A Road Covered With Blood
Aug. 8th, 2007 12:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sevendeadlyfunPairing: Xander/Spike
Rating: NC-17 overall
A/N: Okay, hopefully this clears up a few of your questions. We're coming into the home stretch here, so I'm thinking two or three more chapters at the most and this wild and crazy ride will come to an end. X-posted todarker_spike for challenge reasons, posted here for my memories...
“So,” Xander drawled, rubbing his hands together. “Who wants to explain the incredible shrinking sanity bit to me?”
Cordy smiled tightly and replied, “So glad you’re feeling better, Xander. What’s say we go get something to eat? You must be famished!”
Xander stared at her quizzically. Sure, food would be nice. But unless he was sadly mistaken, the extra-loud voice and pointed gesturing meant that he was in trouble. He’d only been in the room for thirty seconds and he was already on somebody’s shit list? Not only a speed record, but also pretty damn confusing.
“Uh, Cordy,” he began,” I just want…”
“Something. To. Eat,” she ground out and grabbed him by the arm.
“Yep,” he acquiesced. “That’s me, a raging black pit of hunger. I’ll just go with you and get to eating.”
Growing up in Sunnydale required a lot of things. The Hellmouth demanded courage, a strong stomach, and a certain skill at rationalizing yourself away from the truth. Knowing when to back down from a clearly pissed Cordelia Chase was just another of those hometown requirements. Plus, those nails were diamond sharp and hurt like hell.
“Listen, Cordy, “ he said, digging in his heels and drawing them to a stop. “I don’t know what the fuck is up, but if I don’t get an explanation and I mean, twenty minutes ago…”
“You’ll what?” she challenged him. “ Stand there and look grouchy at me? Please, spare me.”
He sighed. Never try to outdo a clear leader in the field and no one but no one got the best of Queen C in the sniping department. He ran a hand over his eyes, wondering if people actually got migraines from frustration.
“Please,” he tried again. “Just tell me what’s up, okay? I don’t know why you’ve got the death look on, but I didn’t do anything. Yet. So, mind playing catch up for the viewers at home?”
“Fine,” she told him and she just deflated in front of him. All the starch and fire in her body just evaporated and she slumped against the wall.
“Cordy, whatever it is, I can’t help if I don’t know,” he said softly, rubbing a hand against her arm.
“He doesn’t remember,” she whispered.
“He who and what doesn’t he remember?”
“Angel,” Cordy explained. “You remember your ‘incredible shrinking sanity bit’?”
“Kinda hard to forget,” Xander said wryly. “What with the feelings of certain doom and internal implosion.”
“Yeah, well, you weren’t the only one to get that. Angel and Spike were both affected, just not quite so bad.” Cordy closed her eyes and it was the closest Xander had ever seen her come to crying.
He pulled her into the circle of his arms and just held on. Whatever had the power to knock down Cordelia wasn’t something Xander thought he could beat down. But, he could be here to pick up her pieces when she was through.
“What happened to us,” he asked softly. “And why weren’t our two favorite vamps as bad off.”
Cordy stepped away from him and stood upright. That’s my girl, Xander cheered silently. Never let’em see you…well, not sweat because Cordy wouldn’t stoop to something as blue collar as sweating. Whatever it was, she clearly had no intention of letting anyone see her do it.
“It was…” she stopped, struggling for words. “I’m not entirely sure. Some kind of mystical reality thing. Like, you were in too many places at once. It caused the barriers in your mind to start unbarriering.”
“O-kay,” Xander said slowly. “That kinda makes sense, actually. And the potion you fed me was, what? A reintegration drink?”
“Basically,” she admitted. “The Oracles gave me the recipe.”
“The Oracles?” Xander couldn’t hide his shock. She’d gone without him? She’d said he and Spike were crucial.
“Turns out that no matter what reality we’re in, Angel is an overprotective ass.” Cordy grimaced. “He found out what I was planning and insisted he be the one to help. So I had my Champion.”
Xander smiled at that pronouncement. She might nag Angel to tears, and keep on him like a Fury until he begged for a stake, but there was truth in those words. He really was her Champion.
“So?”
“So,” Cordelia took a deep breath. “I’m a demon now.”
Huh. That didn’t sound as odd as it should have. He shook his head, trying to figure out when he’d lost his marbles. Nope, he could still hear them rattling around up there.
“A demon,” he repeated.
“Well, only partly,” she conceded. “The visions were never meant for a pure human. It takes a demon’s constitution to bear them. Last time, I got a sucker’s deal from some unknown chump demon and therein lies massive badness. This time, I decided to go straight to the source.”
“Uh-huh,” Xander said skeptically. “What kind of part-demon are you?”
“Succubus from the smell of things,” a low voice said from the shadows. “Explains why she looks good enough to eat.”
“Thanks so much, Spike,” Cordelia said in annoyance. “Coming from a vampire that’s so not a compliment I ever want to get again.”
“Ta,” the vampire smirked. “ ‘S true, though. Gives you a little extra shine, makes you draw the blokes in like bees. Have fun takin’ your little flower out for a night on the town.”
“Getting back to the whole reality thing,” Xander tossed out hastily. No way did he want to be witness to a showdown between the two most famous snarkers to ever hit Sunnydale. The explosion might actually have the power to take down whole city blocks.
“Right.” Cordy turned her attention back to Xander. “ The potion I gave you was meant to snap you back into…I don’t know, alignment or whatever. It’s the same one I gave Spike.”
“But, Peaches got something different,” Spike said shrewdly. “A little forgetting potion, maybe?”
“No,” Cordelia snapped. “He got one that drew him fully into this reality.”
“You…you wiped out his memories?” Xander tried to keep the freak out of his voice, but he knew it was still there. That was just…wrong. Memories were the only thing they had, it made them who they were. Screwing with somebody’s memories was the closest thing to murder without actually wielding a weapon.
“NO,” Cordy screamed. “He did! He s-said he wanted to forget. The things he’d done in the other reality were s-so horrible and…”
“Yeah,” Spike told her gently. “They were. Nobody should have to live with that, and I can’t say as I blame him for wanting a better reality.”
“What the fuck,” Xander hissed at Spike. “You’re just okay with this? Angel decides he’s had enough and poof! One clean slate coming up? How the fuck is that okay?”
Spike stared at him, eyes hard. Xander didn’t flinch. He’d been on the receiving end of the patented Big Bad glare too many times to start being terrified now.
“His choice,” Spike enunciated, voice cold and clipped. “You ever been responsible for the death of everyone you loved? Lost your friends and family to an evil you helped create? Didn’t think so. Before you go callin’ Angel weak, think about what’s roamin’ around his mind and compare it to yours.”
Xander damn near growled at that. They all had things they wanted to forget, ugliness they wished they’d never seen. How come Angel got a free pass while they had to suffer?
“Knock it off right now, Xander Harris.” Ouch, the full name meant he was dead in the water. Screw that, he thought mulishly. He was all growed up now and he’d be damned if he’d take a lecture now.
“No, I won’t,” Xander tossed back at the pretty brunette. “I’m sick and tired of this bullshit game. I’m the one whitewater rafting through reality, but I don’t get a say in what happens? Well, I quit. Officially and irrevocably. Find somebody else to take this sucker’s gig.”
“So much for being the big hero,” Spike spat at him. “You wanted to know what love is, Xan-der? It’s going through hell for somebody else without thinkin’ about yourself. It’s taking the pain so someone else doesn’t have to. Care to wager how often Angel’s done that? Give the man his bloody peace and stop whinging.”
Just like that, Xander felt his righteousness fly out the window. Spike was right. He’d started this whole crazy thing to save his friends. He thought about Anya, sitting back in Sunnydale with Tara and a whole new life ahead of her. And Spike, standing in front of him and spitting mad instead of being tormented in some hell dimension.
“So Angel doesn’t remember anything from the other reality,” he said quietly.
“No,” Cordy told him, glaring at him. “He remembers the reality where Xander Harris was kind to him and helped save him. He remembers the reality where he and Buffy managed to get back together in some deranged parody of a relationship.”
“If this reality is so much better than that other one,” Xander argued, “why did your friend have to die? Couldn’t you have fixed that? I’m not seeing a huge difference here.”
Cordy looked at him with something akin to pity in her eyes. Spike merely bristled, which Xander decided to count as a win. It was a step down from active loathing, at any rate.
“Some things are just meant to be,” she said sadly. “Nothing anyone does can alter fate, Xander. Not me, not you, and maybe not even The Powers. Some things just have to happen.”
Xander let that fact simmer in his brain. Fate always seemed like a weak excuse to him. It was what people said when they couldn’t admit that life had gone to shit. Nothing you can do, they’d say. It was just fate.
If fate was real, if it really controlled certain things, what did that mean? How could he fix things if they existed beyond his control? He thought about Buffy. She knew for certain that people would always die at the hands of demons. No matter how good she was, or how much she patrolled, some demon would slip by her and an innocent would die.
He’d asked her about that once. She’d looked at him, forlorn and a bit wistful. She told him that the only thing she could ever do was her best. She couldn’t save the world, no matter how many times she’d saved the world. She saved who she could and prayed for the rest.
Xander wasn’t sure that was good enough for him. Who wouldn’t he be able to save? Which one of his friends would slip between his fingers?
“This sucks,” he muttered. “How can I make things any better if I can’t fight fate?”
“Do you want a hat?” Cordy patted his shoulder sympathetically.
“A hat?” Xander looked at her, a little dazed.
“For your pity party,” she clarified. “I could get you a hat and some streamers, maybe a cake…”
“Jesus,” Xander groaned. “Spike, help me!”
“S’pose I can,” Spike grinned maliciously. “For a price.”
“You’re charging me?” Xander injected a little shock into his voice. Always play along with the Big Bad. Ah, another of the incredible SunnyD life lessons.
“Don’t worry,” Spike assured him, which immediately made Xander worry. “You can afford it.”
“I can?” Wow, that sounded suspiciously like a yelp. Better ignore it or it might happen again.
“Definitely,” Spike told him as he raked his eyes over Xander. “Now, Princess, since you’re all sorted, mind if we borrow Angel? Got a spot of trouble back in Sunnyhell…”
Spike led Cordelia off, rapidly explaining the Initiative and how the L.A team could help. Xander watched them go, wondering if it was possible to be both frightened and horny at the same time.
He laughed out loud at his own thoughts. Simultaneous fear and arousal described the entirety of his sex life. He wasn’t even sure he could get turned on without that little edge of fear.
Still, he wasn’t turning his back on Spike. Well, not without a little foreplay anyways. Beyond that, he’d just do his best and pray. If it worked for Buffy, he supposed it was good enough for him.
Rating: NC-17 overall
A/N: Okay, hopefully this clears up a few of your questions. We're coming into the home stretch here, so I'm thinking two or three more chapters at the most and this wild and crazy ride will come to an end. X-posted to
darker_spike for challenge reasons, posted here for my memories...“So,” Xander drawled, rubbing his hands together. “Who wants to explain the incredible shrinking sanity bit to me?”
Cordy smiled tightly and replied, “So glad you’re feeling better, Xander. What’s say we go get something to eat? You must be famished!”
Xander stared at her quizzically. Sure, food would be nice. But unless he was sadly mistaken, the extra-loud voice and pointed gesturing meant that he was in trouble. He’d only been in the room for thirty seconds and he was already on somebody’s shit list? Not only a speed record, but also pretty damn confusing.
“Uh, Cordy,” he began,” I just want…”
“Something. To. Eat,” she ground out and grabbed him by the arm.
“Yep,” he acquiesced. “That’s me, a raging black pit of hunger. I’ll just go with you and get to eating.”
Growing up in Sunnydale required a lot of things. The Hellmouth demanded courage, a strong stomach, and a certain skill at rationalizing yourself away from the truth. Knowing when to back down from a clearly pissed Cordelia Chase was just another of those hometown requirements. Plus, those nails were diamond sharp and hurt like hell.
“Listen, Cordy, “ he said, digging in his heels and drawing them to a stop. “I don’t know what the fuck is up, but if I don’t get an explanation and I mean, twenty minutes ago…”
“You’ll what?” she challenged him. “ Stand there and look grouchy at me? Please, spare me.”
He sighed. Never try to outdo a clear leader in the field and no one but no one got the best of Queen C in the sniping department. He ran a hand over his eyes, wondering if people actually got migraines from frustration.
“Please,” he tried again. “Just tell me what’s up, okay? I don’t know why you’ve got the death look on, but I didn’t do anything. Yet. So, mind playing catch up for the viewers at home?”
“Fine,” she told him and she just deflated in front of him. All the starch and fire in her body just evaporated and she slumped against the wall.
“Cordy, whatever it is, I can’t help if I don’t know,” he said softly, rubbing a hand against her arm.
“He doesn’t remember,” she whispered.
“He who and what doesn’t he remember?”
“Angel,” Cordy explained. “You remember your ‘incredible shrinking sanity bit’?”
“Kinda hard to forget,” Xander said wryly. “What with the feelings of certain doom and internal implosion.”
“Yeah, well, you weren’t the only one to get that. Angel and Spike were both affected, just not quite so bad.” Cordy closed her eyes and it was the closest Xander had ever seen her come to crying.
He pulled her into the circle of his arms and just held on. Whatever had the power to knock down Cordelia wasn’t something Xander thought he could beat down. But, he could be here to pick up her pieces when she was through.
“What happened to us,” he asked softly. “And why weren’t our two favorite vamps as bad off.”
Cordy stepped away from him and stood upright. That’s my girl, Xander cheered silently. Never let’em see you…well, not sweat because Cordy wouldn’t stoop to something as blue collar as sweating. Whatever it was, she clearly had no intention of letting anyone see her do it.
“It was…” she stopped, struggling for words. “I’m not entirely sure. Some kind of mystical reality thing. Like, you were in too many places at once. It caused the barriers in your mind to start unbarriering.”
“O-kay,” Xander said slowly. “That kinda makes sense, actually. And the potion you fed me was, what? A reintegration drink?”
“Basically,” she admitted. “The Oracles gave me the recipe.”
“The Oracles?” Xander couldn’t hide his shock. She’d gone without him? She’d said he and Spike were crucial.
“Turns out that no matter what reality we’re in, Angel is an overprotective ass.” Cordy grimaced. “He found out what I was planning and insisted he be the one to help. So I had my Champion.”
Xander smiled at that pronouncement. She might nag Angel to tears, and keep on him like a Fury until he begged for a stake, but there was truth in those words. He really was her Champion.
“So?”
“So,” Cordelia took a deep breath. “I’m a demon now.”
Huh. That didn’t sound as odd as it should have. He shook his head, trying to figure out when he’d lost his marbles. Nope, he could still hear them rattling around up there.
“A demon,” he repeated.
“Well, only partly,” she conceded. “The visions were never meant for a pure human. It takes a demon’s constitution to bear them. Last time, I got a sucker’s deal from some unknown chump demon and therein lies massive badness. This time, I decided to go straight to the source.”
“Uh-huh,” Xander said skeptically. “What kind of part-demon are you?”
“Succubus from the smell of things,” a low voice said from the shadows. “Explains why she looks good enough to eat.”
“Thanks so much, Spike,” Cordelia said in annoyance. “Coming from a vampire that’s so not a compliment I ever want to get again.”
“Ta,” the vampire smirked. “ ‘S true, though. Gives you a little extra shine, makes you draw the blokes in like bees. Have fun takin’ your little flower out for a night on the town.”
“Getting back to the whole reality thing,” Xander tossed out hastily. No way did he want to be witness to a showdown between the two most famous snarkers to ever hit Sunnydale. The explosion might actually have the power to take down whole city blocks.
“Right.” Cordy turned her attention back to Xander. “ The potion I gave you was meant to snap you back into…I don’t know, alignment or whatever. It’s the same one I gave Spike.”
“But, Peaches got something different,” Spike said shrewdly. “A little forgetting potion, maybe?”
“No,” Cordelia snapped. “He got one that drew him fully into this reality.”
“You…you wiped out his memories?” Xander tried to keep the freak out of his voice, but he knew it was still there. That was just…wrong. Memories were the only thing they had, it made them who they were. Screwing with somebody’s memories was the closest thing to murder without actually wielding a weapon.
“NO,” Cordy screamed. “He did! He s-said he wanted to forget. The things he’d done in the other reality were s-so horrible and…”
“Yeah,” Spike told her gently. “They were. Nobody should have to live with that, and I can’t say as I blame him for wanting a better reality.”
“What the fuck,” Xander hissed at Spike. “You’re just okay with this? Angel decides he’s had enough and poof! One clean slate coming up? How the fuck is that okay?”
Spike stared at him, eyes hard. Xander didn’t flinch. He’d been on the receiving end of the patented Big Bad glare too many times to start being terrified now.
“His choice,” Spike enunciated, voice cold and clipped. “You ever been responsible for the death of everyone you loved? Lost your friends and family to an evil you helped create? Didn’t think so. Before you go callin’ Angel weak, think about what’s roamin’ around his mind and compare it to yours.”
Xander damn near growled at that. They all had things they wanted to forget, ugliness they wished they’d never seen. How come Angel got a free pass while they had to suffer?
“Knock it off right now, Xander Harris.” Ouch, the full name meant he was dead in the water. Screw that, he thought mulishly. He was all growed up now and he’d be damned if he’d take a lecture now.
“No, I won’t,” Xander tossed back at the pretty brunette. “I’m sick and tired of this bullshit game. I’m the one whitewater rafting through reality, but I don’t get a say in what happens? Well, I quit. Officially and irrevocably. Find somebody else to take this sucker’s gig.”
“So much for being the big hero,” Spike spat at him. “You wanted to know what love is, Xan-der? It’s going through hell for somebody else without thinkin’ about yourself. It’s taking the pain so someone else doesn’t have to. Care to wager how often Angel’s done that? Give the man his bloody peace and stop whinging.”
Just like that, Xander felt his righteousness fly out the window. Spike was right. He’d started this whole crazy thing to save his friends. He thought about Anya, sitting back in Sunnydale with Tara and a whole new life ahead of her. And Spike, standing in front of him and spitting mad instead of being tormented in some hell dimension.
“So Angel doesn’t remember anything from the other reality,” he said quietly.
“No,” Cordy told him, glaring at him. “He remembers the reality where Xander Harris was kind to him and helped save him. He remembers the reality where he and Buffy managed to get back together in some deranged parody of a relationship.”
“If this reality is so much better than that other one,” Xander argued, “why did your friend have to die? Couldn’t you have fixed that? I’m not seeing a huge difference here.”
Cordy looked at him with something akin to pity in her eyes. Spike merely bristled, which Xander decided to count as a win. It was a step down from active loathing, at any rate.
“Some things are just meant to be,” she said sadly. “Nothing anyone does can alter fate, Xander. Not me, not you, and maybe not even The Powers. Some things just have to happen.”
Xander let that fact simmer in his brain. Fate always seemed like a weak excuse to him. It was what people said when they couldn’t admit that life had gone to shit. Nothing you can do, they’d say. It was just fate.
If fate was real, if it really controlled certain things, what did that mean? How could he fix things if they existed beyond his control? He thought about Buffy. She knew for certain that people would always die at the hands of demons. No matter how good she was, or how much she patrolled, some demon would slip by her and an innocent would die.
He’d asked her about that once. She’d looked at him, forlorn and a bit wistful. She told him that the only thing she could ever do was her best. She couldn’t save the world, no matter how many times she’d saved the world. She saved who she could and prayed for the rest.
Xander wasn’t sure that was good enough for him. Who wouldn’t he be able to save? Which one of his friends would slip between his fingers?
“This sucks,” he muttered. “How can I make things any better if I can’t fight fate?”
“Do you want a hat?” Cordy patted his shoulder sympathetically.
“A hat?” Xander looked at her, a little dazed.
“For your pity party,” she clarified. “I could get you a hat and some streamers, maybe a cake…”
“Jesus,” Xander groaned. “Spike, help me!”
“S’pose I can,” Spike grinned maliciously. “For a price.”
“You’re charging me?” Xander injected a little shock into his voice. Always play along with the Big Bad. Ah, another of the incredible SunnyD life lessons.
“Don’t worry,” Spike assured him, which immediately made Xander worry. “You can afford it.”
“I can?” Wow, that sounded suspiciously like a yelp. Better ignore it or it might happen again.
“Definitely,” Spike told him as he raked his eyes over Xander. “Now, Princess, since you’re all sorted, mind if we borrow Angel? Got a spot of trouble back in Sunnyhell…”
Spike led Cordelia off, rapidly explaining the Initiative and how the L.A team could help. Xander watched them go, wondering if it was possible to be both frightened and horny at the same time.
He laughed out loud at his own thoughts. Simultaneous fear and arousal described the entirety of his sex life. He wasn’t even sure he could get turned on without that little edge of fear.
Still, he wasn’t turning his back on Spike. Well, not without a little foreplay anyways. Beyond that, he’d just do his best and pray. If it worked for Buffy, he supposed it was good enough for him.