Title: Cup of Tea
Author: Tha Wrecka
Rating: hard R
Summary: The summer after Buffy died Spike was a soggy blanket and Giles was a tired old man.
Spoilers: Up to and including Bargaining, I think, but probably nothing after The Gift.
Disclaimer: I own none of the people in the story, more's the pity. They belong to Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox, etc.
Notes: I've wanted to write this since I saw Bargaining, but didn't make a start 'till November last year and only just picked it up and finished it recently.
Distribution Info: List archives, everyone else just ask.
Feedback: Would be greatly appreciated.

The kettle whistles. He pours the hot water, it turning dark in the cup. He jiggles the teabag, absent-minded. The milk makes a splashing noise as it goes in.

Giles has a headache, as he does most mornings. He feels heavy and tired. The world looks kind of dark and dreary, even in this sunny hole.

He gets a little tea on the counter and his fingers. The mug is warm in his hands as he leaves his tiny kitchen. On the way out he grabs the pack of cigarettes Buffy didn't know he had. He only started smoking again when Joyce died, and he plans to stop sometime soon.

He takes a sip and it burns the roof of his mouth. It is warm going down his throat, and he feels that warmth spreading throughout his body.

He puts his cup of tea down on the coffee table and lights his cigarette. He feels terribly old like this, leaning back on the couch in his dressing gown, smoking.

There is a knock on the door. It's not light yet, but it soon will be, so there aren't many people that might be knocking on his door.

Giles fumbles with the lock, but manages to open the door, revealing a thin, pale figure. It leans against the doorway with bloodshot eyes, reeking of cigarettes and cheap whisky.

"Spike." It's hard not to wrap the name with contempt.

Spike stumbles into the apartment, past Giles, and barely misses knocking into the hallstand. Giles turns and directs his glare at Spike.

"Can I stay here today?" Spike asks. "The sun's about to rise and I'm a little far from my place."

Spike pauses. "And I don't much fancy being alone in there, anyway."

Giles closes the door behind him. "All right, but don't make a mess."

Spike settles on the couch, bent over. Giles sits next to him and finishes his cigarette and cup of tea in silence.

Later, Giles goes to his room and gets dressed, methodically. He has to go and be a sober, responsible grown up now, and pretend Buffy's death isn't like a dull ache in his chest.

At the Magic Box, Giles feels like his ears are going to explode. He likes Anya, really, but she's just a little much most of the time.

"Anya, I will take care of it in my own good time," he tells her.

"But, this is important," she protests.

"Anya, please. There are customers waiting. This can wait until lunch," he assures her.

Anya goes back to serving, and Giles leans against the counter and wipes his glasses. He sometimes wonders why he's here, lately. He only ever stayed here for Buffy, and now she's gone it seems rather pointless. He takes a deep breath and helps a customer find Dragon's blood.

When he gets home, Giles feels stretched and sore. He throws his keys on the hallstand, and sees Spike still on the couch, sleeping on his side. He looks like a relic from Giles' teen years, like the 70s never ended. Giles isn't sure how he feels about that.

Going to the kitchen, Giles makes himself a sandwich and a cup of tea, quiet as he can. He must make some noise, though, because the figure in the living room stirs and asks, "Watcher, is that you?"

"No," Giles replies. "It's that other person who lives here and has keys. Of course it's me, Spike."

Spike gets up and saunters into the kitchen.

"Just wanted to make sure. Could've been a Fyoral demon," Spike says, smirking.

Giles leans back against the kitchen counter and raises his eyebrows.

"Got any food, Rupert?" Spike asks.

"Nothing in the way of blood," Giles says.

"Well then, how 'bout a smoke? C'mon, I know you have some, Rupert, I saw you earlier. I just need something to do with my mouth."

Giles nods in the direction of one of the cupboards. Spike reaches up, and looks through the cupboard, his shirt rising to reveal a sliver of pale skin. Giles has always imagined vampires feel cool and dry, and he thinks about putting his palm to that spot, finding out. He doesn't, though, and Spike finds the cigarettes.

Spike digs one out; lights it with finesse. He offers Giles one, and Giles waves him away. Cigarette firmly held in one corner of his mouth; Spike puts his lighter back in his pocket, and moves to put the cigarettes back.

"No, you keep them," Giles says. "I'm trying to quit."

Spike puts the pack away in one of his pockets, and continues to smoke. Giles eats his sandwich and drinks his tea.

At night, after watching a tape someone sent of recent episodes of The Bill, Spike leaves again. Giles listens to the Led Zeppelin as he moves about the house and gets ready for bed. He strips down to his underwear and slides into bed, bringing the covers up to his neck.

His head hurts, a dull ache behind his eyes. He thinks about taking some aspirin, but that would involve leaving the bed and he feels too tired to move. Over the years he has learnt not to twist and turn, just lie still and wait for sleep to claim him. Eventually consciousness falls away.

Grief is not romantic like literature would have him believe. It's draining, and he'd like to sleep it away, but grief finds him even there. He sees Buffy's smiling face whenever he dreams and her broken body (and others) whenever he closes his eyes.

The next night, he calls Dawn. He knows he has to. He's not sure how he feels about the girl, but Buffy loved her and so he knows he should make an effort.

Her voice is young and her speech patterns so impossibly teenage that he thinks it surprising they took so long to discover she was made out of Buffy.

"Hello Giles," she says, and her voice is dreary.

"Hello," he says back.

In the background he can hear a crash and some muffled swearing.

Muffled through the receiver, Giles can hear Dawn yell, "Spike, stop trying to trying to cook. You'll destroy the kitchen."

Then, "Sorry, Spike just had an accident."

"That's OK," Giles says. "I just wanted to check up on you."

"I'm..." Dawn pauses. "I'm surviving. You could always come by if you wanted to know how I was."

He doesn't dare go to the house. Buffy and Joyce are there; dead women seeped into the walls. Their ghosts are loud and noisy and Giles' head aches. "I'm just very busy," he says.

"Oh."

"Well, I'll leave you to Spike then," Giles says, and hangs up.

Without his ear pressed against the receiver, the place is deadly quiet around him. He goes and makes a cup of tea, and takes out a bottle of whisky.

The night after next Spike is back, leaning against his door, reeking of alcohol. He stumbles forward when Giles opens the door and mumbles, "What's up, Rupert."

Giles hasn't the sense to turn him away.

When Spike moves further into the flat, Giles slams the door shut. He sits on the couch and continues to watch the news with a shuddering sigh, ignoring Spike stumbling about.

Spike stumbles towards the couch, and falls on to it sideways. Giles refuses to look at him.

"How are you, watcher?" Spike asks, voice slurred. "Doing well?"

"Fine, thank you," Giles lies.

This part is easy, playing the disapproving grown-up. Giles has years of experience.

"Yes, we're all doing so well," Spike spits. "With the drinking and smoking and not talking and all the BULLSHIT!"

"Sport news next..."

"That's quite enough thank you," Giles says.

Spike clambers over the couch next to him, his dirty fingers digging into the material, his boots getting muck on the armrest at the opposite end. Spike rights himself into an upright, sitting position and sways dangerously close to leaning on him.

"I bet you're doing so well. You won't even look at them. Not even me. Like it was our fault. She made her stupid choice, Rupert," Spike moans.

Giles puts his hand to the bridge of his nose and pinches, trying to keep away the headache he can feel coming on.

"Don't just sit there. Talk to me," Spike pleads, and his bony body knocks against Giles' side. Giles shoves him away.

"Say something," Spike laughs, wet and drunk and disgusting. "Hit me again? She used to hit me all the time, you know. It was like every time we met. Instead of hello it was a fist in the face."

Giles wants to tell Spike to shut up, but he invited him in and he knew the stupid creature would be like this.

"They don't even insult me much any more. I thought I could count on at least that staying the same, but no, they look at me with pity. Willow even looks me with concern. Concern! Can you believe it? Concern," Spike continues.

"And you, you don't even go see them any more. The little bit, she misses you, even. I'm not sure Willow even notices, she's such a wet rag, and Xander he..."

Spike stops struggling to stay upright, and collapses fully against Giles side. His elbow connects sharply with Giles' rib, and Giles pretends that accounts for all the pain in his stomach, the feeling like he can't breathe.

"It will be another fine and sunny day in Sunnydale tomorrow," the weather lady says.

Giles buries his face in his hands and begins to sob, as Spike falls over him doing the same.

They don't speak of it in the morning, when Giles wakes up still fully clothed on the couch with a heavy body slumped sideways on his lap. He has to shove Spike forward onto the coffee table a little, before he can even get up. He thinks about leaving him there, but puts Spike's head back on the armrest anyway.

Giles has a long warm shower, scouring the grime from his body and rubbing the crust from his eyes. There are long red raised lines on his thighs when he finishes. They sting when he rubs himself dry and as he puts on his clothes.

He gets into the kitchen and makes himself a cup of tea, resisting the siren call of the bottle in the cabinet in front of him by reminding himself of the time. He drinks the tea with the teabag still in the cup, the way he always has done (it used to make Ethan laugh and throw socks at him).

When he gets back into the tiny living room to look for his keys Spike blearily half-opens one eye and watches him silently. Giles offers a hint of a smile, before walking swiftly out the door.

After work Giles goes to a pub, the same one he went to with Ethan last time the prat was in town. He drinks horrid American beer until the sun sets and when he goes home Spike is, happily, nowhere to be found.

On the weekend he sets out to help the gang to patrol. Willow has set up a system, given them all detailed instructions and colour-coded sheets. The bot stands there, bright and cheery and plastic.

They all look warily at it as they move towards Sunnydale Funeral Home for a quick check-up. Spike keeps glancing at it with a pale face, as if he expects it to attack him.

They near the funeral home and it looks no different from how it did six years ago when Buffy took that idiot Owen boy out for a date and... Giles looks down at his feet.

The bot looks at Spike and says something that makes the trembling pale creature vomit on the grass.

Willow says, urgently, "I'm sorry. I thought I'd got it to stop. Sorry," and Giles grabs Spike by the arm and decides to drag him home.