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Cause and Effect	By : elizashaw Category: AtS/BtVS Crossovers > Slash - Male/Male > Spike(William)/Xander > Spike(William)/Xander Views: 6461 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel the Series. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Despite the Council's adamant disapproval of the Wolfram and Hart and all it stood for, Xander couldn't help but be impressed with the facility as he walked in. The massive structure clearly used state of the art construction materials and planning, and the open lobby managed to convey power and wealth without being overly intimidating.

"Xander? Oh my god, Xander!"

"Oof." Xander nearly had the wind knocked out of him as Harmony launched herself over her desk and hugged him.

"How are you?! I haven't seen you since…" Her brow wrinkled as she attempted to recall.

"Since pummeling me in Buffy's foyer?" He joked while carefully stepping away from the vacuous vampire.

"I so could have kicked your ass that night," she flipped her hair haughtily. "And hey! What's up with the pirate look?"

"Long story. Big evil." He shrugged. Discussing Caleb and the First was not a conversation he wanted to get dragged into. Fortunately Harmony's attention span worked in his favor.

"Are you here to see Angel? He's in a meeting right now with a couple of guys from contracts, but I'm sure he won't be that long." Her voice sunk to a conspiring whisper. "He only called them in to fire them over some whole thing about agreements between warlocks and Bogoni demons or something."

"Right," Xander nodded as if he had any idea what she was talking about. "Actually I'm not so much here to see Deadboy. In fact, not at all. I'm looking for Spike."

"Oh my poor blondie bear is still in the infirmary."

"So can you point me toward your, uh, blondie bear?" Xander attempted to repress a snicker. He was so gonna have fun using that one on the not-so-evil undead.

"He's not supposed to have any visitors." Harmony pouted.

"C'mon, you're evil, just sneak me in. I won't tell a soul you showed me the way," he assured her as her glance slid toward the office behind them.

"The cafeteria's just this way," she spoke loudly as she steered Xander toward the elevator. "I'll show you." She man-handled Xander into the elevator and after the doors closed, hissed in his ear.

"Get off at B7 and go right. My little boo-boo's room is the first door on the left past the nurses station."

Xander nodded.

"Oops, forgot to have someone cover my phones. You just get off at B2 and go left. Can't miss it." Xander cringed at the volume of her voice and followed her glance to the security camera as she punched the "Door Open" button. She flounced out of the elevator without a backward glance.

Xander couldn't help but grin to himself as he wondered how long it would take security to read through Harmony's act. If Spike really was forbidden visitors, he doubted that little subterfuge would be enough to get him past whatever burly guards would be waiting for him. He pressed B7 and hoped for the best.

The doors opened on an empty hospital-like corridor. He suppressed a shudder. God, he hated hospitals, and his life just seemed to keep bringing him back to their antiseptic halls. He glanced around. No guards. Xander began to suspect that perhaps the no-visitors order might apply only to a certain histrionic blonde vamp. He flexed his fingers, trying to relieve the nervous tension that escalated now that he was so close. Throughout his journey, he had half-expected to find that this was all a dream. Spike wasn't really back, and he was asleep on his way to Chicago to check up on the slayer household that had been set up there.

"Can I help you?" The quiet voice spoke from behind the counter of the nurses' station.

"Just here visiting a friend," Xander put on his best non-threatening demeanor. He moved toward the doorway that Harmony had indicated.

"He's resting, but he might be glad of the company." The nurse smiled indulgently. "He hasn't had many visitors."

"Thanks." Xander didn't want to prolong the conversation. It didn't necessarily surprise him that Spike didn't have visitors, but he was confused by the silence coming from the room. The hyperactive vampire he had known would hardly take to being bedridden without complaint—loud and constant complaint. Xander's concern suddenly increased a hundred-fold. Perhaps Spike had been hurt worse than Andrew indicated.

He slowly opened the door, taking in the silent figure on the bed. He felt his heart break at the blank look on Spike's face. He began to wonder if coming here was the right decision after all. That expression reminded him of times he had come upon the vampire unexpectedly in the days following his move from the school basement to Xander's apartment. He quietly closed the door behind him and moved to the seat next to the bed.

"Hey, Spike." Xander kept his voice low.

The blank look faded into a soft confusion as the vampire turned to take in his visitor. Dull eyes traveled over the dark hair, the drawn face with the black eye patch, and the worn denim shirt before settling back on the tender concern shining from the single brown eye.

"Xander?"

"Yeah, man. How're you feeling?"

Spike turned away. Of all the visitors to show up, the Slayer's donut boy was the last person he wanted to see. He had disbelieved his senses when he heard and smelled the man's approach. Now there was no denying his presence. He had heard what happened with Andrew and the Watcher's Council goon squad after they found him and bundled him off to mojo surgery, and he doubted that anything good could come of Xander's appearance at his bedside. Andrew might have been a little overly enthusiastic at his return, but he doubted Xander would be. But he found he didn't have the strength to put on a snarky front and tell the boy to piss off.

"Spike?" A cautious hand reached out to stroke the vampire's cheek. Xander would have sworn he could feel the pain and misery radiating off the body underneath the thin sheets. He felt a shudder run through the cool skin at his touch, but Spike didn't pull away.

"Why are you here?"

Xander removed his fingers at the wary sadness in his tone. He should have known the question he most didn't want to answer would be the first question that Spike would ask. Not when he didn't have all the answers himself. He sighed.

"Andrew called me."

Silence.

"He said you were back, and he told me about your help hunting down Dana."

A snort greeted that comment.

"Spike, you did a good thing in helping Andrew find her." Xander's tone was insistent. He knew first-hand how dangerous tracking down and confronting these powerful girls could be. "He couldn't have brought her back by himself, and we both know how much we can trust Deadboy these days."

"Angel's alright."

"Wow. Never thought I'd live to hear you defend the broodmeister. Must be time for another apocalypse."

Shit. Xander berated his mouth's tendency to move faster than his brain as he saw Spike curl in on himself further. Way to go, Harris. Mention apocalypse to a guy who died in one. At the same time, he could feel familiar anger rising as a little voice whispered that Spike may have died, but he got to come back. He clamped down on the anger that had been building since he heard from Andrew. So life was unfair, that was hardly news.

Spike remained silent. He sensed the turmoil in the man sitting next to him. He half hoped that Xander would strike out, give him the pain that he deserved. But what he expected was that Xander would simply leave, go back to England and report in on Spike's condition or whatever else had brought him on this little mission.

The door opened, and the nurse who had greeted Xander entered the room briskly, carrying a tray with a decanter of blood and a cup.

"Time for dinner."

Xander scrambled out of the way, grateful for the interruption.

"Is there a vending machine or something around here? I've kinda been on a plane for the last ten hours, and you know what they say about airplane food. Of course they say the same thing about hospital food, but I'm sure that what you've got there is good, I mean, for being blood and all."

The nurse chuckled as she slid the bedside table with the tray within Spike's reach.

"Out the door and down the hall. But a word of warning—don't feed the machine any dollar bills. It eats them without giving you anything in return."

"Back in a few, Spike. Uh, enjoy your dinner." Xander back-pedaled out of the room. Spike didn't move, and the nurse sighed as she prepared to coax and threaten her patient to eat once more.

Down the hall, Xander rested his head against the cool front of the machine. Seeing Spike so defeated was not what he expected when he walked through the doors of Wolfram and Hart. It left him confused. When Andrew first called, Xander had reacted with pure anger at the injustice that would bring a century old vampire back into the world and leave the slayers and Anya dead. No amount of convincing himself that Anya was in heaven, that bringing her back would be tantamount to the blasphemy of dragging Buffy back into the world, could stop the pain and anger. But after hearing Andrew's account of events in LA, no doubt embellished in that special Andrew way, he had moved beyond anger to curiosity and an inexplicable need to see the resurrected vampire. Reading between the lines of Andrew's hero-worship—and so not feeling jealousy at the fact that Spike now appeared to be the focus of admiration that had once been reserved for him—Xander could sense the isolation that the vampire endured amid Angel's team. It was an isolation he recognized in his own current working arrangement with the new Council, and that recognition pulled him to LA.

Xander sighed and rummaged in the pocket of his jeans for spare change. He wasn't particularly hungry, but he had needed the space to get a handle on his feelings. Shoving coins in the machine, he selected a bottle of water. He glanced at the candy machine and debated whether chocolate would help. All milk chocolate. Not that he didn't enjoy the lighter chocolate, but emotional turmoil on this scale called for the comfort only dark, bittersweet chocolate could give. He gulped down the water and leaned against the wall. He could leave now, and he knew Spike wouldn't hold it against him. That much was clear from the vampire's demeanor. He didn't expect anyone to visit, much less stay. That factor alone made the decision easier. He chucked the empty water bottle into a garbage can and headed back down the hall to Spike's room.

The nurse came out bearing the tray with an empty decanter in her hands and a smug smile on her face. She nodded at Xander as he passed by.

Spike sat up in the bed, pouting. Xander couldn't help but grin at the blood that dripped down his hospital gown.

"I take it dinner went well?"

"Bloody women," Spike grumbled. "Bloody useless hands."

"At least she wiped your face."

"Sod off." But the curse held more amusement than anger.

"Feeling better?" Xander took his seat next to the bed once more.

Spike looked at him, shrugged.

"Jeez, Spike, you sure how to make conversation difficult. That hasn't changed."

"Didn't know we were having a conversation."

"Apparently we aren't."

They stared at each other.

"I'm not sure why I'm here. I…Andrew called me. Seems Giles and Willow told him not to. But sometimes there's no shutting him up."

"Great help if he gets caught by some nasty." Spike smirked.

"Nah, we keep a pretty tight leash on him. Not much different from his guestage days." Xander grinned back. "Anyway, when he called, I called in some vacation time, got on a plane, came here."

"Uh huh. Doesn't answer the why part." Spike pinned him with a gaze that sought past the glib explanation.

"Do you want me to go?" Xander challenged.

Spike closed his eyes against the question. He knew that he didn't want the boy to leave, but he couldn't think of any reason that he should stay. Truth was that Spike was tired of being alone. His time in the hospital only highlighted the isolation he felt at Wolfram and Hart, an isolation that he had tried to convince himself was rooted in his ghostly state. But suddenly returning to the land of the three-dimensional hadn't alleviated that loneliness much. Angel fought with him, Harmony tried to pull him into janitor's closets for a quickie, and the others were too busy to pay much attention to him.

Xander watched the twitch of muscles across Spike's sharp features. He wanted to snatch back the question for fear of the vampire's answer. The connection he felt when he heard that Spike was alive sparked brighter with each word the vampire spoke to him. He berated himself as a total idiot for letting himself begin to care after all the effort to hold himself aloof and apart from the people who made up his strange world.

"No."

"Huh?"

Spike opened his eyes, letting the despair shine through.

"I don't want you to go."

"Okay then." Xander patted his arm well above the reddened skin. They shared a small grin.
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Cause and Effect