Backfire - Spander Files

discover they were already sitting on his desk. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he
sat back in his chair and gathered the strength to get up and make more tea.
Just as he removed the whistling kettle from the stove, Giles heard a growl from the
back bedroom. Task abandoned, he darted into the dark room to find Oz standing
tall with the crossbow aimed at a struggling Spike. The vampire sat on the edge of
the bed and was attempting to stand on his injured leg. Willow stood as far from
him as possible, but was still trying to reason with her patient. The bone was no
longer poking out of his skin, but it had yet to settle back into its original position.
Standing on it now would cause a serious setback. Spike continued to growl.
“What happened?” Giles addressed Oz.
“Don’t know. He woke up and just started making that noise.”
Spike finally focused on the other three in the room. “You, morons! Hasn’t anybody
been paying any attention? Xander’s bleeding!”
Giles and Willow ran back to the living room. Xander was sitting in his chair. He
had been so still that Giles had almost been regarding him as part of the furniture
these past few hours. Earlier in the day, he had offered the young man something to
eat or drink, but Xander had quietly refused, and that had been the last time they
had spoken to one another.
Guilt poured over Giles as he fell to his knees in front of his young friend. Spike
was right. Xander was bleeding. The back of his left hand and a spot just above his
left elbow and below the hem of his t-shirt sleeve had been scratched raw. The
fingers of his right hand were soaked in blood. There were red streaks on his
cheeks, but Giles could see those were not from cuts, but just transfer from
Xander’s hand as he had tried to wipe away tears that flowed easily down his face.
Giles wrapped his own hands around Xander’s, accepting the blood from each. “My
dear boy,” he choked out, “when did it get so bad?”
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