Four Degrees
Notes

It was a Monday when the world tilted. Xander was sitting at his desk in the ancient aluminum trailer, listening to it creak and rattle around him with the wind. The sounds got more distant, hollow - and then everything tipped and dipped and spun.

He had time to think about Dorothy, tornadoes, Kansas and Oz before everything righted itself and he looked around.

Nothing else in the trailer had moved.

Just him. Shifted and righted and he still felt a few degrees...off.

Putting out a hand to steady himself, he wobbled his way out from behind his desk and forms, hours and wages and overtime pay, down the aisle so narrow he always bumped his hip on the coffee machine and down the child-sized steps most of the guys jumped down - or over.

A one-eyed man knew better than to trust his depth perception. And the world was being extra tricky today.

Xander took a cab home and marked the day on the calendar. May twenty-third.

Hellmouth season.

Good old inner alarm clock.

After that, everything stays a few degrees off. When he brushes his teeth, the left side of his mouth foams more than the right and when he lights a cigarette, it's harder than it ever was to get it to light evenly. Not that it matters once it's burning down and he's leaning back on his 'terrace' which is just a balcony that means he has to pay an extra hundred bucks a month in rent.

Sometimes he goes to sit down and topples off the side of his chair then laughs it off with the guys.

When he falls off a chair at home, he laughs it off with RoboCat. Bo stares back at him with crossed blue eyes and meows for her dinner. She doesn't care if he falls off chairs as long as he gets up after and fills her bowl.

Even this far from the Hellmouth, older, wiser - and lets not forget gay - the woman in Xander's life is pushy and demanding from the tip of her nose to the kink in her tail that never straightened out.

She likes cigarette smoke.

And when he drinks beer, she pushes her face up against his and tries to groom his stubble.

Crazy Siamese.

But the cat won't care when falling over and missing steps lands Xander out of a job, collecting unemployment and disability.

Xander Harris. Kept man.

RoboCat. Kept cat.

He twists off a beer cap, metal crimps stinging his palm then sailing away like a golden UFO over the edge of the balcony.

Bo comes running and shoves her nose into the bottle while Xander watches the sun set at a funny angle in Lake Michigan and tries to pretend cat spit on his beer bottle bothers him like he used to pretend froufrou bath products bothered him.

He strokes Bo from ears to tail and she starts to purr. Slim and dainty, purebred girl who looks at Xander like he walks on water. She's got four legs, fur and a tail but Xander still has his magic fingers touch with the ladies.

Four degrees left of center and it's been almost a week now, with everything skewed.

On Monday, his doctor's office will call him with the results of his MRI and blood tests and the urinalysis Xander suspects is looking for drugs in his system but won't find anything stronger than Tylenol.

His sick days run out on Tuesday - after that he'll have to call in dead - but that's four days and two cases of beer away.

Xander takes a long cold drink of his long cold Bud and listens to a knock-knock-knockin' at his door. "Get the door, Bo. Good girl."

Bo looks at him like he's an idiot and grooms her tail.

God, he misses Anya.

And whoever's knocking isn't gonna give up so Xander sets his beer on the cheap wire mesh table that came with the apartment and staggers his way across the carpet, holding onto walls and chairs, and finally the doorknob when he wrenches the door open.

It's a good thing he's holding onto the door - because on the other side is Spike.

Spike and a suitcase and Bo comes running to inspect him, meowing like Spike's a can of tuna she wants opened right now.

Spike looks at her like she's an idiot.

*Ha,* Xander thinks. *Serves you right, furball.*

"Harris."

"Spike."

Xander feels like there should be more to this conversation. But Xander's always been a sucker for a vampire in need so Xander says, "Come in, Spike," and wonders which of the two of them is more surprised. But this is a brave new world, a world at funny angles and the old rules don't apply so he skips the snark.

Seeing Spike feels good.

And it's not like Spike ever went away when told to anyway.

"Want a beer?"

Xander's still not sure how they went from Want a beer? to Xander's legs in the air, cheap Ikea bed banging against the wall and Spike pounding into him, gasping words like fuck and beautiful and so sodding tight. Gasping, breathing hard and with sweat standing out on his brow, on his palm that's slicking up and down Xander's cock so fast the world's gone from tipping to spinning.

And there's something wrong about all that but he can't put his finger on it - not the way Spike's hitting that spot that makes him see stars and galaxies that makes him grab his knees and yank them up against his chest to get Spike to fuck him deeper.

The world's off and been off for a week and the rules are different - so when he comes and the best option seems like passing out with Spike draped over his chest, heart banging so hard it reverberates in his ribs, he goes with the flow.

The flow is where it's at.

The flow runs downhill taking Xander with it, and Spike too because he readjusts his panting body against Xander's side, curls up hot and sweaty and breathing across Xander's chest.

Xander's still clumsily petting messy, curly hair when he falls asleep.

And when he wakes up, it's to sunlight in his eye, Bo's tail up his nose and eau de ashtray in his mouth.

"Fuck!" Because eau de ash is never a good flavor with a vampire in your bed.

"Christ, Harris. Shut your gob so a man can sleep."

Xander cautiously pries open his eye and the world slides a few more degrees out of whack. So far, he's surprised they aren't slip-sliding down out of bed and across the floor like the earth really is flat and China's really heavy.

'Cause Spike's staring at him with sleepy blue eyes, bed head so white it burns Xander's retinas in the sun. He gives Xander a disgruntled look and drops onto his back on the mattress like a starfish.

In the sun.

In a tide pool that's a very long way away from where Xander's sitting in a tangle of overheated sheets that smell like sweat, sex and cat fur.

"What the fuck happened to you?"

Everything's moving in slow motion when Spike's hot hand takes Xander's wrist, brings Xander's fingers to his neck and Xander has the novel experience of taking a vampire's pulse. "Shanshu," Spike says, the way most people say gonorrhea.

Xander doesn't know a shanshu from a soft shoe but whatever it is it means Spike's human. Spike's probably expecting him to ask a dumb question like what's a shanshu? because Xander used to be dumb like that. These days, Xander likes to be a man of many surprises. So instead he asks, "When?"

"'Bout a week ago," Spike says and rolls over onto his side, jerking the sheet up over his shoulder - moist with morning sweat in a hot room and glowing. "Monday."

The day everything tilted a few degrees away from normal.

And all the rules changed.