Xander let himself in quietly, hoping it was quietly enough.  Home early and he didn’t want to disturb Spike, didn’t want company, just wanted some selfish alone time.  He’d been pretty down – understatement – since Sunnydale and covering it up was hard work, especially living with someone who was attuned to his every breath and heartbeat.

He couldn’t stop thinking about his parents, how they’d lived, how they’d died, and he couldn’t shake off the guilt.  He sometimes wondered how one man could have so much guilt.  Have to ask Grandpa.  He felt guilty about ignoring them for years before they died, guilty for their deaths even if that was a ridiculous notion, guilty…  Oh, yeah, big guilt.  …for gleefully celebrating their passing.  Spike had assured him it was a legitimate response at the time, but the vampire would concoct any excuse to make him feel better.  The fact that Spike had to made Xander feel…guilty.

Thanksgiving, despite being belligerently uncelebrated, had been the most difficult of his life. And Spike…  This was a Spike that Xander could imagine with Drusilla at her most damaged, his care and kindness extraordinary.  Xander didn’t believe he deserved such consideration but accepted the vampire’s generosity with forlorn gratitude.

So, home early, deep, dull grief in his chest, he got on with what he had planned, sitting at the dining room table with his depression and a battered cardboard box before him.  He could do this.

“I can do this.”  He could do this.  Although it had taken a while to feel strong enough emotionally, he could do this.  It was something he needed to do and…  “I can do this.”

The tape, then the lid, came off the box for the first time in years; a deep breath and Xander carefully removed the first of the photographs.  A smile broke out instantly at the sight of Willow draped across a book that took up half her dining table, giving him an exhausted look that begged for instant death rather than more research.  They’d spent weeks poring over every scrap of information they could find, only to have their target demon implode when a bug-laden victim sneezed influenza germs at it.  Happy days.

Dawn.  Buffy.  Dawn and Buffy.  Willow.  Buffy and Dawn.  Buffy and Dawn and Willow.  He put that to one side.  Willow.  Dawn and Willow.  Giles.  He put that on the first ‘to one side’ pile.  And so he carried on, sorting, making untidy heaps, stopping to remember and smile or frown or…  A photo of him, taken by Spike, and how could anyone have not seen that Xander was hopelessly in love with the guy behind the camera?

Talk of the devil.  Well, almost.

“Hello, love, you’re early.”

Spike wandered in, sleep-rumpled, still waking up.

“Did I disturb you?”

“I knew you were here, couldn’t stay asleep.”

“Sorry.”

Sorry.  Bad word.  Spike forgave.

“Don’t be.”  Spike yanked Xander’s chair away from the table and was on his lap before Xander could react, taking the surprised face in his hands and kissing his lover deeply.  “Don’t be sorry,” he smiled as the kiss ended.  “Would’ve preferred it if you’d bunked off to shag me rather than…  What are you doing anyway?”

Keeping one arm around Spike’s waist, Xander leant forward and picked up a picture, showing it to Spike.  Spike studied it without emotion.

“Why?” he enquired.

“They’re my parents.  I want a picture where I can see it.”  Spike treated his in-laws with the contempt he believed they deserved: he turned away from the picture, began to nuzzle Xander’s hair, inhaling deeply to find out where his partner had been during the day.  “They didn’t get much right,” Xander admitted.  “But who knows, maybe the crap job they did really was the best they could do.  I don’t want to forget them, Spike, I want to be able to look at them and…  Not sure I can love them, but I want to look and feel…  Fuck, can’t get this right.”

“Peace.  You need to look at them and be at peace with yourself.”

“Yes.  Even if it’s as selfish as comparing where I came from to where I’ve got to.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“I’ll put this in the study.  That way you won’t see it too often.”

“Good.”  Xander rested his head against Spike, eyes closed, exuding sadness that Spike deliberately ignored in order to give Xander a little privacy.  “What else have you found?” Spike asked pseudo-cheerfully.

Xander took a deep breath and made an effort.

“Some nice pictures for the office.  I’ve already got some great ones of you but I needed the girls and Giles.”

Spike stood and began to circle the table.  He picked out a shot of Xander.

“How old were you there?”

“Seventeen, eighteen.”

“All eyes and ears,” Spike noted affectionately.  “So pretty.”  He smiled at Xander.  “Still pretty.”  Xander didn’t bother to argue the pretty on this occasion and managed to smile back.  “Where are the painfully embarrassing ones?”

“You think I’m going to leave them around for you?  What am I, an amateur?”

Spike slid a small pile out from under the box.

“What about these, tucked under here?”

“Leave those,” Xander told him, suddenly anxious.  “I’m throwing them out.”

“Guilty secrets?  How d’you expect me to resist?”

“No, Spike, don’t…!”  Xander made a grab for the prints but Spike managed to keep them just out of reach.  “I’m serious, give them back.  Please, Spike…”

“Protesting too much.  What have we got, naughty shots of the ex?”

“Spike…”

“Mine now.”

Backing sprightly away, Spike glanced at the top picture.  He fell quite still.  Statue still.  Becoming statue pale.  Xander slowly made his way close, tried to take the photographs but they were held fast, pinched between Spike’s fingers.

“I was going to get rid of them,” Xander explained quietly.  “I wasn’t expecting you to be awake yet, I thought I’d have time.  I’m sorry.  Let me take them.  Please.”

Spike continued to stare at the image: Xander and Riley Finn, arms slung amiably around each other’s neck, toasting the photographer with cans of beer.

“Let me take them, Spike,” Xander said again, hearing the desperation creeping into his voice and trying to push it in a lighter direction.  “You want to do it?  Put them through the waste disposal?  Turn the bastard to mush, yeah?  We’ll do it together?”  A sharp, unexpected breath from Spike and Xander reached up to cup his face, trying to turn it away from what had gripped and possessed him.  “Look at me, sweetheart.  Please, Spike.  Spike?”  Still unable to move Spike, Xander’s hand slipped up to cover the vampire’s eyes while the other tried once again to prise the photographs away.

With a shudder Spike let go of the photos, frantically shook off the hand on his face and backed jerkily into the wall, jumping ferociously as he knocked a framed picture off it’s hook and sent it noisily to the floor.

“It’s okay, Spike, you’re all right.”

More laboured breaths and Spike shook his head.

“No,” he gasped.  “Not all right.  Never all right.”  The knuckles of his left hand began to rub over the former wound site on his stomach.  “Never.”

Xander tried to get close enough to touch Spike, hoping to draw him into a hug and give him some much needed comfort, but at the first brush of his fingertips Spike was away at top speed.  Knowing he wasn’t up to this, wasn’t up to anything, Xander followed, pausing in the hall to listen in the hope there would be some clue as to where Spike had gone.  Nothing.

“Where are you?” he asked the silence.  “Where are you, Spike?”  Nothing.  “Sorry, sweetheart, sorry,” under his breath.  “I didn’t think you’d ever see them, I was going to destroy them.  I didn’t want you to ever see them.”  Xander paused, listened.  “Where are you?”

A rattle from the kitchen and Xander ran, arriving in time to see Spike checking and tossing aside knives.

“What are you doing?” Xander asked, wanting to be close but trying to keep his distance for fear of Spike racing away again.

“Want something sharp.”

Conflicting emotions battered Xander as he wondered who the knife was intended for, knowing he wouldn’t be able to stop Spike if he were planning to make his mark upon his human.

“What are you going to do when you find a knife?”  Spike muttered something that Xander didn’t catch.  “You know I won’t let you hurt yourself.”

“Filth,” Spike spat out.  “Filth.  Filth inside.”

“No, Spike, you’re clean.”

Spike turned to Xander, eyes wide and glassy.

“I can feel it.  I have to do something, I can’t stand it anymore, I have to get it out.”

Xander inched forward.

“What is it?”

“Filth.”

“Okay.  We need to talk this through, figure out the best way to deal, yeah?”

“You’ll help me?”  Spike’s eyes filled and overflowed at the thought, the relief.

“Explain to me.  Explain this to me and maybe I can.”

“Please, Xander, make it…”

Xander was by him, carefully taking the knife from his hand and laying it on the counter as Spike watched every unhurried movement.

“Okay?”  Spike nodded shakily.  Xander frantically thought, trying to find something to divert Spike’s immediate attention from the array of potential weapons at hand.  The vampire was staring at him with an expression of fear and hope.  Expectation.  “Something for me first?  Something important.  Please?”  Nod.  “Gonna do the pictures and I want you to see.”

Yet another nod, but Xander wasn’t sure that Spike knew exactly what was going on.  He looked positively dazed.  Hoping he was doing the right, or at least a positive thing, Xander fetched the photographs with Riley in and crossed to the sink.

“Not Xander,” Spike whispered, coming and taking the picture he’d seen earlier, carefully tearing Xander out and pocketing the scrap before giving the remainder, giving Riley Finn, to Xander to destroy.  A glance at the other pictures and Xander followed suit, tearing out Buffy and putting her image aside, tearing away the whole gang to keep them safe when Riley was shredded.

Xander made a big show of putting the pictures in the waste disposal unit, one at a time, and took Spike’s icy hand before throwing the switch.

“Dead,” he told Spike firmly.  “Gone.”

The slow rock of Spike’s head picked up speed until it was an adamant denial, leaving Xander aware and chary of the anger building behind it.

“I have to be clean.”

“You are clean.”

“No.  Help me.”

“Spike…”

“Help me.  Or leave me.  I have to do this.  Be clean.  Clean out the filth.”

However tempting it was to walk away at that point, Xander knew he couldn’t leave Spike alone in distress.

“You said you’d explain.”  Again that show of relief, the teary eyes, and Spike clutched at his partner as he was guided to the living room and lowered onto the sofa.  Ten minutes pointless shushing and reassurance before Xander had the nerve to speak.  “Okay.  Talk to me.  Explain.”  Spike sat on the edge of his seat, head dropping into his hands as he started to keen.  “Not this,” Xander whispered to him.  “Please, Spike.  I can’t…”

Spike sprang to his feet.

“You can’t.  Right.  That’s right.”  The familiar pacing began.  “You can’t and you shouldn’t have to.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“Don’t worry, love, I’ll deal with it.”

Spike left the room, Xander in quick pursuit, screaming and tackling the vampire as he threw open the front door and made it to the edge of the porch.  The late afternoon sunlight fell across Spike’s outstretched hand and it began to burn in the seconds before Xander dragged him back into the safety of the hallway, grabbing the vase of roses on the table and emptying flowers and water over Spike’s arm.

Xander sank to his knees beside the prostrate vampire.

“What the fuck was that?” he demanded furiously.  “Nothing is so bad.  Nothing.”

“You don’t know.”

Xander collected up the roses.  A mixture of vermillion and darker red: love and mourning.  Sometimes he hated Spike for understanding.  Spike.  Suicidal.  Fucking hell.  Fucking hell.  Spike leant up on his elbows and his head turned, gaze focusing on the kitchen, and Xander knew it was about the knives.  Fucking hell.

“You tell me.  Everything.  Now.  Spike?  Tell me everything.”

Spike fell flat, staring at nothing, tormented and desperate, and Xander waited.  He jumped when Spike let out a screech and ripped the t-shirt from his body, nails immediately returning to the old wound site and tearing into the flesh.  Xander grasped his hands, managed to force burnt and bloody fingers away from the damage, feeling the pressure ease as Spike gave up the fight and slumped.

“Inside.  It’s inside me.”  Xander’s palm rested over the torn skin, and with a choked sob Spike folded around the comfort of it.  “Help me,” he pleaded brokenly.  “Xander, help me.”

Xander shifted position, holding Spike awkwardly but as best he could.

“You explain.  Then we deal.”

“Help me.”

“I promise,” Xander assured, knowing he was getting himself into all kinds of trouble.

Once again he coaxed Spike back to the living room, reluctantly leaving him and racing to fetch supplies to clean up his arm and stomach, finding it hard to re-enter the room when he heard the keening.  Xander gave himself a few seconds respite, leaning against the doorframe and trying not to be overwhelmed and scared and so, so fucking depressed.  No choice but to face this, help Spike, hope he wasn’t about to screw anything else up.  Xander plastered the fake smile on his face and got on with it.

“Hey, I’m back,” he said in his well-practised everything-will-be-okay voice, spending a while fussing over the vampire before carrying out repairs.  Spike followed his movements with wet eyes, not really crying but sending tears streaking down his cheeks with each blink.  The keening had become subdued but was still enough to grate over Xander’s frayed nerves, and he found himself humming notes without a tune in an attempt to block it out.

“How about we go to bed for a while, give you a chance to sleep the damage off?”

Transparent, Xander knew, but anything was worth a shot.

“I have to tell you,” and Xander’s mind flew back in time to hearing those words at Willow’s, to the revelations, the horror of torture and mutilation and rape.  “I have to tell you,” Spike repeated in a shaking voice.  “I don’t want to.  I’m not—”

Xander waited a few seconds but the sentence wasn’t about to finish itself.

“You are brave enough.  You can tell me.”

“Anything.  I can tell you anything,” Spike murmured, remembering too.

Xander leant in and cupped Spike’s face, bringing it to him and laying several hard kisses on his cheek.

“That’s right.  You tell me, sweetheart, and I’ll try to help.”

“Sweetheart.  I am your sweetheart.”  Xander nodded.  “And they had no right.  Only you, Xander.”

“It’s over, they’re gone.”

Spike shook his head quite frantically, rising and pacing.

“Inside me.  Still there.  The filth, their filth.”  Xander waited in silence, in fearful anticipation.  Spike paced.  “I can feel it.  I’ll never be clean.”  He stopped, looked to Xander, fresh tears welling and choking his voice.  “I want you.  Want you so badly.  But I can’t…  I can’t risk spreading it to you, Xander, spreading their filth to you, their corruption.  It’s here inside me and I can’t risk…”  He paced.  “They cut into me.  Used me.  ‘One cold cunt’,” he quoted, and Xander couldn’t help the disgusted shiver or the rush of hatred.  “They used me and left their…their filth in me.  I healed.  It’s still inside.  I feel it.”  He pressed his palm over the new dressings on his stomach.  “I’m full of their filth and I can’t taint you, can’t risk it, can’t…  You’re pure, you’re perfect.  You’re pure.  And I can’t…  I wont spread it to you, won’t contaminate you.”

Xander stood and dithered before grabbing Spike as he strode past, pulling him close.

“Listen to me, Spike.  That’s over, you’re clean, I made you clean.”

The human gasped as Spike’s nails sank through his shirt and into the skin of his upper arms, no harm intended but blood seeped into the pale material nevertheless.

“Know how they fed me, Xander?  With their own blood.  The same men who were torturing me and…and…  Using me.  The same men who were using me were feeding me.  Force-fed, I had no choice.  Bags and bags of their scum, pumped into me, a tube down my throat but I could still taste it and it tasted the same.  It was all their filth and I was full of it.  I was…  I was…  Say it for me, I can’t say the word.”

Xander wasn’t convinced he could either but…

“You were…raped.”

“By their bodies, by their blood.  Polluted, infected, still infected, and I can’t share that with you.”

Xander persuaded – forced – Spike to sit down with him, clutching his hands and knowing he was due a slap for not automatically siding with Spike.

“You can’t harm me,” he told Spike categorically.  “You’re not going to infect me, anything they did to you, put in you, has long gone.”

“Inside,” Spike insisted.  “It’s inside me, I can feel it.  It’s inside me.”

“You can’t…  You haven’t hurt me.  You mean sex, don’t you, I’m not being dumb here?  You mean you coming in me.”  Spike cringed.  Nodded.  “But…  You do come in me,” Xander told him gently.  “All the time.  You come in my mouth all the time.”

“That isn’t the same,” Spike groaned.  He touched Xander’s bottom lip.  “Come in your mouth and you swallow and there’s acid inside you, in your gut, waiting to eat the filth up.”  The hand moved down Xander’s body like a cool trickle of water until it stopped on his belly and circled.  “Come inside you, really inside you, and it’s warm and nurturing and the kind of place that filth will take and grow and…  Destroy you.  Inside out.  Like it’s destroying me.”

“Spike, there’s no difference…”

“A blow job is sex, Xander.  It’s fucking.  It’s not like claiming, it’s not love.  Claiming is about being inside you, and love.  My love inside you.  My love not their filth.  I can never…”  Spike tore away from Xander’s side, ripping away the dressing and burying his nails in his stomach once more.  “I will tear them out of me,” he screamed, gouging at his body, right hand beginning to claw a new hole in his side.

Xander was slow to move and Spike easily managed to keep away from him, heading back to the kitchen and the knives, determined to excise the decay for once and for all, whatever the cost.  But he lost in the tussle for the knife; hands, slippery with blood, unable to grip.

“Let me do this,” he demanded, words virtually lost in tears and rage, “I need this.”  Xander wrapped himself around Spike, pinning his arms to his sides, trying to keep him still and harm-free for a few desperate seconds as he thought, but the pleas were ceaseless, an unending tirade of entreaties that began with Spike being permitted to clean himself, soon transmuting into Xander performing the gruesome task for him.  “If you love me,” Spike moaned, over and over.  “If you love me.”

“I can’t.  You can’t ask me to do that.”

“You promised.”

“Please, don’t.”

“Make it better.  You always make it better.”

“You want me to cut you up?”

A sharp breath and Spike focused on Xander’s eyes, hope blossoming through the despair.

“Make it better.  Make me clean.  Please, love, help me, please, help me.”

“Well…what?” Xander asked weakly.

“Cut it out of me, cut their filth away.”  His hands wriggled free and up to Xander’s face, caressing, smearing blood.  “I trust you.  Only you.  So pure.  So pure,” he gabbled and it went on.  And on.  And on.

One of them was insane and Xander was trying to figure out which.  Spike for what he wanted.  Or Xander.  Because he was going to do it.

He led a still-muttering Spike upstairs, leaving him fraught, pacing, scraping at his body while Xander collected what he thought he might need from various parts of the house.  He didn’t think beyond the practicalities, he was almost too scared to think at all.  But this was Spike.  His Spike.  Spike as needy and despairing as he’d ever seen him.  Suicidal.  And it was his job to make it all better, Xander always made it all better.

Back with Spike, letting the vampire cling to any part of him he could lay hands on, Xander spread plastic sheets from the garage over the bed and carpet, placed his collection, from knife to towels, on the closest cabinet.

“How?” he asked dully.  “What’s the best way to…to clean you?”

“Blood.  Blood and come.”

“You don’t mean…  I don’t have to…”  If it meant cutting and fucking Spike the way the soldiers had, Xander knew it would be beyond him.  Spike read his mind and gestured to the bowl Xander had brought upstairs.  Xander almost collapsed at the reprieve.  “Yes.  Right.  So…  Blood and come.  Mixed?  Is mixed good?  Powerful?”

“Powerful.”

Xander took that onboard, tried to shake the fug from his mind, tried not to be depressed and crumbling and ready to scream.  He had to be strong and it had to be now.  For Spike.  Inside he could be depressed and he could crumble and scream, outside…  He took another look at Spike’s expectant face, gave the best smile he could manage, gave a nod.  Spike’s evident relief, his lips moving silently in a mantra of thank yous, was almost enough of a reason for carrying on with this barbarity.

Bowl, knife, blood; Xander was now prepared for that.  But he felt about as sexy as a dose of clap and didn’t know how much use he was going to be at producing the other ingredient for this concoction.

“Spike, you’ll have to help me…”

Spike was unfastening Xander’s pants before he had a chance to finish a sentence he wasn’t sure how to finish, so that was fortunate.  He kissed Xander as his hand roamed and encouraged, and the kiss was an immense relief: love in this act, a tiny scrap of reassurance that Xander might not be about to perform the well-known rite of the human wrecking ball.

Whispers now from Spike, of his love, his thanks, his regret that Xander had to be subjected to this.  Love, always back to love, and he repeatedly dragged elongated fangs over the offered skin of Xander’s neck, lapping at the area that swelled and reddened, preparing it for the moment of penetration when it would burst like overripe fruit into his mouth.  As Xander shook and gasped and clutched at the wall behind him, Spike delicately bit down, keeping the wounds shallow, but providing enough stimulation to allow him to milk Xander’s cock into the bowl.

Spike stepped back and Xander slid down into a crouch, breathing hard, eyes squeezed shut.  He felt Spike move away and back, knew he was determinedly awaiting the next step.  With a supreme effort Xander put a stop to the mental drift, pushed himself back to his feet, did up his clothes, and focused on his partner, the bowl and the proffered knife.  He bled himself, offering his arm to Spike when the bowl was half-full, appalled to be aroused at the vampire’s suckling when he was about to…  His mind kept faltering on the next step.  Cutting his lover open to release non-existent filth.  To save his life.  He couldn’t believe he was going to do it, probably wouldn’t believe it until the knife was sinking into Spike’s body.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” he gasped.

“No, Xander.  You’ve got to be strong.  Best when you’re at your worst, remember?  Please, Xander.”  Spike’s bloody mouth fastened over Xander’s, a desperate contact that Xander could barely respond to.  “Please, Xander, clean me.”

“I’m going to, I just…”

Xander pulled away, straight to the bathroom, where he lost the contents of his stomach and felt immediately better for it.  Spike watched, agitated, from the doorway.

“I can do it myself.  Start it myself.  And you’ll take over if I pass out, yeah?” Spike asked in a trembling voice.

“I’ll do it.”  Xander crossed to the sink and washed his mouth out before taking a long drink, feeling the cold water course through his empty system.  “I’ll do it.  I’ll make you clean.”

Spike’s eyes welled yet again, and he crept forward to edge himself into Xander’s arms, finding himself pulled to the solid body hard and fast.  They were both shaking, both terrified.

“Help me.”

“You can protect William from this?”

“I can, I will.  I’d never hurt him, I love him.  I’ll protect him.  Trust me.”

Xander nodded, pulled back just enough to allow him to kiss Spike, forcefully.

“I do.  And you can trust me.  Whatever you need, sweetheart.  Love you so much.”

Sure now that Xander had made up his mind to do this, Spike collapsed against his partner and wept freely, barely registering the hitched breathing or the sensation of Xander’s tears on his skin.

Back in the bedroom, Spike joking about his shaking hands and sympathising at last over the button fly, Xander taking the bowl and mixing the contents with a finger.  A finger he offered to Spike to clean and, suckling the coated digit, for a moment the vampire’s thoughts turned to sex.  For a moment.  Xander knew the distraction was pointless but he’d had to try.

“You’re going to do this?” Spike asked, doubts about Xander’s ability to cope with this gruesome task re-emerging.

“I’ll do whatever you want this side of staking you.”

“I’m so sorry you…”

“Don’t.  Never say sorry, remember?”

Spike nodded in the face of his own ridiculous rule, finished undressing, and waited for Xander to tell him where to lay.  Xander made a weak gesture.

“Wherever.”

Spike climbed onto the bed and went through the motions of making himself comfortable.  Xander stared at the beautiful body that felt as much his as Spike’s and wondered how the hell he’d gotten himself into something so destructive.  Self-destructive, because he wasn’t fooling himself that he could go through with this without sustaining some major psychological damage.  The fact he could see that and was still going ahead without the fight to end all fights spoke volumes about his present emotional state, and if there was a good time to avoid additional trauma, this would be it.

“Do you remember, Xander?  Where they were?  Where the—”  Spike bit back the words and tried not to let the memories out.

“I remember.  You think I’ll ever forget?”

Spike’s hands made their way to the headboard, curling around a bar and spasmodically gripping.

“Wish we’d replaced the cuffs,” he said with an unconvincing smile.

“No cuffs.  You want me to stop and I’ll…”

“I won’t want you to stop.  Even if I beg you, if I pass out, don’t stop.  Let’s get this over with.”

Xander positioned the mirror so Spike would be able to see everything that he was doing, never allowing him to forget that it was Xander torturing him and possibly destroying their relationship.  Then Xander sat on the edge of the bed, ignoring the internal voices that screamed in protest, pretty much as his lover would be screaming soon.

“Let me get you something to dull this down.  Bottle of scotch, overdose of painkillers…”

“No.  I have to feel this.”

“Fucking hell, Spike…”

“Don’t be weak,” Spike snapped.  “Play the part.”

“And what part would that be?  Some fucking psycho who gets off on…”

“The man who loves me.”  Xander fell silent at Spike’s gentle words.  “The man who loves me enough.”

Their eyes caught and held for a long time.  Spike found his assurance; Xander found his strength.

“Not playing a part.  I do love you.”

“Enough?”

Pause.

“Enough.”

Xander picked up the knife, stroked his fingertips over the area on Spike’s left side that was once the least of the three wounds that Xander assumed had been…  Used.  He clung to Spike’s euphemism.  Leaning in further, he kissed the skin he was about to damage before bringing the blade to it, resting the point against the quivering surface, trying to find the courage.

“Please, Xander.  Make me clean.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

With some pressure, the sharp blade began to slide into Spike’s flesh.  Half, one, one-and-a-half inches…  Xander hesitated, fought back a wave of nausea.  Every muscle in Spike’s body had tensed with the pain but he remained silent in a bid to make this easier.  Blood oozed out from around the metal, trickling down the alabaster surface to the plastic sheet.  Xander squeezed his eyes shut, swallowed, swallowed, swallowed.

“Deeper.”

“I…  Yes.  Deeper.”

Harder now to penetrate Spike’s body; Xander put a little of his weight behind the handle and the resistance was suddenly gone, the knife sinking to the hilt.  Spike choked back a cry.

“Don’t be brave, don’t try to be brave, you scream if you have to, if it makes it easier.”

“Hurts,” Spike managed to whisper.  “Good.”

Xander slowly withdrew the knife, expecting but still being shocked by the pulse of blood that followed.  He reached out for a towel to staunch the flow before stopping to wonder if Spike needed to bleed to be clean.  If this imaginary filth was like a snake bite that had to be…  This whole act was symbolic.  Xander understood symbolism.

He was making Spike clean, taking the filth away.  Symbolically.

Snake bite.

Xander leant over the taut body again, fastening his mouth over the cut and sucking hard, taking a symbolic mouthful of tainted blood and spitting it out.

“Filth’s out,” he told Spike.  “Filth’s gone.  Gonna clean you.”  He picked up the bowl.  “Claim you, yeah?”

Spike nodded, a frantic, uncoordinated action.  Xander dipped his finger in the lukewarm mixture, stomach churning as he foolishly allowed himself to think.  He licked his lips, tasting blood, tasting bile as it rose to his throat.  Reminding himself that he didn’t have time to feel, that Spike would soon start to heal and he’d have to reopen the wound, Xander made sure his finger was thickly covered before touching it to the cut.  Beginning the cautious push into the cool interior of his lover’s body.  Spike took a gulp of oxygen; the headboard creaked; Xander paused.  Pressed, feeling the muscle separate, the damaged inner organs clinging to this unnatural intrusion.  In to the base of the finger and a careful withdrawal, hand free just in time for Xander to race for the bathroom and heave over the sink.

His legs were shaking too hard to keep him standing, and he sank to his knees as he ran the water and washed his hands, scrubbing at the skin with a nailbrush until it was vividly pink, awkwardly splashing his face.  Clean and ready – ready? – to start again.  As he returned to Spike he flashbacked to the feeling of expecting to find a pile of dust where there used to be his sweetheart.  But Spike was still, quiet, breathing, barely bleeding.

“Is that what you want?” Xander asked, voice rough from retching.  “I put my blood in you, is that what you want, is it enough?”

“Please.”

Xander touched Spike’s right side, remembering cleaning and tending a long time ago, dressing, taping, turning Spike into the patchwork vampire.

“Here?”

“Yes.  Please.”

A few deep breaths and Xander was repeating the process, kneeling beside the bed to make the access easier, wondering if it was worth praying for some kind of deliverance while he was there.  Cutting open the most precious, adored, venerated being in his life, sucking imagined corruption from the bloody site of his worship, forcing a too-thick finger into a too-narrow aperture, adding his own contaminant.  Spike was keening softly now, and that was as hard to take as the mutilation.  Xander rested over the vampire’s chest, whispering of his love, making futile promises that this was a cure-all, that once this vile act was completed they would never have to look back, never have to remember.  He was lying, he knew that, but wasn’t entirely sure if Spike knew it, or if Spike knew anything at this moment other than the pain of someone loving him enough to torture him.

Sitting back on his heels, Xander gave himself a few minutes grace as he convinced his body not to release the tension in a fit of heaving, crying, screaming.  Spike seemed to be closing down, and all Xander wanted was to follow, to not know this, to not have any part of his body in any part of Spike’s where it did not belong.

He saw Spike twitch and knew it was in expectation of the next