Xander congratulated himself when he got home that night, since he'd made it there without stopping by Spike's crypt.
It had been some convincing to get his feet to go the right way, and he'd actually had to turn around when he found himself at the cemetery gates, but he'd made it. Home free, Spike free. He tried to ignore the pang in his chest when he entered the empty apartment.
When he got up the next morning after a night of tossing and turning, and watched an infomercial about the *Quik Time Salad Shooter!*™ instead of calling Spike on the vampire's recently-acquired cellphone, he celebrated by eating two pieces of chocolate cake for breakfast.
He cursed the chocolate cake and his apparently continuing-flu soon after, however, when he spent the next hour throwing it up.
Afterwards, he actually took a bath instead of a shower, though that meant he had to scrub the tub first. He wasn't big on cleaning generally, rationalizing that if the soap got him unsmelly and presentable that it couldn't hurt the shower much. Of course, needing to fill the bathtub meant confronting the ookyness of the tiles.
Bath finally drawn and taken, Xander perched on the edge of the tub and sweated a little in the humid bathroom. It had helped a little with the overall soreness, though not so much with the sore-in-new-places from his all night bout of first time man-sex with Spike.
Of course, thinking of that novel soreness made him think of Spike some more, and for reasons unknown to Xander that led to him holding the phone receiver in one hand with the other hovering over the keypad. So to combat that he dragged his worn-out, nauseous self to bed, where he was finally able to catch some shut-eye.
Of course what he'd meant to be a short nap turned into waking up with only an hour to go before Willow's bon voyage party at the Bronze. The time shortage shouldn't have been an issue. He knew there'd be food at the club, so eating dinner wasn't a problem (though the thought of any kind of edible stuff made him feel more queasy). The idea that choosing what he'd wear would present a problem was laughable, since he didn't much care what he had on his back as long as comfort abounded. But for some reason when he went to get out cargo pants and a t-shirt, his limited clothing selection made him feel. . . sad. After sniffling on the bed for a good half hour, and asking himself when the hell he'd become such a big sissy girl, he finally pulled himself together enough to make it out the door.
* * *
Xander pushed his way into the crowd, searching for his friends. The noise and tumult around him made his head swim a bit, but he figured as soon as he sat down he'd be okay. The problem was trying to find everyone and sit down ne ar *them* before he slumped into some random sofa. Hell, never mind the sofa -- even the floor was starting to look pretty comfy right about now.
A good thing among other good things about Willow was that she was easy to zero in on even in the Bronze when a good band brought out wall-to-wall people -- just look for the cute, often flippy, red hair. Sure, someone else might guess Oz's hair would be the standout mark, but Xander knew that a placing a bet on a single color for Oz's spiky locks was a losing scenario.
"You made it!" Willow exclaimed with evident relief when he got close enough. "I thought you weren't going to, but Oz said you would come for sure, and Buffy thought . . . oh my goodness, Xander!" Her happy expression rapidly shifted to one of concern as Xander swayed on his feet.
"What's wrong?" Buffy asked loudly as she rushed over to help. Together they pulled him over to an available couch.
"It's no problem, guys, seriously. Just the flu, or whatever," Xander said. He sat back against the cushions and tried not to think about the way Buffy's face was blurring in front of him or how Willow's nervous hand clutching his arm was starting to feel like a faint touch.
But just then the noise of the dance music and the shouts and murmurs of everyone around him faded to silence. He did, however, hear Oz say quietly, "There he goes," just before he blacked out.
* * *
When he came to, he was lying on the Summers' living room couch with everyone hovering around him.
"Okay, Xander, you need to tell me what's happened to you in the last forty-eight hours," Buffy was saying firmly.
"What the what now?" Xander asked. "It's . . . I . . . why . . . Buffy, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Buffy thinks this might be something, um, supernatural," Willow said from her perch on the chair beside the couch. She patted Xander's hand reassuringly, but her eyes were troubled.
"Forty eight hours ago was around the last time that any of us really talked to you. Or at least, talked to you before you got all weird, like you were last night" Buffy explained. "If something did happen, I'm guessing that it went down in that time frame."
"I did not get all weird," Xander said hotly. But the combination of no food and the return of the earlier nausea wasn't really helping him sound righteously indignant. Plus, he suddenly had a hard time following the conversation, getting only snippets of the words spoken around him.
"You seemed upset last night, Xander, not like you--"
"Didn't you say Giles was the one who talked to--"
"Maybe Angel knows what to--"
"Might just really be sick--"
"That's it," Xander said, grasping on to one of the comments that he heard in the mix. "I'm just really sick. Nothing odd or out of the ordinary. And no supernatural whoosis for me. All kinds of normal here."
"Xander," Buffy said quietly, kneeling down so he could meet her gaze.
"Yeah," he managed.
"When was the last time you were sick? Cold, flu, stomach upset, anything?"
"Um . . . " Xander tried to think.
"Xander doesn't *get* sick," Willow put in.
"He does have a strong constitution," Oz said.
"Right," Buffy said seriously. "So I'm putting money on the something odd or out of the ordinary, okay? Even if you don't think so, Xander, I say it can't hurt to check."
"When is Giles getting here?" Oz asked.
"Soon," Buffy said. "When we called he said he'd see if he could scrounge up anything to take the edge off whatever this is and then head over. Plus I'm hoping that he'll know where to start looking for triggering events or demon thingies. Since he saw Xander two nights ago, before whatever this was started, maybe he can tell--"
"Spike," Xander said weakly.
"Spike?" Willow asked. She raised her voice a little. "Spike's not here, Xander. It's just us, see?"
"Spike was the one," Xander began, then pulled up short. However sick he felt, there was no way he was letting loose with the details of what exactly Spike had been the one to do.
"Think he means he *saw* Spike two nights ago," Oz suggested.
"Oh yeah," Buffy said slowly. "Angel said something about the two of them . . . and a delivery?"
Willow nodded, and stood up. "I'm calling Spike too. Maybe he can help us figure out what happened to Xander, or at least where to start asking questions."
And before Xander could make a protest, Spike was summoned, and Xander was given crushed ice to suck on.
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