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Title: You Know That I’m No Good
Rating: R (language, violence)
Characters: Buffy, Xander, Angel, Spike
Spoilers: Buffy Season 8 general, through “Angel: After the Fall” Issue #2, also generic spoilers for my own fic, “Back To Black”.
Notes: This is easily the darkest story I’ve written in the Buffyverse. It’s inspired, loosely, by similar fic I’ve read that covers similar topics, but the only thing it’s only copying in any sense is Angel 5.13 “Why We Fight”. And, even then, I refer to the similarities.
Disclaimers: Joss owns all these characters, as you already knew.
Beta: Dorian's Kitten
“I don’t guess I have to ask why you’re here.”
Buffy didn’t answer as she closed the door heading out to the high balcony of her castle. Xander didn’t turn around, instead staring out to the darkening eastern sky. Sunset was behind them, shaded from them here by the stone walls. The Slayer looked through her mind for something to say but was cut off as Xander spoke again.
“Guess it’s just that simple,” he said softly, making Buffy wondering whether he was even directing it at her. A breeze picked up and whipped across them both, blowing some of Buffy’s hair across her eyes, which she awkwardly pulled away. Xander didn’t react at all, but the tail of his overcoat blew to his left.
That stupid ****ing overcoat, Buffy thought bitterly. Xander had insisted on it.
72 hours earlier
“Xander, are you sure you want to do this?” Buffy asked nervously, pacing back and forth in front of him as Xander stretched himself. They were standing in their personal gym on their floor of the castle, and if Xander felt as unsettled by this idea as Buffy was, he was pouring it into an enthusiastic workout.
“You bet, Buf. Been aching to get out into the field. Not quite the field I was expecting, but any port in a hellstorm, right?”
Buffy heard the edge in his voice; he was at least a little nervous. “It’s just… you don’t have to. We could look for a Slayer to volunteer. I still don’t see why I don’t just go mys—“
Xander cut her off immediately. “Yes you do. You’re in charge of this crazy cosa nostra, and Willow needs to be here to make sure the door opens again. I’m the only one around who knows the players, so I won’t have to waste time proving who I am.”
“Xander, it’s a hell dimension!”
Xander had been bouncing in place, shadow boxing, and stopped as he turned to look her in the eye. “Buffy, I know what it is. But, you said we’d help them, and we have a chance to do that. That’s what matters,” he insisted. He took a deep breath and asked a tentative question. “Don’t you think I can do this?”
Buffy couldn’t formulate the answer in less than a Dostoevsky of words. She stepped right up to Xander and put her hands on his shoulders. “Xander… I know you can do this. You’re more badass than you get credit for, I know. But… why are you going to?”
She tensed up as soon as the question was out. That was the real question; why would Xander risk his life to go yo-yoing into a hell dimension just to tell Buffy’s two old lovers, one of whom was sort of current-ish, guys he didn’t like, that they had a chance to get them back out? Why would he, especially when she knew, whether they talked about it openly or not, that something had been growing between Xander and herself.
“Buffy,” Xander started softly, dropping his eyes from hers. She realized he understood exactly what she was asking. “The world needs them, right? I mean, it’s… it’s what you want, isn’t it?”
They stared at each other a moment before Xander cracked a smile. “And there are probably a few million other people who aren’t going to be happy if they don’t get out of hell before ‘American Idol’ auditions. Just make sure my trench coat isn’t wrinkly. I’m not going to be seen in Spike and Angel’s private hell without looking cooler than them. Overcoat plus eye patch equals Xander’s the coolest guy in the room.”
Buffy felt a tear welling up and froze it in place. She’d never be able to tell Xander how special he was; there weren’t words that would express it.
She didn’t try and instead pulled him into a hug, which he returned warmly.
Now
“Xander, I’m sorry,” Buffy said, stepping toward him. Still, Xander didn’t react; Buffy was still ten feet or more from him.
“The normal response here would be me telling you not to be sorry, that it’s so much better, right? I won’t bother. It doesn’t feel better, just really, really weird.” For the first time, Xander turned and looked at Buffy. His eyes, both of them, gleamed in the reflected sunlight still visible from behind the castle walls. “You realize nobody has actually asked me how it went? I mean, Willow won’t even talk to me, but… didn’t you want to get my report? That’s what I do, isn’t it? Report?”
Is he just asking this to hurt me? Buffy wondered. But she found she was slightly hypnotized by his earnestness; it was as if he really wanted to tell her what happened, to complete the mission. For her.
“Um,” she began, not expecting her throat to feel so dry. “How did it go down there, Xander?”
“Great!” Xander smiled, too brightly. He was enjoying this on some level and whether he realized it or not, Buffy knew. “Just that one problem, y’know? ‘Except for that one thing, did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?’”
“Xander…” Buffy’s voice broke on the word. He wanted this to hurt, and it did. Xander ignored her pain and kept going.
“Willow’s spell worked perfectly. Maybe a little too well-designed, actually. I told Spike and Angel what was up, and, as you can tell, they definitely wanted to make sure you knew they got the message.”
48 hours earlier
“So that’s it?” Angel asked, staring at Xander from across his ruined office. “Is there anything else you’ll need to know?”
Xander hadn’t stopped looking around the wrecked halls and offices of Wolfram & Hart since Angel had brought him back here. The hell version of Los Angeles was terrifying, but oddly less unfamiliar than he thought it would be. It was basically the same city, just with… teeth.
“Pretty much,” Xander said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. He wondered now why he had insisted on it. It made him feel like a poser. “Willow told me that with the exact circumstances of your fight with these Partners of the Black Flower Circle, she would have a chance of figuring out what kind of mojo they worked to move the city. It’s really too bad they haven’t put up any cellular towers in hell, though, because a phone call would have been great.”
Angel didn’t smile. Too his right, Spike at least chuckled slightly. Xander had found Spike first, at the Playboy Mansion, no less. Yeah, he had sure been suffering without Buffy this whole time, Xander allowed himself the bitter thought, remembering the small but teeming sea of beautiful women that Spike had been surrounded by. He had lost focus on how annoying that was during the maddening fight across Los Angeles to find Angel.
But, he had gone to hell, and was ready to go back. There was undoubtedly a lousy t-shirt he was supposed to pick up.
“Thank you, Xander,” Angel said, uncrossing his arms and walking over to Xander. They stood beside each other, near the office window out onto the light and dark streets of the city. “It means a lot that you were willing to come here for this.” Angel extended his hand for the first genuine handshake Xander could remember him ever offering. Usually they just insulted and ignored each other, even working together.
Xander reached back out to take Angel’s hand when he heard the glass break. He felt dizzy all of the sudden, and his fingers wouldn’t complete the handshake. He staggered in place, suddenly feeling cold. His side stung, like someone had punched him in his right side.
“What the bloody hell…” Spike said from far away, leaping up toward the window.
“Xander!” Angel shouted from somewhere that sounded like it might be in orbit around Saturn.
Xander dropped to his knees and saw more breaking glass showering down. The two vampires dove to the floor in slow motion. Shooting, Xander remembered the words, [/i]someone’s shooting, get down…[/i]
Xander fell to the floor face first. He realized now what the punch he felt was. He’d faced off with vampires, demons, zombies, teleported into a hell dimension full of buildings that might try to eat him, and he was going to die from being shot. Did Tara have time to think about this?
Xander felt himself being rolled over and dimly saw Spike and Angel crouching over him.
“Xander? Xander?” Angel shouted at him, shaking him. Xander felt one of them putting pressure on his side, and on his stomach. Exit wound, he guessed. He tasted blood and wanted to vomit.
“He’s done, Angel,” Spike said. “Bloody Gunn was after him. Doesn’t want anyone to else to save the city, wants to be the big hero himself.”
“Password…” Xander struggled to say. “Spell… password to go back. Willow can… Willow can…” Xander coughed, trying to remember how to say the word ‘heal’.
“Spike, we need to turn him,” Angel declared. Xander fidgeted, understanding. “If he has to say a password to go back, and he dies, then we lose this chance to save the city.”
Spike stared at Angel disbelievingly. “Are you out of your bloody gourd? You’re going to turn him into a vampire just to be our carrier pigeon out of hell?”
“I’ve done it before. You know what will happen,” Angel stared Spike down. Xander heard mumbling, and a name. Lawson. He started to cry a little in fear… Willow could save him. What was the password? It would teleport him back immediately, Willow said. Animal? Animus! Xander tried to speak but coughed again, tasting his blood. He couldn’t say it, he couldn’t say anything.
“He’ll have a soul?” Spike asked.
“No… not like us. He’ll have, I don’t know, part of one. A taste of one. He’ll still be a vampire.”
Xander felt tears start to flow from his cheeks. He tried desperately to force his lips to shape the word. Animus! Animus!
“You or me, then, mate? You know he’s just going home to get killed, so who gets to keep that on them?”
“Both of us,” Angel decided after a moment. “I’ll drink… you feed.”
Animus! Animus! Don’t do this to me, I just need to say one word and I’ll be fine! Xander’s mind screamed in despair. Willow please don’t let them…Buffy…
Xander heard a familiar growl and shut his eyes tightly. Teeth sank into his neck and everything began to vanish all at once.
When he felt skin against his lips, it was what he always had feared in nightmares about this moment – he couldn’t stop himself.
Now
“I wish I could say I was just so brave,” Xander rambled, stepping away from the edge of the balcony and pushing his hair back from his forehead. “But, hell, I can’t even say I was scared. I can’t even say I was me.”
Buffy listened but looked away. She didn’t want to cry in front of this Xander. If it was Xander.
The vampire stepped within arm’s reach of her, as if he sensed her question, and asked it aloud. “Do we know anything about that? You know, Giles was really clear about how Jesse wouldn’t be Jesse, just the thing that killed him. Heh. I guess my stock must be going up with you if I’m the thing that killed Xander, because you used to sleep with that thing. Things, actually.”
“Stop it,” Buffy said quietly, looking up into his eyes. It was so completely Xander’s face, just as completely as she’d seen the vampire version of Willow’s face as the real thing. “They shouldn’t have…”
“No. They really shouldn’t have. Willow could have saved me. What did Spike think, that patching up bullet holes was a vampire-only specialty? Now she won’t even talk to me. Which makes the whole “saving Los Angeles” point of this thing pretty moot, so, great job I did. Or Xander did. Whatever. I feel like him. I don’t know anything else. Am I Xander? Am I supposed to care about the people that Willow can save now, or just want to eat them?”
“I don’t know,” Buffy said, daring to reach out and touch his face lightly. It was cool, like she had expected, like she had felt, many times, with Spike and Angel. But this was Xander. Wasn’t it?
Xander closed his eyes and leaned his head lovingly into her palm, as if it was the most wonderful thing he’d ever felt.
“Buffy, aren’t I supposed to want to feed, and kill? I don’t. I don’t feel any mwua-ha-ha urges at world domination. But I don’t feel like saving it. Angel told me it was like this for the other guy he did this to – you should ask him for that story sometime – but he tried to be a monster anyway. I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t,” Buffy said, pulling her hand away. “You don’t have to. Spike… Spike changed, Spike went and got a soul –“
“I know… I think I have part of it now. Or something like that. ****ing vampire crap has always just annoyed me, I didn’t know there’d be a quiz.”
Buffy ignored the snark and pushed ahead. “Then is should be easier!” She insisted. “We can feed you, we can keep you locked up! Willow… she can give you a soul like Angel.”
“Ooh, where do I sign up for knowing I don’t ever get to be happy again?” Xander laughed. He shoved his hands into the pocket of his dark over coat. Buffy hadn’t really appreciated it three days before, but he did look good in it.
“Or you can go through the demon trials! Spike told me, there was a cave, in Africa… Giles might know where…”
“Spike had a much more specific incentive, though,” Xander turned his head and looked Buffy squarely in the eye.
“Xander…”
“And doesn’t the whole soul thing mean that I have to be miserable and insane for a while? Do they still just give out chips?”
“It shouldn’t… I mean, you haven’t killed anyone, what are you going to go crazy and punish yourself for?”
“What are you going to punish me for, Buffy? Don’t think I can’t tell you have a stake in your waistband. Even before I had vampire hearing to help me hear the rustling of that cloth against every inch of your skin, I knew what your ‘concealed carry’ habits were.”
Buffy looked down, ashamed. The sky was almost fully dark now. “Xander… I don’t have to… I don’t even want to…”
“I’m not a big fan of the idea either, but… nothing else has sounded better so far.”
“You haven’t killed anyone. There’s no reason.”
“Haven’t I?”
24 hours ago
“**** you!” Xander roared, leaping up to his feet where he’d been lying dead a moment before. He’d been lying there for almost a full day. He felt different, more vital, but cold, distant. He felt a strange pressure on his face, and reached up, tearing his eye patch free. His sight was complete, flawless. Whatever the process was that had changed him into this… thing… had done what even Willow couldn’t, and restored his lost eye.
He growled… that was a new feeling… and whirled on his feet, looking for his killers. Angel and Spike had been waiting for him to wake up, but apparently weren’t ready for him to come up swinging, and both were back on their heels. Xander launched himself at Angel, tackling him to the ground. He felt Spike grab at him and turned, driving his fist backwards across Spike’s jaw.
“You idiots! You ****ing bloodsucking morons! All you needed was to help me talk, to sit me up! Willow could have healed me with a snap of her ****ing fingers!”
Xander crouched over Angel and punched him twice. However, the older vampire was only so patient, and caught the third punch and countered it. In an instant, he was on his feet and threw Xander across the room, breaking one of the office chairs.
“You might not want to be so much of a smartass about bloodsucking.” Angel quipped, rubbing his jaw. “It tends to piss off Slayers.”
Xander sat on the floor, seething. “Great. You turn me into a vampire so you can send me back to Slayer headquarters. I came here to help you!”
Spike stepped in front of Xander and crouched. “You came to help a city, mate. It’s a shite deal you’ve got, and not one either of us would have chosen for you, but your life against nine million isn’t much of a choice. If any part of you remembers who you were, you know that.”
“She’ll kill me,” Xander realized, and felt his face shift back into its human form. “Buffy… I did this for her, and now…”
He realized he was going to cry.
He felt Angel and Spike’s hands both touch him on the shoulders. They really seemed to understand that, at least.
That would make this so much more fun, Xander realized.
Before his sires could react, Xander burst to his feet and charged the office window. The shots had left it open to the air outside, and he dove through cleanly, dropping to the street below after seconds of freefall.
The landing hurt more than he thought, but he was back on his feet in seconds. For a moment, he reveled in the power this change had brought. Looking around, he let his nose fill with the air around him. Blood. Human blood. Perfect. He charged in that direction, knowing that Spike and Angel would be behind him. Good. They need to see what they’ve made.
Xander ran a block and around the corner, before he found the blood he’d smelled. It belonged to a woman, in her late 30s or early 40s. She was terrified, sneaking along the walls of the office buildings of Downtown L.A., on some very important errand that would end up being her last. He already had her pinned to the wall before she reacted to the sight of him, and with a thought his face changed, eyes gleaming yellow, and his fangs extended. He savored her quiet terror, sniffing at her, waiting for his pursuers to draw closer.
When he spotted Spike and Angel turning the corner, he sneered at them, grinning around his fangs, before biting deep into the woman’s neck. She moaned more than screamed, and Xander felt her blood fill him more completely than any food ever had. He gripped her closer, turning with her so that he could see Angel and Spike stand there in horror at what they had caused.
When it was over, he just dropped her. She fell to the street elegantly, though now useless, turned into just another piece of debris in this lost city.
Xander let his face shift back. He smiled bitterly at his old rivals, the people he was here to “rescue”, and said one word. “Animus.”
Now
Buffy couldn’t believe what she’d heard. This was Xander, every fiber of her being told her it was. But he had killed a woman just to spite Spike and Angel? “Xander… why did you tell me this? Why did you do it at all?”
His eyes turned cold for a moment as he dipped his head to look her in the eye, just inches away. “Because I’m a vampire. Because I was hungry. Because they made me into something when they were too ****ing stupid and too ****ing dead to think that if they did what humans might have, I would be able to go to my own room, I wouldn’t have to climb the outer walls of my own home just to stand here talking to you.
“All those are just reasons. I can’t actually explain why. I hate that I did it. Even now. Even then, as I felt myself warm up with her blood in me. I,” he said with a bitter laugh, “I don’t like vampires. I’m going to go on the record and say they’re not good.”
Buffy ignored the single tear that ran down her cheek. “Do you want me to kill you? Is that what this is about?”
“Shouldn’t you just want to anyway? I think I’d have told you it was just as simple as that a week ago. Certainly would have years ago. And didn’t you tell me that you were the law?”
“Didn’t you tell me that when are friends start murdering people, we help them?” She grabbed him by his arms and made Xander face her again. “Don’t you want me to help you? Don’t you want to be something like what you were?”
“Buffy, please shut up,” Xander whispered. He reached up and touched her hair gently. “I should have told you this, before. I love you. That’s why I went there. You may have already known it. I don’t know if it even means anything to you now. But that’s why. I’m in love with you. I doubt that means much coming from me now, but if nothing else, maybe knowing it will remind you of how special you are with what you’re still going to face.”
Buffy felt a second tear run free down her face. “Xander… I would have loved you back.”
He smiled, and his eyes warmed, and for a second she forgot how cool his hand felt and he really was just Xander again.
“I know what you have to do, Buffy. I’m not going to run. Can I kiss you, first? Pretend I’m really me for a moment and kiss me?”
Buffy didn’t trust herself to answer, just wiping her tears away from her eyes. She just looked into Xander’s dark eyes. He read the permission in her eyes and felt his lips against hers, softly. His hand cupped the back of her head gently as he opened his lips and touched his tongue to hers. Buffy opened to him, taking every bit of the pain she felt and turning into the passion he wanted… the passion she felt.
Moments passed as they wrapped their arms around each other, kissing hungrily. Buffy still moved her tongue against his as she freed a hand and reached behind her for her stake.
Xander didn’t fight, even as their kiss broke. He braced for a blow that wasn’t coming, and didn’t open his eyes until he realized Buffy was just holding the stake against his chest.
“You’re invited in, Xander. I’m going to save you.” Buffy declared, leading him to the door back into the castle.
NC-17 Alternate Ending in spoilers
Rating: R (language, violence)
Characters: Buffy, Xander, Angel, Spike
Spoilers: Buffy Season 8 general, through “Angel: After the Fall” Issue #2, also generic spoilers for my own fic, “Back To Black”.
Notes: This is easily the darkest story I’ve written in the Buffyverse. It’s inspired, loosely, by similar fic I’ve read that covers similar topics, but the only thing it’s only copying in any sense is Angel 5.13 “Why We Fight”. And, even then, I refer to the similarities.
Disclaimers: Joss owns all these characters, as you already knew.
Beta: Dorian's Kitten
“I don’t guess I have to ask why you’re here.”
Buffy didn’t answer as she closed the door heading out to the high balcony of her castle. Xander didn’t turn around, instead staring out to the darkening eastern sky. Sunset was behind them, shaded from them here by the stone walls. The Slayer looked through her mind for something to say but was cut off as Xander spoke again.
“Guess it’s just that simple,” he said softly, making Buffy wondering whether he was even directing it at her. A breeze picked up and whipped across them both, blowing some of Buffy’s hair across her eyes, which she awkwardly pulled away. Xander didn’t react at all, but the tail of his overcoat blew to his left.
That stupid ****ing overcoat, Buffy thought bitterly. Xander had insisted on it.
72 hours earlier
“Xander, are you sure you want to do this?” Buffy asked nervously, pacing back and forth in front of him as Xander stretched himself. They were standing in their personal gym on their floor of the castle, and if Xander felt as unsettled by this idea as Buffy was, he was pouring it into an enthusiastic workout.
“You bet, Buf. Been aching to get out into the field. Not quite the field I was expecting, but any port in a hellstorm, right?”
Buffy heard the edge in his voice; he was at least a little nervous. “It’s just… you don’t have to. We could look for a Slayer to volunteer. I still don’t see why I don’t just go mys—“
Xander cut her off immediately. “Yes you do. You’re in charge of this crazy cosa nostra, and Willow needs to be here to make sure the door opens again. I’m the only one around who knows the players, so I won’t have to waste time proving who I am.”
“Xander, it’s a hell dimension!”
Xander had been bouncing in place, shadow boxing, and stopped as he turned to look her in the eye. “Buffy, I know what it is. But, you said we’d help them, and we have a chance to do that. That’s what matters,” he insisted. He took a deep breath and asked a tentative question. “Don’t you think I can do this?”
Buffy couldn’t formulate the answer in less than a Dostoevsky of words. She stepped right up to Xander and put her hands on his shoulders. “Xander… I know you can do this. You’re more badass than you get credit for, I know. But… why are you going to?”
She tensed up as soon as the question was out. That was the real question; why would Xander risk his life to go yo-yoing into a hell dimension just to tell Buffy’s two old lovers, one of whom was sort of current-ish, guys he didn’t like, that they had a chance to get them back out? Why would he, especially when she knew, whether they talked about it openly or not, that something had been growing between Xander and herself.
“Buffy,” Xander started softly, dropping his eyes from hers. She realized he understood exactly what she was asking. “The world needs them, right? I mean, it’s… it’s what you want, isn’t it?”
They stared at each other a moment before Xander cracked a smile. “And there are probably a few million other people who aren’t going to be happy if they don’t get out of hell before ‘American Idol’ auditions. Just make sure my trench coat isn’t wrinkly. I’m not going to be seen in Spike and Angel’s private hell without looking cooler than them. Overcoat plus eye patch equals Xander’s the coolest guy in the room.”
Buffy felt a tear welling up and froze it in place. She’d never be able to tell Xander how special he was; there weren’t words that would express it.
She didn’t try and instead pulled him into a hug, which he returned warmly.
Now
“Xander, I’m sorry,” Buffy said, stepping toward him. Still, Xander didn’t react; Buffy was still ten feet or more from him.
“The normal response here would be me telling you not to be sorry, that it’s so much better, right? I won’t bother. It doesn’t feel better, just really, really weird.” For the first time, Xander turned and looked at Buffy. His eyes, both of them, gleamed in the reflected sunlight still visible from behind the castle walls. “You realize nobody has actually asked me how it went? I mean, Willow won’t even talk to me, but… didn’t you want to get my report? That’s what I do, isn’t it? Report?”
Is he just asking this to hurt me? Buffy wondered. But she found she was slightly hypnotized by his earnestness; it was as if he really wanted to tell her what happened, to complete the mission. For her.
“Um,” she began, not expecting her throat to feel so dry. “How did it go down there, Xander?”
“Great!” Xander smiled, too brightly. He was enjoying this on some level and whether he realized it or not, Buffy knew. “Just that one problem, y’know? ‘Except for that one thing, did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?’”
“Xander…” Buffy’s voice broke on the word. He wanted this to hurt, and it did. Xander ignored her pain and kept going.
“Willow’s spell worked perfectly. Maybe a little too well-designed, actually. I told Spike and Angel what was up, and, as you can tell, they definitely wanted to make sure you knew they got the message.”
48 hours earlier
“So that’s it?” Angel asked, staring at Xander from across his ruined office. “Is there anything else you’ll need to know?”
Xander hadn’t stopped looking around the wrecked halls and offices of Wolfram & Hart since Angel had brought him back here. The hell version of Los Angeles was terrifying, but oddly less unfamiliar than he thought it would be. It was basically the same city, just with… teeth.
“Pretty much,” Xander said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. He wondered now why he had insisted on it. It made him feel like a poser. “Willow told me that with the exact circumstances of your fight with these Partners of the Black Flower Circle, she would have a chance of figuring out what kind of mojo they worked to move the city. It’s really too bad they haven’t put up any cellular towers in hell, though, because a phone call would have been great.”
Angel didn’t smile. Too his right, Spike at least chuckled slightly. Xander had found Spike first, at the Playboy Mansion, no less. Yeah, he had sure been suffering without Buffy this whole time, Xander allowed himself the bitter thought, remembering the small but teeming sea of beautiful women that Spike had been surrounded by. He had lost focus on how annoying that was during the maddening fight across Los Angeles to find Angel.
But, he had gone to hell, and was ready to go back. There was undoubtedly a lousy t-shirt he was supposed to pick up.
“Thank you, Xander,” Angel said, uncrossing his arms and walking over to Xander. They stood beside each other, near the office window out onto the light and dark streets of the city. “It means a lot that you were willing to come here for this.” Angel extended his hand for the first genuine handshake Xander could remember him ever offering. Usually they just insulted and ignored each other, even working together.
Xander reached back out to take Angel’s hand when he heard the glass break. He felt dizzy all of the sudden, and his fingers wouldn’t complete the handshake. He staggered in place, suddenly feeling cold. His side stung, like someone had punched him in his right side.
“What the bloody hell…” Spike said from far away, leaping up toward the window.
“Xander!” Angel shouted from somewhere that sounded like it might be in orbit around Saturn.
Xander dropped to his knees and saw more breaking glass showering down. The two vampires dove to the floor in slow motion. Shooting, Xander remembered the words, [/i]someone’s shooting, get down…[/i]
Xander fell to the floor face first. He realized now what the punch he felt was. He’d faced off with vampires, demons, zombies, teleported into a hell dimension full of buildings that might try to eat him, and he was going to die from being shot. Did Tara have time to think about this?
Xander felt himself being rolled over and dimly saw Spike and Angel crouching over him.
“Xander? Xander?” Angel shouted at him, shaking him. Xander felt one of them putting pressure on his side, and on his stomach. Exit wound, he guessed. He tasted blood and wanted to vomit.
“He’s done, Angel,” Spike said. “Bloody Gunn was after him. Doesn’t want anyone to else to save the city, wants to be the big hero himself.”
“Password…” Xander struggled to say. “Spell… password to go back. Willow can… Willow can…” Xander coughed, trying to remember how to say the word ‘heal’.
“Spike, we need to turn him,” Angel declared. Xander fidgeted, understanding. “If he has to say a password to go back, and he dies, then we lose this chance to save the city.”
Spike stared at Angel disbelievingly. “Are you out of your bloody gourd? You’re going to turn him into a vampire just to be our carrier pigeon out of hell?”
“I’ve done it before. You know what will happen,” Angel stared Spike down. Xander heard mumbling, and a name. Lawson. He started to cry a little in fear… Willow could save him. What was the password? It would teleport him back immediately, Willow said. Animal? Animus! Xander tried to speak but coughed again, tasting his blood. He couldn’t say it, he couldn’t say anything.
“He’ll have a soul?” Spike asked.
“No… not like us. He’ll have, I don’t know, part of one. A taste of one. He’ll still be a vampire.”
Xander felt tears start to flow from his cheeks. He tried desperately to force his lips to shape the word. Animus! Animus!
“You or me, then, mate? You know he’s just going home to get killed, so who gets to keep that on them?”
“Both of us,” Angel decided after a moment. “I’ll drink… you feed.”
Animus! Animus! Don’t do this to me, I just need to say one word and I’ll be fine! Xander’s mind screamed in despair. Willow please don’t let them…Buffy…
Xander heard a familiar growl and shut his eyes tightly. Teeth sank into his neck and everything began to vanish all at once.
When he felt skin against his lips, it was what he always had feared in nightmares about this moment – he couldn’t stop himself.
Now
“I wish I could say I was just so brave,” Xander rambled, stepping away from the edge of the balcony and pushing his hair back from his forehead. “But, hell, I can’t even say I was scared. I can’t even say I was me.”
Buffy listened but looked away. She didn’t want to cry in front of this Xander. If it was Xander.
The vampire stepped within arm’s reach of her, as if he sensed her question, and asked it aloud. “Do we know anything about that? You know, Giles was really clear about how Jesse wouldn’t be Jesse, just the thing that killed him. Heh. I guess my stock must be going up with you if I’m the thing that killed Xander, because you used to sleep with that thing. Things, actually.”
“Stop it,” Buffy said quietly, looking up into his eyes. It was so completely Xander’s face, just as completely as she’d seen the vampire version of Willow’s face as the real thing. “They shouldn’t have…”
“No. They really shouldn’t have. Willow could have saved me. What did Spike think, that patching up bullet holes was a vampire-only specialty? Now she won’t even talk to me. Which makes the whole “saving Los Angeles” point of this thing pretty moot, so, great job I did. Or Xander did. Whatever. I feel like him. I don’t know anything else. Am I Xander? Am I supposed to care about the people that Willow can save now, or just want to eat them?”
“I don’t know,” Buffy said, daring to reach out and touch his face lightly. It was cool, like she had expected, like she had felt, many times, with Spike and Angel. But this was Xander. Wasn’t it?
Xander closed his eyes and leaned his head lovingly into her palm, as if it was the most wonderful thing he’d ever felt.
“Buffy, aren’t I supposed to want to feed, and kill? I don’t. I don’t feel any mwua-ha-ha urges at world domination. But I don’t feel like saving it. Angel told me it was like this for the other guy he did this to – you should ask him for that story sometime – but he tried to be a monster anyway. I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t,” Buffy said, pulling her hand away. “You don’t have to. Spike… Spike changed, Spike went and got a soul –“
“I know… I think I have part of it now. Or something like that. ****ing vampire crap has always just annoyed me, I didn’t know there’d be a quiz.”
Buffy ignored the snark and pushed ahead. “Then is should be easier!” She insisted. “We can feed you, we can keep you locked up! Willow… she can give you a soul like Angel.”
“Ooh, where do I sign up for knowing I don’t ever get to be happy again?” Xander laughed. He shoved his hands into the pocket of his dark over coat. Buffy hadn’t really appreciated it three days before, but he did look good in it.
“Or you can go through the demon trials! Spike told me, there was a cave, in Africa… Giles might know where…”
“Spike had a much more specific incentive, though,” Xander turned his head and looked Buffy squarely in the eye.
“Xander…”
“And doesn’t the whole soul thing mean that I have to be miserable and insane for a while? Do they still just give out chips?”
“It shouldn’t… I mean, you haven’t killed anyone, what are you going to go crazy and punish yourself for?”
“What are you going to punish me for, Buffy? Don’t think I can’t tell you have a stake in your waistband. Even before I had vampire hearing to help me hear the rustling of that cloth against every inch of your skin, I knew what your ‘concealed carry’ habits were.”
Buffy looked down, ashamed. The sky was almost fully dark now. “Xander… I don’t have to… I don’t even want to…”
“I’m not a big fan of the idea either, but… nothing else has sounded better so far.”
“You haven’t killed anyone. There’s no reason.”
“Haven’t I?”
24 hours ago
“**** you!” Xander roared, leaping up to his feet where he’d been lying dead a moment before. He’d been lying there for almost a full day. He felt different, more vital, but cold, distant. He felt a strange pressure on his face, and reached up, tearing his eye patch free. His sight was complete, flawless. Whatever the process was that had changed him into this… thing… had done what even Willow couldn’t, and restored his lost eye.
He growled… that was a new feeling… and whirled on his feet, looking for his killers. Angel and Spike had been waiting for him to wake up, but apparently weren’t ready for him to come up swinging, and both were back on their heels. Xander launched himself at Angel, tackling him to the ground. He felt Spike grab at him and turned, driving his fist backwards across Spike’s jaw.
“You idiots! You ****ing bloodsucking morons! All you needed was to help me talk, to sit me up! Willow could have healed me with a snap of her ****ing fingers!”
Xander crouched over Angel and punched him twice. However, the older vampire was only so patient, and caught the third punch and countered it. In an instant, he was on his feet and threw Xander across the room, breaking one of the office chairs.
“You might not want to be so much of a smartass about bloodsucking.” Angel quipped, rubbing his jaw. “It tends to piss off Slayers.”
Xander sat on the floor, seething. “Great. You turn me into a vampire so you can send me back to Slayer headquarters. I came here to help you!”
Spike stepped in front of Xander and crouched. “You came to help a city, mate. It’s a shite deal you’ve got, and not one either of us would have chosen for you, but your life against nine million isn’t much of a choice. If any part of you remembers who you were, you know that.”
“She’ll kill me,” Xander realized, and felt his face shift back into its human form. “Buffy… I did this for her, and now…”
He realized he was going to cry.
He felt Angel and Spike’s hands both touch him on the shoulders. They really seemed to understand that, at least.
That would make this so much more fun, Xander realized.
Before his sires could react, Xander burst to his feet and charged the office window. The shots had left it open to the air outside, and he dove through cleanly, dropping to the street below after seconds of freefall.
The landing hurt more than he thought, but he was back on his feet in seconds. For a moment, he reveled in the power this change had brought. Looking around, he let his nose fill with the air around him. Blood. Human blood. Perfect. He charged in that direction, knowing that Spike and Angel would be behind him. Good. They need to see what they’ve made.
Xander ran a block and around the corner, before he found the blood he’d smelled. It belonged to a woman, in her late 30s or early 40s. She was terrified, sneaking along the walls of the office buildings of Downtown L.A., on some very important errand that would end up being her last. He already had her pinned to the wall before she reacted to the sight of him, and with a thought his face changed, eyes gleaming yellow, and his fangs extended. He savored her quiet terror, sniffing at her, waiting for his pursuers to draw closer.
When he spotted Spike and Angel turning the corner, he sneered at them, grinning around his fangs, before biting deep into the woman’s neck. She moaned more than screamed, and Xander felt her blood fill him more completely than any food ever had. He gripped her closer, turning with her so that he could see Angel and Spike stand there in horror at what they had caused.
When it was over, he just dropped her. She fell to the street elegantly, though now useless, turned into just another piece of debris in this lost city.
Xander let his face shift back. He smiled bitterly at his old rivals, the people he was here to “rescue”, and said one word. “Animus.”
Now
Buffy couldn’t believe what she’d heard. This was Xander, every fiber of her being told her it was. But he had killed a woman just to spite Spike and Angel? “Xander… why did you tell me this? Why did you do it at all?”
His eyes turned cold for a moment as he dipped his head to look her in the eye, just inches away. “Because I’m a vampire. Because I was hungry. Because they made me into something when they were too ****ing stupid and too ****ing dead to think that if they did what humans might have, I would be able to go to my own room, I wouldn’t have to climb the outer walls of my own home just to stand here talking to you.
“All those are just reasons. I can’t actually explain why. I hate that I did it. Even now. Even then, as I felt myself warm up with her blood in me. I,” he said with a bitter laugh, “I don’t like vampires. I’m going to go on the record and say they’re not good.”
Buffy ignored the single tear that ran down her cheek. “Do you want me to kill you? Is that what this is about?”
“Shouldn’t you just want to anyway? I think I’d have told you it was just as simple as that a week ago. Certainly would have years ago. And didn’t you tell me that you were the law?”
“Didn’t you tell me that when are friends start murdering people, we help them?” She grabbed him by his arms and made Xander face her again. “Don’t you want me to help you? Don’t you want to be something like what you were?”
“Buffy, please shut up,” Xander whispered. He reached up and touched her hair gently. “I should have told you this, before. I love you. That’s why I went there. You may have already known it. I don’t know if it even means anything to you now. But that’s why. I’m in love with you. I doubt that means much coming from me now, but if nothing else, maybe knowing it will remind you of how special you are with what you’re still going to face.”
Buffy felt a second tear run free down her face. “Xander… I would have loved you back.”
He smiled, and his eyes warmed, and for a second she forgot how cool his hand felt and he really was just Xander again.
“I know what you have to do, Buffy. I’m not going to run. Can I kiss you, first? Pretend I’m really me for a moment and kiss me?”
Buffy didn’t trust herself to answer, just wiping her tears away from her eyes. She just looked into Xander’s dark eyes. He read the permission in her eyes and felt his lips against hers, softly. His hand cupped the back of her head gently as he opened his lips and touched his tongue to hers. Buffy opened to him, taking every bit of the pain she felt and turning into the passion he wanted… the passion she felt.
Moments passed as they wrapped their arms around each other, kissing hungrily. Buffy still moved her tongue against his as she freed a hand and reached behind her for her stake.
Xander didn’t fight, even as their kiss broke. He braced for a blow that wasn’t coming, and didn’t open his eyes until he realized Buffy was just holding the stake against his chest.
“You’re invited in, Xander. I’m going to save you.” Buffy declared, leading him to the door back into the castle.
NC-17 Alternate Ending in spoilers
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