Title: Who Watch You Fall 2/4
Author: Pythia
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of them – Buffy and the gang belong to Joss.

“Maybe you *should* become a monster, mate.” The Watcher opened his eyes again to find Spike crouched down beside him, studying him with a pensive look. “Easier to live that way. No conscience gnawing at your soul. No second thoughts, or guilty regrets. I could do it, you know? Turn you, right here and now. Wouldn’t take much, the way you’re bleeding right now. Easy enough to take a taste without setting the chip off and then … well, you know how the rest of it works. Whadya say?”

There was no guile in the vampire’s eyes, no eagerness to feed or ambition to ensnare; it was an oddly honest offer, a means to end the anguish of guilt, the emptiness of grief and the persistence of pain. For a moment – just a *moment* – the temptation tugged at him, offering him an easy way out, an escape from responsibility.

An escape from everything …

“Sod off,” Giles growled, packing an entire lifetime of self disgust into the words. “Bloody wanker …”

Spike chuckled, heaving himself back to his feet with a surprisingly lithe movement for a dead man who’d been thrown from a tower only a few hours before. “*That’s* a relief,” he declared. “Thought you were tempted for a moment.” He paused, allowing a wry smile to curl his lips. “Maybe you are,” he said softly. “But you know better, right?”

“What is it in the words ‘sod off’ you don’t understand, Spike?” There was a snap of irritation in the muttered growl, but Giles lacked the energy to sustain it for long. “Do you want me to draw pictures?”

“No thanks, mate.” Spike grinned at the thought. “I’ve seen your artwork. It’s worse than my frigging poetry. *Might* ask for practical demonstration, but I don’t think you’re up to it. Not even sure *I* am. Ah, bloody hell, Rupes.” His bantering tone gave way to a weary sigh. “This is one sodding mess, and no mistake.” He scrubbed at his face, then ran his hand back through his hair, leaving a trail of tangled tufts behind. “I feel like I got run over by a number nine bus – and you’re as white as a sheet and bleeding your guts out over the furniture. By all rights I oughta be down on my knees slurping up the overspill before it goes to waste in the carpet.”

The Watcher actually laughed at that – a halfhearted huff of sound that was more hysteria than amusement. “I doubt I could stop you if you did,” he said, wearily lifting his head so that he could glance down at the suspiciously large stain that now darkened his clothing. It wasn’t quite as bad as Spike was suggesting, but even so … He snorted again, which almost certainly was hysteria – and probably due to increasing exhaustion and blood loss. It would certainly explain his sudden lightheadedness. “Maybe you should,” he suggested with ironic generosity, tipping his head back with a weary sigh. “At least that way one of us would get some benefit out of it …”

Spike chuckled. “Yeah, ain’t that the truth. But – like I said – I made a promise, and I mean to keep it. Which probably means turning down your magnanimous offer and doing something to keep the rest of the red stuff *inside* your skin where it belongs.”

Giles couldn’t argue with that. He wasn’t actually certain that he had strength left to argue, even if he wanted to. Even breathing seemed to be more effort than it was worth.

“Right.” The vampire glanced round for a moment, then frowned, clearly coming to some sort of decision. “I’ll just whip the Bit up to bed and tuck her in for the night – doubt she’s gonna stir for hours yet – then I’ll dig out some bandages, patch you back together and get you settled on the couch. Don’t think you’d make it up the stairs,” he explained, “even if you wanted to move that far – and while Dawn’s no weight, there’s no way I’m going to try lugging your bleeding carcass any distance tonight. Even vampires have their limits.”

“Quite.” Giles wasn’t at all put out by the implication of insult. It was clear that Spike was almost as exhausted as he was – even if the vampire was determinedly trying to hide the fact. It wasn’t just the physical punishment he’d taken; the weight of grief lay heavily over them both, draping them with melancholy, with a weariness that smothered the soul.

Well, *his* soul, at least. Perhaps the emotions that gnawed at the demon were gathered in the place where the man’s soul used to be, a deep well of misery and despair,

“Okay,” the vampire was saying. “I won’t be a mo. You’d better start getting your kit off while I’m gone … top half of it, anyway. Strip off and I’ll … bring ya down something clean for later. Still keep the first aid stuff in the bathroom?”

“Uh … yes.” The conversation had just moved into the surreal. Had Spike just asked him to *strip?* Giles frowned, rewinding the sentences as the vampire moved away to scoop the slumbering teenager off the couch. It was clearly evident just how befuddled he’d become, because he took two goes to translate the request into something that made sense. “Ah,” he realised with sudden comprehension and began gingerly easing himself upright as Spike headed up stairs towards the loft. ‘Strip.’ As in – peel away blood soaked clothing so that his would-be nursemaid could redress his wound. Which was a pretty good idea in principle, but – right at *that* moment – a challenge almost as daunting as being required to climb Mount Everest with his hands tied behind his back.

He just about managed ‘upright,’ started to go for ‘standing up’ – and then found himself sliding off the seat of the chair and down onto his knees. They met the floor with a bone-shuddering thump and a jolt of pain speared through his side with almost as much savagery as the lance which had caused the wound in the first place.

“Oh, *bugger*,” he muttered, groping for the support of the coffee table and finding it just in time to stop the rest of him from joining his knees on the floor. His grab knocked over the decorative chalice that had been standing on the polished wood and for some reason his mind threw up some nonsense about the Fisher King and the dolorous wound … and it was at *that* point that he realised that the physical pain was nothing, could *be* nothing, compared to the wound that had been ripped in his heart.

A wound not even the Holy Grail itself could heal …

“Come on, Rupes,” Spike’s voice murmured, somewhere close, yet impossibly distant. There were cold hands on his body, easing blood-soaked fabric away from his skin, unpeeling him like a rotting orange, exposing his heart and his soul to the merciless air. “Easy does it, mate.”

Those same cold hands eased him down into the support of something soft; Giles blinked and fought for focus, wondering how he’d managed to get from the floor to the couch without registering the journey in between. “Did I … pass out?” he wondered, drawing in a sharp breath as tentative fingers disturbed the blood caked bandages that were holding him together.

“Zoned out, more like,” Spike muttered, giving the bleeding wound another cautious poke and eliciting another short gasp of pain. The vampire rocked back on his heels, his features briefly shifting as the chip inside his head fired in ironic reciprocation. “*Bugger.* Sorry,” he apologised, pressing his hand to his head and scrubbing at the spot between his eyes. “I’m not exactly good at this stuff. First aid and field medicine. Not my line at all.”

“No,” Giles breathed, watching him in bemusement. “I don’t suppose it is. Spike – why are you doing this?”

“I *told* you.” The growl was more anguished than angry. “Made a *sodding* promise, didn’t I? Christ, you think I wanna be here? I oughta be – snacking down on some painted-up tarty bit down at the docks, or – amusing m’self pulling fingernails offa some schoolkid or other … At the very *least*, shacked up with a decent bottle o’something and a parcel of kittens to pass the time. Not … not … trying to patch together something that’s all broken up like glass and bleeding inside and out …”

He sat back with a thump, his sudden outburst leaving him drained and shaking. He wasn’t exactly crying, but grief was etched across his features and his shoulders heaved as he tried to fit his emotions back into the box they’d just escaped from.

Giles gingerly inched himself up against the cushions and stared at the distraught figure sitting on his rug. He wasn’t entirely sure if Spike had been referring to him, or to himself with that last remark, but he suspected it applied to the both of them equally well. Buffy’s fall had shattered them; a hammer blow of grief and loss that had reduced the two of them to little more than broken shards and jagged edges. Time, it was said, heals all wounds – but he’d been trained as an archaeologist and he *knew.* Knew that, no matter how carefully, how delicately you might reassemble a smashed vessel, the cracks always remained.

‘All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again …’

“You know,” he offered softly, feeling a sudden and disconcerting sense of empathy with the vampire. “If you … um … finish what you’ve started, I’ll only be bleeding on the inside, which I’m sure you’ll find much easier to cope with. And I can’t manage kittens – and *please*, I don’t want to know what you do with them – but I can manage a decent bottle of something. Maybe two.”

Spike looked up, an odd look chasing across his face. “That right?” he asked, cocking his head to one side and studying him with a suspicious frown.

“Yes.” Giles had a sneaking suspicion he’d regret a lot of this in the morning – but that was the least of his concerns at the moment, and the little self-reproach he might earn tonight would be nothing compared to the weight of guilt and remorse that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He knew that the bottom of a bottle was no place to seek respite – but right now the opportunity for oblivion it offered seemed the most desirable place in the world.

And at least he wouldn’t be drinking alone …

“There’s a bottle or two of Glentauchers stashed at the bottom of my wardrobe,” he confided wearily. “I put them there when you moved in and … I’ve not found a suitable occasion to unearth them since.”

“Bloody hell,” Spike murmured, giving him that odd look again. It was a look of respect – a somewhat taken-aback, ‘I’ve managed to surprise him’ respect, but respect, nevertheless. “You spent half of that summer getting yourself wasted on 10-year-old Scotch – and you never even *touched* the 15-year-old stuff? What kind of occasion were you saving it for?”

Memory struck like a knife, twisting inside his heart with savagery. The whisky had arrived the day that Buffy had asked about the diaries; his family had sent him a care package stuffed with English chocolate, packets of Jaffa cakes, jars of Bovril and many other things that had stirred a sense of helpless homesickness – and the bottles had been packed in the bottom of the hamper, wrapped with loving care and a note penned in his father’s meticulous hand. ‘For special occasions,’ it had read. And that day, there had only been one particular occasion that sprang to mind.

“This one,” he admitted faintly. Had it been a maudlin gesture, or a ghoulish one? Laying away expensive scotch so that he would have something suitable with which to mark his Slayer’s passing? Knowing that she *would* pass?

Praying that he’d never *ever* have to drink it?

Spike’s eyes went wide. “*Jeesus*,” he hissed, glancing away with shiver of pain. “I’d hate to live in that head of yours, Rupes, I really would. But – yeah. I can see … well, only the best for *her*, right?”

“Quite.”

NEXT