H.A.T. by Deacon Rayne: Chapter 21 - Fallout
Summary: "War is coming. A slayer leads the way, a son of darkness heralds shadows, and a young girl claims her birthright as the light of all lights. These heroes, and others, in a last stand against the ancient evil; all corrupting and all consuming, poised to devour the world."
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Link to previous chapter
NOTE: On May 15, 2008 the previous chapter was reposted with two new scenes. It is strongly encouraged that you to re-read that chapter, since the latter of the two scenes included a plot development which is the basis for this new chapter.
Hellmouth Ascendant Trilogy: Revamped Edition
Book One:
Dusk
Chapter 21
Fallout
Spike froze mid-smile as he looked past Buffy’s shoulder, his face a study of surprise and grimness.
Click.
Buffy turned, frowning, when she heard the sound. Xander had a crossbow leveled at someone past her field of vision. When she finished rotating, the Slayer gasped.
The weapon was aimed at Alec.
“Xander, what are you-“
“What’s the deal, Dusk?” the young man demanded, using Alec’s less-familiar moniker. “Exactly when did you turn into the lovechild of Jackie Estacado and Venom? Got an alien symbiote or something?”
“Something like that,” Alec replied quietly.
“Xander, come on, stop fooling around-” Buffy tried again.
“Buff, I hate to be the person that said ‘I told you so’ but when he first showed up, I told you that it was a mistake to just trust this guy just because he says he’s Giles’s son.”
“He is my son,” Giles put in simply. “I assure you.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but right now what he isn’t, and what should be clear to everybody, is this - he’s not human.”
“So? So what?” Buffy demanded angrily. “Neither was Oz and neither are Spike and Angel!”
“Yeah, and why don’t we all just ask Giles how well Angel and his alter-ego have worked out for everyone?”
Everyone paled.
“Oh, okay, so they’re all freaks. I got you,” Buffy bit out. “But Mr. ‘I’m screwing an eleven-hundred year old ex-demon’ is completely in the right?”
“Says the woman whose ex butchered nearly half the graduating class and had to be put down like a dog!”
“All right, that’s enough!” Spike roared, getting involved for the first time. “Whatever Alec’s actual species is, the fact is that he’s stood by the lot of you since he arrived and that’s good enough for me!”
“Not for me!” Xander retorted.
“Nor me,” Angel said quietly.
Buffy whirled around. “What?” she demanded incredulously.
“He’s a Keeper demon, Buffy, I’ve seen them before. They’re called the ‘Scions of Annihilation’ by other demons.”
“That’s right,” Anya piped up, putting on what she hoped was a sincere guise of fear and worry. “Keeper demons consume and obliterate everything in their path: people, animals, even reality itself. They all just suck it up and swallow it whole, like walking black holes.”
The blonde Slayer whirled on Anya, clearly ready to strike the other woman.
“Coming from the demon who’s spent over a thousand plus years slaughtering unfaithful men, that’s almost funny.”
“Hey, back off!” Xander growled, stepping in between Buffy and Anya.
“Guys, come on!” Buffy cried out. “Xander, it’s you, me, and Wills against the world, remember? Come on, don’t do this!”
Anya could not resist the opportunity to press her advantage. “I think as long as Alec is here among us, we’re all in danger,” she turned to look up at Xander. “I think we should leave.”
Xander lowered the crossbow and wrapped an arm around Anya. “We’re not leaving honey. He is.”
Buffy took three threatening steps towards them both when Faith stepped in to stop her.
“Hey, B, chillax,” she said, attempting to placate Buffy. Instead, the other Slayer threw her hands forward, fingers crooked like claws, and aimed for Anya’s throat.
“He’s my brother!” Buffy screamed. “I am not going to abandon you heartless bitch!”
Faith gritted her teeth as she attempted to restrain her sister Slayer.
DeGanon grabbed Giles’s jacket. “You must stop this!” he hissed urgently into the other man’s ear
“That’s quite enough!” the Watcher snapped. “Xander, you and Anya go over to the other side of the room and shut the bloody hell up, both of you!” Giles then turned to the grappling Slayers. “Buffy, calm yourself, no one is being abandoned. Faith, release her!”
Faith sent Giles a dubious look, but flexed, and pushed Buffy back a few feet to give her some breathing room, releasing her at the same time.
Buffy exhaled hard and glared daggers at Anya before turning to address the others.
“Alec is family, he’s a part of our lives and whatever secrets he’s been keeping, they’re out now and we’re all just going to deal with them!”
Angel frowned slightly. Buffy was being remarkably calm about this revelation about her adopted brother, and so was Giles, for that matter, which meant…
“How long have you known Buffy?”
Buffy fixed Angel with a fierce glare.
“What?”
“You and Giles, how long have you known that Alec is a Keeper demon?”
Buffy’s moment of hesitation was all it took to condemn her.
“You knew?!” Willow screamed, speaking for the first time. “After what happened with Oz and Tara, you knew and none of you said anything?!”
“Yes, they knew!” Alec yelled back. “They knew and I asked them, I begged them, not to tell anyone, especially you, because I didn’t want to see you get hurt!” Alec looked down for a moment. “And because I was afraid.”
" ‘Afraid’! What do you mean you were ‘afraid’?” Willow demanded.
“I was afraid that you would look at me exactly the same way you’re looking at me right now,” Alec replied softly, taking in everyone else with a steady, cold look. “ The way you’re all looking at me right now - like a freak, a traitor, a demon …” he brought his eyes back to Willow, “…and no longer a man.”
Willow averted her eyes; she just couldn’t meet that haunted gaze of the man she’d grown to love. In them, she could see herself being weighed and measured and, deep within herself, she knew she simply could not measure up. The shame of it ate at her.
Dawn approached as Willow turned away.
“I believe in Alec Giles,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear; it was now her turn to address her friends and family. “I didn’t know that he was part demon. And I don’t care. He’s earned my trust, he’s earned my faith, he’s earned my… lo-… friendship,” she corrected hastily, “and for that, I believe in him.”
Dawn then walked around Alec, gently touching his arm with her small fingers, to stand behind him, arraying herself against the others.
“He is my son,” Giles said quietly and took his place beside Alec.
“He’s my brother,” Buffy chimed in and took her place beside them.
“Fag the lot of you, he’s my mate!” Spike sneered and stood by him.
Faith looked uncertain for a moment, then sighed and smiled slightly, the scar over her eye crinkling.
“Who the hell am I to judge? Between what Buffy says and what I’ve seen, Alec and I are five by five.”
Faith stepped over and stood next to Buffy, who sent the brunette Slayer the warmest smile anyone had ever seen the pair share.
Angel, Xander, Anya, and Willow looked at them from across the room. Though there was only a few feet separating the people, it was suddenly as if a wide chasm had opened up between the two grops.
“The most dangerous of monsters always start with the best of intentions. I’ve been watching you, Alec, I’ve seen you fight, and I’ve seen you kill, that night outside Grigori…” Angel said quietly, “…and I’ve seen you enjoy it.”
“Bloody Hell, Angelus…” Spike sneered. “Isn’t this a bit of the ol’ ‘pot and kettle’?”
Angel tilted his head to address his progeny. “You’re right, Spike, that’s how I can tell. See, he’s not like you. You’re an idiot, you always have been, but for you it’s the violence.” The older vampire shifted, returning his gaze to Alec. “For him, it’s not the blood, it’s the kill. And he’ll keep doing it, over and over again, until one day the reason, the 'greater good', is no longer important. And then he’ll be just like me.”
“He’s nothing like you,” Buffy spat, her eyes teary. "He does what needs to be done."
“Hey, if the resident pro murderer says there’s a new rookie in the pen, I’m inclined to believe him,” Xander chimed in. “I always knew Angel was going to be trouble and if any one of you had actually listened to me, maybe Jenny would still be alive. Now, there’s a new stray and once again I’ve got a bad feeling, and this time you are all going to listen to me.” Xander looked past Alec to the man’s father. “Because, no offense, G-man, I plan on doing a better job protecting my lady than you did yours.”
“Drop dead,” Alec snarled, outraged at how his father was being assaulted.
“You first, buddy,” Xander replied, bringing his crossbow up again.
Alec ignored the weapon and turned his look upon Willow, his cold glare melting into an imploring look at his lover.
"Willow?" he rasped, agony and pleading infusing every syllable of her name.
Willow looked up, her eyes wet with tears.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly and then, very deliberately, stood next to Xander. Xander, for his part, made room for her beside him and smiled.
"It's okay, Wills, really," he assured her.
"I'm sorry, too," was all Alec said, even as the others stared, aghast, at Willow's apparent betrayal.
Anya reached out and put a hand on Xander's arm.
"Dawn…" she whispered quietly to her lover and he took the hint.
"Yeah, come on, Dawn, it isn't safe with him," he said, reaching for her.
…And then everything went to hell.
"Don't touch me!" Dawn cried out, recoiling.
"Get away from her!" Alec roared at the same time, lashing out with a fist and catching Xander across the jaw.
"Xander!"
Willow cried out before flexing her fingers and pointing, saying a string of arcane words. A series of small dark blobs flew from her fingertips towards Alec as the Wicca attempted to protect her childhood friend.
Xander, meanwhile, recovered from the blow and charged at the younger Giles.
Alec could see that the spell his lover had cast would strike the boy instead of himself. Reasoning that his healing factor could handle whatever Willow could throw at him, Alec swept Xander's feet out from under him and turned his own face away from the spell, hoping to minimize the amount of damage it would do to him by giving it only a side profile instead of a full frontal strike.
Seconds later the spell hit him.
Within Willow Rosenberg shame had given way to anger, and anger to hatred. As one of the most powerful witches known to the world, and with vast reserves of her potential still untapped, that hatred and her raw power made the spell she cast stronger than anything anyone assembled had ever seen.
The spell struck Alec in the left side of the face and neck; time stood still for a heartbeat.
Alec slapped a hand over his face to keep the dark goop from splattering upon the others, especially Dawn, who was millimeters away from his face. His remaining eye found hers and there was time for a single look to be shared between them, an instant in which all their feelings, their regrets, and the care they held for each other, was transmitted.
The next moment the light of life, of kindness and humanity, in Alec's good eye flickered and went out, carried away by one crystal clear tear running down his face, like a flood carrying away a drowning child.
Then he began to scream - a loud animal-like wail of agony that set everyone's teeth on edge. He screamed over and over again as the gooey blobs stuck to his face and hand, consumed his flesh, tore at him, devoured and infected every last cell that it had struck, dissolving flesh and bone and boiling away his blood.
"ALEC!" Buffy cried out, reaching towards him.
Alec stumbled away, still screaming and clutching at the ruined half of his face, and fell to his knees near a large grated drain.
Willow looked on, horrified by what she had done, as her lover screamed and cried, slammed his fists and his head into the floor, into the wall, over and over again; did anything to dull the sheer torture wracking his body. Where he struck the wall, it began to dissolve as residue from the redhead’s spell struck it.
"What did you DO to him?!" Dawn screamed out.
Even Xander looked freaked, hand reached out towards Willow, who was staring blankly at the whole spectacle.
"WHY!??!?"
The question exploded into the room as Alec screamed at his lover, removing his hand from his face. The darkness in the room concealed the damage done, but the unscarred side of his face was flushed bright red; the man’s teeth were clenched so hard that the porcelain was cracking and shattering, and he foamed and spat in pain-fueled fury. Staggering up to his feet, Alec looked like he was ready to kill everyone in the room.
Xander cried out in alarm at the sight, brought up the crossbow, and fired. The bolt flew past everyone and caught Alec in the shoulder. The younger Giles was pitched backwards and landed heavily on the grate on the floor. It gave away and he was plunged into the dark, his cries of pain fading as he fell.
Giles removed his gun and leveled it square with Xander's eyes.
"This is an enchanted weapon," he said simply. "It is called 'Lily', a nickname given to Alec's mother, and named in honor of her memory. It was reportedly forged with shards of metal that came from the sword of Uriel, the angel of death, and its bullets will kill anything they strike, living or dead, so long as the heart of the person using it is filled with hatred." Giles cocked the hammer. "And right now, Alexander Harris, I hate no person on this planet so much as I hate you."
Xander swallowed quietly, but stood his ground bravely. Everyone held their breaths, waiting to see if the librarian was going to decorate the walls of this chamber with the young man’s brain matter.
Giles sighed heavily and uncocked the hammer.
"But murder will not bring back my son," he said finally.
Xander breathed a sigh of relief, right before Rupert cracked him in the skull, hard, with the butt of the gun, dropping him to the ground.
"Xander!" Anya cried out and dropped to her knees to aid her lover.
"On the other hand, beating you senseless holds a certain appeal," Giles added mildly before turning to Willow, who still seemed to be in shock.
"What. Did You Do. To My Son?" Giles asked, spacing each part of the sentence freely.
"The Yersinia Curse," was all Willow said.
"The plague rite! You… stupid, foolish girl!" he spat out, his face red with rage. "Where did you get that spell?!"
"I was just trying to protect Xander," Willow said numbly, clearly not hearing the question.
Giles snarled with impatience, clearly the young girl was in shock and would be of no further use to him. He whirled around.
"We need to get to him immediately! That spell will eat through his body and when it's done with him, it will come after the rest of us!"
"I'm on it!" Buffy yelled.
"No! No one living can go after him; they run the risk of infection."
"Right, then. I'll get him, bring him back, get him patched up, and then I'm going to shove a broken bottle through the faces of a few people here. How does that sound?" Spike growled.
"Fine by me," Dawn said darkly.
"Seconded," Faith added.
"Angel, go with him," Giles instructed. Angel nodded and, as he was walking past, Giles grabbed his arm, stopping him dead. "Bring him back alive, Angel, or you won't live to regret it."
Angel said nothing, merely looked down at the other man's grip on his arm. With a deliberate motion, Giles released him and Angel and Spike headed down the drain after Alec.
" 'And more, much more than this, I did it my way'."
Spike's voice echoed hollowly through the sewer tunnel, barely audible over the sounds of rushing water and rats.
"Could you not do that?" Angel asked testily. "It sort of detracts from the whole 'element of surprise' approach."
Spike scoffed. "Yeah, trust me, mate, my boy isn't someone you want to be sneaking up on, even when he hasn't had half his face melted off by his crumpet." Spike gritted his teeth. "Bitch is going to have a lot to answer for when I get a hold of her."
"She was only trying to protect her friend."
"Yeah, and he was only trying to protect Dawn. In case you haven't noticed, the two of them have a weird sort of bond going on."
Angel shot Spike a glare from over his shoulder and nearly stepped on a rat.
"Yes. A man in his early twenties spending that much time fawning over a teenaged girl; we have many names for that kind of 'bond'. Last I heard, though, that was a felony in these parts."
"Says the self-confessed cradle robbing creature of the night ex-boyfriend."
Angel gritted his teeth harder and kicked at another rat as Spike continued to speak.
"Besides, it's not like that. I know Alec, he's a good bloke, no funny business going on with that one. Granted, having your girlfriend nuke your face might call into question one's loyalties." Spike sent Angel a sideways look as they continued deeper down the tunnel. "Though, I'll bet you don't need a reminder about loyalty in the face of greatly upsetting things, what with having a sword shoved through you and being sent to Hell by your ex and all."
Angel whirled on the other vampire. "All right, Spike-"
"Two other things I know about our boy." Spike went right on. "One, I know that this is his favorite song. Some of us prefer our music less whiny than the 'It'll End In Tears' album," Spike taunted. "It's what he and I first bonded over when he came to Sunnydale - Sid Vicious and good scotch. I want Alec to know that we're down here and not actually out to kill him or anything, and I thought making sure he heard his favorite song would help that."
"Sinatra's version was better," Angel growled at Spike as he began to walk ahead. "You said you knew two things about Alec, what's the other thing?"
"He's very, very close by."
Angel stopped and turned around to face the white-haired vampire.
"How do you know?"
Spike smiled nastily and shoved his way past Angel to head deeper down the tunnel.
"No rats."
Angel looked down and, indeed, there were no rats to be found anywhere. In fact the entire area was draped in an oppressive silence and a darkness that hung thick in the air.
Spike cupped his hands over his mouth as Angel reached down into the muck by his feet and grabbed hold of a rusted length of pipe.
"Oy! Alec! You down here, mate? Come on, we can have a scotch and kill your girlfriend or something!" Spike's voice boomed in the now deathly silence that enveloped them.
Suddenly, Angel swung the bar and caught Spike across the back of the head. The blond grunted once and slumped, face first, into the muck and slime coating the floor.
"Sorry, Spike, but like the woman said 'we need to be able to do what needs to be done', and in this case, it might involve putting Alec down for good.”
Spike groaned slightly, stirring, and Angel brought the bar up again…
…but it was yanked out of his hands with a sudden, violent jerk.
"Uncalled for," a voice rasped from very close by.
Angel turned as something shot out of the darkness, connected with his jaw, and sent him staggering backwards. A second blow connected with his solar plexus, and a third - a boot this time - connected with his skull, sending him tumbling backwards through an open side portal and into a heap in a pool of water in the middle of a large chamber.
Angel spat out a mouthful of dirty water and tried to get his bearings; he could barely see in the thick subterranean darkness.
"Alec! Come out! We only want to help you!"
A low, quiet laugh filled the chamber and it set Angel's teeth on edge.
"Ah, my own ‘guardian Angel’, as it were. Tell me, are you planning on helping me like you helped Spike? Thanks, but no thanks. Besides…"
Something collided hard with Angel's chest and sent him sprawling back into the water.
"…what makes you think I need any help?"
Angel got to his feet again, growling, his game face in place.
"Oh, scary," Alec's voice mocked from the darkness.
Angel spun around towards it, but it was no use. The acoustics in the room were terrible and made it sound like a shadowmancer was speaking from all around him.
"I can smell your blood and hear your heartbeat, Dusk," Angel said, emphasizing the alternate name. "I don't need eyes to fight you."
"Oh, good, now I'll feel less guilty about removing them."
Angel growled and spun around, trying to get a bead on Alec's location. He should have been able to hear the other’s footfalls in the pool of water that covered the floor, but so far, nothing.
"Willow's spell, its effects-" Angel began.
"-Are getting worse… or better, depending on whether or not you count my body rotting out from under me as a good thing,” Alec interjected.
Got him!
Angel spun and thrust out with a kick, connecting with something solid in the dark. There was a whoosh of suddenly exhaled air and the splash of a falling form.
"You might have a great deal of training, Dusk, but I have a lot of years on you," Angel said calmly. “and I promise you, I’m more of a creature of the dark than you’ll ever be.”
The darkness cleared a little bit and Angel could now see Alec getting to his feet from the water.
"Angel, Angel, Angel, haven't you learned by now? It's not the quantity of your years..."
Without warning, Alec cart-wheeled over to Angel and thrust a boot hard up under the vampire's jaw, making him stagger backwards.
"…but the quality. And in that vein, I'll take my training over your experience any day."
“Spoken like a true amateur.”
Angel’s hand snaked out, caught Alec by the scruff of the neck, and hurled him bodily into the wall with a thud!
Alec landed in a heap, still chuckling mockingly.
“Why, Angel, you’re holding back.”
The vampire grabbed a fistful of Alec’s hair and hoisted the man to his feet, pushing his face close to the other’s to give the young man a good look at his vampiric features.
“Things could get ugly if I don’t,” Angel replied.
Alec brought his own face closer, letting Angel finally see it.
“I’d be forced to say that they already have,” Alec commented.
Angel sucked in a breath in shock. The left side of Alec’s face was a gray pulpy mass of rotted tissue and cancerous tumors that pulsed and bulged obscenely. It looked like a melted wax sculpture - the left earlobe, eyelid and all the hair on that side was just gone. Even as Angel watched in sick horror, the masses of cancerous growths throbbed, and pushed bits of wet lumpy flesh and oozing pus out of Alec’s face; the flesh and pus fell to the ground with a wet splat!. A single black and yellow eye wept pus as it focused on the vampire.
“My God…” Angel whispered.
Alec looked around and up towards the ceiling inquisitively.
“God?” he asked mildly, bringing his left hand, now an oozing, half-melted claw, up to his face to scratch in mock contemplation, trailing away long ropy strands of pus from his face.
“God isn’t here.”
He then smiled his familiar crooked grin; now one part familiar gesture, one part slobbering lipless obscenity, and hurled Angel away from him.
The vampire scrambled to his feet and went all out, throwing punch after punch, hammering his fists into Alec. Angel could feel Alec’s ribs giving way, bones breaking and organs swelling under the onslaught. Alec did his best to defend himself, but the vampire’s fury and horror was too much and the scarred young man fell beneath the assault.
“You’re pretty spry, Dusk, but you can’t dish out the kind of punishment Buffy can,” Angel drew back his fist and smashed in Alec’s nose. “And you can’t withstand it either.”
Alec coughed weakly, felt something in his chest break apart, and spat out some blood and slime.
“Oh, I imagine that’s true, Angel. Buffy has her tricks… and I have mine.”
A tendril of darkness lashed out from the shadows, Angel screamed in pain and fell back as it drew a bloody line across his chest.
Alec began advancing on Angel and, even as the vampire watched, Alec’s bones began to knit themselves back together, healing the damage Angel had just done to them.
“You see… while, yes, it’s true that I can’t hit hard…” Alec explained as another tendril of darkness lashed Angel across the chest, “…I can hit well. And you can’t heal like I can.”
Angel was jerked to his feet by another tentacle and thrown across the room. He slammed hard into the wall, but sprang to his feet and charged at Alec.
“Mistake,” Alec said mildly and twitched a finger.
Angel went down in a heap, screaming, and clutched the leg which had been neatly hamstrung by another tendril of darkness.
“For all your skill, Angel, you’re still matter. You’re flesh, and bone, and blood, and that’s all, ‘creature of the dark’ or not. But I…” Alec lashed out again and again while Angel screamed in pain.
“…I am the dark!”
Angel hobbled up on his good leg and saw Alec just standing there, smiling bemusedly. The contrast between that perfectly normal right side of his face and the grotesquerie that made up the left, made the image all the more terrifying.
“Any questions?”
Angel looked up at him, weary and wounded.
“Yeah, one: what are you going to do without your heart?”
Angel surged forward and, putting all his vampiric might behind the blow, drove a fist into Alec’s chest.
…but soon found it was trapped up to the wrist.
Angel gaped at it as Alec looked down, surprise crossing his mangled features. Then he smiled at the vampire.
“My turn. Are you going to miss that hand?” he asked.
Angel began to scream loudly as black ooze enveloped his hand and began to creep up his arm.
“You know,” Alec commented, “I’m not much for Irish food, but I have to say - you look good enough to eat!” He threw back his head and cackled - an unhinged, howling laugh - as his blood broke down the bonds that held the vampire’s very essence together.
“How does it feel to be on the losing end of the food chain, Angel?” Alec asked wryly.
“Ignis!” a voice cried out and bright light flooded the chamber.
Alec whipped around, dislodging Angel from his chest. The vampire fell to the ground, incoherent, his right arm now ending in a stump of half-dissolved flesh.
“Don’t hurry off,” Alec chided Angel gently and turned to address Willow, who had just entered the room. His face fell at the sight of her.
“No!” he cried out, his voice sounding like his own again for the first time since his scarring, and he seemed to collapse in on himself, hunching over, covering his face and crouching like an animal.
Softly, Willow came over to them both. She took in Angel’s state with wide-eyed shock and knelt down to touch him.
“Angel?” she whispered softly.
“Willow… run, he’s… dangerous, crazy,” was all the vampire could manage through the pain.
Willow, on her hands and knees, reached out to Alec.
“Alec-”
“GET AWAY!”
Alec screamed, bursting at her like an animal and shoving his face in hers. Willow gasped in horror and pulled back in shock.
“Oh merciful Hecate, what have I done to you?” Willow whispered, her lips and face bone white.
“Not ‘what’, Willow,” Alec rasped, averting his face from her. “ ‘Why’? Why did you do this to me?”
“I thought-“
“You thought I was going to hurt Xander.”
Willow nodded a little at that. “That, plus all of this, and your secrets, and it was right after the battle and you almost died and it was all just too much and I freaked out and I am so, so sorry.”
Alec turned to face her again, gesturing to his ruined visage. “I don’t think ‘sorry’ is going to fix all this,” he said glumly. “Why does me keeping secrets matter so much to you, Willow?”
“Because I’m keeping some, too. Some very, very large ones,” Willow looked down. “Ones that, if anyone found out…”
“…they’d look at you like a monster,” Alec finished.
“Yeah.”
“Like the way you and the others were looking at me.”
Willow didn’t say anything, she just nodded and started to cry, choking on little girl sobs.
With his unwounded hand, Alec reached out and stroked her hand gently. Willow reached out to him and the darkness seemed to retreat from her hand, almost as if her presence pained it.
Then, lightening fast, Alec hissed at her like a snake and drew back, his face collapsing in on itself into a gray mask of shadows, rot, and fury.
“Liar!” He snarled.
“No! No, no, no …” Willow shook her head imploringly. “Please…”
“You love Xander do you? Do you know that you nearly killed him, that if I hadn’t knocked him away he would have wound up looking like this? Your precious Xander?!” Alec screamed at her, gesturing to his hideous face.
Willow just cried, she didn’t have the words.
“Alec…” Angel rasped.
Alec turned his head and hissed at him.
“What?!”
“There’s two of you, now. I can hear it in your voice - one that loves, the real you, and one that kills, the thing you’re becoming, ‘the dark’ just like you said. You have a choice now - choose the light, Alec. Choose life and love. Choose Willow, and Buffy. Choose your father.” Angel pursed his lips. “Choose Dawn.”
“Dawn…” Alec whispered, his voice shifting back and the color returning to his face.
“Willow loves Xander, Alec. Like you, she’s being pulled in two directions.” Angel cast a look above him. “Like all of us. And right now, if you want peace, you need to give it to her first. You have to forgive, not for your wounds, but because you don’t, and never will, have all of her heart. Just like she’ll never have all of yours either.”
Alec looked down at his hands, one a normal fist, the other a monstrous claw.
“A choice,” Alec mused softly, turning to look at Willow. “Is all of this true? Is this one of your ‘secrets’?”
Willow just nodded. “He’s been my best friend all of my life and I love him.”
“And me?”
Willow reached out and took his scarred hand in her own, Alec tried to draw back, but she held it firmly, eyes never wavering as she met his.
“I love you more than life itself,” she said with all the conviction she held within herself as she reached up a hand to cradle his scarred cheek.
“I believe in Alec Giles.”
Alec stared at her for a long time and then nodded as he climbed to his feet.
Angel groaned and tried to get to his feet, stumbling. Alec turned and saw this, he gestured to the crippled vampire.
“Help him,” he instructed Willow.
Willow looked up at him with a moment’s hesitation and Alec nodded to reassure her. Nodding back, Willow left Alec propped against a wall and helped drag Angel up to his feet.
“Oof! You’re heavy! How can someone who lives on a liquid diet be so heavy?” she demanded.
“It’s all those rocks in his head, which I plan on splitting open and emptying out!” a voice cried out and Spike came bolting into the room, brandishing the same length of rusted metal piping Angel had used to brain him with earlier.
“Spike, no,” Alec called out.
“Why the bloody hell not?!”
“Because my sister would never forgive you, and you know it.”
Spike gritted his teeth and turned to get a good look at Alec.
“Sod bloody all! You look like hell on toast!” the blond vampire cried out.
Alec just nodded and Spike came over to help his friend.
“Easy mate, I’ve got you.”
Wounded and exhausted, the foursome made their way out of the chamber and back towards their friends.
“Whoa, boy!”
Xander’s startled cry was what got all their attention as the four friends made their way back to the others. Everyone got a good look at what Willow’s spell had done to Alec and there were shocked gasps and cries coming from all around.
“Alec, are you okay?” Dawn asked in an aching tone, not even realizing how silly the question was.
“Dawnie, help Alec get cleaned up, okay?” Willow asked.
Dawn didn’t say anything as Spike helped her get Alec’s arm over her thin shoulders and the three of them led the wounded man out.
“And the spell?” Giles asked quietly.
Willow shook her head. “The spell runs on hate, like most black magic.”
“Meaning that as soon as you stopped hating Alec…”
“The toxicity of the spell ceased, yes. I’m familiar with the Hermetics behind most of the black arts.” Willow replied, nodding, and then sighed, looking up at Giles.
“I need your help, Rupert,” she said, using Giles’s given name for the first time since anyone could remember.
Buffy snorted. “Yeah, Wills, I’m sure horrifically scarring his son is going to-“
Giles held up a silencing finger and Buffy fell silent, glaring daggers at the red-haired witch.
“Go on,” was all Giles said.
Willow sighed. “I’ve been getting stronger, magically, but I can’t control it. What happened here tonight shouldn’t have happened.”
“The hell you say,” Spike sneered.
Willow ignored him and pressed on.
“I need to learn to control my emotions and gain the discipline I need in order to master the magic, not let it master me, because if I can’t do that, then I’m going to be a danger to myself and everyone else around me.” Willow sent an aching look around the room. “Alec’s not the dangerous one, I am.”
“Wills, c’mon-” Xander began.
“AND,” Willow continued, right over his words, “if I that happens, if I become all evil and out of control, like I was tonight, then I’m going to have to leave,” she looked at everyone in turn, “all of you. For good.”
“Willow, no, I can’t let that happen,” Xander interrupted again and this time Willow faced him.
“I love you, Xander, I always have and I always will,” she said simply. “And I know you love me back.”
Anya looked ready to scream at this and Xander didn’t look much better.
Willow continued. “But as much as I love you, I love Alec more and he’s going to need me, especially over the next few days. Which means he has to come first; him, not you.”
“Oh, come on, you see the way he moons over Dawn. You’re telling me you’re going to just give over your heart to that guy when he’s pining for a pre-teen? We all see it!”
“One, Dawn is not a pre-teen, she’s a teenaged girl and not much younger than you and I were when we first met Buffy and all this ‘life and death, fighting the forces of darkness’ business started. And, yes, Xander, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“But I-“
“-Have no say in the matter. He makes me feel loved and, really, that’s all I need from now on. And if you’re really my friend, you’ll give me your blessing.”
Xander folded his arms and smoldered. “Guess I don’t really have much of a say, do I?”
Anya hit him upside the head, hard. “Don’t be a jerk,” she chided.
Willow smiled, serenely and a little indulgently; she was being forced to grow up and her childhood friend was worried about being left behind.
“No, Xander, you don’t have a choice about my loving Alec, but you can choose if you want to be my friend still.”
With that, Willow left the room to go check on Alec, leaving the rest of the room speechless, surprised, impressed, and in at least one case, heartbroken.
Alec offered no resistance as Dawn and Spike led him into the large industrial shower.
“You kids going to be all right?” the blond vampire asked.
Dawn blew out a lock of hair as she turned to answer him. “Yeah, I think so.”
Spike nodded. “Good, I’m going to go check on your sister, won’t be a tick.”
“Okay.”
For a second, Spike considered making a lewd crack about Dawn’s ‘fantasies coming true’ now that she had the opportunity to gawk at Alec au natural, yet, somehow, it just didn’t seem… appropriate.
I’m going soft was the first thing Spike thought, followed by, Tough bastard, I’ll give him that as it pertained to his wounded friend.
Alec offered no resistance as Dawn stripped off his shirt. Most of the pus and sewage had dried to a cake-like layer over his face and clothing, but the sores on his face no longer wept and his left eye no longer streamed vitreous humor and pus. Instead, both eyes just stared blankly ahead, not really seeing, or perhaps seeing something only meant for his eyes.
Carefully, Dawn reached out to stroke his hair and Alec drew back, frightened and like a wounded child.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” she whispered to him.
Alec just shuddered and tried to curl in on himself, the trauma of the night’s events crashing down upon him like waves, paralyzing him.
Gently, she worked the rest of his clothes off him and half-carried, half-coaxed him into the shower. She placed her hand in front of the shower nozzle and turned the water on full blast, gritting her teeth and wincing as first freezing water, then scalding, struck her hand before she found the temperature she was comfortable putting Alec under. She stepped under the water in all her clothes, without a care.
Alec winced perceptibly at being exposed to the water but otherwise remained still. Carefully, almost reverently, she took a towel and wiped at his back, running her small hands over scars and burns and wounds, still fresh and puckered from the battle with the cultists, the fight against the Golobulan and others whose origins were a complete mystery to her.
“Why do you have to push so hard?” she whispered quietly, “Why do you do this to yourself?”
“Because he does what needs to be done,” a voice called out.
Dawn whipped her head around to face Willow. Instantly, she crouched in what she hoped was something akin to a threatening ‘wild-dog’ position.
“I will kill you if you touch him,” was all Dawn said.
Willow sighed and nodded. “I’ve earned that, I’m so sorry, Dawnie.”
“ ‘Sorry’? You’re ‘sorry’? Look at him! Look what you’ve done to him! You’re supposed to love him and take care of him, but now he’s broken and hurting and YOU did that to him you… bitch!”
Willow looked momentarily taken aback by Dawn’s use of profanity - she didn’t swear often - but Dawn wasn’t done with her.
“I would have never done the things you have-”
“-if you had been dating him instead of me?” Willow asked quietly.
Dawn stopped dead and looked over at the man in question, he was still hunched over, staring blankly at nothing.
“I love him,” Dawn said simply.
“I know. I love him, too,” Willow replied.
Dawn snorted and rolled her eyes derisively, then looked back at the other woman.
“Yeah, well, he’ll have a permanent reminder of your ‘love’ for him from now on.”
“You can still love him, even looking all… bad?” Willow asked in a strangely imploring tone as she gestured at him.
“Without a moment’s hesitation. You?”
“The same.”
“Huh,” Dawn scoffed, but she did return her focus to Alec, cleaning off the blood and slime from his body.
Willow came over and Alec drew away from them both, shuffling and wide eyed.
“I don’t think he likes you very much,” Dawn said coldly.
Willow looked crestfallen, but sighed and nodded, instead eased herself down to sit by the edge of the shower.
“He loves you, too, you know,” Willow said quietly.
Dawn turned to glare at Willow. “Don’t be a witch; no pun intended.”
Willow shook her head. “I’m not, he does.”
Dawn sighed and gently stroked back Alec’s wet hair, squeezing more water out of the towel and letting it wash over his skin.
“It doesn’t matter; we can’t be together for, oh, so many reasons.”
“The age thing is a problem,” Willow conceded.
“So is the girlfriend thing,” Dawn shot back. “He’s crazy about you when you’re not melting his face off.” She sent Willow a worried look. “Will the scars- ?”
“It’ll look less bad as time goes on, but yeah, he’s going to be scarred for life, physically, and probably in his spirit as well. That spell is pretty horrific.”
“Well, you are just so talented!” Dawn spat.
“I’m so sorry, Dawnie, I lost control. It won’t happen again.”
“You’re damn right, because if you ever try to hurt him again-“
“I know! I know! You’ll kill me.” Willow sighed. “Or Buffy will kill me, or Giles will kill me, or Spike will kill me. There’s a long line.”
“Comes with being popular,” a new voice called out.
Both girls turned to see Buffy entering the room.
“How is he?” Buffy asked about her brother.
Willow sighed. “He’ll live,” she reported. “But at the moment he’s not terribly responsive and the damage down the road could be worse than what happened to his face.”
“Yeah, Angel filled me in a little bit, said Alec turned bad and things went ugly down there.”
“Wonder if he holds a candle to Angelus?” Dawn put in, a little testily.
Buffy went rigid, then sighed.
“No idea, I guess we’ll just have to see what happens with him,” the Slayer lamented, reaching out to gently stroke her brother’s hair. He didn’t shy away from her, but neither did he respond and she looked crest-fallen at that.
“He can’t take much more of this, no one can,” Buffy said quietly.
“He’ll do what needs to be done,” Willow put in.
“Is dying one of those things that need to be done?” Dawn asked bitterly.
“Sometimes,” came Buffy’s ominous answer.
Dawn looked horrified at the thought, but composed herself.
He is NOT dying, not if I have anything to say about it
“So…” Buffy drawled, “I’m noticing a lot of male nudity here.”
Dawn and Willow exchanged very slight smiles, appreciating Buffy’s attempt at humor.
“Had I known he looked so good naked, I might not have agreed to the whole ‘platonic sister’ relationship as quickly as I did.”
“Get in line,” Willow replied.
“It forms to the left,” Dawn added with all seriousness.
Chuckling, Buffy looked at the two girls. “So, uh, Wills, you’re cool with...?” She gestured at Dawn sponge bathing the redhead’s boyfriend.
Willow shrugged. “It is what it is. She takes good care of him,” she said simply and Dawn smiled a little at that. “Besides, how old were you, when you saw your first guy in the buff, Buff?” Willow grinned a little. “Hey, I said ‘buff, Buff’.”
“Yeah, we heard you, and I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it would incriminate me,” Buffy replied evenly.
The three girls shared a very quiet laugh, healing each other even as they worked to heal this man they all loved.
Buffy cleared her throat to speak. “So, are you saying, even now with him hurt, you two would-?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“In a heartbeat.”
The girls laughed and blushed. It felt good to just be together and be neither afraid nor envious of the other.
The moment was shattered by Alec leaping to his feet and screaming like a man trapped in a nightmare.
“What? What’s happening?!” Dawn cried out.
“I don’t know!” Willow replied, trying to get a grip on the wildly flailing and screaming man.
“He’s freaking out!” Buffy yelled and reached out to grab her brother’s thrashing form, holding him close to her. “Shhhh, shhhh, it’s okay Alec. It’s okay.”
Dawn and Willow joined Buffy under the shower and three of them, in their sopping wet clothes, clung tightly to the fourth as he wept and rocked back and forth like a small child trapped in a nightmare.
“I believe in Alec Giles,” Buffy said softly, squeezing the arms of Dawn and Willow, the women she regarded as her own sisters.
“I believe in Alec Giles,” Dawn repeated, squeezing the hands of the other two women.
“I believe in Alec Giles,” Willow finished, adding the pressure of her hands to that of the other two women.
The night passed, the three friends, sisters, and companions held their common love. Brother and lover, friend and soul mate to them all; they cradled him like a child and eased his pain and sorrow and, in the process, their own.
And so it was that injuries inflicted upon them, and by them, at their very worst, were in turn mended by them all, at their very best, through bonds of strength, and tears, and love.
(TBC)
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Link to previous chapter
NOTE: On May 15, 2008 the previous chapter was reposted with two new scenes. It is strongly encouraged that you to re-read that chapter, since the latter of the two scenes included a plot development which is the basis for this new chapter.
Hellmouth Ascendant Trilogy: Revamped Edition
Book One:
Dusk
Chapter 21
Fallout
Spike froze mid-smile as he looked past Buffy’s shoulder, his face a study of surprise and grimness.
Click.
Buffy turned, frowning, when she heard the sound. Xander had a crossbow leveled at someone past her field of vision. When she finished rotating, the Slayer gasped.
The weapon was aimed at Alec.
“Xander, what are you-“
“What’s the deal, Dusk?” the young man demanded, using Alec’s less-familiar moniker. “Exactly when did you turn into the lovechild of Jackie Estacado and Venom? Got an alien symbiote or something?”
“Something like that,” Alec replied quietly.
“Xander, come on, stop fooling around-” Buffy tried again.
“Buff, I hate to be the person that said ‘I told you so’ but when he first showed up, I told you that it was a mistake to just trust this guy just because he says he’s Giles’s son.”
“He is my son,” Giles put in simply. “I assure you.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but right now what he isn’t, and what should be clear to everybody, is this - he’s not human.”
“So? So what?” Buffy demanded angrily. “Neither was Oz and neither are Spike and Angel!”
“Yeah, and why don’t we all just ask Giles how well Angel and his alter-ego have worked out for everyone?”
Everyone paled.
“Oh, okay, so they’re all freaks. I got you,” Buffy bit out. “But Mr. ‘I’m screwing an eleven-hundred year old ex-demon’ is completely in the right?”
“Says the woman whose ex butchered nearly half the graduating class and had to be put down like a dog!”
“All right, that’s enough!” Spike roared, getting involved for the first time. “Whatever Alec’s actual species is, the fact is that he’s stood by the lot of you since he arrived and that’s good enough for me!”
“Not for me!” Xander retorted.
“Nor me,” Angel said quietly.
Buffy whirled around. “What?” she demanded incredulously.
“He’s a Keeper demon, Buffy, I’ve seen them before. They’re called the ‘Scions of Annihilation’ by other demons.”
“That’s right,” Anya piped up, putting on what she hoped was a sincere guise of fear and worry. “Keeper demons consume and obliterate everything in their path: people, animals, even reality itself. They all just suck it up and swallow it whole, like walking black holes.”
The blonde Slayer whirled on Anya, clearly ready to strike the other woman.
“Coming from the demon who’s spent over a thousand plus years slaughtering unfaithful men, that’s almost funny.”
“Hey, back off!” Xander growled, stepping in between Buffy and Anya.
“Guys, come on!” Buffy cried out. “Xander, it’s you, me, and Wills against the world, remember? Come on, don’t do this!”
Anya could not resist the opportunity to press her advantage. “I think as long as Alec is here among us, we’re all in danger,” she turned to look up at Xander. “I think we should leave.”
Xander lowered the crossbow and wrapped an arm around Anya. “We’re not leaving honey. He is.”
Buffy took three threatening steps towards them both when Faith stepped in to stop her.
“Hey, B, chillax,” she said, attempting to placate Buffy. Instead, the other Slayer threw her hands forward, fingers crooked like claws, and aimed for Anya’s throat.
“He’s my brother!” Buffy screamed. “I am not going to abandon you heartless bitch!”
Faith gritted her teeth as she attempted to restrain her sister Slayer.
DeGanon grabbed Giles’s jacket. “You must stop this!” he hissed urgently into the other man’s ear
“That’s quite enough!” the Watcher snapped. “Xander, you and Anya go over to the other side of the room and shut the bloody hell up, both of you!” Giles then turned to the grappling Slayers. “Buffy, calm yourself, no one is being abandoned. Faith, release her!”
Faith sent Giles a dubious look, but flexed, and pushed Buffy back a few feet to give her some breathing room, releasing her at the same time.
Buffy exhaled hard and glared daggers at Anya before turning to address the others.
“Alec is family, he’s a part of our lives and whatever secrets he’s been keeping, they’re out now and we’re all just going to deal with them!”
Angel frowned slightly. Buffy was being remarkably calm about this revelation about her adopted brother, and so was Giles, for that matter, which meant…
“How long have you known Buffy?”
Buffy fixed Angel with a fierce glare.
“What?”
“You and Giles, how long have you known that Alec is a Keeper demon?”
Buffy’s moment of hesitation was all it took to condemn her.
“You knew?!” Willow screamed, speaking for the first time. “After what happened with Oz and Tara, you knew and none of you said anything?!”
“Yes, they knew!” Alec yelled back. “They knew and I asked them, I begged them, not to tell anyone, especially you, because I didn’t want to see you get hurt!” Alec looked down for a moment. “And because I was afraid.”
" ‘Afraid’! What do you mean you were ‘afraid’?” Willow demanded.
“I was afraid that you would look at me exactly the same way you’re looking at me right now,” Alec replied softly, taking in everyone else with a steady, cold look. “ The way you’re all looking at me right now - like a freak, a traitor, a demon …” he brought his eyes back to Willow, “…and no longer a man.”
Willow averted her eyes; she just couldn’t meet that haunted gaze of the man she’d grown to love. In them, she could see herself being weighed and measured and, deep within herself, she knew she simply could not measure up. The shame of it ate at her.
Dawn approached as Willow turned away.
“I believe in Alec Giles,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear; it was now her turn to address her friends and family. “I didn’t know that he was part demon. And I don’t care. He’s earned my trust, he’s earned my faith, he’s earned my… lo-… friendship,” she corrected hastily, “and for that, I believe in him.”
Dawn then walked around Alec, gently touching his arm with her small fingers, to stand behind him, arraying herself against the others.
“He is my son,” Giles said quietly and took his place beside Alec.
“He’s my brother,” Buffy chimed in and took her place beside them.
“Fag the lot of you, he’s my mate!” Spike sneered and stood by him.
Faith looked uncertain for a moment, then sighed and smiled slightly, the scar over her eye crinkling.
“Who the hell am I to judge? Between what Buffy says and what I’ve seen, Alec and I are five by five.”
Faith stepped over and stood next to Buffy, who sent the brunette Slayer the warmest smile anyone had ever seen the pair share.
Angel, Xander, Anya, and Willow looked at them from across the room. Though there was only a few feet separating the people, it was suddenly as if a wide chasm had opened up between the two grops.
“The most dangerous of monsters always start with the best of intentions. I’ve been watching you, Alec, I’ve seen you fight, and I’ve seen you kill, that night outside Grigori…” Angel said quietly, “…and I’ve seen you enjoy it.”
“Bloody Hell, Angelus…” Spike sneered. “Isn’t this a bit of the ol’ ‘pot and kettle’?”
Angel tilted his head to address his progeny. “You’re right, Spike, that’s how I can tell. See, he’s not like you. You’re an idiot, you always have been, but for you it’s the violence.” The older vampire shifted, returning his gaze to Alec. “For him, it’s not the blood, it’s the kill. And he’ll keep doing it, over and over again, until one day the reason, the 'greater good', is no longer important. And then he’ll be just like me.”
“He’s nothing like you,” Buffy spat, her eyes teary. "He does what needs to be done."
“Hey, if the resident pro murderer says there’s a new rookie in the pen, I’m inclined to believe him,” Xander chimed in. “I always knew Angel was going to be trouble and if any one of you had actually listened to me, maybe Jenny would still be alive. Now, there’s a new stray and once again I’ve got a bad feeling, and this time you are all going to listen to me.” Xander looked past Alec to the man’s father. “Because, no offense, G-man, I plan on doing a better job protecting my lady than you did yours.”
“Drop dead,” Alec snarled, outraged at how his father was being assaulted.
“You first, buddy,” Xander replied, bringing his crossbow up again.
Alec ignored the weapon and turned his look upon Willow, his cold glare melting into an imploring look at his lover.
"Willow?" he rasped, agony and pleading infusing every syllable of her name.
Willow looked up, her eyes wet with tears.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly and then, very deliberately, stood next to Xander. Xander, for his part, made room for her beside him and smiled.
"It's okay, Wills, really," he assured her.
"I'm sorry, too," was all Alec said, even as the others stared, aghast, at Willow's apparent betrayal.
Anya reached out and put a hand on Xander's arm.
"Dawn…" she whispered quietly to her lover and he took the hint.
"Yeah, come on, Dawn, it isn't safe with him," he said, reaching for her.
…And then everything went to hell.
"Don't touch me!" Dawn cried out, recoiling.
"Get away from her!" Alec roared at the same time, lashing out with a fist and catching Xander across the jaw.
"Xander!"
Willow cried out before flexing her fingers and pointing, saying a string of arcane words. A series of small dark blobs flew from her fingertips towards Alec as the Wicca attempted to protect her childhood friend.
Xander, meanwhile, recovered from the blow and charged at the younger Giles.
Alec could see that the spell his lover had cast would strike the boy instead of himself. Reasoning that his healing factor could handle whatever Willow could throw at him, Alec swept Xander's feet out from under him and turned his own face away from the spell, hoping to minimize the amount of damage it would do to him by giving it only a side profile instead of a full frontal strike.
Seconds later the spell hit him.
Within Willow Rosenberg shame had given way to anger, and anger to hatred. As one of the most powerful witches known to the world, and with vast reserves of her potential still untapped, that hatred and her raw power made the spell she cast stronger than anything anyone assembled had ever seen.
The spell struck Alec in the left side of the face and neck; time stood still for a heartbeat.
Alec slapped a hand over his face to keep the dark goop from splattering upon the others, especially Dawn, who was millimeters away from his face. His remaining eye found hers and there was time for a single look to be shared between them, an instant in which all their feelings, their regrets, and the care they held for each other, was transmitted.
The next moment the light of life, of kindness and humanity, in Alec's good eye flickered and went out, carried away by one crystal clear tear running down his face, like a flood carrying away a drowning child.
Then he began to scream - a loud animal-like wail of agony that set everyone's teeth on edge. He screamed over and over again as the gooey blobs stuck to his face and hand, consumed his flesh, tore at him, devoured and infected every last cell that it had struck, dissolving flesh and bone and boiling away his blood.
"ALEC!" Buffy cried out, reaching towards him.
Alec stumbled away, still screaming and clutching at the ruined half of his face, and fell to his knees near a large grated drain.
Willow looked on, horrified by what she had done, as her lover screamed and cried, slammed his fists and his head into the floor, into the wall, over and over again; did anything to dull the sheer torture wracking his body. Where he struck the wall, it began to dissolve as residue from the redhead’s spell struck it.
"What did you DO to him?!" Dawn screamed out.
Even Xander looked freaked, hand reached out towards Willow, who was staring blankly at the whole spectacle.
"WHY!??!?"
The question exploded into the room as Alec screamed at his lover, removing his hand from his face. The darkness in the room concealed the damage done, but the unscarred side of his face was flushed bright red; the man’s teeth were clenched so hard that the porcelain was cracking and shattering, and he foamed and spat in pain-fueled fury. Staggering up to his feet, Alec looked like he was ready to kill everyone in the room.
Xander cried out in alarm at the sight, brought up the crossbow, and fired. The bolt flew past everyone and caught Alec in the shoulder. The younger Giles was pitched backwards and landed heavily on the grate on the floor. It gave away and he was plunged into the dark, his cries of pain fading as he fell.
Giles removed his gun and leveled it square with Xander's eyes.
"This is an enchanted weapon," he said simply. "It is called 'Lily', a nickname given to Alec's mother, and named in honor of her memory. It was reportedly forged with shards of metal that came from the sword of Uriel, the angel of death, and its bullets will kill anything they strike, living or dead, so long as the heart of the person using it is filled with hatred." Giles cocked the hammer. "And right now, Alexander Harris, I hate no person on this planet so much as I hate you."
Xander swallowed quietly, but stood his ground bravely. Everyone held their breaths, waiting to see if the librarian was going to decorate the walls of this chamber with the young man’s brain matter.
Giles sighed heavily and uncocked the hammer.
"But murder will not bring back my son," he said finally.
Xander breathed a sigh of relief, right before Rupert cracked him in the skull, hard, with the butt of the gun, dropping him to the ground.
"Xander!" Anya cried out and dropped to her knees to aid her lover.
"On the other hand, beating you senseless holds a certain appeal," Giles added mildly before turning to Willow, who still seemed to be in shock.
"What. Did You Do. To My Son?" Giles asked, spacing each part of the sentence freely.
"The Yersinia Curse," was all Willow said.
"The plague rite! You… stupid, foolish girl!" he spat out, his face red with rage. "Where did you get that spell?!"
"I was just trying to protect Xander," Willow said numbly, clearly not hearing the question.
Giles snarled with impatience, clearly the young girl was in shock and would be of no further use to him. He whirled around.
"We need to get to him immediately! That spell will eat through his body and when it's done with him, it will come after the rest of us!"
"I'm on it!" Buffy yelled.
"No! No one living can go after him; they run the risk of infection."
"Right, then. I'll get him, bring him back, get him patched up, and then I'm going to shove a broken bottle through the faces of a few people here. How does that sound?" Spike growled.
"Fine by me," Dawn said darkly.
"Seconded," Faith added.
"Angel, go with him," Giles instructed. Angel nodded and, as he was walking past, Giles grabbed his arm, stopping him dead. "Bring him back alive, Angel, or you won't live to regret it."
Angel said nothing, merely looked down at the other man's grip on his arm. With a deliberate motion, Giles released him and Angel and Spike headed down the drain after Alec.
" 'And more, much more than this, I did it my way'."
Spike's voice echoed hollowly through the sewer tunnel, barely audible over the sounds of rushing water and rats.
"Could you not do that?" Angel asked testily. "It sort of detracts from the whole 'element of surprise' approach."
Spike scoffed. "Yeah, trust me, mate, my boy isn't someone you want to be sneaking up on, even when he hasn't had half his face melted off by his crumpet." Spike gritted his teeth. "Bitch is going to have a lot to answer for when I get a hold of her."
"She was only trying to protect her friend."
"Yeah, and he was only trying to protect Dawn. In case you haven't noticed, the two of them have a weird sort of bond going on."
Angel shot Spike a glare from over his shoulder and nearly stepped on a rat.
"Yes. A man in his early twenties spending that much time fawning over a teenaged girl; we have many names for that kind of 'bond'. Last I heard, though, that was a felony in these parts."
"Says the self-confessed cradle robbing creature of the night ex-boyfriend."
Angel gritted his teeth harder and kicked at another rat as Spike continued to speak.
"Besides, it's not like that. I know Alec, he's a good bloke, no funny business going on with that one. Granted, having your girlfriend nuke your face might call into question one's loyalties." Spike sent Angel a sideways look as they continued deeper down the tunnel. "Though, I'll bet you don't need a reminder about loyalty in the face of greatly upsetting things, what with having a sword shoved through you and being sent to Hell by your ex and all."
Angel whirled on the other vampire. "All right, Spike-"
"Two other things I know about our boy." Spike went right on. "One, I know that this is his favorite song. Some of us prefer our music less whiny than the 'It'll End In Tears' album," Spike taunted. "It's what he and I first bonded over when he came to Sunnydale - Sid Vicious and good scotch. I want Alec to know that we're down here and not actually out to kill him or anything, and I thought making sure he heard his favorite song would help that."
"Sinatra's version was better," Angel growled at Spike as he began to walk ahead. "You said you knew two things about Alec, what's the other thing?"
"He's very, very close by."
Angel stopped and turned around to face the white-haired vampire.
"How do you know?"
Spike smiled nastily and shoved his way past Angel to head deeper down the tunnel.
"No rats."
Angel looked down and, indeed, there were no rats to be found anywhere. In fact the entire area was draped in an oppressive silence and a darkness that hung thick in the air.
Spike cupped his hands over his mouth as Angel reached down into the muck by his feet and grabbed hold of a rusted length of pipe.
"Oy! Alec! You down here, mate? Come on, we can have a scotch and kill your girlfriend or something!" Spike's voice boomed in the now deathly silence that enveloped them.
Suddenly, Angel swung the bar and caught Spike across the back of the head. The blond grunted once and slumped, face first, into the muck and slime coating the floor.
"Sorry, Spike, but like the woman said 'we need to be able to do what needs to be done', and in this case, it might involve putting Alec down for good.”
Spike groaned slightly, stirring, and Angel brought the bar up again…
…but it was yanked out of his hands with a sudden, violent jerk.
"Uncalled for," a voice rasped from very close by.
Angel turned as something shot out of the darkness, connected with his jaw, and sent him staggering backwards. A second blow connected with his solar plexus, and a third - a boot this time - connected with his skull, sending him tumbling backwards through an open side portal and into a heap in a pool of water in the middle of a large chamber.
Angel spat out a mouthful of dirty water and tried to get his bearings; he could barely see in the thick subterranean darkness.
"Alec! Come out! We only want to help you!"
A low, quiet laugh filled the chamber and it set Angel's teeth on edge.
"Ah, my own ‘guardian Angel’, as it were. Tell me, are you planning on helping me like you helped Spike? Thanks, but no thanks. Besides…"
Something collided hard with Angel's chest and sent him sprawling back into the water.
"…what makes you think I need any help?"
Angel got to his feet again, growling, his game face in place.
"Oh, scary," Alec's voice mocked from the darkness.
Angel spun around towards it, but it was no use. The acoustics in the room were terrible and made it sound like a shadowmancer was speaking from all around him.
"I can smell your blood and hear your heartbeat, Dusk," Angel said, emphasizing the alternate name. "I don't need eyes to fight you."
"Oh, good, now I'll feel less guilty about removing them."
Angel growled and spun around, trying to get a bead on Alec's location. He should have been able to hear the other’s footfalls in the pool of water that covered the floor, but so far, nothing.
"Willow's spell, its effects-" Angel began.
"-Are getting worse… or better, depending on whether or not you count my body rotting out from under me as a good thing,” Alec interjected.
Got him!
Angel spun and thrust out with a kick, connecting with something solid in the dark. There was a whoosh of suddenly exhaled air and the splash of a falling form.
"You might have a great deal of training, Dusk, but I have a lot of years on you," Angel said calmly. “and I promise you, I’m more of a creature of the dark than you’ll ever be.”
The darkness cleared a little bit and Angel could now see Alec getting to his feet from the water.
"Angel, Angel, Angel, haven't you learned by now? It's not the quantity of your years..."
Without warning, Alec cart-wheeled over to Angel and thrust a boot hard up under the vampire's jaw, making him stagger backwards.
"…but the quality. And in that vein, I'll take my training over your experience any day."
“Spoken like a true amateur.”
Angel’s hand snaked out, caught Alec by the scruff of the neck, and hurled him bodily into the wall with a thud!
Alec landed in a heap, still chuckling mockingly.
“Why, Angel, you’re holding back.”
The vampire grabbed a fistful of Alec’s hair and hoisted the man to his feet, pushing his face close to the other’s to give the young man a good look at his vampiric features.
“Things could get ugly if I don’t,” Angel replied.
Alec brought his own face closer, letting Angel finally see it.
“I’d be forced to say that they already have,” Alec commented.
Angel sucked in a breath in shock. The left side of Alec’s face was a gray pulpy mass of rotted tissue and cancerous tumors that pulsed and bulged obscenely. It looked like a melted wax sculpture - the left earlobe, eyelid and all the hair on that side was just gone. Even as Angel watched in sick horror, the masses of cancerous growths throbbed, and pushed bits of wet lumpy flesh and oozing pus out of Alec’s face; the flesh and pus fell to the ground with a wet splat!. A single black and yellow eye wept pus as it focused on the vampire.
“My God…” Angel whispered.
Alec looked around and up towards the ceiling inquisitively.
“God?” he asked mildly, bringing his left hand, now an oozing, half-melted claw, up to his face to scratch in mock contemplation, trailing away long ropy strands of pus from his face.
“God isn’t here.”
He then smiled his familiar crooked grin; now one part familiar gesture, one part slobbering lipless obscenity, and hurled Angel away from him.
The vampire scrambled to his feet and went all out, throwing punch after punch, hammering his fists into Alec. Angel could feel Alec’s ribs giving way, bones breaking and organs swelling under the onslaught. Alec did his best to defend himself, but the vampire’s fury and horror was too much and the scarred young man fell beneath the assault.
“You’re pretty spry, Dusk, but you can’t dish out the kind of punishment Buffy can,” Angel drew back his fist and smashed in Alec’s nose. “And you can’t withstand it either.”
Alec coughed weakly, felt something in his chest break apart, and spat out some blood and slime.
“Oh, I imagine that’s true, Angel. Buffy has her tricks… and I have mine.”
A tendril of darkness lashed out from the shadows, Angel screamed in pain and fell back as it drew a bloody line across his chest.
Alec began advancing on Angel and, even as the vampire watched, Alec’s bones began to knit themselves back together, healing the damage Angel had just done to them.
“You see… while, yes, it’s true that I can’t hit hard…” Alec explained as another tendril of darkness lashed Angel across the chest, “…I can hit well. And you can’t heal like I can.”
Angel was jerked to his feet by another tentacle and thrown across the room. He slammed hard into the wall, but sprang to his feet and charged at Alec.
“Mistake,” Alec said mildly and twitched a finger.
Angel went down in a heap, screaming, and clutched the leg which had been neatly hamstrung by another tendril of darkness.
“For all your skill, Angel, you’re still matter. You’re flesh, and bone, and blood, and that’s all, ‘creature of the dark’ or not. But I…” Alec lashed out again and again while Angel screamed in pain.
“…I am the dark!”
Angel hobbled up on his good leg and saw Alec just standing there, smiling bemusedly. The contrast between that perfectly normal right side of his face and the grotesquerie that made up the left, made the image all the more terrifying.
“Any questions?”
Angel looked up at him, weary and wounded.
“Yeah, one: what are you going to do without your heart?”
Angel surged forward and, putting all his vampiric might behind the blow, drove a fist into Alec’s chest.
…but soon found it was trapped up to the wrist.
Angel gaped at it as Alec looked down, surprise crossing his mangled features. Then he smiled at the vampire.
“My turn. Are you going to miss that hand?” he asked.
Angel began to scream loudly as black ooze enveloped his hand and began to creep up his arm.
“You know,” Alec commented, “I’m not much for Irish food, but I have to say - you look good enough to eat!” He threw back his head and cackled - an unhinged, howling laugh - as his blood broke down the bonds that held the vampire’s very essence together.
“How does it feel to be on the losing end of the food chain, Angel?” Alec asked wryly.
“Ignis!” a voice cried out and bright light flooded the chamber.
Alec whipped around, dislodging Angel from his chest. The vampire fell to the ground, incoherent, his right arm now ending in a stump of half-dissolved flesh.
“Don’t hurry off,” Alec chided Angel gently and turned to address Willow, who had just entered the room. His face fell at the sight of her.
“No!” he cried out, his voice sounding like his own again for the first time since his scarring, and he seemed to collapse in on himself, hunching over, covering his face and crouching like an animal.
Softly, Willow came over to them both. She took in Angel’s state with wide-eyed shock and knelt down to touch him.
“Angel?” she whispered softly.
“Willow… run, he’s… dangerous, crazy,” was all the vampire could manage through the pain.
Willow, on her hands and knees, reached out to Alec.
“Alec-”
“GET AWAY!”
Alec screamed, bursting at her like an animal and shoving his face in hers. Willow gasped in horror and pulled back in shock.
“Oh merciful Hecate, what have I done to you?” Willow whispered, her lips and face bone white.
“Not ‘what’, Willow,” Alec rasped, averting his face from her. “ ‘Why’? Why did you do this to me?”
“I thought-“
“You thought I was going to hurt Xander.”
Willow nodded a little at that. “That, plus all of this, and your secrets, and it was right after the battle and you almost died and it was all just too much and I freaked out and I am so, so sorry.”
Alec turned to face her again, gesturing to his ruined visage. “I don’t think ‘sorry’ is going to fix all this,” he said glumly. “Why does me keeping secrets matter so much to you, Willow?”
“Because I’m keeping some, too. Some very, very large ones,” Willow looked down. “Ones that, if anyone found out…”
“…they’d look at you like a monster,” Alec finished.
“Yeah.”
“Like the way you and the others were looking at me.”
Willow didn’t say anything, she just nodded and started to cry, choking on little girl sobs.
With his unwounded hand, Alec reached out and stroked her hand gently. Willow reached out to him and the darkness seemed to retreat from her hand, almost as if her presence pained it.
Then, lightening fast, Alec hissed at her like a snake and drew back, his face collapsing in on itself into a gray mask of shadows, rot, and fury.
“Liar!” He snarled.
“No! No, no, no …” Willow shook her head imploringly. “Please…”
“You love Xander do you? Do you know that you nearly killed him, that if I hadn’t knocked him away he would have wound up looking like this? Your precious Xander?!” Alec screamed at her, gesturing to his hideous face.
Willow just cried, she didn’t have the words.
“Alec…” Angel rasped.
Alec turned his head and hissed at him.
“What?!”
“There’s two of you, now. I can hear it in your voice - one that loves, the real you, and one that kills, the thing you’re becoming, ‘the dark’ just like you said. You have a choice now - choose the light, Alec. Choose life and love. Choose Willow, and Buffy. Choose your father.” Angel pursed his lips. “Choose Dawn.”
“Dawn…” Alec whispered, his voice shifting back and the color returning to his face.
“Willow loves Xander, Alec. Like you, she’s being pulled in two directions.” Angel cast a look above him. “Like all of us. And right now, if you want peace, you need to give it to her first. You have to forgive, not for your wounds, but because you don’t, and never will, have all of her heart. Just like she’ll never have all of yours either.”
Alec looked down at his hands, one a normal fist, the other a monstrous claw.
“A choice,” Alec mused softly, turning to look at Willow. “Is all of this true? Is this one of your ‘secrets’?”
Willow just nodded. “He’s been my best friend all of my life and I love him.”
“And me?”
Willow reached out and took his scarred hand in her own, Alec tried to draw back, but she held it firmly, eyes never wavering as she met his.
“I love you more than life itself,” she said with all the conviction she held within herself as she reached up a hand to cradle his scarred cheek.
“I believe in Alec Giles.”
Alec stared at her for a long time and then nodded as he climbed to his feet.
Angel groaned and tried to get to his feet, stumbling. Alec turned and saw this, he gestured to the crippled vampire.
“Help him,” he instructed Willow.
Willow looked up at him with a moment’s hesitation and Alec nodded to reassure her. Nodding back, Willow left Alec propped against a wall and helped drag Angel up to his feet.
“Oof! You’re heavy! How can someone who lives on a liquid diet be so heavy?” she demanded.
“It’s all those rocks in his head, which I plan on splitting open and emptying out!” a voice cried out and Spike came bolting into the room, brandishing the same length of rusted metal piping Angel had used to brain him with earlier.
“Spike, no,” Alec called out.
“Why the bloody hell not?!”
“Because my sister would never forgive you, and you know it.”
Spike gritted his teeth and turned to get a good look at Alec.
“Sod bloody all! You look like hell on toast!” the blond vampire cried out.
Alec just nodded and Spike came over to help his friend.
“Easy mate, I’ve got you.”
Wounded and exhausted, the foursome made their way out of the chamber and back towards their friends.
“Whoa, boy!”
Xander’s startled cry was what got all their attention as the four friends made their way back to the others. Everyone got a good look at what Willow’s spell had done to Alec and there were shocked gasps and cries coming from all around.
“Alec, are you okay?” Dawn asked in an aching tone, not even realizing how silly the question was.
“Dawnie, help Alec get cleaned up, okay?” Willow asked.
Dawn didn’t say anything as Spike helped her get Alec’s arm over her thin shoulders and the three of them led the wounded man out.
“And the spell?” Giles asked quietly.
Willow shook her head. “The spell runs on hate, like most black magic.”
“Meaning that as soon as you stopped hating Alec…”
“The toxicity of the spell ceased, yes. I’m familiar with the Hermetics behind most of the black arts.” Willow replied, nodding, and then sighed, looking up at Giles.
“I need your help, Rupert,” she said, using Giles’s given name for the first time since anyone could remember.
Buffy snorted. “Yeah, Wills, I’m sure horrifically scarring his son is going to-“
Giles held up a silencing finger and Buffy fell silent, glaring daggers at the red-haired witch.
“Go on,” was all Giles said.
Willow sighed. “I’ve been getting stronger, magically, but I can’t control it. What happened here tonight shouldn’t have happened.”
“The hell you say,” Spike sneered.
Willow ignored him and pressed on.
“I need to learn to control my emotions and gain the discipline I need in order to master the magic, not let it master me, because if I can’t do that, then I’m going to be a danger to myself and everyone else around me.” Willow sent an aching look around the room. “Alec’s not the dangerous one, I am.”
“Wills, c’mon-” Xander began.
“AND,” Willow continued, right over his words, “if I that happens, if I become all evil and out of control, like I was tonight, then I’m going to have to leave,” she looked at everyone in turn, “all of you. For good.”
“Willow, no, I can’t let that happen,” Xander interrupted again and this time Willow faced him.
“I love you, Xander, I always have and I always will,” she said simply. “And I know you love me back.”
Anya looked ready to scream at this and Xander didn’t look much better.
Willow continued. “But as much as I love you, I love Alec more and he’s going to need me, especially over the next few days. Which means he has to come first; him, not you.”
“Oh, come on, you see the way he moons over Dawn. You’re telling me you’re going to just give over your heart to that guy when he’s pining for a pre-teen? We all see it!”
“One, Dawn is not a pre-teen, she’s a teenaged girl and not much younger than you and I were when we first met Buffy and all this ‘life and death, fighting the forces of darkness’ business started. And, yes, Xander, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“But I-“
“-Have no say in the matter. He makes me feel loved and, really, that’s all I need from now on. And if you’re really my friend, you’ll give me your blessing.”
Xander folded his arms and smoldered. “Guess I don’t really have much of a say, do I?”
Anya hit him upside the head, hard. “Don’t be a jerk,” she chided.
Willow smiled, serenely and a little indulgently; she was being forced to grow up and her childhood friend was worried about being left behind.
“No, Xander, you don’t have a choice about my loving Alec, but you can choose if you want to be my friend still.”
With that, Willow left the room to go check on Alec, leaving the rest of the room speechless, surprised, impressed, and in at least one case, heartbroken.
Alec offered no resistance as Dawn and Spike led him into the large industrial shower.
“You kids going to be all right?” the blond vampire asked.
Dawn blew out a lock of hair as she turned to answer him. “Yeah, I think so.”
Spike nodded. “Good, I’m going to go check on your sister, won’t be a tick.”
“Okay.”
For a second, Spike considered making a lewd crack about Dawn’s ‘fantasies coming true’ now that she had the opportunity to gawk at Alec au natural, yet, somehow, it just didn’t seem… appropriate.
I’m going soft was the first thing Spike thought, followed by, Tough bastard, I’ll give him that as it pertained to his wounded friend.
Alec offered no resistance as Dawn stripped off his shirt. Most of the pus and sewage had dried to a cake-like layer over his face and clothing, but the sores on his face no longer wept and his left eye no longer streamed vitreous humor and pus. Instead, both eyes just stared blankly ahead, not really seeing, or perhaps seeing something only meant for his eyes.
Carefully, Dawn reached out to stroke his hair and Alec drew back, frightened and like a wounded child.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” she whispered to him.
Alec just shuddered and tried to curl in on himself, the trauma of the night’s events crashing down upon him like waves, paralyzing him.
Gently, she worked the rest of his clothes off him and half-carried, half-coaxed him into the shower. She placed her hand in front of the shower nozzle and turned the water on full blast, gritting her teeth and wincing as first freezing water, then scalding, struck her hand before she found the temperature she was comfortable putting Alec under. She stepped under the water in all her clothes, without a care.
Alec winced perceptibly at being exposed to the water but otherwise remained still. Carefully, almost reverently, she took a towel and wiped at his back, running her small hands over scars and burns and wounds, still fresh and puckered from the battle with the cultists, the fight against the Golobulan and others whose origins were a complete mystery to her.
“Why do you have to push so hard?” she whispered quietly, “Why do you do this to yourself?”
“Because he does what needs to be done,” a voice called out.
Dawn whipped her head around to face Willow. Instantly, she crouched in what she hoped was something akin to a threatening ‘wild-dog’ position.
“I will kill you if you touch him,” was all Dawn said.
Willow sighed and nodded. “I’ve earned that, I’m so sorry, Dawnie.”
“ ‘Sorry’? You’re ‘sorry’? Look at him! Look what you’ve done to him! You’re supposed to love him and take care of him, but now he’s broken and hurting and YOU did that to him you… bitch!”
Willow looked momentarily taken aback by Dawn’s use of profanity - she didn’t swear often - but Dawn wasn’t done with her.
“I would have never done the things you have-”
“-if you had been dating him instead of me?” Willow asked quietly.
Dawn stopped dead and looked over at the man in question, he was still hunched over, staring blankly at nothing.
“I love him,” Dawn said simply.
“I know. I love him, too,” Willow replied.
Dawn snorted and rolled her eyes derisively, then looked back at the other woman.
“Yeah, well, he’ll have a permanent reminder of your ‘love’ for him from now on.”
“You can still love him, even looking all… bad?” Willow asked in a strangely imploring tone as she gestured at him.
“Without a moment’s hesitation. You?”
“The same.”
“Huh,” Dawn scoffed, but she did return her focus to Alec, cleaning off the blood and slime from his body.
Willow came over and Alec drew away from them both, shuffling and wide eyed.
“I don’t think he likes you very much,” Dawn said coldly.
Willow looked crestfallen, but sighed and nodded, instead eased herself down to sit by the edge of the shower.
“He loves you, too, you know,” Willow said quietly.
Dawn turned to glare at Willow. “Don’t be a witch; no pun intended.”
Willow shook her head. “I’m not, he does.”
Dawn sighed and gently stroked back Alec’s wet hair, squeezing more water out of the towel and letting it wash over his skin.
“It doesn’t matter; we can’t be together for, oh, so many reasons.”
“The age thing is a problem,” Willow conceded.
“So is the girlfriend thing,” Dawn shot back. “He’s crazy about you when you’re not melting his face off.” She sent Willow a worried look. “Will the scars- ?”
“It’ll look less bad as time goes on, but yeah, he’s going to be scarred for life, physically, and probably in his spirit as well. That spell is pretty horrific.”
“Well, you are just so talented!” Dawn spat.
“I’m so sorry, Dawnie, I lost control. It won’t happen again.”
“You’re damn right, because if you ever try to hurt him again-“
“I know! I know! You’ll kill me.” Willow sighed. “Or Buffy will kill me, or Giles will kill me, or Spike will kill me. There’s a long line.”
“Comes with being popular,” a new voice called out.
Both girls turned to see Buffy entering the room.
“How is he?” Buffy asked about her brother.
Willow sighed. “He’ll live,” she reported. “But at the moment he’s not terribly responsive and the damage down the road could be worse than what happened to his face.”
“Yeah, Angel filled me in a little bit, said Alec turned bad and things went ugly down there.”
“Wonder if he holds a candle to Angelus?” Dawn put in, a little testily.
Buffy went rigid, then sighed.
“No idea, I guess we’ll just have to see what happens with him,” the Slayer lamented, reaching out to gently stroke her brother’s hair. He didn’t shy away from her, but neither did he respond and she looked crest-fallen at that.
“He can’t take much more of this, no one can,” Buffy said quietly.
“He’ll do what needs to be done,” Willow put in.
“Is dying one of those things that need to be done?” Dawn asked bitterly.
“Sometimes,” came Buffy’s ominous answer.
Dawn looked horrified at the thought, but composed herself.
He is NOT dying, not if I have anything to say about it
“So…” Buffy drawled, “I’m noticing a lot of male nudity here.”
Dawn and Willow exchanged very slight smiles, appreciating Buffy’s attempt at humor.
“Had I known he looked so good naked, I might not have agreed to the whole ‘platonic sister’ relationship as quickly as I did.”
“Get in line,” Willow replied.
“It forms to the left,” Dawn added with all seriousness.
Chuckling, Buffy looked at the two girls. “So, uh, Wills, you’re cool with...?” She gestured at Dawn sponge bathing the redhead’s boyfriend.
Willow shrugged. “It is what it is. She takes good care of him,” she said simply and Dawn smiled a little at that. “Besides, how old were you, when you saw your first guy in the buff, Buff?” Willow grinned a little. “Hey, I said ‘buff, Buff’.”
“Yeah, we heard you, and I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it would incriminate me,” Buffy replied evenly.
The three girls shared a very quiet laugh, healing each other even as they worked to heal this man they all loved.
Buffy cleared her throat to speak. “So, are you saying, even now with him hurt, you two would-?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“In a heartbeat.”
The girls laughed and blushed. It felt good to just be together and be neither afraid nor envious of the other.
The moment was shattered by Alec leaping to his feet and screaming like a man trapped in a nightmare.
“What? What’s happening?!” Dawn cried out.
“I don’t know!” Willow replied, trying to get a grip on the wildly flailing and screaming man.
“He’s freaking out!” Buffy yelled and reached out to grab her brother’s thrashing form, holding him close to her. “Shhhh, shhhh, it’s okay Alec. It’s okay.”
Dawn and Willow joined Buffy under the shower and three of them, in their sopping wet clothes, clung tightly to the fourth as he wept and rocked back and forth like a small child trapped in a nightmare.
“I believe in Alec Giles,” Buffy said softly, squeezing the arms of Dawn and Willow, the women she regarded as her own sisters.
“I believe in Alec Giles,” Dawn repeated, squeezing the hands of the other two women.
“I believe in Alec Giles,” Willow finished, adding the pressure of her hands to that of the other two women.
The night passed, the three friends, sisters, and companions held their common love. Brother and lover, friend and soul mate to them all; they cradled him like a child and eased his pain and sorrow and, in the process, their own.
And so it was that injuries inflicted upon them, and by them, at their very worst, were in turn mended by them all, at their very best, through bonds of strength, and tears, and love.
(TBC)