Kin of the Soul
Kin of the Soul
Slash: Angel/Xander, Angel/Spike
Rated: ADULT
banner by objectivelypink
STOP!!! This is the second chapter today... Yes, we have entered a spurt, people. Please watch your step or you will land in the wrong chapter!
( Part One ) ( Part Two ) ( Part Three ) ( Part Four ) ( Part Five ) ( Part Six ) ( Part Seven ) ( Part Eight ) ( Part Nine ) ( Part Ten ) ( Part Eleven ) ( Part Twelve ) ( Part Thirteen ) ( Part Fourteen ) (Part Fifteen ) ( Part Sixteen ) ( Part Seventeen ) ( Part Eighteen ) ( Part Nineteen ) ( Part Twenty) ( Part Twenty-One ) ( Part Twenty-Two ) ( Part Twenty-Three ) ( Part Twenty-Four ) ( Part Twenty-Five ) ( Part Twenty-six ) ( Part Twenty-Seven ) ( Part Twenty-eight ) ( Part Twenty-nine )( Part thirty ) ( Part Thirty-one ) ( Part Thirty-Two ) ( Part Thirty-Three ) ( Part Thirty four ) ( Part Thirty-five ) ( Part Thirty-Six ) ( Part Thirty-Seven ) ( Part Thirty-Eight ) ( Part Thirty-nine ) ( Part Forty ) ( Part Forty-one ) ( Part Forty-two ) ( Part Forty-three ) ( Part Forty-four ) ( Part Forty-five ) ( Part Forty-six ) ( Part Forty-Seven ) ( Part Forty-Eight ) ( Part 49 ) ( Part 50 ) ( Part 51 ) ( Part 52 ) ( Part 53 ) ( Part 54 ) ( Part 55 ) ( Part 56 ) ( Part 57 ) ( Part 58 ) ( Part 59 ) (Part 60) ( Part 61 )
( Part 62--Tuesday's first chapter )
Chapter 63
Xander flexed his arms as he followed Angel down the corridor. He didn’t feel different, but he had certainly regained his missing weight quickly enough.
“Xander?” Angel asked quietly.
“Just wondering if I got any Justice League powers,” Xander whispered as a nurse passed them in the hall. Spike was setting up some heavy duty firepower near the morgue before paging Ben down to the lower level. As much as Xander didn’t like the idea of having a big hellgoddy fight in the middle of a hospital, he did understand tactically why Angel and Spike had chosen it.
“Stay behind me,” Angel said firmly. “If ye want to try out powers, you’ll do it some other time.”
“Oh, no. I have no interest in trying out any powers. I’ll just… I don’t know, try out any potential super strength on the oak corbels. Do you have any idea how tough those things are to carve, and I cannot find anything that matches the Hyperion’s architecture.”
Angel stopped in the middle of the hall to give Xander an odd look. Xander waited. Sometimes it took Angel a little longer to collect his thoughts these days. “You don’t want to fight? When Angelus… when I…” Angel froze.
Xander laid his hand on Angel’s arm. “I didn’t like getting left behind, but that doesn’t mean I need to be in the middle of the fight. Trust me, if I get to talk to you about any potential slaying and be slay-adjacent in case of full assaults and help out in emergencies, I’m happy. I’m even happier if I get to spend more time remodeling the hotel than fighting. We can’t all be fighters, you know,” Xander pointed out. He had hated the feeling of being trapped in a small space with Angelus. He’d hated knowing that he couldn’t stop Angelus from eating random people or doing some really freakily scary things to Watchers. Xander suspected that Giles was avoiding them because he’d heard those stories about the Watchers who had come to spy on Angelus. Unless Giles had seriously changed, Buffy and Riley were probably getting lectured about the foolishness of trusting vampires. Hopefully Riley had more self-esteem than Xander had at fifteen.
“You’re a good fighter,” Angel said.
“Yep, I am,” Xander agreed, “for a human. You and Spike are better. I can live with that.”
“As long as you know I trust you at my side,” Angel said firmly.
Xander laughed. “Okay, the soul so gave the demon shit about that, didn’t it?” Xander asked.
“Yes.” Angel sounded oddly determined about saying that.
“I always knew the demon loved me,” Xander said. “I knew it every time he looked at me, so if he made any mistakes, I always forgave him because he didn’t mean any harm,” Xander said. He didn’t point out that he had made the decision to kill Angelus right about the time Anyanka had shown up. “Besides, the demon is way scarier than the soul in a fight, so any fight the demon is leading, I probably want to be far, far fray-adjacent,” Xander admitted.
Angel didn’t answer, but he did slip an arm around Xander’s shoulders. Yep, the demon liked being called scarier, and the soul liked knowing Xander was happy. When Xander was in high school, being happy meant he had to be in the middle of the fight. Buffy and Willow with their attempts to push him toward safer ground had made him feel… well, like less of a man or less of a human or something. Maybe less powerful was the best way to put it. Now, now he didn’t mind all that much. After all, Angel was letting him come with them for the “kill-Ben” plan, even if he had threatened to chain Xander to a bed if he got too close to any fighting. So they trusted him to be part of the fight, even if it wasn’t the front line. Nope, Xander was cell-phone having, back-up calling man, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that.
They stopped in a deserted corner of the hall, right outside a stairwell. “You could wait here,” Angel said.
“I could, but I won’t,” Xander answered. From the look Angel gave him, Angel knew he was up to something, but Xander put on his sweetest smile. Now Angel looked even more worried.
“Stay behind me,” Angel warned again.
“Yep.”
“And stay out of the fight.”
“Yeppers.”
“And call Buffy if Glorificus appears.”
“Call, got it,” Xander agreed, happy that Angel ran out of orders. If he kept on long enough, he was sure it hit an order that Xander didn’t plan to follow. However, with a sigh, Angel headed down the stairwell, and Xander followed.
Spike should be set up by the elevators, so it was show time. The vampires planned to kill Ben without warning, but Xander had plans of his own. They weren’t good plans, but he didn’t worry about the strategy of things, only the morality of them. That was his job, along with reproducing period corbels. The others had their strengths, and Xander had his.
“He’s coming,” Angel whispered. The plan was for Spike to let Ben pass and then the two vampires would ambush Ben in the hall outside the morgue. If Ben managed to turn into Glory, Angel and Spike would hold her until Xander could call for backup or until Spike could pull out the machine gun he’d “borrowed” from Riley’s unit. Riley’s gun might not have taken Glorificus down, but it had slowed her.
Angel’s body tensed has he readied himself to leap out and try for the quick kill.
“Ben?” Xander shouted. The noise startled Angel so much that he actually stumbled into the open, and Xander pushed forward, taking advantage of that to reach the main hall, even though he did stay behind Angel. Ben stood in the middle of the hallway looking confused.
“Yes?” he asked unsteadily. “Do we know each other?”
“Um, yeah, we met last night,” Xander said, moving quickly while Angel was frozen in his internal battle. Xander figured Angelus was arguing for dragging Xander home and chaining him to something right now. Immediately. Screw Glorificus and the end of the world stuff.
“Last night?” Ben spoke slowly, but Xander could see the growing horror on Ben’s face. That answered one question. Ben knew there was something going on with him.
“Yeah, when your fun, fun other half tried to rip my arms off,” Xander said. Lots of expressions crossed Ben’s face: guilt, horror, fear, hatred. However, Xander didn’t see a whole lot of confusion.
“You know about Glorificus, don’t you?” Xander asked. Xander hadn’t vetoed the plan the vampires had come up with, but the fact was that he wouldn’t help kill some random, innocent person. He just wouldn’t. There were lines that shouldn’t be crossed and that was one of them. Unfortunately, Angel pulled himself out of his internal monolog long enough to step forward with a growl, blocking Xander’s view of Ben.
“You… you’re… but…” Ben spluttered a bit. Funny, a guy with a hell god in him really shouldn’t be shocked at vampires.
“Do you know how to stop her?” Xander asked. He looked around Angel’s wide shoulders, and Ben was backing away, shaking his head.
“You can’t.”
“Yes, we can,” Angel disagreed, but he wasn’t charging forward.
Ben kept shaking his head. “She’s too powerful. I try. I try to keep her inside, but she’s so powerful.”
“You don’t try hard enough then, mate,” Spike said as he came out of the room where he’d been hiding, cutting Ben off from the elevator. Spike shot Angel and Xander a confused look, but he backed the plan. Xander did love his vampires.
“You have to know what she’s doing,” Xander told Ben. “She’s sucking people’s brains out. She wants to rip open a hole to her own world, and if ripping a hole in the universe sounds like a good thing, you’re clearly not that bright. I thought doctors were supposed to be bright.”
“Do you think I don’t know how dangerous she is?” Ben demanded. “Even now, she wants to come out. I fight her every minute of every day.”
Xander could almost feel the tension rise as Ben made that admission. Okay, tactically it’d be good to get with the killing, but Xander… he had to see if there was another way.
“Tell us about her, about her power,” Xander urged. “Maybe we can get her out of you.”
“You can’t.” Ben’s voice rose to a near-shout. “If she comes out, my body will be torn to shreds. I’ll die. You have to believe that I’ve tried to figure a way to fix this. I became a doctor because I wanted a way to fix this.”
Spike gave a rough laugh. “You thought medical school would teach ya to get a hellgod out of your head? You really aren’t the brightest, are you?”
Ben scowled at Spike for a second before turning back toward Angel.
“I have a right to my life. You can’t blame me for what she does.”
“What about what you aren’t doing?” Xander asked.
Ben looked confused.
Keeping his hand on Angel’s arm, Xander stepped to the side so he could actually talk to Ben without having to stare at the back of Angel’s shoulders. “If I had a hellgod in me, someone who threatened the existence of the universe, I’d find the people fighting her, and I’d tell them everything I knew. I’d tell them where she goes and what she thinks. I’d tell them what it feels like when she takes over… I mean, is it cold? Can you see what she’s doing when she’s hijacking your body? Are you in the dark the whole time? All these are magical clues we might use to fight her.”
“I can’t fight her.”
“You may not be able to win, but you can fight, and I found that most of the time when I get in there and fight, I do better than I expected,” Xander pointed out. He wanted Ben to see that they were trying to help. He wanted Ben to give Angel and Spike one really good reason to not kill him.
“How often does she come out?” Angel asked.
Ben looked from Xander to Angel in clear panic.
“How long does it take her to recover her strength and get out again?” Angel repeated, stepping forward.
“You don’t understand. It’s not fair. I have a right to my life. I never asked to have her put inside me.”
“Life’s a bitch, mate, and that’s the same no matter who you are,” Spike said, joining in. “How much warning do you get before she comes out?”
Xander could almost taste Ben’s desperation now. He wanted to help them; Xander knew that. However, he needed a reason to believe they could win against Glorificus. “We beat one of the old ones, one of the old demons that ruled this world. We can beat her,” Xander promised, willing Ben to listen, to believe.
“No!” Ben shouted, “You can’t. You can’t beat her. I can’t beat her. Don’t you understand that? She’s stronger than all of us.”
“Not if we work together,” Xander tried reasoning with him even though he could almost feel the moment passing. Ben had almost sided with them, but now he pulled back. He wouldn’t risk himself, not even to save the world.
“I have a right to my life. You can’t blame me,” he said. He turned to rush at Spike or past Spike or something. He got two steps and Spike’s hands came up. With a sickening crack, bones snapped and Ben’s head twisted around so sharply that the skin of his neck folded and wrinkled like a shar pei’s. Xander sucked in a fast breath, and before he knew it, Xander felt himself wrapped up in Angel’s arms.
“Shhhh, m’fhear, you did your best. And we’ll talk later about you changing a plan in the middle.” Even though Angel promised unhappy talk later, his hands moved in soothing circles on Xander’s back.
“I thought we were just killing the bugger?” Spike asked, clearly confused. Xander could feel his body start to shake. He’d wanted to save Ben. He’d tried. He really had. But if someone wouldn’t be saved, they wouldn’t be saved.
“Xander changed the plan,” Angel said, his voice still soft.
“Why?” Spike’s lack of a soul was definitely showing through.
Xander squirmed around so he could lean back against Angel and talk to Spike, but as he did, he found his gaze falling on the twisted and bent body lying in a tangled heap of limbs. Ben. “He had a right to try and fight back,” Xander said softly as he looked at the body. If he got infested with something nasty and world endy, and face it, in their line of business, that wasn’t totally out of the realm of possibility, Xander would want a chance to fight back.
“Against us?” Spike sounded utterly confused now.
Xander shook his head. “Against Glorificus.”
Spike gave a loud and disgusted snort. “He wasn’t the fighting sort, pet. He was more the sort to whinge about his lot in life.”
“And do nothing to protect people from the monster he had inside,” Xander agreed softly. “But at least that means we killed him for what he did, or what he didn’t do, not because someone shoved a hellgod in him.”
“There’s no ‘we’ there. I killed the hellgod.” Spike started smirking. “Slayer of slayers and now the executioner of hellgods. I like the bloody sound of that.”
“You killed a human doctor,” Angel said, and from the tone, he wasn’t nearly as amused. Xander looked up to find Angel still watching with this concerned expression. Xander ducked his head and leaned closer. This didn’t feel like the sort of victory that you’d cheer for, but it was a victory. The world was safe. That was good. And if Xander wasn’t feeling particularly good about it right now, that was okay too. Xander knew they’d done the right thing.
“He had a bloody hellgod in him.”
“Which you didn’t fight.”
“I did last night,” Spike pointed out, following as Angel urged Xander back toward the stairs. Xander wondered if they were going to just leave Ben in the middle of the hall. Most of the monster they fought had the good manners to vanish. Leaving a human body, a broken and twisted human body behind, felt wrong.
“And you didn’t beat her last night,” Angel said. The two of them kept bantering the whole way back to the main corridor. Spike said something about poetic license that led to a whole exchange about poetry that left Angel smirking and Spike fuming and Xander just confused. They were almost to the exit when Angel stopped.
The double doors opened, and Xander could see the starry night waiting for them, but Angel cocked his head and turned around to look down one of the other halls. “Angel?” Xander asked. Spike turned to look down the hall, and it took a couple of seconds, but then he started walking back into the hospital.
“I hear Buffy,” Angel said as he guided Xander in the same direction Spike had taken. “She’s crying.”
“Crying?” Xander’s heart dropped into his stomach. Dawn. Or Riley. Riley was human, so vampire-hunting was a dangerous job. Or Joyce had been looking really not good last time Xander had seen her. But she’d promised that the doctors said she was fine. Xander walked faster, nearly running as he followed Spike around little clusters of waiting families-crying children and weary mothers who all clung to the sides of the hallways as if they needed to lean against a wall to keep from falling down.
“Summers?” Spike asked as he got to a waiting room on the far end from the morgue access. He’d nearly called her ‘slayer,’ something which always made Buffy scowl and threaten to out his secret identity in public. Always. But this time she was nearly curled into Riley’s arms, crying so hard that she didn’t even bother sniping at Spike.
“Spike!” Dawn threw herself at Spike, nearly knocking him offer as she clung to him, her sobs loud enough to drown out Buffy’s.
“Buffy?” Xander asked, almost afraid to get an answer. Buffy didn’t even react.
“Joyce,” Riley said, his voice shaky.
“What about her?” Xander didn’t realize he was losing his balance until Angel caught his arm and pulled him closer. Xander waited for someone to say that something horrible had happened, like she’d had a stroke or a heart attack. He waited for them to say that she was clinging to life in ICU. All those things would be hugely bad, but there’d be this hope. He needed hope. However, Buffy and Dawn both just kept crying.
Spike sank into a hospital chair, pulling Dawn down with him, and she clung to him desperately.
“Oh God.” Xander felt his eyes burn with tears. “Oh God, no.” No one said anything.