Fic: "Late Shift," R (Xander Darkfic)
Late Shift
Rated R; spoilers through BtVS early S4
Xander/OCs, Xander/Faith
Summary: Everyone's in college except Xander, but he's also going through some major changes.
Written for liz_marcs's Dark!Xander Ficathon
Warnings: Het with a series of partners, exhibitionism and exploitive behavior, non-con and questionable consent, casual violence veering into casual torture, mental torture, disturbing fantasies, character death, murder.
Huge thanks to: my betas, spuffyduds, girlguidejones and sunnyd_lite, who made me make it clearer and better, if not more cheerful.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just borrowed. They may need to be dry cleaned or hosed off after this, though.
Xander shuts off the engine, gazing toward his house. The lamp is on by the old man's chair, creating a weak wash of light that's mostly swallowed in the flickering blue glow of the television. At this hour, Tony's still up, still drinking, likely pissed off at the world if he's watching the news.
Smart thing to do, in most circumstances, would be slink around back, let himself in the kitchen and go straight to the basement. If the TV's loud enough, Tony won't hear him come in.
Smart thing to do.
Xander heaves a sigh. He's so hungry he feels like he's been turned inside out, his pizza delivery boy shirt smells more like graveyard dirt than marinara and there's this weird overcaffeinated buzz in his limbs. Jittery.
He reaches under the passenger seat for the tire iron, then strides up the front walk.
***
The porch light is out again, but it takes less fumbling than usual to get his key in the lock. Still, by the time he pushes the door open, the old man is ready for him. "Get the goddamn hell in here." He seizes Xander by the front of the shirt and slams him against the wall. His second grade portrait goes cockeyed.
"Where the hell have you been?"
"Out. My job."
"Don't give me that shit. It's been two days. You've got responsibilities here. Your rent was due on Friday. What'd you do, blow it all on drugs?"
Xander smiles. "Do I look high to you?"
"You're on something."
In the kitchen, the icemaker spits cubes into an empty glass. The sound sets Xander's teeth on edge.
"Tony?" his mom calls. "Is something going on?"
"It's your fuckin' kid," Tony says. He takes Xander by the jaw, his fingers digging in. This shit hurts. "We're gonna have some new rules around here."
"Yeah, we are." Xander plants his hand against the old man's chest and shoves.
Even more satisfying than watching Tony stumble back and sprawl against his recliner is the look of shock on his face.
"This is one of those classic moments, Pop. Probably been happening since the dawn of time. You know -- the one where father and son both realize at the same moment that the kid's big enough to fight back. This one should be good." He swings the tire iron and smashes it just below Tony's right knee.
The sound of the bone splintering, the howl that rises from Tony's throat -- they sing in Xander's blood like nothing ever has. He swings the tire iron again, shattering the left kneecap. The smell of spilled booze, blood and piss blossom in the close air of the living room.
His mother rushes in from the kitchen. "Tony, what--"
"Call 911," the old man croaks, but she's soused enough that her reflexes are slow, and Xander snatches her by the arm.
"No need for that," Xander says. "I thought we should have some family time. Maybe a meal together. When's the last time we did that?"
"Call the cops, Jess!"
But she's pulled tight against Xander, his arms wrapped around her from behind. "Xander, what's wrong with you? Let me go!"
"Nothing's wrong. Just came home to grab a little dinner. You watching, Tony?" He sinks his fangs into his mother's neck.
***
The rush makes him almost dizzy. His cells have been crying out for this since he awoke, the hot coppery tang of blood, the throb of a heartbeat he can pretend is his own for just those few moments until it fades into stillness.
It takes every bit of will he has to keep himself from draining her. Her knees buckle and he stretches her out on the sofa. "Best hot meal she's ever served me," Xander tells his old man. "Sorry there's not enough for you."
"You killed her," Tony stammers. He's sliding into shock.
"She's a little faint, that's all. She'll perk up in a while. Let's get you more comfortable, though." Xander hoists him up, settling him into a more natural position in the chair. "Want your feet up?" He tilts the chair all the way back. "You and Mom can nap together, while I go out and run a few errands."
He seizes Tony's ankles and gives them a vicious twist until the old man screams and passes out. Then he showers, puts on a clean uniform shirt, and heads for work to apologize for missing a night.
Before he goes, he unplugs all the phones in the house, stashes them in the trunk of his car.
He's not worried about the neighbors hearing any yelling.
They never do.
***
He'd be looking for a job in spite of the sincere apology he delivers to the manager at Angelo's, except for one thing. He volunteers to go on the late shift. There are never enough drivers willing to work up to closing, and the ones who do sign up keep walking off the job without even picking up their last checks. That's the official story, anyhow.
"This won't happen again," Xander promises. "I had food poisoning, and I was too sick to call. The parents were away for the weekend, so I couldn't get someone to call for me."
"Yeah, you do look a little pale, still. Are you up to working tonight?"
Xander shrugs. "It's driving, ringing doorbells. I'll do fine."
The manager gusts a sigh of relief and sends him out on his first run.
***
The key, he knows, is keeping it under control. He can't eat every other customer. First night back on the job, he keeps his fangs off the delivery customers. Just before the end of his shift, he sees a solo guy pulling into the "Angelo's To Go" parking spot. He pulls the guy back into the bushes and drains him, then ditches the car a couple of blocks away.
They wait for the pickup while Xander settles up at the cash register and converts his tip money to bigger bills, and the waiter starts upending chairs onto the tables.
"Another damn no-show, it looks like," the manager says. "You want this pie? It's got pineapple on it, so Paul won't touch it, and I've had my dinner."
"Sure, thanks."
Fuck it, it's not his dinner. And the old man's in no position to be picky about what he eats.
***
The old man flinches when Xander walks in the door. Surprising how satisfying that is. "Guess I'm getting a little insight into your style of fathering. Seeing that flash of fear from someone weaker -- makes you feel powerful, doesn't it? See, the thing is, to me you always were powerful. I was like the one person you didn't have to assert your manhood to." He shrugs. "That's irony for you."
"Please don't kill us. Take the car, take what money I've got, I don't care. There's a couple of twenties in the sugar jar. You can have it, take my billfold. Just leave and call 911."
"Tony, I'm shocked you'd think I could do something like that. You're my parents. I couldn't possibly leave you in your current condition." He glances around. "How's Mom? Has she come to any?"
"In and out. She's weak. She's your mother, boy. Get her some help."
Boy. "I've got a name."
"Xander. Please. Please." He starts to cry.
Xander snatches up the tire iron from where he stashed it. "Stop that fucking blubbering, or I'll give you something to cry about."
That line works as well on the old man as it used to work on Xander. A little too well, in fact. He was enjoying hearing the old man sniveling. Irritated, he thrusts the pizza box at Tony. "Here. I brought you dinner."
He heads back in his room and calls Willow from the cell phone he lifted from the pineapple pizza-eating guy.
"Xander! Where have you been?" He's surprised she's noticed. Seems like there's some party or activity going on every night on campus.
"I got in some trouble at work. I had to agree to work the late shift if I wanted to keep my job. I'm out late, then wiped out all the next day."
"I don't like the sound of that."
"No big, Will. It's just like patrol, only with tips. I never go anywhere without my stakes and a side of garlic breadsticks." He hates that fucking smell. The biggest drawback in taking this gig.
"I'm glad you called. We were getting worried. We're meeting tomorrow at Giles's place, at four. Do you think you can make it?"
"I'll see how the day goes. I'll try."
She's tired, so he lets her go. After he flips the phone shut, he lies back on his bed and thinks about the Willow they met from that other world. Vamp Willow. Cinched into that leather corset thing, milky-white knockers on display. Too bad that one got sent back where she came from.
But he can always make another.
***
By the time Xander's ready to leave for work the next evening, the old man's fighting some kind of infection, fevered, drifting in and out of delirium. Most of his babbling involves begging Xander not to kill them, so he's content for now to let Tony yammer.
His mom has perked up some. Xander makes sure Tony's conscious enough to watch, then drains her within an inch of her life. He leaves her splayed on the couch, dress hiked up.
"Sorry she's not much company," Xander says. "But you never did care much what she had to say, so no big loss. Want the TV on?" He doesn't wait for an answer, but flicks on the television. He flips around the dial until he finds the Oxygen channel, then drops the remote onto the carpet, just out of Tony's reach.
"Need anything before I go out?"
"Please. For God's sake."
Xander laughs. "You're getting to be on a first-name basis with God now? That's new. See you later; I don't want to be late."
He locks them in the house, whistling his way up the walk to his car.
***
Xander's three deliveries into his shift when his manager says he's got a special run for him. "Normally I'd do this one myself, but one of the ovens is out, and I have to be here for the repair guy. It's that lady on Franklin Street."
Morgan is the only one who calls her a lady. Her deal is to order a pizza and greet the teenaged delivery boy wearing next to nothing. She toys with them like a bored cat, sending them off with a fierce boner or a damp patch in their jeans. After a couple of mortified delivery boys finally admitted what was going on, Morgan took over those orders. The manager's forty-two and gay, so he's impervious to her porn-movie charms.
"You're one of my more mature drivers," Morgan says. "Think you can handle this?"
"Sure, I'll do my best."
On the drive to Franklin, Xander thinks about giving this sexed-up bitch a hickey like she'd never dreamed of. Maybe he'll get a bonus if he gets rid of her forever. Of course, it could be more fun to turn her and make Morgan's little problem immortal. He pulls to the curb in front of her house and grabs the pizza box.
She never gives up, Xander has to give her that. Despite the fact that Morgan's been her only audience for a couple of months, she comes to the door in a short, filmy nightie. Her stage is carefully backlit so Xander can see everything when she swings open the door.
"Oh, hi! I didn't expect you this soon. I'll have to get my wallet. Come on inside."
Xander smiles and accepts the invitation as she chatters on, still positioned to give him maximum visual effect.
"You're new. At least I haven't seen you before. What's your name?"
"Alex," he says.
"Why don't you close that, Alex. Hate to let all the air conditioning out."
Yeah. That would be bad. He shoves the door closed with his elbow, hands still cradling the medium pie. Veggie, with goat cheese and extra olives.
He's mildly surprised to find that he's hard. He's known, of course, that vampires can get it up -- witness Angel and that whole moment of happiness disaster -- and he's even managed a good boner on his own, but a free-range hard-on without an actual circulating circulatory system -- it's kind of a marvel.
She works it for all it's worth, her every movement designed to arouse him. She looks to be around Joyce's age, and the realization, strangely enough, makes him harder.
He watches as she riffles through the contents of her wallet. "Oh, damn, I only have twenties. Do you have change?"
"Sure." He slides his hand into his jeans pocket, and the rasp of denim over the bare flesh beneath makes things even more interesting down there. Which she definitely notices.
Xander counts out eight singles and holds them out.
She takes a step out of reach. "Could you bring them to me?"
Enough of this shit. The pizza and the money tumble to the floor as he closes the distance between her and shoves her against the wall. Such dainty wallpaper for such a greedy slut.
"You like the teasing, don't you?" He knows from experience, from Harmony, that the breath of this whisper does not burn in her ear. But his hands are hot from holding the pizza box, and he lets her feel their heat on her breasts, between her thighs. "Let's see how you like being on the other end." He slides two fingers inside her and brushes her clit with the knuckle of another. She draws in a rasping breath. "Bet nobody's ever given you as good as they got, have they?"
"Ohhhhhh. A little slower, sugar."
"Who said you get a say, Mrs. Robinson?" He works the rhythm he'd already begun, pulling cries from her. "You're used to having your way, aren't you? Used to pimple-faced guys you can push around, send off with a case of blue balls. Little different now, isn't it?" He thinks about sinking his fangs into her, but it occurs to him that this isn't half bad. Something to liven up his nights at this crap job. He intensifies his stroking until her cries come closer and closer together. Just before she reaches the tipping point, he withdraws his hand, wiping it on the filmy peach fabric before he steps back.
"Don't stop now," she gasps.
"Sorry. We're a little shorthanded tonight. Gotta get back." Xander bends to retrieve the dollar bills he'd counted out for her and stuffs them all back in his pocket. "Maybe next time."
He whistles as he clatters down her porch steps.
Morgan is relieved at his report that everything went fine, if a little dubious.
"Really. She flirted, but I just gave her the order and left. Maybe she's just over this whole thing."
"Wow. I thought she'd never give it up. I may count on you to go again, if you really didn't mind."
"Sure. I know you should be overseeing things here. It's no problem."
Morgan gives him a fifty cent hourly raise on the spot.
On the way back from his last delivery, he takes a detour to that crappy motel Faith used to live in. There's a girl who works out of the end room that everyone knows about. He used to hear the football players talk about her. He knocks on her door and when she invites him in, he kills two birds with one stone.
***
The old man's in bad shape when he gets home, but Xander has to give him points for effort. Tony's struggled out of the recliner and dragged himself halfway across the kitchen floor.
"Hey, what's this?" Xander booms, and damned if the old man doesn't piss himself again. "Going for your own beers? I won't have it. That's my job, always has been."
He steps over Tony and opens the fridge. "Damn, we're almost out." He takes one out and pops it open, setting it within reach on the floor. "Do you want to beat me for that, or considering your condition, would you like me to beat myself?"
"Please. Don't kill me."
"Man, you are a broken record these days. By the way, the kitchen phone's gone. They all are. You should've made a break for the outside instead."
"Let us go, then."
"Can't do it. I've got my family together, we're having real conversations -- how can I give that up?" He reaches down and takes the old man's right wrist in his hand. "Can't have you crawling to the neighbors. Anyone else, I'd break their spine. But you're my dad." He gives a sudden twist to Tony's wrist, dislocating the shoulder. His howl of pain is thin, with a faint gurgle. "Anyone else, I'd at least break both arms, but then you couldn't have that beer." He retrieves the beer and takes Tony by the bad arm, dragging him back to the chair and settling him back in. "Raise a toast to me, will you?"
He plops onto the sofa next to his mom. "How's my girl?"
"Xander?" She's barely conscious, her breathing shallow.
"Right here, Mom."
"What's happening? Feel ... so bad."
"It's just a little anemia, Mom. Just rest, you're doing the right thing, just resting."
"Your father--"
"He'll be all right. He wandered off, but he's back now."
"Why is he ... making that sound?"
"Don't worry, Mom. Just sleep a while."
She drifts off, and Xander quickly tires of listening to the old man snivel, so he goes back to his room. As he throws himself on his bed, he realizes he's lonely. Chantarelle and those idiots had it right -- the Lonely Ones. He wonders if she's dead or vamped by now. He doesn't remember seeing her at all senior year, so yeah, he guesses so. For sure, she was too fucking stupid to live. They all were.
Of course, if he were the usual sort of vamp, he'd be off minioning for the vampire who made him. That would be Harmony. That was definitely her plan, which she thought was especially bitchin' cool because he's Buffy's friend, and wouldn't that totally destroy the Slayer to see him at Harmony's beck and call? What she didn't count on was him staking her the moment he awoke to find her stupid moon face hovering over him. Minion of Harmony's? Three words: No. Fucking. Way.
He unzips his jeans and thinks about Leather Corset Willow for a few moments, but the fantasy is more idle than productive. His thoughts flicker to Faith -- the only person he's done it with in life, she jumpstarts the fantasy a little easier. He closes his hand around his prick and shuts his eyes, imagining her riding him the way she did that night.
He imagines himself asking her to put her hands around his throat. He's jerked off to that scenario a few times since that night. But it just isn't as charged as it used to be, now that breathing is optional.
He lets his thoughts drift on to Franklin Street Lady. Better. He likes it when he's the one with the upper hand. But she's still a little too eager to make it a really good fantasy. He morphs her into Joyce, all hot cocoa and concern when he came to her to talk about Cordy. All confused when he touches her with the hands he's warmed against the mug. Xander, you're upset right now, and I think you should -- She makes a little mewling cry as he sinks his fangs into her throat. Such exquisite helplessness and despair.
That's all it takes.
***
He stalks Giles's place one night, and discovers he's as much at loose ends as Xander's been. Buffy and Will, even Oz, have jumped into college life with enthusiasm. What the hell Xander would be doing if Harmony hadn't rearranged his life plans, he doesn't know. He'd probably be bringing late-night pizzas to Giles, instead of just hanging back in the shrubbery gazing in windows.
He thinks about turning Giles. Now that would be funny. For one thing, it would blow Angelus out of the water in the angst department, the ultimate opener in a world-class killing spree. Plus the idea of setting Giles loose on those asshats at the Council -- Xander grins just thinking about it. He wonders how many watchers and watcherettes Giles could buzzsaw through before they got wise and killed him. However it came out, it would be entertaining.
He thinks about it. Maybe tomorrow night he'll bring a pizza when his shift's over. But as he's turning the idea over in his mind, Giles brings out a guitar and starts singing some lame old folkie shit. Christ, no. He leaves, shows up at Franklin Street. She stopped calling for pizzas after a couple of weeks, but he shows up whenever he's in the mood. She's a little scared of him now, but she doesn't stop answering the door. He thinks she likes the things he does. She always comes -- at least, when he allows her to.
Though she doesn't invite him to, he stays the night, leaving in that brief sliver of twilight before dawn traps him there.
When he gets home, the squalor hits him as he walks in the front door. There's the smell of the old man lying in his own filth, but underneath there's a sickly sweet stink of rot. Gangrene, he suspects, wondering how long Tony will survive the liquifying of his own flesh. The old man babbles, but now it's not directed at Xander. From the sound of things, he's back in Vietnam, suffering from a fever in the sweltering jungle, listening to his buddies die. From everything Tony's said to him all his life, those are real men, the kind Xander never had a hope of being. He leaves him to his buddies, the war in his head.
He heads to the basement to sleep, preferring for once the smell of bleach and laundry soap to what's upstairs. When it gets close to sunset, he goes up to his room and stuffs his clothes into a duffel. He can't be around this.
His mom rouses as he drags his things to the front door. "What's happening?" she whimpers. It's all she ever says anymore.
"Nothing, Mom. It's all right." He sits on the sofa with her, brushes her hair away from her face.
He sinks his fangs into the already torn flesh of her neck, and this time he drains the life from her.
He closes the door and turns the lock, leaving the old man to starve.
***
How soon they forget. Morgan gives him the stink-eye when he comes in from his second delivery, saying some girl called for him. He's not running a message service, Morgan says. The fact that he doesn't have to deal with Franklin Street anymore, that's all forgotten.
"Did she leave a name?"
"Buffy, she said. But don't be slowing up your schedule to run your social life. Make your calls on your own time."
Fuck that. Xander tosses the pizza box on the passenger seat and dials Buffy's dorm room as he pulls into the street. "Buff, what's up?"
"Where've you been?" she asks. "I've been calling your house for days."
"Work work work," he says. "Plus I've been seeing somebody."
"Will says you're on the late shift at Angelo's. You are being careful?"
"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"
"Who's this you're seeing? Tell me all the gory details."
He doesn't think he will. "A customer, actually."
"From a pizza run, you mean? Bow chicka bow bow."
Suddenly he misses her intensely -- all of them, really. "Buffy. Jeez," he protests, because the old Xander would. "It's nothing like that." It's everything like that.
"Well, listen. Why don't you bring a couple of pizzas to Giles's place tomorrow night when your shift is over. We'll have an old-school get-together, just us Scoobies. We'll all chip in on the pizzas, and Will and I will supply the drinks. What d'you say?"
"What do you think I say? I say of course."
"Great. We've missed you."
"I miss you guys, too." He hangs up and flips the phone onto the seat. He means every word of it, that's the thing. Every word of it except the part where he's actually going to show up. They'd make him in a heartbeat -- or more accurately, the lack thereof. He's pretty sure, despite the growing distance between them lately, that they'd be really sad to stake him.
He has to leave Sunnydale, there's no other way.
He's two blocks from the delivery, so fuck it, he'll drop off the pizzas. Maybe have a little snack for the road himself.
***
Well, here's the definition of irony: The customer turns out to be another vamp looking for a hot meal that delivers itself. "Sorry to disappoint," Xander says to the ash that flutters to the floor. Fortunately, his would-be predator had made a show of getting out his wallet, so it fell to the floor whole before its owner was turned to powder. "Sweet," Xander says to the empty room. "Running money."
As he shoves the entire wallet in his back pocket, he wonders why he needs to run this minute. There's no reason right now for Buffy to suspect anything. He has time to grab some things, maybe find himself a running partner. Or create one.
He could turn Franklin Street. He's been living with her the last ten days. She didn't seem happy about it, but she didn't put up any protest. She's almost a minion already. Yeah, and that's the problem. Xander's bored with her.
There's Willow, but Buffy said her roommate's dropped out and Willow's moved in, so he's got the problem of getting past Buffy. Kind of wrecks the point of the whole "running" thing.
Joyce? What about it, making that fantasy come true? He heard stories about her under the influence of the band candy -- a public fuck with Giles, no less. He wonders how wild she'd get if he yanked that pesky little soul clean out of her.
He turns the car toward Revello Drive, thinking of the possibilities, when something better presents itself. Cruising past the hospital, he thinks about Faith, all girlfriend-in-a-coma on the fifth floor. Xander slaps his hand against the steering wheel. Holy shit, just think of it. The two of them together, hitting the road and spreading mayhem. Just like the time the two of them headed out to kill Angel. Hell, maybe they can go out to L.A. and give that another go. With a vamped-out slayer, how could they miss?
He parks in the visitor's lot, heads for the fifth floor, bearing the vamp's pizza.
The nurse knows him. "Xander, hon, I'm sorry, it's after visiting hours."
"I know. I'm just working all sorts of crazy hours at Angelo's, and I never can get here. Anyhow, we had one of those prank calls, so I've got a loose pizza with no customer. I thought I'd bring it up here for you guys, for when you get your break."
"Aren't you just the sweetest."
"Who works harder than you guys? Holidays and all."
"I always knew you were a special kid. I'm just going to take this into the break room -- Vanessa and Joe are on their break now. If you want to look in on Faith for a couple of minutes, I don't see any harm."
"You're the best. Make sure they save you a slice, huh?" Xander slips into Faith's room and jams the visitor's chair under the door handle.
So pale and wan. She could almost be a vamp already. "Guess who, Faith. It's your favorite visitor. Hell, I'm your only visitor."
Usually he just sits in the chair -- at what feels like a safe distance -- and chatters about stuff. Movies, the job, the aborted road trip. But the chair's got better things to do, and so does he. He pulls the sheet down. You'd think after a few months in a coma, she'd be a little more spindly, but she's still got nice legs.
He slides his hand between them.
"Don't you get bored lying there, day in and day out? I thought this time, instead of the usual, I'd do something a little more stimulating. They say stimulation's good for coma patients, right?"
He lowers the side rail and climbs into bed with her. "I think I saw this in some dumbass movie once. You don't mind, do you? You've never been a stickler for consent, anyway."
Xander finds a rhythm that makes her breath start to hitch. "You like that, don't you? Bet you've missed having any action. You're the girl with the action figure." He works until his fingers are surrounded by damp warmth, then he unzips his pants and enters her. "On top of the girl, ma!" It's a first. He relishes the kittenish noises she makes, the way the monitor beeps pick up. As she arches beneath him, Xander calls forth his true face and tears her throat open.
Slayer blood is like nothing he's ever tasted. He wonders if this is what a heroin rush is like. Every cell sings with it, cries out for more. He drains her until she's nearly dead, then tears himself away from her long enough to draw his penknife across his inner wrist. He offers it to her, and she seizes his arm and drinks until it seems like she's determined to drain him, too. He pries her fingers from around his forearm, and at first she fights, then she falls back against her pillow, her eyes still closed, pale as the sheets. He wraps them around her, tugging loose the tubes and monitor wires, then lifts her in his arms.
***
Xander sits by her side in a musty-smelling motel room at the edge of Pocatello, Idaho, waiting for her to rise. She looks even less like Faith than she had in the hospital, laid out in a peach blouse and brown slacks he took from Franklin Street. Funny thing how very conventional Morgan's "lady" was, once you got her out of the gauzy nightie. At least at first, until she'd stopped bothering with the coordinated outfits (or baths) and taken to shuffling around the house in baggy gray sweats, her hair lank and greasy. Even without Faith, he was pretty much done with her.
It could happen any time now. At closing time he makes a quick food run to a bar a few blocks down, bringing back a tired-looking barmaid who accompanies him of her own free will. Her clothes are a little more Faith's style, anyway.
She balks when he lets her into the room and she spots Faith stretched out on the ugly bedspread. "Hey, no. Nothing weird. I thought this was just me and you."
When he clips her she goes down without another sound, and by the time she comes around, she's tied up and gagged. She whimpers, muffled by the cloth stuffing her mouth, but the sound doesn't worry him. He ignores her, keeping his eyes on Faith.
It's not so much her stillness that seems strange to him, but the silence where before there'd been the beep of monitors. There's no movement at all until, without warning, she jackknifes up in bed, eyes open and blazing.
"Faith, it's all right," he says.
"Where the fuck am I?"
"Somewhere safe. I brought you out. Out of the hospital. Out of the coma."
"What's wrong with me?"
Xander laughs. "Nothing's wrong with you. Nothing will be wrong with you ever again."
"Jesus, I feel--"
"Hungry. That's all it is." Grabbing the barmaid by the arm, he pulls her up from where she's huddled in the corner. "I brought you something to eat." He cuts her across the cheekbone with his penknife, then smears her blood on Faith's lower lip with his thumb. That cuts through her confusion and she's on the girl in a heartbeat, drinking greedily until she's drained.
Faith looks up at him, yellow eyes glittering, blood still staining her lips and fangs. She'd been beautiful before, but now --
"You did this."
"Yeah. I'm sick of Sunnydale. I want to see the country, maybe the world. All I could think of was the two of us together. Be cool, yeah? Like you told Buffy, 'Want, take, have.' We could do anything we want. Who's gonna stop us?"
"You want me to be your sidekick?"
"Hell, no. Equals. Partners. Bonnie and Clyde."
Her face twists in disgust, then her hand flashes out to smash the spindly night stand. Faith comes up with a shard of wood sharp as any stake, and she plunges it into Xander's chest.
Fuck! is his last stupid thought. I've been Harmonized.
Rated R; spoilers through BtVS early S4
Xander/OCs, Xander/Faith
Summary: Everyone's in college except Xander, but he's also going through some major changes.
Written for liz_marcs's Dark!Xander Ficathon
Warnings: Het with a series of partners, exhibitionism and exploitive behavior, non-con and questionable consent, casual violence veering into casual torture, mental torture, disturbing fantasies, character death, murder.
Huge thanks to: my betas, spuffyduds, girlguidejones and sunnyd_lite, who made me make it clearer and better, if not more cheerful.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just borrowed. They may need to be dry cleaned or hosed off after this, though.
Xander shuts off the engine, gazing toward his house. The lamp is on by the old man's chair, creating a weak wash of light that's mostly swallowed in the flickering blue glow of the television. At this hour, Tony's still up, still drinking, likely pissed off at the world if he's watching the news.
Smart thing to do, in most circumstances, would be slink around back, let himself in the kitchen and go straight to the basement. If the TV's loud enough, Tony won't hear him come in.
Smart thing to do.
Xander heaves a sigh. He's so hungry he feels like he's been turned inside out, his pizza delivery boy shirt smells more like graveyard dirt than marinara and there's this weird overcaffeinated buzz in his limbs. Jittery.
He reaches under the passenger seat for the tire iron, then strides up the front walk.
***
The porch light is out again, but it takes less fumbling than usual to get his key in the lock. Still, by the time he pushes the door open, the old man is ready for him. "Get the goddamn hell in here." He seizes Xander by the front of the shirt and slams him against the wall. His second grade portrait goes cockeyed.
"Where the hell have you been?"
"Out. My job."
"Don't give me that shit. It's been two days. You've got responsibilities here. Your rent was due on Friday. What'd you do, blow it all on drugs?"
Xander smiles. "Do I look high to you?"
"You're on something."
In the kitchen, the icemaker spits cubes into an empty glass. The sound sets Xander's teeth on edge.
"Tony?" his mom calls. "Is something going on?"
"It's your fuckin' kid," Tony says. He takes Xander by the jaw, his fingers digging in. This shit hurts. "We're gonna have some new rules around here."
"Yeah, we are." Xander plants his hand against the old man's chest and shoves.
Even more satisfying than watching Tony stumble back and sprawl against his recliner is the look of shock on his face.
"This is one of those classic moments, Pop. Probably been happening since the dawn of time. You know -- the one where father and son both realize at the same moment that the kid's big enough to fight back. This one should be good." He swings the tire iron and smashes it just below Tony's right knee.
The sound of the bone splintering, the howl that rises from Tony's throat -- they sing in Xander's blood like nothing ever has. He swings the tire iron again, shattering the left kneecap. The smell of spilled booze, blood and piss blossom in the close air of the living room.
His mother rushes in from the kitchen. "Tony, what--"
"Call 911," the old man croaks, but she's soused enough that her reflexes are slow, and Xander snatches her by the arm.
"No need for that," Xander says. "I thought we should have some family time. Maybe a meal together. When's the last time we did that?"
"Call the cops, Jess!"
But she's pulled tight against Xander, his arms wrapped around her from behind. "Xander, what's wrong with you? Let me go!"
"Nothing's wrong. Just came home to grab a little dinner. You watching, Tony?" He sinks his fangs into his mother's neck.
***
The rush makes him almost dizzy. His cells have been crying out for this since he awoke, the hot coppery tang of blood, the throb of a heartbeat he can pretend is his own for just those few moments until it fades into stillness.
It takes every bit of will he has to keep himself from draining her. Her knees buckle and he stretches her out on the sofa. "Best hot meal she's ever served me," Xander tells his old man. "Sorry there's not enough for you."
"You killed her," Tony stammers. He's sliding into shock.
"She's a little faint, that's all. She'll perk up in a while. Let's get you more comfortable, though." Xander hoists him up, settling him into a more natural position in the chair. "Want your feet up?" He tilts the chair all the way back. "You and Mom can nap together, while I go out and run a few errands."
He seizes Tony's ankles and gives them a vicious twist until the old man screams and passes out. Then he showers, puts on a clean uniform shirt, and heads for work to apologize for missing a night.
Before he goes, he unplugs all the phones in the house, stashes them in the trunk of his car.
He's not worried about the neighbors hearing any yelling.
They never do.
***
He'd be looking for a job in spite of the sincere apology he delivers to the manager at Angelo's, except for one thing. He volunteers to go on the late shift. There are never enough drivers willing to work up to closing, and the ones who do sign up keep walking off the job without even picking up their last checks. That's the official story, anyhow.
"This won't happen again," Xander promises. "I had food poisoning, and I was too sick to call. The parents were away for the weekend, so I couldn't get someone to call for me."
"Yeah, you do look a little pale, still. Are you up to working tonight?"
Xander shrugs. "It's driving, ringing doorbells. I'll do fine."
The manager gusts a sigh of relief and sends him out on his first run.
***
The key, he knows, is keeping it under control. He can't eat every other customer. First night back on the job, he keeps his fangs off the delivery customers. Just before the end of his shift, he sees a solo guy pulling into the "Angelo's To Go" parking spot. He pulls the guy back into the bushes and drains him, then ditches the car a couple of blocks away.
They wait for the pickup while Xander settles up at the cash register and converts his tip money to bigger bills, and the waiter starts upending chairs onto the tables.
"Another damn no-show, it looks like," the manager says. "You want this pie? It's got pineapple on it, so Paul won't touch it, and I've had my dinner."
"Sure, thanks."
Fuck it, it's not his dinner. And the old man's in no position to be picky about what he eats.
***
The old man flinches when Xander walks in the door. Surprising how satisfying that is. "Guess I'm getting a little insight into your style of fathering. Seeing that flash of fear from someone weaker -- makes you feel powerful, doesn't it? See, the thing is, to me you always were powerful. I was like the one person you didn't have to assert your manhood to." He shrugs. "That's irony for you."
"Please don't kill us. Take the car, take what money I've got, I don't care. There's a couple of twenties in the sugar jar. You can have it, take my billfold. Just leave and call 911."
"Tony, I'm shocked you'd think I could do something like that. You're my parents. I couldn't possibly leave you in your current condition." He glances around. "How's Mom? Has she come to any?"
"In and out. She's weak. She's your mother, boy. Get her some help."
Boy. "I've got a name."
"Xander. Please. Please." He starts to cry.
Xander snatches up the tire iron from where he stashed it. "Stop that fucking blubbering, or I'll give you something to cry about."
That line works as well on the old man as it used to work on Xander. A little too well, in fact. He was enjoying hearing the old man sniveling. Irritated, he thrusts the pizza box at Tony. "Here. I brought you dinner."
He heads back in his room and calls Willow from the cell phone he lifted from the pineapple pizza-eating guy.
"Xander! Where have you been?" He's surprised she's noticed. Seems like there's some party or activity going on every night on campus.
"I got in some trouble at work. I had to agree to work the late shift if I wanted to keep my job. I'm out late, then wiped out all the next day."
"I don't like the sound of that."
"No big, Will. It's just like patrol, only with tips. I never go anywhere without my stakes and a side of garlic breadsticks." He hates that fucking smell. The biggest drawback in taking this gig.
"I'm glad you called. We were getting worried. We're meeting tomorrow at Giles's place, at four. Do you think you can make it?"
"I'll see how the day goes. I'll try."
She's tired, so he lets her go. After he flips the phone shut, he lies back on his bed and thinks about the Willow they met from that other world. Vamp Willow. Cinched into that leather corset thing, milky-white knockers on display. Too bad that one got sent back where she came from.
But he can always make another.
***
By the time Xander's ready to leave for work the next evening, the old man's fighting some kind of infection, fevered, drifting in and out of delirium. Most of his babbling involves begging Xander not to kill them, so he's content for now to let Tony yammer.
His mom has perked up some. Xander makes sure Tony's conscious enough to watch, then drains her within an inch of her life. He leaves her splayed on the couch, dress hiked up.
"Sorry she's not much company," Xander says. "But you never did care much what she had to say, so no big loss. Want the TV on?" He doesn't wait for an answer, but flicks on the television. He flips around the dial until he finds the Oxygen channel, then drops the remote onto the carpet, just out of Tony's reach.
"Need anything before I go out?"
"Please. For God's sake."
Xander laughs. "You're getting to be on a first-name basis with God now? That's new. See you later; I don't want to be late."
He locks them in the house, whistling his way up the walk to his car.
***
Xander's three deliveries into his shift when his manager says he's got a special run for him. "Normally I'd do this one myself, but one of the ovens is out, and I have to be here for the repair guy. It's that lady on Franklin Street."
Morgan is the only one who calls her a lady. Her deal is to order a pizza and greet the teenaged delivery boy wearing next to nothing. She toys with them like a bored cat, sending them off with a fierce boner or a damp patch in their jeans. After a couple of mortified delivery boys finally admitted what was going on, Morgan took over those orders. The manager's forty-two and gay, so he's impervious to her porn-movie charms.
"You're one of my more mature drivers," Morgan says. "Think you can handle this?"
"Sure, I'll do my best."
On the drive to Franklin, Xander thinks about giving this sexed-up bitch a hickey like she'd never dreamed of. Maybe he'll get a bonus if he gets rid of her forever. Of course, it could be more fun to turn her and make Morgan's little problem immortal. He pulls to the curb in front of her house and grabs the pizza box.
She never gives up, Xander has to give her that. Despite the fact that Morgan's been her only audience for a couple of months, she comes to the door in a short, filmy nightie. Her stage is carefully backlit so Xander can see everything when she swings open the door.
"Oh, hi! I didn't expect you this soon. I'll have to get my wallet. Come on inside."
Xander smiles and accepts the invitation as she chatters on, still positioned to give him maximum visual effect.
"You're new. At least I haven't seen you before. What's your name?"
"Alex," he says.
"Why don't you close that, Alex. Hate to let all the air conditioning out."
Yeah. That would be bad. He shoves the door closed with his elbow, hands still cradling the medium pie. Veggie, with goat cheese and extra olives.
He's mildly surprised to find that he's hard. He's known, of course, that vampires can get it up -- witness Angel and that whole moment of happiness disaster -- and he's even managed a good boner on his own, but a free-range hard-on without an actual circulating circulatory system -- it's kind of a marvel.
She works it for all it's worth, her every movement designed to arouse him. She looks to be around Joyce's age, and the realization, strangely enough, makes him harder.
He watches as she riffles through the contents of her wallet. "Oh, damn, I only have twenties. Do you have change?"
"Sure." He slides his hand into his jeans pocket, and the rasp of denim over the bare flesh beneath makes things even more interesting down there. Which she definitely notices.
Xander counts out eight singles and holds them out.
She takes a step out of reach. "Could you bring them to me?"
Enough of this shit. The pizza and the money tumble to the floor as he closes the distance between her and shoves her against the wall. Such dainty wallpaper for such a greedy slut.
"You like the teasing, don't you?" He knows from experience, from Harmony, that the breath of this whisper does not burn in her ear. But his hands are hot from holding the pizza box, and he lets her feel their heat on her breasts, between her thighs. "Let's see how you like being on the other end." He slides two fingers inside her and brushes her clit with the knuckle of another. She draws in a rasping breath. "Bet nobody's ever given you as good as they got, have they?"
"Ohhhhhh. A little slower, sugar."
"Who said you get a say, Mrs. Robinson?" He works the rhythm he'd already begun, pulling cries from her. "You're used to having your way, aren't you? Used to pimple-faced guys you can push around, send off with a case of blue balls. Little different now, isn't it?" He thinks about sinking his fangs into her, but it occurs to him that this isn't half bad. Something to liven up his nights at this crap job. He intensifies his stroking until her cries come closer and closer together. Just before she reaches the tipping point, he withdraws his hand, wiping it on the filmy peach fabric before he steps back.
"Don't stop now," she gasps.
"Sorry. We're a little shorthanded tonight. Gotta get back." Xander bends to retrieve the dollar bills he'd counted out for her and stuffs them all back in his pocket. "Maybe next time."
He whistles as he clatters down her porch steps.
Morgan is relieved at his report that everything went fine, if a little dubious.
"Really. She flirted, but I just gave her the order and left. Maybe she's just over this whole thing."
"Wow. I thought she'd never give it up. I may count on you to go again, if you really didn't mind."
"Sure. I know you should be overseeing things here. It's no problem."
Morgan gives him a fifty cent hourly raise on the spot.
On the way back from his last delivery, he takes a detour to that crappy motel Faith used to live in. There's a girl who works out of the end room that everyone knows about. He used to hear the football players talk about her. He knocks on her door and when she invites him in, he kills two birds with one stone.
***
The old man's in bad shape when he gets home, but Xander has to give him points for effort. Tony's struggled out of the recliner and dragged himself halfway across the kitchen floor.
"Hey, what's this?" Xander booms, and damned if the old man doesn't piss himself again. "Going for your own beers? I won't have it. That's my job, always has been."
He steps over Tony and opens the fridge. "Damn, we're almost out." He takes one out and pops it open, setting it within reach on the floor. "Do you want to beat me for that, or considering your condition, would you like me to beat myself?"
"Please. Don't kill me."
"Man, you are a broken record these days. By the way, the kitchen phone's gone. They all are. You should've made a break for the outside instead."
"Let us go, then."
"Can't do it. I've got my family together, we're having real conversations -- how can I give that up?" He reaches down and takes the old man's right wrist in his hand. "Can't have you crawling to the neighbors. Anyone else, I'd break their spine. But you're my dad." He gives a sudden twist to Tony's wrist, dislocating the shoulder. His howl of pain is thin, with a faint gurgle. "Anyone else, I'd at least break both arms, but then you couldn't have that beer." He retrieves the beer and takes Tony by the bad arm, dragging him back to the chair and settling him back in. "Raise a toast to me, will you?"
He plops onto the sofa next to his mom. "How's my girl?"
"Xander?" She's barely conscious, her breathing shallow.
"Right here, Mom."
"What's happening? Feel ... so bad."
"It's just a little anemia, Mom. Just rest, you're doing the right thing, just resting."
"Your father--"
"He'll be all right. He wandered off, but he's back now."
"Why is he ... making that sound?"
"Don't worry, Mom. Just sleep a while."
She drifts off, and Xander quickly tires of listening to the old man snivel, so he goes back to his room. As he throws himself on his bed, he realizes he's lonely. Chantarelle and those idiots had it right -- the Lonely Ones. He wonders if she's dead or vamped by now. He doesn't remember seeing her at all senior year, so yeah, he guesses so. For sure, she was too fucking stupid to live. They all were.
Of course, if he were the usual sort of vamp, he'd be off minioning for the vampire who made him. That would be Harmony. That was definitely her plan, which she thought was especially bitchin' cool because he's Buffy's friend, and wouldn't that totally destroy the Slayer to see him at Harmony's beck and call? What she didn't count on was him staking her the moment he awoke to find her stupid moon face hovering over him. Minion of Harmony's? Three words: No. Fucking. Way.
He unzips his jeans and thinks about Leather Corset Willow for a few moments, but the fantasy is more idle than productive. His thoughts flicker to Faith -- the only person he's done it with in life, she jumpstarts the fantasy a little easier. He closes his hand around his prick and shuts his eyes, imagining her riding him the way she did that night.
He imagines himself asking her to put her hands around his throat. He's jerked off to that scenario a few times since that night. But it just isn't as charged as it used to be, now that breathing is optional.
He lets his thoughts drift on to Franklin Street Lady. Better. He likes it when he's the one with the upper hand. But she's still a little too eager to make it a really good fantasy. He morphs her into Joyce, all hot cocoa and concern when he came to her to talk about Cordy. All confused when he touches her with the hands he's warmed against the mug. Xander, you're upset right now, and I think you should -- She makes a little mewling cry as he sinks his fangs into her throat. Such exquisite helplessness and despair.
That's all it takes.
***
He stalks Giles's place one night, and discovers he's as much at loose ends as Xander's been. Buffy and Will, even Oz, have jumped into college life with enthusiasm. What the hell Xander would be doing if Harmony hadn't rearranged his life plans, he doesn't know. He'd probably be bringing late-night pizzas to Giles, instead of just hanging back in the shrubbery gazing in windows.
He thinks about turning Giles. Now that would be funny. For one thing, it would blow Angelus out of the water in the angst department, the ultimate opener in a world-class killing spree. Plus the idea of setting Giles loose on those asshats at the Council -- Xander grins just thinking about it. He wonders how many watchers and watcherettes Giles could buzzsaw through before they got wise and killed him. However it came out, it would be entertaining.
He thinks about it. Maybe tomorrow night he'll bring a pizza when his shift's over. But as he's turning the idea over in his mind, Giles brings out a guitar and starts singing some lame old folkie shit. Christ, no. He leaves, shows up at Franklin Street. She stopped calling for pizzas after a couple of weeks, but he shows up whenever he's in the mood. She's a little scared of him now, but she doesn't stop answering the door. He thinks she likes the things he does. She always comes -- at least, when he allows her to.
Though she doesn't invite him to, he stays the night, leaving in that brief sliver of twilight before dawn traps him there.
When he gets home, the squalor hits him as he walks in the front door. There's the smell of the old man lying in his own filth, but underneath there's a sickly sweet stink of rot. Gangrene, he suspects, wondering how long Tony will survive the liquifying of his own flesh. The old man babbles, but now it's not directed at Xander. From the sound of things, he's back in Vietnam, suffering from a fever in the sweltering jungle, listening to his buddies die. From everything Tony's said to him all his life, those are real men, the kind Xander never had a hope of being. He leaves him to his buddies, the war in his head.
He heads to the basement to sleep, preferring for once the smell of bleach and laundry soap to what's upstairs. When it gets close to sunset, he goes up to his room and stuffs his clothes into a duffel. He can't be around this.
His mom rouses as he drags his things to the front door. "What's happening?" she whimpers. It's all she ever says anymore.
"Nothing, Mom. It's all right." He sits on the sofa with her, brushes her hair away from her face.
He sinks his fangs into the already torn flesh of her neck, and this time he drains the life from her.
He closes the door and turns the lock, leaving the old man to starve.
***
How soon they forget. Morgan gives him the stink-eye when he comes in from his second delivery, saying some girl called for him. He's not running a message service, Morgan says. The fact that he doesn't have to deal with Franklin Street anymore, that's all forgotten.
"Did she leave a name?"
"Buffy, she said. But don't be slowing up your schedule to run your social life. Make your calls on your own time."
Fuck that. Xander tosses the pizza box on the passenger seat and dials Buffy's dorm room as he pulls into the street. "Buff, what's up?"
"Where've you been?" she asks. "I've been calling your house for days."
"Work work work," he says. "Plus I've been seeing somebody."
"Will says you're on the late shift at Angelo's. You are being careful?"
"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"
"Who's this you're seeing? Tell me all the gory details."
He doesn't think he will. "A customer, actually."
"From a pizza run, you mean? Bow chicka bow bow."
Suddenly he misses her intensely -- all of them, really. "Buffy. Jeez," he protests, because the old Xander would. "It's nothing like that." It's everything like that.
"Well, listen. Why don't you bring a couple of pizzas to Giles's place tomorrow night when your shift is over. We'll have an old-school get-together, just us Scoobies. We'll all chip in on the pizzas, and Will and I will supply the drinks. What d'you say?"
"What do you think I say? I say of course."
"Great. We've missed you."
"I miss you guys, too." He hangs up and flips the phone onto the seat. He means every word of it, that's the thing. Every word of it except the part where he's actually going to show up. They'd make him in a heartbeat -- or more accurately, the lack thereof. He's pretty sure, despite the growing distance between them lately, that they'd be really sad to stake him.
He has to leave Sunnydale, there's no other way.
He's two blocks from the delivery, so fuck it, he'll drop off the pizzas. Maybe have a little snack for the road himself.
***
Well, here's the definition of irony: The customer turns out to be another vamp looking for a hot meal that delivers itself. "Sorry to disappoint," Xander says to the ash that flutters to the floor. Fortunately, his would-be predator had made a show of getting out his wallet, so it fell to the floor whole before its owner was turned to powder. "Sweet," Xander says to the empty room. "Running money."
As he shoves the entire wallet in his back pocket, he wonders why he needs to run this minute. There's no reason right now for Buffy to suspect anything. He has time to grab some things, maybe find himself a running partner. Or create one.
He could turn Franklin Street. He's been living with her the last ten days. She didn't seem happy about it, but she didn't put up any protest. She's almost a minion already. Yeah, and that's the problem. Xander's bored with her.
There's Willow, but Buffy said her roommate's dropped out and Willow's moved in, so he's got the problem of getting past Buffy. Kind of wrecks the point of the whole "running" thing.
Joyce? What about it, making that fantasy come true? He heard stories about her under the influence of the band candy -- a public fuck with Giles, no less. He wonders how wild she'd get if he yanked that pesky little soul clean out of her.
He turns the car toward Revello Drive, thinking of the possibilities, when something better presents itself. Cruising past the hospital, he thinks about Faith, all girlfriend-in-a-coma on the fifth floor. Xander slaps his hand against the steering wheel. Holy shit, just think of it. The two of them together, hitting the road and spreading mayhem. Just like the time the two of them headed out to kill Angel. Hell, maybe they can go out to L.A. and give that another go. With a vamped-out slayer, how could they miss?
He parks in the visitor's lot, heads for the fifth floor, bearing the vamp's pizza.
The nurse knows him. "Xander, hon, I'm sorry, it's after visiting hours."
"I know. I'm just working all sorts of crazy hours at Angelo's, and I never can get here. Anyhow, we had one of those prank calls, so I've got a loose pizza with no customer. I thought I'd bring it up here for you guys, for when you get your break."
"Aren't you just the sweetest."
"Who works harder than you guys? Holidays and all."
"I always knew you were a special kid. I'm just going to take this into the break room -- Vanessa and Joe are on their break now. If you want to look in on Faith for a couple of minutes, I don't see any harm."
"You're the best. Make sure they save you a slice, huh?" Xander slips into Faith's room and jams the visitor's chair under the door handle.
So pale and wan. She could almost be a vamp already. "Guess who, Faith. It's your favorite visitor. Hell, I'm your only visitor."
Usually he just sits in the chair -- at what feels like a safe distance -- and chatters about stuff. Movies, the job, the aborted road trip. But the chair's got better things to do, and so does he. He pulls the sheet down. You'd think after a few months in a coma, she'd be a little more spindly, but she's still got nice legs.
He slides his hand between them.
"Don't you get bored lying there, day in and day out? I thought this time, instead of the usual, I'd do something a little more stimulating. They say stimulation's good for coma patients, right?"
He lowers the side rail and climbs into bed with her. "I think I saw this in some dumbass movie once. You don't mind, do you? You've never been a stickler for consent, anyway."
Xander finds a rhythm that makes her breath start to hitch. "You like that, don't you? Bet you've missed having any action. You're the girl with the action figure." He works until his fingers are surrounded by damp warmth, then he unzips his pants and enters her. "On top of the girl, ma!" It's a first. He relishes the kittenish noises she makes, the way the monitor beeps pick up. As she arches beneath him, Xander calls forth his true face and tears her throat open.
Slayer blood is like nothing he's ever tasted. He wonders if this is what a heroin rush is like. Every cell sings with it, cries out for more. He drains her until she's nearly dead, then tears himself away from her long enough to draw his penknife across his inner wrist. He offers it to her, and she seizes his arm and drinks until it seems like she's determined to drain him, too. He pries her fingers from around his forearm, and at first she fights, then she falls back against her pillow, her eyes still closed, pale as the sheets. He wraps them around her, tugging loose the tubes and monitor wires, then lifts her in his arms.
***
Xander sits by her side in a musty-smelling motel room at the edge of Pocatello, Idaho, waiting for her to rise. She looks even less like Faith than she had in the hospital, laid out in a peach blouse and brown slacks he took from Franklin Street. Funny thing how very conventional Morgan's "lady" was, once you got her out of the gauzy nightie. At least at first, until she'd stopped bothering with the coordinated outfits (or baths) and taken to shuffling around the house in baggy gray sweats, her hair lank and greasy. Even without Faith, he was pretty much done with her.
It could happen any time now. At closing time he makes a quick food run to a bar a few blocks down, bringing back a tired-looking barmaid who accompanies him of her own free will. Her clothes are a little more Faith's style, anyway.
She balks when he lets her into the room and she spots Faith stretched out on the ugly bedspread. "Hey, no. Nothing weird. I thought this was just me and you."
When he clips her she goes down without another sound, and by the time she comes around, she's tied up and gagged. She whimpers, muffled by the cloth stuffing her mouth, but the sound doesn't worry him. He ignores her, keeping his eyes on Faith.
It's not so much her stillness that seems strange to him, but the silence where before there'd been the beep of monitors. There's no movement at all until, without warning, she jackknifes up in bed, eyes open and blazing.
"Faith, it's all right," he says.
"Where the fuck am I?"
"Somewhere safe. I brought you out. Out of the hospital. Out of the coma."
"What's wrong with me?"
Xander laughs. "Nothing's wrong with you. Nothing will be wrong with you ever again."
"Jesus, I feel--"
"Hungry. That's all it is." Grabbing the barmaid by the arm, he pulls her up from where she's huddled in the corner. "I brought you something to eat." He cuts her across the cheekbone with his penknife, then smears her blood on Faith's lower lip with his thumb. That cuts through her confusion and she's on the girl in a heartbeat, drinking greedily until she's drained.
Faith looks up at him, yellow eyes glittering, blood still staining her lips and fangs. She'd been beautiful before, but now --
"You did this."
"Yeah. I'm sick of Sunnydale. I want to see the country, maybe the world. All I could think of was the two of us together. Be cool, yeah? Like you told Buffy, 'Want, take, have.' We could do anything we want. Who's gonna stop us?"
"You want me to be your sidekick?"
"Hell, no. Equals. Partners. Bonnie and Clyde."
Her face twists in disgust, then her hand flashes out to smash the spindly night stand. Faith comes up with a shard of wood sharp as any stake, and she plunges it into Xander's chest.
Fuck! is his last stupid thought. I've been Harmonized.