Fanfiction: Five by Three

His friends have done this to him.

Ignored every plea for help. Chained him like an animal — like Spike — in the basement, and bound his legs with rope for good measure. Left him here to die and — this is the kicker — told him the whole time they were trying to help him, keep him from hurting himself.

Or maybe this is the kicker. They left him down here with Anya, just so he could know how truly alone he is.

His friends did this. His lover.

Anya is fucking around with the first-aid kit, re-bandaging his leg. Funny. Like aiming a pistol at his head, but offering him a couple of aspirin first.

Xander addresses the cobwebs in the wood beams of the ceiling. “I bet you’re just loving this.”

“Not especially.” There’s no smug satisfaction in her voice. Surprising — that’s what she does best.

“Oh come on. Your ex-fiance is dying and you’ve got a front-row seat. It’s got to be the most fun you’ve had since you were a vengeance demon.”

“You’re not dying. We won’t let you.”

He laughs bitterly, but says nothing. He’s fallen into a place beyond words.

Anya continues attending to his leg, her touch confident and at the same time gentle. It’s a kind of mockery subtler than any she’s ever displayed before, and he’s seen the whole range. “There,” she says as she finishes. “I can untie your legs now if you want.”

Give her nothing. He breathes, stares into the rafters, fighting the fear and the pain.

After a moment he feels her hands working again, this time by his ankles, unknotting the ropes. “You can thank Faith that you’re not going to be left hog-tied in your boxers.” Anya produces a pair of sweat pants and begins tugging them on him; Xander doesn’t cooperate, but he doesn’t resist, either. “Personally I think it’s a bit ridiculous to worry about someone’s dignity when you’ve got him chained in a basement, but she’s a strange girl all around.” She gets the sweats pulled up over his hips, studies him a moment, then tugs at a few places where the material has bunched. “There,” she says again.

She settles back into the chair she’d moved to the bedside, and Xander can feel her watching him, but he refuses to meet her gaze. Time passes — feels like days. Could be fifteen minutes.

“If I’d known you were going to be like this,” Anya says, “I would have brought down a magazine.”

“What were you hoping for? Screams? Convulsions? Sorry to disappoint. Maybe later.”

“Goddammit, Xander, listen to me for once. You’re not dying. I know you feel—”

He turns to her now. “You don’t know shit.”

“It’s the loneliest feeling in the world,” she says softly. “You’re certain you’re going to die, but no one else thinks so. The terror of that is huge, it’s overwhelming, but the loneliness is worse.”

How’d she come by the truth of this, he wants to know. But he doesn’t want to know.

Sleep won’t take him so he follows the pain instead. It leads him to someplace dark and solitary, where Anya can’t reach him, where the betrayal of Faith and his friends is hardly important at all. The pain is very large and Xander is small, hardly a pinpoint, and it surprises him how comforting it is to be so small.

Faith comes down to the kitchen after a couple hours of tossing and turning. The potentials are doing drills out back; Andrew’s the only one in the kitchen. She gets down a mug and pours herself some coffee, wondering how long it’s been on the heater plate. “Anything new?”

Andrew shakes his head. “It’s been pretty quiet. I guess that’s good. Anya’s still down there.” He flicks a glance at the bandage on her arm. “That must really hurt.”

“‘Throb’ is the word. Nothing serious, though. You wouldn’t know how Anya takes her coffee?”

“Cream, I think. But just a little.”

She pours another coffee and heads down the cellar stairs. Anya’s sitting on the second step, arms wrapped around her knees. Faith offers the second mug.

“Hey, thanks,” she whispers.

Xander is lying on the narrow mattress, completely still.

“He’s sleeping, anyway,” Faith murmurs. “That’s something.”

Anya shakes her head. “I don’t think it’s sleep, and I’m not sure it’s good. Something’s got him.”

“Well, we just have to take him back.”

“Figure out how, and I’m with you.”

Neither woman speaks for a while. Finally, Anya says, “I think the less we have to say to each other, the better.”

Faith casts her a sidelong glance; funny, she looks like someone just gearing up for a speech. “Suits me fine.”

“Because I can’t get behind all this happy exes-and-currents friendship crap. People pretend it’s so Oprah, so self-goddamn-actualized and all, but it’s laziness pure and simple. Nobody is willing to take on vengeance anymore. They find out there’s some work involved with the ex-hating, and they can’t be bothered.”

“Your people with standards,” Faith says, “they’re all in the joint.”

“Exactly. So I’m not looking to be your new best friend here. Just so we’re clear.”

“Gotcha.” Faith is waiting for a point to announce itself, but she decides it’s best not to be married to the idea.

“I’ll say one thing, though.”

Here we go.

“God knows Xander’s a typical specimen of the male species. His personality’s about 75 percent irritating traits, 24 percent maddening. But he’s as good a man as you’ll find.” Anya’s voice has softened just a touch, but she hones its edge. “Don’t let yourself think about that too long, or you’ll get completely depressed. Still. Much as I loathe saying it, you seem good for him. There’s just one tiny thing you should know.”

She seems to be waiting for a response, so Faith says, “Okay.”

“Treat him well, or I’ll hurt you. I’m not a demon anymore, but I’m still a very creative person.” Anya reels in a breath and lets it go, then turns to Faith and says brightly, “I’m glad we had this little chat.”

Faith can’t suppress a grin. “Me too. Maybe we can do it again sometime.”

“Or not.” She thrusts her empty coffee mug at Faith. “Go get some more sleep. You look like death on a cracker.”

She takes a last look at Xander, who hasn’t made the slightest movement since she came down. Faith can’t think of a fiercer guardian to watch over him, so she gives in to her exhaustion and heads upstairs.

Everything turns on you eventually. Friends. Lovers. Even comfort.

This blank, open sea of pain that he’s been drifting on no longer feels like a safe place to hide. Xander struggles to distinguish where the pain ends and he begins. If he begins at all. He is losing himself. A moment ago, he might have let himself slip under the waves. But now there’s no peace there, only terror.

He thrashes against the shackles, welcoming the bite of metal into his wrists, anything that calls him back to his body. Screams a long string of curses just to hear himself, to feel the rawness of his throat. Then there are hands pressing him down on the mattress, too tentative to have much effect. A voice, distraught.

“Xander, please, stop.” Willow. She speaks to someone else then: “He’s been catatonic all morning. Then suddenly, he’s like this.”

More hands, more pressure, and he struggles harder — not so much to fight them but to feel, to locate himself. Willow makes the mistake of coming too close, and he seizes her by the hair. “Why won’t you fucking help me?”

“Right. Enough of that, mate.” A thumb jabs into some pressure point at his shoulder, and the whole arm lights up in that funny-bone combination of agony and numbness. Xander’s hand jerks open, releasing Willow. And now he’s back — lying on this piece-of-shit futon mattress in this pisshole of a basement, his arm consumed by cold fire, his wrists raw, breath sawing harshly in and out of his body. The pain, now, is inside of him. Relief floods through him, and he stops thrashing.

Willow’s hand stays on his chest. “Xander.” There’s relief in her voice, too — does she know how close he came to disappearing? “Xander, it’s all right. You’re all right. I’m here.”

He wishes he could bat her hand away. “You’re here? What fucking good does that do me? You’re no better than the rest of them. Worse.”

“Xander —”

“You said you’d help me. Lying bitch.”

“I’m trying every way I know to find out how to help you.”

“Wait much longer, and you can just raise me. At least that’s one thing you know how to do.” Hurt flickers in her eyes, and something in him feeds off it. “You never have been much use to me. Back when we were kids you couldn’t stop my old man from knocking me around. Nobody expected you to, you were just a weak little girl. I thought it was enough back then that you were my friend. Guess what, Willow — it’s not enough anymore. Now you’ve got the power to end the fucking world if you want, but you won’t lift a finger to help me. I’d rather be at the mercy of my old man again. At least I always knew where I stood.”

“Oh, give it a bleedin’ rest!” Spike, who has backed off to a corner of the basement, enters the fray again. “Or I’ll dart you my own bloody self.”

“Spike — don’t.” Tears slick her cheeks now.

“I should’ve let you do it,” Xander says quietly. “Well, you know what they say about hindsight.”

A faint cry escapes Willow, and her hand flies to her mouth.

“Go,” Spike tells her. “I’ll mind this cretin.”

Xander closes his eyes. Hears the quick tread of Willow’s feet up the wooden steps, the slam of the cellar door. The metallic rasp and flick of a cigarette lighter, the snap of it closing.

“You’re a right cunt,” says Spike.

“When I want your input, you’ll be the first to know.”

Spike has stamina. And also noplace else to be during the daylight hours.

He sits by Xander’s bed until the smudgy light leaking into the dirt-caked windows goes late-afternoon gold, refusing all offers to give him a break. Dawn made an appearance after school, wanting to join the two of them, but he sent her away. “No, pet. Not such a good time now.”

He is worthless as an opponent, as slippery as soap. Nothing Xander says to him does any damage, because he plain doesn’t give a shit. Spike offers no friction, no purchase — there’s nothing to hang onto to stop Xander from drifting back into the void. When Xander gives up the attack, Spike turns on the crappy little black-and-white portable that gets only one channel, and seems engaged in Dr. Phil’s advice to the loser population. If “engaged” means offering up a running commentary of ridicule, derision and, for a change of pace, mockery, all laced with obscene alternative suggestions for every participant, including Dr. Phil.

This soundtrack of creative abuse burrows somewhere deep in Xander’s memory, sparking associations. His father was no less inventive with verbal lashings, if you caught him at just the right time — once the booze had revved his imagination, but before it made him stupid. Xander usually escaped by heading to the basement — it never occurred to the old man to follow him downstairs and chain him up as a literal captive audience.

If he has to listen to another minute of this, he’ll go crazy. “Spike — for god’s sake. Please. Just shut up.”

Something in his voice makes Spike look around at him. He studies Xander a moment. “Sure. Meant nothing by it, just having a bit of fun.” He swats the on/off button, and the basement goes quiet.

“You’re watching me die, pal. Since when is that not enough fun for you?”

“Xander. Listen to me. You’re not going—”

“Bullshit.” He says it softly, without anger. “It’s not convincing from my friends; why should I believe it from you?”

Spike starts to talk about being in a similar dark place when he came back with his shiny, newly-minted soul, and how the First is a master manipulator. Xander curls on his side, facing the wall, and shuts him out.

When she wakes up again in the afternoon, Faith takes a few aspirin for her pounding headache and makes her way down to the basement. No apparent change, except Xander’s now turned toward the cinderblock wall, pulled halfway into a fetal position. Spike’s slouched in a chair some distance away, head tipped back, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip.

“Has he been like this since this morning?”

Spike shakes his head. “He was right chatty there for a while.”

“That a good sign?”

Again he shakes his head no. “Whatever’s happened to him — it’s gettin’ worse.”

“How bad?”

“He savaged Willow. Said he wished he’d let her destroy the world.”

“Shit. Shit.” She turns and bounds up the stairs, in search of Willow. Finds her napping on the living room floor, musty reference books fanned out around her. Giles has his own pile of books on the couch, a huge leather-bound volume with crumbling edges open on his lap. He looks up as Faith walks in, his face grim. “Willow,” she says. It takes three more repetitions of her name before Willow rouses. “Tell me something. Would having the knife make it easier to help Xander?”

She blinks sleepily. “There’s a chance. I could find out if there’s a spell on it, for sure.”

“Then get me the address for Dr. Michaels. I don’t know his first name, but he’s the trauma surgeon on staff at the hospital. They’ll have him on the directory. Get me anything else you can, especially his schedule and anything you can find on his security system. I’ll go up and change.”

Faith snatches up the pages as they emerge from the printer, frowning over them.

“I still don’t know,” Willow says. “Shouldn’t you try asking him first?”

“Then he knows just who to come for when it disappears. I’m telling you, Willow, I got a creepy feeling from him when he talked about that knife. It gives him major wood. Maybe just because he’s a collector, but maybe it’s gotten under his skin somehow, too.”

“You think he’ll suspect when it does disappear?”

Faith smiles. “Not the way I’m gonna do it.” She saunters to the entryway mirror and gathers her hair up into an elastic, wincing as it pulls at the bruised flesh by her temple. Tucking the ponytail beneath a dark knit hat, she studies her reflection. “Well, except for the fashionable prison pallor that makes my face glow like the frickin’ full moon, I’m good to go.”

“Do you need something for that? Soot, or something?”

“What, blackface, like in the movies? I thought I’d just go with the big neon ‘cat burglar’ sign.” Willow looks so dismayed that Faith impulsively reaches out to ruffle her hair. “Don’t worry. I lived a life of crime back in the day. I was pretty good at it.”

“Be careful.”

She responds with a dismissive wave and sets out. But Willow’s words echo within her. She can’t number how many people in her life have said “be careful” to her, but she’s sure it’s less than a handful. Two words, but they go to a place in Faith almost as deep as Xander’s declaration of love.

Love. Well, that’s Faith’s luck for you. She finds Xander — reconnects with him, to be more accurate — and now he may be lost to her. Not just to her — lost to his friends, to himself.

Screw that. She turns onto the boulevard where the swanky neighborhood begins. Faith doesn’t give a shit what it takes. She will find him and bring him back.

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