"Auld Lang Syne," Buffy/HL (OCs)
Available here, or on AO3.
Auld Lang Syne
The alarm system didn't go off because the five intruders materialized inside the house rather than breaking in.
Two of them promptly slid to the ground, folding at the joints in ways that made it clear they still had bones, although any control of the muscles over those bones was another matter. A third person threw out a hand to brace himself on the arm of the couch, trying to watch in every direction at once despite the patch over one eye and the blood pouring into the other.
The last two were doing the best job of staying upright; the shorter figure prowled straight to a lamp and turned it on, revealing that they were in a den -- coffee table, couch, comfortable chairs on either side of a fireplace, French doors out to a lawn -- with a half-closed door to one side and an eating bar to the other. The light reflected back off steel just past the bar, probably a kitchen.
The fifth figure looked around. The rooms were clean and didn't have demons -- good enough. "Definitely not England. Blast it," Giles said tiredly. He put down his crossbow and ran a hand through his hair, shedding a few grey hairs and several small pieces of plaster as he did, then knelt to make sure Buffy was still breathing. Whatever that last blast had been, it had scorched her clothing and knocked her senseless. "I do hope the homeowners have a first aid kit."
Xander dropped stiffly to one knee beside Willow, one hand on his battle axe and the other settling on her throat to check her pulse under hair scorched short on one side. "Willow is... out. How far did she send us?"
Oz settled down on the other side of Buffy and wrapped what was left of his shirt around her leg; she had a long, sluggishly oozing slash that hadn't had time to close up. "Looks American, Giles. Definitely warmer than London would be. English-speaking from the books on the coffee table." He pulled a blanket off the couch and knelt to wrap it over Willow, then went still. He waved Xander into the shadows with one swift gesture, freezing himself.
"So we are," a deep, annoyed voice said from the still-dark kitchen. "Although we could manage more than a few other languages if absolutely necessary."
"Later, Xan." That came from a second voice, almost as deep, both of the men sounding American, not British.
Giles had made it upright again to look for medical supplies or failing that, the makings of an ice pack. He turned in time to see two naked men prowl in and split to flank the Scoobies, swords and axes in hands. They were alert and awake despite the obvious lateness of the hour... and surprisingly familiar, especially with swords in hands. "Dear God," Giles said softly. "Of all the places-- Alex, Xan. Help."
Xan blinked, stared, then identified him correctly. "Rupert?" He nodded once, settling immediately into the practicalities as he always had, thank goodness. "Of course." He looked around, said, "Med-kit and kettle," and went back into the kitchen, turning a light on as he went.
Alex gave Giles an equally surprised look but he was smiling too. "It's good to see you." He nodded to Oz and Xander, his smile fading as he took in the condition of the new arrivals. "Even in these straits. All of you are bleeding." He set his weapons onto the coffee table; the blades fit in all too well with the debris from their arrival. "Who's worst?"
Oz just pointed. "Here. Buffy's probably worst." Concise hand gestures matched names to people as he went on, "Xander's not much better. Willow's just exhausted, I think."
Alex nodded. "Right. Xan's getting the medical supplies. Ziploc bags are in the second drawer down just to the left of the fridge. Get some ice on Xander's head. Giles, can you get these two while I check on the women?" His eyes narrowed in a familiar way which told Giles his own wounds had also been evaluated and added to the triage list. What Alex said, however, was, "The tea's in the hanging baskets to the left of the kettle. Start a pot and make it strong. You look exhausted."
Xander clearly considered protesting, then looked at Giles, shrugged, and said, "I gotta hear this later, G-Man. Naked armed men wander in and you just say help?"
"It is our house," Xan called from the kitchen. "And you're bleeding all over it. Get in here so I can see if that needs stitches or just an icepack."
Giles waved Oz over to get a shoulder under Xander's arm; Oz, bless him, ignored the blood down Xander's shoulder and back, and got him moving into the kitchen. One down. Giles sighed in relief, brushed more ichor and ash out of his hair, and crouched down to move Buffy.
"Rupert. Either go make tea or sit down to supervise." Alex was on one knee beside Willow, one hand resting lightly on a pulse point in her throat, the other gently peeling her eyes open to check the pupils. "I'll put you to work when I know where to start."
Giles sighed again. "Tea. Yes." He felt obligated to caution them, "Don't wake either Buffy or Willow precipitously. And if Buffy won't release the weapon, I recommend you leave it in her hand."
Alex nodded carefully and Giles relaxed a little more; it was lovely working with someone else who heard layered warnings. "I'll do my best. Go on."
~ ~ ~
Oz was drinking a tea latte, basically, but hey, caffeine, protein, sugar -- all of the good. Giles had made it and he looked like he regretted brewing it that strong, but he also looked a lot more alert for two mugs of the stuff and a plate of buttered toast and poached eggs. Now he had most of the blood off his face and chest and was checking his glasses for any cracks or scratches.
Oz had gone through a full plate of eggs, ham, and cheese himself and finished the rest of Xander's. Xander had eaten half his plate only because Alex, the one who looked like a partially reformed pirate, had refused to give him painkillers until Xander had something in his stomach. He was trying to stay awake and ask questions, but blood loss was messing with his plan. Alex kept refilling his mug with beef broth and Xander kept sipping it, too spaced out to realize it should have been empty a good while back.
Xan, the blond who looked like he'd be good to run with, came back down the stairs, wearing jeans at least -- probably because Xander's freak-out ratio was showing -- and with his arm full of clothes, enough for all three of the conscious. He pointed to a side room across the entry way from one of the library doors. "There's a shower and towels and such in there, Xander. The top layer should fit you. Leave the door cracked so we can hear you if you get dizzy. You took a pretty hard hit to the head."
"Hey, hot water and I--" Xander stood up and wobbled, but Oz had been expecting him to move too fast and got a hand under his elbow. "Okay. Hot water and I are still friends. Standing, on the other hand."
"Not entirely friendly," Oz agreed, walking over to the bathroom door with him. He added quietly, "I'll be out here if standing gets less friendly. Leave me some hot water."
Xan dropped the clothes inside the bathroom, moved towels into easy reach from the shower, then stepped out. Water started running a minute later; Oz leaned against the door frame and nodded to them. He was up to this, and it gave him a better place to listen for Willow and Buffy waking up in the library.
Giles rubbed his forehead. "Right. So. Wounded taken care of--" Alex handed him one of the same meds he'd given Xander and Oz; Giles washed it down with tea. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Alex caught the jeans Xan threw him, pulled them on, and sat down on the couch next to Xan. "What can you tell us?"
"Pretty trusting," Oz said mildly, one eyebrow lifting. The effect was impaired when he had to hastily brush dislodged ash out of his eyes. Huh. Hair hadn't been as clear of that fire spell as he thought.
"We're old friends, actually." Xan chuckled. "At least, we were friends when we last parted."
Giles smiled at that. "Oz, I'd like you to meet two of my language tutors. This is Alex," and the pirate nodded to him, "and that's Xan."
The runner nodded too. "Languages, swords, or sympathy as needed," Xan agreed.
"With a sideline in massage, first aid, and reasonableness." Alex picked up a whetstone and oil and began working on Xander's battle axe, frowning at a couple of the nicks. "So what can you tell us? And did you get enough food, Oz?"
Giles sipped his tea and asked, "The long version or the short version? The long version, I might add, begins with a request not to call an insane asylum."
Oz shook his head. "I'm good for now. Might raid for leftovers in a couple hours."
"Go right ahead. Leave us some of the smoked salmon, but the rest is fair game." Xan glanced back at Giles, shaking his head. "Why would we call an asylum, Rupert? That green stuff in your hair wasn't iron-based blood."
"Ah. That. Yes." Giles winced a little and finally said, "Would you believe we were preventing an apocalypse?"
Alex said calmly, "From you, we'd believe that." The steady rasp of oiled chert down steel was a soothing sound to Oz, familiar from late nights prepping for vampire attacks. Oz watched, interested, as Giles actually relaxed at their acceptance. Alex went on, "Is it averted, then?"
"Yes, I should think so. We did horrific damage to some very old art, but given that the pigments had been mixed in a blood medium, I can't bring myself to care very much." Giles glanced down at the blade beside his hand -- not one they'd brought with him, one Alex had pulled off the wall and handed over.
Xan had taken up Buffy's machete and was cleaning it, another set of oils and whetstones in front of him. He went straight to the practicalities, asking, "Can anything come after you?"
Oz pointed out, "We didn't come in by the door."
Alex looked over the axe at him. "Yes, but Rupert specified an apocalypse. That generally implies a supernatural element, or something sufficiently advanced to be taken for magic."
Oz gave him an amused look. "Yeah, we landed in the right place." He shrugged, still listening for a thud in the bathroom or movement across the hall in the library. Willow was going to love waking up in the middle of all those books. Oz wanted to look through a few of them later, for that matter. "Willow teleported us out. I don't think they can follow us, but I've never seen demons like that before, either."
Giles rubbed his forehead and took his glasses off to press fingers against the bridge of his nose. "Unfortunately, Oz, neither had I. I really don't know if they can follow us, Alex. I should hope not, but we were expecting Chnarhl demons--"
"That sounds more like a cough than a word," Xan said. He leaned over the table to scoop up the honey, squeezing more into Giles' tea without waiting for an answer.
"A word. Technically," Giles admitted.
Alex nodded. "So these Chnarhl demons were what you thought would be there?"
"Yes. They're tall, strong, not all that fast, and prone to taking over old sites and praying to ugly, petty-minded little gods--" Giles drank more of the tea; his mouth pursed with the effort not to comment on the taste. "Yes, I know, so many of them are."
Alex shrugged and ran a cloth over the axe to remove the extra oil, then picked up his broadsword to check it, too. "Greek, remember? We're used to gods who bicker and fight. So what did you run into?"
Oz shrugged, careful of his ribs; they hadn't quite finished healing yet. Definitely needed to get more protein in a few hours, and more dairy, too. "We were expecting the demon equivalent of triceratops. We kinda got velociraptors instead."
Xan raised an eyebrow. "Fast, vicious, and hunting in packs?"
"And short. Scaly, winged -- bad flyers, but they had this jump-flap combination -- and the tails have a nasty saw-edge to them." Oz listened as the water cut off, didn't hear motion soon enough, and ducked in to catch Xander.
"Just the steam," Xander said tiredly, hanging on the half-open shower door. "Gimme a sec."
Oz nodded. "Sure." He could hear Giles still briefing the two guys on what they were up against; he could also see the ruin Caleb had made of Xander's eye which meant Xander was seriously exhausted. He always kept a patch over it if anyone else was around.
Xander finally let go of the door and Oz turned around to give him some privacy to get dressed, or at least the dignity of doing it without Oz seeing him wobble around from blood loss, steam inhalation, and screwed-up depth perception.
Naturally, the new attack came while Xander was still pulling on his loaner sweat pants.
~ ~ ~
Alex closed one library door most of the way and had just turned to give Rupert an update on his protégés (Buffy was snoring quietly on one couch; Willow'd been tossing and turning on the other) when he heard a series of small pops, followed by a scream.
Xan bolted down the hall to block the other door out of the library. Alex went back into the library through the den door a lot faster than he'd left. Once they were at either end, their joined quickenings would let them both see the entire room at once. Not the easiest way to cope with a battle, but they had centuries of practice with doubled vision and doubled bodies and were used to it by now.
He made it in time to see Willow's hands strobe light, throwing half a dozen short bat-winged, snake-scaled, vulture-beaked things against the shelves and away from her and Buffy. Buffy was up and blinking, shaking her head to clear it as she fell back to guard her friend's left flank with the ax she'd never let go of. Alex promptly filed her as a highly competent fighter and let her get that side; he took the other side, as Rupert slammed the den door closed behind them.
"I have this door, Alex," Rupert called. "Xander, go around Xan and hold the other entry point for us."
The glowing green eyes on the chimera-demons were a little disconcerting, like looking at absinthe after taking LSD. On the other hand, they made great targets. Alex sank his blade between the eyes, into a skull, and twisted sharply to free it quickly. He pulled the bastard sword out and up, reversing its motion into a back-thrust into another demon Xan could see coming up behind him. A third one leapt out from under the coffee table, sinking claws and tail in through denim.
Xan buried his dagger in a glowing eye at the same time a sharp-edged tail sliced across one of their legs. Alex wasn't sure if it had cut him or Xan. The demon's shriek cut off when Xan yanked it toward him by the long, leathery neck while one foot on its chest shoved it back. The neck snapped when he twisted, and the wings flapped once involuntarily.
Rupert called, "Xan, down!" and Xan dropped as one of the things leapt for his eyes with a flap of bat wings. Xan yanked his knife free as it went overhead and threw the blade -- at the demon on Alex's leg. The knife sank in to the hilt.
The damn thing spasmed, claws digging in tighter, then fell away. Alex let the one in the air glide down to him and took its head off as soon as it was in range.
Xan pulled another knife as he twisted to roll up again. Alex looked up from kicking another creature away from the door -- better to contain them in the one room, the den didn't have doorways to trap them -- in time to see another half-dozen of the damn things materialize around Willow with noises that matched the last series of pops.
Buffy slapped two away with her ax, kicked a third towards Alex, and a very large wolf that hadn't been there earlier barreled into the other new arrivals, knocking two down and grabbing the last one by the throat and shaking it like a terrier with a rat. The creature fought back with buffeting wings and vicious tail slices until the wolf snapped its neck.
From behind Alex, Rupert grunted with effort, then called, "Willow, they seem to be homing in on you."
Buffy snarled, kicked the breath out of a demon, brought her axe down into the spine of another, then whirled back to grab the first one. She hefted the creature over her head, too easily for her size, and slammed it down onto a friend. They both made wheezy grunts of pain and then cracking sounds. The ottoman died, too.
Buffy called, "We'll keep them off you, Willow, shut whatever this is down!"
Another six appeared, a few feet over the floor this time. The wolf spun on one hind paw, a front paw cuffing a demon to Alex like a volleyball player spiking over the net. Alex took its head off, ignoring the ichor that painted his shirt sickly green, and back-kicked another one to Xan. At this point, Alex definitely identified the tail slash as being on him, not Xan. He didn't have time to look down, but he could feel the blood starting to soak his jeans; the claw punctures hurt out of all proportion to their size, too.
There was no time to do anything but take the damage into account, wish for more adrenaline to cover it up, and go on.
Xan saw the wolf gathering itself to vault onto the coffee table, and Alex ducked as Oz (presumably) soared over his shoulder to haul a chimera down before it could run along a bookshelf. His left leg buckled under him, but Rupert hauled him up and back towards the doorframe. Alex pushed up against it with the leg that was still working and closed down most of his link with Xan rather than drain too much of his energy during a fight.
Buffy hip-checked a low-glider towards Xan -- they really did fly slightly better than bricks despite a long lean form that should have been aerodynamic. Xan snarled an old Sacred Band profanity and sank his knife between the thing's shoulder blades. Buffy grabbed a second one by the head, popping the damn thing like a whip. She dislocated its spine with a crack that drew a faintly protesting noise from Xander.
Alex glanced over at him and saw Xander was bloodied again but holding the door shut behind him and kicking the damn things back to the other fighters. Alex started slapping them back to the center with the flat of his sword, focusing on that instead of wounds that weren't closing quickly or maybe at all, or the way the room wanted to sway around him.
Then Willow said, "Oh, that's what they are." She sounded very matter-of-fact, as if she'd been researching them in a library with a coffee to hand instead of turning a demon's head back and forth, with her hands coated in its blood and her own eyes never quite focusing. "And that's why we're here. Actually, this is kind of cool."
Rupert, sounding harried, called, "Solution now, explanation later, please, Willow." He grunted with the effort of pounding two new arrivals flat with a fireplace poker.
Rupert was right, too; they were running out of room to fight, but moving out of the library would be a disaster. If the demons got out of here, they'd have free access to the kitchen and den, which opened onto each other, and the front entryway with the stairs up to second. These five were good fighters, but Alex wasn't sure how much house-clearing experience they had, especially against things the size and speed of whippets.
Another six appeared -- why always six? -- in a circle around Willow, this time just under the ceiling.
"Oh, good point, Giles. Sorry." Willow still looked and sounded a little scattered from the spells or wherever she'd gone into her head or out of her body to get the information, but she looked up and the new arrivals slammed backwards into the walls and shelves, falling from there to the floor in a succession of limp thumps.
She dusted her hands off like she was getting ready to start a project and said, "Okay. Brace yourselves." She pulled her hands apart, an iridescent black ring appearing as she did, glowing purple and indigo at the edges, shading through blue into white at the center.
The wolf whined and backed away into a corner as more of the demons started popping in -- not six at a time now but two and three dozen per burst of light and sound. They appeared, shrank, and were forced into the gleaming circle between Willow's hands. Absently, she said, "Someone open the door behind me."
Alex saw the bodies on the floor flying into the circle/gate, too, and turned the doorknob with one hand. He kept his back to the doorframe, broadsword ready in case one had gotten loose, and hoped that none of them had.
Instead of another dinosaur-chimera-demon, ash and debris poured through the air, vanishing into the circle with the creatures. Breezes tore at Alex's hair, pulling scales and ichor away from him. A claw pulled out of his leg and Alex bit down on words he didn't want to use with magic in process, watching grimly through his eyes and Xan's as phosphorescent green venom streamed out of his wounds and towards the young witch.
The same winds spun and tore around Giles and Buffy, rifled through the wolf's pelt, tugged at Xan and Xander's pants and hair. Stains vanished out of clothes, medical wrappings shot through from the kitchen trash, and blood pulled out of the carpet, all of it soaring through the air into the circle.
No matter how small the circle looked comparatively, each item shrank as it approached, dropping in like pebbles falling into a whirlpool.
Xander clung to the door; Xan braced him there with one arm, his spotlessly clean knife in the other, and most of his focus on Alex. Giles watched, mouth tightening into a line that used to precede a battle royale with Ethan over something. (Ethan, now there was a set of memories Alex could do without reliving.)
Buffy was focused onto Willow as she said, "Wills -- watch the magic levels."
"Oh, it's okay. I'm not doing most of it, Buffy. It is kinda cool though," Willow confided, a small fascinated smile curving her mouth despite the bruises along one side of her face. "They're pests, but they were never supposed to get out."
Xan's eyes narrowed at her first comments and Alex turned to look more closely at Willow, too. Xan was right; another figure faintly overlaid her, one with tan skin, waving red-gold hair several shades paler than Willow's, and a mouth dark red as--
"Pomegranates." Alex let himself slide down to his good knee.
Xan did the same, which brought Xander down with him. "What the hell?" Xander sputtered.
As the last few demons appeared and promptly vanished, Xan warned him, "Close enough. Be polite to the Lady."
Those intangible hands closed the black gate down, gathering it from a circle into a rough-edged geode which glinted blue, purple, and green before closing into something like a rough granite globe. It hovered by Her hand, not Willow's. She was a few inches taller, which made the whole thing look even more odd. Now that it was closed, the globe looked as otherly-tangible as She did. No one laughed at either.
Persephone nodded to Xan, smiled ruefully at Alex, kissed the top of Willow's head -- and vanished.
Willow promptly wavered. "Oh. Head rush. Brain freeze kind of, but I did not eat ice cream there. Or a slushee. Or anything, thanks."
Oz moved out of his corner to catch her, both of them ignoring his nudity. Alex gave it one admiring glance and ignored it, too, as Oz settled her on the newly-clean couch. "Here. Sit."
Xan appeared next to Alex, voice tight as he said, "Damn it, let me in, you idiot. Let me see that...." Once he had a hand on Alex's shoulder, their quickenings surged together again despite Alex's best efforts and they both cursed, Alex in Phoenician, Xan in Gallic, when the pain momentarily felt twice as bad. Xan promptly sliced his jeans farther open to see how bad the wound was and if it was healing yet.
"Whoa." On the couch, Willow let Oz take most of her weight. "Okay. That was completely cool and completely terrifying. I am still breathing, right?"
Buffy stared at her then said, "Yup. Still breathing, no wiggins. Also, no black eyes or veins, but what just happened? And do I smell food?
Rupert relaxed at last, sighing, "Right, then. Round two?" He turned to stare at Alex and Xan in time to see ladders of lightning finally start crawling along Alex's legs; the damn demons had thought he was a scratching post and Alex had a few ideas why. "Good Lord, Alex. Are you all right?"
Xan just sighed. "Affinities. Damn it. Not a word from you, Alex. You're sitting and drinking Gatorade and coffee until I like your color, love. He'll be fine, Rupert, and explanations after coffee, if you just have to have some."
"Really, I think I need both, thank you," Rupert said dryly.
Alex sagged against Xan, trying not to keep cursing the pressure on his wound, and looked around their library. Books were scattered everywhere, the fireplace poker was going to need re-forging to be straight again, a chair had had stuffing and foam exposed, and the ottoman's legs were broken --unevenly, of course.
Alex shrugged, not arguing with the call of coffee which also meant rest and until you stop worrying me/needing to draw energy to heal that. He finally said, "Well, as usual, Rupert, your visits are never boring. Round two of food and showers it is. And calling in to work."
"Rupert? Someone really calls Giles that?" Buffy looked scandalized.
Rupert just rolled his eyes and went to support Xander. "Coffee, I think, and food for those who slept through the first meal, and come to that, I should call in and let a few people know we're alive, fine, and going to be at least another day getting home ourselves."
Oz raised one slightly shaggy eyebrow at her, sounding amused. "At least you missed the naked guys part, Buffy."
"Um, Oz?" She waved a hand towards his waist. "So totally didn't? Oh, wait, them? Them naked? Damn! Did you get pics?" Despite her chatter, Buffy came over and got Alex's other arm around her shoulder. She snagged his broadsword as she did and asked cheerfully, "Can I at least have a picture after you're cleaned up? 'Cause really, I never get good souvenirs from apocalypses. It'd be nice to buck that trend."
Alex started laughing, and Xan was half a beat behind him. Xan also waved permission and, not coincidentally, at the camera on the kitchen counter.
~ ~ ~
Buffy considered the last piece of toast, then sighed and pushed it to Oz. "Here. You don't look done yet." Out of the corner of her eye, she kept watching the house-owners. Alex was finally starting to get some color back, but his partner hadn't moved away yet. Hell, Xan didn’t look great either for a guy who'd crossed a room almost Slayer-fast not an hour before. She refilled their coffee mugs and added milk and sugar while she was at it, which got her an amused look from Xan and an exasperated one from Alex.
Oz had started layering his toast with ham, cheese, and jam, handing more slices of cheese to just about everyone in the process. "Thanks." Really, he'd changed at least twice tonight; Buffy couldn't blame him for being starving.
"Yes, well, now that we're all patched up again -- are you done eating, Willow?" Giles was sitting stiffly in his chair, face pinched in a way that told Buffy he wasn't admitting to some injury. She could tell he wasn't fooling his old friends, either. Okay, old, cute friends he'd never mentioned to the Scoobies, but Buffy already liked them for the way they'd fought earlier, the immediate offer of crash space or a library for the day, and the access to their house full of showers, refrigerator, and washer and dryer.
Xan said firmly, "You aren't patched up, Rupert. Come sit over here where I can check your ribs."
Xander had an icepack propped against his head, which 'just happened' to be propping his head up, too. "He's gotta point, Giles. You've looked better."
Buffy 'helped' Giles up (he was going to get up, she just hurried it along -- by half an hour) and asked, "I'm done, Oz is mostly done, and Wills is just rolling the eggs around now. Willow, what were those?"
"Escapees," Willow said. "They were tracking us by their blood on us."
Alex nodded and said, "The Lady came to collect them, so they belong in the Underworld. Every bit of them belongs there, including their blood."
"Right. Those thing are supposed to be guarding the Acheron." Willow snagged an orange, checked it carefully for something, then started peeling off rind. "I think the Chnarhl did finish the rite, Giles -- but the rite was designed to curry favor with Hades. So they thought they were opening a hellmouth and instead they opened a gate to one of Charon's river."
Giles winced under Xan's hands, tacitly admitting that his ribs were indeed bone-bruised and perhaps cracked. "Yes, fine, wrap them, Xan. Yes. That would explain those river murals by the caryatids, Willow. I thought there were some decidedly Greek elements in the symbolism."
Willow nodded. "The color scheme makes a lot more sense if they go to the underworld, too. And we did wonder why the room for the sacrifices had that central pit and omphalos."
Xander muttered, "I still think phallus and omphalos sound way too much alike. What's wrong with innie and outie?"
Willow ignored him -- years of practice -- while Alex and Xan both tried not to crack completely up. Maybe it was funnier if you spoke Greek? "Anyway," Willow spoke over the peanut gallery. "The Chnarhl got to the Acheron, the guardians smelled living creatures and went after them, but then they couldn't get home. And then we showed up."
Oz said thoughtfully, "Kinda confused here. How'd we end up here instead of Oxford?"
Xander looked up, "You never said where 'here' is, either."
Xan grinned at him. "No one asked, Xander. You're in Sacramento. California?"
Xander shook his head, figured out that hurt, and stopped. "England to Central America and we land back in California?"
Oz shrugged, glanced at Alex and said, "Watch for sinkholes. So why were you the only one who got poisoned? Not that we wanted to be in line, but."
"And what's with the whole Frahnkenshteen healing?" Xander added.
"That's Frankenstein," Alex pointed out, deadpan. He shrugged, shifting over to a command voice that reminded Buffy of Giles finally laying down the law about something. "We haven't asked why you're running around handling apocalypses--"
"--and know the proper plural," Xan added, still wrapping Giles' ribs.
"--and you don't get answers on that one. We're no threat to you. That'll have to do." Alex's tone said he was absolutely not at home to questions on that. Giles glanced at him, at Xan, and then left it alone.
Buffy gave them both the stink-eye over her coffee, but nope, no wiggins there either. Huh. Okay. Something was weird there, but Giles wasn't worried and hey, demons didn't like them, so whatever it clearly wasn't nearly as important as celebrating the win.
Xander muttered, "Great, another officer," but he was already nodding too. Huh. Kinda interesting. "Okay. Fine. Because yeah, not so much with the explaining here either."
Xan said patiently, "And we haven't asked you to."
Willow snagged the last of the coffee and ignored Xander's pitiful expression by concentrating on how much whipped cream she could fit into the mug. One quarter coffee, three quarters whipped cream looked about right to Buffy, too. Oz smiled a little and stole a fingerful of it, to Willow's laughing protests.
"Mine, Oz," Willow insisted. "And Alex worships Hades, so their blood side-tracked us here, or maybe Persephone did. Once the guardians revived from us killing them--"
Buffy looked up, offended. "I thought I'd killed that snaggle-toothed one already!"
Willow shushed her and went on, "They're from the realms of the dead, Buffy, and they weren't really alive, so they weren't great at staying dead either. Death demons, ech. But She did show up to help collect them, once I figured out what was going on to ask Her. Actually, She was pretty nice."
Xander gave Willow a very offended and kinda worried look. (Buffy was going to sidetrack that interest later, too. So was Giles from the extra wrinkles between his eyes.) Then Xander turned to glare at Alex, too. "Seriously, you worship a death god?"
Alex glanced up at Xander, sounding remarkably calm for being presented with Xander-logic. "He's also known as the Even-Handed One, the Great Leveler, and the Final Justice."
Xan finished helping Giles back into his shirt and added, "And unlike the rest of the Greek gods, Hades is happily married and has been for centuries. Alex worships Apollo too, if that makes you feel any better?"
"This is explaining so much," Giles muttered, but he was really trying not to smile. Buffy knew that particular 'frown;' it usually preceded her getting a new pair of shoes on the Watcher account, or at least a really frothy, loaded mochachino. "And you, Xan?"
Xan grinned at him. "Oh I mostly worship Poseidon and Eros. Useful, too, since we frequently live in earthquake country."
"So, Alex and the poison?" Oz asked patiently, coming back around to his earlier point. He could get stubborn like that.
"My best guess?" Alex asked ruefully. "Haven't you ever noticed that cats like to claw familiar things?"
Xander looked at both of them, opened his mouth -- then winced and shut up again.
Buffy nodded happily. Slayer aim: one thousand plus, Xander shin: zero. She sat up and said brightly, "Right. You've called in, we've called in, the demons are dead or gone, and Willow needs to recharge before she can teleport us home. So." She batted her eyelashes at them shamelessly. (Dawn would have laughed her out of the kitchen, but Dawn wasn't there.) "About these naked pictures I was promised? The really important question is: who gets to set the poses?"
"Buffy!"
Yeah. Alex, Xan, and Willow were laughing harder than Giles was fussing, Xander didn't want a dent in his other shin, and Oz had been laidback about nekkid even before he became a werewolf. Needing a new manicure was nothing on pictures of a pair of hot Greek guys in (hopefully not) classical poses.
Totally a win/win day.
~~~ finis ~~~
Comments, Commentary, Miscellanea:
Original header notes: In which Willow's teleportation spell doesn't work as planned. Written for Crossovers100 prompt #90 -- home. Alex & Xan are from my HL Aidan-verse AU. I don't think I have Buffy, or their vampires, in the Aidan-verse, but at this point, who knows?
Xan and Alex are original immortals from the Highlander universe, who've shared a quickening. In this case, that means they can sometimes be a lot more like one person in two bodies, or maybe two people sharing two bodies. That can have its drawbacks.
Nope, I made up both demon types. I think I'm relieved. Maybe.
Caleb was the character played by Nathan Fillion who took one of Xander's eyes in season 7 of Buffy. Dawn, for the curious, is back in England with the rest of the Council. Oz was swinging through because he's too fun not to write.
Depending on which version of the myth you read for the rivers of Hades, Cocytus and Phlegethon flow into the river Acheron, or the Acheron may be the source of both the Styx and Cocytus and is the river across which Charon rows souls. The second is Virgil's version, and I ran with it here.
I hadn't really thought about Hades & Persephone being the happily marrieds of the Greek pantheon, but you know, Xan has a point there? The things I learn about my characters....
No, Willow is not good at accepting death, and the Scoobies are going to discourage further contact there. Xan and Alex aren't as worried; Hades has a reputation for not giving up what's His. And the Scoobies didn't ask more because 1) tired, 2) Xan and Alex helped out and bleed red and don't set off the Slayer sense, and 3) did I mention tired?
Yes. I know. Somehow it turned into crack. I'm surprisingly good with this.
Massive thanks to
draconis,
jiltanith,
mackiedockie, and
raine for beta help!
Original post on Dreamwidth | Leave a comment on DW | Read
comments on DW Given the new LJ 'design' decisions, please comment on DW if you can.
The alarm system didn't go off because the five intruders materialized inside the house rather than breaking in.
Two of them promptly slid to the ground, folding at the joints in ways that made it clear they still had bones, although any control of the muscles over those bones was another matter. A third person threw out a hand to brace himself on the arm of the couch, trying to watch in every direction at once despite the patch over one eye and the blood pouring into the other.
The last two were doing the best job of staying upright; the shorter figure prowled straight to a lamp and turned it on, revealing that they were in a den -- coffee table, couch, comfortable chairs on either side of a fireplace, French doors out to a lawn -- with a half-closed door to one side and an eating bar to the other. The light reflected back off steel just past the bar, probably a kitchen.
The fifth figure looked around. The rooms were clean and didn't have demons -- good enough. "Definitely not England. Blast it," Giles said tiredly. He put down his crossbow and ran a hand through his hair, shedding a few grey hairs and several small pieces of plaster as he did, then knelt to make sure Buffy was still breathing. Whatever that last blast had been, it had scorched her clothing and knocked her senseless. "I do hope the homeowners have a first aid kit."
Xander dropped stiffly to one knee beside Willow, one hand on his battle axe and the other settling on her throat to check her pulse under hair scorched short on one side. "Willow is... out. How far did she send us?"
Oz settled down on the other side of Buffy and wrapped what was left of his shirt around her leg; she had a long, sluggishly oozing slash that hadn't had time to close up. "Looks American, Giles. Definitely warmer than London would be. English-speaking from the books on the coffee table." He pulled a blanket off the couch and knelt to wrap it over Willow, then went still. He waved Xander into the shadows with one swift gesture, freezing himself.
"So we are," a deep, annoyed voice said from the still-dark kitchen. "Although we could manage more than a few other languages if absolutely necessary."
"Later, Xan." That came from a second voice, almost as deep, both of the men sounding American, not British.
Giles had made it upright again to look for medical supplies or failing that, the makings of an ice pack. He turned in time to see two naked men prowl in and split to flank the Scoobies, swords and axes in hands. They were alert and awake despite the obvious lateness of the hour... and surprisingly familiar, especially with swords in hands. "Dear God," Giles said softly. "Of all the places-- Alex, Xan. Help."
Xan blinked, stared, then identified him correctly. "Rupert?" He nodded once, settling immediately into the practicalities as he always had, thank goodness. "Of course." He looked around, said, "Med-kit and kettle," and went back into the kitchen, turning a light on as he went.
Alex gave Giles an equally surprised look but he was smiling too. "It's good to see you." He nodded to Oz and Xander, his smile fading as he took in the condition of the new arrivals. "Even in these straits. All of you are bleeding." He set his weapons onto the coffee table; the blades fit in all too well with the debris from their arrival. "Who's worst?"
Oz just pointed. "Here. Buffy's probably worst." Concise hand gestures matched names to people as he went on, "Xander's not much better. Willow's just exhausted, I think."
Alex nodded. "Right. Xan's getting the medical supplies. Ziploc bags are in the second drawer down just to the left of the fridge. Get some ice on Xander's head. Giles, can you get these two while I check on the women?" His eyes narrowed in a familiar way which told Giles his own wounds had also been evaluated and added to the triage list. What Alex said, however, was, "The tea's in the hanging baskets to the left of the kettle. Start a pot and make it strong. You look exhausted."
Xander clearly considered protesting, then looked at Giles, shrugged, and said, "I gotta hear this later, G-Man. Naked armed men wander in and you just say help?"
"It is our house," Xan called from the kitchen. "And you're bleeding all over it. Get in here so I can see if that needs stitches or just an icepack."
Giles waved Oz over to get a shoulder under Xander's arm; Oz, bless him, ignored the blood down Xander's shoulder and back, and got him moving into the kitchen. One down. Giles sighed in relief, brushed more ichor and ash out of his hair, and crouched down to move Buffy.
"Rupert. Either go make tea or sit down to supervise." Alex was on one knee beside Willow, one hand resting lightly on a pulse point in her throat, the other gently peeling her eyes open to check the pupils. "I'll put you to work when I know where to start."
Giles sighed again. "Tea. Yes." He felt obligated to caution them, "Don't wake either Buffy or Willow precipitously. And if Buffy won't release the weapon, I recommend you leave it in her hand."
Alex nodded carefully and Giles relaxed a little more; it was lovely working with someone else who heard layered warnings. "I'll do my best. Go on."
~ ~ ~
Oz was drinking a tea latte, basically, but hey, caffeine, protein, sugar -- all of the good. Giles had made it and he looked like he regretted brewing it that strong, but he also looked a lot more alert for two mugs of the stuff and a plate of buttered toast and poached eggs. Now he had most of the blood off his face and chest and was checking his glasses for any cracks or scratches.
Oz had gone through a full plate of eggs, ham, and cheese himself and finished the rest of Xander's. Xander had eaten half his plate only because Alex, the one who looked like a partially reformed pirate, had refused to give him painkillers until Xander had something in his stomach. He was trying to stay awake and ask questions, but blood loss was messing with his plan. Alex kept refilling his mug with beef broth and Xander kept sipping it, too spaced out to realize it should have been empty a good while back.
Xan, the blond who looked like he'd be good to run with, came back down the stairs, wearing jeans at least -- probably because Xander's freak-out ratio was showing -- and with his arm full of clothes, enough for all three of the conscious. He pointed to a side room across the entry way from one of the library doors. "There's a shower and towels and such in there, Xander. The top layer should fit you. Leave the door cracked so we can hear you if you get dizzy. You took a pretty hard hit to the head."
"Hey, hot water and I--" Xander stood up and wobbled, but Oz had been expecting him to move too fast and got a hand under his elbow. "Okay. Hot water and I are still friends. Standing, on the other hand."
"Not entirely friendly," Oz agreed, walking over to the bathroom door with him. He added quietly, "I'll be out here if standing gets less friendly. Leave me some hot water."
Xan dropped the clothes inside the bathroom, moved towels into easy reach from the shower, then stepped out. Water started running a minute later; Oz leaned against the door frame and nodded to them. He was up to this, and it gave him a better place to listen for Willow and Buffy waking up in the library.
Giles rubbed his forehead. "Right. So. Wounded taken care of--" Alex handed him one of the same meds he'd given Xander and Oz; Giles washed it down with tea. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Alex caught the jeans Xan threw him, pulled them on, and sat down on the couch next to Xan. "What can you tell us?"
"Pretty trusting," Oz said mildly, one eyebrow lifting. The effect was impaired when he had to hastily brush dislodged ash out of his eyes. Huh. Hair hadn't been as clear of that fire spell as he thought.
"We're old friends, actually." Xan chuckled. "At least, we were friends when we last parted."
Giles smiled at that. "Oz, I'd like you to meet two of my language tutors. This is Alex," and the pirate nodded to him, "and that's Xan."
The runner nodded too. "Languages, swords, or sympathy as needed," Xan agreed.
"With a sideline in massage, first aid, and reasonableness." Alex picked up a whetstone and oil and began working on Xander's battle axe, frowning at a couple of the nicks. "So what can you tell us? And did you get enough food, Oz?"
Giles sipped his tea and asked, "The long version or the short version? The long version, I might add, begins with a request not to call an insane asylum."
Oz shook his head. "I'm good for now. Might raid for leftovers in a couple hours."
"Go right ahead. Leave us some of the smoked salmon, but the rest is fair game." Xan glanced back at Giles, shaking his head. "Why would we call an asylum, Rupert? That green stuff in your hair wasn't iron-based blood."
"Ah. That. Yes." Giles winced a little and finally said, "Would you believe we were preventing an apocalypse?"
Alex said calmly, "From you, we'd believe that." The steady rasp of oiled chert down steel was a soothing sound to Oz, familiar from late nights prepping for vampire attacks. Oz watched, interested, as Giles actually relaxed at their acceptance. Alex went on, "Is it averted, then?"
"Yes, I should think so. We did horrific damage to some very old art, but given that the pigments had been mixed in a blood medium, I can't bring myself to care very much." Giles glanced down at the blade beside his hand -- not one they'd brought with him, one Alex had pulled off the wall and handed over.
Xan had taken up Buffy's machete and was cleaning it, another set of oils and whetstones in front of him. He went straight to the practicalities, asking, "Can anything come after you?"
Oz pointed out, "We didn't come in by the door."
Alex looked over the axe at him. "Yes, but Rupert specified an apocalypse. That generally implies a supernatural element, or something sufficiently advanced to be taken for magic."
Oz gave him an amused look. "Yeah, we landed in the right place." He shrugged, still listening for a thud in the bathroom or movement across the hall in the library. Willow was going to love waking up in the middle of all those books. Oz wanted to look through a few of them later, for that matter. "Willow teleported us out. I don't think they can follow us, but I've never seen demons like that before, either."
Giles rubbed his forehead and took his glasses off to press fingers against the bridge of his nose. "Unfortunately, Oz, neither had I. I really don't know if they can follow us, Alex. I should hope not, but we were expecting Chnarhl demons--"
"That sounds more like a cough than a word," Xan said. He leaned over the table to scoop up the honey, squeezing more into Giles' tea without waiting for an answer.
"A word. Technically," Giles admitted.
Alex nodded. "So these Chnarhl demons were what you thought would be there?"
"Yes. They're tall, strong, not all that fast, and prone to taking over old sites and praying to ugly, petty-minded little gods--" Giles drank more of the tea; his mouth pursed with the effort not to comment on the taste. "Yes, I know, so many of them are."
Alex shrugged and ran a cloth over the axe to remove the extra oil, then picked up his broadsword to check it, too. "Greek, remember? We're used to gods who bicker and fight. So what did you run into?"
Oz shrugged, careful of his ribs; they hadn't quite finished healing yet. Definitely needed to get more protein in a few hours, and more dairy, too. "We were expecting the demon equivalent of triceratops. We kinda got velociraptors instead."
Xan raised an eyebrow. "Fast, vicious, and hunting in packs?"
"And short. Scaly, winged -- bad flyers, but they had this jump-flap combination -- and the tails have a nasty saw-edge to them." Oz listened as the water cut off, didn't hear motion soon enough, and ducked in to catch Xander.
"Just the steam," Xander said tiredly, hanging on the half-open shower door. "Gimme a sec."
Oz nodded. "Sure." He could hear Giles still briefing the two guys on what they were up against; he could also see the ruin Caleb had made of Xander's eye which meant Xander was seriously exhausted. He always kept a patch over it if anyone else was around.
Xander finally let go of the door and Oz turned around to give him some privacy to get dressed, or at least the dignity of doing it without Oz seeing him wobble around from blood loss, steam inhalation, and screwed-up depth perception.
Naturally, the new attack came while Xander was still pulling on his loaner sweat pants.
~ ~ ~
Alex closed one library door most of the way and had just turned to give Rupert an update on his protégés (Buffy was snoring quietly on one couch; Willow'd been tossing and turning on the other) when he heard a series of small pops, followed by a scream.
Xan bolted down the hall to block the other door out of the library. Alex went back into the library through the den door a lot faster than he'd left. Once they were at either end, their joined quickenings would let them both see the entire room at once. Not the easiest way to cope with a battle, but they had centuries of practice with doubled vision and doubled bodies and were used to it by now.
He made it in time to see Willow's hands strobe light, throwing half a dozen short bat-winged, snake-scaled, vulture-beaked things against the shelves and away from her and Buffy. Buffy was up and blinking, shaking her head to clear it as she fell back to guard her friend's left flank with the ax she'd never let go of. Alex promptly filed her as a highly competent fighter and let her get that side; he took the other side, as Rupert slammed the den door closed behind them.
"I have this door, Alex," Rupert called. "Xander, go around Xan and hold the other entry point for us."
The glowing green eyes on the chimera-demons were a little disconcerting, like looking at absinthe after taking LSD. On the other hand, they made great targets. Alex sank his blade between the eyes, into a skull, and twisted sharply to free it quickly. He pulled the bastard sword out and up, reversing its motion into a back-thrust into another demon Xan could see coming up behind him. A third one leapt out from under the coffee table, sinking claws and tail in through denim.
Xan buried his dagger in a glowing eye at the same time a sharp-edged tail sliced across one of their legs. Alex wasn't sure if it had cut him or Xan. The demon's shriek cut off when Xan yanked it toward him by the long, leathery neck while one foot on its chest shoved it back. The neck snapped when he twisted, and the wings flapped once involuntarily.
Rupert called, "Xan, down!" and Xan dropped as one of the things leapt for his eyes with a flap of bat wings. Xan yanked his knife free as it went overhead and threw the blade -- at the demon on Alex's leg. The knife sank in to the hilt.
The damn thing spasmed, claws digging in tighter, then fell away. Alex let the one in the air glide down to him and took its head off as soon as it was in range.
Xan pulled another knife as he twisted to roll up again. Alex looked up from kicking another creature away from the door -- better to contain them in the one room, the den didn't have doorways to trap them -- in time to see another half-dozen of the damn things materialize around Willow with noises that matched the last series of pops.
Buffy slapped two away with her ax, kicked a third towards Alex, and a very large wolf that hadn't been there earlier barreled into the other new arrivals, knocking two down and grabbing the last one by the throat and shaking it like a terrier with a rat. The creature fought back with buffeting wings and vicious tail slices until the wolf snapped its neck.
From behind Alex, Rupert grunted with effort, then called, "Willow, they seem to be homing in on you."
Buffy snarled, kicked the breath out of a demon, brought her axe down into the spine of another, then whirled back to grab the first one. She hefted the creature over her head, too easily for her size, and slammed it down onto a friend. They both made wheezy grunts of pain and then cracking sounds. The ottoman died, too.
Buffy called, "We'll keep them off you, Willow, shut whatever this is down!"
Another six appeared, a few feet over the floor this time. The wolf spun on one hind paw, a front paw cuffing a demon to Alex like a volleyball player spiking over the net. Alex took its head off, ignoring the ichor that painted his shirt sickly green, and back-kicked another one to Xan. At this point, Alex definitely identified the tail slash as being on him, not Xan. He didn't have time to look down, but he could feel the blood starting to soak his jeans; the claw punctures hurt out of all proportion to their size, too.
There was no time to do anything but take the damage into account, wish for more adrenaline to cover it up, and go on.
Xan saw the wolf gathering itself to vault onto the coffee table, and Alex ducked as Oz (presumably) soared over his shoulder to haul a chimera down before it could run along a bookshelf. His left leg buckled under him, but Rupert hauled him up and back towards the doorframe. Alex pushed up against it with the leg that was still working and closed down most of his link with Xan rather than drain too much of his energy during a fight.
Buffy hip-checked a low-glider towards Xan -- they really did fly slightly better than bricks despite a long lean form that should have been aerodynamic. Xan snarled an old Sacred Band profanity and sank his knife between the thing's shoulder blades. Buffy grabbed a second one by the head, popping the damn thing like a whip. She dislocated its spine with a crack that drew a faintly protesting noise from Xander.
Alex glanced over at him and saw Xander was bloodied again but holding the door shut behind him and kicking the damn things back to the other fighters. Alex started slapping them back to the center with the flat of his sword, focusing on that instead of wounds that weren't closing quickly or maybe at all, or the way the room wanted to sway around him.
Then Willow said, "Oh, that's what they are." She sounded very matter-of-fact, as if she'd been researching them in a library with a coffee to hand instead of turning a demon's head back and forth, with her hands coated in its blood and her own eyes never quite focusing. "And that's why we're here. Actually, this is kind of cool."
Rupert, sounding harried, called, "Solution now, explanation later, please, Willow." He grunted with the effort of pounding two new arrivals flat with a fireplace poker.
Rupert was right, too; they were running out of room to fight, but moving out of the library would be a disaster. If the demons got out of here, they'd have free access to the kitchen and den, which opened onto each other, and the front entryway with the stairs up to second. These five were good fighters, but Alex wasn't sure how much house-clearing experience they had, especially against things the size and speed of whippets.
Another six appeared -- why always six? -- in a circle around Willow, this time just under the ceiling.
"Oh, good point, Giles. Sorry." Willow still looked and sounded a little scattered from the spells or wherever she'd gone into her head or out of her body to get the information, but she looked up and the new arrivals slammed backwards into the walls and shelves, falling from there to the floor in a succession of limp thumps.
She dusted her hands off like she was getting ready to start a project and said, "Okay. Brace yourselves." She pulled her hands apart, an iridescent black ring appearing as she did, glowing purple and indigo at the edges, shading through blue into white at the center.
The wolf whined and backed away into a corner as more of the demons started popping in -- not six at a time now but two and three dozen per burst of light and sound. They appeared, shrank, and were forced into the gleaming circle between Willow's hands. Absently, she said, "Someone open the door behind me."
Alex saw the bodies on the floor flying into the circle/gate, too, and turned the doorknob with one hand. He kept his back to the doorframe, broadsword ready in case one had gotten loose, and hoped that none of them had.
Instead of another dinosaur-chimera-demon, ash and debris poured through the air, vanishing into the circle with the creatures. Breezes tore at Alex's hair, pulling scales and ichor away from him. A claw pulled out of his leg and Alex bit down on words he didn't want to use with magic in process, watching grimly through his eyes and Xan's as phosphorescent green venom streamed out of his wounds and towards the young witch.
The same winds spun and tore around Giles and Buffy, rifled through the wolf's pelt, tugged at Xan and Xander's pants and hair. Stains vanished out of clothes, medical wrappings shot through from the kitchen trash, and blood pulled out of the carpet, all of it soaring through the air into the circle.
No matter how small the circle looked comparatively, each item shrank as it approached, dropping in like pebbles falling into a whirlpool.
Xander clung to the door; Xan braced him there with one arm, his spotlessly clean knife in the other, and most of his focus on Alex. Giles watched, mouth tightening into a line that used to precede a battle royale with Ethan over something. (Ethan, now there was a set of memories Alex could do without reliving.)
Buffy was focused onto Willow as she said, "Wills -- watch the magic levels."
"Oh, it's okay. I'm not doing most of it, Buffy. It is kinda cool though," Willow confided, a small fascinated smile curving her mouth despite the bruises along one side of her face. "They're pests, but they were never supposed to get out."
Xan's eyes narrowed at her first comments and Alex turned to look more closely at Willow, too. Xan was right; another figure faintly overlaid her, one with tan skin, waving red-gold hair several shades paler than Willow's, and a mouth dark red as--
"Pomegranates." Alex let himself slide down to his good knee.
Xan did the same, which brought Xander down with him. "What the hell?" Xander sputtered.
As the last few demons appeared and promptly vanished, Xan warned him, "Close enough. Be polite to the Lady."
Those intangible hands closed the black gate down, gathering it from a circle into a rough-edged geode which glinted blue, purple, and green before closing into something like a rough granite globe. It hovered by Her hand, not Willow's. She was a few inches taller, which made the whole thing look even more odd. Now that it was closed, the globe looked as otherly-tangible as She did. No one laughed at either.
Persephone nodded to Xan, smiled ruefully at Alex, kissed the top of Willow's head -- and vanished.
Willow promptly wavered. "Oh. Head rush. Brain freeze kind of, but I did not eat ice cream there. Or a slushee. Or anything, thanks."
Oz moved out of his corner to catch her, both of them ignoring his nudity. Alex gave it one admiring glance and ignored it, too, as Oz settled her on the newly-clean couch. "Here. Sit."
Xan appeared next to Alex, voice tight as he said, "Damn it, let me in, you idiot. Let me see that...." Once he had a hand on Alex's shoulder, their quickenings surged together again despite Alex's best efforts and they both cursed, Alex in Phoenician, Xan in Gallic, when the pain momentarily felt twice as bad. Xan promptly sliced his jeans farther open to see how bad the wound was and if it was healing yet.
"Whoa." On the couch, Willow let Oz take most of her weight. "Okay. That was completely cool and completely terrifying. I am still breathing, right?"
Buffy stared at her then said, "Yup. Still breathing, no wiggins. Also, no black eyes or veins, but what just happened? And do I smell food?
Rupert relaxed at last, sighing, "Right, then. Round two?" He turned to stare at Alex and Xan in time to see ladders of lightning finally start crawling along Alex's legs; the damn demons had thought he was a scratching post and Alex had a few ideas why. "Good Lord, Alex. Are you all right?"
Xan just sighed. "Affinities. Damn it. Not a word from you, Alex. You're sitting and drinking Gatorade and coffee until I like your color, love. He'll be fine, Rupert, and explanations after coffee, if you just have to have some."
"Really, I think I need both, thank you," Rupert said dryly.
Alex sagged against Xan, trying not to keep cursing the pressure on his wound, and looked around their library. Books were scattered everywhere, the fireplace poker was going to need re-forging to be straight again, a chair had had stuffing and foam exposed, and the ottoman's legs were broken --unevenly, of course.
Alex shrugged, not arguing with the call of coffee which also meant rest and until you stop worrying me/needing to draw energy to heal that. He finally said, "Well, as usual, Rupert, your visits are never boring. Round two of food and showers it is. And calling in to work."
"Rupert? Someone really calls Giles that?" Buffy looked scandalized.
Rupert just rolled his eyes and went to support Xander. "Coffee, I think, and food for those who slept through the first meal, and come to that, I should call in and let a few people know we're alive, fine, and going to be at least another day getting home ourselves."
Oz raised one slightly shaggy eyebrow at her, sounding amused. "At least you missed the naked guys part, Buffy."
"Um, Oz?" She waved a hand towards his waist. "So totally didn't? Oh, wait, them? Them naked? Damn! Did you get pics?" Despite her chatter, Buffy came over and got Alex's other arm around her shoulder. She snagged his broadsword as she did and asked cheerfully, "Can I at least have a picture after you're cleaned up? 'Cause really, I never get good souvenirs from apocalypses. It'd be nice to buck that trend."
Alex started laughing, and Xan was half a beat behind him. Xan also waved permission and, not coincidentally, at the camera on the kitchen counter.
~ ~ ~
Buffy considered the last piece of toast, then sighed and pushed it to Oz. "Here. You don't look done yet." Out of the corner of her eye, she kept watching the house-owners. Alex was finally starting to get some color back, but his partner hadn't moved away yet. Hell, Xan didn’t look great either for a guy who'd crossed a room almost Slayer-fast not an hour before. She refilled their coffee mugs and added milk and sugar while she was at it, which got her an amused look from Xan and an exasperated one from Alex.
Oz had started layering his toast with ham, cheese, and jam, handing more slices of cheese to just about everyone in the process. "Thanks." Really, he'd changed at least twice tonight; Buffy couldn't blame him for being starving.
"Yes, well, now that we're all patched up again -- are you done eating, Willow?" Giles was sitting stiffly in his chair, face pinched in a way that told Buffy he wasn't admitting to some injury. She could tell he wasn't fooling his old friends, either. Okay, old, cute friends he'd never mentioned to the Scoobies, but Buffy already liked them for the way they'd fought earlier, the immediate offer of crash space or a library for the day, and the access to their house full of showers, refrigerator, and washer and dryer.
Xan said firmly, "You aren't patched up, Rupert. Come sit over here where I can check your ribs."
Xander had an icepack propped against his head, which 'just happened' to be propping his head up, too. "He's gotta point, Giles. You've looked better."
Buffy 'helped' Giles up (he was going to get up, she just hurried it along -- by half an hour) and asked, "I'm done, Oz is mostly done, and Wills is just rolling the eggs around now. Willow, what were those?"
"Escapees," Willow said. "They were tracking us by their blood on us."
Alex nodded and said, "The Lady came to collect them, so they belong in the Underworld. Every bit of them belongs there, including their blood."
"Right. Those thing are supposed to be guarding the Acheron." Willow snagged an orange, checked it carefully for something, then started peeling off rind. "I think the Chnarhl did finish the rite, Giles -- but the rite was designed to curry favor with Hades. So they thought they were opening a hellmouth and instead they opened a gate to one of Charon's river."
Giles winced under Xan's hands, tacitly admitting that his ribs were indeed bone-bruised and perhaps cracked. "Yes, fine, wrap them, Xan. Yes. That would explain those river murals by the caryatids, Willow. I thought there were some decidedly Greek elements in the symbolism."
Willow nodded. "The color scheme makes a lot more sense if they go to the underworld, too. And we did wonder why the room for the sacrifices had that central pit and omphalos."
Xander muttered, "I still think phallus and omphalos sound way too much alike. What's wrong with innie and outie?"
Willow ignored him -- years of practice -- while Alex and Xan both tried not to crack completely up. Maybe it was funnier if you spoke Greek? "Anyway," Willow spoke over the peanut gallery. "The Chnarhl got to the Acheron, the guardians smelled living creatures and went after them, but then they couldn't get home. And then we showed up."
Oz said thoughtfully, "Kinda confused here. How'd we end up here instead of Oxford?"
Xander looked up, "You never said where 'here' is, either."
Xan grinned at him. "No one asked, Xander. You're in Sacramento. California?"
Xander shook his head, figured out that hurt, and stopped. "England to Central America and we land back in California?"
Oz shrugged, glanced at Alex and said, "Watch for sinkholes. So why were you the only one who got poisoned? Not that we wanted to be in line, but."
"And what's with the whole Frahnkenshteen healing?" Xander added.
"That's Frankenstein," Alex pointed out, deadpan. He shrugged, shifting over to a command voice that reminded Buffy of Giles finally laying down the law about something. "We haven't asked why you're running around handling apocalypses--"
"--and know the proper plural," Xan added, still wrapping Giles' ribs.
"--and you don't get answers on that one. We're no threat to you. That'll have to do." Alex's tone said he was absolutely not at home to questions on that. Giles glanced at him, at Xan, and then left it alone.
Buffy gave them both the stink-eye over her coffee, but nope, no wiggins there either. Huh. Okay. Something was weird there, but Giles wasn't worried and hey, demons didn't like them, so whatever it clearly wasn't nearly as important as celebrating the win.
Xander muttered, "Great, another officer," but he was already nodding too. Huh. Kinda interesting. "Okay. Fine. Because yeah, not so much with the explaining here either."
Xan said patiently, "And we haven't asked you to."
Willow snagged the last of the coffee and ignored Xander's pitiful expression by concentrating on how much whipped cream she could fit into the mug. One quarter coffee, three quarters whipped cream looked about right to Buffy, too. Oz smiled a little and stole a fingerful of it, to Willow's laughing protests.
"Mine, Oz," Willow insisted. "And Alex worships Hades, so their blood side-tracked us here, or maybe Persephone did. Once the guardians revived from us killing them--"
Buffy looked up, offended. "I thought I'd killed that snaggle-toothed one already!"
Willow shushed her and went on, "They're from the realms of the dead, Buffy, and they weren't really alive, so they weren't great at staying dead either. Death demons, ech. But She did show up to help collect them, once I figured out what was going on to ask Her. Actually, She was pretty nice."
Xander gave Willow a very offended and kinda worried look. (Buffy was going to sidetrack that interest later, too. So was Giles from the extra wrinkles between his eyes.) Then Xander turned to glare at Alex, too. "Seriously, you worship a death god?"
Alex glanced up at Xander, sounding remarkably calm for being presented with Xander-logic. "He's also known as the Even-Handed One, the Great Leveler, and the Final Justice."
Xan finished helping Giles back into his shirt and added, "And unlike the rest of the Greek gods, Hades is happily married and has been for centuries. Alex worships Apollo too, if that makes you feel any better?"
"This is explaining so much," Giles muttered, but he was really trying not to smile. Buffy knew that particular 'frown;' it usually preceded her getting a new pair of shoes on the Watcher account, or at least a really frothy, loaded mochachino. "And you, Xan?"
Xan grinned at him. "Oh I mostly worship Poseidon and Eros. Useful, too, since we frequently live in earthquake country."
"So, Alex and the poison?" Oz asked patiently, coming back around to his earlier point. He could get stubborn like that.
"My best guess?" Alex asked ruefully. "Haven't you ever noticed that cats like to claw familiar things?"
Xander looked at both of them, opened his mouth -- then winced and shut up again.
Buffy nodded happily. Slayer aim: one thousand plus, Xander shin: zero. She sat up and said brightly, "Right. You've called in, we've called in, the demons are dead or gone, and Willow needs to recharge before she can teleport us home. So." She batted her eyelashes at them shamelessly. (Dawn would have laughed her out of the kitchen, but Dawn wasn't there.) "About these naked pictures I was promised? The really important question is: who gets to set the poses?"
"Buffy!"
Yeah. Alex, Xan, and Willow were laughing harder than Giles was fussing, Xander didn't want a dent in his other shin, and Oz had been laidback about nekkid even before he became a werewolf. Needing a new manicure was nothing on pictures of a pair of hot Greek guys in (hopefully not) classical poses.
Totally a win/win day.
~~~ finis ~~~
Comments, Commentary, Miscellanea:
Original header notes: In which Willow's teleportation spell doesn't work as planned. Written for Crossovers100 prompt #90 -- home. Alex & Xan are from my HL Aidan-verse AU. I don't think I have Buffy, or their vampires, in the Aidan-verse, but at this point, who knows?
Xan and Alex are original immortals from the Highlander universe, who've shared a quickening. In this case, that means they can sometimes be a lot more like one person in two bodies, or maybe two people sharing two bodies. That can have its drawbacks.
Nope, I made up both demon types. I think I'm relieved. Maybe.
Caleb was the character played by Nathan Fillion who took one of Xander's eyes in season 7 of Buffy. Dawn, for the curious, is back in England with the rest of the Council. Oz was swinging through because he's too fun not to write.
Depending on which version of the myth you read for the rivers of Hades, Cocytus and Phlegethon flow into the river Acheron, or the Acheron may be the source of both the Styx and Cocytus and is the river across which Charon rows souls. The second is Virgil's version, and I ran with it here.
I hadn't really thought about Hades & Persephone being the happily marrieds of the Greek pantheon, but you know, Xan has a point there? The things I learn about my characters....
No, Willow is not good at accepting death, and the Scoobies are going to discourage further contact there. Xan and Alex aren't as worried; Hades has a reputation for not giving up what's His. And the Scoobies didn't ask more because 1) tired, 2) Xan and Alex helped out and bleed red and don't set off the Slayer sense, and 3) did I mention tired?
Yes. I know. Somehow it turned into crack. I'm surprisingly good with this.
Massive thanks to
draconis,
jiltanith,
mackiedockie, and
raine for beta help!
Original post on Dreamwidth | Leave a comment on DW | Read
comments on DW Given the new LJ 'design' decisions, please comment on DW if you can.