Dom/Xander fic, part 29 - the END
The day you thought would never come... "A Critique of Pure Reason" is complete! Two weeks later than it should be, but what're you going to do?
I have had so much fun writing this fic, you guys have no idea. It was by far the most entertaining (for me, I mean) thing I have ever written, and I got the giggles over and over while I was coming up with this insane shit. It is also the longest thing I have ever written (which is ridiculous and makes me laugh), clocking it at over 40,000 words and over 100 pages in Word. That's crazy talk, man.
Anyway, I'd just like to thank all you guys so much for reading and for helping make it so fun for me. Y'all are the best, and I love you.
The fic is up in its entirety, as one massive story, on my website, and you can find it here. So if anyone's been waiting to read until it's all done, or if you've got a lot to catch up on, there it is. And the previous LJ parts of the story, as always, are here.
***
Dom ends up spending the rest of the night sitting on a desk in the lab, chewing gum and leaning back against the wall, waiting for them to stop doing tests and spells on Xander.
Eventually Wesley rubs his forehead tiredly. "Well, I can't think of anything else to try."
Fred shakes her head. "Me neither."
Willow looks back and forth between them. "Neither can I. Does this mean he's okay? Since we can't find anything wrong?"
They all look through the glass at Xander, who is slowly pulling on a shirt, his focus apparently internal.
"It would appear so," says Wesley. "It may be that he will remember what happened naturally, on his own. In any event, it doesn't seem to have done him any harm."
Willow grins and moves to hug Xander as soon as he comes through the door. She clings to him tightly, but over her shoulder, Xander's eyes seek out Dom. It still gives Dom an unbalanced feeling to see two eyes in Xander's face; the normalcy of it, the wholeness. Xander's steady, alert gaze unnerves him. He pops his gum and gets off the desk, moving closer to the others.
"There is one other thing," Wesley says, "unlikely to be of use. But I should consult the Byzantine Codex to be sure."
"The Hagion Portal?" Willow asks, pulling away from Xander. "But he didn't show any signs of going through a portal."
"I know, but I believe I read of a case in the fourth century where the Hagion Portal was the culprit even though detection spells didn't turn up any of the usual signs. In my office we'll find the manuscript. Now, I know it's not terribly likely, but...."
They all start walking out of the lab, talking animatedly about things Dom has never heard of. As they walk, Dom trailing behind, Xander falls into step beside him.
"So...," Dom says, before he realizes he has nothing to say. He looks at Xander out of the corner of his eye. "Your shirt's inside out," Dom says.
Xander looks down at himself and plucks at the seam of the black shirt he's wearing. "Yeah, they gave me a t-shirt with the Wolfram & Hart logo on the front. It was the only kind they had."
"And you're wearing it inside out because...." Dom trails off, the question in his voice.
"I still have morals," Xander supplies. As Dom tries to figure out what this has to do with wearing a shirt inside out, the corners of Xander's mouth turn up a little bit. "Actually," he says, "it's really more to annoy Angel than anything."
"You don't like Angel?" Dom asks.
Xander shrugs. "Eh. Not really, but at this point it's mostly habit. Though if he goes back to being evil and trying to kill my friends, I'm ready to switch right back to active hatred on a moment's notice."
"He tried to kill you?"
"Half the people I know have tried to kill me at one point or another," Xander says. "You get sort of used to it."
Dom bites the inside of his lip. "I'm not sure I want to get used to all this."
Xander looks over at him again and smiles, that happy, young smile. "Hey," he says, "it's not that bad."
Dom stares at him. "What happened to you, anyway?" he blurts out.
Xander gets quiet and looks away. There is a long stretch where he doesn't say anything at all, until finally, he says softly, "I just... I can't describe it. I walked out into that storm and then... there was, like, light and this smell and...." He trails off and gestures helplessly. "I don't know. It didn't seem like three days."
Dom runs his finger idly along the wall as they progress down the hallway. "The crater doesn't feel creepy anymore," he volunteers.
"Really?" Xander asks.
"Yeah," Dom says. "It's weird."
He and Xander pause outside the door of Wesley's office as the others go inside and start looking at one of the old books. "Hey, how's your arm?" Xander asks, nodding at Dom's bandaged up vampire bite.
"Okay," Dom says, looking down at it. "I mean, it hurts, but it's not terrible." He blinks when something suddenly occurs to him. "Hey, this doesn't mean I'm going to become a vampire too, does it?"
"Nah," Xander says. "You have to suck their blood, and they have to suck your blood and then you have to die and *then* you're a vampire too."
"Oh," Dom says. "But for werewolves, just getting bitten makes you one, right? Or is there blood sucking there too?"
"No blood sucking in werewolf-hood," Xander says. "Just getting bit turns you into one. Why? You haven't been bitten by a werewolf, have you?"
"No. But Billy has," Dom says dully. "He's locked up downstairs at the moment 'cause it's the day before the full moon."
Xander, looking very surprised, opens his mouth to say something when he's interrupted by Willow coming out of the office, leaving Wesley and Fred behind. "Wesley's going to keep researching, but I don't think he's going to find anything," she says. "That portal thing he was talking about was a complete mislead. It doesn't apply to you at all."
Xander blinks, wrenching his attention away from Dom. "Oh," he says vaguely. After a second, he adds, "So I'm probably okay, then? Not, you know, a product of mystic evil forces beyond our control?"
Willow smiles. "Yeah, I think you're okay." Her eyes widen as something occurs to her. "We have to call Giles! And Buffy. They still think you're dead, Xander. They were freaking out."
"Giles was freaking out?" Xander asks, smiling wryly.
"In a British way," Willow says. "Come on, there's a phone in Angel's office we can use."
She looks at Dom while she says this, including him politely in the conversation even though Dom is painfully aware that he is so far outside of this, this Xander and Willow thing, as to be completely irrelevant. This is Xander's real life, the people that matter, the people he has all this history with. The people who've tried to kill him and who've saved his life and who freak out when they think he's dead. Dom is just some guy Xander met in a bar last week.
Even so, Dom follows them as they go into Angel's office, Willow sitting Xander down behind the desk and leaning over to dial a number. He watches them from the doorway, their heads bent together, Willow's hand on Xander's shoulder like she can't stop touching him, making sure he's really there.
"Giles?" she says into the phone. "Xander's alive! He's okay! ... He's right here, you want to talk to him?"
And she shoves the phone at Xander. He puts it to his ear and shyly says, "Hey Giles."
Dom turns away, not wanting to intrude. He slouches onto the sofa and turns on the TV, keeping the volume down so it doesn't bother them while they talk. It's the middle of the night, and time for infomercials, so he keeps flipping channels. But even when he finds a Seinfeld rerun, he doesn't feel like stopping to watch it. He keeps the images flying past, a series of disconnected impressions spinning in front of him.
After awhile, the room is suddenly hit by an influx of voices, chattering and excited. When Dom looks up, he sees that Hannah, Angel and Gunn have gotten back, dusty and splattered in goo and carrying a big box of donuts. Wesley and Fred come in the door behind them, and Willow and Xander finish their conversation and hang up the phone, Then Spike turns up from somewhere or other, and so somehow there is a noisy, happy crowd, eating donuts and talking excitedly, as though they're at a party. The zombie-killing expedition had gone well, it looks like - Hannah is telling the story with expansive gestures, her face animated. Gunn chimes in every now and then, between big bites of a donut with sprinkles. As Hannah points at Angel, acting out how he'd clothes-lined one of the zombies, Angel puts a friendly arm over her shoulders, laughing and pulling her against him in a side-hug.
Dom hovers on the edges, feeling out of place and excluded. Not a slayer, not part of this crowd, no reason to be here. He gets another beer and leans against the back of the couch, morosely watching others have a good time. He sees Hannah talking seriously to Xander, but doesn't feel like joining them. In fact, he's on the verge of slipping out, using his security pass to go see Billy, when Spike comes up and somehow starts an argument with him about Manchester United's defense. Dom is so distracted trying to disabuse him of his perverse notion of strategy that he doesn't notice the horizon is beginning to lighten, turn gray and pearly.
Just then a woman screams, high and panicked. Dom's head swings around to see the crowd scattering, panicked, as something like a massive gray dog comes leaping through the door. Or no, more like an ape, the way it moves - or like a wolf. Dom realizes it must be a werewolf just as Spike shoves him out of its way. Dom hits the wall hard, wincing as he bangs his sore arm, Spike pushing past him to leap at the wolf. Angel and Gunn are not far behind, but Angel stops to push Gunn away. "Don't!" Angel says sharply. "You're human, you can't risk it biting you!" Grumbling, Gunn grudgingly falls back.
The wolf leaps at Spike, who goes down underneath it, his face suddenly distorted and his fangs sharp, wrestling and biting and rolling over and over with the werewolf.
"How did it get up here?" Angel barks. "Where's security? Wes!" Wesley makes his way around to the desk and the phone, carefully skirting where Spike wrestles the werewolf.
Hannah is pressed up against the wall beside Dom. "I always wondered who would win a fight between a vampire and a werewolf," she says.
"Really?" Dom asks, not taking his eyes off the pair. Angel dives into the fight as well, lashing out with his arms. Spike roars angrily as the werewolf claws his chest.
"Nah," she says. "But it's still interesting to watch. Do you think that's Billy or a different werewolf?"
"When did you get so blasé?" Dom asks, a little annoyed.
Hannah ignores him and points at the window. "Look," she says. "The sun's about to come up."
Angel throws the werewolf off Spike and it flies across the room, landing in a heap on the floor next to the windows. As it gets to its feet, growling, the sun moves above the horizon, and light comes through the windows, hitting its matted fur. And somehow, in that moment, so that Dom can hardly see it happening, the creature ceases to be a werewolf and becomes Billy, standing there with his hands up in the shape of claws, his face twisted into a snarl. He looks small and pale after the bulk of the wolf, and there are bloody scratches and bites all over his naked body. Still scattered and frightened and pressed against the walls, everyone else stares at him, their eyes wide. Hannah, Dom sees from the corner of his eye, is smirking. He's not sure whether it's because Billy's naked or because Billy was just a werewolf.
Billy blinks, looks at his clawing hands, and suddenly gets very embarrassed, dropping his arms to his sides. "Erm...," he says. "Hello."
Willow and Fred both kind of wave at him, all friendly.
"Is everyone all right?" Billy asks. They all nod. "Er... good," he says. "That's good. Um... I seem to be naked."
"Spike," Angel says. "Give him your coat." Spike's wearing a long black leather duster.
Spike looks up from his unhappy dabbing at the claw marks in his chest. It's a little bloody and his shirt is ripped, but it looks like he finds the wounds more annoying than painful. "What?" he says. "Are you crazy?"
"Come on, Spike," Angel says. "The man's naked."
"He just clawed me all up! I'm not giving him my coat. Give him your own coat."
"Spike," Angel says in a low, commanding voice.
Spike rolls his eyes. "Fine," he grumbles, pulling his coat off with exaggerated movements. He throws it at Billy's chest. "You owe me a new shirt," Spike says. "And if you wreck that coat, I'll pull your spleen out."
"Er," Billy says, looking down at the leather in his hands. "All right. Thanks." He puts the coat on slowly, wrapping it around himself. It's a little big on him - the sleeves are a bit long and the hem touches the floor. He looks up at the group, which has finally started to relax, once he's wrapped it around himself. He scans past Willow and Xander and Fred and Dom and suddenly does a double take, turning back to stare at Dom. Dom had wondered how long it'd take Billy to notice him and Hannah standing there.
Billy's mouth drops open. "Dom," he says blankly.
Just then Wesley hangs up the phone. "Security doesn't know what happened," he says. "No one came past the guard, and the cell is just empty. No bent bars, no sign of a struggle, nothing. They don't know what happened."
"Can we check the security video?" Angel asks.
"They're looking into that. And someone will be right up with your clothes," Wesley says to Billy. Billy nods.
Dom clears his throat. "It might've been that woman in the big white room upstairs that let him out." Everyone turns and stares at him, agape. "I think she'd think it was funny," Dom finishes self-consciously.
They all blink at him. "Hold up," Gunn says finally. "You've been in the White Room? The *White* Room?"
Dom looks around nervously. "Well, I've been in *a* white room. I don't know about *the* White Room."
"Did you see a big cat?" Gunn asks.
"Um," Dom says. "No. Just this woman at a computer. She was quite disconcerting, actually. With the knowing everything. And the mind games. And the... trapeze thing."
"Trapeze thing?" Xander asks, at the same time as Willow says, "What's the White Room?"
"How the *hell*," Gunn says, looking at Angel, "did the hobbit get in the White Room?"
"I took the elevator," Dom says. Gunn throws up his hands.
"You saw a woman?" Angel asks, moving closer. "What did she say?"
Dom shrugs. "I dunno. Nothing important. It all seemed rather self-indulgent at the time. But she did give me a lollipop."
"The cat never gives *me* candy," Gunn mutters.
"Gunn," Angel says.
"Well, I'm just saying," Gunn says. "It doesn't seem like people should just be able to walk in off the street and get to the White Room. Don't we have security around here? Why is he wandering around the building in the first place?"
"That's not really the issue," Angel starts.
"Er, if you don't mind my asking," Billy interrupts, "what exactly *are* Dom and Hannah doing here?" He's still staring at Dom as though he can't believe he's there.
"Oh," Dom says, running his hand through his hair. "Um. It turns out Hannah's a vampire slayer. And I'm friends with him," - he points at Xander - "and he's a vampire slayer trainer guy. And he just, like, came back from the dead. And he's friends with Angel. Except they don't really like each other. So we came down here to find out what happened to Xander, and then Hannah went to fight zombies and they just got back. 'Cause we all, like, fight evil now. So... yeah. Here we are."
"Oh," Billy says, sounding very confused.
Just then two security guards walk in the room, one of them carrying a bundle of clothes. Angel and Gunn immediately swarm around them, both talking at once. Wesley takes the clothes and hands them to Billy. "You can dress in my office," he says, and shows him out the door. Next to Dom, Willow's phone rings and she takes the call, walking across the room with a finger stopping up her opposite ear to keep the noise of the room out. In the meantime, some messy-haired guy in a lab coat comes and speaks to Fred, who after a brief consultation follows him out of the room.
"What do you mean, the video's blank?" Angel says to the security guard.
"Kennedy, are you sure this is an emergency?" Willow says into the phone.
Hannah nudges Dom. "What's up with you and Billy?" she asks.
"What?" Dom says.
"He was looking at you weird. Weirder than normal."
"Yeah?" Dom says, not looking at her.
Hannah rolls her eyes. "Whatever. You guys are such freaks." She pushes off the wall and walks over to talk to Xander.
Dom sighs and leans his head back against the wall. After a minute, he slips out the door without anyone seeing. He passes Wesley in the lobby, nods to him, and goes into the door Wesley just left.
Billy's standing in the middle of the room, bandaging a wound on his side as Dom comes quietly into Wesley's office.
"Hey," Dom says. Billy's head comes up with a start, gauze in one hand and medical tape in the other.
"Oh," he says. "Hi." He looks awkward and vulnerable with his shirt still off, and doesn't seem to know where to look or what to say.
"I just... They're all trying to figure out how you got out of those holding cells," Dom says.
Billy nods and goes back to fixing up his cut. "I'm just glad I didn't hurt anyone," he says quietly.
Dom nods, watching him. "What are you doing here anyway?" he asks. "I mean, yeah, the werewolf thing, but... how did you find out about this place?"
"Viggo," Billy says.
"Oh," Dom says.
"Yeah," Billy says. He rips off a strip of tape and begins to arrange the gauze over his cut, not meeting Dom's eyes at all.
"And how exactly are you a werewolf?" Dom asks, his voice higher pitched than normal. His palms are sweaty.
Billy shrugs. "It was that damned David Thewlis," he says, taping down one side of the gauze. "The man's a menace."
"Ah," Dom says.
There is an uncomfortable silence.
"I didn't even know you were in town," Dom finally says quietly.
Billy looks up at that. He bites the inside of his cheek. "I was going to call you, Dom. I just... didn't know what to say."
"Yeah," Dom says.
Billy ducks his head, and goes back to what he was doing. But he gets all muddled up, and the tape is sticking to itself, and the gauze gets twisted and he can't sort it out. He swears at it under his breath.
"Here," Dom says, coming over and taking the stuff out of his hands. "Let me do it." He focuses on Billy's cuts, taping him up carefully. He can see Billy's pale chest rise and fall faster, his breathing speeding up. Dom gets the first gash all fixed up and moves on to another.
"Sorry, Dom," Billy murmurs finally. "I've been a bit of an idiot." He sounds miserable.
Dom pauses, holding more gauze in place over another cut oozing blood. He shrugs with one shoulder. "I'm the one who ought to be sorry," he says.
Billy shakes his head. "No. I...."
"How's Ali?" Dom interrupts. He focuses on his bandaging, taping another corner of the gauze to Billy's chest.
"I wouldn't know," Billy says, his voice neutral. "She broke up with me."
"Oh," Dom says blankly. He looks up at Billy. "Oh," he says again, the first 'oh' not seeming sufficient to express his surprise. "Uh, I'm sorry." Billy's chest is warm under his fingers, and he can feel Billy's heart beating underneath, the steady living pump of it.
"Yeah," Billy says softly. "Yeah, she dumped me and I really wanted to call you, but we.... And I can't just not talk to you, Dom, it's not natural."
"I know," Dom says. He carefully rips off the last length of tape and slowly, deliberately finishes bandaging Billy's last cut. His hands seem to be shaking a little bit.
"I missed you," Billy says.
"Yeah," Dom says. "Me too." Finished, he reluctantly steps back out of Billy's personal space and puts the medical supplies on Wesley's desk. "I mean, I missed you too, not I missed me too. Because I've actually been, you know, around myself pretty much full time these last couple of weeks."
Billy laughs. It sounds really good. Really good. Dom is starting to feel a rising happiness in his chest, a disbelieving joy.
"Look," Billy says, "I have meetings all day until I have to come back here and lock myself up again. But tomorrow I don't have anything. If you wanted...."
"Yeah," Dom says. "Yeah, okay."
"Okay," Billy says, and smiles. Then he glances at his watch and grimaces. "Shite. I've got to go." He pulls his shirt on over his head and runs his hand through his hair. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah," Dom says.
Billy suddenly leans in and kisses Dom on the cheek, his lips warm and dry against Dom's stubble. Dom is too surprised to do anything except stand there like an idiot, his mouth hanging slightly open. When Billy pulls back, he smiles at Dom shyly.
"Okay," Billy says. "Bye, Dom." He smiles again, his eyes warm, and then turns and hurries out, leaving Dom standing in the middle of the room.
Dom has to take a moment to collect himself.
When he goes back into Angel's office, Xander and Hannah are the only ones still there, leaning against the windows. They stop their conversation when they see Dom enter.
"Where is everybody?" Dom asks.
"Angel and Gunn are chewing out security," Xander says. "Fred disappeared awhile ago, and Wesley just wandered out muttering something about a manuscript. Spike is... somewhere. And Willow got a call that there was some mix-up with the space-time continuum and so she had to teleport back down to Brazil."
Hannah starts giggling.
"Yeah, this is now your life," Xander says to her.
"Xander's going to be my Watcher," Hannah says to Dom, grinning. "Like, a full time thing."
"Really?" Dom asks.
"Looks that way," Xander says.
"And," Hannah says, "he says the Watcher's Council will pay me to kill vampires!"
"Wow, that's great," Dom says. But for some reason he feels kind of weird about it. Maybe about the way that Hannah and Xander are standing so close together, or the way that Hannah's acting like the two of them are best friends now.
"So are we going to go do some training, then?" Hannah asks Xander.
"Sure," Xander says. "I think Angel said there was a training room we could use on the second floor."
"Cool," Hannah says, pushing herself off the windows. But when she sees Dom, she gives him a funny look. "You okay, Dom?"
"What? Yeah, I'm fine," Dom says.
"You look kind of weird," Hannah says. "Do you want to train with us? 'Cause you're totally invited, if you want."
"No, that's fine. You guys should go train. I've actually got a meeting in a couple hours about that TV pilot I'm doing, so I have to get going anyway."
"Okay," Hannah says, still looking at him suspiciously.
"You guys have fun, though," Dom says.
It's good that Hannah and Xander are training, he tells himself on the drive home. It's good that Xander's going to be her Watcher - that means that Xander will be sticking around.
It's just that Hannah's a Slayer and Billy's a werewolf and Viggo's casting spells and Orlando has antennae and Dom is... nothing.
He notices that he has a voicemail on his phone, so presses the buttons to listen to it. It's from Viggo, one of his stream-of-consciousness messages. Viggo talks for awhile about painting darkness instead of light, like an anti-Monet. Then he says, "I just developed my photos of Orlando with his antennae - do you think Billy will let me take pictures of him as the wolf? I was thinking it could be a whole series. You should be in it too. You could grow horns out of the top of your head, Dominic. Or maybe just one horn, out of your forehead, like a unicorn. White bone. I think it'd suit you." That's the end of the message. Dom presses nine to save it, and for some reason feels a little better.
***
That night, while Dom's alone in his house, trying not to mope around, the doorbell rings. When he answers it, Xander is standing on his stoop, bright pink with sunburn, shirt still inside out, hands in his pockets.
"Hey," Dom says, surprised. "I thought you and Hannah would be out fighting vampires or something."
"Nah, I gave her the night off," Xander says. He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets.
"Oh," Dom says. They stand there awkwardly for a minute.
"You want to get a drink or something?" Xander asks abruptly.
"Yes," Dom says fervently, and they go.
Xander drives. "Where'd you get the car?" Dom asks.
"Angel loaned it to me," Xander says. "But I'm still wearing his shirt inside out."
Dom laughs. "Nice," he says. Xander's hands are broad and pink on the wheel, pink and sore-looking. He bets that if you touched them, the skin would be hot, burning. When he realizes he's staring, he looks away. "So you're going to Watch Hannah," he says. "They pay you for that?"
"Yup," Xander says.
"That's not a bad gig," Dom says. "I watch people all the time, but no one's ever offered me money to do it."
Xander glances at him appraisingly, more appraisingly than the weak joke calls for. "You know," Xander says finally, "we're short of Watchers at the moment. If you were thinking about a career change."
"What?"
Xander shrugs. "Seriously. Think about it."
Dom rubs his forehead. "Um. Okay."
They pull up at the bar, and when Dom looks, he sees that it's the same bar where he first met Xander.
"Well, this is very full circle," Dom says.
Xander smiles wryly. "Well, that's what I was going for. Also, it's the only bar I really know in L.A." He puts the car in park and turns off the ignition.
"You know," Dom says, as they get out of the car, "it's interesting. When we were here last week, I thought everyone I knew was normal, and now pretty much everyone but me isn't."
Xander looks at him in a strange way, kind of affectionate and sympathetic. "Yeah, it's rough to be the only regular guy, huh?"
Dom shrugs. "Yeah, sort of." They walk past the alley where the vampires had attacked the last time, and Dom says, "If it were really full circle, there'd be more vamps down there." He glances over as he says it, and sees two guys walking menacingly towards them, their game faces on. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Xander follows his line of sight and laughs. He tosses Dom a stake. "Hope you've been practicing while I was out of commission," he says, and moves towards the vampires.
Dom sighs and follows him into the alley. Xander takes the vamp on the left, and Dom the one on the right. He manages to punch his in the face before getting shoved backwards and nearly falling. But as the vampire lunges toward him, Dom somehow remembers a judo move, grabs its arm and pulls, so that the vampire overbalances and falls. Unfortunately, Dom doesn't quite let go, so gets pulled down on top of the vampire too. His right arm is still holding the stake in front of him while his left arm windmills, trying to keep his balance, but he falls hard anyway. And somehow, by a huge amount of luck, he manages to fall so the stake goes right into the vampire's chest. Its body barely cushions his fall before it explodes into dust, and Dom crashes through onto the pavement, thick dust choking him.
During his coughing fit, Xander has taken care of his own vampire, and comes over to Dom, holding out a hand to help him up. Dom takes it and is pulled to his feet, still coughing. "Thanks," he says.
"Not bad," Xander says, "for two guys with no super powers." Dom's still coughing heavily. "You okay?"
"I think I might be allergic to vampire dust," Dom chokes out. Xander slaps him on the back and after another minute Dom finally gets his lungs under control. He wipes at his watery eyes. "I'm okay."
As they walk inside the bar, Xander throws a friendly arm over Dom's shoulders. "Seriously," Xander says. "You should think about the Watcher thing. You're getting pretty decent with a stake."
"Are you kidding?" Dom says. "That sucked. Besides, do you want a Watcher who's allergic to vampires?
"Suck it up, Monaghan, you're not allergic," Xander says, grinning.
"Alexander LaVelle Harris," Dom says. "Be nice."
Xander stares at him, his mouth hanging open. "How did... what... I don't... what?"
Dom smirks. "I snooped through your wallet while you were in the shower that one time."
Xander shoves him. "You're buying, I hope you know, and if you *ever* tell anyone my middle name, no court in this land would convict me for your slow, painful death."
Dom laughs, and goes to buy him a drink.
THE END
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY
Annakovsky
Cast
Dominic Monaghan
... Himself
Nicholas Brendon
... Xander Harris
Viggo Mortensen
... Himself
Alyson Hannigan
... Willow Rosenberg
Elijah Wood
... Himself
Hannah Wood
... Herself
Billy Boyd
... Himself
Ian Holm
... Old Man
Jake Gyllenhaal
... Ronnie
David Boreanaz
... Angel
Alexis Denisof
... Wesley Wyndham-Pryce
J. August Richards
... Charles Gunn
Amy Acker
... Fred Burkle
Andy Hallett
... Lorne
Tom Lenk
... Andrew
Anthony Stewart Head
... Rupert Giles
James Marsters
... Spike
Annakovsky
... Herself
I have had so much fun writing this fic, you guys have no idea. It was by far the most entertaining (for me, I mean) thing I have ever written, and I got the giggles over and over while I was coming up with this insane shit. It is also the longest thing I have ever written (which is ridiculous and makes me laugh), clocking it at over 40,000 words and over 100 pages in Word. That's crazy talk, man.
Anyway, I'd just like to thank all you guys so much for reading and for helping make it so fun for me. Y'all are the best, and I love you.
The fic is up in its entirety, as one massive story, on my website, and you can find it here. So if anyone's been waiting to read until it's all done, or if you've got a lot to catch up on, there it is. And the previous LJ parts of the story, as always, are here.
***
Dom ends up spending the rest of the night sitting on a desk in the lab, chewing gum and leaning back against the wall, waiting for them to stop doing tests and spells on Xander.
Eventually Wesley rubs his forehead tiredly. "Well, I can't think of anything else to try."
Fred shakes her head. "Me neither."
Willow looks back and forth between them. "Neither can I. Does this mean he's okay? Since we can't find anything wrong?"
They all look through the glass at Xander, who is slowly pulling on a shirt, his focus apparently internal.
"It would appear so," says Wesley. "It may be that he will remember what happened naturally, on his own. In any event, it doesn't seem to have done him any harm."
Willow grins and moves to hug Xander as soon as he comes through the door. She clings to him tightly, but over her shoulder, Xander's eyes seek out Dom. It still gives Dom an unbalanced feeling to see two eyes in Xander's face; the normalcy of it, the wholeness. Xander's steady, alert gaze unnerves him. He pops his gum and gets off the desk, moving closer to the others.
"There is one other thing," Wesley says, "unlikely to be of use. But I should consult the Byzantine Codex to be sure."
"The Hagion Portal?" Willow asks, pulling away from Xander. "But he didn't show any signs of going through a portal."
"I know, but I believe I read of a case in the fourth century where the Hagion Portal was the culprit even though detection spells didn't turn up any of the usual signs. In my office we'll find the manuscript. Now, I know it's not terribly likely, but...."
They all start walking out of the lab, talking animatedly about things Dom has never heard of. As they walk, Dom trailing behind, Xander falls into step beside him.
"So...," Dom says, before he realizes he has nothing to say. He looks at Xander out of the corner of his eye. "Your shirt's inside out," Dom says.
Xander looks down at himself and plucks at the seam of the black shirt he's wearing. "Yeah, they gave me a t-shirt with the Wolfram & Hart logo on the front. It was the only kind they had."
"And you're wearing it inside out because...." Dom trails off, the question in his voice.
"I still have morals," Xander supplies. As Dom tries to figure out what this has to do with wearing a shirt inside out, the corners of Xander's mouth turn up a little bit. "Actually," he says, "it's really more to annoy Angel than anything."
"You don't like Angel?" Dom asks.
Xander shrugs. "Eh. Not really, but at this point it's mostly habit. Though if he goes back to being evil and trying to kill my friends, I'm ready to switch right back to active hatred on a moment's notice."
"He tried to kill you?"
"Half the people I know have tried to kill me at one point or another," Xander says. "You get sort of used to it."
Dom bites the inside of his lip. "I'm not sure I want to get used to all this."
Xander looks over at him again and smiles, that happy, young smile. "Hey," he says, "it's not that bad."
Dom stares at him. "What happened to you, anyway?" he blurts out.
Xander gets quiet and looks away. There is a long stretch where he doesn't say anything at all, until finally, he says softly, "I just... I can't describe it. I walked out into that storm and then... there was, like, light and this smell and...." He trails off and gestures helplessly. "I don't know. It didn't seem like three days."
Dom runs his finger idly along the wall as they progress down the hallway. "The crater doesn't feel creepy anymore," he volunteers.
"Really?" Xander asks.
"Yeah," Dom says. "It's weird."
He and Xander pause outside the door of Wesley's office as the others go inside and start looking at one of the old books. "Hey, how's your arm?" Xander asks, nodding at Dom's bandaged up vampire bite.
"Okay," Dom says, looking down at it. "I mean, it hurts, but it's not terrible." He blinks when something suddenly occurs to him. "Hey, this doesn't mean I'm going to become a vampire too, does it?"
"Nah," Xander says. "You have to suck their blood, and they have to suck your blood and then you have to die and *then* you're a vampire too."
"Oh," Dom says. "But for werewolves, just getting bitten makes you one, right? Or is there blood sucking there too?"
"No blood sucking in werewolf-hood," Xander says. "Just getting bit turns you into one. Why? You haven't been bitten by a werewolf, have you?"
"No. But Billy has," Dom says dully. "He's locked up downstairs at the moment 'cause it's the day before the full moon."
Xander, looking very surprised, opens his mouth to say something when he's interrupted by Willow coming out of the office, leaving Wesley and Fred behind. "Wesley's going to keep researching, but I don't think he's going to find anything," she says. "That portal thing he was talking about was a complete mislead. It doesn't apply to you at all."
Xander blinks, wrenching his attention away from Dom. "Oh," he says vaguely. After a second, he adds, "So I'm probably okay, then? Not, you know, a product of mystic evil forces beyond our control?"
Willow smiles. "Yeah, I think you're okay." Her eyes widen as something occurs to her. "We have to call Giles! And Buffy. They still think you're dead, Xander. They were freaking out."
"Giles was freaking out?" Xander asks, smiling wryly.
"In a British way," Willow says. "Come on, there's a phone in Angel's office we can use."
She looks at Dom while she says this, including him politely in the conversation even though Dom is painfully aware that he is so far outside of this, this Xander and Willow thing, as to be completely irrelevant. This is Xander's real life, the people that matter, the people he has all this history with. The people who've tried to kill him and who've saved his life and who freak out when they think he's dead. Dom is just some guy Xander met in a bar last week.
Even so, Dom follows them as they go into Angel's office, Willow sitting Xander down behind the desk and leaning over to dial a number. He watches them from the doorway, their heads bent together, Willow's hand on Xander's shoulder like she can't stop touching him, making sure he's really there.
"Giles?" she says into the phone. "Xander's alive! He's okay! ... He's right here, you want to talk to him?"
And she shoves the phone at Xander. He puts it to his ear and shyly says, "Hey Giles."
Dom turns away, not wanting to intrude. He slouches onto the sofa and turns on the TV, keeping the volume down so it doesn't bother them while they talk. It's the middle of the night, and time for infomercials, so he keeps flipping channels. But even when he finds a Seinfeld rerun, he doesn't feel like stopping to watch it. He keeps the images flying past, a series of disconnected impressions spinning in front of him.
After awhile, the room is suddenly hit by an influx of voices, chattering and excited. When Dom looks up, he sees that Hannah, Angel and Gunn have gotten back, dusty and splattered in goo and carrying a big box of donuts. Wesley and Fred come in the door behind them, and Willow and Xander finish their conversation and hang up the phone, Then Spike turns up from somewhere or other, and so somehow there is a noisy, happy crowd, eating donuts and talking excitedly, as though they're at a party. The zombie-killing expedition had gone well, it looks like - Hannah is telling the story with expansive gestures, her face animated. Gunn chimes in every now and then, between big bites of a donut with sprinkles. As Hannah points at Angel, acting out how he'd clothes-lined one of the zombies, Angel puts a friendly arm over her shoulders, laughing and pulling her against him in a side-hug.
Dom hovers on the edges, feeling out of place and excluded. Not a slayer, not part of this crowd, no reason to be here. He gets another beer and leans against the back of the couch, morosely watching others have a good time. He sees Hannah talking seriously to Xander, but doesn't feel like joining them. In fact, he's on the verge of slipping out, using his security pass to go see Billy, when Spike comes up and somehow starts an argument with him about Manchester United's defense. Dom is so distracted trying to disabuse him of his perverse notion of strategy that he doesn't notice the horizon is beginning to lighten, turn gray and pearly.
Just then a woman screams, high and panicked. Dom's head swings around to see the crowd scattering, panicked, as something like a massive gray dog comes leaping through the door. Or no, more like an ape, the way it moves - or like a wolf. Dom realizes it must be a werewolf just as Spike shoves him out of its way. Dom hits the wall hard, wincing as he bangs his sore arm, Spike pushing past him to leap at the wolf. Angel and Gunn are not far behind, but Angel stops to push Gunn away. "Don't!" Angel says sharply. "You're human, you can't risk it biting you!" Grumbling, Gunn grudgingly falls back.
The wolf leaps at Spike, who goes down underneath it, his face suddenly distorted and his fangs sharp, wrestling and biting and rolling over and over with the werewolf.
"How did it get up here?" Angel barks. "Where's security? Wes!" Wesley makes his way around to the desk and the phone, carefully skirting where Spike wrestles the werewolf.
Hannah is pressed up against the wall beside Dom. "I always wondered who would win a fight between a vampire and a werewolf," she says.
"Really?" Dom asks, not taking his eyes off the pair. Angel dives into the fight as well, lashing out with his arms. Spike roars angrily as the werewolf claws his chest.
"Nah," she says. "But it's still interesting to watch. Do you think that's Billy or a different werewolf?"
"When did you get so blasé?" Dom asks, a little annoyed.
Hannah ignores him and points at the window. "Look," she says. "The sun's about to come up."
Angel throws the werewolf off Spike and it flies across the room, landing in a heap on the floor next to the windows. As it gets to its feet, growling, the sun moves above the horizon, and light comes through the windows, hitting its matted fur. And somehow, in that moment, so that Dom can hardly see it happening, the creature ceases to be a werewolf and becomes Billy, standing there with his hands up in the shape of claws, his face twisted into a snarl. He looks small and pale after the bulk of the wolf, and there are bloody scratches and bites all over his naked body. Still scattered and frightened and pressed against the walls, everyone else stares at him, their eyes wide. Hannah, Dom sees from the corner of his eye, is smirking. He's not sure whether it's because Billy's naked or because Billy was just a werewolf.
Billy blinks, looks at his clawing hands, and suddenly gets very embarrassed, dropping his arms to his sides. "Erm...," he says. "Hello."
Willow and Fred both kind of wave at him, all friendly.
"Is everyone all right?" Billy asks. They all nod. "Er... good," he says. "That's good. Um... I seem to be naked."
"Spike," Angel says. "Give him your coat." Spike's wearing a long black leather duster.
Spike looks up from his unhappy dabbing at the claw marks in his chest. It's a little bloody and his shirt is ripped, but it looks like he finds the wounds more annoying than painful. "What?" he says. "Are you crazy?"
"Come on, Spike," Angel says. "The man's naked."
"He just clawed me all up! I'm not giving him my coat. Give him your own coat."
"Spike," Angel says in a low, commanding voice.
Spike rolls his eyes. "Fine," he grumbles, pulling his coat off with exaggerated movements. He throws it at Billy's chest. "You owe me a new shirt," Spike says. "And if you wreck that coat, I'll pull your spleen out."
"Er," Billy says, looking down at the leather in his hands. "All right. Thanks." He puts the coat on slowly, wrapping it around himself. It's a little big on him - the sleeves are a bit long and the hem touches the floor. He looks up at the group, which has finally started to relax, once he's wrapped it around himself. He scans past Willow and Xander and Fred and Dom and suddenly does a double take, turning back to stare at Dom. Dom had wondered how long it'd take Billy to notice him and Hannah standing there.
Billy's mouth drops open. "Dom," he says blankly.
Just then Wesley hangs up the phone. "Security doesn't know what happened," he says. "No one came past the guard, and the cell is just empty. No bent bars, no sign of a struggle, nothing. They don't know what happened."
"Can we check the security video?" Angel asks.
"They're looking into that. And someone will be right up with your clothes," Wesley says to Billy. Billy nods.
Dom clears his throat. "It might've been that woman in the big white room upstairs that let him out." Everyone turns and stares at him, agape. "I think she'd think it was funny," Dom finishes self-consciously.
They all blink at him. "Hold up," Gunn says finally. "You've been in the White Room? The *White* Room?"
Dom looks around nervously. "Well, I've been in *a* white room. I don't know about *the* White Room."
"Did you see a big cat?" Gunn asks.
"Um," Dom says. "No. Just this woman at a computer. She was quite disconcerting, actually. With the knowing everything. And the mind games. And the... trapeze thing."
"Trapeze thing?" Xander asks, at the same time as Willow says, "What's the White Room?"
"How the *hell*," Gunn says, looking at Angel, "did the hobbit get in the White Room?"
"I took the elevator," Dom says. Gunn throws up his hands.
"You saw a woman?" Angel asks, moving closer. "What did she say?"
Dom shrugs. "I dunno. Nothing important. It all seemed rather self-indulgent at the time. But she did give me a lollipop."
"The cat never gives *me* candy," Gunn mutters.
"Gunn," Angel says.
"Well, I'm just saying," Gunn says. "It doesn't seem like people should just be able to walk in off the street and get to the White Room. Don't we have security around here? Why is he wandering around the building in the first place?"
"That's not really the issue," Angel starts.
"Er, if you don't mind my asking," Billy interrupts, "what exactly *are* Dom and Hannah doing here?" He's still staring at Dom as though he can't believe he's there.
"Oh," Dom says, running his hand through his hair. "Um. It turns out Hannah's a vampire slayer. And I'm friends with him," - he points at Xander - "and he's a vampire slayer trainer guy. And he just, like, came back from the dead. And he's friends with Angel. Except they don't really like each other. So we came down here to find out what happened to Xander, and then Hannah went to fight zombies and they just got back. 'Cause we all, like, fight evil now. So... yeah. Here we are."
"Oh," Billy says, sounding very confused.
Just then two security guards walk in the room, one of them carrying a bundle of clothes. Angel and Gunn immediately swarm around them, both talking at once. Wesley takes the clothes and hands them to Billy. "You can dress in my office," he says, and shows him out the door. Next to Dom, Willow's phone rings and she takes the call, walking across the room with a finger stopping up her opposite ear to keep the noise of the room out. In the meantime, some messy-haired guy in a lab coat comes and speaks to Fred, who after a brief consultation follows him out of the room.
"What do you mean, the video's blank?" Angel says to the security guard.
"Kennedy, are you sure this is an emergency?" Willow says into the phone.
Hannah nudges Dom. "What's up with you and Billy?" she asks.
"What?" Dom says.
"He was looking at you weird. Weirder than normal."
"Yeah?" Dom says, not looking at her.
Hannah rolls her eyes. "Whatever. You guys are such freaks." She pushes off the wall and walks over to talk to Xander.
Dom sighs and leans his head back against the wall. After a minute, he slips out the door without anyone seeing. He passes Wesley in the lobby, nods to him, and goes into the door Wesley just left.
Billy's standing in the middle of the room, bandaging a wound on his side as Dom comes quietly into Wesley's office.
"Hey," Dom says. Billy's head comes up with a start, gauze in one hand and medical tape in the other.
"Oh," he says. "Hi." He looks awkward and vulnerable with his shirt still off, and doesn't seem to know where to look or what to say.
"I just... They're all trying to figure out how you got out of those holding cells," Dom says.
Billy nods and goes back to fixing up his cut. "I'm just glad I didn't hurt anyone," he says quietly.
Dom nods, watching him. "What are you doing here anyway?" he asks. "I mean, yeah, the werewolf thing, but... how did you find out about this place?"
"Viggo," Billy says.
"Oh," Dom says.
"Yeah," Billy says. He rips off a strip of tape and begins to arrange the gauze over his cut, not meeting Dom's eyes at all.
"And how exactly are you a werewolf?" Dom asks, his voice higher pitched than normal. His palms are sweaty.
Billy shrugs. "It was that damned David Thewlis," he says, taping down one side of the gauze. "The man's a menace."
"Ah," Dom says.
There is an uncomfortable silence.
"I didn't even know you were in town," Dom finally says quietly.
Billy looks up at that. He bites the inside of his cheek. "I was going to call you, Dom. I just... didn't know what to say."
"Yeah," Dom says.
Billy ducks his head, and goes back to what he was doing. But he gets all muddled up, and the tape is sticking to itself, and the gauze gets twisted and he can't sort it out. He swears at it under his breath.
"Here," Dom says, coming over and taking the stuff out of his hands. "Let me do it." He focuses on Billy's cuts, taping him up carefully. He can see Billy's pale chest rise and fall faster, his breathing speeding up. Dom gets the first gash all fixed up and moves on to another.
"Sorry, Dom," Billy murmurs finally. "I've been a bit of an idiot." He sounds miserable.
Dom pauses, holding more gauze in place over another cut oozing blood. He shrugs with one shoulder. "I'm the one who ought to be sorry," he says.
Billy shakes his head. "No. I...."
"How's Ali?" Dom interrupts. He focuses on his bandaging, taping another corner of the gauze to Billy's chest.
"I wouldn't know," Billy says, his voice neutral. "She broke up with me."
"Oh," Dom says blankly. He looks up at Billy. "Oh," he says again, the first 'oh' not seeming sufficient to express his surprise. "Uh, I'm sorry." Billy's chest is warm under his fingers, and he can feel Billy's heart beating underneath, the steady living pump of it.
"Yeah," Billy says softly. "Yeah, she dumped me and I really wanted to call you, but we.... And I can't just not talk to you, Dom, it's not natural."
"I know," Dom says. He carefully rips off the last length of tape and slowly, deliberately finishes bandaging Billy's last cut. His hands seem to be shaking a little bit.
"I missed you," Billy says.
"Yeah," Dom says. "Me too." Finished, he reluctantly steps back out of Billy's personal space and puts the medical supplies on Wesley's desk. "I mean, I missed you too, not I missed me too. Because I've actually been, you know, around myself pretty much full time these last couple of weeks."
Billy laughs. It sounds really good. Really good. Dom is starting to feel a rising happiness in his chest, a disbelieving joy.
"Look," Billy says, "I have meetings all day until I have to come back here and lock myself up again. But tomorrow I don't have anything. If you wanted...."
"Yeah," Dom says. "Yeah, okay."
"Okay," Billy says, and smiles. Then he glances at his watch and grimaces. "Shite. I've got to go." He pulls his shirt on over his head and runs his hand through his hair. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah," Dom says.
Billy suddenly leans in and kisses Dom on the cheek, his lips warm and dry against Dom's stubble. Dom is too surprised to do anything except stand there like an idiot, his mouth hanging slightly open. When Billy pulls back, he smiles at Dom shyly.
"Okay," Billy says. "Bye, Dom." He smiles again, his eyes warm, and then turns and hurries out, leaving Dom standing in the middle of the room.
Dom has to take a moment to collect himself.
When he goes back into Angel's office, Xander and Hannah are the only ones still there, leaning against the windows. They stop their conversation when they see Dom enter.
"Where is everybody?" Dom asks.
"Angel and Gunn are chewing out security," Xander says. "Fred disappeared awhile ago, and Wesley just wandered out muttering something about a manuscript. Spike is... somewhere. And Willow got a call that there was some mix-up with the space-time continuum and so she had to teleport back down to Brazil."
Hannah starts giggling.
"Yeah, this is now your life," Xander says to her.
"Xander's going to be my Watcher," Hannah says to Dom, grinning. "Like, a full time thing."
"Really?" Dom asks.
"Looks that way," Xander says.
"And," Hannah says, "he says the Watcher's Council will pay me to kill vampires!"
"Wow, that's great," Dom says. But for some reason he feels kind of weird about it. Maybe about the way that Hannah and Xander are standing so close together, or the way that Hannah's acting like the two of them are best friends now.
"So are we going to go do some training, then?" Hannah asks Xander.
"Sure," Xander says. "I think Angel said there was a training room we could use on the second floor."
"Cool," Hannah says, pushing herself off the windows. But when she sees Dom, she gives him a funny look. "You okay, Dom?"
"What? Yeah, I'm fine," Dom says.
"You look kind of weird," Hannah says. "Do you want to train with us? 'Cause you're totally invited, if you want."
"No, that's fine. You guys should go train. I've actually got a meeting in a couple hours about that TV pilot I'm doing, so I have to get going anyway."
"Okay," Hannah says, still looking at him suspiciously.
"You guys have fun, though," Dom says.
It's good that Hannah and Xander are training, he tells himself on the drive home. It's good that Xander's going to be her Watcher - that means that Xander will be sticking around.
It's just that Hannah's a Slayer and Billy's a werewolf and Viggo's casting spells and Orlando has antennae and Dom is... nothing.
He notices that he has a voicemail on his phone, so presses the buttons to listen to it. It's from Viggo, one of his stream-of-consciousness messages. Viggo talks for awhile about painting darkness instead of light, like an anti-Monet. Then he says, "I just developed my photos of Orlando with his antennae - do you think Billy will let me take pictures of him as the wolf? I was thinking it could be a whole series. You should be in it too. You could grow horns out of the top of your head, Dominic. Or maybe just one horn, out of your forehead, like a unicorn. White bone. I think it'd suit you." That's the end of the message. Dom presses nine to save it, and for some reason feels a little better.
***
That night, while Dom's alone in his house, trying not to mope around, the doorbell rings. When he answers it, Xander is standing on his stoop, bright pink with sunburn, shirt still inside out, hands in his pockets.
"Hey," Dom says, surprised. "I thought you and Hannah would be out fighting vampires or something."
"Nah, I gave her the night off," Xander says. He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets.
"Oh," Dom says. They stand there awkwardly for a minute.
"You want to get a drink or something?" Xander asks abruptly.
"Yes," Dom says fervently, and they go.
Xander drives. "Where'd you get the car?" Dom asks.
"Angel loaned it to me," Xander says. "But I'm still wearing his shirt inside out."
Dom laughs. "Nice," he says. Xander's hands are broad and pink on the wheel, pink and sore-looking. He bets that if you touched them, the skin would be hot, burning. When he realizes he's staring, he looks away. "So you're going to Watch Hannah," he says. "They pay you for that?"
"Yup," Xander says.
"That's not a bad gig," Dom says. "I watch people all the time, but no one's ever offered me money to do it."
Xander glances at him appraisingly, more appraisingly than the weak joke calls for. "You know," Xander says finally, "we're short of Watchers at the moment. If you were thinking about a career change."
"What?"
Xander shrugs. "Seriously. Think about it."
Dom rubs his forehead. "Um. Okay."
They pull up at the bar, and when Dom looks, he sees that it's the same bar where he first met Xander.
"Well, this is very full circle," Dom says.
Xander smiles wryly. "Well, that's what I was going for. Also, it's the only bar I really know in L.A." He puts the car in park and turns off the ignition.
"You know," Dom says, as they get out of the car, "it's interesting. When we were here last week, I thought everyone I knew was normal, and now pretty much everyone but me isn't."
Xander looks at him in a strange way, kind of affectionate and sympathetic. "Yeah, it's rough to be the only regular guy, huh?"
Dom shrugs. "Yeah, sort of." They walk past the alley where the vampires had attacked the last time, and Dom says, "If it were really full circle, there'd be more vamps down there." He glances over as he says it, and sees two guys walking menacingly towards them, their game faces on. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Xander follows his line of sight and laughs. He tosses Dom a stake. "Hope you've been practicing while I was out of commission," he says, and moves towards the vampires.
Dom sighs and follows him into the alley. Xander takes the vamp on the left, and Dom the one on the right. He manages to punch his in the face before getting shoved backwards and nearly falling. But as the vampire lunges toward him, Dom somehow remembers a judo move, grabs its arm and pulls, so that the vampire overbalances and falls. Unfortunately, Dom doesn't quite let go, so gets pulled down on top of the vampire too. His right arm is still holding the stake in front of him while his left arm windmills, trying to keep his balance, but he falls hard anyway. And somehow, by a huge amount of luck, he manages to fall so the stake goes right into the vampire's chest. Its body barely cushions his fall before it explodes into dust, and Dom crashes through onto the pavement, thick dust choking him.
During his coughing fit, Xander has taken care of his own vampire, and comes over to Dom, holding out a hand to help him up. Dom takes it and is pulled to his feet, still coughing. "Thanks," he says.
"Not bad," Xander says, "for two guys with no super powers." Dom's still coughing heavily. "You okay?"
"I think I might be allergic to vampire dust," Dom chokes out. Xander slaps him on the back and after another minute Dom finally gets his lungs under control. He wipes at his watery eyes. "I'm okay."
As they walk inside the bar, Xander throws a friendly arm over Dom's shoulders. "Seriously," Xander says. "You should think about the Watcher thing. You're getting pretty decent with a stake."
"Are you kidding?" Dom says. "That sucked. Besides, do you want a Watcher who's allergic to vampires?
"Suck it up, Monaghan, you're not allergic," Xander says, grinning.
"Alexander LaVelle Harris," Dom says. "Be nice."
Xander stares at him, his mouth hanging open. "How did... what... I don't... what?"
Dom smirks. "I snooped through your wallet while you were in the shower that one time."
Xander shoves him. "You're buying, I hope you know, and if you *ever* tell anyone my middle name, no court in this land would convict me for your slow, painful death."
Dom laughs, and goes to buy him a drink.
THE END
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY
Annakovsky
Cast
Dominic Monaghan
... Himself
Nicholas Brendon
... Xander Harris
Viggo Mortensen
... Himself
Alyson Hannigan
... Willow Rosenberg
Elijah Wood
... Himself
Hannah Wood
... Herself
Billy Boyd
... Himself
Ian Holm
... Old Man
Jake Gyllenhaal
... Ronnie
David Boreanaz
... Angel
Alexis Denisof
... Wesley Wyndham-Pryce
J. August Richards
... Charles Gunn
Amy Acker
... Fred Burkle
Andy Hallett
... Lorne
Tom Lenk
... Andrew
Anthony Stewart Head
... Rupert Giles
James Marsters
... Spike
Annakovsky
... Herself