Gray, chapter four
Gray
Eve lost her ability to have children, to create the powerful creatures who fed on humans and thinned their numbers. Her alphas, children who spawned dragons and vampires and werewolves, had been slaughtered by the demons of hell and human hunters. But God created her to be resourceful as the mother of all monsters. So she found a champion with his own power and his own moral gray, and she took him as her own. He would be her champion. Hopefully.
Xander just wanted to go home, preferably before the hunters Sam and Dean Winchester caught up with him.
Chapter ONE :: Chapter TWO :: Chapter THREE
And now Xander tracks down a familiar face. Even if Buffy isn't a slayer, Giles will still be Giles in any universe. Right?
Chapter Four
Xander found himself staring out the bus window as the bus rumbled toward New York City. The guy next to him smelled like feet, but Xander smelled like cheap hotel soap and the disinfectant Goodwill had used on the new shirt the Maine cops had bought him. Those were two smells that could rival feet-stink.
Rupert Giles existed. On paper, he seemed fairly boring. Then again, Xander’s Giles was a stuffy librarian on paper, but in real life, he was a sword-sharpening sidekick to the most powerful warrior on the planet. Secret identities were tricky that way… what with all the secrets.
But his Giles had been a watcher and he’d grown up knowing about slayers and vampires and things that went bump in the night, and as much as this universe had things that went bump, there was a real lack of slayers. Buffy Summers was a college student in Los Angeles who had never even burned down a gym, much less burned down a gym full of vampires. Willow still used her same online names and passwords on the same online chats, but she was getting a masters degree in cognitive and evolutionary anthropology in Oxford. Oz vanished from the public records about halfway through high school, so Xander could only hope he wasn’t at the bottom of the rubble when big chunks of Sunnydale collapsed in an earthquake. Both Xander’s parents had survived the quake, which wasn’t all that surprising. Only thirty-three people had died in that quake, and there was a definite lack of giant sucking hole where a hellmouth had closed.
Xander turned back to the Supernatural book he’d picked up at Goodwill. The two brothers were hunting demons while trying to track down their father, and even Xander could tell this was more than just a story. Most monster movies and horror books turned everything into a metaphor for people and their own psychological demons.
These books had monsters who had monsterish motives, which felt less booklike than some way of communicating hunting techniques without sounding like a crazy man to the rest of the universe. Of course the whole plot with brothers who’d been stalked by evil their whole lives and had a weird vibe between them was all fiction, but the monsters… that felt real.
All of it except the vampire lore. Either the vampire stuff was pure fiction or this universe had a freaky definition of vampire. They could walk around in the sunlight and walk into houses uninvited, and they were nearly extinct, and those three things did not add up in Xander’s brain. Without those two drawbacks, Spike would have totally killed Buffy back in his evil days. And Angelus would have turned most of Europe into kibble. But no, these vampires didn’t get more than a sunburn and they were nearly extinct. Xander was putting them in the “wussy” category. Either that or the author of the Supernatural books had a little wishful thinking going. Xander only wished vamps were that warm and fuzzy and incompetent.
On the other hand, the books Xander had gotten his hands on had a scary range of shapeshifters and demons that scared the pants off him, especially given that he didn’t have Buffy to call when the shit hit the fan. Xander closed the last of the four Supernatural books he’d found without any hints about whether Eve had turned him into some ghost-seeing demon unique to this universe. Xander snuck a quick look at his stinky neighbor, but the man didn’t seem to sprout any apparitions.
“What you looking at?” the man demanded.
“Nothing. A whole lot of nothing, and nothing is good. Really good. Yep. Good nothing.” Xander turned and focused out the window again.
“Freak.” The guy didn’t bother muttering quietly.
“Oh hell yes,” Xander agreed. That seemed to shut the man up.
The bus threaded through some nasty traffic before pulling into a station. Xander sat and waited as other people grabbed their stuff and headed out. All he had was one very old duffle bag Detective Woodridge had gotten him with victim compensation money… the same money that had bought Xander two pairs of jeans, two shirts and four books at Goodwill and a pack of white underwear from Walmart. That was Xander’s entire worldly fortune. He didn’t even have a weapon, other than his Swiss army knife, and those were not really good for beheadings.
His only hope was that Rupert Giles, businessman, was secretly fighting the forces of evil.
Xander had made it all the way from the bus station to lower Manhattan and the offices for Giles Family Exports before it occurred to him that if Eve was right, Xander might qualify as the forces of evil… not that he felt evil, but Giles was a little anti-nonhuman. At least his Giles was.
Spike had died for the world, stood by Buffy when the whole thing with the Immortal got ugly, helped them stop one more Angel-prophesy and generally proved himself to be a good guy. He was still sarcastic and couldn’t be trusted with a remote control or a Sharpie pen when the roommate was asleep, but he’d left evil behind.
Xander was the first to admit that.
Okay, so Xander was more like the seventh or eighth to say that behind Buffy, Willow, Kennedy, Robin, Andrew, Vi, and Clem, but still… he could admit that he’d been wrong. Giles, however, still left Spike off the world-saving emails. Xander didn’t know if that was his watcher training with the anti-demon bias or just some special hatred for anyone who dated and broke Buffy. He wasn’t exactly a fan of Angel, The Immortal, or even Riley Finn. Pretty much any man or woman who upset his surrogate daughter ended up on the “hate for life” list Giles kept in his head.
On the bright side, this new Giles wouldn’t remember the time a giant Xander-sneeze blew snot all over his original copy of the Gaius Marius Grimoire.
Walking into the Giles Family Export offices, Xander knew that Giles in any universe knew how to fight some serious evil. The offices took up several floors in an expensive high rise with steel and glass Runes decorated the walls. Oh, they were done in shades of limestone in the terrifyingly expensive décor and hidden in carved grape leaves, but Xander had been painting protective runes long enough to know ‘em when he saw them.
Putting on his best smile, Xander headed for the receptionist-a burly man who clearly had skills beyond answering phones. “Is Rupert Giles in?”
The receptionist gave Xander the hairy eye. “Do you have an appointment?”
Xander opened his mouth and then closed it again. Okay, plan B. “No, but I know he’ll want to talk to me.”
The hairy eye glare turned into something more lethal. “You’ll have to call his assistant for an appointment.”
“Giles has an assistant?” Xander blurted out. And the second the words were out, Xander knew he had made a tactical error. He could almost taste the growing aggression in the air, and he wasn’t entirely sure that was a metaphor.
“Do you know Mr. Giles?” The receptionist shifted, and unless Xander missed his guess, he’d just pulled a weapon.
“Um, kinda… more in a friend of a friend of a friend kind of way.”
The receptionist eyed him a little the way Buffy eyed something small and slimy before stepping on it. “And did this friend send a formal introduction?”
Clearly Xander needed to find something that would make this guy take him seriously. Okay, think supernatural. He went with the first thing that came into his head. “I didn’t really ask for an introduction because I had a cold, and I sneezed, only there was a three thousand year old grimoire, and I… yeah, that’s not a story I really want to finish telling. It doesn’t reflect well on me.” Xander went for the puppy look that had always gotten Willow to do his math homework. The receptionist seemed unmoved.
“Leave your name and number, and I will inform Mr. Giles that you are seeking an interview.”
“Way to go with the stuffy,” Xander muttered. And once again, the receptionist gave him the hairy eye. Holding up his hands in surrender, Xander started backing away. “And hey, feel free to stuff away. Giles probably loves you what with all the… you know… stuffy. But I don’t actually have a number, so I think I’ll just show myself out.” Xander reached the door and yanked it open. The handle tingled under his palm, and Xander looked down to see a small rune traced into the metal. Yep, this Giles was as paranoid as Xander’s, and right now, Xander had no way to get past the great hulking receptionist. He also had no money, no food, and no place to stay. Add in a few people pointing AK47s at him and Xander would feel right at home.
“You’d be calling me all sorts of names right now, Spike,” Xander muttered as he got into the elevator. A woman in a business suit scooted farther back away from him. “British name,” Xander added as he watched the numbers on the elevator light up one by one as they headed down to the ground level. As much as Xander hated to admit it, he did miss that.
Spike was the stable force in his life. Buffy was… hell, he didn’t know what Buffy was. Buffy was a twenty-something one day, rushing around Rome trying to buy every pair of cute pink heels she could find and she was a general next, barking orders at everyone.
Willow just scared him. Oh, he would never say it to her face, but she was more powerful every day. Xander had been at ground zero of all-powerful Willow at one point in his life, and he still had the scars from it. When Dark Willow had thrown her magic at him, she’d left a small constellation of tiny white scars. And the more powerful Willow got, the more Xander found himself remember what it felt like to feel Willow’s power course through him and know he was going to die.
Over the years, Spike was the one he’d turned to more and more. The world changed in ways Xander sometimes couldn’t understand, but Spike was still there with snark and bad English beer and worse English insults. And no matter what stupid thing Xander did, Spike insulted him with the same casual indifference and fished him back out of trouble. If Xander stopped up a toilet and needed someone to turn off the frozen shut-off valve or if Xander had angered a witch doctor who threatened to open a new hellmouth, Spike used the same damn insults, which was vaguely comforting.
The elevator doors opened, and Xander headed out into the hurrying New York crowds. Smoking. Too damn many people were smoking. That was the first thing Xander noticed as he wandered the streets with no particular place to go. He should head for the Algonquin. In the early 1900s, a group of demon hunters had met there in his own world, so if Xander wanted to find out about the things that went bump in the night, maybe this universe would have the same group of rogue demon hunter nerds hanging out around the place.
Xander had always liked the idea that the poet Dorothy Parker had been a badass hunter when she wasn’t writing poems. If she could deal with all the sexism and the total uncool factor associated with writing poetry and still be a secret badass, Xander had always felt like there was some hope for him. So, he needed to find the Algonquin. And then he needed to spot a rogue demon hunter. Then he needed to try and convince the hunter not to hunt him. And if Giles wanted to find him, Xander suspected the man could find him even without a phone number. That rune on the door handle had looked a lot like a tracker symbol.
Chapter Five
The Algonquin was across from Central Park, so Xander settled in under a tree and watched. He was the watcher-man now, only Xander found himself watching the masses of people who passed him rather than searching for signs of demon hunters. This world looked so much like his own, except then there were little differences. Buildings carried faint runes in the shadows of porticos and arches. Skyscrapers were more ornate with balustrade and gothic details Xander didn’t remember from his trips to New York, and the sky seemed to have a gray undertone despite the lack of clouds. This might not be a totally new universe, but it wasn’t his same old universe either.
A woman struggled to get a baby stroller over a broken curb, and Xander stood up to help her. He’d crossed half the distance before a man in his forties stopped to lift the end of the stroller and exchange a quick word with the woman. The man stood, and Xander met Giles’ eyes.
Xander stumbled back a half step. This was the man who had fathered him more than his own father, but it wasn’t. This Giles had a harder edge to him, enough so that he reminded Xander of band candy night and the unexpected appearance of Ripper. No way was this guy a simple export import guy.
And the second Xander reacted, Giles narrowed his eyes and he slipped his hand under his tweed coat. Lovely. Xander weighed honest fear and the certain knowledge that if he ran Giles would track him down and be even less friendly. Xander had seen unfriendly Giles, and it wasn’t pretty.
With his best harmless grin, Xander headed back to the bench and sat down, waiting for Giles to come over. Strange as it was to see this alien Giles, Xander still recognized his mentor. For example, Giles carefully didn’t look to the right, so Xander was guessing he had backup in that direction. He definitely would have someone at Xander’s back, and Xander could feel a little itch between his shoulder blade. He was so totally imagining it, but he could feel someone watching him. He could practically taste their suspicion.
Giles walked over warily, and his body had angles that Xander usually saw in Wood or Riley. He was prepared to fight. That actually made sense since he didn’t have a slayer, but still… it was weird. Xander definitely didn’t like this world, and making a mental note to avoid looking up any more of the old gang, he waited for this Giles version 2 to reach him.
Giles crossed the street and then stood a few feet from Xander, pretty much looming over him. And in true Giles’ style, he stared down, silently daring Xander to say something stupid. Of course, this Giles didn’t know how very likely that was.
“Hey,” Xander finally offered when it seemed like Giles might stare forever.
Giles shifted his stance without answering.
“Which is not really a way of greeting people, and trust me, I’ve had the stuffy English lecture on proper forms of greeting.” Xander smiled. Giles didn’t. Clearly this throat, Xander stood up and offered his hand. “Xander. And I assume you’re Giles, so very nice to meet you.”
Giles looked around for a second before reaching out his own hand, but instead of shaking, he flicked water at Xander.
Xander looked down at the wet freckles across his hand and jacket. “Um, spell? Holy water?” Xander brought his hand to his nose and sniffed while Giles kept watching curiously. The stuff stunk like what his mother used to scrub the toliets. “Ew. Okay, that’s gross.” Xander wiped the back of his hands off on his jeans.
“You said you wanted to meet.” Giles was in full Ripper mode now, which was ironic because that had definitely been a test for something. Xander just wasn’t sure which demon had an aversion to clean toilets.
“Um, yeah.” Now that Xander was looking Giles in the eye, he had no idea what to say to the man. Finding Giles had been instinct. Terror did lead a person to want to go running back to the nearest parental unit, but this Giles wasn’t his Giles. And right now, Xander felt the ache and pain of that loss more acutely than he had at any time since waking up in Purgatory.
“Well?” Giles demanded.
“Hey, this is not easy stuff to talk about,” Xander blurted out before he sat back don on the bench. If he didn’t, his knees were going to fail.
Giles looked at something behind Xander and gave a little flick of his head before sitting carefully on the far side of the bench.
“Please tell me that wasn’t you giving some order to shoot me in the back with a crossbow.”
“Would a crossbow kill you?”
Xander did a double take. “Human here. Pretty much everything kills me, which is very unfair, but then I’ve been avoiding the actual death part of humanity for a while, so I’ve come to terms with my own totally unfair weaknesses.”
A flash of confusion darted across Giles’ face, and for a second, Xander felt like he was home. His heart ached more.
“Are you human? You seemed to have a few magical properties I’m not identifying easily.”
“Well, that might be part of the whole kidnapped out of my own reality thing. I find inter-reality kidnappings mess with the fabric of the universe. At least they do in comics. I haven’t run across that many in the real world… not unless you count Willow’s vampirey half showing up out of Anya’s wish spell or Anya herself who seemed to go reality hopping a lot. But for the most part, people in reality stay in their own reality, except when they don’t.” Xander shrugged.
And off came Giles’ glasses as he started polishing. Yep, you could take the stuffy out of the Englishman, but he still wouldn’t be prepared for Xander logic.
“And you do that a lot in my universe, too,” Xander said with a wave toward the glasses.
“Do I?” Giles cleared his throat and put his glasses back on. “Curious. I rarely do it here.”
“Maybe you just don’t have enough people to annoy you.”
Giles shifted on the bench. “I assume you are going to tell me that you’re trapped, that the person you recommended you come to me was, in fact, me. Perhaps you’re even going to tell me that the grimoire you apparently sneezed on was mine.”
“Um… kinda,” Xander agreed.
Giles sat up straighter. “I am not a fool.”
“I never-”
“And I am not going to play into your hand. So you can go back to your master, whoever that is, and tell him that the game won’t work. The blade is not for sale and I won’t have some bumbling idiot trick me out of it.”
Xander had the definite impression he was the bumbling idiot in this equation. “First, I have no idea what you’re talking about. The only blade I know is the hunga munga and the sword of Moskva and of course the em-scythe thingy that you always tell me I’m mispronouncing.”
“Do I?”
“With full lectures about glottal stops and not mangling the languages of others because mispronouncing spells can have world-ending consequences, but the most I’ve ever done is accidentally set a book on fire. And that was not my fault because I shouldn’t have been reading the book at all, only you guys insisted everyone had to do research, even though you guys know that me and magic are unmixy.”
“So, your grand plan seems to be convincing me you are an utter and complete fool.”
“That’s pretty much me without any planning or acting involved,” Xander admitted. “But I saved the slayer and saved the world and pretty much ended up being part of team-good for a lot of years.”
“And now you’re here, needing my help?”
“Well, the more you talk, the less I feel like I want any help at all from you.” Xander steeled himself for Giles indignation. As much as Xander didn’t want to admit it, when Giles got upset, Xander felt about two inches high. It was funny. His other father pretty much considered Xander a piece of shit, and he didn’t care. Let Giles give a disappointed sigh and Xander felt a little twitching need to rush after him and make it all better. Of course most of the time Xander just ended up screwing up worse, but that was part of his charm. At least it had been.
“Then maybe we can agree on something.” Giles tilted his head toward Xander before he started to stand up.
“One thing,” Xander said when Giles turned to leave. Giles looked back down at him and waited, his hand under his coat again. The tickling sensation between Xander’s shoulder blades had gotten about twenty times worse. “If you’d been pulled out of your world without a penny to your name and had to have some cop buy you a few clothes at Goodwill after you nearly got yourself killed by a serial killer, where would you go? I mean, if you wanted to stay out of people’s way until your own Giles found a way to undo the major mess you landed in, I mean.”
For a second, Giles considered him coldly. “Anywhere away from me,” he finally answered. Then he turned and started back toward the opposite side of the street.
“Yeah, real helpful,” Xander called after him. “Thanks a lot. I like you better when you’re all Watchery and stuffy and slayer following.” With a huff, Xander grabbed his bag off the ground, but something made him glance up and, Giles was there, two inches from his face with a look of pure fury.
“What did you say?”
Xander shifted backwards, but he had the bench at the back of his knees and he couldn’t retreat more. “Nothing. Nope. I am totally not insulting your stuffiness, especially since this you is less with the stuffy.”
For a second, Giles gritted his teeth so hard that his jaw muscle bulged, and this was definitely Ripper and not Giles. “What did you say about a slayer?”
“Buffy?” Xander sucked in a breath. He had so not meant to throw her name out there, not that this world’s Buffy was a slayer or had any secrets beyond where to buy the cutest shoes, but still. Secret identities were secret.
Giles tilted his head to the side, and reached out to grab Xander’s arm.
“Hey!” Xander protested when Giles started pulling him toward the road. Something hard stuck him in the side, and Xander looked down to see the dark muzzle of a gun sticking out from Giles jacket. Oh hell. This definitely wasn’t his Giles.
“You said you’re human, and I’m taking you at your word. So either you come along or I’ll shoot you and see if you bleed red.”
“They’d arrest you,” Xander said, barely getting the air to come out. He could feel something dark and hungry pressing up, pushing against the back of his throat, and he swallowed nervously.
“I can take care of myself,” Giles said in an almost gleefully calculated way. Oh this was so not good. Xander’s own Giles was scary enough, but this one was scary on steroids. He started pulling on Xander’s arm again, and this time Xander followed without protest.
“I like you better when you’re all English and stuffy,” Xander muttered.
“I assure you that I am still English. However, given the number of signs of the pending apocalypse that appear every day, none of us has time to be stuffy. It’s every species for itself, and I intend humanity to survive.” A black van pulled up in front of them, and Xander wasn’t even a tiny bit surprised when the side door open and Giles shoved him inside.