DISCLAIMER: We do not own Buffy or Angel (ooh, what a thought) or any of the rest of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss Whedon, WB and Mutant Enemy do.
RATING: PG-13
CONTENT WARNING: Some violence, some smooching. Nothing serious -- about the same as the show, with slightly strongly language. But what really gives it the PG-13 rating is -- horror of all horrors -- the hyena jokes. (Not.)
SPOILERS: Everything, we guess. This story takes place in the Fall of '98. Maybe 'The Pack'?
SUMMARY: Buffy and the Slayerettes spend Friday the Thirteenth fighting a new demon, only this time there's a complication, and as a result, Spike frenches Cordelia at last... Willow finally makes with Xander... Angel socks Giles... and a new demon has come to play. No, wait, it's not what you think... but you'll never know what we're talking about unless you read it!!!
Part Two: What's Yours Is Mine
Buffy paused at the door, blinking at the change in illumination, and looked for her friends. After half an hour of sitting at home staring at page 127 in her math textbook, unable even to fall asleep over it, she gave up and went out. She was simply too jumpy to study or sleep. But even here in the Bronze, or maybe especially here, Buffy felt uptight and edgy. When she saw Willow, sitting alone and staring mournfully at the band (perhaps thinking of Oz, who was visiting some relatives in San Fransisco) she headed straight for her table.
Willow's smile lit up her face as Buffy plopped down next to her. "Buffy! I thought you were home studying."
Buffy made a little face. "I just couldn't sit still. Today was the freakiest day we've had in, let's see, wow, a whole two weeks!"
"Must be a record," Willow absently, staring at her glass.
"Do you have any clue what's up with Xander?"
Willow looked up, eyes wide. "You noticed it too?" she asked.
"How could I not notice? It was strange. He was staring at me all day."
Willow looked away again. "That's not so strange."
Buffy looked at her best friend compassionately and for the thousandth time cursed Xander for his insensitivity. "I just had a funny feeling... You saw what he was wearing?"
Willow nodded, eyes wide. "Hard to miss. I'd never have thought Xander was the leather-jacket type. And he didn't clash."
"He looked -- he looked as if he'd been through Angel's closet." Buffy frowned. "Maybe he let Cordy dress him."
"That's a very painful image, if you don't mind."
"I didn't mean physically."
"Oh, and Cordelia! He barely talked to her all day. I mean, not that he didn't talk to her, but he didn't, you know, 'talk' to her. I mean.... well, you know what I mean."
"Does it involve closets?"
"Well... yes."
"Then I don't want to know what you mean."
Willow's grin quickly faded into a sober look. "Could he be possessed?"
"Looks like, huh?" Buffy grimaced.
"It was my first thought." Willow looked extremely concerned.
"Don't worry, Willow," Buffy said comfortingly, thinking of Xander's words regarding Angel. "Not all changes are necessarily bad."
"As long as it's not animal possession again..."
"No. It's nothing like that." Buffy shook her head. "He's still human. These are just weird little things, not a full-blown species change. Like, since when is Xander the first one to hand in a test?"
Willow looked thoughtful. Xander's normal test-taking strategy involved alternating between staring uncomprehendingly at the blank spaces, scribbling furiously, and erasing holes through the paper. "Maybe he studied really hard."
"For French?" Buffy looked downright skeptical. Xander never thought about a test more than two days in advance, and not far into last night's study session he had taken a five minute break that turned into five hour absence.
"Oh. No, I guess not."
Buffy ran her hands through her hair in frustration. "Did you notice anything else?"
"Well, after you left lunch, Harmony and her flock sat down near us and verbally dissected him. It was obvious that they meant him to hear her."
"It's just Harmony." Buffy shrugged. "She does that to all of us sometimes."
"Yeah, but instead of making wisecracks, Xander just ignored her."
Buffy's eyes went wide. "Ignored? As in, totally didn't hear?"
Willow let show a shyly wicked grin. "I thought maybe all the time he's been spending around Cordy's made him immune."
Buffy bit her lip to stifle a giggle. "You make it sound like she's a disease."
Willow blinked angelically.
Buffy felt obliged to comment. Cordelia might be a -- er, but anyway, Cordelia had really helped them out some times in the past. "That's not funny," she protested halfheartedly.
Willow grinned. "Yes it is."
Buffy considered. "You're right, it is. Well, either he's possessed, or he's got something on his mind, or he knows something we don't know. I'm starting to get really wigged. Willow, he vanished on us last night, and tomorrow's Friday the -- "
"That's what's really bothering you, isn't it?" Willow asked, smiling gently.
After a moment, Buffy nodded. "I just want to make sure I protect my friends better than the way I didn't last Friday the Thirteenth."
Willow touched her friend's hand. "I'm sure you will."
Buffy looked up at her hopefully. Last Friday the Thirteenth, she had abandoned her friends to a vampire ambush, and they had almost been sacrificed to let the Master rise again. "Really?"
"I mean, you could hardly do worse, right?"
Buffy bared her teeth in a mock-snarl. "You make me feel so much better!"
Willow giggled, but let out a small "Hey!" of protest when a Buffy swiped three doughnuts from Willow's plate. Buffy ignored the cry and began to eat the doughnuts. "Will he be here tonight? We could pin him down and grill him remorselessly."
"Shrug," Willow replied. "I haven't talked to him."
Buffy fidgeted. The jarring, energizing music intruded on her thoughts. "I need to get moving," she complained. "All this thinking, on top of those killer tests and too much studying -- it's overloading my brain." She wanted to jump up and down, or to stake a vampire, or dance the can-can. "Where's Angel?"
"I saw him hanging around doing Angel-y things -- lurking, brooding, you know." Willow looked thoughtful. "Actually, he said he wanted to talk to Xander."
Buffy choked on one of Willow's doughnuts. "What?"
"It's been a weird day."
Across the room from their table, there was a commotion at one of the side entrances as "Angel" and "Xander" walked in together, arguing furiously in undertones.
"She won't notice," insisted Xander. "She's not that choosy."
Angel shook his head. "Cordy knows me pretty darn well and besides, she's had a lot of experience."
"Most of it not with you," Xander snickered.
Angel scowled. "Cordy can tell the difference between one kisser and another."
"Not if it's the same guy."
"But it isn't. It's a matter of style, not -- never mind. She'll notice, just watch."
"How much do you want to bet on that?"
"How much are you willing to lose?"
Xander's face turned thoughtful. He had spotted the catch that Angel apparently had not -- that whoever lost this bet would be paying himself, out of the winner's own pocket. "Twenty she won't notice."
"She will. You're on."
Over Xander's shoulder, Angel spotted the subject of their conversation approaching and jerked his head. Cordelia walked lightly over to Xander and touched him on the arm. "Hello, Xander."
"Fancy meeting you here," Xander quipped with a grin, taking her hand and sliding it through his arm.
Cordy peered around Xander and identified his companion as Angel, Buffy's vampire boyfriend. While she preferred her dates alive, she had to admit he was a hottie. Still, Angel was taken, and Cordelia had pretty much stopped browsing when she started her relationship with Xander, so she merely gave him a small smile as she caressed Xander's shoulder possessively. "Hi, Angel. Xander, can we go somewhere private? To... talk?"
Xander looked at Cordelia and smiled, then smirked back at Angel. "Guess we'll find out now," he murmured as they turned to leave.
For a moment, Angel's face was strained; then he grinned wickedly. "I'll win the bet. I have no fears."
"You won't. Be prepared to kiss that twenty goodbye, my friend." I shall be busy kissing something else...
As "Angel" watched them walk away, he looked more than a little upset.
From across the room, Buffy watched the whole interaction with deep suspicion. As they left, and Angel faded into the background (as he so often did), Buffy stood up to watch the couple go. "I wish I knew what just happened," she muttered.
"Why don't you.. get some fresh air," Willow suggested slyly. "It'll clear your head."
"Good idea." Buffy picked up her purse. "I'm as wound as a watch spring."
"But your watch is digital!"
Buffy's forehead creased as she smiled ruefully. "Too many thoughts, Will..."
She made a circuit around the block, but she saw nothing. As she was heading back to the main entrance, however, she heard the sounds of two people talking in the mouth of a darkened alley. Stealthily, she crept closer, and told her spasming conscience that she was only doing this because there might be something wrong. Cordelia's laugh, even when it was affectionate rather than scornful, was unmistakable. "What's with you tonight, Xand? Something's different."
"I don't know what you mean," Xander protested innocently.
"Oh, come on, tell me," Cordelia's voice drifted back, full of fondness. "You've been practicing, haven't you? You're suddenly so much... better."
There was a short silence, followed by a bark of hyena-like laughter. "Why, thank you, Cordelia," said Xander.
Buffy found herself blushing furiously. She began to back away, disgusted with herself for her needless eavesdropping. There was nothing wrong with Xander after all; their suspicions had been nothing more than her and Willow's controlling possessiveness... he had a right to make out with his girlfriend in peace... no matter what they thought of her...
But she was no more than a few yards back towards the road when a deep chill shivered down her back. Startled, she nearly let out a yelp, then regained control. She turned back, eyes wide, ears straining to catch again whatever tiny sound had alerted her. For three heartbeats, she saw nothing, heard nothing but the sound of the couple's necking. Then a scream split the air.
Buffy sprinted towards them, yanking out a stake from her jacket. It had been Cordelia's voice, raised in fear, not pain, thank god. She rounded the corner to sound of the growl of a vampire attacking, and a bestial snarl that sounded like Ang --
-- no, it was Xander snarling, Xander facing off with a red-haired vamp, but he had neither stake nor cross with which to defend himself, which was most unusual. Buffy took in the situation instantly and let out a shout, hoping to attract attention, for Xander had pushed Cordelia behind him -- a gallant gesture that did nothing to protect her from the second enemy, a vampiress with cropped dark hair creeping up unnoticed behind her.
Praying that Xander could defend himself, Buffy leapt at the one closing in on Cordelia, spinning around to deliver a powerful kick to the head. The vampiress dodged Buffy's foot with surprising agility and grabbed Cordelia, dragging her between them as a human shield. Buffy hesitated, as her enemy was much quicker than she had expected. She started to draw a cross from her pocket.
The vampiress' eyes flicked to something over Buffy's shoulder. The Slayer caught the glance and immediately hit the deck, accidentally dropping the cross as she did so, but it saved her life; the red-haired vamp snarled in frustration as his attack from behind missed. Buffy shot to her feet before him, cross gone, stake poised, eyes fixed on her prey.
Once the vampire's attention was off him and he had recovered from the stunning blow it had so kindly delivered to his head, Xander found it relatively easy to circle behind the vampiress with a choke hold on the furiously struggling Cordelia -- her attention was split neatly between keeping Cordy captive and watching Buffy's fight with the redhead. Xander whammed her on the side of the head, and she staggered; Cordelia broke free, grabbed Xander, and clung to him, obviously trying not to cry. He helped her to the wall, biting his lip against the pain in his hand. He shook it, trying to regain feeling. "Ow," he muttered.
The vampiress recovered from Xander's blow entirely too quickly. Buffy, observing this, swiped at her opponent, hoping to end it quickly, but he ducked easily and kicked at her head. Meanwhile the vampiress lunged at Xander, who barely had time to push Cordy out of the way, and slammed him against the wall, nails gouging through his thin shirt into his chest. Xander's head hit the alley's brick wall with a distinct CRACK.
Buffy let out an outraged screech and delivered such a kick to her opponent that he flew into a heap of trash cans and tumbled to the ground. The vampiress holding Xander pinned misunderstood the SCREECH and CRASH that she had heard and glanced over her shoulder, grinning. Xander seized his opportunity and kicked her in the stomach with all his force. The vampiress staggered backwards -- directly into Buffy's stake. With one last cry, the dark-haired vamp dissolved into dust.
"You killed her!" the redhead snarled, face twisted further in fury. He staggered to his feet, sending trash cans rolling.
"No kidding!" exclaimed Buffy. "Just look what happened to me. I got dust all over my designer jacket!" She shook her stake arm, and a rain of ash drifted to the ground.
"You KILLED my DATE!" he screamed, and leaped forward to strike.
"It was probably a mercy," she commented. "If I -- were on a date -- with you," she continued, punctuating each phrase with another blow, "I'd beg for someone to -- ooff!" Buffy staggered backwards from the stunning punch he had delivered her. Each time she hit him, she felt like she was hitting a wall, and his return blows were much faster and stronger than she'd expected. She tripped over some unseen crack in the alley floor, and fell backwards, cracking her head. What's wrong with me? she thought despairingly. She distantly heard Xander shout her name, and groggily tried to respond to the threat. She jumped woozily to her feet and struck out at the approaching demon, but he knocked the stake out of her hands, pulling her head backwards by the hair to expose her neck.
"The only begging you'll do," promised the vampire, "will be for a quick death."
"I think not," someone grated, and the vampire turned his face just enough to receive a faceful of cross, scorching his flesh. Xander had apparently located Buffy's dropped weapon. The vampire screamed in pain, then knocked the holy weapon out of the way and grabbed Xander. I guess it isn't just me, Buffy thought. The vampires are stronger tonight. Dizzily, she groped for her lost stake.
"Here," gasped a new voice, and she looked up to see a still-shaken Cordelia holding out a stake to her. Buffy blinked at her, head swimming.
"Hurry!" Cordelia screamed, thrusting the stake into Buffy's hand. Buffy clutched it and staggered over to the fight. The vampire had definitely gained the upper hand. He had Xander's face pressed against the wall, a choke hold around his throat, and one clawed hand dug into his arm. He never got any further, though, because at that moment a strong hand grabbed the back of the vampire's collar, pulling him off Xander and sending him spinning into the wall. He had one instant to look into his killer's face, and he carried that memory with him to Hell.
Buffy examined the stake, whose end was splintered from impact with the brick wall, and threw it aside, muttering darkly. Angel stayed where he was against the wall, cataloging his injuries. Fist, bruised to numbness against a vampiress' head, and a necklace of bruises from nearly being strangled by her vengeful boyfriend. Chest and arm, raked by claws. Head, struck by a vampire and cracked against the unforgiving wall... Xander was going to kill him, if a vampire didn't take care of it first. Cradling his right hand in his left against his chest, Angel turned around and leaned against the brick, eyes closed. Ow, ow, ow...
"Why didn't you have a weapon?" Buffy demanded.
Angel just shook his head. The lump in his throat would not allow him to say so much as "I forgot, " though that was the truth. He simply hadn't thought to carry a stake, much less cross; the habits of more than two hundred years were hard to break.
Buffy frowned at him but, when it became apparent that he wasn't going to answer, she let it drop.
"Are you all right?" Cordy asked, limping over to him. She pulled open his shirt, trying to guess the severity of the gouges, but he quickly closed it again.
"I've been through worse," he managed to say. He opened his eyes and twitched a smile at her. He pushed himself off the wall and shook his hand, trying to restore some feeling to it. "Uh.... what do you say we get inside?"
Buffy nodded decisively. "Good thought, Xander. You two go inside. I'll check around and see if there are any more."
"But -- " he began to protest, then cut himself off when he saw Buffy's face. He was in no shape to help her patrol anyway. "All right. Come on, Cordelia, let's go."
Once inside, Cordelia stopped dead in her tracks. "Oh my God," she groaned.
"What?" Angel asked, looking around for the threat.
"My mascara has totally run! My lipstick is smeared, and I'm all dirty!" she exclaimed in dismay. "Don't look at me! Aagh!" She fled off in the direction of the girls' bathroom, leaving a very bewildered Angel.
"Women," he muttered. He limped off towards the bar, his mind going over every moment of the fight again and again. And each time, he could only feel guilty that he hadn't been able to protect Cordelia better, or aid Buffy as she had so clearly needed him to. Fool! he rebuked himself. You should have sensed there was another vampire there!
"So, how did it go?" came his own voice, startling him out of his gloomy thoughts. "Did she notice, or not?" Angel jumped, startled. Xander materialized out of the shadows, and eyed him up and down, especially the scratches on his chest. "Looks like one of you had a good time," he observed.
"There was a fight -- a couple of vampires," Angel managed. "They were pretty damn strong, and this body's just not much of a weapon. You're so weak," he added in a malicious tone that matched Xander's precisely.
"Is everyone all right?"
"Everyone is at least better off than I am. Except the vamps."
"You'd better be grateful I'm taking care of your body better than you're taking care of mine," Xander said warningly, but quelled further comment. "The bet?"
A smile tugged the corners of Angel's mouth as he remembered what Cordelia had said before the fight broke out. He grinned at Xander. "You won," he said.
"So what's with the smirk?"
Angel told him.
"Delilah and Jackson are dead," was the first thing the vampire said upon returning to the abandoned house. He went to face his new mistress with more than a little apprehension. Many of his past masters had had an unattractive habit of painfully slaughtering the bearer of bad news. "The Slayer showed up to defend her friends."
The demon, however, just shook her head and sighed, indicating her disapproval in a much less graphic way, "I told them to wait until after midnight for the spell to reach full power. But did they listen to me? Nooo. They had to go find out for themselves, and on the Slayer's buddies no less. I mean, I knew that pair were the gambling type, but really!"
Her tragic sigh, directed at nobody in particular, wordlessly asked, why-am-I-surrounded-with-these-morons? Her mandibles clicked slightly. Pouting grotesquely at the stone floor, she absently picked up and shredded a passing rat. "What about the rest of your mission? Did you find the love loonies?" she asked, mouth full.
The vampire cleared his throat unhappily. "We found them."
The demon didn't look up as she chewed medatively on a rodent skull, perhaps imagining it belonged to a spell-transformed Slayer. "And?"
"They, uh, he said they wouldn't touch you with a stick. Only he used more words. And, uh, a stick."
The demon froze mid-chew, and the vamp bit his tongue -- with fangs -- but refused to elaborate. He was quite sure that quoting William the Bloody verbatim would be a... mistake.
Casually, the demon flossed her teeth with the rat's tail, idly twisting the ribcage into a little hat. Her faceted eyes glittered. "And have you any idea why he might say such a thing?"
The words poured out of his mouth in a rush. "We gave him your proposal, Ratch and I, and the girl -- Drusilla, I think -- was acting downright nutso, but William obviously listened to her, because when she told him to stay home and watch 'Invasion America' instead, he agreed." With despair, the vampire minion noticed that the bones in the demon witch's hand were now arranged in a warding-pattern. She had obviously read Bryce's popular novel 'One Hundred and One Disgusting Things To Do With Rat Bones'. He rushed on. "I made a snarky comment on letting his skanky ho of a girlfriend run his life. That's when he killed Ratch and Paul. At least, I think they're dead. He let me go so I could come back and tell you what he said." Finally, he managed to clamp down on the flow of his words, and, trembling, met the demon's venomous gaze.
"Not very... diplomatic of you." Her voice had reverted further back to the chittering hiss it got when she was angry. "Paul, Jackson, Ratch and Delilah are all dead, and we haven't even started the campaign yet. It isn't even midnight yet! Not to mention we can no longer count on the support of William -- and I think he goes by Spike nowadays -- or his crazy girlfriend. Which I have you to thank for. Dammit!" The vamp noticed with some measure of relief that she was no longer ranting directly at him. "I offered them power on a silver platter! I'd have given them the run of the Hellmouth! 'Invasion America'? I'll kill the bitch!"
The vampire shrugged helplessly. "Why did they refuse?" he mused. "You offered them power, for nothing, and they flat turned you down. I wonder why. Does the girl know something you don't?"
The demon had stopped her ranting, and her eyes fixed on her minion. "She probably knew that accepting my aid would make it easier to do this," she hissed. Without taking her glittering eyes off the vampire, she make a few quick gestures with her hands, muttered a phrase he couldn't quite catch. The rat bone in her hand -- er, snapper -- dissolved into dust.
For a moment nothing happened, and then the vampire fell to his knees with a strangled scream as the black magic ripped through him. Augmented by the spell already cast on him, the minion onion began to go into a series of violent convulsions as first his muscles, then his bones, and then the rest of his undead body began to dissolve into a repulsive black ichor. Within seconds his features had melted away and his screams had dwindled to pitiful high-pitched whimpers.
It was common knowledge that the only things that could kill a vampire were wooden stake to the heart, beheading, extensive exposure to a holy object, or fire (such as the sun's). If those really were the only things that could kill them, then the vampire must now be leading an interesting life.
The demon looked regretfully at the inky black stain on the carpet, which, she knew from experience, no stain remover would affect. "That was really stupid. Now I'm down by five," she sighed, "and that was a new carpet, too." But she quickly brightened. "I do feel better, though. I was venting my spleen. (His too.) It's pretty vented now." She nodded in the throes of Zen. "Venting is good."
Her ex-onion quickly forgotten, the demon returned to the problem of Spike and Drusilla. "They're too powerful a force to stay neutral in this affair. I can't have any loose cannons," she muttered. "If they've refused stand with me, they're probably going to stand with my enemies... and in that case, they'll get it with the rest of the Slayer squad. They'll all get what's coming to them. Soon."
Angel and Xander were glaring at each other as Buffy returned. Xander looked downright smug, and Angel simply looked furious. Xander, without wiping the smirk off his face, counted twenty dollars from his pocket and thrust it in Angel's hand. Angel clenched it, then slid it slowly into his own pocket. He seemed about to speak as Buffy joined them.
"Hi guys," she said with a smile. "I'm kinda glad you're both here. It's getting kinda late, and while my mom won't be back for a while, I still ought to...." She trailed off after a minute, seeing that Angel and Xander weren't hearing her at all. "Hello? Anyone home?"
Angel looked at her blankly for a moment, then smiled maliciously at Xander. "Hello, Buffy," he said. "I'm really glad you came. I was getting lonely."
Xander looked about to speak, then his eyes widened as he looked from Buffy to Angel and back again. "You wouldn't dare!"
Angel's eyes widened innocently. "I wouldn't dare what? Buffy," he continued, "why don't we go find some private place to chat? I haven't seen you in a while."
Buffy was not sure exactly what was going on, but the best way to keep Angel and Xander from fighting was to separate them. She grinned. This was not a suggestion she seriously objected to. "You got a date, mister," she said, snuggling closer to him.
Xander glowered at Angel. "We'll finish our conversation later," he promised. Angel smirked as he and Buffy walked off together.
Once they were out on the dance floor, Buffy looked up at her boyfriend. "Is something wrong?" she asked anxiously. "Have you been having nightmares again?"
Xander looked back down at her. "Yeah," he sighed. He'd have to watch what he said around Buffy, who knew them both so well, but this was a safe assumption.
Buffy's frown deepened. "About... about last summer?" she said gently.
Xander tossed his head uneasily, like a shying horse. Angel's summer vacation in hell was something he didn't like to think about, because he had trouble -- well, actually, he simply didn't want to think of Angel already having gotten what Xander felt was coming to him. He tried to avoid the issue entirely. "Actually, I think it was about tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Buffy looked up at him, startled. She'd had enough visions in the form of dreams that she paid close attention to anybody's dreams about the future. "What was it?"
Xander frowned slightly. This might be a chance to slip in some clues to Buffy without endangering the secret. "There was a new enemy, not Spike or Drusilla or anyone else we know. She..." he caught himself, deciding this was a bit too close to the truth, "he... I don't quite know. Something -- someone you trusted changed, and you were taken unawares."
"One of my friends betrayed me?" Buffy asked, eyes huge, throat choked.
"No!" Xander hastened to assure her. "No, they were -- he was just -- different, that's all. Nothing bad. But you were taken by surprise." Okay, that was hinting way too much. He bit his lip, without fangs.
"Anything else?" Buffy said, worrying.
"No. I'm not the prophetic one, anyway. It was probably just a nervous dream."
Buffy sighed, and snuggled up to him. Xander's arms tightened around her instinctively. She was so real, so obviously caring, so vulnerable -- just the opposite of the Buffy who had managed to cruelly wound all three of her friends in one blow by doing her infamous "mating dance" with him, a year ago now. He wanted to cry.
Buffy played with his blue shirt collar. "I like your outfit," she said. "It's the first time in a while I've seen you wear something other than black."
"It's the only thing like it in my whole wardrobe," he muttered. Buffy ignored it. She was humming along to the music, and her eyes were closed, trusting him to lead her safely through the other dancers. Xander rested his cheek gently against her, and sniffed her hair. She smelled of dust and leather, and to his newly attuned nose, vaguely of blood, but that was all right. To Angel's nose, at least, these were not unpleasant smells.
Buffy opened her eyes and tilted her head just enough to give him an amused look.
"What?" he asked, grinning down at her.
"You were sniffing me."
Xander's smile froze, and he blinked several times. He only just refrained from making a comment about hyenas -- Angel surely wouldn't know the reference. At least, Xander hoped not. "Oh, er," he said awkwardly. You took a bath... "You smell nice."
Buffy shrugged and rested against his shoulder again. "So what did you want to chat about?" she asked comfortably. "Did you just want to tell me about the dream, or was there something else?"
"No, not really."
"Oh, good. Talking's getting dull." She pulled back to face him, slid her arms around his neck, and pulled his face down to her level.
"So why don't we stop.... mmph," said Xander eloquently.
Willow watched Xander anxiously as she sat down in the seat next to him. He was watching Angel and Buffy, sunk into an un-Xander like gloom. After a little while, Xander looked up and seemed to notice Willow. "Sorry, Willow," he said, giving her a sad half-smile of acknowledgment. "I didn't know you were there." The fog of depression lightened a bit as his eyes fell on her plate of oreos. "Are those any good?" he asked, his voice a bit more flippant. Without waiting for an answer, he scooped up a handful and began to devour them -- or perhaps inhale would be a better word -- two at a time. Oddly enough, most of it managed to get into his mouth.
"What's up with you today, Xander?" Willow began, watching him carefully. "You've been eating everything in sight."
"I'm a growing boy," Xander said, and took another bite.
"You're not a hyena again, are you?"
Xander choked, and spent the next few moments in a spasm of coughing. "What?" he managed when his lungs were clear again.
"You remember -- that time two years ago when you were possessed by a hyena? Just after Buffy came?" Willow probed, searching his face carefully.
Xander swallowed hard. "Oh, yeah, that." After a moment, the careless look returned, and he grinned at her.
Willow gave up cataloging the thousand and one little things different about him today. She knew there was something wrong. "And how about the time the summer before that, when you were a werewolf?"
Xander refused to look at her. "Do you mind? I'm trying to repress."
Willow smiled. Test confirmed. "It's all right. I know you're not a hyena. If you were, I suppose you'd be eating the school mascot again, instead of my oreos... which you normally can't stand."
Xander immediately dropped the cookie as if it had burned him. "I, uh," he said intelligently. "You never know when your tastes are going to change unexpectedly."
Willow watched this play of emotions with interest. "That's okay," she said. "You don't have to stop on my account. Just tell me -- who are you?"
Xander -- or whatever Xander had become -- jerked his head up in shock and stared at her. Willow, sure of her conviction, returned the gaze unfalteringly. "I think that if you had meant to hurt any of us you would have done so already. But tell me... who are you? And what have you done --" she choked that back, "where is Xander?"
"Xander" had edged his chair back from Willow, face gone pale, eyes wide as dinner plates. "Must we talk here?" he said in a strangled tone.
Willow stood and advanced on him grimly, her resolved look in place, determined to find out the truth. She was going to crack him like an egg and interrogate him mercilessly, until she understood what was going on, the problem was worked out, and all was well again in Sunnydale.
That was the theory, anyway. As Willow got out of her chair, "Xander" panicked, attempted to scramble out of his chair, and overbalanced. His flailing arm hit the tray, sending cookies flying, and as he tried to right himself, he knocked a glass onto the floor with a crash. Hopelessly tangled in chair and table, he began to tilt.
Willow darted forwards and grabbed his hand, attempting to pull him back upright, but together, Xander and the furniture considerably outweighed her, and with a shriek and an ungodly crash they all hit the floor together.
Carefully disentangling himself from the fallen furniture, Angel tried not to look up into the stares of half the club. In order to keep his mind off them, he took Willow's hand and pulled her to her feet. "Sorry, Willow, didn't mean for that to happen, sorry," he muttered as he dusted the dazed girl off.
Suddenly, the room seemed like a trap. All the stares, directed at him; Willow, who had guessed so much despite all of his efforts, not to mention Buffy and Xander together; it was suddenly too much for him. He turned and fled. Willow, coming back to her senses, saw his back as he leaped over tables and chairs on an unstoppable flight towards towards the door.
"You're not getting away so easy!" she shrieked as she scrambled after him. Angel's shoulders jerked as if her words were a missile she had thrown at him, and he badly misjudged the position of the door frame and barreled into it. He staggered back a step, shaking his head stupidly.
"You think that was easy?" he muttered, but a glance behind him revealed Willow coming at him like a firey-haired Angel of Doom. It was enough to get him moving, and he vanished like a startled thief into the night with Willow close behind.
Buffy, standing in her boyfriend's embrace, stared after Willow and "Xander". "Freaky," she commented.
"No kidding," Xander agreed, amazed at Willow's behavior. "Do they do that often?"
Buffy shook her head wonderingly. "Not that I've noticed. But whatever's making them act like that fits right in with the rest of this freaky day."
"You don't know the half of it," Xander muttered. He was supposed to be deliriously happy, all of his dreams being answered -- Buffy dancing with him, Buffy kissing him, Buffy looking at him with love in her eyes, but as much as he thought he would enjoy it, he felt more miserable than ever. Because he knew deep down that this love was for Angel.
"I don't suppose you have any clue what's up with him, -- Xander, I mean?"
"No, only that he feels as confused as I look." Xander shook his head and focused, rushing on before Buffy could consider that last statement. "It's just another day on the Hellmouth, I guess. What would be considered freaky other places is normal here. I'd hate to see what names they would give to things we call 'weird'."
Buffy smiled at him and laid her head back against his chest; they continued to dance. "I wouldn't know," she said sadly. "I've never lived anywhere but California. L.A. was a normal place by Sunnydale standards, but you ought to hear the jokes made about it in the rest of the States."
Xander chuckled. "I have."
Buffy looked up at him, and though her smile remained, her eyes were sad. "Ever since I found out about -- my destiny, I've been out of the 'ordinary-loop.' Being the Chosen One and all." Her smile faded. "And I'll be the Chosen One for the rest of my life, however -- long that is -- " Her words were choked off, and she lowered her head, shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. Xander didn't know what to say, so he just held her. This was a side of Buffy he hadn't often seen, and it unnerved him. You're the strong one, Buff, he said silently. If you give in, I don't know what I'll do.
They danced on.
Buffy raised her head with a sniff. "I'm sorry," she began.
"It's all right," Xander reassured her. He searched for a way to change the subject. "Do you have any idea what was up with them?" he asked, indicating the overturned chairs.
"I don't know about Will," Buffy sighed, "but Xander's been acting weird all day."
"Really? In what ways?"
"Oh, eating everything in sight, not making wisecracks, staring at me, handing in tests early, stuff like that. And you gotta have seen how he was dressed!"
"Handing in tests early?" Xander asked, interested, even as he made mental notes to tell Angel later what he had been doing wrong.
Buffy shot him a sideways glance. "Yeah. In French."
"Oh, that makes sense, then."
Buffy's look was getting more suspicious, if anything. "It does? Why?"
Oops. "Oh, I don't know. I was thinking maybe Xander had a nervous breakdown," Xander said hastily. "Poor kid. It's awfully tough for him, you know. He cares so much about you, and he's under a lot of stress."
Buffy went still in his arms.
"Maybe you ought to be nicer to him," Xander suggested, offhand. He knew he was playing it close here, but surely she wouldn't suspect...
"That's a new sentiment," she said warily.
"Buffy?" he asked, alarmed. "What's eating you? Okay, I admit that in Sunnydale, it's a bad joke, but what's wrong?"
Abruptly, Buffy broke out of his arms and backed off. "Uh, nothing. I just remembered, I left something I needed at the library. A book. I needed. So I, uh, just gotta go get the book. Is that okay?"
Xander shrugged. "Sure, let's go," he started.
Buffy shook her head quickly. "No, you better stay here, you know, um, in case something happens. You know what to do. You do, uh, know, right?"
Xander blinked, then nodded. "Yes, of course I know. Don't be long, all right?"
"I wouldn't worry about that if I were you," Buffy assured him, and ran out of the Bronze as if a pack of hyenas were on her tail.
Xander felt his heart plummet. "That wasn't a good sign," he muttered.
Cordelia came out of the restroom just in time to see Buffy bolt. "Skittish much?" she inquired wryly, coming up behind Xander.
Xander turned and forced a smile, trying hard not to think about what Angel had told him earlier. "Hi, Cordelia," he said. "Buffy told me about the fight earlier. Are you all right?" His resentment shifted to genuine concern.
Cordelia smiled. "My makeup was ruined, but it was nothing that couldn't be fixed. Xander saved me," she added dreamily. "He was so brave..."
Xander was torn between wanting to kill something, because Cordy was actually speaking of Angel and not him, and wanting to jump for joy to discover that Cordelia did, in fact, speak well of her boyfriend behind his back.
"Yeah, well, he ran out with Willow, so we're both abandoned." Xander felt like a heel, testing her loyalty in a way, but he just wanted to hold her... he held out his hands to her. "Care to dance?"
Angel rested his arm against the cool brick of the alley and rested his forehead against that. Gently, very gently, he beat his head against the wall in time to his throbbing headache. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
He didn't even move as Willow approached. She leaned against the wall beside him, unsure what to say now that she'd caught him. There was a long, uncomfortable moment of silence. Finally, he turned his head toward her and made a pathetic attempt to smile.
"I think that was my grandest exit since I left a bar in January of 1772," he said softly. "We were drunk -- we were always drunk back then -- and some hotshot was playing with the torches. Well, actually, it was me. There had been enough fights in the room that the rugs, the furniture and everyone's clothes were all soaked with alcohol. I was showing off, swinging a couple of torches over my head, and I brushed against one of the dangling curtains. The whole place went up in flames, and I ran out onto the streets with my clothes on fire. I set half a dozen other fires around the town before I managed to put myself out in the snow. For most spectacularly idiotic exit, I think that beats this one for first place..."
There was a long pause.
"...but not by much."
Willow looked at him with wide eyes. "You're Angel."
Angel didn't say anything.
"And Xander is you. I know it. What happened?"
"I can't tell you anything," Angel said, stone-faced. "Telling someone will make the spell permanent. In fact I may have done that already. But I can't tell you more -- I can't take the chance. It isn't just my life I'm playing with here. It's Xander's, too."
Willow's eyes went wide. "But if you can't tell me anything, then how am I supposed to help you? Can you answer my questions yes or no?"
Angel paused, then sighed, giving up. He answered frankly, "I really hope so, because I already sort of have."
Willow smiled. "Good," she said. "Now we find out what the heck is going on around here." She looked at the sky, frowning; it was beginning to drizzle again. "But not here."
Angel glanced around, seeing nowhere more sheltered except the club they had just left. "We could go back to the Bronze," he suggested. "Or to your house."
Willow shook her head. "My parents are there. My mother would send you home, and if she caught me sneaking in with you I'd be grounded for a week. We'll go to the library. All my spellcasting stuff is there anyway." She grabbed his hand and began to drag him off in the general direction of the school.
Angel dug in his heels. "Wait a minute!" he said. "I though Giles told you not to mess with magic any more, after what happened this spring!"
Willow frowned at him irritably. "BLACK magic, he said. This isn't the same thing. Giles did it himself, it was one of the first things we did. Come on, Angel, or do I have to carry you?"
"An interesting thought," Angel mused, but did not take her up on it.
It was raining steadily by the time they reached the library, although not as hard as it had been the previous night. "So it was during the thunderstorm yesterday?" Willow called from behind one of the huge bookshelves.
"Yes, right at the height of it," Angel answered. "Someone we didn't know was casting a spell, and, well, it must have gone wacky." He had already decided that it was no use trying to hedge around the topic. Willow might be able to reverse the spell, and she'd have a much better chance if she knew exactly what had happened. If the spell were going to become permanent by telling Willow, then it already had been. And if that were the case, so be it.
"I think I found the right spell." Willow emerged from the stacks, clutching a dusty volume in one hand. "Giles keeps useful books -- ones that he's used against demons and witches and things -- in a separate pile, and this was there."
"Willow, are you sure you should be doing this?"
"Yes," the Slayerette answered serenely. "It's perfectly safe, not black magic at all. After all, Giles did it."
"Giles is a Watcher!"
"C'mon, Angel, you know all about magic. Anybody could cast this spell." Willow pushed a tome into his hands. "Here, read this."
Angel stared at her reproachfully.
"Read it now," Willow said in her most forceful voice.
Suppressing his misgivings, Angel began to read the ancient text. Willow's clear young voice passed his and rose, higher and louder, until she was shouting the ancient words of the spell. Angel finished his part and waited breathlessly.
"The gate is closed!" Willow shouted. "Receive the dark! Take of mine energy and be sated! Release the unworthy!"
Angel wondered briefly if she was referring to him or Xander. He felt his vision flicker, and he was suddenly looking at Cordelia's face, smiling at him distantly. Then he was back in the library, and the book had fallen from his hands.
"Be sated. Release the unworthy!"
Another flicker, longer and clearer this time, and with it the rock-band sounds of Widespread Panic, and the feel of Cordelia's hands in his. Angel nearly keeled over with dizziness. Back in the library, the double doors banged as someone slammed through them and ran towards the figures at the table.
Willow shouted, and Angel gasped. Someone grabbed his shoulders and shook him. His already unsteady footing slipped, and he nearly fell over. It was Buffy. "Angel!"
Angel grabbed for the chairs, trying to catch his balance, and threw Buffy off of him with unnecessary force. She was flung backwards and stumbled into Willow, who dropped her tome. They hit the floor together.
"REL -- " Willow's breath was knocked away, mid-spell. "Buffy?"
Thunder crashed with a deafening BOOM. The lights flickered, and went out for a good long moment before coming back on.
Angel took a deep breath. "I'm still in the same body," he said with fearful disappointment. At least that damned stereo had shut up. He vowed that as soon as this was over, he would track down the owner and do something unprintable with his or her CDs.
Buffy was staring at her hands -- specifically, at her lovely polished, manicured nails. She looked up at Angel, wide-eyed.
"I'm not," she said.
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The Brotherhood ][ Last Man Out ][ Blacklight
Behind the Scenes ][ What's Mine Is Yours ][ 3 Thru The Merry-O
Swing Set ][ The Healer ][ Black & White
The Meek Shall Inherit ][ Rosemary For Remembrance
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