Author: Maude M.
Feedback: Please :)
Website: http://www.popslash.net
Distribution: List Archive. Others, I would be honored. Just let me know where.
Pairing: Giles/Xander
Rating: Big Time R.
Spoilers: The Gift
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy Productions, Fox, and the WB, etc., etc., amen.
Summary: Xander has a bad, bad habit.
Warning: This is pretty dark. Includes drug abuse and character death. Consider yourself warned!
Notes: Hues of Bliss has shamefully been stolen from a poem by Thomas Gray.

"What's wrong?" Dawn asks, not bothering to look up from the book she's been reading.

"Xander's left without telling anyone," Giles says as he gathers up his keys and jacket.

"Left where? The hospital?"

"I need you to watch the shop for a while. I'll be back...shortly," he says, not bothering to answer her question.

It is only a matter of minutes before he finds himself, for the second time in two weeks, pounding on the door of Xander's apartment. "Xander! I know you're in there!"

There is the sound of shuffling, doors closing, and then the door opens. Xander stands sheepishly in the doorway. He looks ragged: his eyes darkly ringed, his hair a mass of tangled curls. "Giles, hey, I was going to come by later. Scooby meeting tonight?"

Giles' jaw drops at the shock of seeing Xander back...where he had found him. "Xander! You left the program! Without telling anyone!"

Xander turns away. "My ten days were up. You said I could come home after ten days."

"Yes, I said that, but I thought we'd discuss it first."

Xander frowns and takes a step back. "You aren't my dad, you know. Even if you were, I'm an adult. You can't tell me what to do."

Giles narrows his eyes. "I realize that. But I care about you, and I am not going to lose another...I am not going to let you harm yourself."

Xander says nothing, but Giles positions himself in front of the boy's frowning face. "Are you high right now?"

Xander's mouth opens in protest, "Of course I'm not high! I just got out of *rehab*. How stupid do you think I am?"

"I don't think you're stupid at all. But you are, apparently, a drug addict, and I have been too stupid to notice. Let me see your arm."

Xander backs farther into his apartment. "Ok, listen. Maybe I just popped a couple of painkillers, but only because I've been so sick in rehab."

Giles follows him step for step. "I want to see your arm. I want to know if you've injected yourself with anything."

Xander frowns and crosses his arms tightly across his chest. "Don't you trust me?"

Giles manages to place himself in front of the boy and hugs him tightly. "Yes, I trust you. But not about this. Roll up your sleeve."

Xander struggles away from Giles and backs into the hall. "You don't need to look."

"I think I do."

"Please. What do you want me to do? You know what you're going to see. It's the Trainspotting home game: Ewan McGregor sold separately. There. Happy? I admitted it. Cross step five off the list of 12. Do I really have to show you?"

Giles sighs and adjusts his glasses. "No, no, I suppose you don't." Somehow, he'd assumed that if he could just get Xander into rehab, the rest would work itself out, but now Giles realizes that Xander's problem is even worse than he'd once thought. He again reaches out to Xander, and wraps his arms around him.

"I'm sorry," Xander mumbles into Giles shoulder. "I missed you. I missed you so much. I just wanted to come home."

"I know," Giles says, patting the boy gently on the back. "Go pack some clothes."

Xander tenses back up. "I'm not going back there."

"No, you aren't. You're coming home with me."

***

Xander is in the process of putting his belongings into the guestroom when Giles sits Dawn down at the kitchen table. "I have to tell you something. Xander wasn't in the hospital because he hit his head."

Dawn rolls her eyes. "Duh. You don't stay in the hospital for two weeks if you just have a concussion."

Giles frowns, wishing suddenly that he had told her the truth from the beginning. "Do you know why he was in the hospital?"

Dawn looks in the general direction of the guestroom, then back to Giles. "Well, he's been seriously strung out for I don't know how long, so my guess is that he finally OD'd."

The Watcher's expression goes from grave to shocked. "You knew Xander was on drugs? Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask me. You treat me like I'm a kid. I'm old enough to drive a car. And why does Spike have to stay with me every time you can't?"

Giles realizes that she's trying to change the subject, but addresses this nonetheless. "I thought you liked Spike's company."

"I do," she admits. She's silent for a few moments, considering her guardian. "I guess I just figured you knew, and we weren't saying anything about it."

Giles rounds the table and stares out a window. "Since when do we operate that way?"

"Since when don't we? Ever since Buffy died, and everyone..."

"Please don't."

"Fine, this is me not saying anything."

***

Giles is sure that this night won't end. Xander is in Hell, and it isn't the kind of Hell that any amount of magic could bring him back from. Only time. At 2:30 a.m., Giles realizes that this hellish night has lasted no less than three days and shows no sign of ending.

Xander is once again hunched over the toilet bowl; vomiting nothing but the water that Giles has forced him to drink in order to prevent dehydration. He heaves violently, his sobbing and retching echoing from the porcelain bowl and resounding throughout the room.

Xander hasn't set foot outside the bathroom since yesterday. Giles has laid out several pillows and sleeping bags in an attempt to keep Xander comfortable between episodes, but as Xander cried out earlier, there weren't enough pillows on the planet to make him comfortable. Giles sits with his back against the counter, wiping wet strands of hair away from the boy's face as he continues to heave.

The bathroom door opens a crack, and Dawn pokes her head inside the room. "Do you want me to take over for a while?"

Giles shakes his head, but before he can utter an answer, Xander begs, "NO! Giles don't go!"

Dawn ignores Xander and looks to the Watcher. "Do you need anything?" Again, Giles shakes his head. "Um, is it okay if I have Spike come over? I'm...a little scared."

Giles is hit with a pang of guilt. He's been neglecting her as he tries to keep Xander sane. "Of course, Dawn. Please do." She withdraws and closes the door with a soft click.

Xander is crying. Hard. He heaves some more, and Giles wipes his mouth. "Please, please, please, please..." he chants over and over.

"What, Xander, what do you need?" Giles lays him back down on the sleeping bag and speaks in soothing tones.

"Please, you can't just expect me to quit cold turkey! I can't do this; I'm going to die! You have to give me something! They gave me medicine in that place!"

Giles wipes Xander's face with a cool cloth. This is about the hundred and tenth recitation of this particular speech. Sometimes he extols the virtues of the replacement drugs he got during the program, other times Giles is lambasted for sending him off in the first place. Giles knows it's of no use to argue. "I know. I know. Shh...."

"Giles..."

"Shhh...how would you like to take a nice hot shower?"

"Don't patronize me! Don't fucking patronize me!" Xander beats his fists on the linoleum.

"Sorry, sorry..."

"I don't want a stupid shower!"

"I know. You don't have to have one."

"Can you turn off the light?"

"Yes."

Giles turns off the light, leaving only a tiny nightlight shining in the corner of the room. There is a long stretch of silence as Xander fights to get comfortable. His eyes open and close repeatedly, and his fists bunch the nylon of the sleeping bag.

"Giles?"

"Yes, Xander."

"Can you lay down with me?" Xander asks in the tiredest of voices.

Giles nods, and settles onto the sleeping bag nest next to Xander. Instinctively, he pulls the boy into his arms and lays a series of tiny, reassuring kisses and words on his damp scalp. He feels the boy begin to relax. And for the first time in the last three days, Xander falls into a sleep that lasts more than an hour.

***

They've made it out of the bathroom. On the fourth day, Xander manages to control the vomiting, and is moved into the living room to watch television. ("I just need to concentrate on something. Even daytime television beats the crap out of what's going on in my brain right now.")

Giles managed to get him into the shower, and even more miraculously, managed to take one himself. Xander did, however, insist that he remain in the bathroom for both showers, making for an awkward situation. The boy now lays on the sofa staring at the cartoons flickering on the television, as Giles sleeps in a recliner.

At some point, Spike stumbles downstairs from the guestroom that Dawn has put him in. Xander hides under his blanket; tries to make himself as small as possible, but Spike sees him despite this.

Spike lights up a cigarette and seats himself on the loveseat. "So, goin' for that heroin-chic look?"

"Fuck you, Spike."

"Fag?"

Xander narrows his eyes. "I don't smoke."

Spike snorts. "That's perfect. The junkie that don't smoke. 'Scuse me while I bathe in the irony."

"I'm not a junkie."

Another snort. "Whatever you say mate."

"Fuck off."

Spike clucks his tongue. "Tsk, tsk. Has one little bout of the shakey-shakeys and starts swearin' like a sailor. Rather unbecoming."

"What the fuck are you doing here anyway?"

"Got as much right to be here as you do, you bloody git. And while's I'm here, I'm going to say somethin' to you," Spike crosses over to where Xander lays on the couch, grabs him by the collar of his pajama-shirt, and jerks him. "I'm only goin' to say it once, so you better soddin' listen. If you do anything, anything that ends up hurtin' my girl, I will kill you, chip or no. Do you understand? Not one, bloody thing. You don't steal, you don't come here high, you don't do anything. You've already shaken her up with this little stunt, but it ends here. I hope you understand this, because I ain't repeating it, and you only get one chance."

Xander pulls away from Spike's grip with a sneer. "Whatever."

Spike goes back to his seat and his cigarette. "You gotta have an addiction, smokin' is the one to have. Tastes good and the ladies love it."