__Drinking Buddies__
By Dutchbuffy



Wesley slowly walked through the dark streets, checking under every cardboard box and behind every dumpster for a flash of white flesh or platinum hair. His stomach roiled with apprehension and foreboding. He'd been looking for Spike since midnight, and hadn't been able to find a trace of him yet. Although Spike was human now, he refused to accept his physical limitations and acted, drank and fucked as if he was still a nearly invulnerable master vampire. Wesley had been mopping up his vomit, stitching his wounds and walking off his drugged near-comas for weeks now, but this was the first time Spike hadn't been home at all for two nights and he was getting very worried. He didn't want to involve Wolfram & Hart, because the methods they used to 'fix' problems were usually a lot scarier than the problems themselves.

A white, blood-flecked hand gave him a few heart-stopping moments. He gingerly pulled at it and almost lost his balance when there turned out to be no body attached to it. He ended up holding a clammy loose hand, with skin that slid with horrifying ease over the muscles underneath and ended in a grisly rough stump. But the fingers were bent and gnarled, clearly belonging to someone much less healthy and a lot older than Spike's physiological age. Wesley put the hand back carefully in the place he found it and compulsively wiped off his palms on his pants, even though reason told him skin was easier to wash than cloth.

Wesley sighed and thought of stopping the search. There was really no way to find someone in downtown LA at night without magical assistance. Reluctantly he drew a hanger and chain from his pocket and squatted down on the grimy alley floor. With the help of an ordinary compass, he drew a neatly north-oriented four-pointed star and a circle on the asphalt. He murmured an incantation over it and the amulet started to sway and tug slightly at his hand. Wesley turned in the direction it pointed to and looked straight at a blank wall that seemed to go on for a whole block. He sighed again and started to walk around it.

Long before there was any visual indication of Spike's presence, there was an auditory one. Sounds of a ragged voice shouting insults and taunts carried over to him. The amulet led him through a maze of alleys and abandoned lots. He seemed to come no closer to Spike, but he kept hearing him, and the sounds of bodies hitting walls and panting became stronger. Wesley started to run, no longer plotting a course, just mindlessly following the tug of the amulet in his hand. He lost the sound of Spike's voice, and just when he was contemplating retracing his footsteps, realizing he didn't know how, he stumbled into a courtyard and saw Spike and his opponents.

Spike was standing with his back to a wall, half crouched in a defensive position, a length of bicycle chain in his hands. He didn't seem to have been completely successful in avoiding damage to himself. He was completely filthy, covered from head to toe in a mixture of mud and blood, and the parts of his face that were visible were red and swollen. Arranged in a half circle opposite him were three demons of different races, backlit by the light spilling from the open door of a building. From the mournful sounds of bluegrass dripping out of it, a bar. Wesley automatically identified the demons in the back of his mind as Mohra, Oden Tal and a tentative Brachen demon.

"Oh, lookie here," the biggest of the demons sneered. "Here comes another human. Come to help you, you think? Or does he want to have drinkies in our bar, too, huh?"

"Are you deaf, you silly wankers? I'm a demon, I keep telling you!" Spike screamed, in that high broken voice Wesley had been hearing the past twenty minutes.

"Fuck off, human," the Brachen said. He turned to Wesley. "Take the poor idiot home, and we'll let you go."

Wesley nodded tersely and approached Spike with caution. From the look in his eyes he was on several kinds of drugs and booze; he wasn't sure if Spike recognized him.

"Spike? It's me, Wesley. I'm going to take you home."

Spike frowned at him. "You think I'm human, don't you? That's why you're helping me. You should be more careful, mate. I eat your kind."

"We'll discuss that when you get hungry. Come on, the car is that way."

Although Wesley had no idea where his car was, he needed to get Spike away from the demon bar and his attackers. Spike followed docilely, at intervals asserting again that he was going to eat Wesley.

Miraculously, after only two lefts he was back in the alley where he'd left his car. He looked back at the way he'd come. This was impossible. He checked out the amulet with distrust. Had he accidentally imbued it with more magic than he'd intended? It stared innocently back at him, its dull green eye disclosing nothing.

Wesley pushed Spike in the car and fastened his seatbelt securely. He hesitated, and then briefly put his hand on Spike's forehead. It was clammy and cold.

Spike glared at him suspiciously. "What? Testing if I'm really a demon?"

"No, no, I'm just madly attracted by your sexy demon energy," Wesley assured him in a choked voice.

Spike seemed mollified. "Right. Don't feel bad about it mate. Happens all the time."

He'd perked up slightly, but now sagged back into despondency. "Just want me for my body, don't you? You humans are all the same. Just sex you want, then discard old Spike like a used condom. Bloody bints. Don't love me."

"I do," Wesley said. "I love you."

It sounded awkward and untrue to his own ears, but Spike turned his bleary eyes towards him trustingly. "Really?" he said. "Me? You sure? Nobody ever does."

Spike rested his head on Wesley's shoulder and started to sob. Wesley was torn between embarrassment at this melodramatic drunkenness and genuine pity. He stroked the matted curls and tried to think of something to say. He wished there was a brand of psychiatry for demons who returned to life as humans.

And then, as always seemed to happen whenever Wesley most wished to talk to Spike, Spike fell asleep. Wesley ground his teeth. This time they were going to talk if he had to drown Spike in coffee. He carefully freed his right arm and started up the car.

About halfway through the drive home Wesley turned his head for the umpteenth time to check up on Spike and found him staring straight back. Spike's eyes were very awake and completely lucid, incongruous in that beat-up and filthy face.

"Hey," Wesley said quietly.

After a couple of tries, Spike rasped a 'Hey' back.

"You seem sober again," Wesley said.

Spike sighed and turned his head away to look at the night speeding by. "Haven’t had a drop today, Watcherly, they wouldn't serve me, as you probably gleaned from the pathetic little tableau just now."

"Because you’re not a demon."

"Because I'm not a demon anymore," Spike agreed. "I'm not altogether out of my mind, Pryce. I know bloody well I'm human. Just got really pissed at the little hypocrites." He ran a hand though his grimy curls.

Wesley let the silence linger until they were home. He helped Spike peel of his damaged and bloody clothes and looked on as the shower revealed just how many cuts and bruises Spike had gained tonight. The newer bruises lay like raised hillocks in a landscape of greenish and yellowish bruise fields.

"If you want to be a demon so badly, what's keeping you from simply getting turned by the next vampire you encounter?" Wesley asked as he handed Spike the shampoo.

Spike shrugged and lathered at the same time. "Dunno. I want to be what I was, not have to wade through cotton wool all the time, but I just can't face getting the soul again. Too afraid I wouldn’t want it anymore."

He rinsed off and accepted the towel Wes held for him. Wesley bit his lips, thrilled at every tiny drop of information falling his way.

"I'm done about the demon thing now. There's no half way, I guess. I'll have to learn to be human, as awful as that is."

"There are plenty of perks to humanity," Wesley protested. Spike shrugged off his towel, letting it drop to the floor, and inspected his wounds in the bathroom mirror.

"Yeah, it's right handy to be able to check out the damage," Spike said bitterly. "Course, that's only useful because I don’t heal so well anymore."

He limped to the kitchen and started making some hot cocoa. Wesley fetched a scotch for himself.

"About the soul?" Wesley ventured. He tried to phrase it as neutrally as he could. "How did you come by it?"

Spike's face became set, and he looked down when he spoke.

"I had good reasons. Best decision I ever made." He looked up sharply from beneath his brows. "I got it on my own; there was no gypsy curse involved."

Wesley tried to stay calm. He wanted to believe Spike, but it was unheard of for a vampire to seek a soul. Then again, there had to be a reason for the Shanshu.

"You had a 200 year career of bloodshed and mayhem, Spike. What happened in Sunnydale to change you?"

Spike laughed and took a big swallow of his cocoa, burning himself severely.

"Bugger bugger bugger!" he swore, clearly angry at himself for forgetting about his tender human tissues.

Wesley stayed put and kept silent, hoping the words would keep on coming.

Spike patted his hand. "Don't look at me with these eager little eyes, hungry for dollops of knowledge. I don't want to talk about Sunnydale. But I'm not two-hundred years old, either. Drusilla made me in 1880."

Wesley wanted to pounce on that tidbit and worry it to little pieces like a cat would devour its tiny shivering prey, but reined in and countered with a "Hm-hm."

It worked. Spike continued reminiscing in a casual voice, as if it had happened to him yesterday, and wasn't particularly interesting or new, like talking about an encounter with an old school pal.

A Spike willing to talk was such a miracle, that Wesley only noticed when he had finished jotting down the wealth of detail on Drusilla and Darla, how he'd been cleverly steered away from the Sunnydale subject. What the hell had happened there?

* * *