FINAL DRAFT of my Music of Pain entry
Here is the second of my two fics promised today. Really? The only reason I'm postin em here is so I can give links to the ficathon hostesses when the time comes. Anyway, Y'all enjoy.
TITLE: After Midnight
PAIRING: X&A
PROMPT: Written for the Music of Pain ficathon hosted by brandil and crazydiamondsue.
SETTING: Post-Becoming
SUMMARY: Angelus beat Buffy, but decided swallowing the world in a hell dimension wasn’t in his best interests. Instead he menaces Sunnydale, thwarted at every turn by Giles and the Slayerettes. He’s getting really pissed and has decided to get to the heart of the matter. Xander has other ideas.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, nor do I make any profit.
FEEDBACK: Absolutely. Feel free. Also, concrit welcome.
A/N: Thank you to the lovely and talented sexymermaid for her quicky beta/read through.
A/N 2: My song was Walking After Midnight by Patsy Cline.
ARCHIVED: in my memories
Lyrics:
Walking After Midnight
Patsy Cline
(With Love)
I go out walkin after midnight,
Out in the moonlight, just like we used to do,
I'm always walkin after midnight searchin for you ~
I walk for miles along the highway,
Well, that's just my way of sayin "I love you,"
I'm always walkin after midnight searchin for you ~
I stop to see a weepin willow cryin on his pillow
Maybe he's cryin for me ~
And as the skies turn gloomy, night winds whisper to me,
I'm lonesome as I can be...
I go out walkin after midnight,
Out in the starlight, just hopin you may be
Somewhere a-walkin after midnight searchin for me.
I stop to see a weepin willow cryin on his pillow
Maybe he's cryin for me ~
And as the skies turn gloomy, night winds whisper to me,
I'm lonesome as I can be...
I go out walkin after midnight,
Out in the starlight, just hopin you may be
Somewhere a-walkin after midnight searchin for me.
After Midnight
“Don’t cry Willow. Things may not ever be better, but at least we’re still here, ya know.” Xander hugged the red headed witch who had stolen his heart when they were 5. He would never forget the screwy way her lips curled when she cried, even to this day. The way her brow furrowed over wet eyes, nor how her chin quivered as she tried to slow the sobs that wracked her body from time to time since that night. “I know. I miss her too. So do Giles and Cordy and Oz, but Will? We need you here.” He reached up and stroked the hair back from her face. “Please? Come back to us?”
No answer from the eyes that dripped quiet tears of grief and insanity. The Restoration spell Willow had attempted against Angelus failed miserably, and her failure had left her broken. A sixteen year old invalid. She’d failed the only person, besides Xander, who ever cared about her enough to believe in her. She turned her head out of Xander’s hand and stared out the window at the bright sunshine she would never allow herself to walk in again.
Xander sighed. He missed his friend, his partner, his sister - or the closest thing he had to one. Rising from his place next to Willow, he leaned down and laid a kiss on the top of her head. “I’ll be back next week, Will. I hope you’re feeling less sad then.” He hugged her quickly and left.
“No change?”
“Nah. Giles, I don’t know what to say to her, what to do to bring her out. She just looks so lost in there.” He sank down into the leather upholstery of Giles’s Citroen.
“Xander. She feels like an utter failure, I imagine, and her failure led to one of her best friends’ death. It’s only been a month, you need to give her some time.” Giles tried to be the voice of reason, but Xander was inconsolable.
“I know all that, but I want her back now. Before something happens to any more of us.” He gazed out the passenger window and closed himself off with arms crossed over his chest and chin tucked into his shoulder.
Giles read the posture and sighed. “Fine. I’ll let it be - for now. But we need to get to work on how to end Angelus. The creature seems determined to set up siege in Sunnydale. I don’t know why he wants to stay when Buffy is dead. It makes no sense.”
“He wants us dead, Giles. But not just that, he wants us to crave it first, and he wants to do it himself. And we’re a tough bunch, I guess, cuz we don’t just bend over and take our Angelus spanking and die.” Xander gave a harsh dry laugh. “I think there might have been a better way to phrase that, huh?”
“Perhaps.”
“Anyway, yeah. Angelus needs to be taken care of. Great. I’m all about the taking care of Angelus. Just point me in the right direction.” He turned to look at Giles. “Just...can it not be tonight? I can’t deal with that on top of all this too.”
“Yes. I suppose it can wait. Do you have a place you need me to drop you off?”
“Just home, Giles. I just wanna be at home right now. I’ve got no where else to go.”
“Right then.” And Giles drove the rest of the way in silence.
~~~~~~~~~~
He’d told the truth when he said he had no where else to go, but Xander found himself walking, after midnight, through the town. Aimless, he let his feet lead him where they wanted. Inevitably, they led him to the mansion where she had died, where Angelus had killed her; driven a sword right through her gullet. Xander walked around the courtyard, the fountain chipped and broken where they had thrown each other into it. Leaves scattered over the stone floor, forgotten and mouldering in the corners where the water from late summer showers gathered and never quite evaporated. The place stank of stagnation and rot. Seemed a fitting odor considering its recent history.
“I know you’re there, lurking. It’s what you do best.” He spoke to the thin air, the only answer a quiet rustle of silk and the soft creak of well worn leather.
“Well. If it isn’t the Slayer’s pet boy. Come to see her final moments? Or do you want to have yours here as well?” Angelus stood tall and dark in the shadows, the silvery moonlight slanting deep shadows along the high walls of the courtyard. As he walked further into the courtyard, that pale light illuminated the twisted youth of Angelus' features. Features that would never get any older, would always stay beautiful.
“No. I really don’t know why I came.” Xander sank down on the low wall that held a flower bed. “I could say I came for absolution, but that would be a lie. I think, maybe, I came to see you.”
Angelus was impressed with this bit of honesty. “Why? We have nothing to say to each other except ‘I’m gonna kill you, now.’ and ‘No! Please don’t. I’ll do anything.’ Do we?”
“I told you once that you were gonna die and I was gonna be there. Do you remember?”
“Oh yeah. I remember. I remember wanting to eat you right then and there. Wondered how you’d taste.” He looked around curiously. “Wonder why I didn’t.”
“Don’t know, don’t care.” Xander stood again. “You are gonna die Angel, and so will I. It seems like maybe we’ll kill each other.”
“Hmm. Interesting. Why is that, Xander?”
“Because we both loved her. Still love her.”
“The Slayer?”
Xander nodded.
“I didn’t love her. That lovesick thing that walked around with my face loved her. I wanted to make her suffer. She wouldn’t let me, the little bitch. Never gave up. I hated killing her without breakin’ her first.”
“Don’t worry. You broke the rest of us.” He walked over to Angelus, pulling a cross out of his jacket and holding it in his hand to ward the vampire off. “If I lay this on your chest, you burn right?” Angelus nodded once, a slow inclination of his head, curious and wondering where the boy was going with this. He also noticed the darkness that hovered around this creature of the light, a darkness so sublime Angelus would have taken his soul back just to taste it once.
“I won’t, though. I just want you to listen to what I have to say.” Xander cocked his head to one side and waited for the vampire to acknowledge him.
“Why should I? You’re insignificant, not even worthy of a hunt.”
Xander smiled, a grim twist of lips. “I’m so totally biteable, you know. Moist and delicious.” All expression left his face. “I just want to let you know I’ve got nothing left to live for. My best friend is dead, staked by me. My other best friend is lying in some hospital, speechless and constantly crying; she won’t come back to me. And the girl of my dreams, the sweetest, strongest, most adorable girl I ever knew is dead because of you. I should be mad; I should just kill you where you stand, but why close the barn door after all the horses are out? So you and I? We’re done. I’m tired of hunting you and watching my friends disappear. I’m sick of fighting you and losing another soul to hell.”
“Lovely as that is - and can I say how flattered I am that you took the time to honor me here? - I don’t see what this has to do with me. I’m still gonna hunt you and your friends. Invade your dreams just to hear you all scream.”
“Angelus, listen to me. I. Am. Finished. I never asked to be the guy who fights the forces of darkness. All I wanted was for her to look at me and smile. She can’t do that anymore, so I’m done. I’m asking you to leave us alone. You can’t hurt us anymore than you already have. If you wanted to break someone, if you wanted to see true devastation, take a look right here. You got your wish.” Then Xander astonished the dark vampire by turning his back on him to leave.
“On one condition.” The quiet voice, lacking its normal mocking menace, stopped Xander and had him turning around.
“Condition? You’re asking for a condition, which implies you’re considering making a deal.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“I’ll leave you and yours alone on one condition, Xander. Hell, boy. I’ll even leave Sunnydale. Have a hankering to look up Spike and Dru again.”
“I so don’t wanna know. What is your condition?”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Angelus stood before him, fingers tight around Xander’s neck, holding him in place. “I want a taste.”
“A taste? A taste of what?” Fear crept along Xander’s nerves, but never reached ebony eyes that widened when Angelus took a deep breath and snaked his tongue along Xander’s ear and whispered, “Despair.”
“You want a taste of despair? And how am I to give you that? I mean, it’s not like chocolate. You can’t just buy despair.”
Angelus leaned in an ghosted his lips over Xander’s collar. “You are despair, boy. I want to taste you...so dark.” He closed his eyes and inhaled the bleak scent of Xander and let him go to look into his eyes again.
“You want to drink from me? Didn't you hear what I said earlier?” Xander jumped back from him, putting some distance between him and Angelus.
“Don’t need to drink from you, boy.” Angelus swooped in and covered Xander’s mouth with his, licking, biting, nibbling, teasing the boy’s mouth open. And when Xander opened his mouth in protest, Angelus snaked his tongue into that moist heat. Xander recovered quickly and, pulling away from the non-existent hold, snapped his dark eyes to meet Angelus’ amber ones. “That is how you want to taste despair, by kissing me?”
“Yes. Don’t think that makes me a deviant, do ya?”
Xander frowned and stepped away from the vampire. “No. You wanting to kiss me is the least deviantThing I can think of for you to do. But is that all? Just ‘yes’ and you expect me to do that?”
Angelus gave a dramatic sigh. “This is my condition. If you want me to leave Sunnydale and you and yours alone, then you need to give yourself to me; let me taste that darkness that smells so good on you.”
Xander stopped talking and thought. To do this thing would take the last of him. He’d thought he was broken already, but finding resistance to surrendering to Angelus showed him there was still a bit of fight left in him, a tiny bit of fight that he really didn’t want.
“Fine. Taste me. Get a bellyful. I hope you choke on it.” He walked over to Angelus and kissed him, open mouthed, desperate, hard, rough, biting, licking, taking. Angelus reveled in the darkness that seeped off of Xander into himself. The sickly sweet taste of licorice making him groan and pull the boy to him. He opened his mouth on Xander’s, his tongue fighting with Xander’s for dominance and getting the boy’s submission finally.
Xander felt the moment he surrendered. It buckled his knees from under him, and had Angelus not been holding him, he’d have fallen. His fingers fisted in the black silk of Angelus’ shirt, and he clung to the only solid thing in his existence that just happened to be the vampire and cause of his world disintegrating. This was it; this was the final moment, and breaking, he whimpered, and pulled away from Angelus.
“There is your despair. Now. You took the best of me. I hope you’re satisfied, cuz what’s left of me is leaving.” He turned and left the courtyard, trusting Angelus to keep his word and leave.
Angelus watched the boy walk away, wiping a distracted thumb over his lips. He realized he’d never be able to keep his side of the deal. Not that he’d ever intended to. He had had the best of Xander. The feel of the fight leaving the boy had been intoxicating, sinking in and finding the darkest recesses of Angelus’ demon and filling it. Surrender was always tasty. But now he wanted the rest of him. That tiny bit of self that allowed the boy to walk out with his dignity and leave Angelus hard and aching. That despair that shrouded the boy, and made him smell and taste so good. No, Angelus wouldn’t be leaving Sunnydale.
He’d spend his nights walking the streets, searching for a glimpse, a trace, a hint of Xander on the night air. After midnight, every night, searching for him.
Continued in part 2
Please be kind to me. *puppy blue eyes*
TITLE: After Midnight
PAIRING: X&A
PROMPT: Written for the Music of Pain ficathon hosted by brandil and crazydiamondsue.
SETTING: Post-Becoming
SUMMARY: Angelus beat Buffy, but decided swallowing the world in a hell dimension wasn’t in his best interests. Instead he menaces Sunnydale, thwarted at every turn by Giles and the Slayerettes. He’s getting really pissed and has decided to get to the heart of the matter. Xander has other ideas.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, nor do I make any profit.
FEEDBACK: Absolutely. Feel free. Also, concrit welcome.
A/N: Thank you to the lovely and talented sexymermaid for her quicky beta/read through.
A/N 2: My song was Walking After Midnight by Patsy Cline.
ARCHIVED: in my memories
Lyrics:
Walking After Midnight
Patsy Cline
(With Love)
I go out walkin after midnight,
Out in the moonlight, just like we used to do,
I'm always walkin after midnight searchin for you ~
I walk for miles along the highway,
Well, that's just my way of sayin "I love you,"
I'm always walkin after midnight searchin for you ~
I stop to see a weepin willow cryin on his pillow
Maybe he's cryin for me ~
And as the skies turn gloomy, night winds whisper to me,
I'm lonesome as I can be...
I go out walkin after midnight,
Out in the starlight, just hopin you may be
Somewhere a-walkin after midnight searchin for me.
I stop to see a weepin willow cryin on his pillow
Maybe he's cryin for me ~
And as the skies turn gloomy, night winds whisper to me,
I'm lonesome as I can be...
I go out walkin after midnight,
Out in the starlight, just hopin you may be
Somewhere a-walkin after midnight searchin for me.
After Midnight
“Don’t cry Willow. Things may not ever be better, but at least we’re still here, ya know.” Xander hugged the red headed witch who had stolen his heart when they were 5. He would never forget the screwy way her lips curled when she cried, even to this day. The way her brow furrowed over wet eyes, nor how her chin quivered as she tried to slow the sobs that wracked her body from time to time since that night. “I know. I miss her too. So do Giles and Cordy and Oz, but Will? We need you here.” He reached up and stroked the hair back from her face. “Please? Come back to us?”
No answer from the eyes that dripped quiet tears of grief and insanity. The Restoration spell Willow had attempted against Angelus failed miserably, and her failure had left her broken. A sixteen year old invalid. She’d failed the only person, besides Xander, who ever cared about her enough to believe in her. She turned her head out of Xander’s hand and stared out the window at the bright sunshine she would never allow herself to walk in again.
Xander sighed. He missed his friend, his partner, his sister - or the closest thing he had to one. Rising from his place next to Willow, he leaned down and laid a kiss on the top of her head. “I’ll be back next week, Will. I hope you’re feeling less sad then.” He hugged her quickly and left.
“No change?”
“Nah. Giles, I don’t know what to say to her, what to do to bring her out. She just looks so lost in there.” He sank down into the leather upholstery of Giles’s Citroen.
“Xander. She feels like an utter failure, I imagine, and her failure led to one of her best friends’ death. It’s only been a month, you need to give her some time.” Giles tried to be the voice of reason, but Xander was inconsolable.
“I know all that, but I want her back now. Before something happens to any more of us.” He gazed out the passenger window and closed himself off with arms crossed over his chest and chin tucked into his shoulder.
Giles read the posture and sighed. “Fine. I’ll let it be - for now. But we need to get to work on how to end Angelus. The creature seems determined to set up siege in Sunnydale. I don’t know why he wants to stay when Buffy is dead. It makes no sense.”
“He wants us dead, Giles. But not just that, he wants us to crave it first, and he wants to do it himself. And we’re a tough bunch, I guess, cuz we don’t just bend over and take our Angelus spanking and die.” Xander gave a harsh dry laugh. “I think there might have been a better way to phrase that, huh?”
“Perhaps.”
“Anyway, yeah. Angelus needs to be taken care of. Great. I’m all about the taking care of Angelus. Just point me in the right direction.” He turned to look at Giles. “Just...can it not be tonight? I can’t deal with that on top of all this too.”
“Yes. I suppose it can wait. Do you have a place you need me to drop you off?”
“Just home, Giles. I just wanna be at home right now. I’ve got no where else to go.”
“Right then.” And Giles drove the rest of the way in silence.
~~~~~~~~~~
He’d told the truth when he said he had no where else to go, but Xander found himself walking, after midnight, through the town. Aimless, he let his feet lead him where they wanted. Inevitably, they led him to the mansion where she had died, where Angelus had killed her; driven a sword right through her gullet. Xander walked around the courtyard, the fountain chipped and broken where they had thrown each other into it. Leaves scattered over the stone floor, forgotten and mouldering in the corners where the water from late summer showers gathered and never quite evaporated. The place stank of stagnation and rot. Seemed a fitting odor considering its recent history.
“I know you’re there, lurking. It’s what you do best.” He spoke to the thin air, the only answer a quiet rustle of silk and the soft creak of well worn leather.
“Well. If it isn’t the Slayer’s pet boy. Come to see her final moments? Or do you want to have yours here as well?” Angelus stood tall and dark in the shadows, the silvery moonlight slanting deep shadows along the high walls of the courtyard. As he walked further into the courtyard, that pale light illuminated the twisted youth of Angelus' features. Features that would never get any older, would always stay beautiful.
“No. I really don’t know why I came.” Xander sank down on the low wall that held a flower bed. “I could say I came for absolution, but that would be a lie. I think, maybe, I came to see you.”
Angelus was impressed with this bit of honesty. “Why? We have nothing to say to each other except ‘I’m gonna kill you, now.’ and ‘No! Please don’t. I’ll do anything.’ Do we?”
“I told you once that you were gonna die and I was gonna be there. Do you remember?”
“Oh yeah. I remember. I remember wanting to eat you right then and there. Wondered how you’d taste.” He looked around curiously. “Wonder why I didn’t.”
“Don’t know, don’t care.” Xander stood again. “You are gonna die Angel, and so will I. It seems like maybe we’ll kill each other.”
“Hmm. Interesting. Why is that, Xander?”
“Because we both loved her. Still love her.”
“The Slayer?”
Xander nodded.
“I didn’t love her. That lovesick thing that walked around with my face loved her. I wanted to make her suffer. She wouldn’t let me, the little bitch. Never gave up. I hated killing her without breakin’ her first.”
“Don’t worry. You broke the rest of us.” He walked over to Angelus, pulling a cross out of his jacket and holding it in his hand to ward the vampire off. “If I lay this on your chest, you burn right?” Angelus nodded once, a slow inclination of his head, curious and wondering where the boy was going with this. He also noticed the darkness that hovered around this creature of the light, a darkness so sublime Angelus would have taken his soul back just to taste it once.
“I won’t, though. I just want you to listen to what I have to say.” Xander cocked his head to one side and waited for the vampire to acknowledge him.
“Why should I? You’re insignificant, not even worthy of a hunt.”
Xander smiled, a grim twist of lips. “I’m so totally biteable, you know. Moist and delicious.” All expression left his face. “I just want to let you know I’ve got nothing left to live for. My best friend is dead, staked by me. My other best friend is lying in some hospital, speechless and constantly crying; she won’t come back to me. And the girl of my dreams, the sweetest, strongest, most adorable girl I ever knew is dead because of you. I should be mad; I should just kill you where you stand, but why close the barn door after all the horses are out? So you and I? We’re done. I’m tired of hunting you and watching my friends disappear. I’m sick of fighting you and losing another soul to hell.”
“Lovely as that is - and can I say how flattered I am that you took the time to honor me here? - I don’t see what this has to do with me. I’m still gonna hunt you and your friends. Invade your dreams just to hear you all scream.”
“Angelus, listen to me. I. Am. Finished. I never asked to be the guy who fights the forces of darkness. All I wanted was for her to look at me and smile. She can’t do that anymore, so I’m done. I’m asking you to leave us alone. You can’t hurt us anymore than you already have. If you wanted to break someone, if you wanted to see true devastation, take a look right here. You got your wish.” Then Xander astonished the dark vampire by turning his back on him to leave.
“On one condition.” The quiet voice, lacking its normal mocking menace, stopped Xander and had him turning around.
“Condition? You’re asking for a condition, which implies you’re considering making a deal.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“I’ll leave you and yours alone on one condition, Xander. Hell, boy. I’ll even leave Sunnydale. Have a hankering to look up Spike and Dru again.”
“I so don’t wanna know. What is your condition?”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Angelus stood before him, fingers tight around Xander’s neck, holding him in place. “I want a taste.”
“A taste? A taste of what?” Fear crept along Xander’s nerves, but never reached ebony eyes that widened when Angelus took a deep breath and snaked his tongue along Xander’s ear and whispered, “Despair.”
“You want a taste of despair? And how am I to give you that? I mean, it’s not like chocolate. You can’t just buy despair.”
Angelus leaned in an ghosted his lips over Xander’s collar. “You are despair, boy. I want to taste you...so dark.” He closed his eyes and inhaled the bleak scent of Xander and let him go to look into his eyes again.
“You want to drink from me? Didn't you hear what I said earlier?” Xander jumped back from him, putting some distance between him and Angelus.
“Don’t need to drink from you, boy.” Angelus swooped in and covered Xander’s mouth with his, licking, biting, nibbling, teasing the boy’s mouth open. And when Xander opened his mouth in protest, Angelus snaked his tongue into that moist heat. Xander recovered quickly and, pulling away from the non-existent hold, snapped his dark eyes to meet Angelus’ amber ones. “That is how you want to taste despair, by kissing me?”
“Yes. Don’t think that makes me a deviant, do ya?”
Xander frowned and stepped away from the vampire. “No. You wanting to kiss me is the least deviantThing I can think of for you to do. But is that all? Just ‘yes’ and you expect me to do that?”
Angelus gave a dramatic sigh. “This is my condition. If you want me to leave Sunnydale and you and yours alone, then you need to give yourself to me; let me taste that darkness that smells so good on you.”
Xander stopped talking and thought. To do this thing would take the last of him. He’d thought he was broken already, but finding resistance to surrendering to Angelus showed him there was still a bit of fight left in him, a tiny bit of fight that he really didn’t want.
“Fine. Taste me. Get a bellyful. I hope you choke on it.” He walked over to Angelus and kissed him, open mouthed, desperate, hard, rough, biting, licking, taking. Angelus reveled in the darkness that seeped off of Xander into himself. The sickly sweet taste of licorice making him groan and pull the boy to him. He opened his mouth on Xander’s, his tongue fighting with Xander’s for dominance and getting the boy’s submission finally.
Xander felt the moment he surrendered. It buckled his knees from under him, and had Angelus not been holding him, he’d have fallen. His fingers fisted in the black silk of Angelus’ shirt, and he clung to the only solid thing in his existence that just happened to be the vampire and cause of his world disintegrating. This was it; this was the final moment, and breaking, he whimpered, and pulled away from Angelus.
“There is your despair. Now. You took the best of me. I hope you’re satisfied, cuz what’s left of me is leaving.” He turned and left the courtyard, trusting Angelus to keep his word and leave.
Angelus watched the boy walk away, wiping a distracted thumb over his lips. He realized he’d never be able to keep his side of the deal. Not that he’d ever intended to. He had had the best of Xander. The feel of the fight leaving the boy had been intoxicating, sinking in and finding the darkest recesses of Angelus’ demon and filling it. Surrender was always tasty. But now he wanted the rest of him. That tiny bit of self that allowed the boy to walk out with his dignity and leave Angelus hard and aching. That despair that shrouded the boy, and made him smell and taste so good. No, Angelus wouldn’t be leaving Sunnydale.
He’d spend his nights walking the streets, searching for a glimpse, a trace, a hint of Xander on the night air. After midnight, every night, searching for him.
Continued in part 2
Please be kind to me. *puppy blue eyes*