Taken

by
Beetle

Part Thirteen

August, 1997

“Please. . . .”

The soft, lost voice is more than enough to wake Angel out of a thin sleep in his uncomfortable chair.

Xander is out of bed on wobbly legs, looking around Angel’s apartment as if he’s never seen it before. His body is pale and gaunt-looking, his face masked in miserable shadows.

“Jesse?” Dark, confused eyes meet Angel’s. “You have to help me, please . . . help me find Jesse?”

“Xander, you should be resting,” Angel says quietly, standing up as slowly and non-threateningly as he can. “Let me help you back to bed.”

“No--I have to find him, he doesn’t know where I am anymore.” A tear runs down his face and when Angel reaches him, takes his arms, Xander sags tiredly against him.

“I’m so weak, I can’t even--” Xander trails off, trembling with exhaustion.

“That’s partly the blood-loss.” Angel picks Xander up and carries him to the bed, avoiding his eyes. His body temperature is still slightly low, for a human. “And partly the claim.”

“Claim?”

After laying Xander down and fussing with the sheets for a few minutes, Angel lets himself meet the haunted eyes. “Jesse claimed you, made you his own.”

Xander blinks rather vacantly. “I belong to Jesse.”

Angel doesn’t know if that’s agreement or dementia, so he steps over that statement for the time being.

“But since Jesse’s--no longer here, and won’t, um--” gee, what’s a nice way to say drinking from you and fucking you till the bond sticks? “--won’t be claiming you on a regular basis, your body’s gonna go through something like withdrawal. You’ll feel weak and lost and a little--” a little nuts. “Well, you’ll feel a like you’re not too stable sometimes, but you’re not. It’s all just physiological.” Except for that pesky spiritual decay. . . .

Angel takes Xander’s hands and holds them loosely, so he can pull away if he wants to. “I don’t know exactly how long these . . . symptoms will last, in your case. Maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months--until the bond withers and dies.” Or till you wither and die.

Xander looks down at his hands in Angel’s and pulls them away, shaking his head.

“You don’t understand . . . Jesse loves me. He said so, and we’re gonna be together and--”

--and Angel knows that Xander hadn’t been listening to a single word he’d said for, like, a long time.

“. . . know you hate me but please, please help me find Jesse?” Xander whispers, tears running down his cheeks.

“I don’t hate you, Xander.” Angel feels oddly helpless in the face of Xander Harris’s tears.

“Then help me.” Xander looks up; his face is all wet, desperately unhappy eyes and ashy complexion. “You’re, like, a superhero; you could find Jesse if you wanted to.”

Angel doesn’t even bother to deny that he could. Xander’s family--technically, anyway--and if you can’t be marginally honest with family. . . .

“I won’t help you find your soulless, demon-lover, Xander, and if you can’t see the crazy-making wrongness of those adjectives--”

“Jesse loves me! He’d never hurt me, he said so!”

That kind of stubborn insistence, coupled with Xander’s sudden anger--he can smell Xander’s blood like the boy just opened up a vein--makes Angel’s demon want to reach out and--

“Jesse already left you once,” he says softly. One thing his century-plus of being Angelus has prepared him for is being a bastard on demand. “How many hints does he have to drop before you start picking them up?”

“He--” Xander’s thinks for a minute. “He got scared at the last minute . . . went to take a walk, or something. Clear his head. And then . . . I know he came back! But you took me away and now he doesn’t know how to find me!”

“He claimed you, Xander. As long as that bond exists between you, he could track you all the way to the ends of the Earth.”

“Look--Jess got scared and chickened out, BFD!” Xander’s voice cracks and falters. “I know him; whenever he has big promise to keep, he agonizes and angsts over it. But eventually, he keeps his word. Jesse has never broken a promise to me and not having a soul isn’t gonna change that.”

“After I got turned, I spent my nights torturing and killing people. I broke every bond or promise I’d ever made and I killed everyone I had ever loved as a man. Ate, not turned.” Angel smiles coldly but, at the same time the soul is insisting Angel’s doing the right thing, it’s berating him for hurting this boy, who really is still just that. “But maybe your Jesse’ll be the exception that proves the rule, huh?”

Xander’s mouth works like he wants to sob or scream, but nothing comes out at all and the soul twists and writhes like it’s being tortured.

“Listen--” Angel begins, uncertain of what it is he wants Xander to listen to, only needing to reach out and offer some sort of comfort, however cold that comfort might be.

Xander shakes his head no. “Fuck you, dead-boy.”

But he doesn’t resist the cool hands and arms that pull him closer, into a hug. His face is hot against Angel’s chest and his scent--still red, still sweet, still familiar--is even stronger.

It’s Jesse’s scent on him that I’m responding to, nothing else. The demon’s intrigued because Xander’s--technically--family. The soul does its best to convince Angel.

He remains unconvinced.

“God, I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job of protecting you,” Angel tells Xander; just another guilty pang to keep all the others company.

“Leave me alone.” The whisper is barely audible, but Angel can feel the shape of the words over his heart.

“I can’t do that.”

“You shoulda let me die. If Jesse really changed his mind about me . . . you shoulda let me die.”

“I couldn’t do that, either.”

Weak arms wrap tentatively around Angel’s back. Nervous fingers clench and unclench in his shirt.

“I don’t know if I wanna keep living if I have to feel this way.” Xander sniffles. That scent of blood and family has, if anything, grown stronger since the shower. “I’ve lived with this for a day and already it feels like a lifetime.”

“You’ll survive. In time, this will pass.”

“What if I don’t want it to pass?”

Angel has to stop inhaling because the scent, though not enough to make him do something . . . regrettable, is painfully tempting. “I know it sounds trite, but--if you live for the people who need you, in time you’ll figure out how to live for yourself, again.”

Xander starts laughing around a throat full of tears. “What planet are you living on, broody? People who need Xander Harris?”

“Willow needs you, so does Giles. So does Buffy.” A thought that bothers Angel much less than Xander probably thinks.

“No . . . they like me--well, I’m pretty sure Wills and Buffy do--but they don’t need me. If I was gone, they’d be sad for awhile, but they’d move on, just like they did when Jess--Willow and Buffy’ll survive just fine without me. The only person who ever needed me was Jesse. He still does.”

Sensing that now is not the time to illustrate the difference between Jesse and Jesse’s demon, Angel thinks over his response to that very carefully before speaking.

“Maybe . . . Jesse didn’t want to see you die. Maybe he loved you too much to turn you into a soulless killing machine . . . maybe he put your needs ahead of his own.”

Xander laughs again. “You don’t know Jesse, man. I’m the one who takes care of him. I’m the one who keeps him out of trouble, I’m the one who loves him.”

“Not anymore.”

Which is what this all comes down to, isn’t it? Whatever Xander feels for the demon in his friend’s body, whatever the demon feels for him--and Angel doesn’t doubt that it feels some twisted, dark species of love and obligation toward Xander, and a healthy dose of fledgling hormones to boot--that part of Xander’s life is now over.

Whether Xander believes the demon is Jesse or not, Jesse is gone for good this time.

The sudden fit of shudders that takes Xander tells Angel that on some level, even if it’s buried deep, this truth is understood, and is just waiting to be accepted.

“It hurts.”

“It won’t always.” Angel pretty sure that it will always hurt, but in time, that hurt will grow distant, will get buried under the rest of Xander’s life.

“No, not that--well, yeah, that, but I--ache.”

“Where?”

“All over . . . feels like my veins are on fire; they itch and burn.”

“That’s perfectly normal considering your--situation.” Not that Xander’s situation is in any way normal.

“My neck feels hot and cold and throbby--” Angel realizes that the scent of blood that he’d thought was wishful thinking might not be. He lets go of Xander and tilts his head to the side.

The punctures have reopened and twin trails of blood are leaking sluggishly down Xander’s neck. It’s a deep, arterial red, thicker and darker than what would come out of a more superficial wound.

“The wound’s reopened . . . I’ll--I’ll get some bandaids--” which Angel is fairly certain he doesn’t have. He stands up, but Xander grabs his hand, a small smile on his face. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Why let it go to waste?” He asks, turning his head to the side in clear invitation.

“No,” Angel says, wondering if he’s still asleep in his chair; if he’ll wake up drinking the boy down like a bottle of root beer. “No, Xander.”

“Yes. Please?”

“You don’t know what you’re asking. What you’re offering.” But Angel does, so why isn’t he pulling away and getting a damn bandaid? Even if it means a trip to the all-night mini-mart, getting away from Xander is sounding like a very good idea.

And why, why is he letting Xander pull suddenly nerveless fingers up to the two, ragged holes in his neck?

They both shiver when Angel’s fingers brush the wound. Human pheromones seem to explode into the air, strong and desperate. Angel wants to slip into gameface just to get a better whiff, just to--

“This isn’t a good idea,” he says. Says mostly because that’s what the damn soul is screaming at him. The demon, however, is oddly silent. And watchful, as always.

“Believe me, I know how good an idea this isn’t,” Xander murmurs meekly, his head tipping back further, eyes fluttering shut in submission. Silent though it is, Angel can feel his demon’s approval. “But don’t stop.”

Angel does stop, however--brings his fingers to his nose and inhales deeply, letting the dark, copper and cinnamon scent wrap his brain ‘round in a warm, red mist. His tongue flicks out to sample and an almost electric shock runs through him. He slides his fingers into his mouth with a soft moan.

Human blood. Sweeter and cleaner than he remembers, tingling and sharp, but with a muted aftertaste like pennies and misery.

It’s been so long. . . .

“So . . . what do I taste like?”

Angel opens eyes he doesn’t remember shutting as the last traces of sharp-sweet blood melt away from his tongue. Xander’s eyes are wide and dilated; the sheet is tented over his lap and that pheromone smell is thicker than ever.

Before the desire even becomes a thought, Angel is on the bed--on Xander. Though he’s focused on the bite mark, he can see Xander lick his lips out of the corner of his eye.

“You taste like more.”


June, 2000

“It wasn’t enough,” Xander tells his reflection, touching the shallow punctures in his neck. “The skin is barely broken.”

He sighs and turns to look at Spike, who’s sprawled on the bed, pale and unmoving, like a dead angel.

“It’s like a fire under my skin,” Xander explains, haltingly at first. “It makes my bones ache and my blood itch. I thought it was over--that the need and the crazy were all over years ago, but it’s not. He’s back and I’m going nutty and--I can’t do this again.”

When Spike doesn’t move or respond, Xander sits on the bed next to him, running a hand through sot, platinum hair. “Thank you. You tried to save. I won’t ever forget that you tried, but it wasn’t enough.” He leans down to kiss Spike’s lips, then his chest, right where a heartbeat should be, before standing up.

“He wasn’t the only one who made a promise. Guess it’s time for the both of us to ante-up.”

Xander starts getting dressed for the second time in less than five minutes.

The soft knock on his door isn’t startling or unexpected.

Pausing Oddworld, he puts down the game controller and gets up, smiling. If he had a reflection, he’d be checking it one last time before opening the door.

But from the scent he’s picking up--has been for the past three minutes and twenty-two seconds--he’s pretty sure he’ll pass muster.

Smiling, he undoes the chain and opens the door of the same motel room he’d had three years ago. A rumpled man stands in front of him, back to the fading daylight, his face shadowed and gaunt.

“Jess,” the man rasps, like he’s been swallowing broken glass all day. He looks like hell. He looks--

Beautiful.

“Xan.” Jesse means to stand aside and let Xander step in, but before he can move, Xander’s pulling him into a harsh, bruising kiss.

Jesse maneuvers them both into the room and shuts the door, not bothering with the chain. He walks them to the bed without breaking the kiss; his hands are everywhere at once and Xander’s are trying to be.

Jesse hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed the taste, the scent, the feel--the Xander-heat.

Didn’t realize how angry the scent of that other vampire on Xander--the taste o that other vampire in Xander’s mouth--would make him.

Jesse breaks the kiss and shoves Xander down to the bed, straddling his legs. Xander tries to sit up, but Jesse holds him down on the bed effortlessly.

“Has he had you?” Other-vamp’s scent is so strong, Jesse can’t even tell. All he knows is that his claim, such as it is, hasn’t been challenged.

“No,” Xander shakes his head no vehemently, his hair flopping around his face in a way Jesse remembers keenly. “No one but you.”

“No one but me ever,” Jesse promises, his voice little more than a growl as he morphs into gameface. “You’re mine, Xan.”

“You still need me?”

“I never stopped, never wanted to leave, but I--there was this vamp, nearly dusted me--” Jesse shudders. Of all the times he’s nearly been dusted, that was still the closest. He’d barely healed enough to make it under cover by dawn. “Broke me into bite-sized, manageable pieces and left me to heal or fry. Told me to get outta dodge and stay away from you--”

“Angel.” Xander laughs; there’s a flash of something hot and baleful in his eyes. “Fucking Angel, I knew it. I’m gonna kill him.”

Not even turned and he’s already amped for the kill? Damn, he’s gonna be an awesome childe. . . . “We’ll kill him together.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Xander says quietly, then looks away. “Why’d you come back now, after all this time--”

Jesse turns Xander’s face back to his. “Because I can protect you, now. I can keep you. I’ll kill Angel or any other person--demon or human--who comes between me and what’s mine.”

Xander takes a breath, closes his eyes, but tears still leak out. “I promised you forever; you promised me the same thing.”

“I know, buddy, and I’m gonna give it to you,” Jesse says, brushing Xander’s hair out of his face. More tears leak out and misery wafts out of his pores like alcohol; Jesse’s demon is already drunk on the dizzying scent of it.

One yank and Xander’s shirt is history. There’s dried semen on his chest--not Xander’s--and hickies that Jesse didn’t put there. “I swear, I’m gonna spend the next fifty years killing that limey fuck.”

Another yank and Xander’s pants have gone the way of the shirt.

“Don’t kill him, I--” Xander blushes. “It’s my fault for leading him on--”

Jesse smiles gently at his soft-hearted childe-to-be, running his finger against the seam of Xander’s lips. Instantly, Xander’s mouth opens and a warm tongue curls around Jesse’s finger.

“By the time the sun goes down, Xan, you won’t even care.”

Spike’s return to consciousness is greeted by a headache so fierce, he can barely open his eyes.

Goddamn bloody chip, he thinks, rolling onto his side with a groan, shielding his sensitive eyes from the dim, filtered light.

“Xander?” He calls, though he knows a second before he does that he’s all alone in the house.

Xander’s gone.

Has been gone long enough for the sheets to cool.

For Spike to cool.

Judging by the rapidly fading sunlight that shines through the dingy basement curtains, Xander can’t have been gone for too long. Twenty minutes, perhaps. . . .

Like it takes more than that to walk from one point in this town to any other. But I know good and well where he’s gone, don’t I?

To the vamp who’d already claimed him once before.

To the vamp who’s actually capable of reclaiming him properly.

Xander’s need to be claimed was so intense--so intermingled with desire, that fucking would’ve turned into claiming whether Spike had wanted it to, or not.

God, what that scent had done to him. What Xander had done to him.

Woulda claimed him and not regretted it for a second . . . woulda kept him.

He can’t imagine why Jesse had done a claim-and-run, but the fact that he’s back, now, and looking to make up for time lost--

And Spike’s just had an awful, awful thought; one that immediately turns into a spot-on certainty.

Bastard means to turn him. I can challenge a claim, if I can find away around the chip, but fighting the Sire/childe bond?

“Either way, it’s not like I’m vamp enough to challenge any kind of claim; no, not Chippy, the Fangless Vamp.” Spike laughs bitterly. “Wasn’t gonna bloody hurt him! I was tryin’ to protect him!”

His voice echoes angrily off the damp basement walls, before dwindling away into nothing. In that moment, Spike decides that when he gets Xander back, he’ll make sure neither he, nor his boy have to continue living in this hovel. No more fast food jobs, no more good-will clothes, no more worn-down shoes.

No more bloody Sunnyhell.

Spike’s already out of bed and pulling on his clothes, headache forgotten, aching muscles ignored. Only one thing matters: Xander is gone. He’s been gone much longer than can be explained by a donut run or a quick walk to clear his head. The vamp that claimed him four years ago, then left, is back in town looking to reconcile, and--

--the sun’s still up and Xander wouldn’t be able to find Jesse’s lair alone . . . but none of that means a damned thing if Jesse was smart enough to hire himself some non-vamp muscle to keep an eye on Xander, does it?

Jesse might be smart enough to have done just that.

If he had, his goons probably nabbed Xander as soon as he stepped out the front door. Not that Xander would’ve put up much of a fight in his state. Nor would he be too particular about who it was did the claiming, just so long as someone did.

Which doesn’t feel at all like a knife in his heart.

Spike looks at the clock; five thirty-one p.m., and nowhere near sundown.

He shrugs on his duster and bolts upstairs to the linen closet.

Part Fourteen

August, 1997

Xander frowns as Angel’s body settles on top of his.

Jesse had been pretty substantial, but Angel is . . . heavy in comparison. Solid and cold.

He’s a dead weight, pun intended.

Xander doesn’t love him, or like him; Angel isn’t sweet and snuggly and purr-y, like Jesse had been. But as long as he has a working set of fangs, that doesn’t matter.

Cool lips brush Xander’s neck and he moan when a wet, lukewarm tongue laps at the bite. Angel’s big, cold, dead-man hand worms between their bodies and closes on Xander’s cock through the sheet, surprising enough to make Xander gasp.

It’s a surreal moment, but Mr. Happy is undeterred.

“Please,” Xander sighs, wrapping his arms around Angel when the licking stops and Angel starts to roll away. The blood in his veins suddenly feels hot, super-charged, like quicksilver. The pressure of it is unbearable.

“I can’t, Xander. . . .”

Xander wonders if cutting open a vein would help, or if only a set of fangs would do the job. He suspects it’s the latter.

“You can. Go ahead, do it,” Xander goads Angel, feeling like the world’s worst afterschool special. “You know you wanna. All the cool vamps are doin’ it.”

“God, you talk too much,” Angel mutters, but settles on Xander again. His cold, thankfully dry nose presses against Xander’s neck. “What the hell are we doing?”

“Hey--less brooding, more biting, pal.”

Angel sits up enough to look into Xander’s eyes. “I know how you feel.”

“I guess so. You’re feelin’ me right now, aren’tcha big guy?” Xander squirms under Angel’s distracted stroking.

“Oh.” Now that Angel notices what his hand is still doing, he stops and pulls away; his pained scowl is suggestive of a blush.

“I meant--I know what you’re feeling. Emotionally. And--”

“No, I don’t think you do,” Xander interrupts quietly. “I don’t like you. I think, given time enough, I could hate you. None of which changes the fact that I kinda want you.”

“You want Jesse,” Angel corrects him.

“I want to forget about Jesse. If that means you have to drink my blood, drink it. If that means you have to fuck me while you drink my blood--go for it. But don’t leave me like this. That’s beyond even vamp cruelty.”

“You don’t know the first thing about vamp cruelty, Xander.” Angel does roll off of Xander now, which though frustrating, provides an opportunity to take a much needed deep breath. “Though you might have found out if Jesse hadn’t left town.”

Xander turns on his side, facing away from Angel and his stupid logic. “Jesse wouldn’t have been cruel to me. He wouldn’t have had to. I’d have done anything he asked.” I was gonna give up my soul for him,

“Cruelty is a part of what vampires are.” Angel’s hand touches his shoulder gently. It’s still a big, cold, dead-man hand, but it doesn’t freak Xander out. He suspects that his freak-o-meter has spent so much time in the red over the past year, it’s finally broken. “It’s how we live and how we love.”

“--and I’m ever so glad you’re dating my friend--”

“Do you even understand the nature of a claim, Xander?”

“I belong to Jesse,” Xander murmurs softly, ruefully.

“Yeah, which means he could do whatever he wanted to you. He could leave you in chains, beat you, starve you, trade you off to other vampires--like a kid with a baseball card he’s gotten sick of. Or he could keep you and use you, till you’re all used up. Then have his minions dump the carcass when it started to smell.”

Xander closes his eyes tightly, not wanting Angel to smell his tears. “You know, when I said that given time I could hate you, I didn’t think the time could be counted down in mere minutes. You’re amazing, dead-boy--”

He’s barely finished his sentence when pain explodes in his left arm, which has been wrenched up behind him. So far, in fact, that he could conceivably scratch the back of his own head.

“I seem to remember telling you not to call me dead-boy, Xander.” Angel’s voice puffs into his ear on a dry, cold breath that’s no drier or colder than the voice it carries. Xander tries to free his arm but all he gets for his exertions is more pain and further wrenching. “Call me that again and I’ll twist your arm right out of the socket.”

“Ow--fuck--ow!” The lump of molten lead that is his arm already feels like it’s out of socket. Or maybe torn off completely. “You fucking psycho, get the fuck offa me!”

Angel does the exact opposite, maneuvering Xander onto his stomach. The weight of Angel’s big, dead-man body--on top of the scary vamp-strength that’s easily keeping his arm in a vice--is so painful, Xander can’t think beyond please stop please stop oh god stop please stop!

Or, at least that’s all he can think till Angel pushes his legs apart.

Suddenly, Xander’s brain is cracking code like Turing, crunching numbers like Einstein and yeah, he doesn’t like what his near-future is adding up to. Not at all.

“No--” arm bedamned, he tries to twist away and thrash. But one warning yank on his arm and his fight wavers just long enough for Angel to settle between his legs with a sinister chuckle and this is so. Not. Happening.

“You don’t get to tell me no, boy.”

It’s Angel’s scary-vamp voice; Xander’s heard it before, just not directed at him. Oh, crap, does he feel bad for all the vamps and demons Angel’s killed.

“You can’t--you’re a good guy, you can’t--” Xander gasps out, slipping into full-on panic mode.

“You wanted me to claim you, make you forget about Jesse. That’s what I’m gonna do.” A low, scratching sound that’s Angel’s fly being unzipped, because this week? The universe seems to hate Xander just that much. “When you’re mine, if I even think you’ve got someone on your mind other than me, I’ll beat you bloody.”

“No--”

“But don’t worry . . . it’s not gonna always be about discipline.” Angel’s grip on Xander’s arm relaxes enough for the real pain to start as blood flows into tingling veins, and angry muscles protest the harsh treatment. A whimper escapes on his sigh of relief.

“Maybe I’ll turn you, hmm? That way, no matter how many times I break you, you’ll heal right up--”

“Angel, please don’t--”

“--and I promise.” Angel leans very close to nip at Xander’s earlobe with teeth that are too sharp to be human. “In a few decades, you’ll learn to love the pain. They all do.”

Then Angel’s big, strong, dead-man hands are on Xander’s hips, pulling them up and back and--and--sweet, technicolor dream-coat--a thick, hard something brushes the crack of Xander’s ass.

“No!”

The nipping turns into a bite that’s hard enough to make him yelp.

“I said you don’t get to say no to me.” Oh, God, Angel’s starting to push the thickhardsomething forward at the same time he’s pulling Xander’s hips back and fuck taking it like a man. Xander starts crying like a frightened girl.

“. . . don’t please hate you get away stop don’t Angel please. . . .” and on and on for hours, it feels like. He’s so caught up in begging and pleading and hoping Angel’s savior-instinct kicks in, that he doesn’t even notice the thickhardsomething is gone and his hips have been released.

When he realizes he’s now free and mostly unraped, Xander’s relief is so profound that he feels it prudent to curl up in a tiny ball, cradle his aching arm and start shuddering.

“Xander--”

“You are a bad, bad vamp!” Xander glances over his shoulder to make sure Angel’s keeping his distance. The aforementioned bad vamp is sitting at the foot of the bed, one hesitant hand hovering over Xander’s right ankle.

Xander tries his best to pull that ankle out of reach. “Very bad!”

Angel slowly lowers his hand to the bed. “I won’t touch you, just calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down? You didn’t have to--I would’ve let you --” he can’t even finish that sentence. He suddenly knows that no, he wouldn’t have let Angel either drink from him or fuck him, because—

“You’re nothing like Jesse.” Xander accuses.

“No, I’m not,” Angel says quietly.

And all it took to drivehome that piece of fun trivia was almost getting raped.

Almost getting raped? Xander’s traitor of a brain whispers. Wow, you’re proof positive that amateur reverse-psychology works really well on overwrought dumbasses. That’s good to know.

Xander groans as the Blush of Total Mortification creeps over his skin; he feels around for the sheets that are bunched up behind him and drags them over his head. Then over the rest of himself, as an afterthought.

“You coulda just said no, Xander, I don’t want to claim you.”

The traitor-brain reminds him that Angel had said words to that effect.

Hey, whose side are you on, poindexter! Xander thinks, which seems to shut his brain up. Meanwhile, Angel’s voice is bland enough to nudge the freak-o-meter out of the red and into the black.

“I had to make you understand that if I claimed you, you wouldn’t just be trading one master for another. Believe me . . . you’d hate me a lot more if you wore my claim.”

Xander pushes back the covers just enough to peer at Angel. “I don’t think it’s possible for me to hate you any more than I do right now,” he says, and starts crying, or laughing or something that involves both blurry vision and aching sides.

Angel watches him with a confused sort of frown, then walks into the kitchen. “I’ll just, um, give you a few minutes to--process.”

Process? Oh, my, someone’s been watching Oprah. . . .

Which sends Xander off to the races again. He’s laughing so hard he forgets to be curled up in a fetal ball and sprawls on his back, tangled in the sheets and shaking hysterically.

Hmm . . . this might be one of those unstable times Angel mentioned. . . .

Now, Xander’s face has joined the chorus of complaining body parts. Not really distracting him from the steady, burning throb of his arm or his ear, but better than nothing.

When the last of the giggles tapers off, Angel drifts in from the kitchen and leans against the wall furthest from Xander, crossing his arms and trying to look non-threatening.

Yeah, and while you’re attempting to break the laws of physics, Angel, could you be a pal and make water run uphill? Thanks.

“Are you okay, now?”

“Not even remotely . . . hey, Angel?”

“Yes, Xander?” There’s a note of sympathy in Angel’s monotone and Xander doesn’t want to know he knows the difference.

“I get why you won’t claim me. You think I don’t, but I do. And, at least you--at least you actually have someone else.” Xander scrubs the last of the tears off his face and looks up at the ceiling. “Jesse had a choice of being with me or being alone. I guess that second option looked a little more attractive than mouthy, gawky teenager with a ten-dollar-a-week comic book habit.”

“I don’t think he left because he didn’t want you.”

“Then why did he leave?”

“Why does anyone ever leave anyone? Because he felt he had to.”

Xander lets out the breath he tells himself he wasn’t holding. “Oh, well, that explains everything, oh, wise guru. Ever so glad I climbed this mountain to seek your holy wisdom.”

But even as he mocks, he wonders. Jesse’s reasons for leaving--whatever they were--may not have had anything to do with me. Not in a negative way. Maybe . . . maybe what Angel had said about Jesse putting his own needs second was true. . . .

Yeah. Right.

Xander’s eyes are getting that burning-welling feeling again and he shuts his eyes as tight as he can, though this night has proved, if nothing else, that resistance is futile.

Hey, Xan? Maybe I left because I got sick of the taste of you and just couldn’t be bothered to snap your loser neck? Jesse’s voice whispers inside his mind. Or maybe I just couldn’t be bothered to finish you off, I mean, soulless fiend here, or didn’t you notice? Probably hard to notice anything with your ass in the air begging me to fuck you and keep you and love you. How pathetic can you be?

“Apparently very,” Xander murmurs, wiping at his eyes.

We were friends, once, and even a vamp’s gotta show a little love for his childhood bud, but--come on? Me, spend eternity with your stupid questions and stupider jokes? Having you depend on me and drag me down--having to make sure every idiot with a stake and a hero-complex doesn’t dust your dopey ass? Is it, like, a huge shock that I walked away from you--fuck, ran?

“Hey.”

Snapped out of another lovely, downward spiral into despair, Xander opens his eyes. Angel is looming over him broodily, and his current scowl is concern-flavored. “Whatever it is the voices in your head are saying--now would be a good time to stop listening.”

“I--” Xander sighs and doesn’t even try to lie. “How’d you know?”

“You’re not the only person I know who hears voices.” This is said simply, and with no explanation. Xander’s not willing to push his luck by asking for one. “In time, you won’t hear them as much. Or you’ll at least learn when not to listen.”

“Uh-hu, and how long will that take? Will I ever feel . . . happy again? Or at least as happy as I've ever felt?" How long before I stop missing and wanting Jesse, and start hating him? How long till it feels better?

“That depends.” A suitably cryptic answer. Xander senses a tentative return of the status quo.

“Oh, yeah? On what?”

Angel’s eyes narrow, as if he’s taking Xander’s measure. “Still wanna trade one master for another, boy?”

“No!”

A slight smile. “Then I’d say you've got as much chance of being happy any other denizen of the Hellmouth. Come on. You’ve had enough excitement for one night. You really need to get some rest.”

When Xander yawns in the middle of a half-hearted protest, Angel wordlessly straightens the sheets and tucks him in, either ignoring or not noticing Xander’s instinctive flinching away.

Once everything’s been arranged to his liking, Angel reaches for the bedside lamp.

“Um, Angel?”

He pauses, his hand on the switch. “Yeah?

“It is gonna get better eventually?”

“Give it time.” There’s a lightening of Angel’s scowl that’s almost smile-ish. Then the lamp clicks off and the apartment is completely dark. There are rustling sounds and a sigh as Angel sits in his chair.

“Angel?”

“Yes, Xander?”

“I’m afraid of the dark.”

“Really?”

“Nope.”

Angel sighs wearily, which makes Xander smile just a bit. “Good night, Xander.”

“Night-night, dead-boy.”

Xander stares up into the darkness for three whole minutes before he has to ask.

“Hey, Angel?”

“Yeah?” Angel sounds exasperated now, and grumpy. Another sign of the returning status quo that spreads relief through Xander like wildfire.

“That whole, um, you know--raping me thing . . . that was just bullshit reverse-psychology, right?”

For a long time, there’s no answer, only a silence filled with waiting, and a dark smile that Xander can sense on his rescuer’s lips.

“Right?”

More silence.

“Angel!” When Xander’s voice cracks on the second syllable, an amused, rather disturbing chuckle fills the darkness.

“Go to sleep, Xander.”

Yeah, not likely, perv-boy, he thinks with a shudder. But before he can say it aloud, sleep takes him.


June, 2000

He's literally on fire as he bursts into Willy’s, slamming the door on the killer sunshine.

“Yo, Spike! Compadre!”

Willy’s nervously ebullient welcome is mostly lost on him, as he’s quite absorbed in putting himself out.

When it’s all over but for the smoke and burnt patches of skin, Spike strolls into the bar proper, gracing Willy with a smudgy, sharp-edged smile.

“I believe you have some information for me, William,” he calls.

Willy grins hugely, which is never a good thing, except for when it is. “You’re in luck, my plasma-slurping chum. It just so happens that your Jesse is a pretty high profile guy, back east. O-neg?”

Willy holds up a decanter and a glass as Spike drops his singed and holey blanket on the heads of Willy’s only other customer: a depressed-looking Karthekk. The Karthekk merely grunts and makes a mournful, gurgling sound.

“Tempting, but no. Just spit it out or I’ll start removing bits of you as . . . incentive to talk.” Spike flashes a bit of gameface at the diminutive bartender, who quails--and pales, which is a neat feat, considering he’s already nearly as white as Spike--and shelves the blood.

“You’re a vamp with a mission--that’s what I like about you, Spike.” Willy clears his throat as Spike leans the bar-top angrily. “Right, uh--let’s see, um . . . Jesse Koval, 1981, born and raised here in good old Sunnyheap. Died and rose in September of ‘96, sired by--”

“Fast forward, git, this isn’t A&E Biography! I’m not payin’ you by the word!” Spike snaps. The wood of the bar cracks and splinters where he’s clutching the edge of it; the sound is quick and brutal, like a bone breaking or a gunshot. “Just tell me where his lair is?”

“Okay, okay, the DDI, on the outskirts of town, number six! Easy on my bar, guy, it’s not covered by crazy-vamp insurance!” Willy swats at Spike’s hands with a stainy, less than clean towel. Spike sneers nastily.

“See? Was that so hard?” Willy makes a very discourteous gesture and Spike snorts. “Ta, Willy, got me a spot of killin’ to do.”

“Yeah, whatever, don’t forget your little blankie, there.”

Spike snatches up the blanket off the still-gurgling Karthekk on his way to the door.

“Ah, crap, wait--before you go there’s something you really gotta hear about this guy, Jesse--Spike!” Willy calls after him.

But Spike’s gone in a puff of smoke and profanity.

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