SLASH FIC: Through the Looking-Glass 3/? [BtVS/Stargate SG-1]
Title: Through the Looking-Glass 3/?
Author: Feygan
Fandom: Buffy/Stargate SG-1
Pairing: Xander/Daniel
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Stargate: SG-1.
LiveJournal: http://feygan.livejournal.com
Home: http://www.darkgesture.com/fanfiction.htm
Summary: Xander jumps realities and ends up at Stargate Command.
.
They'd been fighting for two days straight. The General had barely managed to keep the base from self-destruction. It had taken a lot of fast talking to the President to rescind the order, but their time was almost up. They had less than eight hours left before the choice was taken out of their hands and Cheyenne Mountain became a crater and a "What the hell...?" story on the five o'clock news.
"How are we supposed to kill all these bastards when they just keep making more?" Jack demanded. "I had to stake Private Tolentino today. I am not happy."
Sam patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry sir. We almost have the synthetic sunlight generators online."
"Why's it taking you so long to put 'em together?" Jack asked.
Sam gave him an apologetic look and a shrug of her shoulders. "With the lab levels overrun by hostiles, we've pretty much been stringing together whatever we could find. It's just lucky that we managed to find as many of the parts we need as we have."
Jack grunted dissatisfaction. He felt like for every step forward they took, there was ten steps backward. It just didn't seem to be worth it.
Maybe it would be easier just to let the base be destroyed? One little push of the button and BOOM! all their problems would be solved once and for all.
When he realized where his thoughts were straying, he drew himself up short and took a deep breath. That was a dark path he was walking and he refused to go down it again, especially with people depending on him to find a way out of this situation.
His eyes strayed across the room to where Daniel slept curled up on the floor with his head on Xander's leg, his glasses tucked safely in his pocket. Xander was asleep sitting up, his back against the wall, his head tipped to one side with his mouth slack as he breathed deeply. They were cute together, the two boyish looking men resting deeply after days of exhaustive hand-to-hand fighting.
Looking at them, Jack had to admit that they were the reason he was feeling so bleak.
It sucked knowing that Daniel had moved on, never mind that it had been him that had largely ruined their relationship. Jack had always just felt that they belonged together and that that was the way they were going to be again someday. Jack and Daniel. Daniel and Jack. They went together so well, so why had they broken up?
Because I'm a thoughtless dick, he thought angrily, dragging his eyes away from his ex-lover.
He would always love Daniel, but he knew intellectually that they didn't belong together, not anymore. They had drifted too far apart to ever be able to make anything lasting and real between them. Not that he didn't miss the earth-shattering sex, that would always be something great between them.
Daniel's not mine anymore, he thought. Get over it.
Overdramatic thoughts of suicide aside, he had a job to do here, and there was no getting sidetracked.
Pulling "Colonel Jack O'Neill" tight around him, he focused on what Sam and the other science nerds were blathering on and on about.
* * *
Across the room, Xander wasn't as asleep as he appeared to outside observers.
He could feel Daniel's head against his thigh, the gentle breaths moving the leg hairs back and forth, as he was wearing just his boxers since his pants were hanging to dry. It felt nice to have someone nearby, to know that someone cared about what happened to him and was willing to stand up to any threat to help him out.
That's why he felt so bad about not being one hundred percent truthful about what he could do to help his new friends. It was just that he didn't want to end up being dissected or something.
He could just picture himself being all dead and chopped up just so they could figure out three-fourths through that physically he was just a normal human. Something like that would definitely not be cool.
What am I supposed to do? he thought.
He knew there wasn't much time and that he was going to have to make his decision soon. There was no other choice. He really didn't want his new friends to die because he was too afraid to step up to the plate.
Operating on instinct, he let his hand fall down onto Daniel's head, absently stroking that soft, soft hair. It was almost like having a really big pet, a really big, hot pet.
His attraction to Daniel had come as a bit of a surprise to him, since Daniel wasn't the usual kind of man-flesh he was attracted to. He liked more muscular, overpowering men, probably a result of spending so much time around Angel back in the brooding days.
Daniel had won him over with his wonderful personality though, which meant the attraction was going to last longer than Xander's usual wham-bam-"thank you, man" so-called "relationships."
This world was familiar on so many levels, but he never felt completely comfortable anywhere that he stood. He was a stranger in a strange land and he was never quite sure what he was supposed to reveal about his past and the life he had lived on the Sunnydale Hellmouth of his home dimension. Some things were just too disturbing and weird to be talked about with people that hadn't lived it.
He really didn't know how they would react if he told them about some of his special abilities. But if things kept going as bad as they were headed, he would have to reveal his secrets to keep them all from being killed. It was a definite bit of trouble headed his way.
Sighing heavily, Xander forced his spine a little looser, relaxing as much as he possibly could. Years of slaying experience, where he would have to snatch rest wherever he could, had given him the ability to sleep almost anywhere and in any situation no matter how dire.
Purposely slowing his heartbeat, he felt his mind slipping away into restful slumber.
* * *
"Whoa, duck!" Jack yelled.
Xander hit the floor shoulder first and rolled out of the line of fire. He came up on one knee to plunge his stake into another vampire while Jack zatted the one that had been coming up behind him. "Thanks," he called with a grin, already moving on toward another bunch of bloodsuckers.
Even though he didn't particularly like him, Jack had to admit that the kid had some definite skills when it came to killing vampires. It was obvious that Xander had studied various martial arts and he had admitted to learning what he called "demon-fu," which he'd picked up from some demon "buddies" that he'd been reluctant to name.
Jack was still uncomfortable with the reality of demons, but since the base had been overrun by vampires he pretty much had no other choice than to face the fact that everything Xander had told them about his world was real, both the bad and the good. It was frightening.
Shooting vampires with his zat gun, Jack kept an eye out for the rest of his people.
Daniel was sticking close to Teal'c and they were both shooting vampires, Daniel with a zat, Teal'c with his staff weapon. Sam was back in the labs creating her superweapon, so she didn't have to see any of this. And Xander... well, he was taking care of himself and any vampires that got in his path burst into dust with frightening suddenness.
Killing a vampire with the stake in his left hand, Xander decapitated another with the hand axe he was wielding with his right. He was a real sight to behold, from his combat fatigues to his steel-toed boots that he had so carefully dipped in holy water. One kick from those boots could cave in a vampire's chest as easily as a fist through rice paper. It was scary how efficient Xander was at taking out the vampires.
Sometimes Jack had to wonder what Xander's life had really been like. Sure, the kid had given them the rundown on the Earth that he was from, but there was no way the place could be as nice as he described if it had produced someone with the kind of skills for destruction that Xander possessed.
If there was one world that Jack never wanted to visit, it was Xander's. It was just too horrible to imagine... a world with a Hellmouth on it.
* * *
"What's wrong, Wills?" Xander asked, laying a gentle hand on her arm.
She turned her head to look at him. Her eyes were red limned and exhausted. "I don't know. I've been having strange feelings lately, and I just don't know what they're all about."
"Another Big Bad?" Xander asked worriedly.
She shrugged and sighed. "I don't know. I just don't know. I can feel that something's out of whack, but not what the whackiness is. It's kind of frustrating."
"Huh." Xander reached around her to grab a cupcake off the table. "Why don't you have one too?" he suggested. "Sweet stuff always makes me feel better." He took a big bite and smiled at her through chocolate smeared lips.
Willow gave him a fond look and tried to shake off her sense of unease. "Maybe you're right and I should just relax a little, at least until I get a little more info."
"Good idea," he said.
.
Xander woke up that night gasping and sweating after a particularly strange and disturbing dream.
He couldn't even remember what he'd dreamed after he woke up, but he was filled with a sense of unease, as though everything in his life had taken a sudden lurch to the left. And though he didn't really know why, he knew that he had to go to Colorado immediately.
Racing downstairs, still wearing his pajama pants, he was surprised to find Willow, Buffy, and Faith all waiting for him with expectant looks on his face.
He gasped out, "We have to go to..."
"Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado," they all said with him.
It was an extremely spooky moment, but they were the Scooby gang and they never backed down from the weird, even when they knew that no matter what they did things were going to turn out bad.
"We leave tomorrow at two," Willow said. "I've already booked our flight back to the states."
"Okay then. Guess we all better get some more sleep," Buffy said.
"Don't know about you, guys, but I'm up and raring to go," Faith said, bouncing a little in place. "I think I'm gonna head on out and find myself a bit of an ash party. Anyone wanna come?"
Willow glanced around, then shrugged. "Sure. I'll go with you."
Xander tried to ignore the pale pink blush that crept across Willow's milk pale skin as she moved to stand next to Faith. He didn't want to think of his best friend fucking one of the same girls that he had. It was just too disturbing.
"Mount up, Red," Faith said. "See the rest of you tomorrow as we head out for a showdown with another bit of evil. Hoo-ya."
* * *
He couldn't help the fascination Xander held for him, and it wasn't totally sexual in nature either. The guy was pretty smart, he was funny, athletic, and Charming with a capital C. So it wasn't a complete surprise to Daniel when he found himself really liking the guy.
It was nice having someone to hang out with again, someone that didn't expect more from him than he was willing to give.
It used to be that Jack was his best friend in all ways, but lately things had definitely soured a bit. Jack was just completely unable to get over the relationship he himself had broken and it was tainting all aspects of their lives no matter how hard they both tried to pretend that things were normal and that neither one of them was hurting.
For months Daniel had felt an aching pain in his chest whenever he looked at Jack, the aching loss filling him up inside until it had taken a huge amount of effort just to shrug and pretend that it didn't hurt to look at what once was and might have been. But even when he was hurting so bad it was hard to breathe, he had understood perfectly that what they had had was over and there was no bringing it back. They had both changed too much since the breakup.
From the looks Jack had been giving him, his ex-lover knew that that portion of their relationship was over and they were never getting it back. And now that Daniel had met Xander, things were pretty much sealed. The time of "Jack & Daniel" was over. Now it was going to be "Daniel & Xander."
"Change is a good thing," he whispered to himself.
"What was that?"
Daniel looked over at Xander and smiled. "Nothing. I was just talking to myself. You know how it is."
Xander shrugged. "Okay," he said easily.
That was one thing about Xander that was different from Jack. He was willing to accept the fact that there were some things that people didn't want to share, while Jack's curiosity wouldn't allow him to let things go. It was a bit of a relief to be able to hold some thoughts inside his own head without having them pried out of him by someone that just couldn't leave things well enough alone.
"What do you think is going to happen next?" Daniel asked. "There's still about a hundred and forty vampires out there and they keep making more. How are we going to stop them?"
Xander patted his shoulder reassuringly. "We're gonna do what has been done since the beginning of my world: We will keep on fighting and we will survive. It's the only thing to do."
"We only have about two hours left," Daniel said. He reached out and grasped Xander's hand in his own, squeezing it tightly. "There's no way we can get rid of all those vampires in time. This is the end."
"It's not the end until the credits roll," Xander said. "We don't stop fighting until we have nothing left to give, and even then we still keep on trying to get up and carry on."
"Sometimes you can try your hardest and things still turn out badly," Daniel said, leaning against Xander's side.
"Well, that's not going to happen here. Carter almost has her synthetic sun thing online and pretty soon those vamps are gonna to be going 'Poof!' problem solved. Don't worry so much." He rubbed a hand up and down Daniel's back. "It's gonna be all right. We're not going to die today. I promise."
Daniel leaned more of his weight on Xander, wanting a bit more of that warm human contact. He didn't know if they were going to make it through the night alive, but just being close to Xander made him feel better than he'd been for a long time.
All those years of stepping through the Stargate and hoping for the best had really begun to take their toll, and he had lost some of the idealism that had seen him through so much. But just being close to Xander brought some of that all back to him, made him feel as though everything was going to be all right in the end.
There was just something so brave about Xander, that he could be so enthusiastic about life even after everything that he'd lived through. It made Daniel's life shine in a much better light.
Xander was just so unwaveringly heroic, and he never expected anything in return. He just went out, saved the world, and that was enough for him. It was the mark of a truly great man, and Daniel... loved him for that.
"If we... if we die here today, I just want you to know how I feel," Daniel whispered, turning his face against Xander's neck so he didn't have to meet his eyes. He wasn't quite brave enough for that, not yet anyway. "I really like being around you, Xander Harris, and I want there to be more time between us. I think... I think that we could really have something, you and me."
Xander snorted a laugh. "For a linguist, you're not very lyrical, are you?" He hugged Daniel. "I like you to, and I think that we might have something here too. And I promise, no matter what happens today, we are going to have the time to explore what we're feeling here. I promise, I really do."
Daniel smiled a little. "All right."
The two men held each other close as they took their ten minute break from vampire fighting. They were huddled together in an air vent, a shared blanket spread over their laps, their weapons close at hand. Even in their time of rest, they were fully prepared to kick ass and take names.
* * *
There was thirty minutes left on the clock when Sam's machine was finally finished. The thought that they might have a chance to save themselves let them all breathe a little easier, but there was no relaxing by the human contingent of Cheyenne Mountain. There was still a ton of vampires wandering around out there, killing and feeding, and until they were all dead, no one was completely safe.
"All right, here we go," she said, hitting the ON switch.
There was a brief flare of light that had the vampires flinching back, then the light died and went out. The vampires went back on the rampage.
"Shit," Xander observed.
"It wasn't supposed to do that!" Sam complained. "I'll have to check the coils and recalibrate the..."
Xander jerked her out of the way just in time as one particularly large and muscular vampire threw a desk over their temporary barrier and it landed with a sharp CRUNCH! on top of Sam's machine.
"Oh, damn," Sam breathed, still clutching Xander's arm.
"Looks like we move on to plan B," Xander said.
"And what might that be, Mr. Harris?" Jack asked, the expression on his face twisting into something like resignation. They were all going to die.
"I really, really didn't want to have to do this," Xander said.
"Do what?" Jack asked, just as Xander seemed to burst into bright yellow flame. Vibrant color with no heat, a corona of eye-searing beauty that enveloped the young man completely.
"What the hell..." Daniel had never seen anything like it. Xander was bathed in that brilliant light, engulfed by it so completely that he seemed to be made out of pure light.
The glowing man began floating in the air and rose over the barrier to cross the room to where the vampires were watching his approach dumbly.
"What's..." the lead vampire started to say when Xander reached him and touched his shoulder with one hand. There was a burst of light and dust, then the vampire was gone.
"You guys just had to bust the sciency machine, didn't you? I really didn't want to have to break out the magics, yet here I am. It kind of makes me a little... testy. And when I get testy..." Xander spread his arms and there was a surge of such brightness that all of the normal humans had to turn their faces away.
Warmth flowed through all of them, like a comforting hug that pierced the surface of their skin as easily as breathing. It was like suddenly finding themselves in the full heat of a summer's day. Except that the vampires were shrieking in an agony that cut off with a disturbing abruptness.
The light lasted for only a few heartbeats, and when it receded and they were able to see again, Xander was standing in the midst of a circle of ashes. And there was such a heartbreaking look on his face, as though he knew that they were going to push him away with no chance to explain what had happened.
"Are... are you one of the Ascended?" Daniel asked.
"The who now?" Xander asked in confusion.
TBC...
Author: Feygan
Fandom: Buffy/Stargate SG-1
Pairing: Xander/Daniel
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Stargate: SG-1.
LiveJournal: http://feygan.livejournal.com
Home: http://www.darkgesture.com/fanfiction.htm
Summary: Xander jumps realities and ends up at Stargate Command.
.
They'd been fighting for two days straight. The General had barely managed to keep the base from self-destruction. It had taken a lot of fast talking to the President to rescind the order, but their time was almost up. They had less than eight hours left before the choice was taken out of their hands and Cheyenne Mountain became a crater and a "What the hell...?" story on the five o'clock news.
"How are we supposed to kill all these bastards when they just keep making more?" Jack demanded. "I had to stake Private Tolentino today. I am not happy."
Sam patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry sir. We almost have the synthetic sunlight generators online."
"Why's it taking you so long to put 'em together?" Jack asked.
Sam gave him an apologetic look and a shrug of her shoulders. "With the lab levels overrun by hostiles, we've pretty much been stringing together whatever we could find. It's just lucky that we managed to find as many of the parts we need as we have."
Jack grunted dissatisfaction. He felt like for every step forward they took, there was ten steps backward. It just didn't seem to be worth it.
Maybe it would be easier just to let the base be destroyed? One little push of the button and BOOM! all their problems would be solved once and for all.
When he realized where his thoughts were straying, he drew himself up short and took a deep breath. That was a dark path he was walking and he refused to go down it again, especially with people depending on him to find a way out of this situation.
His eyes strayed across the room to where Daniel slept curled up on the floor with his head on Xander's leg, his glasses tucked safely in his pocket. Xander was asleep sitting up, his back against the wall, his head tipped to one side with his mouth slack as he breathed deeply. They were cute together, the two boyish looking men resting deeply after days of exhaustive hand-to-hand fighting.
Looking at them, Jack had to admit that they were the reason he was feeling so bleak.
It sucked knowing that Daniel had moved on, never mind that it had been him that had largely ruined their relationship. Jack had always just felt that they belonged together and that that was the way they were going to be again someday. Jack and Daniel. Daniel and Jack. They went together so well, so why had they broken up?
Because I'm a thoughtless dick, he thought angrily, dragging his eyes away from his ex-lover.
He would always love Daniel, but he knew intellectually that they didn't belong together, not anymore. They had drifted too far apart to ever be able to make anything lasting and real between them. Not that he didn't miss the earth-shattering sex, that would always be something great between them.
Daniel's not mine anymore, he thought. Get over it.
Overdramatic thoughts of suicide aside, he had a job to do here, and there was no getting sidetracked.
Pulling "Colonel Jack O'Neill" tight around him, he focused on what Sam and the other science nerds were blathering on and on about.
* * *
Across the room, Xander wasn't as asleep as he appeared to outside observers.
He could feel Daniel's head against his thigh, the gentle breaths moving the leg hairs back and forth, as he was wearing just his boxers since his pants were hanging to dry. It felt nice to have someone nearby, to know that someone cared about what happened to him and was willing to stand up to any threat to help him out.
That's why he felt so bad about not being one hundred percent truthful about what he could do to help his new friends. It was just that he didn't want to end up being dissected or something.
He could just picture himself being all dead and chopped up just so they could figure out three-fourths through that physically he was just a normal human. Something like that would definitely not be cool.
What am I supposed to do? he thought.
He knew there wasn't much time and that he was going to have to make his decision soon. There was no other choice. He really didn't want his new friends to die because he was too afraid to step up to the plate.
Operating on instinct, he let his hand fall down onto Daniel's head, absently stroking that soft, soft hair. It was almost like having a really big pet, a really big, hot pet.
His attraction to Daniel had come as a bit of a surprise to him, since Daniel wasn't the usual kind of man-flesh he was attracted to. He liked more muscular, overpowering men, probably a result of spending so much time around Angel back in the brooding days.
Daniel had won him over with his wonderful personality though, which meant the attraction was going to last longer than Xander's usual wham-bam-"thank you, man" so-called "relationships."
This world was familiar on so many levels, but he never felt completely comfortable anywhere that he stood. He was a stranger in a strange land and he was never quite sure what he was supposed to reveal about his past and the life he had lived on the Sunnydale Hellmouth of his home dimension. Some things were just too disturbing and weird to be talked about with people that hadn't lived it.
He really didn't know how they would react if he told them about some of his special abilities. But if things kept going as bad as they were headed, he would have to reveal his secrets to keep them all from being killed. It was a definite bit of trouble headed his way.
Sighing heavily, Xander forced his spine a little looser, relaxing as much as he possibly could. Years of slaying experience, where he would have to snatch rest wherever he could, had given him the ability to sleep almost anywhere and in any situation no matter how dire.
Purposely slowing his heartbeat, he felt his mind slipping away into restful slumber.
* * *
"Whoa, duck!" Jack yelled.
Xander hit the floor shoulder first and rolled out of the line of fire. He came up on one knee to plunge his stake into another vampire while Jack zatted the one that had been coming up behind him. "Thanks," he called with a grin, already moving on toward another bunch of bloodsuckers.
Even though he didn't particularly like him, Jack had to admit that the kid had some definite skills when it came to killing vampires. It was obvious that Xander had studied various martial arts and he had admitted to learning what he called "demon-fu," which he'd picked up from some demon "buddies" that he'd been reluctant to name.
Jack was still uncomfortable with the reality of demons, but since the base had been overrun by vampires he pretty much had no other choice than to face the fact that everything Xander had told them about his world was real, both the bad and the good. It was frightening.
Shooting vampires with his zat gun, Jack kept an eye out for the rest of his people.
Daniel was sticking close to Teal'c and they were both shooting vampires, Daniel with a zat, Teal'c with his staff weapon. Sam was back in the labs creating her superweapon, so she didn't have to see any of this. And Xander... well, he was taking care of himself and any vampires that got in his path burst into dust with frightening suddenness.
Killing a vampire with the stake in his left hand, Xander decapitated another with the hand axe he was wielding with his right. He was a real sight to behold, from his combat fatigues to his steel-toed boots that he had so carefully dipped in holy water. One kick from those boots could cave in a vampire's chest as easily as a fist through rice paper. It was scary how efficient Xander was at taking out the vampires.
Sometimes Jack had to wonder what Xander's life had really been like. Sure, the kid had given them the rundown on the Earth that he was from, but there was no way the place could be as nice as he described if it had produced someone with the kind of skills for destruction that Xander possessed.
If there was one world that Jack never wanted to visit, it was Xander's. It was just too horrible to imagine... a world with a Hellmouth on it.
* * *
"What's wrong, Wills?" Xander asked, laying a gentle hand on her arm.
She turned her head to look at him. Her eyes were red limned and exhausted. "I don't know. I've been having strange feelings lately, and I just don't know what they're all about."
"Another Big Bad?" Xander asked worriedly.
She shrugged and sighed. "I don't know. I just don't know. I can feel that something's out of whack, but not what the whackiness is. It's kind of frustrating."
"Huh." Xander reached around her to grab a cupcake off the table. "Why don't you have one too?" he suggested. "Sweet stuff always makes me feel better." He took a big bite and smiled at her through chocolate smeared lips.
Willow gave him a fond look and tried to shake off her sense of unease. "Maybe you're right and I should just relax a little, at least until I get a little more info."
"Good idea," he said.
.
Xander woke up that night gasping and sweating after a particularly strange and disturbing dream.
He couldn't even remember what he'd dreamed after he woke up, but he was filled with a sense of unease, as though everything in his life had taken a sudden lurch to the left. And though he didn't really know why, he knew that he had to go to Colorado immediately.
Racing downstairs, still wearing his pajama pants, he was surprised to find Willow, Buffy, and Faith all waiting for him with expectant looks on his face.
He gasped out, "We have to go to..."
"Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado," they all said with him.
It was an extremely spooky moment, but they were the Scooby gang and they never backed down from the weird, even when they knew that no matter what they did things were going to turn out bad.
"We leave tomorrow at two," Willow said. "I've already booked our flight back to the states."
"Okay then. Guess we all better get some more sleep," Buffy said.
"Don't know about you, guys, but I'm up and raring to go," Faith said, bouncing a little in place. "I think I'm gonna head on out and find myself a bit of an ash party. Anyone wanna come?"
Willow glanced around, then shrugged. "Sure. I'll go with you."
Xander tried to ignore the pale pink blush that crept across Willow's milk pale skin as she moved to stand next to Faith. He didn't want to think of his best friend fucking one of the same girls that he had. It was just too disturbing.
"Mount up, Red," Faith said. "See the rest of you tomorrow as we head out for a showdown with another bit of evil. Hoo-ya."
* * *
He couldn't help the fascination Xander held for him, and it wasn't totally sexual in nature either. The guy was pretty smart, he was funny, athletic, and Charming with a capital C. So it wasn't a complete surprise to Daniel when he found himself really liking the guy.
It was nice having someone to hang out with again, someone that didn't expect more from him than he was willing to give.
It used to be that Jack was his best friend in all ways, but lately things had definitely soured a bit. Jack was just completely unable to get over the relationship he himself had broken and it was tainting all aspects of their lives no matter how hard they both tried to pretend that things were normal and that neither one of them was hurting.
For months Daniel had felt an aching pain in his chest whenever he looked at Jack, the aching loss filling him up inside until it had taken a huge amount of effort just to shrug and pretend that it didn't hurt to look at what once was and might have been. But even when he was hurting so bad it was hard to breathe, he had understood perfectly that what they had had was over and there was no bringing it back. They had both changed too much since the breakup.
From the looks Jack had been giving him, his ex-lover knew that that portion of their relationship was over and they were never getting it back. And now that Daniel had met Xander, things were pretty much sealed. The time of "Jack & Daniel" was over. Now it was going to be "Daniel & Xander."
"Change is a good thing," he whispered to himself.
"What was that?"
Daniel looked over at Xander and smiled. "Nothing. I was just talking to myself. You know how it is."
Xander shrugged. "Okay," he said easily.
That was one thing about Xander that was different from Jack. He was willing to accept the fact that there were some things that people didn't want to share, while Jack's curiosity wouldn't allow him to let things go. It was a bit of a relief to be able to hold some thoughts inside his own head without having them pried out of him by someone that just couldn't leave things well enough alone.
"What do you think is going to happen next?" Daniel asked. "There's still about a hundred and forty vampires out there and they keep making more. How are we going to stop them?"
Xander patted his shoulder reassuringly. "We're gonna do what has been done since the beginning of my world: We will keep on fighting and we will survive. It's the only thing to do."
"We only have about two hours left," Daniel said. He reached out and grasped Xander's hand in his own, squeezing it tightly. "There's no way we can get rid of all those vampires in time. This is the end."
"It's not the end until the credits roll," Xander said. "We don't stop fighting until we have nothing left to give, and even then we still keep on trying to get up and carry on."
"Sometimes you can try your hardest and things still turn out badly," Daniel said, leaning against Xander's side.
"Well, that's not going to happen here. Carter almost has her synthetic sun thing online and pretty soon those vamps are gonna to be going 'Poof!' problem solved. Don't worry so much." He rubbed a hand up and down Daniel's back. "It's gonna be all right. We're not going to die today. I promise."
Daniel leaned more of his weight on Xander, wanting a bit more of that warm human contact. He didn't know if they were going to make it through the night alive, but just being close to Xander made him feel better than he'd been for a long time.
All those years of stepping through the Stargate and hoping for the best had really begun to take their toll, and he had lost some of the idealism that had seen him through so much. But just being close to Xander brought some of that all back to him, made him feel as though everything was going to be all right in the end.
There was just something so brave about Xander, that he could be so enthusiastic about life even after everything that he'd lived through. It made Daniel's life shine in a much better light.
Xander was just so unwaveringly heroic, and he never expected anything in return. He just went out, saved the world, and that was enough for him. It was the mark of a truly great man, and Daniel... loved him for that.
"If we... if we die here today, I just want you to know how I feel," Daniel whispered, turning his face against Xander's neck so he didn't have to meet his eyes. He wasn't quite brave enough for that, not yet anyway. "I really like being around you, Xander Harris, and I want there to be more time between us. I think... I think that we could really have something, you and me."
Xander snorted a laugh. "For a linguist, you're not very lyrical, are you?" He hugged Daniel. "I like you to, and I think that we might have something here too. And I promise, no matter what happens today, we are going to have the time to explore what we're feeling here. I promise, I really do."
Daniel smiled a little. "All right."
The two men held each other close as they took their ten minute break from vampire fighting. They were huddled together in an air vent, a shared blanket spread over their laps, their weapons close at hand. Even in their time of rest, they were fully prepared to kick ass and take names.
* * *
There was thirty minutes left on the clock when Sam's machine was finally finished. The thought that they might have a chance to save themselves let them all breathe a little easier, but there was no relaxing by the human contingent of Cheyenne Mountain. There was still a ton of vampires wandering around out there, killing and feeding, and until they were all dead, no one was completely safe.
"All right, here we go," she said, hitting the ON switch.
There was a brief flare of light that had the vampires flinching back, then the light died and went out. The vampires went back on the rampage.
"Shit," Xander observed.
"It wasn't supposed to do that!" Sam complained. "I'll have to check the coils and recalibrate the..."
Xander jerked her out of the way just in time as one particularly large and muscular vampire threw a desk over their temporary barrier and it landed with a sharp CRUNCH! on top of Sam's machine.
"Oh, damn," Sam breathed, still clutching Xander's arm.
"Looks like we move on to plan B," Xander said.
"And what might that be, Mr. Harris?" Jack asked, the expression on his face twisting into something like resignation. They were all going to die.
"I really, really didn't want to have to do this," Xander said.
"Do what?" Jack asked, just as Xander seemed to burst into bright yellow flame. Vibrant color with no heat, a corona of eye-searing beauty that enveloped the young man completely.
"What the hell..." Daniel had never seen anything like it. Xander was bathed in that brilliant light, engulfed by it so completely that he seemed to be made out of pure light.
The glowing man began floating in the air and rose over the barrier to cross the room to where the vampires were watching his approach dumbly.
"What's..." the lead vampire started to say when Xander reached him and touched his shoulder with one hand. There was a burst of light and dust, then the vampire was gone.
"You guys just had to bust the sciency machine, didn't you? I really didn't want to have to break out the magics, yet here I am. It kind of makes me a little... testy. And when I get testy..." Xander spread his arms and there was a surge of such brightness that all of the normal humans had to turn their faces away.
Warmth flowed through all of them, like a comforting hug that pierced the surface of their skin as easily as breathing. It was like suddenly finding themselves in the full heat of a summer's day. Except that the vampires were shrieking in an agony that cut off with a disturbing abruptness.
The light lasted for only a few heartbeats, and when it receded and they were able to see again, Xander was standing in the midst of a circle of ashes. And there was such a heartbreaking look on his face, as though he knew that they were going to push him away with no chance to explain what had happened.
"Are... are you one of the Ascended?" Daniel asked.
"The who now?" Xander asked in confusion.
TBC...