Gray
Gray
After having her world destroyed by the Winchesters, Eve wanted to rebuild her family. She claimed a soul with his own dark power and his own moral gray. 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 :: Chapters 4+5 :: Chapter SIX :: Chapter SEVEN :: Chapter EIGHT :: Chapter NINE :: Chapter TEN :: Chapter ELEVEN : Chapter TWELVE :: Chapter THIRTEEN
Chapter Fourteen
ET phone home. Or Spike and Xander need to, anyway.
“So, are you ready to talk?” Spike asked after he’d gotten them settled into an empty Radio Shack storefront. The windows were already boarded over, and the shelves were dusty, many of them knocked off their supports so they leaned at impossible angles.
Spike had already taken the lock off the cuffs, so Xander reached up and took the ball out. “I’d rather talk than have this in my mouth, which is not the same as actually wanting to talk,” Xander pointed out.
“I’m not asking, pet. I’m ordering you to talk.” Spike made an odd face. “Bloody hell. I’m ordering Xander Harris to talk. I spend soddin’ years dreaming up ways to shut you up. Life’s always enjoyed toying with me, but this is just unfair.” Spike went back to setting up the spell that would let him talk to Willow.
“We didn’t do this last week, so the weekly calls are not as much weekly as when we can get around to them, right?” Xander asked hopefully.
Spike eyed him like he was a bug that had crawled out of a big pile of crap. “Spit it out, Harris.”
Xander opened his mouth to make a joke, but the look on Spike’s face made the funny sort of wither up and die. “I don’t want Willow and Buffy knowing that I’m… you know.”
“A demon,” Spike finished for him.
“Exactly. Me and demoniness are not buds, and you know Buffy’s stance on all things demon.”
“You think she’ll sleep with you?” Spike asked.
Xander blinked as he tried to figure out if that was a joke. Was Spike really joking about Buffy’s inappropriate sexual partners, and if so that was pretty rich considering he was one of them. “Um, no,” Xander said slowly. “Sex with Buffy is like sex with Willow-every sisterly and overly creepy.”
Spike nodded. “Right then, what has your knickers in a twist. It isn’t like you went and asked to get turned into a demon.”
“Yeah, but I…” Xander stopped. From Spike’s yellow eyed glare, he was guessing that he running out of time. “I killed someone,” Xander blurted out. “And you remember how Buffy is about the killing of people.”
Spike rocked back on his heels. “You killed a serial killer who had a gun in hand because he’d been planning on killing you. Now, either you tell me what really has you tied in knots, or I’m going to hang you from the rafters and leave you to suffer until you get your head on straight.”
Xander cringed. When he’d been human, he could have counted on that to be some sort of empty threat. Now, not so much. “I’m not the same. It’s not the same now.” Xander could feel the words stick in his throat. Spike set aside the candles and watched intently, so intently that Xander felt like his thoughts were all on display. He blinked into his visions, and William was there with his notebook in hand. He peered over his glasses. The lack of Angelus was a relief.
“I like feeding,” Xander whispered.
“You mean you liked feeding on that bloke with the truck?” Spike asked, and oddly he didn’t have any emotion in his voice at all.
Xander shook his head. “I didn’t know then. I mean, I didn’t have time to feel anything.” He took a deep breath, and Spike still waited. “I like feeding off the cows.”
“And?” Spike leaned forward, and William took several steps forward and raised a pencil as though preparing for some timed test.
“And now I wonder what it would feel like to feed off a human,” Xander snapped. He froze, his guts turning to absolute ice. Sharp, jagged ice that ripped at him. He was damned. Eve had damned him to the deepest most damned corner of hell.
Spike sucked air through his teeth, and William vanished altogether. In his place was a vampire William with dark blond hair and blood splattered over his mouth. The scar in his eyebrow was actually an open bleeding wound, but vampire William still looked joyous in a way Xander had never seen Spike.
“You seeing him?” Spike asked.
Xander nodded.
“I was young then, and when you’re a young demon, the world is like an overripe plum begging you to sink your teeth into it.”
“But… I’m one of the good guys. I shouldn’t want…” Xander let his voice trail off.
“We are what we are, luv. Our good intentions don’t change our nature.”
“But Eve said I could choose my nature,” Xander said. “So if I’m wondering…” Xander was not have an easy time finishing sentences.
Spike stood and carefully picked his way over the runes he’d drawn. “Luv, you’re a demon. You have the power of an old one running through you, so you can’t help but feel some of those same urges. It doesn’t mean that either one of us is going to go out and massacre an orphanage full of kiddies.”
Xander flinched, and sure enough, the bodies of dead children were scattered across the floor.
“How do you live with it?” Xander asked in a whisper.
“Not much choice, pet. I can’t change the past. But you never did let your demon loose like that, and feeling guilty about your feelings is downright Catholic of you. Unless you want me to start calling you Peaches, you need to remember that you don’t have anything to feel guilty about. Bloody hell, you’ve never even killed a cow.”
“I’ve tried,” Xander whispered. And he really would have killed many, many cows if not for Spike.
“I’m not about to let you go off killing the local happy meals,” Spike said firmly. He reached out and caught Xander’s shoulder, pressing his fingers into the flesh. “You’re mine, luv. You don’t have permission to kill, so it doesn’t matter how much wondering you do.”
“But it would taste good, wouldn’t it?” Xander asked in a horrified whisper. He had no idea why he’d even gone there.
Spike moved closer. “Yeah, luv, it would. And then you’d tear yourself to pieces after.”
Xander nodded and tried hard to just keep his mouth shut. He actually wanted to be gagged, and wasn’t that weird to admit to himself.
“Right then, let’s get ahold of Red and let her know what sort of mess we’ve fallen into.”
Xander nodded without saying anything. The guilt and fear still gnawed at him like a really pissed off pit bull that refused to let go. But maybe the teeth felt a little less sharp. Maybe. Maybe that was all wishful thinking. He played with the cuff locked around his left wrist as Spike finished laying out the most complicated spell Xander had ever seen.
“Ready?” Spike asked as he finally stepped back. A dozen candles sat in the middle of a sprawling series of runes that Xander couldn’t even hope to understand. He could, however, see the runes stretching and writhing like dogs trying to escape a leash.
“No,” Xander said.
Spike moved to his side and wrapped his fingers around Xander’s arm and held tightly. Spike read the spell off a little spiral notebook, and the air above the runes shimmered as the lines stretched up into the air. Xander blinked to push away the visions and he could see the air turn waterish right before Willow’s appeared, her body distorted like she was on the other side of an aquarium.
“Spike! Xander! Thank the goddess. We’ve been worried about you! Buffy! They called,” she yelled, but there wasn’t any answer. “Go get Buffy,” she ordered someone outside the spell.
“We have a little problem, Red.”
Immediately, Willow’s smile faded. “Oh uh. Are we talking little as in elephant or little as in nuclear bomb?”
Spike glanced over, but given how much trouble Xander was having with complete sentences, there was no way he wanted to talk about any of this. Spike sighed and focused on Willow again. “Have you heard of Tiamat?”
Her eyes got big. “Oh goddess.”
“Oh goddess? That sounds ominous.” Buffy stepped into the picture. “Hey, you. What’s up with this getting kidnapped out of the council house?”
“You know my luck with women,” Xander said with a weak smile.
“Oh uh,” Buffy said, and she looked over at Willow, and yep, Willow had the scrunchy face on.
“I take it you've heard of her,” Spike said to Willow.
“Her? Who her?” Buffy looked around, and even through the distortion, Xander could see she had her slayer face on.
“I’m pretty sure the her in question is Tiamat who was one of the old gods who escaped when the others like Ilyria were trapped in the well,” Willow said, and she looked at them like she was begging them to disagree.
“Yep. It seems like the boy caught her eye,” Spike offered.
“A god?” Buffy looked faintly horrified. “You caught the attention of a god? Why can’t you ever attract good old fashioned human serial killers and psychopaths?”
Xander cringed.
“Xander?” Buffy asked in that tone of voice that Joyce used to have-the one that said she knew you were holding out on her, and she wanted details.
“Boy’s dealing with enough right now,” Spike quickly said. He stepped forward, and Xander actually found himself pretty happy to slink into his shadow.
“Like Tiamat?” Buffy demanded, and that was definitely her slayer face.
Spike nodded. “She said she couldn't have any more children because of getting poisoned by Phoenix ash.”
“Oh, that's not good,” Willow said, “Or it is good because Tiamat is the mother of monsters. They were her army in a war against Marduk. So a pregnant Tiamat wouldn’t be a good thing.” Willow suddenly stopped. “Wait. They have Phoenix in that universe?” Her eyes got big.
“I haven't run across one myself, no, but that's what she told Xander.”
Buffy pushed forward. “Told as in Xander was having a conversation with the mother of monsters?”
“Not like I had a choice, Buff.”
“So, I take it Phoenix ash could poison her?” Spike asked.
There was a long pause that pretty much meant that Willow didn't know. "Um, maybe?" she finally settled on. “What does that have to do with Xander?”
“Seems like she decided to adopt him.”
Xander flinched.
“Adopt?” Willow’s voice went up at least an octave and Buffy retreated several steps. Oh yeah, this was going just great.
“Xander's a demon now,” Spike said and he even managed to have this totally casual tone. The weather is great, the job market for carpenters is actually quite good and Xander’s a demon. Right now Xander just wanted to creep into the smallest hole he could find and pull dirt in over him.
Instead of a little silence, there was a huge old massive chunk of it. Xander swallowed, and Spike reached back and grabbed his neck, fingers pressing into the sides of it. It shouldn't feel good, but it did. It felt like Spike was holding him together.
"Is Xander...” Willow stopped, her hands coming up to her mouth, and Xander could practically read her mind. That was more a side effect of knowing someone twenty years rather than a superpower, though.
"I'm standing right here, Will. I'm demonified, not changed.” Xander frowned. “ Well, I'm changed, but not really different.”
Clearly his powers of Willow soothing were on the fritz. “Oh goddess. Oh my lord. Demonified? Like a vampire?”
Xander opened his mouth to agree. Yep, he was like a vampire. A boring old vampire. Yep, totally vampire-like. Unfortunately, Spike got there first.
"More like an alph."
Willow made a choking sound and Buffy looked from Willow to Xander and back again, her concern rising with every second.
“Okay, I’ll bite, what’s an alph?” Buffy asked.
Willow whispered in a horrified voice, “A father of monsters.”
Yep, this was going great.