, not even when Giles had ripped into him about falling asleep on Oz watch. Joyce's hand found his hair and gently stroked it.

"Rupert Giles, if you can't see the damage you're doing, you need to pull your head out of either your bottle or your ass." Xander physically jerked at that comment, totally unprepared for such a condemnation out of Buffy's mom of all people. Maybe she'd been hanging around Spike a little too much.

"Well, I..."

"Don't even finish that because if you start explaining why you had a reason to insult Xander like that, you aren't going to like my response. He is *not* a baby; he is an incredibly strong young man who has suffered and who has been tortured so much that he can't pick up his own food. It's not about being a baby, and if you had done nearly as much research as you claim, you'd know that."

"I certainly am aware of the behavioral conditioning aspects of torture; I just hadn't thought that the slavers would have..." Giles stopped, and Xander watched the glasses come off in that familiar gesture of frustration and loss.

"You aren't aware of entirely too much, and you're going to destroy Xander before you figure it all out," Joyce pointed out in a coldly logical tone of voice. "Spike understands more about the slavers and more about a broken human psyche."

"Joyce, he's better off here," Giles said in a voice only slightly tinged with desperation and pleading.

"Really? Because the last time I saw him, he was happy and sleeping in a bed and occasionally making inappropriate off-hand remarks that made him blush when he realized he'd said them. I'd say that he was better off then."

"Spike is turning Xander into his slave; I won't have that," Giles suddenly snapped in a voice far more Ripper than Giles.

"Rupert," Joyce said quietly. "Xander has been a slave for so long that he doesn't know how to be what you're trying to force him to be. He isn't our old Xander anymore even if he has managed to hold on to parts of himself through that horrific training."

"And you're taking Spike's word for this, just like you're taking Spike's word for Buffy's death." Giles' anger practically flowed from his body in waves, and Joyce leaned back away from him with a sigh.

"I held William though *his* nightmares, and I know exactly how my daughter died." Xander looked up at Joyce both surprised and horrified. She knew about Spike's made up story right? He looked into her eyes as she gazed down on him and stroked the hair back out of his eyes. "I know exactly how my daughter died," she repeated, "and I don't blame William at all." Xander felt tears start to fill his eyes, and Joyce simply wiped his eyes with the back of her finger.

"So you're taking Spike's side again," Giles snapped, breaking the silent communication Xander had found with Joyce.

"I'm taking Xander's side now. I took the side of the truth then." Joyce wasn't angry or babbling or desperate: she was calm and reasonable and infinitely motherly.

"You cannot condone what Spike has done here!"

"Spike hasn't done anything except help Xander recover, and now I'm seeing much of that recovery lost. Rupert, he would tease Spike and smile and fall asleep in the living room and make all these facial expressions that told me exactly what he was thinking, and now he's gone back to square one. You can't keep him."

"I have to protect him," Giles said, and even Xander could hear the note of desperation.

"You're killing him. If you want to protect him, let him leave."

"I just can't…"

"Rupert, I swear....I might not take an ax to your head like I did with William, but I'm starting to think that I have a frying pan with your name on it. You need to worry about your own mental health and maybe then you can have a relationship with Xander. Right now, we're leaving. Come on Xander." Joyce stood and immediately started walking toward the door. Xander bounced in nervousness on the floor once or twice: his growing awareness of his own unhealthy need for his Master warring with that raw, undeniable need, and then he sprang up and followed Joyce closely at heel.

"Joyce Summers," Giles demanded just as Joyce opened the door, and Xander didn't move as Joyce turned around to face Giles again.

"No, Rupert. You are not responsible for saving everyone, and you need to save yourself right now. You and Angel stay away from Xander and stay away from my house." She turned and walked out, and Xander followed still in bare feet, leaving the door open behind him. When Joyce opened the car door, he hesitated only a bare second before deciding that sitting on the seat was better than being left behind as a nut-case, so he clenched his teeth and sat down as Joyce slammed the door and walked around to the driver's side.

"You do know that will make them stay away for about 10 minutes, right?" Joyce asked as she started the car and backed out of the driveway.

"Yep," Xander answered as his stomach started to unknot at the thought that he would be going back to his Master. Of course, Angel and Giles has made their mark, and he couldn't let himself believe that Spike would keep him forever or even that it would be healthy for either of them to stay together, but he could help find his girls, and then he could be with Spike until the vampire lost interest or turned him. He pushed aside thoughts of the future and resolved to focus on remembering every good moment in case Spike took the leaving option. As a slave, he was actually quite good at ignoring the future, so he used that skill and just focused on the memory of his Master's arms around him—a feeling he had given up on feeling again.

Chapter 12:

Joyce pulled into the garage next to the DeSoto, and Xander got out of the car on his own, following her into the kitchen.

“About soddin’ time,” Spike exclaimed and then stopped. “Thought you were just goin’ ta have a look-see, luv,” Spike finished, and Xander dropped his head. Wasn’t Spike happy to see him? Why did he even care that Spike wasn’t happy to see him? An unfamiliar confusion milled around in Xander’s brain making it hard for him to decide what he felt.

“I couldn’t leave him there,” Joyce commented, and Xander just stood inside the doorway without knowing what to do.

“Pet, come here,” Spike ordered and Xander walked over to him and stood in front of Spike who still sat at the small kitchen table smoking, and if the ashtray was any indication, chain smoking. Because Spike was sitting, Xander could watch the vampire’s confused expression as he stood above Spike looking down. After a couple of seconds, Spike snapped Xander’s butt with a finger, and Xander slowly lowered himself into the Position kneel as ordered, but the whole time, he thought of Giles’ words, that there was something wrong with him for doing this, and he remembered what he’d thought of the vampire back when Spike had been tied to his chair in the Basement of Doom.

Why didn’t he just get up and tell Spike that he didn’t want to be this pathetic man who had to kneel at someone else’s feet? Probably because he did want to; he could feel the tension flow out of him the minute he settled into his kneel. He straightened his back a little and spread his knees to get into perfect form, and the knowledge that he was following orders untied a band from around his heart, and Xander nearly cried with frustration that kneeling was the only thing that made the constant undercurrent of pain and fear go away. No wonder Giles was worried about him; he was pathetic.

Xander kept his head down and waited. Sure enough, Spike tapped him on the head, and Xander sunk into the Down kneel, relaxing as Spike ran fingers though his hair. Spike’s hand brushed the back of his head and Xander flinched.

“Bloody hell,” Spike cursed. “Pet, are you hurt?”

“Yes, Master.” Xander knelt and just hoped that Spike didn’t do anything too drastic. Spike waited several seconds before continuing.

“What happened?”

“Giles accidentally hit me, Master.” Xander hoped his one word addition to the truth would calm Spike, but it was Joyce who gasped at his words.

“When did this happen?” Spike’s voice remained entirely calm.

“Last night, Master.”

“And we’re back to soddin’ twenty questions. Pet, just tell me the story.” Spike’s hand pulled Xander’s chin up until Xander ended up looking into Spike’s eyes, but that almost made it worse because Xander could see the Master who had tried to help him, but he could also see the pathetic excuse for a vampire who had crawled to the Slayer for help, a slayer Spike had killed, but then Joyce didn’t blame him, so Xander didn’t have a right to either. And Xander was back to mentally chasing his own tail. Suddenly Spike quirked an eyebrow at him and said in a louder voice, “Pet, I told you to tell me the story.” Xander’s eyes dropped instinctively to Spike’s stomach as he felt a wave of fear roll though him. He’d failed; he hadn’t obeyed. He rushed to talk.

“Giles tried to cut off my collar but the bolt cutters slipped and he hit me in the head with the handle of the bolt cutters.” Xander finished and waited for Spike’s response. He didn’t have long to wait.

“And the wanker still went ahead and cut the collar off, that bloody, inconsiderate, effin’ pathetic…”

“William,” Joyce said in a warning tone of voice and Spike stopped.

“Yeah, I know, luv. It just grates me that he does this after all we’ve done to cover for his sorry ass what with me killing the beasties and you covering for him when demons come complainin’ to me about his screw ups at the store as if my claim meant I actually care what the wanker does.”

“We both know he’s suffering, and we just need to keep him away from Xander. And as far as that goes, I don’t mind doing customer service for Giles considering it’s your money I’m spending.” Xander watched out of the corner of his eye as Joyce put a conspiratorial hand on Spike’s shoulder. So Giles was falling apart so badly that Spike and Joyce were covering for him? Xander thought back to the man who had stumbled drunk into his room. He never would have expected Giles to fall apart so thoroughly, but having seen that, he knew they were telling the truth. Giles feared Spike would shut down his store, but Spike was obviously using his new wealth and his position in the demon community as Giles’ “master” to keep Giles in business. Joyce finally continued. “He’s hurting, and he’s trying to protect Xander at all costs.”

“Yeah, well the cost is goin’ ta be the boy’s sanity if Giles doesn’t back off,” Spike said.

“First things first,” Joyce declared matter-of-factly. “Feed Xander and then we’ll consider our options.”

“Only one option, luv: the boy and I are heading out to find the girls before the sun goes down and Peaches has a chance to come after us.”

“I know.” Joyce said sadly, and Xander wondered why the woman suddenly sounded so tired.

“If the pouf starts playin’ dirty with the monthly money, you have the other accounts, right?” Spike asked as he stood, leaving Xander kneeling on the floor and feeling a little like the family dog as the two of them made cooking noises behind him.

“I have the numbers in the safe,” Joyce agreed. Xander listened as they moved in silence, and he realized that they truly were a weird sort of family. A weird family that was trying to take care of Giles and now wanted to take care of him. Part of Xander wanted to fall into that warmth, but part of him threw up one doubt after another.

What if this was just a response to the torture and he didn’t really care for Spike like he thought he did? He thought of the relief and fondness he felt for his trainer, and then he thought of Spike. Were those feelings the same? What if his feelings were real, but Angel was right about Spike just needing someone else to obsess over. Maybe Spike didn’t really want *him* as much as he wanted *someone*, and if that was the case, his Master might eventually replace him. If he gave the last piece of himself to Spike and then Spike left him, he had no doubt about just how long he would last. But when Angel caught Spike, his Master had just wanted to protect him, so maybe Angel was wrong. But then again, Xander didn’t know if any of his thinking had any logic left at all after six months in Leshar’s loving care. Xander mentally snorted at his own joke.

Xander followed when Spike left the kitchen carrying two plates, Joyce behind him carrying two glasses and a sports bottle. When Spike sat down, Xander fell into a Position kneel at his side, head bent. Part of him felt so completely right, and part of him felt so completely guilty for feeling so completely right, but Xander pushed that part back as he ate pieces of fried chicken from his master’s fingers. The sports bottle held down at an angle was a surprise, but Xander took it in his mouth and drank. The cold milk was the best thing he’d ever tasted and he drank with relish as Spike ran a careful hand through his hair, avoiding the sore spot on the back of his head.

All too soon Joyce left and Spike led him upstairs where the vampire started packing. He was shoving a frightening amount of stuff from the closet into two duffle bags, but Xander’s position kneeling by the bed didn’t allow him to see what exactly Spike was taking. Suddenly a small bag flew through the air and hit Xander on the chest softly before falling to the ground in front of him.

“Go get the CD’s out of the car, pet,” Spike ordered, and Xander stood up to go do as ordered when a voice stopped him in the doorway. “Xander?” He turned to look at his Master with lowered eyes. “Do we need to take the cage?” Spike asked with no more emotion than if he’d remarked on the weather. Xander thought about it, and honestly he wanted the cage about as much as he had ever wanted the cage. In the cage he didn’t have to worry about whose voice to trust. In the cage he couldn’t make a wrong decision. In the cage, his thoughts didn’t circle like vultures ready to rip him apart. In the cage he could let all that go, but he also remembered his horror when he first saw those impassive faces blinking at him from the trainer’s shelves, and he took a deep breath trying to steady his nerves.

“No, Master,” he answered, listening to his own voice crack with detached disgust for his own weakness. Xander waited to be dismissed, but Spike just sat on the floor with a half full duffle bag looking at him with a head cocked to one side.

“Right, go on, then,” Spike finally said, and Xander trotted downstairs with his small bag in hand. Xander was head first in the passenger side of the car when the garage door opened, and he sat up so suddenly that he hit the back of his already injured head, sucking in a breath of air as he ignored the pain in favor of the panic at the wide sunny street now clear through the open door. Joyce had parked a panel van on the street, and now she walked toward him. Xander pulled the bag closer to his chest and backed up a couple of steps.

“I need to move the DeSoto,” Joyce said softly as she got closer to the garage. Xander backed up a few more steps until he reached the kitchen door where he stood immobile and silent. Okay, this shouldn’t be such a big deal. It was only Joyce; it was only a view of an open street. However, Xander had to admit that the view of the open street nearly sent him running in fear: the normal looking houses painted white and yellow and brown. He could imagine how they must look at night with the yellowing street lights spreading islands that speciously promised safety.

Xander had been in one of those islands when the van had stopped. Asking for directions. Such a damn human thing to do. Why had he stepped up? He could hear the door sliding, metal scraping against metal as he stupidly stood there trying to figure it all out. Stupid. A hand touched his arm in the darkness, and Xander turned and sprinted into the house like he should have six months earlier. He ran up the stairs and didn’t even know where he was; he felt strong hands holding his arms, and he could see those bottom tusks, and he pulled back in terror and then the hands tightened and he knew what would follow. He dropped to the floor unwilling to live through it again, but he felt only a weight on his back, no claws ripping, no pain. The weight stayed on him as Xander sobbed and then he could hear words.

“Shh, pet. ‘S’all right. Wankers are gone and if I ever see ‘em again, I’ll rip ‘em to bloody shreds for ya,” a voice promised, and Xander slowly realized that the bag of CD’s was pressing uncomfortably into his chest and the weight was Spike’s own body draped over his. A lamp lay broken on the floor, and Xander felt a pain at his foot. Xander took a deep breath and tried to ignore the voice that told him he really was as insane as Dru ever dreamed of being. Maybe Dru would want him if Spike ever got tired of him.

“Ya back with us now?” Spike asked, and Xander only nodded. Spike must have believed him though because the vampire got up and Xander quickly slipped into the Floor kneel, humiliated by his own lack of control and humiliated by his need to humiliate himself by kneeling on the floor to a Master who obviously had not gotten his money’s worth out of his purchase. He pressed his forehead into the carpet and tried to get his breathing and heart rate back to normal. Panicking wasn’t allowed; fear wasn’t allowed. Slaves just accepted, but he wasn’t a slave a small voice said, sounding just like Giles.

Spike’s hand ran up and down his back, the shirt making the gesture feel dull and distant.

“He’s bleeding,” Joyce commented, and Xander’s best guess was his foot, but he stayed in place not having been given a command to move, and part of him just wanted to fall into the pattern of obedience. It hurt less.

“Where?” Spike asked, and Joyce must have pointed or gestured because Xander didn’t hear an answer; he just heard Spike getting up and moving around. Footsteps walked away and then quickly returned. He felt his foot lifted, and he balanced on one knee as something cool and wet washed his foot. He felt a firm leg press into his hip, obviously offering some support, but Xander pulled farther away, ignoring the protest from his kneecap.

“Here, let me,” Spike said, and the angle of the pressure on his foot shifted, and something firmer and smoother now soothed the sore foot.

“Spike, that is borderline disgusting,” Joyce said, but there was no answer as the soothing touch continued to ease the pain before widening out to stroke the arch of the foot next to the cut. Finally the touch stopped and Spike answered.

“Wot? Not goin’ ta waste good blood,” Spike snarked, and Xander could practically imagine the smirk. He had to imagine the smirk since his forehead was still on the ground, his hands clenched behind his back and his one knee starting to ache from holding too much of his body weight. Whoever held his foot released it, and Xander tucked the now comforted limb back under him without breaking position. “Besides, the saliva will make it heal faster,” Spike finished and Xander figured out what Spike had done.

“Just don’t ever offer to lick my brain,” Joyce said dryly and then her footsteps retreated, leaving Xander with his Master, his memories, and his embarrassment.

“What was it pet?” Spike asked, and Xander wasn’t sure what Spike meant so he remained silent. “What scared ya?” Damn, Xander really didn’t want to admit this…he should be able to retain some dignity, he thought as he knelt with his head to the floor in front of a vampire he had once called the ‘Impotent One.’ Right, dignity be damned.

“The street and the houses, Master,” Xander admitted mortified at his own patheticness.

“Street didn’t scare ya, pet, just reminded ya of somethin’. What really scared ya?”

“The thought of being taken, Master.” Xander felt a little better now. That was something worthy of fear; white picket houses and a street…not so much.

“Won’t let it soddin’ happen,” Spike insisted, and Xander felt the tap at his head, so he pulled himself up into a more comfortable kneel. “Bloody well won’t let anyone take ya,” Spike promised, and then Xander felt himself being pulled into the vampire’s lap. Xander wanted to melt into the embrace and let himself feel safe, but part of him whispered that Spike wouldn’t let anyone else take him because Spike himself had already made a claim. He wasn’t free and safe, he was Spike’s. Xander lay stiffly in Spike’s lap until Spike released him and gave him a thump on the butt.

Xander went into a kneel, and Spike retrieved the bags, including the CD bag that he stuffed into one of the duffels that already looked ready to burst.

“Time ta get out of Dodge before the sheriff shows up,” Spike said as he headed out the door. Xander followed through rooms darkened by sun-proof shades. In the garage, the side panel of the van was open, and Xander had a flash of panic, but then Spike tossed in the bags, and a strong hand was on his arm anchoring him to the present and holding all those fears at bay. Of course, the hand didn’t stop other fears from creeping in at the edges.

Once they were in the back, Joyce pulled a thick curtain between the driver’s compartment and the back, leaving only the weak light coming through the heavily shielded back window so that they were in a sort of late twilight even as Joyce backed the van out into the daylight. Xander stood awkwardly as the van bumped and rocked, unsure about whether to sit on the bench along the side or kneel at his Master’s feet or throw himself out the van door. Van door actually sounded good because the other two actions had too much symbolic significance.

“Down,” Spike ordered, and Xander almost sighed in relief that the decision had been made for him. He knelt down beside his master.

"Xander? What do you need?" Spike asked seriously.

"I..." Xander's words failed him again as he knelt by his Master's side. He needed to feel okay about kneeling at his Master's side. He needed to feel like he wasn't somehow ruining his Master's life by being here. He needed to know that what he was feeling was all him and not some screwy, freaky psychosis that he would one day wake up from and die from embarrassment. He needed to feel like he wasn't falling apart.

Spike suddenly knelt next to him, a cool hand cupping his cheek and forcing him to look right into his Master's blue-blue eyes. Spike knelt there silent and waiting and finally Xander took a breath to answer.

"I need a Master," Xander whispered.

"Ya have a Master, Xander," Spike countered. Xander drew another breath, not really wanting to go deeper than that, but he suspected that his Master wasn't going to let him get away with less than honesty.

"I need to feel okay about having a Master," he offered, giving Spike part of the ugliness inside that had poisoned his peace of mind.

"And ya aren't now?" Spike asked.

"No, Master."

"Why not, pet?" Xander took a deep breath.

"I'm afraid that I'll wake up and hate myself for being like this," Xander admitted.

"Oi, that's Giles talkin'." As Xander watched in fascination, the gold sparks appeared in the blue of Spike's eyes. Part of him feared for Giles' safety, and part of him pointed out that if Spike truly had any intention of hurting Giles he could have done so already. Xander just waited, slightly uncomfortable as he knelt on the floor of the van.

"Position," Spike unexpectedly said, and Xander stared at his master for a second before his brain processed the order and he knelt up into them more formal stance.

"Butt up," Spike ordered, and Xander looked up in shock. Spike had never given that order and he wondered if the vampire was about to punish him for his doubts. Xander stood and spread his legs as far as possible before bending at the waist, keeping his knees straight and bracing his hands on the floor. The position left his butt up in the air, and left him very little balance or control, most of which Xander used just to keep from falling over from the small movements of the van over potholes. Spike stood and Xander could hear him walking around to his backside. Xander saw Spike's boots through his own legs since his head hung limply toward the floor.

"What do ya need, pet?" Spike asked again.

"I don't know," Xander answered, and he heard the crack of a hand against his butt before he felt the dull thudding ache of the slap. He'd been hurt ten thousand times worse, but it shocked him that Spike would do it, and so he indignantly stood up. He felt a hand at his back and then Xander knew how badly he had failed his Master, he dropped back down into position and started trembling at the thought that if he couldn’t' be a good slave, Spike might not want him. He couldn't face Giles again, and if he ended up with Angel, he would just kill himself. Death would be better than life being ignored in a corner.

"What do ya want right now?" Spike demanded, and the "want" word circled ominously even as Xander tried to answer his Master. "What does my White Knight want?" Spike demanded again, and Xander ignored the worms squiggling in his stomach at the thought of admitting to having a want.

"I want to get the girls back, Master," Xander answered. The hand that had spanked him now rubbed the same cheek, soothing away the already disappearing ache.

"And why am I takin' ya with me?"

"To convince them you're a slaver, Master."

"And will a slave that hesitates impress them?"

"No, Master."

"Then why are you hesitatin' pet?" Spike asked, the hand still on his butt.

"I don't know, Master." The hand disappeared and then returned to swat the opposite cheek even harder. "I'm afraid, Master," Xander admitted, and he tried to stand again, but he fell back down into position before Spike could do or say anything. He figured he already had enough trouble, and he didn't know what Spike would do now that Spike had started using his authority as a Master. Xander thought back to Angel's words about obsession, and he feared Spike for the first time. What if this was just obsession? What if he gave Spike the last part of himself and then Spike left him? What if he wasn’t enough for Spike?

"What are ya afraid of, pet?" Spike asked and again the hand that had slapped his butt now rubbed circles. Xander had endured pain that made this level of punishment seem more affectionate than brutal, but tears now welled in his eyes from either the slaps or from what Spike was forcing him to admit or from the fears that he still held in his heart.

"I'm afraid..." Xander hesitated, unsure of what part of himself to reveal, and Spike’s hand stilled on his backside, Xander suspected as some sort of subtle warning.

"I'm afraid that I'll fail Willow and Tara, Master."

"Ya can't fail them. All ya have to do is please me, and the rescuin' part is on me, pet. I'll find them and I'll get them out, so you don't have to be afraid of lettin' anyone down."

"I'm afraid I've already let everyone down." Xander breathed out roughly, feeling a need to cry on the edge of his awareness. It wasn’t out of pain, Xander knew that, but he felt as if saying the fear out loud made it real.

"Bloody hell, you're worse than the watcher for doin' the guilt thing, pet. How have you let anyone down?"

"I didn't stay strong. Giles is right about me being messed up because on some days I wanted my trainer's attention...most days," Xander whispered the last two words so softly that he wasn't sure Spike even heard them, but at least he'd let it out.

"The watcher with all his research still doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground. That's not messed up, that's bloody normal. I used ta do all sorts of stupid things just to get Angelus' attention. I knew he'd beat me bloody, but afterwards he'd hold me or bugger me into next week, so the pain was worth knowing that he wanted me too. Still sometimes have trouble seeing the souled broody-boy and not thinking of my sire. So you wanted the trainer's attention, no soddin' wonder. The wonder is that you held on to so much of yourself, pet, so no more thinkin' of yourself as less than strong. I wouldn't bloody have you at my feet if ya weren't strong." Spike stood silent, and then Xander cringed as he heard the question again. "What else are ya afraid of, pet?" Xander wondered if Spike was going to keep it up until Xander didn't have any secrets left.

"You, Master," Xander finally whispered.

"Bloody hell." Xander felt himself pulled out of position as Spike wrapped arms around his middle and pulled him backwards until he practically fell on Spike, and then Spike arranged his limbs so the he was curled in Spike's lap. Most of him wanted to just press himself into a little ball and hide in Spike's lap forever, but another part of himself was repeating a thousand names from the past: Sissy, Wimp, Pansy, Girly-boy. The "little ball" vote won only because Spike's arms wrapped around him so tightly that he couldn't possibly escape.

"I don’t ever want your fear, pet. Wanted ya to talk, and I knew you were fightin' yourself, rippin' yourself up inside. Wanted ta push down the part of ya that thinks he has to carry everything by himself; that strategy’ll leave ya as nutty as Giles." Spike now gently rocked, and Xander had the image of Spike doing this with Drusilla, rocking her when she started slipping 'round the bend. And then the words sunk in, and Xander considered them. He wouldn't have told Spike those things without some "persuasion," and he did feel better...

"Thank you, Master," Xander muttered.

“For what? For scarin’ ya as bad as the ponce and the git did?”

"I needed to say it, Master. I couldn’t have said it otherwise." Spike stopped rocking.

"I bloody need to know," he finally said in a serious tone of voice, "do ya want to stay with me?" Before Xander could answer, Spike continued talking. "I know ya have all these bloody parts inside bangin' against each other, and ya have ta find a way to make all the parts move in the same general direction or you're goin' ta soddin’ rip yourself to shreds, but there's more than one way to pull the pieces together, pet. Do ya want to be okay with this?" Spike tightened his arms until Xander couldn't move. Xander thought about the question. Only one answer got his girls back, so he laid his head down on Spike's shoulder.

"Yes, Master." A voice inside his head jeered him for his weakness, for his willingness to cling to a killer, but Xander shushed that part of himself as he tried to just enjoy the feeling of safety. Maybe Spike would even give him another collar, he thought.

They sat there on the floor of the van tangled in each other's limbs until the van finally pulled to the side of the road and stopped. Xander was more than half asleep, and when Joyce pulled back the curtain, he blinked rapidly to wake up as she looked down on them with an expression Xander hadn't seen since he was a young child being looked down on by his own mother. A flash of guilt ran through him. Did his own mother even know that he had gone missing? Had anyone told his mother that he was back? Xander mentally shrugged; it had been a long time since she had looked at him like this.

"We're here," Joyce said, and it must have meant something to Spike because he got up, setting Xander on his feet with ease.

"Right. The other car here?"

"Yep, right where we left it. The sun will be down in about an hour, so you should be able to leave then."

"Not soddin' waitin'. Peaches is goin' to be lookin' for blood, he made that clear after the git took Xander away last night. So, Xander can drive north until the sun's gone down." Xander looked back at his Master in horror before looking at Joyce who had a similar expression on her own face.

"Spike, do you really think that's a good idea?"

"Wot? He's got a license, which is more than I have. He'll take the 99 up towards Sacramento. If ya need us, you have the cell number?"

"In the basement safe," Joyce agreed. "I always thought you were a little paranoid for taking so many precautions, but now I'm grateful."

"That's the thing about bein' impulsive, luv, ya gotta have back up plans for when things blow up in your face," Spike answered with a laugh.

"Well you keep Xander safe, and avoid daylight," Joyce ordered and then she stepped forward and hugged Spike. Xander hadn't yet gotten over that sight when he found himself wrapped in Joyce's arms, and he tentatively raised one hand to give a small hug back. When she pulled back, her eyes were bright, and she stepped away quickly. "Right, I'll take the Volkswagen back to the house, and I'll see you two when you have the girls in tow. Joyce fled.

“So, pet, ya have the wheel,” Spike said with a wave toward the front of the van.

--Go on with the story--