“I don’t understand it,” Fred reviewed her notes on Spike’s dosages and his corresponding reactions. “Dawn’s the last person he’d attack. Xander maybe, but Dawn? You shoulda seen him Diane, he morphed and everything.”

 

“Vampires are supposed to morph,” Diane sliced a mushroom into four.

 

“Cut them thinner or they’ll take ages to dehydrate,” Fred pointed her pen at Diane’s chunky slices. “The morphing’s new. Amo Spike hasn’t done that since the mace-thing.”

 

“It could be a symptom of recovery,” Diane sliced another mushroom into chunks.

 

Fred went to the bedside and stripped the sheet to Spike’s waist. The skin above his binds was slack, a symptom of dehydration. The dressing on his side had a spreading patch of blood on it, a symptom of non-recovery. It just did not compute, the amount of blood they were pumping into him should have taken care of both these symptoms.

 

“I think he needs to start stepping down from the hard stuff,” she said, drawing the sheet up to his chin. “How’s the sedative coming on?”

 

“It’s not ready yet,” Diane chunked a Death’s Angel.

 

It should have been ready ten days ago by Fred’s calculation and perhaps it would’ve been if Diane had slivered the Angels.

 

“What is it with you and the mushroom wedges?” Fred snapped out her irritation.

 

“Do you want my opinion?” Diane came to the bedside. “Your Amo is getting better and the dosage you’re giving him isn’t strong enough. Think about increasing instead of reducing it.”

 

Fred looked down at Spike and couldn’t see where the improvements where at. “I don’t know Diane.”

 

“Talk it over with the others, it can’t hurt to talk.”

 

*    *    *    *

 

It hurt to talk. Xander trashed the idea of stepping Spike off the venom and reminded her that Diane was in fact the doctor. Dawn wavered between the two choices and huddled unhappily on Xander’s bed, making no choice.

 

“Spike’s reached flatline on the pain-relief part of the venom and is hiking on the hallucinogenic part. I figure it’s why he doesn’t recognize any of us,” Fred said.

 

Xander sat on the window ledge and dry-scrubbed his face with a palm, groaning. “Fred, there’s a gazillion reasons why. Spike went a long time without human blood, could be that glitched his vampire healing.”

 

“Xander’s right, probably,” Dawn sat up. “Spike only tried to bite me cause he was hungry…I think.”

 

“He’s on twelve pints a day,” Fred said patiently. “How can he be hungry on that?”

 

“Dripping is not the same as drinking. He needs to drink so he can get that eaten-feeling,” Dawn gave Xander a ‘back me up’ glance.

 

Spike backed her up. Pushing his crown into the pillow, he said, “Could be he needs Sire’s blood.” He glanced at Xander and sounded off a dry cackle. “I need a swig of Aurelius’ finest.”

 

*    *    *    *

 

Day fifteen, Spike had been drinking four pints of blood a day for the last three days on top of the twelve intravenous pints. He didn’t improve, and tired of holding futile talks with the other two, Fred made a unilateral decision when Diane brought the first batch of sedative. She embarked on Step Two of the treatment plan, reducing Spike’s dosage of the venom by half and starting him on the sedative.

 

Spike slid into a quiet sleep within an hour of Fred injecting him with the sedative and she sat by his bed, joyously scribbling and smiling at his relaxed features every so often.

 

*    *    *    *

 

Spike groaned for Xander at the appointed time before dawn. Xander climbed out his bed, stoked the fire for more light and climbed onto Spike’s table, alarmed when he saw the tears trickle from the corner of Spike’s eye.

 

Stop it honey. Boys don’t cry. Here, put it on, go on, you wanna be a girl, put it on and go cry in the backyard. You’re giving me headache.

 

“Stop that, Spike,” harsher than he’d intended, thumb scouring the wet track away, throat tight with suppressed anxiety, “don’t do that.”

 

“Sod of,” Spike faced the wall. “Don’t need you, don’t need your blood,” he said.

 

Xander smoothed down a sticky-up curl at Spike’s nape, it sprung up again and he smiled. “But I need you. Need you up and throwing your weight around.”

 

“What’s wrong with you? It doesn’t go this way,” weary bewilderment in his voice, Spike turned a frown on him.

 

“How does it go?”

 

“You don’t need, you want,” Spike raised his head, staring to one side of Xander in the direction of Fred’s workstation. “You get her up here to look but no touching. You want her to see you fucking me. ‘S why I’m chained, so she can hear me say no, watch me break the chains. You want to feel my legs round your neck, feel me force your cock deeper inside me…I hate you Sire fuck me Sire. Cum-soaked slut crying for your blood.” Spike dropped his head to the pillow, breaths raking his chest and fangs giving him a slight lisp, “your boy now, that’s how it goes.”

 

Xander shifted his hips back from Spike. He wasn’t comfortable, his ass and feet were hanging off the table and the tear-damp pillow was cold on his cheek. He stayed on the table all the same, smoothing down Spike’s sticky-up curl and sore with desire.

 

*    *    *    *

 

Fred’s confidence took a hard knock on Day Sixteen. Spike slept for five minutes at a time, loud and awake for most of the day. He said he was freezing, he was hungry, no he was thirsty, could he have a hot, bloody Bloody Mary? He morphed yelling, “it’s eating me alive!” Un-morphed, wanted to rub faces and lips with Fred, “Dru…Dru love, why won’t you help me?”

 

Dawn curled up on the bed and clamped a pillow around her head.

 

Xander eventually stopped chopping firewood in the courtyard and strode into the room, his chest gleaming with sweat and his palms red.

 

“Where are you going to store all that wood?” Fred asked, tense and distracted by Spike’s endless tremors.

 

Xander came to the workstation. “Why’s Spike so trippy today?”

 

Fred wanted to throw a towel over the test-tube rack with the tubes of clear fluid in it, conceal the evidence. “I’ve cut him off the hard stuff with…with,” she held up a test-tube as frowns ruffled Xander’s brow and tugged his lips into an inverted smile. “Diane’s Sedative,” she said, weakly.

 

Xander blew a gasket, his soft, clear-cut tone and wintry eyes frightening Fred a heck of a lot more than the standard yelling.

 

“You don’t pull a stunt like that without discussing it with me.”

 

“I was gonna tell you after.”

 

“After is pointless.”

 

“But-”

 

“It’s not up for debate, Fred. Dose him.”

 

“Dose him on venom then dose him harder when the meds don’t do what they’re supposed to?” Fred carefully returned the tube to its slot. “Xander, please go with me on this. Spike’s almost done withdrawing…”

 

“Fuck off!” Spike’s yell startled her into silence.

 

*    *    *    *

 

“Fuck off!” He shouted at the creature made of rows upon rows of teeth.

 

His voice splintered the thing into an explosion of white shrapnel that hang suspended above him before descending in slow motion. He swallowed as the shrapnel lengthened into sharp tusks.

 

“Christ, Christ,” he whispered when the tusks spun, whirring in a sibilant hiss, “Christ,” he panted as the tusks drilled into him.

 

They nailed him to his bed, couldn’t move; bloody hilarious. A task bored into his belly and he laughed through the pain as the fang churned in there, twisting his guts.

 

“C-can’t get out now, can you?” He asked because the tusk was trying to tear its way up his throat and out his mouth. “No, no you bugger. You don’t get to get out,” and he gritted his teeth.

 

The tusk was jelly and it slithered around in his mouth, stinging the back of throat. Gasp, and the jellyfish shot out of his mouth. More jellies swam out of his mouth, too many fish in the bleeding ocean, choking him.

 

“That’s it you bastards smother me,” he gurgled on the jellyfish swimming back down his throat, and stared at the Technicolor nightmares crawling on his ceiling.

 

*    *    *    *

 

Fred’s mind stalled when Spike threw up blobs of congealed blood. She knew she should turn him on his side, but her legs had also stalled.

 

“Help me sit him up, Fred,” Xander crossed to the table. “Glass of water and the pail please, Dawn.”

 

Fred ran to Spike’s side and helped Xander strip the bedding away. Dawn zipped to the door, kind of shrieked and slammed it shut.

 

“Xa-Xander, he’s out there.”

 

The door opened before Xander reached it and Tresten ducked into the room. Fred’s mouth went as arid as the Texan plains. She watched in fascinated horror as Dawn and Xander backed up from the advancing blond giant.

 

“Tresten thought it polite to enquire after Spike,” Tresten strolled to the table, grinned at the vase of ivory lilies in his hand. “Does he like lilies? Tresten understands it is customary in your dimension to present flowers on sad, or indeed joyous occasions.”

 

It wasn’t bravery that kept Fred by the sickbed when Tresten stopped beside her. She didn’t have a brave bone in her body, didn’t have any bones, which made moving away from Tresten pretty much impossible.

 

“It is you Tresten is asking, Xander,” Tresten stroked Spike’s wrist with a broad, square finger. “Does your Master like lilies?”

 

“Vampires don’t like flowers, Mi Amo. My Master’s a vampire,” Xander said, sounding brave.

 

Tresten softly laughed, his eyes running over Dawn. “But Tresten selected these especially for Spike. Perhaps he would show appreciation if he could.”

 

“Thank you, Mi Amo,” Xander said, looking at Spike as liquid gurgles rose from the vampire’s lips.

 

Tresten sauntered to the worktable, placed the vase on it and poked through the equipment and medication.  “How do you find the Fifth Ranking, Dawn Summers?”

 

“It’s…it’s…” Dawn’s face crumpled.

 

“Excellent,” Tresten smiled. He picked out a lily, went back to Spike and covered him up, carefully folding the vomit-soaked sheet under his chin.

 

“Oh-oh, face of death, face of death,” Spike chanted.

 

“You flatter Tresten, Mi Amo,” Tresten chuckled and looked at Fred. “Is the Fifth Ranking to your liking, Fred?”

 

Clogged by the big lump in her throat, Fred merely blinked down at the floor.

 

“You hold formidable opinions Winifred Burkle. Tresten asks your opinion of his Ranking, surely you are able to give it?”

 

“No, I mean yes, I-I m-meant…what was the q-que-question, Mi Amo?”

 

Tresten tilted Fred’s face up with his thumb under her chin and tapped her nose with the lily stem, “Your pretty stammers make Tresten forget his q-que-question.” He pressed the lily into her hands, “For you, a lovely flower for a charming angel,” he beamed and walked out.

 

*    *    *    *

 

Xander didn’t wait for the door to close. He was up on the table, chest supporting Spike’s shoulder, legs framing Spike’s.

 

“Well that put a whole new shine on unwelcome visitor,” he turned Spike’s head to the side, urged Spike’s temple onto his shoulder and cupped his crown. “Where’s that pail, Dawnie? And Fred, we still need the warm water, mouthwash and sponge.”

 

They broke into movement as Spike recoiled in his arms. Cold, Spike’s body cold invaded Xander’s tunic and skin, plummeted a few degrees when Spike retched a fist-sized clot onto his sleeve. Xander looked at that glistening liver-like clot and refused to consider failure. Glitch in the system, nothing Spike couldn’t handle because he was a strong son of a bitch.

 

“Spike, your Sire’s not here, okay? You’ll have to fight this without him because Angelus isn’t here.”

 

“Yeah, yeah…fight,” Spike said, weaker than a newly hatched chickling.

 

Xander’s throat closed, his teeth dug into his lower lip and he held Spike tighter as though to lend him living heat.

 

*    *    *    *

 

Dawn was in bed, Xander had gone to sit with her a while and Fred stood at her workbench, cataloguing the bowls, test tubes and needles for the nth time. The flowers she understood as a warning, but why put them on the workbench and not on the shelves in Spike’s alcove? Why had Tresten walked across the room just to touch chipped test tubes and a faulty set of scales?

 

On impulse she picked up Spike’s sick pail and swirled the dark red contents, grimacing as she reached in and grasped one of the larger clots. Rubbery in texture, it resisted the pressure of her fingers, disintegrating only when she clenched it in her fist. She felt hard nodules roll in her palm, knew what they were even before she dissected the pea sized lumps in a petri dish.

 

Blood. Impacted, sitting in Spike’s stomach and going nowhere. The scalpel fell from nerveless fingers, her breathing really just a repetition of, “shit, shit.”

 

If his body had rejected four oral pints a day, turning it into concrete in his belly, what had twelve pints a day done to his veins and arteries, to him?

 

Syringe of venom in hand, she stumbled to the I.V. stand, garbling, “Xander’s right, more venom because you must be in terrible pain, I’m sorry I thought I was right, I should, should…”

 

Fred pricked the needle into the bag of blood, but hesitated with her thumb on the plunger, tearful and just not trusting her judgment either way.