"Bloody hell. Have to do everything for you, do I?" Spike watched his pale fingers cover the paler skin of Harris' socket since the eyelid didn't close completely anymore and rinsed shampoo suds from his hair with handfuls of warm water.

First time he'd covered Harris' socket with his hand, because what else was he supposed to do? Build a sodding dam on his face? First time, he'd expected Harris to flinch. Touching that skin felt more intimate than if Spike had reached down to have a nice wank with Harris' equipment.

Now, Spike longed for a flinch.

A flinch, a jerk away, a punch in the eye.

If Harris had opened his mouth to say "that tickles!" in an Elmo voice, Spike might've danced in the streets.

He was running out of things to talk about and the strange, one-sided conversation was beginning to veer into uncomfortably personal territory. But it was seductive, having a captive and nonjudgmental audience - even one with all the conversational skills of a bright vegetable.

"Used to wash Dru's hair. Not because she wasn't capable, mind - she liked it. Said it made her feel like a proper princess." Spike gave Harris' hair a squeeze and watched the water run out. It looked like Dru's, long and lush and dark. "Reckon you're not at home in there or you'd have something to say 'bout me treating you like a princess."

He picked up a bottle of conditioner and flipped the cap, filling the bath cubicle with the scent of apples. Wasn't about to tackle the nest Harris called hair - all right, the nest Harris would call hair if he was talking - without something slippery.

Or hedge-trimmers.

"God, you're a mess. Can barely tell you've got a face under it all. 'Course, it does add a certain cachet to the carpenter wandering in the wilderness imagery." He held Harris by the back of the neck and dunked him into the water. The other eye closed and Spike figured that meant some kind of approval. "That sort of symbolism's about as subtle as a boot to the bollocks, mind. You destined for greatness you haven't told us about, mate?"

"No."

"Sure about that? You'd be the popular bloke at parties if you could turn the water into booze and - "

Hold on.

"Did you say something?" Spike looked down into Harris' face - still face with beads of water on his eyelashes and the obscene tan line of his patch against nut-brown skin.

"Harris?"

Not a flutter.

"Harris?"

Not a twitch.

Bugger that.

"Right, then. Where was I? Gonna trim this scruff into something ironic." He scrubbed a hand through the bristles of Harris' beard, soft-coarse hair tickling his palm and a heavier weight as Harris leaned into the scratching. And if Spike enjoyed any of it himself, that was his own bloody business. "Gonna shear you like a sheep, mate. I could make a sweater out of all this. Spin it into yarn and knit Peaches a new hair shirt."

The insults came easy.

The remembering came hard.

And Spike ruthlessly crushed the pang in his chest under the metaphorical boot heel of what needed doing, combing out the tangles of Harris' beard with his fingers and soda shop-sweet conditioner. "Not that he'll wear it these days, I wager. Oh no. Soul wasn't good enough for him. Had to go and get himself made human."

"Wanker." Spike tugged the bristles of Harris' beard a little too hard and watched the human's head loll like a puppet against his arm. "Not you." He felt compelled to reassure Harris for all the good it did. "As if a heartbeat and a sperm count make him the better man. You could teach him a thing or two about being human. It's all bumps and bruises and hard knocks and doing stupid things, healing up and then doing them again."

Spike poured water over Harris' beard, watching it sink through the dense bristles and trickle away over his collarbones and xylophone ribcage. "Then dying." And that still took some getting used to. "'Cept you didn't die, did you? Always were a stubborn bloke. Still your best quality - fuck knows you haven't got many to choose from."

No answer.

Cooling trickle of water through Harris' beard.

A half-drowned beetle.

Spike grimaced. "That's bloody disgusting."

The six-legged stowaway met its end between Spike's thumb and forefinger and he tossed it into the bin.

It wasn't fun insulting Harris when he had to rely on imported livestock to snark back.

"So Peaches is human and settled in snug as a bug in a beard with his bint until some big nasty comes along with a handful of bathwater and rinses him down the drain. All he's done is cost the world a champion and promised it a few more sprogs down the line. It's a waste, if you ask me." Spike regarded Harris' features, the little creases he still had under his bottom lip. Spike traced his thumb over them, pressed lightly and watched the resulting pout. "Still a waste if you don't ask me."

Spike propped Harris up in the corner of the bath and reached back for a comb, dragging a heavy hank of hair over Harris' shoulder and setting to work turning straw to silk - or however the story went. "That goes for you too, mate."

A flicker of Harris' one eye, contraction of his pupil and the beetling of a brow.

Beat a beetling of a beard.

Spike made a mental note to shear the sod as soon as it wouldn't electrocute them both. "Oh stop glaring at me. Told you before everything went balls up in Sunnydale it'd be a bloody waste, giving up. Not many people like you and me who can take a beating and crawl back into the fight. It's the crawling back this world needs more of, not the heavy-hitting." Harris' hair gleamed under the bathroom lights and Spike gave it a satisfied stroke, moved on to the next section.

"Figured you for the type who keeps crawling, knows when to crawl off to heal like you did then. Knows when to let a fellow help with the healing."

Carding fingers through Harris' hair, teasing it out from beneath his bandage and pouring lukewarm water into it to wash for the first time in days. Sigh of pleasure and Harris falling asleep under Spike's hands. Spike doing all the talking. About getting knocked down, getting back up. Being needed and how fucking pathetically special that was. About why they bloody well fight a war with no winners. It's all about being needed - and looking after them that needs you. And Harris waking up the next morning refreshed and ready to swashbuckle his way through -

Well, no, he hadn't been refreshed and ready to do much of anything when he woke up - neither of them had - but he'd been back. Back and strong and bloody stubborn as ever, ready to throw the rest of himself into the fray.

Didn't look to be working this time.

Out the corner of his eye, Spike saw Harris' lid close, hiding the dark look again. "Yeah. I never pegged you for one who'd crawl off to die."

It was...disappointing.

And Spike was still doing all the talking.

Well wasn't that a plot twist.

Conversation got dangerous when Spike did all the talking - and all the thinking. "What the fuck were you doing, Harris? Playing chicken? Waiting for your mates to catch your free fall? Chase after you and make it all better? It doesn't sodding work that way. Not for your kind. Not for my kind." The phone rang, making Spike jump - making him growl because it made him jump when Harris didn't bat a single inconsiderate eyelash. He dropped the flannel into the water and stood up. "I've got news for you, mate - I'm the one who went looking for you. And I'm the one who found you. And I fucking well hate wasting my time."

Bloody Harris and his bloody - whatever it was.

Right.

Whatever it was.

Whatever was going on in that thick skull of his.

Made him want to pound on the side - see if a handful of sand poured out onto the tiles.

He stalked into the living room and tore the phone from its cradle. "What?"

"Would it kill you to check your answering machine?"

Sodding hell. "'M already dead, bit."

"Uh huh. And that line didn't get old years ago. How is he?"

Vegetative.

Hairy.

Quiet.

Spike shrugged and went for the simplest truth. "Naked and wet."

"Okay, so would have appreciated that more two years ago."

"Wouldn't have told you two years ago. He's in the bath, pet."

"But how is he?"

Spike sighed and wished for a smoke - promised himself one after Harris was out of the bath, warm and dry. They'd share a nice smoke and Harris could not-talk to him some more. "Quiet. He hasn't said much since I found him."

"Is he sick?"

"No." But Spike wouldn't vouch for his mental health. "Could use a few good meals, mind."

"You'll make sure he gets them?"

"'Course I will. What do you take me for?"

"The evil undead," she said and bloody hell, who could resist that giggle?

"Yeah. And don't you forget it."

"You'll call when he's talking? You'll make him call?"

"I'll dial the phone myself and strap it to his head."

"Promise?"

"Already did."

"Promise, Spike."

"Right. Fine. I promise."

"Pinky swear?"

"Sodding hell. No."

Another giggle - and she was gone. He'd known it was a mistake not to terrify Dawn Summers at a young age.

He detoured to the kitchen for a slug of whiskey before retreating to the bathroom, acknowledging that he was sorely out of practice at striking terror.

If terror was a nail, Spike was bending an awful lot more than he was driving home these days.

The whiskey said fuck it.

Spike listened to the whiskey.

Fuck it all. Who really cared why Harris had done what he'd done? Wasn't as if Spike had never fallen on hard times. Wasn't as if Harris himself had never caught Spike at it.

Wasn't as if Spike would really care if Harris died, after all. What was one less human in a world full of -

The water was still.

The top surface was smooth.

And Harris was under it, eyes closed, skin pale.

"Oh - fucking hell!" Spike plunged into the water, jerked Xander up by his bony shoulders - shook him and looked for - what - what? "You stupid sod, that wasn't a bloody invitation to finish the - "

Xander sighed against Spike's chest.

" - bleeding job!"

Wait.

Spike pushed Xander away from his chest and looked at him.

Xander looked back, eye liquid and wide and striking a note in Spike's chest that sang. "Your shirt is wet," the bastard said.

"You're not dead." Spike held Xander back, where he dangled like a sodden cat. "Or breathing," he finished.

"Oh," Xander said, and took a breath, then another, color slowly returning to his lips and cheeks. "Thanks."

"You're not dead?" Spike said again, because something owed him a few answers.

Xander looked down at them both dripping on the floor. "Not yet," he concluded.